You're not going to be a good father, but it's not about being a good father: it's about winning rugby games.
-The Book of Robin
Jane stubs her toe on the thick black leg of her nuptial bed, a red and white flash of agony bursting behind her eyes, her cry held back by a bitten lip. In the dual melodramatic traditions of her family and race, her life passes before her mental gaze, lingering on beloved faces before they warp away, back into the narrow tunnel of seventeen years. A stubbed toe on her wedding night neatly sums up her choice to marry and she crawls under the covers hoping her cyborg husband failed to notice her blunder, knowing that of course he did. He says nothing though, crushing the pretty white daisies falling from her silly blonde head as he moves his bullish bulk to make space. He's the only one of his kind and she tells herself that will prevent boredom when every day she only has him for human(ish) company in this, the most obscure and remote corner of gorgeous, deadly Siberia. Always as dangerous and usually as cold as his homeland, he's heating up from near zero to forty degrees, normal chojin body temperature, and Jane almost wishes he wouldn't so she will freeze to death in the night. Not really of course, but this is all very horrible, kind as he may be.
Once she's claimed a spot, a hand covered in a uniform ash-black, flesh adjacent, carbon fibre alloy brushes her soft, peachy cheek, making her flinch. She fights a tough battle not to throw up, praying to God that Warsman doesn't decide that taking off his mask is the next step in these romantic endeavours. With it on he looks like a robot who's recently emerged from the pits of hell, and a girl brought up from birth in a highly technological world can get used to that. Even like it, robots coming preloaded with the 'bad boy' archetype like they do. What she can't get used to or like is the hideous, hideous, hideous! mess of metal and plastic and flesh that it hides. Nope. No way. Definition of a Butterface. She can't understand why some (crazy) people find his face funny because it is the least funny thing she's ever seen. At least he's unable to kiss her with his missing lips.
Settling down, she prepares to do her duty and endure something horrendous, an appaling invasion she was never taught anything about from official sources, twitching a shaking hand towards the covers. Being a woman is never more difficult than in these scenarios. Before she can grasp them he tosses the quilted duvet over their heads. Scarlet glare dims, transforming his eyes into far away doors into an inferno. Her twin brother would have an insulting reference-comparison-moral outrage jab to drop for that but he can't help her now. From their artificial narrowness she wonders if Warsman has Mongol ancestry he's trying to represent, but she doesn't care enough to ask. Maybe when she's not as angry, or scared. Fantastical engines of imagination, her chief, and up till now only protection, rev up, transforming the mechanical demon into an Ideal loved by both her and her big brother. Shivering and chattering of teeth calms down but her body remains as hard as iron, stretched out stiff, her feet trailing off the end of the bed, all her internal energy going to reinforcing the glamour she's cast. In another life someone wise and kind, someone of the paternal or fraternal bent, would have sat her down and lovingly questioned her and even listened to the answers. Why do you want to do this? What do you really want? Have you thought, truly thought about the consequences? Are you okay with being ostracised and feared and gossiped about and laughed at? Have you realised that people, especially immortal people, rarely change and are typically worse in private than in public? Do you think the 'cold-hearted chojin', the 'black devil', the 'copy fiend' will make a good father and husband? What about miscarriage, deformity, death?...Why are you doing this?
But no one raised these questions or anything like them save her twin and mother, and they didn't ask, they accused. No one has ever asked any questions or listened to a female chojin and a human boy because they don't matter in a superhuman world and that is why she is here enduring the touch of a monster she doesn't love, at least not in that way. She has no other choice left. Guns don't work, her muscles don't work, all her attempts to defend herself or be defended failed.
It didn't always used to be that Warsman disgusted and frightened her, but he has a tendency, when assisting his friends or walking down the road or petting an animal or when doing anything at all, to take the path that leads to the greatest personal glory, and that creates collateral damage.
For his part he tries to reassure his bride by stroking her golden head, moving closer little by little so as not to spook someone suddenly so fragile. In honour of the situation he never believed he'd manage to finagle his way into, he's swapped hands that carry bear claws for a pair that don't carry seven inch daggers, as well as taking off the gauntlets that hold extra copies, declawing himself totally, something he never does, unless for very temporary show. Jane isn't reassured and wouldn't be even if she understood the ins and outs of his handborne arsenal. Dropping his head to his pillow, his platinum blond locks spilling across inky black, he slumps in a manner designed to convey non-hostility but is thwarted by his fear factor. His presence makes other's hearts race and he can't do anything about it, thats a Weird & Ugly problem on a preternatural level. Usually it's spitefully enjoyable to watch people freeze and fawn and run and shout when the most villainous thing he is doing is turning a corner in a late night supermarket, but not now, not when he wants to experience intimacy the way other newlyweds do. Jane used to have a little immunity by dint of long association and her natural childlike personality, but since the Olympics she seems to have lost it, watching him from the corner of her eyes, her breathing as shallow and quick as a rabbit's. He imagines she sees him as an immense eldritch mannequin animated by a vile and malignant intelligence, when she really sees him as a grumpy African buffalo that she, a delicate orchid mantis, has chosen to perch on.
(Narrator diss privilege: they're both ding-dongs.)
"Lapushka." his voice is thrilling, clear and passionate as a young man's, as enthusiastic for a fight as if several decades have not passed between his childhood and now. It's the most human thing about him, apart from his hair and the ears it hides and Jane used to be infected with butterflies when she heard it, even though (or perhaps because) she could still detect a robotic buzz underlying the darkly saccharine tone. But then he arrived one day using an alternate, much more singular voice and that's the only one she wants to hear now. Her father says Warsman is only a couple years younger than him, and Warsman himself spends an uncharacteristic amount of words proclaiming that he's old, he's old, truly! Dattebayo! but there's as much evidence for that as there is for her being a fairy-unicorn hybrid. Technically it's true, when using poetic licence. Ageing is a human privilege and death is the fate of all men…but Warsman's ninety percent machine, so... Without his obscuring armour the indentations that show where his body parts can be detached are visible to Jane, darker black lines in his skin encircling wrist, elbow, shoulder, even neck. In the old days she would have touched these indents to show that they don't matter to her. But it does matter now and it should. It's a fearful thing to provide a creature like him access to the one organ, and all its dependencies, that he can't replicate to his own astronomically high standards. Father says his heart bears no relation to the human heart, that it's a piece of weird cybertronic tech nonsense that doesn't beat, that he wouldn't know that was what it was if it hadn't been described as such and she believes that explains a lot about why Warsman thinks it's okay to behave the way he does.
Seeing that his prize is not going to respond without help, he decides that his usual mode of saying little or nothing is unsuitable for this scenario and so he asks a question amply answered by the statistical overlay of his vision. "Are you warm enough, my dear?" His daring step results in cringe! and failure! a blue and white prisoner in his head hisses that he has no right to call her by his word, but Jane doesn't react badly, or at all. Bold, the boldest chojin, he touches her arm, prepared for her to throw herself backwards and fall out of the bed, and when she doesn't, he doesn't see encouragement for his advances since she's prone to confusing behaviour. Heart faced and full cheeked, with lush, smiling lips and adorable freckles, she's a beautiful girl, whom he is inclined to believe was designed for himself and himself only, but when her glowing, cobalt blue eyes meet his they're tearing up, wide as they go, pupils rapidly expanding and contracting as if she's struggling to place him among the list of understandable entities. The sick smell of fear permeates their little two person cave, her heartbeat as loud as a drum beating within his inner ear. How is he supposed to tag-team his way into co-creating a child while she's in this state? Sadist, serial killer, supervillain- yes. Rapist-no. Hurting women is not part of his gimmick. Even were he to assert his rights in the face of her reluctance, the jealous, disembodied thing in his head might very well interfere in some fashion. He resolves to wait.
Brave, the bravest girl, Jane succeeds, not for the first time, in breaking her trance, resting her head on the corner of his pillow. There's no good in pretending that he's someone else. That's what he did and she's not going to repeat his mistakes. Not out of fear and not out of spite. She knows that, theoretically, he'd not hurt her, but she can't help being afraid, extremely afraid. "I'm okay, Mr Warsman, thanks."
Warsman drapes an arm lightly across her waist. "Let me know if you need anything, leetle fox."
Drawing up her feet, she sets to thinking, not noticing his stealthy move of hooking one cinder block ankle around one of hers. He didn't order her here, she insisted, stating she would be a proper wife, it's just the rapid changes in their lifelong relationship that is difficult to work through, or so he says to himself.
Jane shifts a little closer. Apart from a loving father, there's one commodity she could never come by. It can't be bought and the butler can't bring it to her. She may be extremely angry with her husband right now, but one will eat anything if one's starving. "May I have a hug please?" she asks in a very proper English accent, in its own way as unnatural as his own. He's as far from huggable as it's possible for a person to get. He's as huggable as a great white shark. Even with her father he shows a reluctance for bodily contact, stiffening, death glaring and hissing like Kevin does whenever a serious, private, attempt is made. But she has hope, which is rewarded when he engulfs her in a bear hug moderated to suit her weaker form. "Malishka…" he hopes she fills in the blanks he feels unable to fill himself. His flesh is not so marble hard as it appears and she squeaks, her striking nose buried in hair that smells of the legions of dark pine and black fir staring in from outside.
Now, let's rewind nine years and shift west. Cold earth is crushed under bare feet, surging up along the sides, enveloping them in squishy mud, its brown crust snapping delectably. Little stones, tiny bugs, unknown things squeeze between Jane's toes, ten little piggies, as dads the world over call them. Worms win a free ride up to brittle grass with every skipping step she takes along the misty corridors of a unicorn shaped maze. At eight years old her greatest fear is stepping on a snail, those tiny, cute bombs which go off with a violence out of all proportion to their size. A moonless night unleashes near perfect dark and in the permanent absence of stars the only glow comes from the asymmetrical pulse of space junk, the red eyes of orbital laser cannon, and from the Georgian manor house crouching haughty and smug on a rolling swell above the maze. The trills and yelps of highfalutin partying have a difficult time piercing the hedge walls, but not so the eerie hoot of an owl, the shifty rustle of leaves, and the chilling shriek of a vixen. Low light is not such a great impediment for a superhuman and she can see well enough to believe she can see all.
Skipping down the horn, her erroneous belief nearly causes her to crash into something terrifying in whatever light it's seen in. The blue-grey mist bleeds red, huge bug eyes standing just shy of seven feet, approach rapidly, some sort of insectoid devil manifesting out of cursed ground. Jane freezes in place but it's only a minotaur who parts the fog with his tank of a body. Not the real minotaur, unfortunately. Warsman steps over the child in his way, pivots, and catches hold of her before even his brain can catch up and remind him that children are his easiest route to the acquisition of PR marbles, but also his greatest enemy. They have no tact, you see, and can be as cruel as your common or garden psychopath, but Jane is alright, not a gormless idiot who laughs when he's not trying to be funny. So as not to break character he juggles her as violently as he did in his Moscow circus days whenever some tiny twit said he was the worst clown they'd ever seen (an everyday occurrence). Once the frilly pink blur breaks into giggles he puts her down. "It is not safe for Robin's leetle fox to be frolicking around in de dark. Where is your nanny?...Where are your shoes?"
Holding her hands behind her back, Jane smiles, dancing back and forth over his steel toed boots before dizziness catches up and she trips, landing on the ground with a soft 'oops'. In response Warsman's eyes narrow ever so slightly, the metal of his mask shifting as fluidly as skin. That little dance was extremely adorable and he fights a gargantuan battle against himself, very much wanting to throw his head back and laugh.
Coming to his rescue, Jane stands up and brushes dew off her poofy dress, then peers at a wiggly worm she cups in one hand, before looking up the long long way to her daddy's best friend, protege, right hand man. She's a very winning child, made of sunny braids, glitter, and furious curiosity. Chojin girls develop slightly slower than chojin boys and while her big brother appeared fifteen at her age, she only looks twelve or thirteen at most. The only traits that mark her as unusual are her eyes, and the pink steel half mask that frames her face. "I'm playing hide and seek with Jamie. It's perfectly safe but I don't know where Miss Emily went. Hey, Daddy was looking for you, Uncle Warsie. I heard him yelling about it to a servant." her voice is strange, dreamy but with an intense thread running through it, like neon in a glass tube.
Eyes flashing, Warsman looks up at the house, using a burst of static electricity to raise the white wolf fur lining of his heavy black coat. He can't be said to have dressed up for the occasion, but he's not entirely dressed down either. Jane watches him through a cloud of her plumed breath, used to him not replying even when spoken to, or even when he was the one to start the conversation. Parties when he's here are always like this, he steps over the threshold and vanishes, sending her father into a frothing tizzy. To help him along she stands on his mammoth feet again, much like when the technologically inept hit malfunctioning TV screens. It works more often than not. "Silly bean, since I found you, do I get a reward? Daddy says bounties are well paid so I'd like one box of maltesers please. Thank you." this close to him she really starts to feel the cold, her teeth chattering, lips and skin turning mottled blue.
Seemingly without looking away from the house, Warsman whips his coat off and throws it onto her, utilising a technique for the capture of small, bitey animals. Lifting the bundle onto his shoulder, he stalks off in pursuit of her errant brother. "You are naughty girl, Lady Jane, and naughty girls aren't rewarded for their bad behaviour." a muffled sound emerges from thick canvas and fur, thick canvas and fur that smells of oil and blood.
Down in the unicorn's tail a shadow bears down on a thoroughly lost little boy who's shaking his fist at the dead end he's wandered down. Being human, he looks his age and can't see much of anything through the swirling mist (He's retained his shoes however). If his twin sister and older brother represent the fair side of the family, then James represents the dark and red aspect, having flaming crimson hair, and chocolate eyes of ordinary luminosity. Being a normal human renders him nonexistent within the Clan, at least his sister can be married off but he has no use whatsoever, a black mark, nonviable. No mask, no stupid identifier, no aeons long name in the register, no time with Dad, no chance of going 'home', even if he made enough money or glory via other means than fighting to render him noticeable.
Spinning on his heel, he glares at the enemy who's plunged out of the wet and clinging mist. His mind is a pattern detecting behemoth and he pulls from those patterns words to not so subtly chastise the orca beached behind him."O-oh g-great it's Grendel, pre mead hall rampage." Big brown eyes older than the rest of him sprint up Warsman and onto his shoulder. "I-is that m-my sister? Put h-her down." despite the chattering of his teeth and eggshell-frail humanity, James retains the authority inherent in his blood, always sounding angry because he's always angry. No one, however, is angrier at the world than Warsman and he takes a luxurious moment to loom over the small being, pulling the mist into more advantageous positions around him, a crow cawing at precisely the right moment. It could be said that out of all his childish enemies, James is by far the worst.
Waiting for his foe to stop preening, James scours the ground for hefty rocks, finding a twig, which he twirls between his fingers. "Y-you're s-supposed to be c-clanging chains, doing tricks a-and breathing creepy in t-the ears of Dad's guest's, not h-haunting the maze. T-that's why y-you're invited, you know, n-not to e-eat all our fancy food, b-but t-to be the worst court jester imaginable. D-dad s-says you were a clockwork clown or s-something back in Frozen Hellland, waaay before h-he f-found you massacring the KGB for no r-reason, but I think h-he h-had 'partaken' of too much whiskey when he dreamt that one up. There's n-no way y-you could fake being f-fun." James smiles a smile of concrete, lacking a single shred of his twin's sweetness.
There's no responding to this. Or rather, the response Warsman wants to make is highly inappropriate.
James is made to jog back, guided by the scarlet searchlights that skim his head to bloody the earth before him. Once through a curtain of yew and churchyard cypress, one is confronted with the main house rising out of the ground like a rotten tooth out of ancient gums, its chummy Georgian facade stapled onto a much older core. The house's roots are made of beige brick, its upper floors of peachy stone, huge windows set into it with deeply pleasing regularity, its stone face carved with representations of flamboyant homeworld wildlife. The crown of the building is where one can most easily detect the presence of a disguise because dark grey crenellated battlements poke up out of the flat roof. A large portion of the castle is sunk underground, Jane imagining it as a morose giant at the beach, buried with only his head above the sand.
Crunch, crunch go boots on gravel. The main door is particularly interesting, with twin agate griffin statues guarding it, each holding a shimmery blue and silver ball in a clawed hand, sapphire eyes intent on the unwary visitor. Wise to their tricks, Warsman herds his charge towards a ground floor window, discovering a crystal chandelier as large as a car sprawling across the freshly whitewashed gravel, prisms decorating yonder cypress. James raises a red eyebrow while Warsman hastily jams his 'patience dial' to the right, as far as it will go. Since it only has a range of one, it doesn't have much effect. Through the window empty magnums of champagne can be seen lounging in hollows left in butter soft leather sofas, along with the remains of luxury snacking scattered around on polished oak furniture. Sounds of merriment intensify, as does Warsman's breathing, which sounds like he's turned into a scuba diver who's got himself stuck in an underwater cave. Lifting James by the collar, he plops. him down in an environment so warm the boy immediately stops shivering, then climbs in after. Sweet wood wax mingles with bitter alcohol, the pleasant mix interfered with by a pungent whiff of old blood. Gold ivy creeps over crimson walls, intensifying the light of the fire held in an ivory and alabaster fireplace. Wooden floors are softened by tiger skins, emerald busts of Robin ancestors glare from corners.
There's no one in the room so Warsman snatches up a silver bowl of black caviar, clinking the edge to his face plate, tipping the expensive eggs into the dreadful gash that splits his mask into a psychotic red grimace. Being confronted with a tiny slice of this so-called 'smile' sets James' head spinning, his skin bleaching, his body trembling, drenching itself with feverish sweat. Pressing a fist to his mouth, he leans against the end of a sofa, swallowing repeatedly to keep the bile down, pinpoint pupils focused on crystal glasses that still contain a fingers worth of happy juice, his mind playing a stuttering game of chess against itself. The noises of a completely inhuman mouth and throat dicing up roe, continues.
Seeking for further distraction, James turns his attention to the sofa just in time to observe three bony fingers of grotesque knobbliness curl around it, digging rust red talons into the leather. A face like rotten wood oozes around the corner, a lidless red eye, bulbous and intent on wickedness, revolves in its crusty socket, greedily studying the boy. He doesn't move and the eye revolves upwards. The lipless maw of the red cap stretches wider to reveal spiked nails for teeth, its owner leaping out from its hiding place to clomp down in iron boots in front of Warsman, the killer goblin pulling off its titular cap, making a surprisingly elegant bow, grisly grey hair too oily to fly around.
Tossing his bowl aside, Warsman nudges James away from it with his foot. "Come along boy. I don't want you to become this creature's dinner."
James shrugs, looking out of the corner of his eye. "Fairies only eat people who show up uninvited."
"It looks at you like I look at malossol." Warsman grabs another bowl of caviar on their way out, dropping the snack down his gullet and tossing the bowl at the feet of the red cap before slamming the door on it. Heaving a deep sigh of relief once he has a long, wide, tiled corridor before him, James is about to set off at a run before remembering that his sister is a prisoner and that her captor is travelling towards the greatest person in the world. "Yeah, cause Bob's evil, like you."
"I am Justice Chojin, boy. I have award."
"So? One of your alleged mates is a literal Nazi, (but nice about it) and also a big time Justice Chojin. Last time I turned on the telly, you were still doing merc stuff to critical acclaim. Defrauding alien natives of their platinum mine, and other justicey things."
There's no responding to this, James is too little and weak to slap.
The trio make their way down towards the dining halls, the heart of the manor, traipsing past high ceilinged rooms decked out for the tourists they will never see, each one containing its own form of eccentricity. Maps of frontier planets, sentient pearls, taxidermied deep sea fish (Warsman's favourite room), cat shaped salt and pepper shakers, wood petrified by dark matter, baby Neutronian dragons (James' favourite), a hundred and one photos of Robin Mask, creepy dolls, poisonous bog and swamp samples, and so on. Out of Jane's favourite room (mermaids) storms the leader of an offshoot of the main party, and his entourage, a chojin known to Japanese and Japanese derived IWF officials as 'Robin Black' and to civilised people as Lord Edward Robin, the fourth Earl of Warwick. He's walking too fast and doesn't possess cyborg senses so in order to not be run over by an implacable force, he swings around smoothly and walks back through a wall of the mermaid room, returning, to the cheering of his entourage, back through the door.
He and his men stand bunched together, each one striving not to cough or worry about the plaster dust settling on his hand-threaded clothing. Warwick, true to his signifier, is dressed all in black, a pair of red rimmed, electric blue eyes peering out of a black helmet with extreme(ly false) benevolence, a black helmet that features a five inch spike on its crown, followed by another row of spines marching down towards the neck guard. The helmet being black instead of a more wholesome colour indicates that he's a proscribed person, an outcast, anathema to the Clan, guilty of atrocities…but so what, he's rich, really, really, rich. After carefully brushing off his Italian suit he tilts his chin up so that his almost eight feet of height appears even greater. Too bad, the effect is lost as Warsman, who can't be intimidated by mere mortals who aren't named Robin Mask, has given no sign of noticing the drama he caused and is still walking, though James looks even more alarmed then before. Now a man like the Earl can't afford to be ignored, especially not when the best and brightest scions of the Outer Nine Hegemony are cowering behind him, and so impulsive youth gets in the way of good business sense and basic survival instincts, the chestnut hair streaming down his back frizzing from pique. He aims a verbal shot at the Legend's back with all the force his company's orbital lasers use against surrendering or fleeing ships. "Hey, meat rack, tat's de tird wall you've had a hand in destroying. Are you paying damages or is batting your non-existent eyelashes enough?" titters and chattering from his men accompanies his dig, but Warwick rolls his eyes and sneers at them. A voice all Irish sturm und strang, smokey and deep, well suited to his looks, makes the bundle on Warsman's shoulder squirm.
When engaged in being heroically unpleasant to his uncle's friends (or anyone) Warwick relies on the protection of his uncle (or anyone) to absolve him of consequences, but only after his tongue has slashed left and right does he recall that this time Robin, and anything else that might defend him, is downstairs, too far away to help. This gut wrenching realisation causes his mind to spring a leak and fill with profanity and gibberish, the same physical reactions to Warsman that earlier afflicted his cousin, now afflicting him.
Warsman pauses walking, coming to a slow motion stop, and before Warwick blinks and finds his insides on the floor he desperately casts about for something to divert his foe. "Ah, is tat my baby cousin slung like a leg of ham across your shoulder? Uncle wouldn't appreciate tat. Her pretty little dress will be disarranged." his entourage giggles, fluttering around behind him with all the braininess of butterflies. He curses them all. The mechanical monstrosity (or is it digital? Electronic?), who he is certain has taken off at least five feet from the distance previously separating them, slowly turns to face him, adjusting his bundle while he does so. Warwick curses him too. The family has never been the same since he appeared, not that Warwick is old enough to remember a time before Warsman, all he has to go on is tales and complaints and whining from his uncles and cousins.
As though he is aware of what is shambling through the fool's mind, Warsman seems to smirk, though he has zero facility for doing so. "De princess is in good place." For the purposes of confudlement he intensifies his already thick accent.
Brain addled by adrenaline and malice, Warwick hears something other than what was said and he stumbles forward, reaching out for the bundle before his knees threaten his dignity and he leans against the painting covered wall, leather sheathed palm flat over the face of a great great great great something or other. "What!"
Realising the misinterpretation, James darts around, getting between the pair of immature giants before a massacre occurs. "Good place not 'better place'. You don't need to stress, Eddy. Jay's okay."
Warwick points at him, but only for an instant lest his trembling be discerned. "It's Warwick, Dover! I've told you a thousand times. You're getting into bad habits, associating with de lower orders." he had to correct the boy but that dreadful creature, Warsman, spite radiating from it like heat from a furnace, stares for an endless bladder loosening moment before winking out of existence, reappearing at the end of the corridor. "Come along boy." even it's voice is hateful, too normal by far. Certainly it stole it from a peasant via some sort of Oriental sorcery.
Once he's gone Warwick's men congratulate him for achieving nothing and he wishes they would all go and die.
A select group of pilgrims are making a stupendously large noise in the Grand Dining Hall, and the ruckus can't even be blamed entirely on the chojin present, although all four are using their powerful voices to sing, giggle, and self-glorify. The long room with its hammerbeam ceiling, features many fireplaces, all well caged, and mediaeval tapestries softening every stone wall except for the ends, where collections of weaponry, armour and armorial shields are pasted, mediaeval tables and benches running all the way down, underneath which tipsy guests sprawl and snore. Warsman enters like an emperor of Rome, not needing to announce himself or be announced, not that the footman offered to do so, having vanished as soon as 'Grendel' sidled around the vast double doors of the mead hall. In he walks, slow and stately, giving onlookers enough time to fully appreciate his dark glory.
The first person to 'appreciate' him happens to be friend and colleague, Buffaloman, sitting on the flagstone floor surrounded by a bevy of pop stars, having his horns bedazzled with 10 million sequins while telling stories of his villainous days, and speculating on possible villainous days to come. Though not the brightest Legend (that distinction, of course, belongs to Warsman, and doesn't he just know it?), he doesn't miss the opportunity presented by his even more vain colleague, switching immediately upon seeing him to narrating the tale of the time he gored him extensively. "All that oil ruined my silky hair and the static set my big beautiful teeth on edge for the rest of the day. Such are the trials of us loca chojin, hahaha!" *laughs in sexy Spanish*
Warsman ignores him.
Further along the table, friend and colleague, Brocken (Junior, always junior), in full Nazi regalia, dances with an important government scientist. A lady scientist, as he keeps repeating with profound astonishment. Spotting Warsman, he launches into bewailing that no one cares or remembers anymore the atrocities the Russians perpetrated on a defenceless Germany in her hour of need. "Nein, zey are cowards zen and cowards now, but never fear, dear lady, I will protect you from frosty paws."
Warsman ignores him.
Next, the most obviously sloshed of the three. Ramenman watches Brocken dance, with extreme interest, giggling manically while eating gingerbread men with large helpings of biscuity cruelty. His least favourite colleague is very close by the time the horrible word 'Russian' bores into his inscrutable brain but when it does he starts to sweat, glancing around. A black blur replaces part of the wall and his eyes pop open, resolving the suspected horror into definite fright. Shrieking high enough to shatter glass, he throws a headless gingerbread corpse at his old buddy old pal before dashing away to the kitchens. The dulled human guests scatter to a lesser degree, moving towards the walls.
Warsman is content.
Meanwhile, James blinks and looks up and around at his nanny, mouth twisted. "Don't you get tired of people treating you like shaytan? Why don't you try putting on nicer clothes and, I don't know, being nicer? Maybe bring your mum up in conversation? Dad says she was a nice lady, though I don't see how he could know."
While still staring at the stream of disturbed air Ramenman left behind him, Warsman boots James in the behind, gently but forcefully enough to move him along a couple feet. "I have done nothing."
At the end of the hall is the source of all the silly Oxford drinking songs that make up half of the noise. The bundle on Warsman's shoulder twitches as a shining silver helmet comes into clearer view. Light from the biggest, fanciest quartz fireplace warms Robin's already slightly glowing skin, his more than mortal strength still barely contained by his helmet and skimpy power dampening armour. Just over fifty at this point, he looks to be still in his late thirties, only the barest creasing and deflating of his bare abdominal and thigh muscles giving away the truth. He'd always been slightly taller than his protege but now he's slightly shorter, a fact that does less than nothing to allay mutual envy. The cyborg's icy personal atmosphere makes the adoring crowd around Robin part before they understand why they're doing so. Champagne and cigar ash goes flying when they notice the futuristic ogre breathing down their necks, humans jolting and jerking out of his way. Over by the fire Robin squeezes the British prime minister held under one of his arms, and the British crown prince held under the other, lamb white cape swishing majestically as his rich voice belts out the song. He observed his friend stalking along from the moment he entered the room but he's not going to greet him until he's done entertaining his fans.
Though Warsman has no patience he has a lot of time, so he is capable of waiting if by doing so he bolsters his own gravitas or contributes to getting his own way. For elite chojin, for any chojin, life is all about collecting shiny marbles of fame and influence and using these to purchase lifestyle upgrades, or using them simply to gloat over and smash other people's marbles while passing one another in stadium corridors or sitting around in endless meetings. These pieces of universally recognized kudos currency come included in gift baskets of death, lifetime disability, broken relationships, addictions, and poverty, but hyper geniuses like Warsman understand there are easy ways to acquire them, and one of these is behaving as if one is too good for those one considers less than.
James, the child, deranges the vain showdown of adults, running up to his father as he finishes singing, his arms reaching for a hug that won't come, gazing upon that heroic visage the way an ambitious cripple gazes at Everest. "Dad! Sorry, Sir, he's got Jay. Please make him put her down." increased clapping and tender oohs and ahhs show the crowd is pleased by this display of family feeling and everyone would very much like Robin to do something about the presence of Warsman.
Instead Robin jostles the men under his arms, making them giggle, but ignores his youngest son, jerking his chin at his comrade. "Ah, Wars, good of you to show your, uh, face, old chap. Where have you been? Flirting with the chambermaids?" He throws his head back and laughs, boozily, deep rolling chuckles setting off his sycophants. Wheezing, braying, sniggering, cackling, every kind of laugh imaginable merges into a whirlpool of derideful mirth. Warsman, flirting?! Hahahahaha! Warsman, with a girl?! Tee hehehehe! Robin retains his semi-Scottish accent even while laughing, but very quickly a sober part of the Commander of Justice's mind pipes up with a small reminder of some rather pertinent information regarding his former student, memories that still provoke nightmares, coming forth as evidence. Cutting off his laughter, Robin gestures for the others to cease, his wide eyes giving the only hint of his fear.
Sensing that he's afraid clues his guests into their dire predicament, each one tense and grey, frozen in place, waiting for the bodies to pile up, waiting for themselves to resume life as a corpse. Nothing happens, Warsman's breathing can't be heard, his eyes don't flash, no Smile erupts across his blank features, instead he puts down the furry object he was carrying. Giving another sign to his fans, Robin puts down his VIP baggage likewise. Everyone disperses, carried on shaky legs towards liquid stress relievers.
Emerging from her captivity, Jane stands and blinks in the shifting light. Playing the international sport of bad father at the professional level, Robin doe not inquire as to why a grown man was carrying his little daughter around his country estate. With some awkwardness, Warsman pats her docile head, always half relieved when the child he's attempting to pet doesn't respond by handing him an excuse to lash out. "Robin, your children's nanny is neglecting her duties. I found them playing outside, within range of your nasty homeworld pests and that disreputable nephew of yours." he points at Jane's muddy feet. "De leetle fox has no shoes!"
Unfortunately, as often happens, when his preternaturally ringing words reach Robin's ears, they transform into gobbling.
Joining her brother, Jane looks up at her father with the love and longing only an innocent child can produce. Sidestepping his belated offspring before he needs turn his crimson gaze upon them, he goes over to the giant turkeycock, clapping him on the metal shoulder, tempted to laugh when he recalls that turkeys drown in the rain. That is by far the best thing he has ever heard, after announcers declaring him a winner, that is. He once heard that Warsman farms turkeys in Siberia…or was it chickens? No matter, brainless birds of some sort. "Listen, old boy, take those little sods off to bed, would you? This is adult time." he claps harder, the armour under Warsman's clothes making a hollow sound. "Then return, Lady Lovelace has business to discuss." Lady Lovelace, a duchess in a towering grey wig and matching pantsuit, executes a passable imitation of Warsman's infamous Smile from her spot by the fire.
I hate Dad's friends. They all suck." James mutters, climbing into one of the four poster beds stuck in a vast, empty night nursery. So empty it echoes and forms strange shadows in never visited corners. This room, like many in Robin owned properties, is inappropriately decorated for its use, being black with oversized teak furniture, gold armourial shields taking the place of child friendly wallpaper. Never mind, the children take pleasure in the dragons and unicorns and other animals featured.
Jane clambers into her own bed, falling out somehow before making it, but eventually burrowing her way under the black satin covers, from where she shares her attention between her brother and the obsidian menace watching them. Though she knows Warsman is extremely dangerous, the dream world she carries with her prevents her really feeling the peril, the same way it would transform a rabid black panther into an angry kitten. "Don't be mean, Jamie. Uncle Warsie is nice. Lady Blackwood is nice. Prince Tommy is nice."
Her twin has no such personal fantasy world and he tries to evict Warsman from the room by glaring. Needless to say, he fails. "You wish, Jay. Tepid Tom winks like he's haunted by a phantom onion. Lady Driftwood looks like a donkey and keeps trying to give cooties to Dad. And Grendel is a one man apocalypse. Also, he stinks like Bob. You only think they're nice because they're nice to you. I wish Dad would hang out with Crazy Eddy rather than them. At least he's honest about being crap."
Jane sticks out her tongue. "You're just mean. Big meanie."
The defiant expression is mirrored by her brother. "And you're just silly! Massive silly!" The twins get into a fight, throwing pillows and berries and twigs and stones for lack of any toys. All these projectiles vanish while sailing through the air, to reappear at Warsman's feet.
Turning his head a fraction towards James, he flashes his eyes in warning. "Cease." The tinny undercurrent would usually achieve his ends but his child foe is too riled up for such subtly.
"Hey, Frankie, get your eyes checked. I didn't-" Red light snatches up the yellow glow of the bedside lamps and throws it out of the room, turning it into a slaughterhouse, the thinnest slice of scarlet cutting up a black mask. "I am hungry." before Warsman finishes his hissed sentence James is already under the covers and pretending to sleep.
After turning off his light, Warsman moves towards Jane to do the same for her. She'd flipped her covers over her head when he lit the room up red but flips them down at his approach. "Will you tell me a bedtime story please?"
Looking around for a soft toy or a book and finding none, Warsman tucks her in tightly instead. "I may have recently threatened to consume your brother. I have no suitable stories."
"But Daddy says you carry all the world's libraries in your head. There must be a story in there about chickeys. I love chickeys."
"Your father says many things." Rather than accessing his mental bookshelves, Warsman casts his mind over to Russia, communing with the AI copy that acts as farm manager when he's not around. "Weasels have consumed my chickens." He says, with a teensy hint of black comedy.
Bursting into unselfconscious laughter the way only a child can, Jane breaks her fabric bonds, rolling back and forth, kicking her legs. Warsman's eyes dim and brighten slowly, his version of a blink. A not novel temptation strikes him, the temptation to curse another to spend the rest of foreseeable time here, with him, the temptation to sit down and craft a piece of technology that could stop his friends leaving him in even greater solitary confinement than he already endures. Humanity thinks it wants an earthly immortality. They wouldn't complain. Initially…Now he thinks of inflicting that fate on Jane, keeping her as a little girl, a precious little person he can call his own. Someone who will have no choice but to love him, no matter what. Who cannot leave. Robin doesn't care for her, why shouldn't he take her away?
Something (extra) strange about his demeanour causes her to stop laughing and cover herself with her blankets. "Won't you tell me about Kevvy then? I wish he would come home already. How long can training take?"
That old lie again. He disapproved of it being inflicted on the children but his approval or disapproval means nothing around here. "There is not much to tell. He is polite, quiet, kind boy, wery unlike your other brother." he switches off the light and stands up but Jane keeps speaking, her eyes and voice filling with tears. "I can barely remember him. I asked Daddy to let me visit but he always says no. Won't you ask him for me, please, Uncle Warsie?"
Oh no, tears mean he's supposed to comfort the crying person but comfort is the last thing he's made for. He's the embodiment of war, looking like a charnel house and thinking like a killer, how could he ever suppose he's fit to look after a fragile little being? What a brief yet painfully recurrent madness. Malaria of the heart, one might say. Stick to your dead chickens, Nikolai. "Big girls don't cry, Lady Jane. Neither do big boys. Do you see me crying?"