15755/Gloriana Tenebrae

Gloriana Tenebrae
Date of Scene:	30 October 2023
Location:	Hellfire Club - Manhattan
Synopsis:	The Black Queen taunts and feeds upon Meggan, brilliantly citing not-vaguely-remembered-and-out-of-context characters from 'The Faerie Queen.'
Cast of Characters:	Black Queen, Meggan

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Black Queen has posed:
The night is cold in New York, and it is raining.

67th street is sparsely populated, and it is dark - the lights flicker, as if fighting to live, and when someone emerges from one of the apartments, the condos, the mansion that line the too-narrow street, each and every one of them seems to think better of it and turn back.

And so you are, in downtown Manhattan - somehow - alone.

The lights up and down the entire street go dark in sequence, closing in until the very last, right above you, is the only illumination that seems to exist in the entirety of New York City.

And, then, then wind whispers:

"Gloriana, Gloriana.
"Where is fair Britomart?
Where is darkling Ate?"

Meggan has posed:
The City. A great beast, a concrete jungle some have said.

Meggan Puceanu came back to this place after some time away. It was refreshing and wonderful and perilous and awful all at once. And it was not too different, in different measures, to once again walk these concrete strips. To feel them beneath feet that have silently become durable, a secret allowance for a subtle habit. Sometimes it feels like an affectation when she sees shoes in the windows of the stores.

She is wearing something casual and bright, still favoring green as ever, even as the world itself tilts steadfastly towards a burst of color and then towards death. And then -

"...?"

Meggan looks up as the lights begin to fade.

"A blackout...?"

But it doesn't quite feel like one, does it? It's a claustrophobic feeling. Confined but alone. She hugs herself loosely, the thin jacket over her shoulders bunching up as she looks round.

"... Who's there??" Meggan says, suddenly spinning herself round nearly a hundred and eighty degrees.

Her eyes turn upwards, then, towards the sole lighted window, and its height makes her feel terribly small indeed. How strange: There should be so much around her, but here on the pavement, it feels *lonely* in a way New York City so rarely does.

Black Queen has posed:
There is no one: no tourist, no local, no beggar. There is no one at all, and it feels for all the world that no street in New York City has ever been so empty and the one on which you stand. Blame it on the way your eyes adjust, if you must, but the darkness seems to draw in, until nothing outside the fragile circle of light about you appears to exist at all.

"Is it Busirane, who binds and tortures Amoret when he would wed?"

The voice comes from behind you, so close that it seems you feel the brush of lips against your ear, but when you turn there is no one there at all.

"Is it Archimago, who would stop at nothing to humiliate your Redcrosse Knight?"

Fingers brush down your hair.

"Is it Acrasia, who is la Belle Dame sans Merci?

"Who could it be, Gloriana, Gloriana? Who in the shadows now torments you?"

Meggan has posed:
As is her wont, Meggan thinks of a film she saw on TV. "I am Legend," the old one, seen late at night on ITV, perhaps, or was it - it must have been - her head turns, and her eyes drink in the darkness. She raises one hand, to touch her mouth.

The voice comes against her ear -- she twists again, now facing away from that door.

Fingers through her hair.

"This isn't funny," Meggan says, a quaver in her voice.

"I don't understand what you're saying and all of - of this is frightening," she continues, her hand still half covering her face as her eyes dart left, dart right. Still nothing. If anything it's darker. Her pupils dilate -- but all it does is make the contrast worse, make the darkness more tenebreous.

"I don't KNOW!!" Meggan half-screams before her hand clamps down on her own mouth and she bites the flesh between index finger and thumb lightly. Her pulse is racing. She breathes through her nose.

"Show yourself or leave me alone," she insists, though it is weak, and half-muffled by her hand.

Black Queen has posed:
"Gloriana, poor Gloriana," whispers the wind. It is mellifluous and taunting.

Like a blanket, like a rope, like a great, black serpent, the shadows wrap around you, rising from your ankles to your waist in less than the time it takes for you to notice that it happens.

From the crushing vice of shadow emerges the torso of a woman, her skin so pale that it shines white like the moon. Her bare breasts are crushed to your back; her left hand is at your forehead, forcing your head to the side with such pressure it feels your neck might snap at any moment.

"In the shadows, it is always Acrasia."

And then her teeth are in your throat.

Meggan has posed:
The light is shrinking but it's not quite that, is it? Light is an artificial condition; a change, something written on top of nothing. Nothing was there first. There's always more nothing to be found, depending on how you look. Despite the canyons around her, despite the beating heart of one of the world's greatest cities, Meggan is alone - and afraid - and her hair is soft as she arches her back as she's seized. She raises one hand upwards, forming a loose fist, and perhaps she had some grand plan, or reflex, to slam her elbow back.

But it is too late, and the teeth are sliding inside, and she mewls, "Don't--" in a terribly small tone of voice.

It's never a good idea to go out by yourself, this close to that day, is it?