Valentia's Lullaby - Monday
Jan. 19th, 2009 01:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsOn the way back from a meeting, Manuel demands an unexpected stop which results in a most unusual discovery.
"I think that last one went well," Amanda said, glancing over at Manuel as the limo passed through the ornate gates of the mansion. "You're really quite impressive with this."
"Thank you, however there is something beneath the waters, you could say. They've been distant, suspicious and it translates into my absence and lack of a presence in the courts in general. Emma was correct, there is a shift happening." Manuel stared out, watching the gates float by. Something tugged at the back of his mind but he ignored it.
"You did very well, quiet as you were, you maintain a presence that they are unable to ignore."
Amanda snorted a little. "Yeah, you Spaniards are all the same. Give you a pair of tits to look at and you're all distracted." She was pleased at the praise, however, and she grinned a little as the limo descended the hill back towards their hotel. "So, how about lunch? There's that little bistro I found yesterday - the locals say it's really good."
He was a breath away from responding when his attention was pulled in another direction, his emotions amplified suddenly. No, not his emotions, someone else's.
"Stop the limo. Pull over." Manuel barked at the driver so suddenly that tires skidded and snapped to a halt once they got to the side. The driver looked in the mirror, but he held off saying anything at Manuel's dismissive hand put up to his questions. Tossing aside his seat belt, he immediately got out of car and paused at the door, glancing back to the passing cars.
"Manny?" Taken completely by surprise by the sudden exit, Amanda fumbled with her own seat belt and climbing out, cursing the business skirt for slowing her down. "Hold up! What's going on?" she called to him. A powers issue, obviously, but not something she'd seen before.
He waved her off in annoyance, to silence her but done sloppily. He was distracted and frowned, turning around suddenly like a bee was threatening to sting. "Where is that coming from?" he asked, mostly to himself. It wasn't coming from the road, no, it came from elsewhere. The pull that was not just a pull, he realized, but a faint press of communication through emotions.
"Get back in," he commanded, ushering her to the door. "There is an empath in the area. A confused one."
"They're not the only confused one," Amanda muttered, but obeyed. Something was definitely Up. Just as well they were still within city limits - she focused on pulling more energy into herself, in case things got messy.
"Keep driving," Manuel ordered the driver and turned his sudden strained expression on her, the weight of another empath crashing down on him hard. "Whoever they are, they are ...aware of my presence. Very aware because they are projecting onto me viciously. Similar to a distress call, if that is possible. I have never felt anything like this on such a level. Not even similar, like Dani. This is different." He sat up and gestured as though he couldn't get the driver to go fast enough. "Hurry up, turn left and hurry," he repeated, impatient. He was not the heroic type, but when his own kind called to him, Manuel couldn't help but respond. As though he felt some sort of responsibility, needing to satisfy the concern that they were not in the same situation he had once been in.
"Do you want me to shield you?" she asked, concerned at the strain she saw there. The only reason she hadn't already were the words 'distress call' - if it was someone in trouble, they'd do better to get there quickly.
"No. She is strong, however she is in distress, " he said, gesturing to the driver again. "Turn left here." The driver obliged and they drove up a long rocky driveway until a house appeared at the end. When they came to a stop, Manuel was out of the car and probably would have been faster if he didn't have the cane hindering him. A woman stepped out on the porch at their sudden arrival and she spoke, addressing Manuel first.
"We don't owe any money! We have nothing!" she spoke in a husky voice, brushing back a piece of gray hair.
Manuel slowed and walked up the steps. "Senora, I am Manuel de la Rocha--" he hesitated as the projections changed, ceased abruptly even though the emotional loop within him did not. It felt like shock, as though someone had stopped talking to listen into a conversation that they were not apart of.
"No! I told you. We don't owe anything and we have nothing. We're-"
"Is it just you and your--?"
"Husband? Yes, but he's old and he's an--"
"May I speak with him?" Manuel asked.
Something changed within her after he'd revealed who he was and she seemed to concede to what he asked. "Wait here. I'll get him."
Amanda reached his side during the conversation. "You said 'she'," she murmured to him as the woman departed. "Not that woman, then?" Her fingers tingled just the slightest bit as she drew on some of the power she'd absorbed. "So, do we wait and give them time to hide whoever it is?"
"No we do not," Manuel replied, quietly placing a hand over the knob and turning. The door made no sound as he opened it and stepped inside. He could hear the faint sound of distant footsteps as the woman called to whomever she was married to. He did not recognize them, nor was it his focus now. Glancing briefly down the hallway, he waited a moment before moving up the stairway before them. The house was older, polished and clean despite the age.
Someone paid very careful attention to detail, taking care to clean between the banisters and the tiny ledges that protruded out of the side of the stairs. The wood groaned under his careful steps but he made it to the top without incident and moved down the hallway. The empathy within him was so strong, it was amplifying for every moment that he seemed to wait too long. It was an urgency that repeatedly looped into him and he was visibly having trouble restraining himself from an outburst, or worse, breaking down.
Amanda had followed him silently, scanning the area around them for potential threat, but she couldn't miss the strain on him. With a muttered, "Sod this," she softly clapped her hands together, casting the shield around him. "Just for a sec," she elaborated. "You can't manage this without bringing the place down around our ears."
The protest died on his lips and he was a momentarily stunned. First, by the initial silence and then, by the sudden onsaught of emotions that slammed into him, nearly toppling him in a wave of dizziness. He gropped for the wall and stumbled, leaning heavily into it. Somewhere in the background, he could hear the voices talking, the wife escorting the husband to the front door, tones escalating as they argued about his name.
Manuel slipped into a room and found a bed, sitting on it before he fell over. He wanted to address Amanda's over zealous attempt but he couldn't find the words because tumbles of emotions were escalating, shifting and moving onto a new emotion before doing the same. It was like a speech and he was getting a very steady headache very fast. Leaning over the bed, he rested his elbows on his knees, head in hands and closed his eyes, trying to find some semblance of focus. His cane slipped from the bed and clattered to the floor.
"She is going too fast."
"Oh, bollocks." Amanda dropped the shield, aware it was doing absolutely nothing - something she was going to have to look into later. As Manual dropped to the bed, she knelt by him, not sure what to do and unsure if physical contact would make things worse. "Can you pinpoint her? If we find her, perhaps she'll give it a rest?"
He focused, hard, trying to pull himself away from ampilfying the assorted emotions he was getting and couldn't,but he suddenly knew where it was coming from. Placing a hand on the edge of the bed, Manuel slipped off and knelt down, bending over to look under them. There, lying on her stomach, was a little girl responsible for the cluster of emotions. He held a hand on to her and she shook her head when suddenly the door flew open.
"You--" the wife spat.
But the husband broke past her. "Senor de la Rocha, we were not expecting company. Senor? Are you okay?'
Manuel pulled the girl from her hiding place and he cast his gaze over the man to the woman behind him who gasped. Her sudden open scowl made him narrow his eyes.
"Is this your daughter?"
"No," the wife said, placing her hands on her hips and gesturing for the girl to come to her side immediately. The little girl recoiled and stood behind Manuel. "She is a nobody. A--"
Her husband cut in and folded his hands into each other. "We do not know who she belongs to. We took her in off the street."
"But she is mute."
"You're lying." Amanda said it almost conversationally, rising from her crouch to stand beside Manuel, providing an extra screen for the girl. She glanced at the small, somehow blank face, and then back up to Manuel. "Not when she's the spitting image of Senor de la Rocha here. Tell us the truth - who is she?" The slight smile playing across her face was in no way friendly.
Manuel shot Amanda a look and it fell to the little girl who had suddenly clung to his slacks and buried her cheek into his thigh. He felt her accpetance and though he was reluctant to accept her being near him, he couldn't help but merely project the strong emotion back to her, only causing her to cling more.
"She is scared of you, why?"
"She is a child. She was naughty and I had to scold her. Nothing more," the woman began, but her husband interrupted.
"Enough, Clara. Perhaps this is the solution to our problems."
"But..."
"Quiet, woman!" The man turned to Manuel. "My name is Alejandro, this is my wife Clara. And this..." He nodded at the child. "Is Valentia. She is not our daughter, that is true. We are fostering her and have done since her birth. But, as you can see, she is not a normal child."
"Why is she special? Because she cannot speak?" Manuel asked, exchanging a look with Amanda before stepping forward, if only to unhinge the girl from his leg. She shuffled with him and he understood she didn't want to stay. She wanted to go with them.
"I think you understand, Senor de la Rocha. There are... things, she can do. Ever since she was a baby, she has had a strange way about her." Alejandro exchanged a look with his wife, who was crossing herself as she looked at Valentia. "Sometimes, we feel things, things that are not ours."
"Then she's a mutant," Amanda said, but a bit more gently than before - diplomacy, not force was needed here. Looking at the child clamped onto Manuel's leg, she knew they were going to have to leave here with her, and she was already thinking ahead to how they would manage to get her out of the country. "If she's so upsetting, why keep her?"
"We were paid," admitted Carla.
He was not feeling very diplomatic as Amanda. "How selfish. Did you not realize that this would hinder her learning abilities? That she possibly feels neglected? Alienated because you cannot communicate with her?" He was visibly more than agitated and he felt the rise of the couple, the rise in the little girl and she began to cry.
"Hush, love," Amanda murmured to the little girl, reaching to rest a hand on the dark head and hoping it wouldn't freak her out. "So, you were paid to take care of her. What's changed?"
"The money has run out," Carla replied, glancing at Valentia and taking a step back. "And the child... we do not know what to do with her, how to help her."
"Senor de la Rocha," Alejandro said, his voice almost a plea. "Please, help us. She trusts you - she never lets us touch her and we have never seen her reach out to someone like she is doing to you. You are wealthy, educated, you understand these things. You could take her, help her."
Manuel tensed at the assumptions. "No, we cannot take her. Give her to a foster home. _Another_ one or an orphanage. she is better suited there where someone will pay attention to her." He could feel Amanda's gaze boring into him and he cast her a warning look. "No, we cannot." Even as he spoke, he knew they had to, that _he_ had to. It was rare to come across another like him and she was too young to leave within the hands of amatures on dealing with empaths. "What will we do with a.. uh... a - how old is she?"
"Four years old this year," Carla helped.
He gave Amanda a look that asked what they would do with a four year old. It was unlikely she had papers. "Do you have her papers?? A birth certificate? An adoption form? Anything?" He asked Carla, to which she shook her head to every question.
The girl had calmed somewhat with the touch, but Manuel's rising emotions weren't going to be helping the situation. She lay her hand on his shoulder, stretched up on tiptoe to murmur in his ear. "I can sort something. We'll take her back to the school, someone there will know what to do."
"Very well, we'll take her," he replied to Alejandro and turned his gaze on Carla. "Please pack her things, whatever she has." He didn't like that they were picking up someone on their trip. It was too xmen-like for his taste and neither of them carried any clean history to be called anything more than what they were.
Carla abruptly left and Alejando stepped forward, "I will give you a few moments, please excuse me."
Standing in the middle of the room, he turned his back to the door and faced the opposite direction Amanda was facing. Their shoulders brushed together and the little girl stood between them. "I do hope you have a better plan than the one you told me." It was obvious he was not entirely pleased to have to take the girl with them, though he was satisfied that she would not be left here with two people who were so obviously not willing to even try.
Amanda stroked the girl's head lightly, her smile tinged with sadness. "I'm not saying you keep her, but there's plenty more resources back in the States. Samson's people, the Professor... fuck, even Emma will have something. I'll need a day or two to get papers sorted - they won't be legal, but they'll get her out of the country. " She grinned briefly. "Like was done for me once."
"I think that last one went well," Amanda said, glancing over at Manuel as the limo passed through the ornate gates of the mansion. "You're really quite impressive with this."
"Thank you, however there is something beneath the waters, you could say. They've been distant, suspicious and it translates into my absence and lack of a presence in the courts in general. Emma was correct, there is a shift happening." Manuel stared out, watching the gates float by. Something tugged at the back of his mind but he ignored it.
"You did very well, quiet as you were, you maintain a presence that they are unable to ignore."
Amanda snorted a little. "Yeah, you Spaniards are all the same. Give you a pair of tits to look at and you're all distracted." She was pleased at the praise, however, and she grinned a little as the limo descended the hill back towards their hotel. "So, how about lunch? There's that little bistro I found yesterday - the locals say it's really good."
He was a breath away from responding when his attention was pulled in another direction, his emotions amplified suddenly. No, not his emotions, someone else's.
"Stop the limo. Pull over." Manuel barked at the driver so suddenly that tires skidded and snapped to a halt once they got to the side. The driver looked in the mirror, but he held off saying anything at Manuel's dismissive hand put up to his questions. Tossing aside his seat belt, he immediately got out of car and paused at the door, glancing back to the passing cars.
"Manny?" Taken completely by surprise by the sudden exit, Amanda fumbled with her own seat belt and climbing out, cursing the business skirt for slowing her down. "Hold up! What's going on?" she called to him. A powers issue, obviously, but not something she'd seen before.
He waved her off in annoyance, to silence her but done sloppily. He was distracted and frowned, turning around suddenly like a bee was threatening to sting. "Where is that coming from?" he asked, mostly to himself. It wasn't coming from the road, no, it came from elsewhere. The pull that was not just a pull, he realized, but a faint press of communication through emotions.
"Get back in," he commanded, ushering her to the door. "There is an empath in the area. A confused one."
"They're not the only confused one," Amanda muttered, but obeyed. Something was definitely Up. Just as well they were still within city limits - she focused on pulling more energy into herself, in case things got messy.
"Keep driving," Manuel ordered the driver and turned his sudden strained expression on her, the weight of another empath crashing down on him hard. "Whoever they are, they are ...aware of my presence. Very aware because they are projecting onto me viciously. Similar to a distress call, if that is possible. I have never felt anything like this on such a level. Not even similar, like Dani. This is different." He sat up and gestured as though he couldn't get the driver to go fast enough. "Hurry up, turn left and hurry," he repeated, impatient. He was not the heroic type, but when his own kind called to him, Manuel couldn't help but respond. As though he felt some sort of responsibility, needing to satisfy the concern that they were not in the same situation he had once been in.
"Do you want me to shield you?" she asked, concerned at the strain she saw there. The only reason she hadn't already were the words 'distress call' - if it was someone in trouble, they'd do better to get there quickly.
"No. She is strong, however she is in distress, " he said, gesturing to the driver again. "Turn left here." The driver obliged and they drove up a long rocky driveway until a house appeared at the end. When they came to a stop, Manuel was out of the car and probably would have been faster if he didn't have the cane hindering him. A woman stepped out on the porch at their sudden arrival and she spoke, addressing Manuel first.
"We don't owe any money! We have nothing!" she spoke in a husky voice, brushing back a piece of gray hair.
Manuel slowed and walked up the steps. "Senora, I am Manuel de la Rocha--" he hesitated as the projections changed, ceased abruptly even though the emotional loop within him did not. It felt like shock, as though someone had stopped talking to listen into a conversation that they were not apart of.
"No! I told you. We don't owe anything and we have nothing. We're-"
"Is it just you and your--?"
"Husband? Yes, but he's old and he's an--"
"May I speak with him?" Manuel asked.
Something changed within her after he'd revealed who he was and she seemed to concede to what he asked. "Wait here. I'll get him."
Amanda reached his side during the conversation. "You said 'she'," she murmured to him as the woman departed. "Not that woman, then?" Her fingers tingled just the slightest bit as she drew on some of the power she'd absorbed. "So, do we wait and give them time to hide whoever it is?"
"No we do not," Manuel replied, quietly placing a hand over the knob and turning. The door made no sound as he opened it and stepped inside. He could hear the faint sound of distant footsteps as the woman called to whomever she was married to. He did not recognize them, nor was it his focus now. Glancing briefly down the hallway, he waited a moment before moving up the stairway before them. The house was older, polished and clean despite the age.
Someone paid very careful attention to detail, taking care to clean between the banisters and the tiny ledges that protruded out of the side of the stairs. The wood groaned under his careful steps but he made it to the top without incident and moved down the hallway. The empathy within him was so strong, it was amplifying for every moment that he seemed to wait too long. It was an urgency that repeatedly looped into him and he was visibly having trouble restraining himself from an outburst, or worse, breaking down.
Amanda had followed him silently, scanning the area around them for potential threat, but she couldn't miss the strain on him. With a muttered, "Sod this," she softly clapped her hands together, casting the shield around him. "Just for a sec," she elaborated. "You can't manage this without bringing the place down around our ears."
The protest died on his lips and he was a momentarily stunned. First, by the initial silence and then, by the sudden onsaught of emotions that slammed into him, nearly toppling him in a wave of dizziness. He gropped for the wall and stumbled, leaning heavily into it. Somewhere in the background, he could hear the voices talking, the wife escorting the husband to the front door, tones escalating as they argued about his name.
Manuel slipped into a room and found a bed, sitting on it before he fell over. He wanted to address Amanda's over zealous attempt but he couldn't find the words because tumbles of emotions were escalating, shifting and moving onto a new emotion before doing the same. It was like a speech and he was getting a very steady headache very fast. Leaning over the bed, he rested his elbows on his knees, head in hands and closed his eyes, trying to find some semblance of focus. His cane slipped from the bed and clattered to the floor.
"She is going too fast."
"Oh, bollocks." Amanda dropped the shield, aware it was doing absolutely nothing - something she was going to have to look into later. As Manual dropped to the bed, she knelt by him, not sure what to do and unsure if physical contact would make things worse. "Can you pinpoint her? If we find her, perhaps she'll give it a rest?"
He focused, hard, trying to pull himself away from ampilfying the assorted emotions he was getting and couldn't,but he suddenly knew where it was coming from. Placing a hand on the edge of the bed, Manuel slipped off and knelt down, bending over to look under them. There, lying on her stomach, was a little girl responsible for the cluster of emotions. He held a hand on to her and she shook her head when suddenly the door flew open.
"You--" the wife spat.
But the husband broke past her. "Senor de la Rocha, we were not expecting company. Senor? Are you okay?'
Manuel pulled the girl from her hiding place and he cast his gaze over the man to the woman behind him who gasped. Her sudden open scowl made him narrow his eyes.
"Is this your daughter?"
"No," the wife said, placing her hands on her hips and gesturing for the girl to come to her side immediately. The little girl recoiled and stood behind Manuel. "She is a nobody. A--"
Her husband cut in and folded his hands into each other. "We do not know who she belongs to. We took her in off the street."
"But she is mute."
"You're lying." Amanda said it almost conversationally, rising from her crouch to stand beside Manuel, providing an extra screen for the girl. She glanced at the small, somehow blank face, and then back up to Manuel. "Not when she's the spitting image of Senor de la Rocha here. Tell us the truth - who is she?" The slight smile playing across her face was in no way friendly.
Manuel shot Amanda a look and it fell to the little girl who had suddenly clung to his slacks and buried her cheek into his thigh. He felt her accpetance and though he was reluctant to accept her being near him, he couldn't help but merely project the strong emotion back to her, only causing her to cling more.
"She is scared of you, why?"
"She is a child. She was naughty and I had to scold her. Nothing more," the woman began, but her husband interrupted.
"Enough, Clara. Perhaps this is the solution to our problems."
"But..."
"Quiet, woman!" The man turned to Manuel. "My name is Alejandro, this is my wife Clara. And this..." He nodded at the child. "Is Valentia. She is not our daughter, that is true. We are fostering her and have done since her birth. But, as you can see, she is not a normal child."
"Why is she special? Because she cannot speak?" Manuel asked, exchanging a look with Amanda before stepping forward, if only to unhinge the girl from his leg. She shuffled with him and he understood she didn't want to stay. She wanted to go with them.
"I think you understand, Senor de la Rocha. There are... things, she can do. Ever since she was a baby, she has had a strange way about her." Alejandro exchanged a look with his wife, who was crossing herself as she looked at Valentia. "Sometimes, we feel things, things that are not ours."
"Then she's a mutant," Amanda said, but a bit more gently than before - diplomacy, not force was needed here. Looking at the child clamped onto Manuel's leg, she knew they were going to have to leave here with her, and she was already thinking ahead to how they would manage to get her out of the country. "If she's so upsetting, why keep her?"
"We were paid," admitted Carla.
He was not feeling very diplomatic as Amanda. "How selfish. Did you not realize that this would hinder her learning abilities? That she possibly feels neglected? Alienated because you cannot communicate with her?" He was visibly more than agitated and he felt the rise of the couple, the rise in the little girl and she began to cry.
"Hush, love," Amanda murmured to the little girl, reaching to rest a hand on the dark head and hoping it wouldn't freak her out. "So, you were paid to take care of her. What's changed?"
"The money has run out," Carla replied, glancing at Valentia and taking a step back. "And the child... we do not know what to do with her, how to help her."
"Senor de la Rocha," Alejandro said, his voice almost a plea. "Please, help us. She trusts you - she never lets us touch her and we have never seen her reach out to someone like she is doing to you. You are wealthy, educated, you understand these things. You could take her, help her."
Manuel tensed at the assumptions. "No, we cannot take her. Give her to a foster home. _Another_ one or an orphanage. she is better suited there where someone will pay attention to her." He could feel Amanda's gaze boring into him and he cast her a warning look. "No, we cannot." Even as he spoke, he knew they had to, that _he_ had to. It was rare to come across another like him and she was too young to leave within the hands of amatures on dealing with empaths. "What will we do with a.. uh... a - how old is she?"
"Four years old this year," Carla helped.
He gave Amanda a look that asked what they would do with a four year old. It was unlikely she had papers. "Do you have her papers?? A birth certificate? An adoption form? Anything?" He asked Carla, to which she shook her head to every question.
The girl had calmed somewhat with the touch, but Manuel's rising emotions weren't going to be helping the situation. She lay her hand on his shoulder, stretched up on tiptoe to murmur in his ear. "I can sort something. We'll take her back to the school, someone there will know what to do."
"Very well, we'll take her," he replied to Alejandro and turned his gaze on Carla. "Please pack her things, whatever she has." He didn't like that they were picking up someone on their trip. It was too xmen-like for his taste and neither of them carried any clean history to be called anything more than what they were.
Carla abruptly left and Alejando stepped forward, "I will give you a few moments, please excuse me."
Standing in the middle of the room, he turned his back to the door and faced the opposite direction Amanda was facing. Their shoulders brushed together and the little girl stood between them. "I do hope you have a better plan than the one you told me." It was obvious he was not entirely pleased to have to take the girl with them, though he was satisfied that she would not be left here with two people who were so obviously not willing to even try.
Amanda stroked the girl's head lightly, her smile tinged with sadness. "I'm not saying you keep her, but there's plenty more resources back in the States. Samson's people, the Professor... fuck, even Emma will have something. I'll need a day or two to get papers sorted - they won't be legal, but they'll get her out of the country. " She grinned briefly. "Like was done for me once."
