ArchivedLogs:Meet Madame Web

Meet Madame Web
Dramatis Personae Sophie
In Absentia	2013-06-14 Sophie meets the Madame.
Location <WES> Westchester
Madame Web's World of Wonders is set up across 3 acres of land behind Harvest Moon Farms in rural West-Chester; it sprawls out like some garish parade across the rolling fields of grass, tucked away between the woods and the farmhouse. Half a dozen large, purple-and-white striped tents are set up -- for shows, food, bathrooms, and relief from the occasional shower -- with a massive ferris wheel (strewn with lights!), a tilt-a-whirl, chair-o-planes, bumper cars, a carousel, and funhouse all available. The grounds are also peppered with well-trained capuchin monkeys who will perch on your shoulders (and eat your food!). There are numerous game booths set up, as well as a nightly showing of 'The Mysterious Mysterio's Magical Mayhem' act, along with 'Kraven the Hunter's Animal Kingdom'. There's even a tent for what is politely described as 'Wonders of Biology' (but often gets snidely referred to as 'The Freak Tent'), where for a ticket price of ten dollars, you can see some of the oddities that Madame Web has gathered in her extensive travels. Sophie is not /usually/ the risky type, but for /some reason/ she finds herself sneaking off to the carnival again! Of course she signed out properly rather than outright /sneaking/ but odds are if Kurt found out where she was going there would be some stern looks. Today, in light of having some foreknowledge of the circumstances, she's skipped her usual skirt in favor of a pair of shorts; pockets make her phone more easily accessible, after all. A black t-shirt contributes to making her significantly less flashy than she'd dressed before. Today, she's arrived at the carnival a bit earlier than the group had shown up for their first appearance; this gives her ample time for FUNNEL CAKE. Which she's finishing up as she gets in line for Magical Mysterio's Mysterious Mayhem World of Magical Magic: her only real goal for the day. The carnival's just as you might expect it early on; plenty of crowds of teens with their parents zipping and zooming from ride to ride -- with capuchin monkeys following in their wake, leaping atop of their shoulders and eyeing the various treats they purchase hungrily. When Sophie gets in line for the Mysterious Mysterio act -- fifteen minutes early, no less! -- she soon finds herself straddled by one such monkey. A cute, fluffy little screechy thing that hops up atop of her shoulder, dressed sharply in a red uniform and /eyeing/ what remains of her funnel cake as she moves up toward the entrance. He doesn't make a /snatch/ for it, but he's just kind of staring at it. Like, 'oh hey, that's a pretty nice funnel cake you got there'. There's a few teenagers behind her, in line; their loud squawks are kind of hard not to make out: "You hear about this Mysterio goof?" --- "I hear he's got a fishbowl on his head." --- "What about Madame Web? I hear she's a friggin' /mutant/--" --- "Oh seriously? For fuckin' real? I heard--" --- "--she's from the same country as that metal guy? The giant armored dude on TV all the time. One of those, /gypsies/--" Sudden monkey results in Sophie letting out a little /yelp/ of surprise, almost jumping out of line, but recovering quickly enough. She'd forgotten about them! But once she gets over being startled, she hesitantly lifts a hand over to give the guy a little scritch. "You scared me, you little ... guy." How does one properly address a monkey? Teenagers are, for the moment, ignored with a bit of a roll of the eyes as she tears off a piece - just a /tiny/ piece - of her funnel cake and lifts it up to offer it to her newfound monkey pal. "You want some of this? ... Is it ok to feed you guys? I guess you'd probably eat stuff off the ground if I didn't, anyway." "Oh yes," a voice to Sophie's left responds, "they most certainly /would/." As if to illustrate this fact, the monkey /immediatley/ snatches the bit of offered funnel-cake, nibbling and chomping quite happily as he chitters. The voice has a hint of Slavic to it; it belongs to a woman, tall and dark-skinned, with charcoal-black hair cut sharply down to a mere bob. She is tall; 6 feet, in fact! -- and a bit broad in the shoulders. Early 20s, perhaps? There's an unusual burn scar that traces her jaw down to her throat, but it's long been faded through the passage of time -- a very /old/ scar. "You are here to see Mysterio, yes?" The woman -- seems to have appeared from no where! She is clad in a rather boring dark purple collared shirt, untucked from her jeans; her feet are in flip-flops. She is standing just outside of the line, near the tent -- there is a small clip on her shirt. Announcing her to be a member of the carnival staff. Though she is not wearing a /uniform/ to indicate as such! One of the boys behind Sophie turns to look at the woman, grinning, about to say something -- but the woman suddenly turns to look at /him/ -- and speaks, rather simply: "I'm not here." And... perhaps surprisingly, the boy stiffens, blinks -- and just turns away. To talk with his friends s'more. "Yeah, I figured probably." Sophie grins as she turns to look to the person speaking to her - she's taken a /bit/ aback by the woman's height, which puts her over half a foot taller than her. The scar is also noted, but it gets less of a reaction. The girl has a crush on /Nightcrawler/, she's used to people looking on the unusual side. The question as to her purpose gets a little nod as Sophie chews thoughtfully on another chunk of funnel cake. "Yeah, he's.. um. He's mysterious." Nod, nod. And slow blink at the exchange with that other teen. She frowns a little, thoughtfully, and looks back to the taller woman. "You've, um, got a real way with people, huh?" It's asked good-naturedly! "You just have to be firm with people," the woman offers, adding to this a grin toward Sophie. The expression causes the scar tissue to stretch, adding a sort of -- grimness to it. But it touches her eyes, which immediately brighten; she's not /accustom/ to the expression, but she wears it well. "It helps to know what to tell them, too. And I don't think he's /that/ mysterious," she adds, maybe with -- an edge of laughter in her tone. Very /dry/ laughter, though. Laughter that never quite reaches her lips. "Just another gimmick." Then, the woman is stepping forward, adding -- in a hushed voice: "You shouldn't be here. Her hand descends for Sophie's other shoulder -- the one /not/ occupied by a capuchin monkey. "It's dangerous for you." "I'll keep that in mind; I know someone it might be useful with." Sophie shares that grin with the woman, her hand going back to rub the back of her neck. "And well, he's a little /weird/, anyway. Mysterio. But, y'know..." If Sophie wasn't /already/ nervous about this whole venture, that warning... would certainly push her over the edge. And her confidence is already slipping the more the subject is discussed, in fact. "...um. Why.. why would you say that?" She forces an awkward smile, but it's obvious her heart isn't exactly in it. Looking around a bit, she lowers her voice a little. "Is it because... of what happened on Monday?" Probably not quite. "Because of what you are. And what you know. You should--" the woman begins, her hand /tightening/ on Sophie's shoulder, perhaps -- urging her away! But then, suddenly, there is someone else -- striding forward, BIG smile, toward the line. The portion of the line where Sophie and the woman are standing. Two someone elses, actually! One is a big looking fellow; caucasian, mid-30s, with a decisive widow's peak for his short hair -- he looks something like a circus strong-man! HUGE! Just about 6 and a half feet of muscle; he's wearing a green-and-black striped muscle-shirt, along with sand-brown khakis and a belt. Seriously, this guy looks like a brick wall; just built like a semi-truck. Beside him is another creepy looking creepster -- shorter, this one's wearing a loose-fitting white-collared shirt and darker khakis, along with a funny little dark trilby -- mostly to keep the sunlight out of his eyes, but also to hide his face. Because his face is all FREDDIE KRUEGER. Seriously, the guy's covered in burn scars; it's not /terrible/ but it's kind of gross and some of them look like they might have only happened recently. Still, he's grinning too, despite being a full half foot shorter than the big guy next to him. "Hey," Big Guy says, speaking to -- Sophie and the woman beside her. "Izzhat--" "--your friend?" Freddie Krueger guy picks up. They both have -- peculiar accents! The same accent as the woman who was just speaking to Sophie, in fact. Who, by the way, has lost her grin and is now wearing a tight-lipped neutral expression... and sighing. Sophie actually starts to look convinced by that cryptic warning. Her face twists up a bit in indecision, though she does protest, "I don't /know/ anything." Not that she knows of, anyway! But then there come those two new folks, and her expression turns to one of /concern/. "Who's that?" She asks, worried, before the two men approach. And once they /do/ get there, she's sort of-- trying to move the tall woman between herself and those two guys, even if just a little bit. "I was just asking if.. if the ferris wheel is fixed yet. It was broken when I came here before." "{She is alone,}" the woman responds, to the two men; the language is a particular dialect of Romani -- a decisively /Latverian/ one. "{She knows nothing. She'd be useless to us--}" "{Madame told us you found her with /others/, before,}" the Big One responds, in a matching dialect; his arms are now folding over his shoulders as he stares at the woman -- disapprovingly. "{Three, altogether. That speaks to a community--}" "{Do you really want,}" the Freddie Krueger one picks in, "{to have this argument out here? Right now?}" There is a faint -- crackle. Of something. Along the edges of his eyes. Almost, sparkly; like tiny little jagged bolts of lightning. His grin widens. "{I've been practicing.}" The woman with her hand on Sophie's shoulder gladly helps scoot her behind. But at the words her compatriots speak, she sighs; the people in line are starting to turn -- stare -- watching what's going on. And... with reluctance, she suddenly rumbles: "I'm sorry. Sophie," she tells the girl -- giving no indication how she knows her name! -- "sleep." And then, quite suddenly, everything in Sophie's vision goes black. For her own part, Sophie just sort of... looks excessively confused at the sudden shift in language. It does sound a bit like some newscasts she's seen from Latveria! ... Not that that has led to any comprehension on her part of any facet of the language itself. So. She's completely clueless! Just tilting her head a little and trying to figure out exactly what's going on, though the /tones/ involved do not sound terribly good. So when English is finally used again, she almost looked relieved -- but then confused at the use of her name. And she even starts to ask how the woman knows it, but then-- everything is dark. When Sophie awakens next, she is... alone. Inside of a small space -- a mobile home, it looks like. Except the interior of the RV -- once pristine and clear -- is /cluttered/ with every manner of possible nick-nack and bauble. Shrunken heads dangle from the ceiling! Posters of circus acts -- many in various languages /other/ than English -- paint the walls. There is a wall of beads used to cut off one's view of the back end of the RV; an unusual smell -- incense? -- burns within here, with only a few rays of light filtering through the mostly-shuttered windows. There are a few glass cases -- old, self-contained, automated carnival games -- some of them so ancient that their signs call for nickels instead of quarters. There's even one of those old automated Fortune Tellers, with an old mechanical woman in a turban with animatronic hands extending out toward a crystal ball -- the sign above her proclaims her to be 'MADAME WEB, SEER OF ALL'. Sophie is sitting in a small, relatively comfortable chair, shoved near the front end of the RV; as she starts to come awake, she may notice the sound of music -- playing on a scratchy record player somewhere near the back. Though she probably wouldn't recognize the melody -- not unless she happened upon it on television! -- it is Latveria's national anthem, played on an old needle-worn vinyl record. And then, as she begins to stir, one of the exhibits near the back -- oh God, is that a MUMMY?! -- starts to stir with life. Oh, wait. It isn't a mummy; it's a woman. A woman in an electronic wheelchair -- covered in a garish number of cloths, so many they swarm her entire body; a pair of massive black sunshades -- so dark they prevent even a hint of her eyes from being seen -- is on her face. Her mouth is wrapped in a veil; the only way Sophie can tell that she /is/ a woman is by her voice, which emerges from the garish wrappings, sudden and forceful -- yet still, just as scratchy as the record playing in the background: "Hello, my dear. Please don't panic. You are Sophie, yes? Would you like some tea?" The same accent as the three who approached her in the line. In many ways, it's the same /voice/; only now, it belongs to an old woman. Whirrrrrr... the wheelchair comes to life as the old woman moves forward, navigating through the dense, cluttered atmosphere of the RV. It takes a long moment for Sophie to stir awake; it's almost as though she doesn't realize where she is, or more to the point, that she's here against her will. She makes a bit of a grumbling sound, the sort that would /usually/ be followed by 'Just five more minutes, mom...' but at that point she /is/ conscious enough to realize that she's sitting upright, which is weird enough, but then nothing smells right and... her vision comes into focus. FORTUNATELY she doesn't see the shrunken heads first, but she does see enough to realize that this is /not/ where she usually sleeps. The carnival posters are enough to remind her of what happened before she 'passed out', and she pushes herself against the back of her chair as if trying to get away. She may not realize, just yet, that she could just stand up. And sure she isn't /panicking/, but she's not exactly calm either. Finally, though, she does get up enough nerve to realize that a question was asked! And she answers, stammering a bit, "N-- No thanks, I don't really like-- how do you know my name?" "You don't like tea?" the older woman asks, and Sophie can almost /hear/ the way her nose is wrinkling beneath that tone. The chair continues its electric-powered path, toward -- what passes as a small, miniature kitchen. With quite a large quantity of -- /things/ in the way. Among them, however, is an electric kettle; she reaches forward with a cloth-wrapped hand to depress the pedal, causing it to activate. "Hnh. I thought /everyone/ liked -- bah, America," she adds, waving her other hand at Sophie. "I keep forgetting. Yes, yes, I know your name. I know quite a few things about you! For instance," the old woman adds, "I know that you are a /mutant/, dear. And I know you live among -- other mutants. Do not fear," she adds, the chair swiveling to face Sophie. "At the moment, you are among -- friends. Fellow -- 'freaks', I suppose you could say." The cloths shift, as if she were grinning beneath them. It's hard to tell, though. Shaking her head, Sophie replies, "It just tastes so--" And there she cuts herself off. /Tea/ is probably not the important thing here. That reassurance actually sort of works, for the moment at least, though she still looks extremely suspicious. "We're not /freaks/," she instead answers, defensively. "And I'm not-- how--" Here she hits a moment where it's hard to tell what, exactly, to say. She can't really deny the existence of the academy without also-- confirming the existence of the academy. So instead she just glosses over that whole thing entirely! "How come you know all this? Did Mysterio-- did that card have like a bug or something? From when I was here before?" You'd almost think the girl had never met a psychic. "We're very shrewd when it comes to ferreting out secrets," the old woman continues, producing -- a cup! For herself, probably. A second cup is set aside, having intended it for Sophie, but -- alas, no tea for /her/. A tea bag is produced, dipped into the still-empty cup, and. "We keep quite a few of our own. I apologize for all the melodrama, by the way. But it is important to keep secrets, yes? Discretion is what keeps us alive." A pained, unseen grin. "My name, by the way, is Madame Web. You may call me 'Ms. Web'. Or, 'Madame'. Or, if you are feeling /very/ brave, 'Cassandra'." It is at this point that Sophie thinks to reach for her cell phone to send a text off to someone but-- oh hey, it's gone. She probably should have expected that, but she doesn't quite mention it just yet. Instead she just nods a little and answers, "Madame Web. This is your carnival then, isn't it?" Her head tilts a bit, curiously. "I don't really... I'm just a kid." The tone there is just a bit on the helpless side, like, 'what can you do?' "I don't know what you're expecting from me but, um. Someone took my phone so... am I being kidnapped?" "No," Madame Web responds, and now, as the hot water begins to boil, she reaches -- very carefully -- to lift the kettle up and pour it into that cup. Pooooour. "I just wanted to speak with you. Get a sense of how many there are of you -- if we can trust you. And then, you'll be free to go. Perhaps you can take a message to your leader, for me." She steeps the tea, dipping the bag up and down; the cup is plucked up in her cloth-wrapped hand as she does this -- and the wheelchair whirrs again, as she approaches Sophie. Sophie frowns a little, rubbing the back of her neck uncomfortably. "Well it isn't like... they would only come if they thought a stu-- someone-- from there-- if they thought someone was in trouble." She gives a little nod to that, and folds her legs up on the chair next to herself. Might as well get comfortable. "We don't want anyone noticing us any more than you do. I think.. I mean, even just telling you that much is probably too much, you know?" This is why you really shouldn't trust teenagers with big secrets like that! "But like, as long as you guys don't plan on doing anything to any of us then they won't even care you're around, y'know?" "Mmn." Is Madame Web smiling? Who knows. She /is/ getting closer to Sophie, however; cup of tea still in hand. She pauses, placing the cup aside, on a nearby table -- and then she is reaching, sloooowly, to remove the cloth wrappings over her palm. "I understand, dear. Honestly, I'm beginning to think I owe you and your friends an apology...! It was quite rude of my sisters to just -- /take/ you like this." 'Sisters'? Her hand is exposed; dark and slightly gnarled. It looks -- well, not quite mummified, but it's getting there. Very old-person hand. She's reaching into one of those cloths on her with it, now, fingers dipping -- producing the cell-phone. Sophie's...? "They're sometimes very quick to act before -- thinking." Sophie looks a bit suspicious at that sudden change in demeanor, but for the moment she's content to at least pretend to accept it at face value. She's a very wary sort! Especially given recent happenings. And she does indeed ask, "Sisters..? There was a lady but everyone else I've seen has been a guy." At least that was her /assumption/, not she's just questioning everything she's seen so far. She does not reach for the phone just yet, instead nodding towards it and raising her eyebrows questioningly. "Is that my phone?" It's a popular model, for all she knows she's not the first kid to have a phone get stolen here. "Yes. Please, take it. I'm sorry about all of this. If you would," Madame Web responds, as that gnarled hand reaches -- kind-of-shakily! -- to offer it toward Sophie. "Please speak to -- whomever is in charge? Of your little community? I would like to speak with them. On more, equitable terms? If that is permissible." So nice! And so kind! But when Sophie reaches for that phone -- held by that shaking, weak hand -- the old woman suddenly /darts/ her hand forward, attempting to seize hold of Sophie's wrist the moment she's got her phone. And should she make contact, something remarkable will happen in Sophie's mind -- as something /else/ swells into it, pushing it aside. Another mind. A far older, far more /practiced/ mind. There's a hesitant pause there, but Sophie does eventually nod. "I'll talk to them. Him. I'll let him know. He's-- really nice, actually, he'd probably like having someone to talk to that isn't just a kid, you know?" She even laughs a bit at her little joke, and shifts in the chair so that she can lean forward to take the phone. And then /yelps/ at that sudden grip, trying to pull her hand away from it, but ultimately unable to. She tries to fight back against that presence in her mind, but is, unfortunately, entirely unpracticed and unfamiliar at doing so; the best she can think to do is just try to just concentrate on one thing, very hard. Her brain is, for some reason, full of blueberries. And then... suddenly, Sophie is outside. On the outskirts of the carnival. Phone in hand. Just like -- /that/. As if nothing at all had happened. There is, perhaps, some hazy recollection? Of a woman, wrapped in cloth; of a strange occurrence while waiting in line for Mysterio -- but it's all very fuzzy and confused. Rather, there's a far more plausible explanation in her mind, readily waiting for her to accept it: That she walked in, saw the show -- it was a boring copy of the last time she saw it, without her ever being involved in any of the events! -- and there's /nothing/ suspicious going on at the carnival at all. Probably. Maybe. Uh, yes, /definitely/. In fact, part of her mind is now insistently suggesting she go straight home and not tell anyone about having snuck out to go to the carnival at all! That same part of her mind is grumbling something, incessantly, about /blueberries/. Sophie stands outside the carnival for a moment, looking down at her phone. "...Why did I take this out, again?" She frowns a moment, pressing the button to light up the screen, and sees that she has no text messages. That is probably what she meant to check! And so the phone is returned to her pocket. If nothing else, the Mysterio show was refreshingly boring, though it does mean she wasted a day on a wild goose chase! But it's summer vacation so that's no big deal. She ended up spending most of the show just sort of zoned out and daydreaming about... something. She doesn't remember /what/, exactly, but it isn't like it matters. Probably just some weird fantasizing and wouldn't-it-be-funny-ifs. So now that she's done with all of /that/, she decides that, for the moment, she's actually going to head to the nearest 7-11 before heading back to the school. There's this sudden, bizarre craving for a blueberry Slurpee. Do they even make blueberry Slurpees? Maybe they'll have muffins.