ice princess;

“I am not violent. I am not malicious. I am a result.”

[seonparks-blog]

moodboard — [ Seon Park ]

[brookevaganovs-blog]

Brooke wasn’t sure what it was that irritated her so much, the nonchalant almost cockiness, the casual manner in which S executed their plan, the fact that there were diamonds that she didn’t know about, or that they were wearing a skirt to rob a bank. A part of her wanted to spit on it, watch it disintegrate a little. But the last thing she wanted was to deal with any of the other’s mind games. She really was going to rip into whoever in her family made this damn map.

“Whatever,” is all she could huff in an annoyed response, “Are you always this self-assured when you rob a bank?” Zipping open her backpack, Brooke began to shove thick wads of bills inside every pocket. “You’ve got your diamond, I’ve got my money, time to go.”

[seonparks-blog]

She slipped one of the diamonds into a small pouch on her waist and did the same to another. Two was more than enough and taking anymore would just be greedy-- which they had been trying not to be for a while. When you had as much money as she did, it was easy to get caught up in wanting more, but if the revolution they wanted was going to happen then they would have to let go of the idea of more money being important. S pressed a button and watched as the wall began to close before focusing in on Brooke again. 

The smile that appeared on her face at the question was borderline giddy. “Not always, no. My first time robbing a bank was hell.” She shrugged and grabbed a stray bill off the ground. “Once you realize you can stop people from moving if you want-- well, the whole idea of robbing a bank becomes easy.” Her brow arched up at the demand, but she didn’t argue. “Alright. Lead the way.”

[brookevaganovs-blog]

The words sent a cold feeling down her spine. It was almost enough to drown out her annoyance, almost. In a second she had whipped around, a gun pointing at her opponent’s face. Reflex. She lowered it slightly, though there was still venom in her voice. “We did. You’re the one that showed up after me. Easy to get in? You’re welcome.”

Brooke peeked around the corner to find all of the guards on the ground, blood pooling around them. The security cameras she had already disabled popped and fizzled with each bullet from her gun, making extra sure nothing would be seen as she stepped out from the shadows, dodging the blood as carelessly as if she was playing a game of hopscotch. “Aren’t you a millionaire? Why do you need to rob a bank? Or are you just following me?” She’d learned how to shoot a gun when she was six. It waved around as she talked like a teenager would wave their phone. S didn’t scare her, not in the slightest. “Because you know, if you try and take any of this, I might have to hurt you. Which I’m not really in the mood for.”

[seonparks-blog]

She didn’t flinch at the gun. S didn’t really see a point considering how deep she could extend her grip into Brooke’s mind, the other woman wouldn’t shoot them. It was always sort of funny watching the Mafia’s youngest daughter show signs of irritation. One would think that someone with such a strong reputation would have a better poker face, but alas it didn’t seem to apply to Brooke. “You not being able to see me, didn’t mean I wasn’t here first.” A short pause. “Thanks though.” 

With hands stuffed into pockets, she walked over the dead bodies without much care. They had always thought that shoes looked better with red underneath and the blood added a nice touch. Their eyes were focused on the room and not really the money inside of it. S glanced over at Brooke before shrugging her shoulders at the question. “Why do millionaires invest their money? Simple. You can never have enough, but I promise that we’re after two different things here.” There wasn’t a reaction from the threat of being hurt-- not because they didn’t think Brooke was capable of it, in fact they thought she was more than capable. S really just didn’t have any interest in fighting. She moved towards the back wall of the room and pressed one hand into a brick that seemed to be jutting out. After a few seconds of waiting, the door began to lower and five small containers appeared. She stepped forward, broke the glass, and pulled out a medium sized diamond. “See? Two different things.”

[brookevaganovs-blog]

The dead man’s body weighed a lot more than Brooke had accounted for. Her feet shuffled across the marble floor of the bank, dragging the body by its two arms into a closet. If it wasn’t for his face it would look like he was fast asleep. But, his lips were blue, face red, eyes extremely bloodshot; Poisoned. All she had to do was sneak up, breathe on him, and step away to watch him fall.

Quietly shutting the closet, Brooke then moved behind the teller counters and deeper into the bank. Disabling the alarms was the easiest part, she had no trouble doing so and slithering into the vaults. Getting past the rest of the guards, however, was a whole other matter entirely. She frowned. She could have started small, a local bank outside of the city, maybe in Jersey. But, what was the fun in that? She could just shoot them all, but what was the fun in that, either? Whoever the idiot was that mapped out the bank got the dimensions all wrong, and it was far too big for her to fill with poisonous breath in a timely manner. I’m never getting information from my family’s shit ever again. Brooke settled into a corner out of sight and contemplated her next step.

[seonparks-blog]

Breaking the lock on the door wasn’t hard, mostly because there was a wonderful guard at the door who let her in without much question. Seon or S, as she preferred to be called when presenting as she currently was-- stepped into the bank under the veil of the night with a hood up over her head. There aren’t many guards protecting the front of the bank and that made it much easier to slip inside under the guise of the shadows. A guard was moving around and all she needed to do was focus and the man turned on his heels to head the other way. They took quiet steps towards the teller counters and leapt over, taking a seat and checking out her skirt for a few seconds. The skirt was designer, the stockings even more so, there wasn’t a thing on her that didn’t cost over two thousand dollars. Now that they were deeper into the vaults, it was time for the real work to start.

At the lowest level, mind control could be used to take over one person’s mind. S closed their eyes and focused intently on widening the range of minds she could feel at once. It took seconds, but soon she felt a deep connection to all the minds that rested inside of the large vault-- there was on that she found interesting. All it took was a small impulse placed in their brains and soon the sound of gunshots rang out through the air, but they did it all while dancing. Once it was all over, she knew they were all dead, and heading forward would be so much easier. S didn’t see much of a point in interacting with her supposed rival, but her body was moving on its own, finding herself positioned in the shadows behind Brooke after a few minutes of following the sound of her thoughts. No words were needed and soon, she was sending her thoughts into the mind of the other mutant. “I thought we agreed to stay out of each others way, not get directly involved. I thought you would start with some place smaller, but I suppose that one has to admire intense acts of courage.”

[brookevaganovs-blog]

“Not really.” Brooke was playing nice. Entirely nicer than she normally would. Something called out from the back of her mind, irking her. Here he was, out in the open with all of his power and glory, while she was raised with secrets and blackmail and dealings behind closed doors. It leered over her. She wanted power. Money and resources. All things he had. She wanted to figure out how in the hell her powers actually manifested, and how she could advance them. Again, something she was sure he could help with, seeing as she was somewhat “new” in this “game” they spoke of. But, becoming powerful wasn’t something you did with help, it was something you got to on your own. And from what little she knew, this was not a partnership that would work in any scenario.

More than anything, she wanted to spit in Seon’s cocky face and watch their skin disintegrate. The latter would have to wait. “You’re the one who called me here. Mostly,” The niceties began to drain from her tone, “I’d just say, if you can stay out of my way, I’ll stay out of yours. I’m not my family.” She paused, “I’m worse.”

[seonparks-blog]

There was something interesting about her. It was incredibly infuriating, but interesting none the less. After taking a few seconds to finish his drink, the mutant placed his cup back on the table before reaching into their pocket and pulling out a crisp twenty. They watched in silence and simply stared across the table as the waiter arrived to clean up. Seon nodded a few minutes of silence. “I will be sure to stay as far removed from your ventures as I can.” The problem with his statement was of course, a little more nuanced that he was willing to admit. New York was their town, no real way around it. Their hands were buried deep into various parts of the city and it would be impossible to do business in the town and not deal with him. Of course, he would let her find that out on her own. “I’ll keep that in mind. Worse than your family, got it.” 

They stood up and grabbed their coat, nodding to someone out of the corner of his eye. “Good to talk to you again. Nice way of catching up since we haven’t seen each other since college.” After pulling their coat on, they offered her a smile. “I hope that we can see each other under less tense circumstances soon.”

[brookevaganovs-blog]

She nodded. Normally, she wouldn’t be so quick to trust a statement. But something about him felt trusting enough, in some sort of twisted way. “I don’t believe they will,” They might. “I think we’re in two very different types of business.” Wrong. “However, I can’t vouch for my family. So if you run into them again, that’s either their fault or your own. Not mine.”

[seonparks-blog]

He tapped his finger against the table and watched her carefully because there was a reasonably sized part of his brain told him not to trust the words she said. Seon decided to read the minds of everyone in the small cafe who wasn’t Brooke in order to make sure that nobody was working for her without his knowledge. There were some secrets that needed to be out in the open. It felt important for him to make sure that he knew everyone else’s hand, even if they couldn’t begin to see his.

“People have a tendency to forget they saw me so, I don’t think they’ll be running into me anytime soon.” After pulling out cash to place down on the table for the bill, he looked back to her. “Did you have anything you wanted to discuss? It feels like I’ve been doing most of the talking.”

[brookevaganovs-blog]

“Depends on what game you’re talking about.” She studied her nails for a moment, then pushed the envelope back to them, “I have my own agenda and plans, wether or not it intersects with yours, I don’t know.” She intended to be vague, she’d been flying under the radar without an issue for so long, the last thing she needed was for a wrench to be thrown into her plans.

[seonparks-blog]

“The one that involves gathering power, money, and resources to do whatever it is you want.” She was making it incredibly difficult to not read her mind. He had found that it was easier that way, just digging through people’s brains for the information that he wanted and not wasting time like this. However, she was interesting in a number of ways and he might have respected her in his own twisted way. The envelope was collected as a waiter walked by to place down another cup of coffee for Seon. “I can assure you that I don’t have any intentions of getting in our way-- as long as our wants don’t conflict with each other.”

[brookevaganovs-blog]

“Mainly that your company’s description is specific enough to satisfy the masses, yet broad enough to still seem like there’s a lot people don’t know about. Which, clearly, is correct.” She shrugged, “You’ve done a pretty good job at keeping everything else you do under wraps. I wouldn’t have even known if we hadn’t run into you. But besides that, just the basics. Probably whatever it is you allow the public to know.”

Brooke pulled the envelop towards her and retrieved its contents. It relayed everything she had expected. European family, came to New York in the 60′s, an empire built mainly on drugs and bribery and death, and many ties to big names. No one familiar, but, her father always said the wealthiest people are the one whose names you never hear about in the papers. She didn’t see anything too specific about herself—or more specifically, her powers—sans the ‘prodigal daughter gone astray’ narrative she’d seen too often, which prompted a slight relaxation of her shoulders. “If you called me here because you’re worried about my family or something, don’t be, you’re not a threat to them.” 

[seonparks-blog]

There was enough information on the organization for people to find it, but not nearly enough to understand what it was past being a non-profit organization fighting poverty. Money came in from donors and was used to purchase a variety of things for the poor. It felt nice to know that his system had been working and there wasn’t much to find. If the system he had created was working then things could continue as planned. “It became easier to hide things once I found a few hackers to help the cause.” 

They watched her grab the envelop in silence and took a small bite of the croissant he had waiting next to his drink. Now the question was what exactly he wanted to do with Brooke. He’d called her here for a variety of reasons, two of which had just been confirmed. No large amounts of information had been found by the mafia and she didn’t seem to be working with her family. “That is part of the reason that I called you here however, I am much more interested in knowing about where you stand. You don’t seem interesting in helping your parents, but I’m guessing that you have the power to do so. Do you have any goals or stakes in this game?”

[brookevaganovs-blog]

She grimaced at the envelope. There were reasons most people didn’t know about her family. Usually, they wound up dead. “I imagined it would be. But with your, ah, occupation, I’m surprised you hadn’t run into them sooner.” They weren’t the only one who had done some digging. The moment she was asked to meet, she had read up as much as she could. Brooke wasn’t afraid of them, and wasn’t one to be easily intimidated, but she knew to never go into a situation blind. She knew what she might be up against.

“I try my best to not associate with them if I can help it.” She continued, gesturing to the envelope and leaning back in her seat, “But, I can see that you’ve done your research, not all that surprising. You’ve got more power than most people in this city. What did you find?”

[seonparks-blog]

Ah yes-- his occupation. When you ran an organization that was as wide spread as his was, you made a few enemies here and there. It was clear that she had done a fair amount of research as well. It was a good sign in their book, it meant that this meeting might actually be able to go somewhere other than him making forget everything about this conversation. As far as why he hadn’t run into the family sooner -- it was probably because of just how underground he kept their work. Seon had almost everyone in the organization under his control and they were all unable to talk about the group to an outsider. “I try and keep things quiet. The run in was an accident, but not one I hadn’t prepared for.” 

“Oh?” Now that was interesting. “A family that is a modern day mafia and has some pretty deep roots in the city. The amount of money your family brings in daily is more than most people see in a year.” They took a sip of their drink. “What about you? What did you find?”

[brookevaganovs-blog]

The nondescript coffee shop on the corner was the last place Brooke wanted to be. She tugged the sides of her peacoat closer to her body. New York was abnormally warm, however, it didn’t stop the chill that stemmed from her thoughts. She wasn’t on their level. Academically, yes, but that’s where the commonalities ended.

The chime over the door jingled as she stepped inside, spotting them instantly. Sauntering over and sliding into the seat across from them, she gave a professional smile. “Who would have thought Columbia could produce two of us, huh?”

[seonparks-blog]

The coffee in his cup was hot and the laugh that escaped him almost sounded fake. His days at Columbia were spent plotting in silence and gaining followers to his cause-- it was actually a lot easier than he actually thought it would be. However, the fact that there was someone else like him walking around the school the entire time he was there and he didn’t know was frustrating. Seon nods their head at her question, finally finding the words to respond. “Indeed. I didn’t expect to find someone else so soon-- especially not in the states.” 

He reached into his pocket and glanced down at his phone, frowning at the text before slipping it back into his coat. Now wasn’t the time to worry about the shortcomings of his organization members, he needed to focus on the task at hand. Figuring out Brooke. “I didn’t realize your family was so powerful.” Seon motions towards the brown envelope in the center of the table. “It was hard to get half the information I managed to find.”

[seonparks-blog]

It would surprise some people to know that he actually owned the coffee shop. Seon had been very busy after their most recent bank heist and had taken to buying small places in large neighborhoods that nobody would notice had been sold. The owners got to keep control of the shop as long as they paid rent and made sure that anyone who couldn’t paid would get coffee. His system was simple and it seemed that most people were happy with his conditions-- those that weren’t, quickly forgot about their problems. Today was a business meeting of sorts and he hoped that his date wouldn’t be late. He took a sip of coffee as the door opened and he raised his hand, motioning the young woman over. “Glad you could make it. It is nice to see you again-- especially after our last surprise meeting.”

[junodawsonbooks]

Amongst the monsters, I am well hidden; who looks for a leaf in a forest?

Nights At The Circus - Angela Carter (via jamesdawsonbooks)

[kimwoobinseyebrows]

[stydiar-deactivated20160406]