6949/Considerations

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Considerations
Date of Scene: 15 July 2021
Location: 6B - Elektra's Condo
Synopsis: Late night and Elektra is musing on her own choices until she receives a very unexpected visit from a dead man.
Cast of Characters: Elektra Natchios, Straw Man




Elektra Natchios has posed:
It has been a small while since she had a quiet evening. One for herself. It wasn't that long ago that most nights were spent by herself, or doing a mission or another. But now Elektra has other responsibilities. A connection to actual people instead of being a lone gun, a killer for hire. Stick would had called that a weakness. As for Elektra? She is still figuring out what it was.

The problem of being by herself is that her mind starts roaming towards certain thoughts. Demons of the past, of the present. Thoughts that she wished would leave her quite right alone. Yet they just stubbornly keep appearing...

Nothing that a good, strong drink doesn't solve so she busies herself preparing a martini, robed and with bare feet, comfortable at her own place. Once it's prepared she moves to sit down on the couch to look at the sunset. A bit like her adoptive 'father' used to do? Perhaps she was getting nostalgic.

Straw Man has posed:
    It's quiet, the sunset. The long shadows cast over the city reveal lights as they come to life, while the upper reaches of towers still boast of their time in daylight. Not a bad metaphor between the haves at the top, and the have nots living in the streets below. Little ants bustling and crunching through the streets, the march of the middle class.

    But not up here.

    Up here it's silent, the slight hum of the air conditioner the only thing to be heard in the penthouse. Until it's not. There's a smell first. A smell that's long past. A very specific cigar that Hugo Natchios would light up at times that he was deep in thought. There's the sound of a flint strike behind her on the other side of the room.

    Dressed in his casual evening attire, his mustache just as it was the last day she saw him, Hugo Natchios puffs his cigar to life, pulls it from his mouth, and examines it for just a moment, and takes in a deep breath.

Elektra Natchios has posed:
It's a relaxing view. A relaxing time. She doesn't have many of these, and maybe the martini, along with the quiet will just let her drift off to sleep. It would be a good way to not think on things. But then there's that smell. Too familiar. It makes Elektra sharply become attentive, eyes widening just so. She was still trying to fully put where that smell came from until she hears the flint..

And that makes her remember.

It had been years since Hugo Natchios had died. Not of her doing, of course. But had she truly grieved? She wasn't sure. Or maybe she had simply grieved in her own manner. But now? She knows well the man is dead so what is this?

Would the offender be the martini? No, she would sniff out a poison a mile way. This was.., different. So she looks at the figure. "What are you doing?"

Straw Man has posed:
    Standing on the other side of the open space, dark eyes shift up to her, still holding the cigar at that examinatory angle. "Enjoying a truly exquisite thing," he answers with a familiar grin. "As I see are you." His hand with the cigar betwee two fingers indicates the martini.
    "And thinking, as it were, about how many people go through their days without such luxuries. A pity, really. But unavoidable. You either achieve or you do not. No amount of sentiment will change that." He drags on the cigar casually, and blows a ring of smoke that dangles before him as it slowly dissapates into the air, taking a few steps forward without any clear direction.

Elektra Natchios has posed:
Ah, this must be some kind of dream. Maybe Elektra dozed off in the sofa. If so, she still feels awfully in control. But maybe that's how these things go, as it stands she imagines she won't be remembering this come morning.

Hopefully.

Yet she might as well indulge and talk while she has Hugo here, "We always knew how to enjoy the good things in life. Even if mine was a cover." A cover for Elektra to gain ties in the world of politics, to become a better assassin. Master Stick had played the long game in having her join this family.

"And for ones to rise, others must fall. That's a law of life. You taught me that one." she points out, taking another drink from her martini and setting it on the small table in front of the couch.

Straw Man has posed:
    "That I did," agrees Hugo, casually letting his legs carry him to the edge of the room, looking down through those windows at the street below. He turns. "It does make me wonder why you are fighting that ascent. Not many have it handed to them on such a platter." He gives a look that indicates you should know what he's talking about without further explanation.

Elektra Natchios has posed:
"That ascent ..." Elektra lets out a snort at that, her dark eyes roaming over Hugo's form and she shakes her head slowly. ".. do you mean becoming a puppet of the Hand?" she questions, the corner of her lips curling up into a smirk. She shakes her head. "I do not wish to be controlled, if anything I want to be free. It's what drives me."

Free from the Hand. Free from the Chaste. An almost impossible dream. But why aim for lower?

"Besides, am I really that weapon?" Perhaps she was simply trying to deny it. Even if inside she knew there was something there. It was no coincidence that she had been drawn to find out more about Black Sky ever since she came to New York. Almost as if it was her life mission. Maybe it was.

She did wonder if she could fight back against destiny.

Straw Man has posed:
    "Are you?" Hugo tosses the question back. "Does it matter? They believe it with all of their dogma. That you are their prodigy to lead them into their glorious future." He tilts his head in concession, "Or destruction," he adds.

    He turns to face directly to Elektra, and takes another drag on the cigar. "Whether you are their child of doom or not, it is they who become your puppets, not the other way around. You could have been free long ago if that was really your dream, Elektra. To pretend otherwise is absurd and beneath you. You could have walked away from everything, moved to the side of a mountain far outside where they would have ever looked for you long before any of your current circumstances. They may be skilled assassins, but they are not all knowing. Your play of their political game shows you know at least that much."

    He studies you for a moment, a mildly condescending look. "No, you don't want to be free. You want to /win/. That's what you really want. You're more interested in destruction of your enemies than you are for peace of your own soul. You are a weapon. You've been a weapon for a long time. And a weapon needs a war."

Elektra Natchios has posed:
"Destruction.." Elektra seems to muse on that word for a moment, folding her arms together and sinking further back on the couch, ".. that would solve *one* problem at least." she says, shaking her head slowly.

"Could I?" Be free, that is. A brow arches. "You presume much." is the retort. But perhaps rightfully so. "Yet it is not my way to turn my back on anything. Wouldn't it be simply denying who I am?" and what was she indeed?

Win though? That makes her chuckle. But it's true enough. And it also makes her uncomfortable as it hits home. She frowns at the figure. "I want to win. Everyone does." a bit of evasion on her answer. "But at what cost though? When will enough be enough? You look at me as if I was an heartless monster. And here I was thinking I was your dear daughter all this time... Shouldn't you be consoling me instead of calling me a weapon?" she does look down at her hands though. Bloodied. How much would be enough for her to finally say she had won?

Straw Man has posed:
    There's a smile that is knowing from the image of Hugo. "It's interesting that you change the subject," he says, and then doesn't move with the shift. "But that's your real question. What is enough? You can wax eloquent here," he says. "You believe this conversation isn't really happening. That I'm some how a hallucination or a dream. Which may in fact be in part true. I might be a hallucination. I might be a dream. But the conversation is real, Elektra, because it's happening right now. In which case, who do you really think you're arguing with? Is it really me?"

    "My dear daughter," he repeats the phrase she used. "I am here for only one reason. I'm here to ask you the question that you can't answer. You spend your time convincing your allies and foes that you have it together. That you are in control, that you are the one who will make the right play. How did that turn out for Colleen? How about Matt? Or Jessica, or that pathetic kid you dragged into your vengence? How much should it cost them? How many more people's lives will purchase your victory?"

Elektra Natchios has posed:
"Hopefully it's not me I am arguing with. For otherwise I always come out on top." Elektra quips. But again, it's mostly more deflection! She does frown deeper at the figure though, considering this .., father figure. She shakes her head, closing her eyes and when she opens them? She hopes he's not there anymore. But there he is..

Damn it.

"They are alive." She then finally says, "That's more than many I have used in my life can say at the moment." her jaw tightening hard. "It's not a fair world, and where were they when the chaste and the hand made me start to kill when I was a kid?" She gets up to her feet now, suddenly.

"I will do what I must to win. And I am *in* control, it's not you or anyone else that will tell me otherwise!" she bursts out, tossing her half-drank glass of martini across the room at Hugo.

Straw Man has posed:
    The comment draws a smile from Hugo's face, and he simply stands there as the martini splashes all across his evening wear, completely unyielding to the glass as it cracks with striking the floor. He steps forward, the slipper crushing it beneath his feet as he approaches steadily, crossing the room toward her.

    "Then do what you must!" He insists with vigor. "If you are in control, then keep it, because for one to rise, others must fall." That mantra coming back into focus. He stops like an iron gate before her, looming like the unset future. "And stop wallowing about what will happen to other people because you win. They would fall to something else if it wasn't you." A cold, hard stance, stripped from any pleasantries or comfort of sugar-coated justification.

    And he's gone. Not as if he had disappeared. He didn't evaporate like a ghost or holagram. It's like snapping back from a daydream. Everything is just as it was, save for a broken martini glass on the floor.

Elektra Natchios has posed:
As whatever she just saw disappears Elektra finds herself breathing hard, stumbling back to fall on the couch again. Eyes are wide and she again looks at her hands before rubbing at her face. Yes, there is a lot of blood there. Would more blood matter?

Even if it was those people she thought were her friends, even her lover?

More questions than answers, that's for sure. And did she even want to find the answers for it? Could she sacrifice it all for winning? For control?

She just stays there through the night. Considering what the future held for her.