The Tsarina's Rank Ascension Tea party, and Other Assorted Entertaining Cruelties
(Music, played by live orchestra for her ladies pleasure: https://youtu.be/89bKduG3MwM )
The psychicly brainwashed maids that personally attended to Evalina shook her awake, their modest appearance of black dresses and white aprons, with their hair tied up behind mob caps in a uniform fashion. The young lady is helped out of bed prepared for the celebration: She was raising three of her underlings to higher ranks in the Makarova crime family, with all the benefits and gentle subserviance getting closer to the Tsarina entailed. Her gown for the day was one which fit well for the oddly sunny weather, yet chilly wind of the day: A long pastel pink dress with high flower decorated collar and ruffed sleeves which made her slender fingers look all the more elegent as her curled blonde hair went down her back, kept in its place by a pearl headband as her diamond earings shined in the sun. Her personal bodyguard and head maid holds a parasol and walks at perfect pace behind her, keeping her perfectly fair skin from being damaged as she approached a table of well dressed me in white suits and scarred looks. They stop leering at their matriarch as she gets close, bowing toward in the fashion of men desperate to please, the man next to her helping Evalina to her seat gently. She grants him the gift of lyaing her hand on top of his for a moment in view of the others before addressing the group.
Evalina taps her teacup with a spoon, the men snapping to attention like trained dogs, except for three:
Carlos, a Sicario who had struck out to Dunwich after the being the sole survivor of a large scale cartel war in Columbia. His tan skin showed all the signs of stabs, cuts, and bruises, long healed as a dark pink button up and white suit cover tattoos which the Tsarina was said to find distasteful.
Braune, a native of Dunwich who had worked his way up the ladder through strong leadership and a large scale system of kickbacks which allowed him(and by extension the Makarova Cartel) to control most high ranking public servants, and even challegnge central city legislation. His slim, but wiry frame was emphasized by a flowery blue shirt and an ascot on his neck, forgoing a jacket.
And Nicholas, A mercenary who had signed a recently had his contract with Avorakam Security Services as their own head of operations. He clearly held a distaste for the pageantry of this event, as he wore a black suit with little embellishment, going against the theme of the whole table as the maids needed no word to bring in tea and cakes for the group.
"Welcome! Now, we have three new Lieutenants who are the centerpieces of todays party, though I do hope everyone has their afternoon freed up, as we have such great entertainment readied for after the formalities of todays party are settled" Evalina says cheerfully as the group claps.
"And may I say, Your Grace, its an honor to see you in person. The rumors do your beauty no justice" Braune says as Evalina giggles at the compliment.
"Thank you!" Evalina says as the three men's tea is poured first, the maids already being informed on their preffered ratio of sugar and cream a week beforehand. "Each of you may make a toast. You are my guests afterall, I am very excited to hear how happy you are to be in my presence" She says as she radiates her aura of narcissism and control. The orchestra starts to play livelier at her silent command.
"Yes, its been quite nice working with your men, consummate proffessionals and gentleman. I'd be with no other family even with a gun at my head!" Carlos says with forced, desperate cheer as an air tension fills the gazebo.
"The hitman speaks the truth, Your grace. You truly do have an excellent eye for talent in all people, and your guidance has been the only, and I mean ONLY thing guiding our latest moves. A toast for a worthy successor!" Braune says with less forced cheer. Evalina masks her expression with a folding fan as she turns her attention to Nicholas, who does not stand speak as expected.
"Look kid, this is a very nice gesture, but I have footage to scrub over from last night's shootout near Henderson's Junk shop" he says as he stands up to leave.
Evalina looks on him scornfully as he stands, standing herself as the man quickly grabbed by her other white suited Lieutenants, holding Nicholas roughly as he tries to fight his way out of their grasp, only earn an elbow in the gut from the head maid, which quickly shuts him up. The music stops as the orchestra sifts through their songbooks for fitting music, ever the proffessionals.
(Music: https://youtu.be/khRJMiquAjA )
"You would DARE to spit on my hospitatlity! After all I have paid you, after all your assurances of being an upright and good man, after we allowed you RESIDANCE IN DADDY'S HOUSE!"
The young woman's aura of rage activates as the mans bones start snapping audibly from inside his body, and he begins couhging up blood. Only Carlos looks on in shock and horror as Evalina puts her fan in the man mouth and folds it out, dislocating his jaw as he makes muffled screams.
"Shush your screams: If you are good I will allow you rest and healing at our expense. Blink once for yes, and twice for no" the Tsarina says. "Now just answer me properly: Do you know what you did wrong?" she says in a condescending, angry voice toward the man, who desperately blinks once.
"Very good! Now you'll prepare a consolation gift for my injured feelings right? Its only customary for a man who has spurned a lady to offer her a gift to smooth the relationship over", her voice more smug but still maintaing its high and mighty edge. Nicholas blinks once, clearly willing to agree to almost anything given the situation.
"Your doing so good! One last question and we can forget you were here today: You'll take some proper ettiquitte classes so next time you have the honor of being invited to my estate, you know how to act properly in my presence?" she asks with an almost hopeful tone. Nicholas blinks before she even finishes the question. "Excellent! Take him to the recovery ward, and have put at the back of the treatment list. Let the doctor do what she will to keep his noise down" Evalina says as she returns to her seat and Nicholas is gagged and dragged off so his ghastly screams of pain do not inturrupt the party. The orchestra continues their current repetoir, as the atmosphere is still tense.
Braune keeps a desperate smile on his face while Carlos cannot hide his naked fear at what he's gotten himself into.
The tea is served and the guests offered the first drink as small talk and gossip ensues. Carlos tries to recover his senses after seeing a girl no older than 22 just magically break down a feared mercenary with a body count in the hundreds and have him promise to be gentrified. He avoided swallowing the tea, expecting poison from this psycho as he tucked the fluid under his tongue.
It didn't take long for Carlos to be proven right as the American next to him starts gasping for air, and the Gazebo starts laughing at the mans choked cries for help.
"Awww... the man-whore wants someone to help him~" Evalina says as she walks over to look at him. Braune switches to a position of begging, like a man praying to the virgin Mary for salvation.
"Oh its much, much too late for that. Your brain will stop receiving oxygen in one minute and you can face your victims in hell for all the bad things you did, Mr. Braune"
The man tries to tackle Evalina in a last gasp of wrath, but only succeeds in getting kicked in the stomach with her pointed heel: "And what you did to Daddy's statue... DARING TO REMOVE IT!? My father would have wished this punishment on filth like you!" She says as her field of scorn flares up, the pain of Braune's last moment showing his haunted face.
The maids remove the body, taking it to the basement to be processed into ritual materials. A dark glee fills Evalina's face as she looks toward Carlos: "As you can see, I have very exacting standards on the men I let into my household. You may spit the tea out for being such a clever man as to know it was cursed"
"Yes.. Obviously, Umm.. your grace" Carlos says as his heart races, the girl across the table staring deeply into his eyes after he spits the cursed liquid, and a maid dumping it on a separate black tin, then filling his glass with actual tea.
"My only problem with you are your barbaric tattoos. You'll have them removed soon, correct?" Evalina says to Carlos, who quickly nods as the last thing on his mind is the stories and loyalty in his tattoos, one inked after every major job he ever performed. "Yay! Then, Mr. Calos Makarova, I welcome you to our illustrious family"
"I am confident you will never wish to leave our warm embrace" she says as something in the mans mind ticks. He forgets the faces of his old comrades and 100 other secrets as another force burrows into his mind. The force makes all this seem normal, as it was Tsarina's will: A gentleman would accommodate every request she gave gave him no matter how subtle the signal or great the deed. He lived to serve and protect his lady now.
The whole Gazebo claps as they enjoy the tea party as friends, new and old, bound in servitude to the scorned Tsarina of Dunwich's underworld.
(Music, this time non-diagetic: https://youtu.be/wO034mn9emk )
As the afternoon came, the party moved inside, and into the lounge of the estate: A large room with no windows and paneled in fine laminated birch panels with engravings of historical scenes of heroic violence on each one.
The after-party was a special event indeed, one reserved to be viewed by only the Tsarina's inner circle. It was a demonstration of her new found mastery of curses on live prisoners from rival crminal groups to test their effects and the speed at which they take effect, her maids taking diligent notes as the bodies would be later given an autopsy by the doctor of the estate. She even let some of their blindfolds loose, but simply could not tolerate the vulgar words they would shout if ungagged, hence her preferance for choking curses even if they were costly.
With every test, a round of applause and compliments was given to Evalina, then the drawbacks of the curse and its rescurce cost: This was a practical measure, even if it made the girl bored to hear her lieutenants and maids argue about how many grave robbings can happen every month and how many corpses can go missing in the morgues before the inner city gets involved and makes things complicated. Daddy always kept his princess out of the room for such drivel, but she had a feeling it had some merit to building to her first goal: Retrieving her beloved father's corpse and using her magic to raise it, or someone else who she will make raise it, or taking his spirit and putting it in the body of a worthy.
She was aware of the threats however from firsthand experience: Dark figures made of shadow, and all manner of horrific monsters lay in wait in the winding subways, enough that merely sending in an army of gunmen in would only be a very expensive mass death.
Her light in the darkness that surrounded was the strange collection of pages she bought along with her fairy. It was incomplete, but she was sure that with enough money and sweet words she would have its secrets all to herself in no time....