materfamilias

[When the Forge begins to broadcast, there is no accidental audio, no strange string of letters as the user smashes an unpracticed hand across the keypad. The video activates to show a relatively well-groomed woman, possibly in her late thirties or early forties. She would be quite pretty, indeed, if not for the look of hauteur and barely-concealed distaste.

Narcissa will never admit to a living soul just how quickly she learned to use a piece of Muggle technology. It isn't a source of pride; in fact, it's quite humiliating, but alas, a necessary evil.

She hasn't quite reconciled that necessary evil with personal sentiment.

If it weren't for her sense of indignation at both her abduction and the necessity of Muggle rubbish, she might not be as collected as she seems now, a fact which is given credence by the details gone unnoticed at first glance. The faint shadows about her eyes. A leanness which is less fashionable and instead one borne of stress. The way the Forge shakes slightly if she doesn't hold it in both hands.

For all that, her tone is as cold as ice.]

I can only assume that my abductor is listening. Perhaps even that is too much to ask, if this is just some elaborate...prank.

[Distaste becomes blatant disgust with that last word.]

Obviously, you have no idea who I am or the severity of the mistake you've made.

[Perhaps it isn't threatening to be a Malfoy any longer, but this isn't just any Malfoy, after all.]

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That is not at all comforting.

[It isn't chiding; she's simply musing to herself, speaking aloud to keep her distress at bay.

Suddenly, she meets his eyes as a thought occurs to her; now she is distressed.]

I don't -

[It wouldn't do to announce that over the Forge, though. She hesitates, then continues pointedly:]

I am at a disadvantage.

[A search of her person has turned up no evidence of a wand.]

Edited 2012-08-30 20:32 (UTC)

It is when you consider that at least the people left behind will not miss you at all and will not be pining in your absence.

[Like she hasn't missed him these last three months.]

As soon as you become more familiar—

[He breaks off as he realises to what she's referring.]

It is not as much of an immediate concern as you may think.

[His first assertion earns nothing more than a thinning of her lips; she quite understands the underlying meaning, but simply because she hasn't noticed a three-month absence doesn't mean she hasn't been pining.

As well he should know, she thinks. Then again, these past few years have been...chaotic.

She isn't sure what's worse: longing for someone who has been forcibly ripped away to another world, or for someone who is only in the other room, but might as well be thousands of miles away.

The wand, then, is her focus for now. She doesn't like his response, but she trusts him; he has more of an understanding of this place than she.]

You mentioned Andromeda's child. [A beat.] Nymphadora. Is it only the three of us? Are there others?

[She almost doesn't want to know. There are some names she would prefer not to hear, starting with Bellatrix and ending with Voldemort.]

[Thankfully, there hadn't been anything particularly personal about this conversation that would have made the use of a privacy filter prudent from the outset, but now that Lucius is more fully awake, he'll employ one, seeing as how they're getting into specifics.]

I have adjusted this device so that we may speak freely without fear of being overheard on the network. [He pauses briefly.] Bella is here.

[This revelation earns only a slow blink from her before her gaze wanders off once more. There's no particular grief or displeasure (or, indeed, any positive emotion) in her expression at the mention of her sister.

More to the point, she's thinking about the fact that Bellatrix is dead - and so is Nymphadora, isn't she? Yes, Bellatrix killed her three days ago. Nymphadora and Bellatrix, Severus, Crabbe's boy and that dreadful Scabior, one of those Weasley twins - fifty people all told, all still being identified. People she knew. People she didn't know.

She doesn't feel anything. Draco and Lucius survived.

Except. Bellatrix is here, and so is Nymphadora, and now, so is Narcissa.]

Are we dead?

I wondered the same thing myself at first, but no, we are not, even though there are people here who have died. Whatever it is that brings people here manages to get around that little obstacle by 'pulling' them from a time before their actual demise. In Bella's case, it may have been only seconds before, but I'm not certain of that, because truthfully, I've scarcely spoken with her.

Although [another pause] she is aware of our... duplicity. [And then, hurriedly-] No one has heard from her for quite some time, though. She disappeared into the Mist a few months ago, and with any luck, she won't come back.

[She gives only a slight, dismissive shake of her head at the revelation that Bellatrix knows what she has done. She doesn't care. She knows her sister is a zealot, and mad to boot; she knew there would be fallout.

She does, of course, ponder the reference to her own duplicity as "ours"; she supposes it is, after a fashion. They are married, after all, and bound to share in all things until death did they part.

Funny, though. It's nice to have that small reassurance that her husband is her ally, after all.]

And...the Dark Lord...?

[Isn't here, she hopes.]

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