[quote]QI. Queen of Triple Word Score Just the sound of her voice is enough to make the importer/exporter freeze. Hesitant golden eyes flick over cold, uninviting cardboard squares before turning to face Eramis. “Are we not done here? I should go fill Quone in and count my points.“ Art Vandelay struggles to break away from the game, hating any and every time she had to play with Eramis. Consultation with Vandelay’s dictionary had become increasingly hostile, leaving Art more and more uneasy. Wolf had been right. Nothing she played was intelligent enough. Nothing she did was impressive enough. IRIS-ribbonS, for 16 points, was a place of failure and constant ridicule. Phylaks and the other veterans of Simon, Bennet, Robbins, Oppenheim, & Taft have hung back in the shadows forebodingly to watch her. Their eyes are calculated, hungry. Fear stirs in the pit of Art’s stomach. “Pah!” Eramis dismisses her with the wave of a tile filled hand. “‘Quone’, ‘Quoen’, ‘Qunoe’,” she sneers. “Do you spend all of your time making up words?” She cringes and slides backwards in her chair. “‘Quone’ is a word—” Her voice falters, chest burning as Eramis leans closer to her. Daring to look up into her two eyes, the importer/exporter’s breathing halts. “‘Quone’ is not a word here,” she reminds her darkly, allowing a stifling silence to draw out between them. Vandelay swallows. “I believe I asked you about that dictionary you are using. Where did you get it?” Eramis’s head tilts curiously. Art can feel the malicious gaze of Phylaks biting into her back. “I...” She raises her chin, struggling to hold her composure. “Variks helped Ilasaan write it for me.” She curses the way she sounds like a mere pack-a-day smoker in comparison to Eramis’s throaty growl. “What does he take himself for, a linguist after his time with the Wolves? Pathetic,” she says, followed by a bark of amusement. Art bites her tongue, fighting against her anger when she hears Phylaks’s wicked laugh paired with Eramis’s. “These are not official words.” Eramis states, narrow eyed. “Why are you the only one who does not use the OSPD?” Her voice softens menacingly and she shakes her head slowly. Art had not noticed the scrappy red hardcover gripped in a lower hand until now— Eramis raises the book, sized for what could only be a dreg, or Art herself. This conversation must have been planned. The thought angers her. “You will use [i]this[/i] instead.” The dark Kell holds it out to her, making the importer/exporter recoil. Was this some sort of sick test? “I use the words of Miriam-Webster, that’s my dictiona—“ “[i]No![/i]” Eramis shouts, her voice reverberating off the walls. She clenches her fists. ”We no longer use the Miriam-Webster dictionary and neither will you.” She spits the name like a poison on her tongue. The sudden outburst makes Art flinch away from her. She had forced Variks into this as well? Or had Variks willingly done so? Art doesn’t get the chance to question her. Eramis’s chest swells, fueled by the importer/exporter’s fear. “You belong to [i]my[/i] house now and you belong to [i]me[/i]. And this...” Eramis’s voice deepens to a growl as she studies Art’s soft-furred, emerald green paperback dictionary. So intricately designed by Variks’s hands, emblazoned with a large ‘S’. For one fleeting moment, Art thinks she sees a spark of something there in Eramis’s eyes. An old memory. Haunting. It is gone far too quickly for either of them to acknowledge. The importer/exporter hardly has time to react before the eliksni has taken a fist full of pages between her claws. “No more!” A startled intake of air is all Art can manage as page after page is torn out. The sound of the beautiful paper shredding nearly makes her cry out. She stares at nothing, stunned into silence. Feeling all eyes on her. Though trembling, she forces herself to raise her head and meet Eramis’s gaze once more. Her pale clammy skin glows softly in ripples under the dim lights of the kitchen. “Weak flesh…” Eramis hisses in disdain, taking in Art’s foreign, rounded breasts (lmao what). She finally shoves the Official Player’s Dictionary against them, hard. Breath knocked from her, Art wheezes, her hands grasping at the dictionary to cover herself. Eramis leans in closer to her. “Variks has [i]never[/i] won, nor will he [i]ever[/i] win at Scrabble... And you are no queen.” Faint amusement creeps into her voice as she shakes her head. She finds the thought laughable. “He is [i]my[/i] Scrabble King,” Art insists with quiet authority. “And I [i]earned[/i] that title—“ Art’s objection is cut short as tiles the board with a resounding thud. Hardly surprised but trembling nonetheless, she rests one hand on the kitchen table to raise and steady herself, the other still holding the dictionary loosely to her chest. Her fixed where her O, N, and E tiles connected. The Kell towers over her. “You [i]will[/i] play this... I know you will.” Her voice softens to the same insincere tone she had begun with. “Or... I can have Phylaks fetch your precious Variks, and see what he thinks?” “[i]No![/i]” Art instantly feels Eramis’s satisfaction at her outburst. She quickly regains control of herself in an effort to save whatever is left of her wounded pride. “No. I will play it.” She would rather die than let Variks see her like this. A rumbling sound that may have been a purr rises from Eramis’s throat. “Then I see no reason we cannot keep this game… just between us.” Art watches her rise and turn away, breathing a shaky sigh of relief. That relief is short lived. “Oh, and one more thing, Vandelay...” This time Eramis lowers herself even closer to her. The importer/exporter shrinks down, feeling hot breath washing over her neck. Eramis then speaks quietly and with such a confident certainty that Art actually believes her. “The only title you’ve [i]earned?[/i]... Is Scrabble [i]badkid[/i].” There was an open ‘I’ below a Triple Letter Score. Eramis took two letters off her tile holder. The expert of both import and export is forced to look away. Her hand clenches into a fist, the board blurs beneath her. Satisfied with her final play, Eramis rises once more and is followed by the rest of her law firm. With her own Q on the Triple Letter Score square, she had made three words: QI, QI, and IN. Three words, with two tiles, for 64 points. Art catches her lip between her teeth, brow furrowed as she furiously fights against tears. She waits for the silence that tells her she is alone before finally losing that battle.[/quote]