A penny gets you in, but it won't get you out

[scarred_grin]

...so long story short, Loki had nothing to do with that chalk graffiti in the hallway upstairs, doesn't even own a pair of roller skates, and in any case will not be going near the tequila again anytime soon. Mistakes were made. Jeez, that was like ten hours ago. Can't we all just move on?

In any case, here she is stretched out on the couch in a look that radiates 'off-duty goth barista, probably also an art student': twentyish, crayon-red streaks in otherwise black-dyed hair, lip-rings through her old scars, big headphones, a t-shirt that never fails to amuse her, tiny shorts, and platform boots that if she were standing would make her six and a half feet tall, but right now just help her take up the whole couch. Oh, and fishnet, since after all she'd invented it TRUE STORY

So yeah, there she is, half-drawing half-writing in a notebook, now and then singing along to the music on her headphones, totally botherable if you're feeling brave.



[tinytags: loki (that norse one)][open forever, though slows will happen at some point]

Comments

[ostro_goth]

Teja looks at the random people with the coffee, and nods.

"Theirs is an utterly different story, that they are taking a time-out from in this place, and were we planning the end of the world, it would likely not be their world."

[scarred_grin]

"It could be," she says. "We could all be from the same world, just different times. And we could very well be planning to destroy it."

She waves a waitrat over, orders herself a cherry Coke.

"Where do you stand on the old fire-and-ice debate?"

[ostro_goth]

"Either kills," Teja says. "And no, we are not from the same worlds. There are those here from almost the same tale, but subtly, painfully different."

Pause.

"The world is not only moderation, but extremes."

[scarred_grin]

"What if there's only one world?" she asks. "What if there was only ever one world, but we all walk around with our own worlds in our heads and we never notice the world next door. There are people who wake up one day and don't even recognize their husband or wife anymore, even though they've known each other for years. We never really know anybody."

Which makes her job a lot easier.

[ostro_goth]

"That is a strange philosophy, and not an observation many make," Teja says. "Indeed, most that fall through a crack in their own perception thus, will be thought crazed and addle-minded by those that know them."

Pause.

"But indeed, if we peer underneath that which me think we safely know, there is not much we know. But it is neither safe nor practical to do so. It might help with magic, though."

[scarred_grin]

"I know I know a lot of things," she says with a grin. "I know rock beats scissors, I know a good cure for hiccups, I know the best diner in New York for when you wake up with a bad hangover, and I know I like a man who can discuss philosophy even when sober. But there's at least one thing I know I don't know."

She offers a hand. "Name's Pyrrha."

[ostro_goth]

Teja takes her hand, and shakes it, as people from the future do.

"I am Teja, son of Tagila," he says. "I was the last king of the Ostrogoths in Italy and died in battle upon the slopes of Mount Vesuvius, in the year 552 of Christian reckoning."

[scarred_grin]

When she's right, she's right.

"An honor to meet you, Your Majesty," she says. "And I'm sorry for your loss, though you seem to be handling it well. It's strange meeting somebody from a time so different than the one you came in here from, though. It's almost fifteen hundred years later than that back home."

But she remembers that age. She'd been a lot busier then.

[ostro_goth]

Teja gives a brief huff that might even be the beginning of a laugh, not taken further, as he does not laugh.

"I have been here for four and a half years, to count the time in this place," he says, "and I have grown used to my loss. Indeed, those of my people that survived, were allowed to leave the battlefield and go north to where we had come from, and are flourishing well into your time. Knowing they went free and lived made my death more than worth the while."

[scarred_grin]

"I've been here a while," she says, "nowhere near that long, and I couldn't tell you just how long since I've been home because I haven't exactly been sober for all of it. No door though, so I have to find other ways to stay busy."

Not including drawing on walls. That was totally not her.

"I can tell you though, my contributions to the world won't be anywhere near that big. Even if I ever get back."

[ostro_goth]

"You leave a song, or a few children, or a new way of preparing strawberries," Teja says. "A work of art or craft that will be treasured for some generations, or a joke that people tell after you are no more. Is that not all we wish for, in the end?"

[scarred_grin]

"I... make a webcomic," she says, flipping through her notebook to find a good page. "It's about robots that fight demons."

In fairness her drawings of robots fighting demons are pretty good, if done in a cartoony, retro style. But it's far from her best work.

Her best work, her most memorable, she never gets credit for.

[ostro_goth]

Teja inclines his head, and looks.

"These look good," he says. "They might be comical, but I see no web?"

He has been here four and a half years; but there are things he never needed to catch up on.

[scarred_grin]

"I have a computer at home," she explains. "I do drawings in class or at work, and then when I get home I scan 'em in and put 'em online. That's what makes them webcomics. But I didn't have the computer when I came in, so now I've got a whole book of comics for when I get home."

[ostro_goth]

"I know of computers," Teja says, "but not of that web thing."

[scarred_grin]

"The web," she says. "The internet. Everybody in the world who's got a computer can use it to go online, and they can connect with anybody else. But mostly they look at pictures of cats or naked people."

[ostro_goth]

"I can see the charm of cats," Teja says, amused, "but I prefer my own, if it is all the same. They are more than decorations on a screen."

[scarred_grin]

"I don't think you're seeing the full magnitude of these cat pictures," she chuckles. "There are millions of them. There's pictures of cats sleeping, cats looking cute, cats eating, cats in or on things they're not supposed to be in or on, cats making faces that look like human expressions, cats wearing stupid costumes--there are probably more pictures of cats than there are actual cats. It's like a weird cult or something. So many cats."

[ostro_goth]

"And there are people that use their time for nothing but to look at all the cats?" Teja asks, still amused.

[scarred_grin]

"They're obsessed," she nods. "Grown men and women with nothing more important to do with their time than look at pictures of cats. Don't get me wrong, I like cats, but I have a job too."

[ostro_goth]

"I would prefer actual cats to mere picture of them," Teja says, "as I do love them -- so there are four in my care, that hunt around the forge and the stables, and come to me for treats and attention."

[scarred_grin]

"We had a cat when I was a kid," she says. "She wasn't very friendly, though. Some cats like people and some don't, and she just... didn't. She lived to be 25 though, which I guess says something."

She takes the glass the waitrat brings her. "You could take pictures of your cats, though. You could be missing out on a new career."

[ostro_goth]

"We do not have this web thing here," Teja says, almost smiling, "or I would have noticed. T-Minus is different."

[scarred_grin]

"T-Minus?" she asks.

"If I ever get home again, I can bring my computer back. Or if you know people who have them, just ask them about cat pictures. Unless they're from some weird world where instead of cats it's parrots or something."

[ostro_goth]

"T-Minus is a thing that those that do these things use here, that can get you exchange messages between different worlds even, though a relay station the trolls that run it have built in this place," Teja says. "I do not use it; but I sometimes use their alchemiter that they built beside my forge."

Pause.

"And I shall ask about cat pictures; I am sure that one goddess that comes here with a computator, has them. She knows of such things."