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]

"Still, it is the world you belong in," Teja says. "It will call upon you."

Pause.

"Also, you might get bored here. If there is not a Ragnarök going on, there is not much mayhem and wildness to be had."

[scarred_grin]

"It's been calling me," she says. "But that door's gonna have to jump off the wall and swallow me up if it wants me to go through. If I go home I might not be able to come back."

She's not entirely sure how she'd gotten here in the first place, but she knows that just on the other side of the door is another splash of venom and after all this time, hasn't she earned a break? She likes to think of it as a taunt to the gods' punishment, though she knows it's at least partly cowardice. Either way, no one else will ever know.

[ostro_goth]

"You may have all the time you wish for," Teja says, "but one day, you might find that what you wish for, is to go through that door."

[scarred_grin]

"Maybe," she says with a light shrug.

She's got a world to end eventually... but not now. Not today. She doesn't even want to think about it.

"So you stay busy here? Making a lot of stuff?"

[ostro_goth]

"Working metal," Teja confirms, "speaking to my friends, and meeting new ones; and sometimes, I may go and see my people, in what used to be my world, due to the gratitude of a goddess."

[scarred_grin]

"...how does that work?" she asks. "Do they know you're... or do you go back to before, or..."

Wow, things can get complicated.

[ostro_goth]

"They know I am dead, and keep my appearing to them a secret," Teja says. "I only go to see those that were dearest to them, at the farmstead where they settled, by the barrow-mound where my corpse is buried. And at times, I have even taken some of their children here, when they were hurt or ill, or deserved a treat for something. Only small children, it seems, may follow me through my door that way, but all from here that wish to go with me, can."

[scarred_grin]

"So to them you're like a... a family ghost?" she asks. "A spirit of the ancestors, come to give help and prosperity? I've read about them."

[ostro_goth]

Teja chuckles. "I am somewhat more tangible to them," he says, "but yes, in many ways, that is what I am."

[scarred_grin]

"I always loved reading ghost stories when I was a kid," she says. "Not the kinds that are all 'Look out there's a ghost behind you!' but, you know, the kind where the ghost was an actual individual with his or her own personality and dreams and a reason for being there besides just scaring kids. My folks didn't like that, though."

She takes another sip of tea.

[ostro_goth]

"There is that story," Teja muses, "that I read in this place, of a family of utter sceptics from another place, buying an old castle with a ghost in it..."

[scarred_grin]

"I've never really believed in heaven or hell, not the way the church teaches," she says. "I mean, you get one chance and that's it, then you're either sitting around all day singing about how great God is, or you're burning forever, no re-dos. So ghosts and reincarnation make sense to me; people have souls and those souls have to do something after a person dies."

[ostro_goth]

"Something," Teja says, "that may include making designs for lip-jewellery from the future."

[scarred_grin]

"What's the strangest thing you've ever made?" she asks. "And before you answer, you should know that whatever you say I'll take as a challenge, and see if I can come up with something stranger to ask for..."

[ostro_goth]

"A collar," Teja says, "to a very specific design, that was to signify the voluntary submission of one lover to another. Part for flying motor-cycles. And a very lovingly done crow-bar, that had to be just so."

[scarred_grin]

She gives a playful grin.

"Well, if you have some space on your work schedule in the future... I may have a need for something. I don't know what yet, though. Do you ever make claws?"

[ostro_goth]

"Weapons curved like claws?" Teja says. "I think I could do that."

[scarred_grin]

"There are dancers from like... Thailand, I think?" she says. "They wear these long metal nails when they're dancing, it makes their hands look longer and more graceful. And I know some people back home who have these armor things for their fingers, articulated, you know, and with claw-tips on the ends. But they're not sharp, they're just jewelry."

[ostro_goth]

"And you would wish for one of those little finger-armours, with a bladed claw-tip?" Teja says.

He does like the idea.

[scarred_grin]

She grins, nodding. "I mean, it only seems fitting--I'll have my mouth wired shut, and if I can't bite people, I should at least be able to claw them. A girl needs some defenses."

[ostro_goth]

"You do," Teja says. "And you shall have it -- both, indeed, made to fit each other."

[scarred_grin]

She picks her feet up, curling one leg beneath her on the chair and bending the other so she can rest her chin on her knee. It's a bit of an awkward position given her boots, but she doesn't seem to mind.

"I want you to know you've always got the right to say no to me," she says after a moment. "I know how I get. I know I come on real strong, especially when I'm attracted to somebody, and I don't pick up on all the little signs that the other person's not as into whatever I'm talking about as I am. You don't need to make anything for me if you don't want to, and if you do, you don't need to rush. I'm a big girl, I can take it."

[ostro_goth]

Teja nods.

"Attracted," he says, quietly.

It might be a question. Or a statement.

"I am a smith," he says. "I make things of metal. And I see the meaning of holes and rings upon one's flesh. I used to have one -- but I was killed over, and then, I did not feel the need to have it done again."

It had been something between Charlie and himself, something born out of curiosity about Xaldin, also.

[scarred_grin]

"I used to have more than I do now," she says. "Some were only temporary, they work their way out and you have to redo them. I stopped doing the ones on my back when I got that tattoo. And I had to let the one in my tongue close up 'cause I kept getting it caught on things."

Nothing like waking up with your tongue stuck to the inside of your lip...

"I never let anybody work on the ones on my mouth before. But there's something about you, makes me feel I can trust you with that."

[ostro_goth]

"I am Teja, and I have ever been trusted by many that knew me better, and feared by those that did not," Teja says.