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

[scarred_grin]

"I knew a guy once," she says. "He was sure pretty but he was dumber than a box of hair. All the girls went crazy for him, but there wasn't anything to him--he just floated through life, did what was expected of him, was his father's little puppet. I can't even imagine."

[ostro_goth]

"If one is truly like that, then he is dull beyond words, after more than two hours acquaintance," Teja says. "But beware the golden ones that can, secretly, think quite deeply and darkly when they must."

Like Totila, who seemed golden and sunny and benevolent to all, but was shrewd enough to give Teja the part of his 'bad cop', and intelligent enough to fluently read an enemy code himself, once it was broken, without needing to transcribe.

[scarred_grin]

"I used to have to go to parties with him," she says. "My folks wanted me to socialize with the right kind of people but honey, if he's the right kind of people, give me outcasts any day."

She sips her tea.

"His brother was nice, though. Well... not nice, actually kinda crazy. But you could talk to him."

[ostro_goth]

"It depends on the kind of craziness," Teja says. "I was not considered entirely sane by those of my time, either."

[scarred_grin]

"Oh, me either," she grins. "But like I said, I like the crazy. Not like, you have to worry about waking up dead some night because they hallucinated you were a cockroach or something, but... people with problems, I guess? People with a past, and things they've got to deal with. I don't trust anybody who's never had to suffer."

[ostro_goth]

"Indeed, their mettle has never been proven," Teja says, "so that means it might fail them, once anything less-than-sunny is asked of them. It is not sure it will: - but there is no telling yet!"

[scarred_grin]

"I'm not saying I don't help people," she says. "Everybody's got a first time that something bad happens to them, and I do sympathize. But I got a lot less sympathy when the person got to be an adult before anything bad happened to them."

[ostro_goth]

"It means they are sheltered and privileged," Teja agrees, "in ways that inhibit learning."

[scarred_grin]

"Logically I know it's not really fair to hold it against somebody just because you had a rougher time of it than they did. Maybe it's jealousy, I don't know. Or maybe it's like--you know, those diseases it's better to get when you're a kid because you'll recover more quickly, but if you get it for the first time when you're older it can kill you."

[ostro_goth]

"The second thing," Teja say. "And I have never held it against any -- merely considered him not yet tried and trusted. For you may never know how any will react to hardship, unless you saw him face it."

He draws a bit, then adds, "Suffering does not make one noble; and there is nothing noble in it, by itself. It will only show how that one will bear up under future suffering, which will come, sooner or later, in any life. And the older he is when he learns, the harder the lesson will be."

[scarred_grin]

"It sure hasn't made me noble," she agrees. "But what it has done is make me tougher, and faster, and less likely to panic. And it's helped with my sense of perspective and humor, too--I mean, it's really hard for me to get worked up over some minor inconvenience in comparison. It's just not that big a deal."

[ostro_goth]

"Indeed, it is much the same for me," Teja says, "but I would add that I am less likely to flinch away from a dire deed that must be done, and that the humour is" -- he shrugs, as this is something he doesn't like to admit -- "mostly hidden, and often so much in the dark people will not see it as such, even if I am poking fun at them from the shadows."

[scarred_grin]

"I think you've got a great sense of humor, from what I've seen tonight," she says, and sips her tea. "But then I don't mind dark, either. There's no one type of humor for everybody, for every situation."

[ostro_goth]

"And I truly cannot do the cheerful, good-natured type," Teja says, "or the one that aims to please. It is good, though, to no longer be the only one that is dark, in a sea of cheerful laughing faces."

[scarred_grin]

"We are on the same wavelength," she grins, pointing to him, tapping her forehead and then pointing to him again. "The absolute same. I can sorta do cheerful but there's always an edge to it, it's never the childlike 'everything's wonderful' that some people can do. But I don't like nastiness just for the sake of nastiness either, I like it when it's clever."

[ostro_goth]

Teja looks at her, nodding.

"How long have you been here, that I never saw you again?" he asks.

It seems an odd jump of thought; but then, he sees such similarity and connection between them, he is wondering whether somewhere in the tangle of universes and realities and alternate stories, they sprang from the same idea and mould and are, in some very complicated way, the same character in a similar story, with times and circumstances wildly different.

[scarred_grin]

"I don't exactly know," she admits. "I lose track of time sometimes, but I think a couple months. I spent a lot of time drunk, more than I should probably admit to, and a lot of time working on things in my room."

And working on clothes, since she hadn't come in with anything that would fit her in this shape.

[ostro_goth]

"I never saw you before," Teja says. "Not drunk in a corner, either."

[scarred_grin]

"I do my drinking upstairs, mostly," she says. "I've been working on a wall in my room--making a big mural of the apocalypse. You should see it, it's really something."

She sips her tea.

"A lot of the time for me, drinking's like... the oil that keeps my creative brain-engine from grinding to a halt."

[ostro_goth]

"Were you here when several apocalypses almost happened?" Teja asks.

He will not criticise her habits, whatever he may think of them. With less purpose in his life, and something keeping him from suicide, he might have taken to drink, also. He only did not because there was too much to do.

[scarred_grin]

"I don't think so," she says after a moment's thought, "unless I was upstairs and missed it, which would be my luck. When the end comes I want to be around to see it."

[ostro_goth]

"There were many that happened at once, and the sky was red," Teja says. "Unless you were utterly shot in, windowless, and quite drunk all the time, you would not have missed it."

Especially not the end.

[scarred_grin]

"...yeah, I don't think I've ever been that drunk," she chuckles. "I must've gotten here after all of that. It's funny that Fina never mentioned any of that though, unless she missed it too."

[ostro_goth]

"Fina?" Teja asks.

He has not ever met one of that name.

[scarred_grin]

"She's my roommate," she says. "Or technically I'm hers, she's the one who pays. She lets me stay 'cause I do things, but we never had any 'this is your room, dirty dishes go in the sink, and oh by the way apocalypse' conversations. She's not really conversational though. All filter."