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]

"I have lived under the stars and in army camps for much of my life," Teja says, "and I find a bath-room of my own still an unspeakable luxury. This place provides comforts."

He puts down his pencil.

"Would you look at my suggestions now?"

[scarred_grin]

"I came from a big family, and then once I was out on my own I pretty much just stayed with friends, boyfriends, whoever."

Given her peculiar circumstances, it's not exactly feasible for her to have an apartment. All she's had for ages has been that cave, and it's not exactly homey.

"All done? Let's have a look."

[ostro_goth]

Teja pushes over the notebook.

There are several designs: A spider's web, a thing that seems to be made of rough barbed wire, a complex mouth-piece of a futuristic art deco design, a thing that appears improvised from a cheese grater and chicken wire, a cluster of interlocking rings, and a great dark bird with wide-spread wings.

[scarred_grin]

She grins as she looks at the drawings.

"These are really impressive. They're--"

She brings a hand up to touch her mouth, trying to picture how each design would fit.

"See, my goal--I mean in life in general, but in this in particular--is to be right on the line between scary and hot. I'm not normally even anywhere near that spectrum, but I think you can get me there."

[ostro_goth]

"These can, maybe," Teja says. "But only because they express what is there in you. It is your soul that is both fearsome and searing; all else follows your inner nature, if you do it right."

It was his soul that was dark -- cloak and armour followed.

[scarred_grin]

"Basically I want to be a demon," she admits. "You know... people get kicked around by the universe, they suffer; maybe they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, who knows. But demons got to choose, back at the beginning, and now if they suffer it's because of their own choosing, not because they're victims. I may make bad decisions, but I get to choose."

[ostro_goth]

"Much like Loki, who you were speaking of," Teja nods.

He can understand such darkness well.

[scarred_grin]

"Exactly," she says. "He did a lot of things that probably weren't that smart, but he owned it. The way I see it, people can do what they want as long as they're willing to take the consequences if it goes bad. We can't say 'oh, this person made me do that.' Other people may influence, may bribe or threaten or whatever, but in the end we choose."

[ostro_goth]

"Indeed," Teja says. "And also, one must live with the fact that the world is not fair -- none get what they deserve, they merely get what they get. Such is the nature of blind fate, and none felt it more harshly than Loki of the myths."

[scarred_grin]

"You're the first person I've met who really gets it," she says with a smile. "Most of the time people try to spin it as 'well, maybe they don't get what they deserve in this life, but in the one after' and I'm sorry but if your system of justice for the universe requires people to wait around and maybe in fifty years they die and then maybe they get punished for what they did, but only if they don't say the magic words first..."

She trails off with a chuckle. "We don't get what we deserve, good or bad. The universe doesn't care. It just is."

[ostro_goth]

"You are the first to understand what I mean by 'fate'," Teja says. "And yes, that is how I ever seen reality, even while still alive. Of course, none of my fellow Goths would understand me, so I mostly kept silent. It was enough to have them do as needed, in the end, and see them walk away alive as I lay dying."

[scarred_grin]

"My folks were fundies," she says. "I was raised to believe that there's some invisible cloud-cowboy who sees everything you do and everything you think, all the time. And if bad things happen to you, it's because you didn't pray hard enough or whatever. But if you're really bad, all you have to do is say that Satan made you do it, that you had a demon or something, and if you cry enough in public about it everything's fine. I could never reconcile that."

[ostro_goth]

"Religion," Teja says, grimly. "Yes, I got on the wrong side of it at a very young age, and it killed my parents. I have no time for Christianity."

[scarred_grin]

"My folks are still alive, far as I know," she says, "but I haven't seen them since they kicked me out, and I'm happy that way. What happened to yours? If you feel like talking about it, I mean. If you don't, that's fine."

[ostro_goth]

"They were Catholic, not Arian," Teja says, "and they were also cousins, which the Catholics forbade to marry. So the bishop of Florentia tried to force them to part, and declared me a bastard. My father went to appeal to the king, and when he returned, he found his homestead burned and his wife and son gone. My father searched, and found her locked away in a nunnery; he was killed trying to free her, and she then died in madness. Old Hildebrand, a friend of my father and my grandfather, even, found me in a monastery in Rome some time later, and freed me from there, and raised me with his own grand-children, an unrepentant heathen. I was not bothered with Christianity again."

[scarred_grin]

"I'm sorry," she says quietly, not that anything she can say or do could make up for it. "I love how it's not enough to differentiate between Christians and everybody else, but you get a dozen or so people together and they're their own splinter group and they hate everybody else, and that's some of the most vicious fighting. People who worry they're not good enough so they have to prove they're the godliest."

She shakes her head. "I like that you're an unrepentant heathen. That happens to be my favorite kind of person."

[ostro_goth]

"I believed in nothing, for much of my life," Teja says. "Darker things in my life killed all belief at the end of my teen-age years. But now, in this place, I would call myself an unrepentant heathen yet again, what with all the goddesses that smiled upon me with favour."

[scarred_grin]

"You should always believe in yourself, at least," she says. "It's a hard lesson, but then you can do anything. But I can sure see why the goddesses have given you their favor; I mean, if I had gifts to bestow..."

But she's not a goddess, and even as herself her powers are a bit limited.

[ostro_goth]

"I do not," Teja says. "I am merely a grim smith, but they have given me great gifts, that make me less grim."

As it is, Teja doubts that Pyrrha can pay her commission as it is. But that will not keep him from making it, and giving it to her. One day, she shall find something to recompense him.

[scarred_grin]

There's a reason Serafina's the one who pays the bills, not Pyrrha.

"I haven't known you that long but already I could make a list," she says. "I may be biased though, I do like a man who can discuss philosophy. But you're real easy to talk you, you got a great sense of humor even if it is on the dark side, all this time you've treated me like a normal person--I could talk about my drinking and you didn't get preachy, and you also didn't get all 'hey, drunk chick, I bet she's easy' like a lot of guys do."

It's the main reason she talks about her drinking--to see what reaction she gets.

"And you got a gentle touch. And--I'm not gonna say you should smile more, 'cause I hate when people say it to me, you know, you do whatever's in your heart. But I will say, it's nice when you do. I could go on."

[ostro_goth]

"One does not owe the world a smile," Teja says. "I did not cherish it when the careless drinkers among my fellow warriors clapped me on the shoulder and said, 'Smile for once, Teja, we won this battle!', and I do not think any tried that twice. No man or woman owes the world a smile; it is a gift given of free will, or withheld as one sees fit. I ever thought so."

[scarred_grin]

"Apparently all women everywhere owe men smiles anytime they ask, like we're supposed to beautify the world or something. And I think men who ask for it are assholes, so when they do ask, I give 'em one of these."

She demonstrates an impressively unsettling Kubrick stare, with a smile showing a few too many teeth (including her particularly prominent canines).

"It's technically a smile."

[ostro_goth]

"It is the smile of the big monster cat from the dawn of time, seconds before it eats you," Teja says, approving. "And they deserve it, for their presumption and rudeness."

[scarred_grin]

"I can go a really long time without blinking, too," she chuckles. "I used to do that a lot to win money in bars, back home, staring contests like that. So I know I can stare people down until they look away."

Pyrrha's defensive tricks are small but they are many.

[ostro_goth]

"Fights with cheese graters, stares everybody down," Teja says, approving even more. "I fear we actually had no people like you when I was alive."