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]

"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."

[scarred_grin]

"You probably did," she says. "They probably just weren't as lucky as I've been, got themselves killed pretty young. I've come close, a few times. It may be cultural, too."

[ostro_goth]

"It may be, at that," Teja says. "Men and women were very separate among us, and each side kept to its place."

[scarred_grin]

She can't help but laugh a bit. "My folks were like that too, that's how I grew up. But it didn't take so well, in my case."

[ostro_goth]

"So you left," Teja says. "But our world was small -- it was hardly possible to leave. Where would one go that would be safe, and not among enemies that despised you?"

[scarred_grin]

"I got thrown out," she says, "but I did choose to leave after that. I could've cried, could've begged them to take me back, could've stuffed everything about myself into a box under the bed and just passed myself off as whatever they wanted, but I didn't want to. If I have to choose between being safe and being myself..."

She shrugs lightly. "I'd die young if it meant living the way I wanted."

[ostro_goth]

"I was never free to choose the open road, the gutter, or even death," Teja says. "I ever had a duty that kept me from being anything else."

[scarred_grin]

"And that's why I don't mind being a nobody," she says. "The most I ever need to worry about the things I do affecting anybody else is one other person, and that's only when I've got a relationship, and only if it's a strong enough relationship that I care enough to fight for it. I can't imagine being responsible for other people."

[ostro_goth]

"I was born and bred to it," Teja says. "And then, at the end, I was the only one who was still there and could do what was needed, so of course I did."

[scarred_grin]

"You chose to," she says. "You could be born and bred to something and still not do it, not put your heart into it, not care. But you did."

[ostro_goth]

"Either that, or death," Teja says. "And I was persuaded that my death should be made to count. I merely did what was needed until that time."

[scarred_grin]

"You say that so modestly," she says. "I'm sorry, it's just--humility's a rare thing where I come from. It's really refreshing."

[ostro_goth]

"I did not like it," Teja says. "I had rather been dead, after what had happened. I would rather have been a smith and a skald, as I had no choice but be alive, than a warrior. But that was what was needed, so I poured my soul into it and would laugh in battle. I would forget myself and become one with the blade. It was not a good thing for a man's soul, but I was there, and able to do it."

[scarred_grin]

"And it's a part of what you are now," she says, watching him. "Even if you don't live that way anymore, it's still there, still helps to shape you. Would you go back and change it if you could?"