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]

"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?"

[ostro_goth]

"No," Teja says. "My people needed me, dark as I was. I would not go back and unmake who I became."

[scarred_grin]

"And here you are now," she says, "with your darkness, and your freedom to spend your time making things instead of going to war. It's quite a journey."

[ostro_goth]

"It was," Teja says. "It shows how much time and place will shape us, after all. Here, I am unbending from all that I turned myself into from necessity, as I was alive."

[scarred_grin]

"Well, if you ever want any company with that unbending, I'm your girl," she says. "I don't do forced cheer, but I'm really good at relaxation, and helping people forget things for a while."

Particularly with her ability to talk. A lot.

[ostro_goth]

"I can see that," Teja says, deciding that inviting her to his bath for some relaxation and ogling of holes upon the flesh might be interesting, but will surely have to wait for awhile.

Despite Tanya Adams, despite everything that happened around the time of the Allpocalypse, Teja would not be thought of as 'easy'.

[scarred_grin]

"Can I draw you while you work?" she asks. "Would that be weird? Working with metal, it's like... you've got all the classical elements right there, and you're in control of all of them. I've never seen it done in person before, just on TV, and that was probably fake."

[ostro_goth]

"You may," Teja says. "Can you yet say which designs you wish to be made first?"

[scarred_grin]

"...well, it depends on price," she says with a chuckle. "I don't exactly have a job here. But I don't back home, either; I mostly pay for things in trade. I've got some talents, like art and cleaning, and I'm a pretty good cook but nobody really needs that with the bar here. I'm a quick learner too, so, uh... yeah. If there's anything you'd need."

Her strongest skills are alas her least marketable, unless you count stealing, which she hasn't really been doing here.

[ostro_goth]

"Worry about that later," Teja says. "Pick the one you want most!"

[scarred_grin]

"I think," she says, looking at the sketches again, "if I'm going with the demon thing... this one."

She points to the barbed wire sketch.

"You could leave it a little rusty, too. I'm up to date on my shots."

[ostro_goth]

"I'm not using iron, but incorruptible steel," Teja says. "All else would be bad for the piece itself. I can corrode grooves and edges on purpose, though, with acids -- so they would look somewhat work and rusty?"

[scarred_grin]

"See, this is why you're the expert," she grins. "I do things the cheap-and-dirty way, but you actually know what you're doing. That sounds perfect."

[ostro_goth]

"Then I shall do it so."

[scarred_grin]

"You know, I'm gonna cook for you anyway," she says. "I know you said not to worry, and I'm not worried, but it doesn't seem quite fair and it's not like I'm doing much else with my time. You don't have to like it, you don't even have to eat it, but it's gonna happen. I'm just warning you now."

[ostro_goth]

Teja does give a little chuckle at it. "You do seem determined," he says. "And I shall gladly accept it. Also, the cats get all the tuna, on my tab, which they ask for -- it is a deal we have, you might say, fro the apocalypse. So if the seem to ask you, just give it to them, I owe them."

[scarred_grin]

"When I put my mind to something, it happens," she grins. "Do you have any favorites, or things you absolutely hate? I mostly do Puerto Rican and Swedish, but I used to live with a guy who was on some weird raw-foods vegan thing and you know, I don't judge."

She might get bored with that, but she won't judge.

"Are all the cats here yours?"

[ostro_goth]

"I have no preferences," Teja says, "but I like simple fare, fresh seafood and game, greens and bread and cheese and herbs, and no fancy sauces or spices that kill the taste. I do not like sweet things much. And I would rather not drink anything that contains vodka."

[scarred_grin]

"Are you ever in luck, then," she says. "I tend to put a lot of spices in things when I cook for myself, but for you I'll tone it down. Most of what I know how to make's pretty simple; it has to be, 'cause I got it all memorized."

Cooking is a very useful skill for somebody in her position.

[ostro_goth]

"I am sure you will find good things to make for me," Teja says, amused.

Ultimately, it does not matter much to him. But she might enjoy to get him to care.

[scarred_grin]

"You know how it is," she says. "There's no real reason to go to any trouble if you're just cooking for yourself, and Fina doesn't eat solid food, and if you bake cookies or something and bring them down to the bar to share people look at you like eating them'll turn them into frogs or something. But I mean, really--if I could do that with food, I'd have a lot more money than I do."

[ostro_goth]

"Fina doesn't -- what?" Teja asks.

[scarred_grin]

"I've never seen her eat anything," she says. "I get that some people don't like cooking, so they eat all their meals downstairs at the bar, but if you have a kitchen, you'd figure you'd at least keep bread so you can make toast or something. Something you can eat if you get hungry but don't want to go anywhere, you know? But there's nothing, just orange juice and alcohol. Maybe she's on the model diet."

[ostro_goth]

"How would any live like that?" Teja says, shaking his head. "In my time, starvation was a weapon, not a thing people would incur of their own free will."

[scarred_grin]

"There are people who don't eat, voluntarily, or they make themselves sick so they lose weight. They say it's a control thing."

She shrugs lightly. "I don't know. I got problems but that's never been one; I eat all the time and I don't like throwing up."