(Subverting gender since the world was born)

[scarred_grin]

[OOMs: Night One, in which Loki plays bingo and Weyland decides to stay for a while (which is a euphemistic way of saying the story's nothing but sex and drugs), followed immediately by Loki's School for Wayward Girls, lesson one: gender and strength (no warnings there, much to Skaði's disappointment), and immediately following that: action is go]

But Pyrrha doesn't know about any of that, and she's the shape in which Loki comes down to the bar tonight. She's more subdued than usual, but you wouldn't know it to look at her--between her ridiculous boots and the crimped-and-teased-and-AquaNetted big-goth-hair she's got going on, she hits just over seven feet tall today, and that's not counting the feathers she's got stuck in her hair (that admittedly look a bit like a bird lost a fight with her hair, but she's okay with that). She's also got her usual tiny shorts, a faded Love & Rockets shirt (band not comic) and a small backpack she'd made to look like a cartoonish cute stuffed zombie doll (the zipper's in its neck).

Anyway, she does her drunken-marionette-runway-stomp up to the bar, to order herself a cherry coke slushie (with an umbrella) and a chicken sandwich with fries. She's very hungry for some reason.

Botherable.

[open until forever but slows are <3]

Comments

[ostro_goth]

"I think it is more in your time," Teja says. "Demeter gave me access to a place, in the time she now comes in from."

[scarred_grin]

"I'd still make myself more presentable if you wanted me to," she says. "At least for a little while."

[ostro_goth]

"You need not," Teja says. "People are colourful there, also."

[scarred_grin]

"Oh, good," she says. "I've never been there, so I don't know how it is, but I've seen a lot of Italian movies and the people there are all classy, you know, fancy shoes and nice suits and hats and all. And I don't really look like that."

Or they're westerns, but she doesn't exactly look like that either.

[ostro_goth]

"They do have a sense of style," Teja says. "But so do you."

[scarred_grin]

"A very different one," she says with a chuckle. "Anyway you've only ever seen me dressed casual. When I get dressed up to go out somewhere, it's more impressive."

Most people wouldn't wear boots like she's got just to do what amounts to glorified lounging around the house, though.

[ostro_goth]

"Do not wear anything that might tangle in the moving parts, or be singed by the exhaust pipe," Teja says.

Practicality comes first, for such things.

[scarred_grin]

"...probably means I gotta wear real pants, huh," she says, glancing down at her mostly-bare legs. "I do own some, I just don't like to wear them except when it's cold out, and since I don't go outside much and the temperature's just fine in the bar, I haven't worn 'em in ages."

[ostro_goth]

"You might wish to wear leather trousers," Teja says. "They help against brief, hot accidental touches of parts one ought not to touch. There is a reason why those that ride motor-cycles wear leather. It is armour."

[scarred_grin]

"I'll have to get some of those," she says. "I mostly just have jeans--well, and fake leather, but that would just melt. And that would hurt."

[ostro_goth]

"Worse than if you wore fabric, or nothing," Teja says. "But I am sure that the bar can provide what you need."

[scarred_grin]

"I'll need to find somebody to buy some of my work then," she says. "I'm trying not to put anything on Fina's tab that's not absolutely necessary, like food and things, and she... well, she doesn't approve of people having fun, I think. Or at least not me. It just seems to make her mad."

[ostro_goth]

"I shall get you such trousers, then, so we need not wait too long," Teja says.

[scarred_grin]

"You need to stop being so nice to me," she says. "I might start getting the wrong idea or something."

It's said in a mostly lighthearted tone, but there's a nervousness there.

[ostro_goth]

"Or it just might be the right idea?" Teja says, giving her a look and a raised eyebrow.

He would not be so forward had he not spoken to Loki himself; he liked Pyrrha greatly before, but knowing that she's an avatar of Loki's, also, in addition to herself, gives him the impetus to try and act on his liking.

After all, his people do not consider Loki evil, merely a trickster who has skills that are needed, also, among warriors that are overly straightforward.

[scarred_grin]

"Usually when people are nice to me, I mean really nice, it's right before something bad happens," she says quietly. "And I--I don't want anything bad to happen, not yet. I like you, I like spending time with you, and I don't want to have to worry that things are going to go bad."

[ostro_goth]

"No, indeed, I do not hope for things to go bad, and will keep them from doing so, one puny dead mortal up against all of fate," Teja says.

Then, to make sure he hasn't confused her (he couldn't possibly confuse Loki with that sentence, but Pyrrha, maybe, he estimates) he adds, "I doubt there is a jinx on you which would cause that; and while I know that man may not rail at reality and win, I do trust the sun to rise in the morning, and things to fall down."

[scarred_grin]

"It's not a jinx," she says, "it's more that... well, I get mixed up with people who don't exactly have my best interests at heart. One minute they're being nice to me, and the next they're trying to kill me, or leaving me in the woods, or--"

She shakes her head.

"That was only two things, by the way. I didn't lie to you about the demon the other day, that subject never came up at all."

[ostro_goth]

"Why should I do such a thing?" Teja says. "Leave you in the woods, or kill you?"

Pause.

"You were setting me a trap, then?"

[scarred_grin]

"I don't know," she says. "But people do, more than you'd probably think. Maybe I just know a lot of unstable people, or maybe I'm a good target, I don't know."

Or some of both.

[ostro_goth]

"You have no reason to trust me any more than any man you meet, who might be your best friend, or an axe murderer," Teja admits. "Merely because I am me and say so is no reason to assume I am a good man."

Pause.

"When I was alive, many assumed that I was fearsome, and I did my best to strengthen that impression, as it worked for my purposes."

[scarred_grin]

"You can never really be sure you can trust anybody," she says. "Sometimes you get burned, and sometimes you don't. I've had some bad things happen to me, but I don't want to close down and not trust anybody. That's no kind of life."

[ostro_goth]

"I would assume," Teja says, "that I am more conventionally scary than most, which does not inversely mean that I am inherently trustworthy?"

[scarred_grin]

"How scary somebody is has nothing to do with what they could do to you," she says. "I've had the worst luck with guys who try really hard to make themselves seem harmless. But I mean, you're bigger and stronger than I am, and you're trained, so if you were going to try something..."

She shrugs.

"But I don't think you would."

[ostro_goth]

"Indeed, I would not," Teja says.

So the lie about the demon was not a trap? Or all that she proved was his not listening well enough?

"You cannot truly tell about any, but there are ways and means to gain experience of people -- and I would think you have much of that."

And some of it darker and stranger than it needs to be.