(a quiet afternoon)

[scarred_grin]

It's hard being the other one.

With all the drama and arguing going on in her life, all Pyrrha wants is some peace and quiet, somewhere tension-free where she can work on her latest project. Which is why she's down in the bar today (dressed down, tiny shorts, faded Bauhaus t-shirt, sneakers, no makeup except her tattooed-on eyeliner) with the nervous manner of a kid whose parents are fighting in the other room.

But her latest project is something to see--a scale model of a few blocks of the city streets where she used to live, handmade and intricately detailed, a set for a tiny photo shoot. She's made people, too, to inhabit this set, with a sort of 50s-B-movie feel to them; the idea is to capture just the right angle so the destruction going on outside the Window appears to be the sky over the city, with its residents freaking out accordingly.

Setting it up is slow-going, though, with a lot of hunching down, looking up and repositioning people, cars and props. How do claymationists do it?

Totally botherable.

Comments

[ostro_goth]

"Greetings, Pyrrha," Teja says, coming up behind her. "Those are truly very small: - what are they for?"

[scarred_grin]

"Hey, you," she says, looking up at him with a tired smile. "I'm gonna do some pictures--I want it to look like a movie, like all the people are freaking out because there's some horrible thing in the sky. But after I take the pictures I'll have to show them in reverse order, so all of that gets closer and bigger instead of how it really is."

It makes sense.

[ostro_goth]

"You look tired," Teja says. "Are there problems?" There are always problems, of some sort, with Loki. It follows him around, apparently.

[scarred_grin]

"Yeah. I, uh..."

She glances around, and lowers her voice. Not like there's anybody to overhear or to care.

"I've kinda been having some roommate problems lately. Everything's all... all tense and angry."

[ostro_goth]

Teja barely doesn't roll his eyes, or sigh in fond exasperation.

"What have they done now?" he asks, still peering at the little figures.

[scarred_grin]

One of the figures looks a lot like Pyrrha, standing on the stoop of one of the buildings with a young man (whose hair has a blond streak where hers is red). He has a hand on her shoulder and is pointing up at the sky; she has a hand over her mouth as she stares up where he is pointing.

"Fina and her gentleman caller are... I don't know what's going on with them but it sounds like they had a fight or something. You know, he keeps bringing her presents like he's trying to make up for something. Things like that."

She leans down again, looking up at the window from the vantage point of her little people.

"Mostly my problem's with Nick. He's being an asshole again and I don't feel safe."

[ostro_goth]

Teja puts his hand on her shoulder, as if mimicking that little figure.

"I would offer to speak with him sternly, and remind him that causing you problems is not a good idea..." he says.

Which of course makes no sense: - Nick is Loki, also!

[scarred_grin]

"Fina threw him out last night," she says.

"See, he thinks my room should be his--he says I don't do anything, and why should I get my own room and he has to sleep on the couch? And he's not allowed to use Fina's bathroom, so he has to use mine, which means I'm not allowed to lock my door, even when I'm in there sleeping. And I was in there last night, in bed, and he came in and started ripping up some of my pictures and yelling about how he's more important than I am. And I mean--what can I do? I can't stop him, 'cause I don't want to draw his attention, you know? He's bigger than I am and he's unstable."

And a trained soldier. Which has a lot to do with it.

"And Fina came in and she was yelling about how he needs to know his place, and she dragged him out into the hall--she's stronger than she looks!--and locked him out for the night. But she didn't kick him out permanently. I know he'll be back."

[ostro_goth]

Teja privately wonders how those different avatars of the same god may quarrel in such a manner, as they can never quite exist at the same time?

He must ask Loki when he next sees him in pure, self-aware Loki shape.

"If he does that again, hesitate not to offer him a sleeping place in the cells," Teja says.

However that works.

[scarred_grin]

It's complicated. And it doesn't help that Pyrrha tends to confuse Fina and Loki, when Loki is acting in some way other than she is used to with her demon.

"I'm not going anywhere near him," she says. "Look, whatever he's been through has obviously given him issues and that sucks and everything--I feel bad for him--but I've known guys like that. I've dated guys like that. I've been beat up by guys like that. I'm just staying away."

[ostro_goth]

"Yes," Teja says, "Urquhart, the big Scotsman who killed me over with a crossbow bolt made of ice, a few winters ago, in the pay and employ of an evildoer who used to frequent this place: - yes, Urquhart is like that as well. I know whereof you speak. It can be treated, but perhaps, in Nick's case, simply getting rid of him would be easier."

Loki does shed his avatars on occasion, and it seems that Nick is simply not working out as one such.

[scarred_grin]

She frowns at that, looking up at him through the streets of her tiny city.

Never mind what's going on in her life, and never mind that what he's talking about is in the past. He's mentioned being killed before, but getting names and specifics makes it more real somehow, so it's almost like hearing it for the first time.

"You need to not get yourself killed again," she says quietly. "I know that with your work and all, being security, you'll have to deal with guys like that, but... I don't know what I'd do."

[ostro_goth]

"You'd fetch Demeter to restore my memory of this place, when I walk back through the door as if from my first death, some days later," Teja says. "But indeed, it is bothersome, and I would not do it again. For one thing, I would lose the four cats and the dragon upon my arm, which I had made permanent, before your design faded."

He bends to kiss her, for her concern has touched him right in the deepest seat of his feelings.

[scarred_grin]

"I could always draw it again, if I had to," she says, leaning against him. "But I don't want to have to do that. I love you the way you are, with your memories and everything. And it hurts to get killed, not that you need me to tell you that. I don't want anything bad to happen to you."

And she doesn't want him to forget her.

[ostro_goth]

"I promise I shall try not to die again," Teja says, putting his arm around her.

[scarred_grin]

"It's weird," she says. "Like, you're doing okay with your life and everything, and then you meet somebody and--you know, without even trying to--"

She gestures vaguely, trying to come up with words.

"You know, like a tree growing next to a fence, and with time it just kinda engulfs it. It just happens. It's like that."

[ostro_goth]

Teja tightens his embrace. "It went fast, but it is as we were made for each other, the big-G-Goth and the small-g-goth, to fit the holes and strangenesses in each other's lives."

[scarred_grin]

"You're too good to me," she says, muffled against his shoulder. "But that's okay. I can live with that. It feels good, and if I can make you even half as happy as you make me..."

It's good to be accepted. To know that no matter how strange she may be, he doesn't seem to mind.

[ostro_goth]

"No, I am merely me, loving as I am made to," Teja says. "And indeed, you make me very happy -- no matter the strangeness that may arise, as we are of this place."

[scarred_grin]

"You're pretty much the most adorable thing ever," she says, "and I hope you know that. And I've been making you some more socks, so you'd better not start getting sick of me or anything--you're stuck with me and that's all there is to it."

[ostro_goth]

"Good," Teja says. "I do not wish it otherwise. Would you marry me?"

[scarred_grin]

"Course I would," she says, a little surprised that he'd even ask. "I mean, as long as things don't get weird with..."

She taps her forehead. Who knows how demons feel about these things?

[ostro_goth]

"His agreement provided, yes," Teja says. "So, let us do that, then. When is a good time for such things?"

[scarred_grin]

"...I don't really have anything planned," she says. "I don't really do anything that can't get moved around--so whenever works for you. Just let me know and I'll be there."

[ostro_goth]

"Marriage needs witnesses," Teja says, "at least that was the way of my people; the law needed to be present, so marriages and betrothals often happened at assemblies, when the judges were present. Some friends of mine declared they wished to meet you; those would be witnesses enough, to satisfy the law as I know it. How do your people understand the law of such things?"