(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]

"We need not mention gods or demons, unless he makes that his condition for his permission," Teja says. "I would not wish for him to be left out."

Loki feels left out far too often, as it is.

[scarred_grin]

"Okay, good," she says. "I--you know, if people ask, I won't lie. And if the subject comes round, and I trust the person I'm talking to, I may even bring it up on my own. But if he doesn't care... I'd feel weird. 'Yeah, hi, I'm getting married. Girl with a demon in her head. But he's a nice demon, but kinda slutty, but... yeah, that's me. I haven't met any of you but hi.' It'd be awkward."

[ostro_goth]

"I would spare you all awkwardness with them," Teja says. "When Atton first suggested they would all meet you, I made it my condition they should not try and embarrass you."

[scarred_grin]

"Is that what they normally do?" she asks. "If your friends are into some kind of hazing thing, that's fine, I can take it. I don't want to be treated any different from anybody else--I just don't want, you know, pointing and laughing about things I have no control over."

[ostro_goth]

"They do not haze, point, or laugh," Teja says. "Atton is somewhat pranksterish. But he is Atton. You shall see. Guppy, or Will, or any of the others, are much more harmless."

[scarred_grin]

"I think I can handle pranks," she says.

As long as they're not mean-spirited, anyway.

"Oh, and I met Yrael the other day--he was really nice. We talked about cats and New Orleans and food and stuff."

[ostro_goth]

"You did?" Teja says. "Then you know one of my best friends already!"

He gets up.

"I shall, in any case, go fetch us some wine now, for this calls for a good one. We may be both not quite alive, and in strange places, but we promised to stick together, and have whatever future such as us can eke off the universe. I think that merits celebration!"

[scarred_grin]

"I'd like that," she says with a smile. "And when I'm done with this, with my pictures here, we can maybe get some dinner too--I could maybe cook for you, even."

Life--or existence, or whatever you'd call it--works out funny sometimes. But it still works out.

[ostro_goth]

"I would like that," Teja says, turning towards the bar to find just the wine that would do this opportunity justice.

[scarred_grin]

He pretty much just made her day.

And probably her year, and maybe even her decade. Needless to say, her mood is a lot better than it had been before he'd come over; and she hurries a bit more with her setup, wanting to get it all done so she can get to the celebrating.

[winter_arrows]

Well, well.

The mouth-piercings, the red hair--Skaði has no doubt that this is Loki. But of all the shapes he could've taken, why one so... so scrawny, so pierced, so tattooed? Does he enjoy pain that much?

"You've got a lot of nerve, being here," she says, approaching the table.

[scarred_grin]

It doesn't even register to Pyrrha that anyone's speaking to her, at first. She's concentrating so hard on her little city, and anyway she doesn't know Skaði. Or anyone else who'd be so hostile to her here, for that matter.

"...hi?"

[winter_arrows]

She stares down at him.

"Is this how you intend to destroy me? By building toys?"

She wouldn't put it past him, of course--who knows what sort of magic he might be doing, with this.

But it looks so stupid--but then, so did the business with the garter.

[scarred_grin]

"...destroy you?"

She starts to laugh, but this lady is serious. Serious and pissed off and maybe a little crazy-looking.

"Look, I'm sorry, but you got me mixed up with somebody else. I don't know you. I'm sure not trying to destroy you. Or anybody else, either."

[winter_arrows]

"There's no mistake," she says, taking another step closer, looming over Loki and the little city.

She's very imposing naturally, and even more so when she tries. Giantess blood.

"Look at you. Look at your hair, look at your mouth."

[scarred_grin]

She reaches up to touch her hair.

It's unremarkable today, all her own and not particularly big. Sure, it's pulled back in a sloppy way, but who cares about that? It's a quiet afternoon and she doesn't have to impress anybody.

"What about them?"

[winter_arrows]

Right. He's still hiding, pretending to be just some ordinary person here in the bar.

Afraid of being discovered.

"Loki," she says, making no effort to be particularly quiet. "You scar-mouthed horsefucking whelp, you can't keep hiding--if you're going to threaten me, you'd better be prepared to fear me."

[scarred_grin]

...what.

"Lady, I don't know who you are," she says, "and I don't know if I should be flattered or what, but--I'm a goth. I used to date a guy who did piercings. It's not like anybody held me down and sewed my mouth shut; it's just jewelry. And before you ask, these aren't my natural hair colors either."

[winter_arrows]

"Just shut up."

He's so maddening, and always has been. The way he doesn't get angry, just stays calm and keeps provoking her--that's why she's tried to kill him, all those times.

"Come outside and we'll settle this. Or are you afraid to face me where security can't save you?"

[scarred_grin]

At the mention of security, her glance flicks briefly to the bar, where Teja is getting the wine. She doesn't want to drag him into whatever this is--she wants to be self-sufficient, she wants to be able to handle her own problems.

Even when those problems are scary strange women who want to fight her, for reasons she can't even imagine.

"Look," she says, quietly but firmly. "I don't know what you're talking about, and I don't want to fight you. Just... just go away. Just leave me alone."

[winter_arrows]

"Or what?"

She may not know what Loki might do, but she is not afraid. She's got nothing to lose.

"You'll come at me with your little dolls, this time? Fuck your little dolls."

And in one sudden movement, too quick and too unexpected for Pyrrha to stop her, she scoops up the city-model and hurls it against the wall.

[scarred_grin]

Pyrrha gasps, bringing her hand up to cover her mouth and staring at the remains of her artwork--the splintered pieces of the buildings, the figures scattered among the wreckage, one toy car rolling slowly away across the floor.

"I spent three weeks working on that," she whispers, crawling over to see if there's anything she can salvage.

[winter_arrows]

Skaði smiles, unpleasantly. Somehow it makes her teeth look extra-sharp.

She's practiced that smile. Centuries of striking terror into the hearts of her opponents in battle, or just people unlucky enough to run into her when she's in one of her moods.

Like she is today.

"Maybe you should have built it sturdier, then."

[scarred_grin]

"Three weeks," she says again.

The buildings are toast--sure, she could try to piece them back together, but they were just painted balsa wood. The breaks and repairs would show. She'll just have to build it over again.

The people seem to be okay, for the most part, but their world is gone.

"That was my house. I used to live there."

[ostro_goth]

Teja has been choosing the wine carefully, finally deciding on a white Falernian from the time of Elagabalus' reign - if Pyrrha cannot appreciate that detail, then Loki, observing, can - but when he hears the crash of the model smashing, he turns. And freezes.

"What are you doing?" he demands of Skaði, staring at the destruction.