(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

[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.

[winter_arrows]

Oh, wonderful. It would have to be the one who'd broken up that awful lingerie-fight.

"You," she says. "I suppose you're just going to take his side again--but I didn't lay a hand on him. There's been no fighting here."

[scarred_grin]

Three weeks.

That was her neighborhood, that was Damian, that was her own strange little tribute to that era in her life, and now it is gone.

On top of everything else--the thing with Nick, yeah, but also all the times she's had to suppress her anger and pretend nothing is wrong, all the times she's had her world destroyed--

That is it.

With her bundle of little figures pulled from the rubble, she stands and stalks right up to Skaði.

"If you got a problem with me, you take it out on me, not my work. You want to hit me? Go on. Hit me."

[ostro_goth]

Teja is never far from his axe; especially not since he joined Security, and is once more responsible for what those around him do. But of course, he did not drag it along to order wine at the bar.

He steps sideways, towards the point where he left it by the fireplace, not taking his eyes off Skaði.

"Believe me, Skaði," he says, "you do not wish to do this. That is Pyrrha, my betrothed."

She is, now.

"Your quarrel is not with her, but with him whom she only knows as 'her demon'; she knows not even who you are, only that you have destroyed her artwork, which would enrage any that makes things with his hands: ask your father, if you know not how bad your misstep was. If you strike Pyrrha, you shall go to the cells again, and bide there like a dangerous she-wolf, until either of them comes to take you off my hands, promising me or any of my comrades that he will keep you in check from now on."

[winter_arrows]

When Weyland finds out about this--and he will--Skaði's going to go from merely being grounded to the bar, to being grounded to within fifteen feet of him at all times. Belated parenting is better than none?

"My father," she says with a dismissive gesture. "He's been hiding behind my father for a very long time, and now he's gotten himself into an unnatural marriage, so my father will have to protect him, and--"

She eyes Pyrrha, contemptuously. It's the most serious insult a person can give to a man of their people; it's never seemed to bother Loki before, but maybe he has the decency to feel ashamed now.

"And now you have another man, another unnatural marriage. Just look at you--you were never much of a man before, but this, this creature you've become, this nothing--"

[scarred_grin]

Oh, it doesn't bother Loki in the slightest. He's heard worse, and from people whose opinions he respects much more than he does Skaði's--not that he listens to those opinions either, but her words mean nothing to him at all. She's a child lashing out, and nothing more.

Pyrrha, on the other hand...

This is for all the times he couldn't protect her, everything she's had to go through because he was unwilling or unable to take a more direct approach with her. She doesn't deserve this, and Skaði is going to pay for hurting her.

"Shut up shut up SHUT UP!" she shouts, and with a burst of anger Pyrrha didn't even know she had, Skaði is briefly engulfed in flames.

It doesn't last long, and it doesn't leave any marks, but for a few moments it is excruciating.

And that's what happens when Pyrrha snaps.