(no subject)

[the_cupbearer]

Ganymede comes in looking rather different than he has been: he's dressed in dark jeans, black boots, a shirt similarly colored with its hood up, face unpainted and unshaven. He sits down with a leather portfolio, making notes in quick handwriting, narrow, slanted and elegant.

It's time for a new identity, though he rather likes the one he has; Ganymede liked to be prepared either way. He sighs, and checks his watch, the hammered metal band glinting in the light. He looks unnatural, sharply featured as he asks for a glass of wine, lowering the deep hood and pulling his long braid, wound with gold, from the fabric.

Feel free to bother him.

Comments

[just_cant_lose]

He looks like he might have a vaguely interesting story to tell, to Jim's eyes. And Jim, as ever, is restless and looking for distractions, so hearing it might be fine.

He stops at the table and tilts his head, before saying, 'hello.'

[the_cupbearer]

"Hello, Jim," comes the reply, as Ganymede tilts his face up to see the man.

"Been a while."

[just_cant_lose]

'Ganymede. It has.'

Jim looks much the same. Well-groomed as ever, expensive-but-casual clothes, the Irish accent a permanent fixture now.

'You looked stressed. Do you want a drink?'

[the_cupbearer]

"Do I?" he asks, laying down the pen from writing (there are words already looped across the page; a name, city, year and day and month, more) and letting his mouth cock up into a half-smile.

"I'd love a drink," Ganymede replies, though he never clarifies if indeed he is stressed or not. "You don't look like much has changed."

[just_cant_lose]

Jim doesn't have enough data to know if the perceived stress levels are real or not, but Ganymede certainly has more purpose about him than the previous times they've spoken. It's an irrelevant detail anyway. He sits down, and waves a rat over.

'Things have changed a bit. I died. But as it turns out, that hasn't made a massive difference to anything.'

He sets his empty glass down on the rat's tray, and orders another vodka and lime.

'What'll you have?'

[the_cupbearer]

That he has to consider a moment: he's by no means solely a wine drinker, but it's his norm. Then he smiles, and orders absinthe. "Czech," he says, "Or a Sazerac if that's easier."

[just_cant_lose]

Jim looks amused.

'Are you going to do the fire ritual with it?'

Easier to drink it the traditional way, he would think, but eh. It's nothing to do with him. Vodka is far more straightforward.

[the_cupbearer]

"No, I just like eating the sugar cube," he says. He doesn't bother with the fire half the time, or the water. "If it's strong absinthe, it doesn't particularly matter how much altering you do."

He cocks his head to invite Jim to sit down. "So what hasn't dying changed?"

[just_cant_lose]

'Me.'

Not that he thought it would, barring the vague hope that there'd be oblivion and he wouldn't have to interact with people again. He lounges comfortably on his chair, and doesn't look bothered by talking about it.

'It's just like being alive, only I can't leave here.'

Eh. He half-shrugs. It is what it is.

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"Hello, Ganymede!"

That'S Ragnar Lothbrok, approaching with a smile.

[the_cupbearer]

"Ragnar," Ganymede says, smile gracing his face as he looks up to see his adopted daughter's actual father coming over, tilting his wineglass between his fingers. "You seem happy."

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"I'm glad that my Gyda has found a good new life with you," Ragnar says. "She's been babbling happily about her new school, and all the things she is learning."

[the_cupbearer]

"At the rate she's going she may soon outstrip me," Ganymede says. "She's a joy to have around. You have an exceptional daughter," he compliments.

"Your festival Jul is coming up, is it not?"

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"Yes, along with Christian Christmas," Ragnar says.

[the_cupbearer]

"Neither of us are christians, though," he notes. "Gyda or myself. Or not that she's told me." He doesn't tend to celebrate much when he's alone; he might light a bonfire this year, but he's not sure.

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"So it's jól for you, too," Ragnar nods.

[the_cupbearer]

"Close enough. I celebrate at the solstice, usually," he says. "But that is rather malleable."

[like_quicksilver]

Gyda noticed the change as well. She knew he changed identities and places, so it wasn't a completely stretch to image that-she'd just never seen the process.

She comes in wearing modern trousers and sweater, draping herself from behind a chair next to him. For a moment, she does resemble her father in manner. "Hello-does your phone work here?"

One of her new friends, Hannah, showed her something after school and it's had her giggling ever since.

[the_cupbearer]

Ganymede thinks, privately, she ought to have noticed the change when he stopped shaving his face every morning. It's not nearly as full a beard as any of the men she'd known in her own world, but Ganymede isn't incapable of having it, he just keeps it relatively short. And he regards her splaying in the chair, looking utterly natural in modern clothes, with great amusement, showing on his face.

"Hello, Gyda. It does, though not well. And not online."

[like_quicksilver]

She did notice, but it was the clothing that drove the point especially home. One or the other couldn't have meant much, just a change in something, but both, that had to be something.

"Pity, I wanted to show you that..internet site where people post videos? You recall halloween, when those brutes tried to steal our candy and I beat one of them up, one of the adults captured the event on his camera phone."

By now she knew how much modern people relied on their phones, but it never occurred to her that someone was filming. "Hannah showed me the video after school was done."

[the_cupbearer]

"Youtube," he says, following along the story she's telling. He does certainly recall Halloween: it had been quite memorable for once in his life. Gyda had been a shieldmaiden, and quite an accurate one by all accounts, even when several teenagers had attempted to rob her of her candy bag. Ganymede had been there, and had watched her (laughing at said teenagers the entire time) chase one down and pummel him until he gave up the spoils.

He hadn't reprimanded her for that at all, too amused to think about it. He smiles now, and sets the pen down to listen. "Did Hannah recognize it was you?" he asks. "I'll have to look it up when we go home."

[like_quicksilver]

"She recognized my costume, yes." The grin didn't leave her face when she leaned in to speak with him. "She was looking up videos with jump scares to show Talia and saw one labeled 'Tiny Viking jumps would be candy-thief'."

Maybe she should've been ashamed of her actions getting filmed, but in truth Gyda couldn't bring herself to feel the least amount of it. Even if the teachers saw, what were they going to do-it was off school grounds and though she did pummel the teens it was more their pride that was hurt then anything serious.

[the_cupbearer]

Not only off school grounds, off the school's continent at that. And Ganymede hadn't heard anything to lead him to complain of the school's treatment of Gyda. "You did quite the number on him, I seem to recall," he teased. "Bloody nose, torn costume, tiny fist-shaped bruises all over."

He can only imagine; he hadn't checked up on the boy. "Quite the little warrior."

[like_quicksilver]

She shrugged. The young men were able to walk away with their limbs attached, that was as far as she knew and was willing to acknowledge. "You're exaggerating-I mostly hit them with my shield, not my fists."

Also her sword, not that it made much of a difference, given the shield was made of wood. They were just lucky the sword was blunted and not likely to cut anyone. "I would be a poor viking if I just let them get away with it."

[the_cupbearer]

"Your shield was oak wood and had brass nails in it," he says with a laugh: he saw no point in mandating that she carry something that would do her no good. Neither of them did things by halves, though he had made sure the sword wasn't metal.

"You made yourself an excellent viking, Gyda. Successful raids and all."