(Untitled)

[tragic_mask]

Melpomene is slouched in a corner chair with a good vantage point, gazing across the bar every so often, before she looks back down at her poetry tome.

In one hand, she cups a golden glass of Atlantean. With the other, she taps the arm of her chair (clearly more impatient than her dark eyes reveal).

You might want to tell her that the book she's

Comments

[tragic_mask]

Melpomene looks down before she looks up, realizing her mistake then giving a sharp smile.

"That's what you think," she deadpans. "I'm actually just increasing my upside-down-reading dexterity."

[tragic_mask]

She flips the book closed, forgetting the pretense.

"And who might you be?"

[ikissdhimbck]

[ooc: Almost certainly headed to slowtime land, but I couldn't pass up tagging in! Yay, Melpomene! :)]

Kate saunters over, a small (but sincere) smile tugging at her lips.

"I hear it's easier when the words are right-side-up."

[tragic_mask]

Melpomene looks up, startled from her far-off gaze by a familiar voice.

"Kate," she says, warmly, and glances down at the pages.

"I should never doubt a teacher's word when it comes to words."

[ikissdhimbck]

"I didn't get all that fancy schoolin' for nothin'."

It's been two years -- thanks to the bar -- since the last time she stood in a classroom. Still, she calls her teacher.

"How're you?" she grins. "It's been an age."

[tragic_mask]

"It has," she says, a little too heavily.

"I feel more and more connected to this place, the more I'm away from it."

[mechanicalswans]

Not far away, a forge demigod lurks into view.

The cuts to his face are mostly healed, enough that they don't still need bandages, but still faintly visible. He has a cigarette in one hand and a glass of Atlantean in the other. He's not particularly trying to call attention to himself, but his distraction is almost palpable. And, well, the scent of his particular kind of cigarettes is pretty distinctive.

[tragic_mask]

Melpomene catches sight of him over the book she isn't reading. (As if she hasn't been waiting.)

She clasps her book and Atlantean and approaches his chair. As she nears, his familiar scent becomes more distinct-- not only of his cigarettes, but of the sweat and blood of the forge and, faintly, of sorrow.

"I've been hearing so many stories about you lately," she says, with quiet restraint, "I thought I should come verify them at the source."

[mechanicalswans]

"They're mostly true, I should think," he says quietly, looking up at her, "but not all. They're never all true."

He'd been hoping she would be there--on the one hand, she is a comfort; and on the other, if he has to go through what he has been through, who better to understand it?

"But I'm afraid that we'll have to reschedule that trip we'd talked about."

[tragic_mask]

"Trouble at home?" she asks, settling into a nearby chair.

"And dragons, I hear."