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Sigrun is of a mind to get the heck out of the house and mingle with the masses for a while. Too much valkyrie business makes Sigrun a dull norse myth. So gone are the linen and wool homespun clothes, the leather doublets, and the axes. In their place, tight black jeans with tears in the knees and thighs, a black tank top, her favorite red flannel, and her denim patch jacket. Her long blond hair is worn in a series of elaborate braids, done close to the scalp. All that can really be seen of her at present is her back, since she's at the bar. The IWW wildcat prominently placed on her back, surrounded by the words 'An Injury to One is an Injury to All'.
Meanwhile, Sturm is just finishing up with a rather boring shift filled with checking IDs at the door, and not breaking up any fights because who the fuck gets rowdy at a club just after lunch. The position is temporary - just until they fill the position for real real - but it seems like the Jotunn has probably done this job for at least a night or two at every bar major bar in town. She steps out of the back, freshly changed back into her street clothes - a DIY tank made from a Dio concert tee, black cargo pants tucked into her boots, and her leather jacket slung over one shoulder.
She notices Sigrun at the bar - even from the back it's hard not to recognize someone who glows. She purses her lips, and approaches. "Yo."
Sigrun turns at the bar when Sturm approaches. She is likewise impossible to miss in a crowd, just for other reasons. Having to do with height and horns, for example. Her reaction to Sturm, perhaps due to repeated exposure, is definitely getting less overt and less intense. There's a brief pursing of the lips and a quick chin up of greeting, and that's the extent of the bad vibes. "Hey. You work here now? Anneliese hook you up?"
"Sorta. Dropped off an application earlier in the week while she was working. She must've put in a good word, because I'm filling in temporarily. Hopefully it'll turn into something more long-term - would be nice not needing to look for a new gig every three to five days. Especial if I end up working somewhere with Community." Does Sturm mean queer folx? Changelings? Probably both, to be honest. She adopts a bar stool one over from Sigrun, and tosses her jacket onto the stool on the opposite side of her. The corner of her mouth twitches up just a tic as the bartender brings her out a plate of fried stuff and things from the kitchen. She scoots it over to the space between her and Sigrun - a peace offering, probably - and then grabs a jalapeno popper off the plate for herself.
"Security work is always a sure thing. I worked at this swanky jazz club in Miami most recently. Once I landed and started getting work through my agent again, I didn't technically need it. But the place was great, and the owner was cool. And Laura worked there, too. But it's good, having a go-to when you just need a little income." Sigrun examines the sampler platter and plucks up a mozz stick, dipping it before chomping into it with gusto. Apparently that's just what the doctor ordered. "It's weird, though. Now that the stagehands local is striking, I may have to start turning down work at some theaters. So I may be back to working security for the short term if things don't sort themselves out. Or I'll have to take travel gigs again. Which I'm trying to cut down on."
"Yeah. It's not a bad gig - and decently easy to land when you're a big motherfucker that frowns a lot." She bites the jalapeno in half and takes a sip of her coke. "Probably good to, yeah. Imagine your people'll be stoked to have you around more often, too." Beat. "Swear, it feels like I've worked the door at every bar in this city that's big enough to need it. If it'd help, I could point you in the direction of a few places that I know have been cycling through temps..."
"I'll hit you up if I decide to go that route. We'll see what jobs my agent digs up next week, and I'll go from there. I may also take my blacksmith skills commercial. I figure there has to be plenty of people in town looking for better equipment, with cash in hand, but not sure who to go to or how to do it themselves." She doesn't double dip her mozz stick. She just pokes the remnants into her mouth and washes it down with her beer. "Mmm. Johnny and Teabutt showed me your painted miniatures. They're super cute. You've got some skill, there."
"Thanks." A little puff of air escapes Sturm's nostrils - and the corner of her mouth twitches again. "Started doing them when I got back as a way to re-teach myself how to use my hands without shaking too much - or worse, breaking shit. Been trying to take it in a commercial direction, too. For people wanting minis for D&D and shit like that. Set up a social media... thing for 'em, even." She's spent the majority of this conversation looking directly forward, and attempting to completely avoid eye-contact with Sigrun, but she sneaks a glance at the valkyrie's tattoos before turning her attention back to the wall in front of her. "You can have the marinara for the mozzarella sticks if you want it. Wouldn't wish eating dry fried food on my worst enemy, so... no need to worry about double dipping."
"To not share the mozz sticks is the greatest of all possible pub room sins," Sigrun gravely informs Sturm with a wry edge to her voice. "Besides. I'm Minnesotan. I'll leave one of everything on the plate Just In Case. So. You might as well go for it." She selects a tater skin next. Piled high with sour cream, chives, and bacon bits. The Cadillac of all fried bar room fare. "You might want to ask Glitch about that. He's real good with computers and online stuff. I'm hopeless. No idea how to get up and running with something like that. Do you know about the regional game conventions and stuff? PAX Unplugged, DEXCON, Dreamation, NYCC, all of them?"
"Appreciate it." There's that awkward little snort-laugh again - and then she reaches for the fried cheese. "Been getting help from Lux with the internet shit - dunno if you've met them yet - but I'll have to check with Glitch, too. Always looking for more reasons to strike up conversation with him, anyway." She sneaks another glance. Those tattoos aren't going to be too hard to paint. Helps that the designs are similar enough to her own, too. "Haven't really looked into any conventions yet, though. Any of them local-ish? Like. I've got a truck, but she's fuckin' ancient, so I don't know how road trip ready I am." Beat. She quirks an eyebrow. "You don't do much tabletop gaming, do you?"
"Never acquired the bug. My family were super religious growing up. Even if I'd known about it, I guarantee you they'd have disapproved. And then when I ran away to New York, I fell in with the punks, not the nerds. Which is the only people who were playing back then. And now, the idea of pretending to be a creature of fantasy slaying mighty beasts for the safety of the realm sorta..." She gestures at herself, but let's the explanation trail off for the sake of prying human ears.
"Yeah, I get that. Tend to avoid the fantasy-type for similar reasons, I imagine. S'why I like Shadowrun so much. It's queer, it's anti-capitalist, and there're lots of room for people who look like me... without any of the usual pitfalls that entails." She makes a vague gesture to herself, mirroring Sigrun's. "Really get that religious family thing, though. My old man'd roll over in his fuckin' grave if he saw me doin' half the shit I'm doin' nowadays."
"Yeah," Sigrun says with a mixture of wistful reverie and sadness. "My parents weren't bad people, they were just very set in their ways. And all the ways they tried to keep me on the straight and narrow, I grew to resent. Realizing I'd probably still be in Fairmont right now, married with a bunch of kids on some nice man's farm if I'd stuck it out? I dunno. Sometimes I think they were right. At least insofar as staying out of trouble was concerned." She does let out a small laugh, though. "Honestly, I bet my mom would have liked you. She was a hard nose, too."
"Oh, well my dad was a bastard, so don't get me wrong. That motherfucker can roll all he wants and I'm gonna keep on makin' the devil happy - and if your ma' was even a little bit like me, I'm very sorry to hear that." She laughs. Like. A legitimate laugh, and reaches over for one of those incredible-looking fried potato skins, and crams the whole thing into her mouth in one go. It's fine, she's big. She can handle her bar food. "Can definitely see why you left." She chews for a bit, because it's really hard to keep up the veneer of Stone Cold Badass when you talk with your mouth full. "... and, for what it's worth, it's a crapshoot either way. Followin' my old man's instructions to the letter didn't do me any good."
Sigrun laughs at the joke about her mom, good and loud. "I take after my mom, actually. In a lot of ways, anyway. She was a plain, no nonsense straight shooter. She liked people who said what they meant and meant what they said. But she was polite, good natured, and resourceful. She once got on the phone with the vet to have the vet walk her through helping with the birth of a calf. Phone to her ear, up to her elbows in cow vadge. Now that's a woman." Sigrun grins at this particular memory, shaking her head a bit before plucking up a jalapeno popper of her own. She's taking the tour of greasy bar foods, here. "Your dad, though. Some people just aren't cut out to be parents, sadly."
"Well," Sturm offers a little shrug, plucks a panko-battered onion ring from the plate, and douses it in ranch. "Well. You know how it it sometimes, I'm sure." Beat. "Your ma sounds like a fuckin' delight, though - and by the way those are hot as hell, so be careful. Not that you probably can't handle it, just don't know hot the peppers get up in Minnesota..."
Oh hey, Sturm's got jokes. Not that anyone can probably tell with her deadpan.
"We use the mild black pepper," Sigrun assures Sturm before popping the popper into her gob and chewing it with gusto. After so many years traveling up and down the I-95 corridor, she's apparently gotten used to it. "But I do know how it is sometimes. I left home as soon as I could manage because I thought I'd value freedom more than family. It's kind of ironic that I found both, I guess. And of the two, I value my family more. In that I'd give mine up for their sakes. But. Yeah. Life works out funny, I guess."
"Hah," Sturm snorts, continuing to pick at the onion rings. There're so many of those left that they're unlikely to run out any time soon - even at the rate they're going. "That makes sense. Seems like everyone I've spoken to about it has a similar story - and feels similarly. I'm a little bit envious, to be honest. Seems like y'all have a really good thing going on there - and it seems like it's pretty rare. At least among the folx I've run into."
Sturm may have all the onion rings she desires. Sigrun is all about them premium snackies. Another mozz stick is selected, dipped, and chomped into. "Yeah, I dunno. I can't quite recall how it worked out, that we all just sort of fell in together like this. But it did. And now Laura's joining up with us. Gonna be crowded in that house. Heh. I know there's another clutch of folx that banded up. Mearcstapa and Lux and them, if I recall correctly? Just takes some cooperation and trust. Which. I know is asking a lot of some folx."
"Oh, did they? That's good for them. Should probably congratulate Mearcstapa and Lux, in that case. Or... whatever you do when all your friends hook up." She pauses to toss another fried something into her mouth and chomp. "... and that's good for y'all, too. Hard to imagine trying to share space with five people, but... still. Must've heard about that situation from every angle, so I'm glad it's resolved and shit worked out."
"I thiiiink so? I'm not really privy to all the hot goss. I don't get out much, and barely have time for socializing outside of the essentials. So don't quote me on that. But, yeah. Point is, found family is basically what we do as a people." Meaning the Lost and the queer community both. "If you can learn to let your guard down a little with people, cooperate on a few tasks, and suddenly you've got people you can trust to run with. Which, now that I think about it, is how I fell in with all of my ne'er do wells. Go hit the grand high muckety-mucks up for a job to do, ask for help with it. And away you go."
Sturm grunts in response to the latter bit - seizing the last of the fried potato skins and cramming it into her mouth so she has an excuse for the lack of a proper response. She chews - for much longer than she had previously - and washes it down with a long swig of coke.
"Speaking of jobs to do - did y'all ever do that trek up to New York that you mentioned a few weeks back?"
"Haven't yet. Got super sidetracked making your gear, and jackets for Johnny and Teabutt. Seemed a sensible thing to have all of our kit all ship shape and Bristol fashion before we go hauling off cross-country for something like this. Discretion being the better part of valor, and so on." Sigrun finishes off her beer and slides it away, motioning for the bartender. "Vodka and cranberry, please." She receives her drink in short order. An easy mix, and thus a fast serve. "But that's in the works now." ...that the game is open.
Sturm nods along as Sigrun talks. That all makes sense, of course, minus the bit about her armor being particularly important, anyway. When the bartender brings over Sig's cocktail, the Jotunn holds out her now-empty glass with a small smile, and in a few seconds it's full again. She turns on her barstool, fully facing the valkyrie for the first time since walking in. "If y'all haven't already gone, then I would like to help you get your shit back." Beat. "If you aren't completely against the idea."
That request catches Sigrun off guard, clearly. Her initial reaction to it is blatant surprise. Her eyebrows go up, her mouth works through a few sounds and stammers, and she eventually remasters her composure and lifts her glass for a drink. She sets it down half empty and turns towards Sturm in much the same way the other woman is now facing her. "I'm not... completely against the idea. But where we're going is going to be unsafe. Like. Really unsafe. Close to the old neighborhood unsafe. Close to ol' one-eye unsafe. Honestly, now that I'm hearing myself say it this is probably one of the worst ideas I've ever had. Why stick your neck out like this?"
"It's... complicated." Sturm leans on her elbow against the bar, adopting a frown and a furrowed brow as she gestures with her free hand - searching for how best to phrase it. "Like it or not, I... give a shit? It's difficult to accurately express why, but it's a mixture of things. A part of it is obligation, like - I was probably responsible for at least a small part of what you went through, and I'd like like to be able to say - when it's over - that I helped you reclaim something that's important to you. Important enough to make you want to go back to an incredibly dangerous place. I also... give at least a little bit of a shit about every single person that's going to go with you. So." She pauses for a moment. "... and what the fuck do I need a functional suit of plate armor for if not the front line?"
Sigrun gives a glance about their surroundings when Sturm talks candidly of owning plate armor and doing front line combat in it. Not that it's particularly incriminating, but perhaps a touch more frank than the Fairest is used to speaking in public. "There's plenty of use for that gear close to home. You can get into all sorts of trouble right out our back door, if you're really hurting to put some dents in the finish." Sigrun lowers her head slightly, looking up at Sturm significantly. Pardon the pun. "What if one or the other of us loses our shit right in the old fuckface's back yard? A lot of things could go very wrong with this in a very practical sense. That could put those people you care about in more danger."
Sturm's scowl is deeply etched in her features, and she peers back at Sigrun with gloomy, heavy-lidded eyes. She's quiet for a long while. Unblinking. Just a surly, unmoving glacier as she considers the response. "I won't lose my shit." Beat. "I haven't felt this clear - or resolved - about something in... a fuckin' while."
The thing about bars is that sometimes you don't notice who has sat down next to you, especially if they do it Light-Shy. And then you notice they're there when they're reaching across you to pick up a mozz stick and kiss the corner of your mouth. So it is with Teagan smooching Sigrun in greeting. One of these days, they're gonna get stabbed.
"Yeah. It's not you I'm necessarily worried about. I have no idea what this whole experience is going to shake loose for me, you know? If I suddenly remember some traumatic shit and flip out, that's going to not go well for either of us. I dunno." Sigrun startles at Teagan suddenly appearing out of nowhere again, and just about slaps their hand for stealing a mozz stick. "Goddammit, Teagan! One of these days, you'll pull back a stump. You know that, right?"
Sturm has gotten pretty good at avoiding Teagan's favorite jump scare, and so she just... sorta blinks it off - and then her composure is back. It probably helps that she wasn't the one Teagan chose to appear behind this time, but nobody needs to know that. Sturm is very cool. "That's a possibility, yeah. I'm not going to pretend it isn't - and it would absolutely suck - but... you'll have your family there. That'd probably help you keep a handle, right?" Beat. "... and besides, you don't need to give me an answer right now. Hell, you don't have to give me an answer at all if you don't want to."
Sturm scoots the plate over to Teagan. Sure, the potato skins have all been devoured at this point, but there's still some solid fried goodness there. "Hey, T."
"Nope, because if that happens it will have never happened and a different choice will be made," says the very confident or very foolish or both Mirrorskin. They lean to kiss Sigrun at the corner of her mouth again. "So I can also say, on that note, that I have a proven past history of stopping people from ruining the world when they accidentally do damage on account of flipping out." So they were there at least a little and looking for the right time to jump in. Not that it wasn't likely that someone was listening, anyway: it's a public place. "Hey, C."
"That's... true. Still a lot to leave to chance." In that Teagan could fail to activate the contract that rewinds time, and all hell has still broken loose. "On the plus side, if I could drop you in a single hit with you in that suit I made for you, I'd be really surprised." She worries at her lip with her teeth for a moment, and then nods aside to Sturm. "I'd need to make sure the rest of the team are okay with it. So. I'll talk to them and let you know. The first part of the thing, though? That's a hard no. I'll ask about you coming to New York, though." In that the first part involves going inside Sigrun's own dreams? Yeah, nah.
"Good enough for me. Don't want to do anything that's going to make you feel uncomfortable, or... unsafe." Sturm reaches for her coke and takes a sip. "Most people can't drop me in a single hit even without the help of your kickass armor, so I'd be really fuckin' surprised, too." Beat. "... but, just. Keep me posted on that, I guess - and again, if you're not comfortable with it, I absolutely understand and I'm not going to push."
"Everything's got an element of chance, babe," Teagan offers almost philosophically, and munches on their cheesestick. Monch monch monch. They don't get into the hard no vs the maybe. That's for Sturm and Sigrun to sort.
"Much depends on the first step of this whole process. So. I'll keep you posted after I talk with the rest of the group." Sigrun slams back the rest of her vodka cranberry and slides the empty away with a flick of her finger. Then she turns around on her stool to face the crowd, rubbing at her jaw a bit. "That's pretty well settled, then. Cool."
"Yep. Cool." Sturm turns back to face the bar, and plucks another onion ring from the plate before popping it into her mouth with a cronch.
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