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The Freehold Hollow isn't always the most private of places to meet, but Teagan has wrangled the use of one of the cottages -- Direct Action hasn't started keeping one there yet, but Teag snags one. They send a text message to Sturm with the location, time, date, and a message: hey, need to talk. It's all good. Me, Glitch and Laura will meet you. Teagan
The Mirrorskin leans back in one of the chairs in the borrowed cabin, lounging in front of a crackling fire, a case of beers that they hauled in sitting next to their chair. Waiting.
Laura paces a tad, slightly restless in her skin and a touch tense. She's eyeing the beers hungrily, but letting them be. They're not for yet. "Have you seen Strum yet Sparks?" She asks after a moment, patting the Sprite on the head lightly. "She's bigger then me. I'm not used to having to look up.."
Glitch stands inside with a bit of a fidget. He's calm and ready to defer to Player Two who set this meeting up, but he's concerned. "I'm gonna try to chill and not interfere," he says first, looking around for a seat. "Just worried she's gonna feel ganged up on. Even here in the middle of oathtown. It's not, yknow... Rational." He nods to Hyena. "Yeah, I saw her first. Was the one with the brilliant idea to take her to meet Sigrun."
Sturm arrives within a few minutes of the specified time, and when she does, she's dressed pretty typically to the way most of you've seen her in the past - though her hair is a little bit mussed, and she's pretty sweaty having just gotten off of work.
The knock at the door is about as heavy-handed as you'd expect from the frost giant - though she walks right in after knocking, seeing as she's expected and few seconds of warning oughta be enough.
"Player One, you wanna grab the door?" Teagan's left eye darkens, then brightens again in the direction of the Digital Boy, their broken-mirror eyes glittering. "It's gonna be fine," they reiterate, leaning back lazily in their chair and propping one ankle on their opposite knee. They pick up a beer, holding it out to Laura. After all, Teagan already has one.
"It's gonna be fine." Laura repeats, possibly for her own benefit. "And Glitch, I'm gonna nab time with you later to convince you this wasn't your fault." A faint huff, though he's offered a fanged smile. The beer is taken gratefully, a claw stabbed into the top to crack it open before she takes a long swig, turning to face the door as Sturm enters.
Glitch closes both his eyes, sucks in a breath, and nods, letting it out. "It's gonna be fine," he intones back to the two. "I know it's not my fault," he points out, raising a finger. "I just don't believe it. So I'll take you up on that time." He doesn't get a drink himself, instead going over to open the door and let the Big Bad Sturm herself in, staring up quite a bit at her. "Yo. We got beer."
"Don't drink, but thanks." The other two can probably hear her before they can see her - though her voice isn't loud the low rumble certainly carries. Unsurprisingly, the giant is not subtle. She follows Glitch into the main area - and deliberately slumps her shoulders when she catches him looking up at her. "Let's get this over with, huh?"
They look down at the case of beer they brought -- it's Yuengling, so it's nothing fancy, but it's always been Teagan's favorite, because it's local -- and laugh to themself. "Well, fuck," Teagan rumbles, shaking their head. "Yeah, hi to you too, Sturm."
The Mirrorskin doesn't seem bothered by the abrupt greeting or lack thereof; they click their tongue against the roof of their mouth. "Okay, so." Looking for a place to start. "Sig doesn't feel a need to fight you. And like, she's willing to bury the hatchet. You want to fight her, you can challenge her, do a holmgang Oath, do it proper."
"But really, it's pretty much what I said before: she pulled the trick she pulled, and I get that it pissed you off and why, because she didn't really want to fight you for fucking realsies."
"You both have pasts." Laura adds with a faint rumble, sticking close to Glitch in vaguely mother hen fashion. "Air needed clearing, yes?" A glance at Teagan.
Glitch just wanders back in himself, sighing a bit at Sturm's dejected mood. "This ain't the principal's office," he murmurs, more to himself than anything else. In fact he gets on the other side of the room from Sturm so they're not all crowding around her, fussing with a can of Yuengling since Teagan now needs help drinking it.
Sturm breathes a heavy sigh. It - much like almost everything she does - is loud, and her displeasure with that answer is obvious.
"Weird of her to pull a weapon if she didn't want to fight for real, but that's fine. It's not like I'm a fuckin' savage or anything, I don't want a duel to the death." The Jotun rolls her shoulders - revealing a brief glimpse at her full height during the stretch. "She doesn't trust me, that's fine. I don't trust her either. We can Oath and go for first blood - or a ring out - or first to three hits." She waves her hand as she catches herself rambling. "I don't give a shit what the rules are - I don't even care if I win or lose. It's principle."
"Shit happened. I am not gonna stand here and say this happened and that happened and whatever. I'm not here to speak for what happened." Teagan scratches their cheek lazily. "Well, I mean, if you're challenging her, then she sets terms. I think that's kind of the point. I don't know. But whatever it is, if you two go in for a holmgang Oath, it's gonna have to be terms you both agree on. And for that matter, whether or not you come to terms about it before the changing of the season, the head of Winter is a Notary. She'll see your Oath."
"So if you want me to take back the challenge and get this shit sorted, I can do that. But I'm not gonna unless you say to me that this is what you want."
Hyena sets the beer down with a faint click, ears twitching. She keeps back to not crowd the frost giant, but she does speak up here, voice a quite rumble. "It ain't about trust. Trust takes time to sort. It's about you both being able to handle being around each other. You need a.. what was it, a Holmgang? For that, then you need it." A nod. To her, it's as simple as that. "But what do you want out of it?"
Glitch listens to the back and forth between Sturm and Teagan and nods to himself. He hangs out with Laura and rests a hand on her shoulder. "A duel," he murmurs. "Old style. Real old style. Settle disputes."
Sturm seems less pleased by this news. She steps back and leans against the wall, seeming to shrink considerably when she isn't fully standing. "That... doesn't seem like it'd be fuckin' helpful, then."
She's chewing on something but she doesn't quite have the words to explain what it is. "What's the point?"
"What doesn't seem helpful?" Teagan takes a pull from their beer, not attempting to push or hurry Sturm. They've sort of gotten their head around the fact that Sturm's emotional vocabulary is... maybe not as extensive as theirs, so they don't rush her. A slight glance aside at Hyena. "That's true, though. It's really about getting to the point where youse can be around each other. There's no chance of ... trust... happening if that can't."
"You wanted the holmgang." Hyena points out to Sturm. "You want to work this tension out, without lasting harm to either of you? Isn't that what it comes down in the end?" A cant of her head. "More instinct." She muses. Which is something she's personally familiar with.
Glitch sits down in a chair. He eyes Sturm. "You were humiliated," he mutters. "And you want to show you're not just an easy target. But you don't want to start more shit either." He has a look of slight understanding himself.
"Well. Yeah, I did... but It doesn't fucking matter what I get out of doing that if it's not something she wants too. If she's fine without it - then..." She grumbles wordlessly as she searches for the words, shoving her hands into her pockets and beginning to fiddle with an object that's hidden there. She looks at Glitch - relief showing on her face. "Yeah, that. Like. Someone tries to make me do some shit I don't wanna so they make themselves feel better, it's just gonna fuckin' piss me off more - and if she's picking terms, she's probably gonna pick something I ain't fuckin' good at - like before - and then I'm gonna just feel worse, too."
A tip of their head toward Laura, and a small smile to her. They take in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Okay. Well, I'm not going to tell you that you should challenge her, because it does not matter to me either way, except that I get to stop having one of the loves of my life be fucking tense as hell all the time. It makes for great sex and all... except for when she's off at her altar in the woods getting pine sap in her hair and shit... but it's kind of exhausting, and she does not really wanna be like -- it's just a lot."
Teagan clears their throat. "And here's the thing. I know you don't have to take my word for it, because you don't know shit about me, or my motley. But Sigrun isn't interested in humiliating you. I'm not interested in humiliating you. I would not be walking back and forth and spending like a million years trying to figure out how to make this less shitty if I thought that she was just going to make things awful again. So, if you can't trust Sigrun, and I get that, trust that Sigrun is not going to deliberately do anything that is going to fuck with the work that I have been doing to try to resolve this. If you cannot trust in Sigrun herself, trust that she is not going to want to piss me off deliberately."
They take a swallow of beer, adding, "Basically, trust that my girlfriend really likes my dick and wants access to it, rather than no dick access and a grumpy joyfriend." One black eyebrow arches up, a la Spock, and they shrug. Apparently they have cis dude levels of confidence in the appeal of their dick.
Sturm looks visibly uncomfortable at the turn this conversation has taken.
Glitch stares at Teagan for a bit, then back at Sturm. Then back at Teagan. Then at Laura. Then at Sturm. He coughs, a bit pink in the cheek pixels. "I don't think Sturm is worried about your...relationship with Sigrun," he beeps. He settles his attention on the jotun, summoning up as much focus as he can, trying to just feel what she feels. Be in her shoes. "Sigrun is just all fucked up because she hasn't ever seen anyone else from the same Keeper as her. Shit just got way complicated for her. She's upset BECAUSE you're not just a mindless fuckin' monster."
"And." Laura adds, eyeing Sturm. "Sigrun is a warrior. This fight's gonna be witnessed. There's no honour to her in choosing a method where she wins easily, where she wins through trickery. She'll want one that's a challenge too." She grins slightly at Teagan, leaning in to nuzzle their forehead. "Maybe a tad too much information for her love." Glitch gets a playful claw tapping his cheek. "And, yeah." A nod at Glitch "Like I said, you both have pasts. You're both in the Freehold, and this is a way to sort shit out between you."
"Can you all just... fuckin' stop being like this? All... in love with each other and shit? It's fuckin' incessant - how the fuck is anybody supposed to get anything done?!" She blurts it all out at once as the very explicit sexual conversation turns into one that includes support and love and fond touching. "... and what are you fuckin' talking about, Glitch - I've been a mindless monster over this shit so how is me continuing to be a violent asshole not gonna make it worse," she gestures at the mirrorskin flippantly with a free hand. "With or without Teagan's fuckin'... goddamn Jesus dick."
"It was a joke," Teagan sighs dramatically, laying back in their chair. "My point though stands. If you can't trust Sigrun herself, trust that she doesn't want to piss off the people around her who are investing all this fucking time into fixing this." They sort of gesture around the room. Look, there are three people here! Investing their time! Into this!
"There was one other dude from the One-Eyed Fuckface who we knew, in Miami. Just one. But that dude was fucked up. Like, dude was a bounty hunter. Dragged people in to the cops. For reals. Like, participated in locking people up." A shake of their head, and Teagan makes a point of saying, in case it's not clear where they stand, "All Cops Are Bastards. Anyway. So you're the first person that Sig has ever met from There that, like, is a person, and not a fuckface. So the idea that you're... real. And not a construct that Visits-The-Gallows used to fuck with her. It's kinda fucking with her, for sure."
Laura gets a gesture from Teagan; they point the neck of their bottle at her when she makes a point about the fight being witnessed. They slowly turn their attention back to Sturm, then, and slowly rub their thumb along the side of their jaw. "Unfortunately, no, we cannot stop being in love with each other. Even if we could, I wouldn't. That's something I fought for, real hard, and won. But I promise to stop joking about my Jesus dick or lack thereof."
Glitch flusters in turn as his own stab at untangling this mess of feelings goes wide. "No, like. I mean Sigrun...cares about you," he says. "If she didn't we wouldn't be having this talk. Like, if she just thought, ew a monster, she'd tell us to stay away from you." His hands start to wheel around in the air, gesticulating as he tries somewhat desperately to seize onto the right words and feelings. "She doesn't want to fight you because you're not some fucking Monster Manual statblock, you're an actual goddamn person, who suffered just as much as she did. But she does want to fight you because she was literally fucking made to fight you by the same asshole that literally made you to fight her."
He sits back and huffs. "Does that sound right to you?"
Hyena glances at Teagan at the mention of said bounty hunter, pausing and glancing aside as she taps a claw on her own beer quietly. She speaks up a moment later. "Pretty much. Look, Sturm. All said and done, a good, clean fight between you both will help to clear the air. I think it's a good plan, sounds like the others do too. So if you want to go ahead on that, you'd get support."
Glitch holds up a hand. "I'm not saying fight or don't fight, I'm just trying to explain shit." He looks to Sturm with a concerned frown. "What do you want to do?"
The Jotun just snorts at Teagan's answer - she's too frustrated and uncomfortable to actually laugh, so in reality it's just more venting steam like a cartoon bull. For a little bit it seems like Glitch is doing the best at getting through to her, but then he hits the point about their keeper and her eyes about bug out of her goddamned skull.
There's a couple moments of very heavy breathing as she mentally reigns herself back in. "Why do I wanna indulge that, then? That's not why I want to fight - I mean - Fuck! I don't... actually know if it's why I wanna fight - but I'm just... so goddamn angry that the strongest emotional connection I've had to a person since I got back here is a fucking murderous one..."
She trails off, looking confused - but quickly reapplies her trademark scowl, hoping to cover any emotional vulnerability she might've shown with that statement before it was noticed.
Teagan has been back for twenty years. Twenty years. They have done this particular song and dance many, many times. It's like Variations on a Theme but instead of a nice piano riff it's 'oh no I can't get close to anyone' 'but also I need emotional connection' 'i am sad, angry, afraid, and maybe even deliriously hopeful' and all the like. So perhaps they can be forgiven for just keeping that slight smile on their face and nodding their head once. "Right."
"So, listen."
"None of us would be here if we didn't give a shit. If we didn't see in you the same things that we went through. If we didn't see in you someone who's worth talking to. So if you want to have, like, emotional connections? This is literally what's getting offered, yanno? Trying to work this shit out so you can have that -- with us, presumably, or, you know, if you don't want that with us, that's also okay."
Laura nods, eyes on Sturm. "I've an offer. It might not help at all, but, fuck, I'll make it. If you want to try and get drunk later, and do some tangled bonding, I can offer that. Basically. Or we can wrestle, or, something." A shrug of furry shoulders. "Emotional connections. That's the thing." A nod towards Teagan. "I need to get my furry ass moving, but, gonna leave with saying that stuff with Sigrun is more then fixable if that's what you want to do, however you do it."
Glitch glances to Laura, like an open book. "Just...careful. It's good that we're all feeling...comfortable with feelings shit. But remember what you were like when we first met, Laura. You wanted to beat the shit out of me a few times. I think if I just turned around and asked you to get drunk and tangle you might've thrown a chair at me."
He looks to Sturm with sympathy, but a bit of cautious distance. It's not pity, but he doesn't know how to help and it shoes. But he keeps trying. He sucks in a breath, stands up, and puts his hands in his pockets.
"I need to tell everyone about Final Fantasy," he says, as if that's a perfectly natural segue.
"I said I don't drink," her growl reiterates, and she definitely does look like she would hit Laura with a chair if it seemed even remotely plausable to salvage the encounter after doing so. Thankfully, some combination of Teagan directly speaking to the thing she thought she'd hidden - and Glitch delivering the real-life equivilent of the wrong meme's bottom text - seems to pacify any anger before it had a chance to spark. She turns to Glitch, visible confusion on her face.
"... what?!"
"Go on, then, Laura. Thank you for coming along for this." Teagan curls up one corner of their mouth, but doesn't get up for any more PDA; instead, one of their eyes winks out of being and then winks back into being. Darkening mirrors, then brightening again. "I'll see you at home."
They scratch their cheek again, finishing one beer and opening another. "Glitch is attempting to relate to you via video games, because that's how Glitch relates to people if he doesn't know what else to say."
Her eyes snap to Strum at that growl and she returns it, ears going flat on her skull. Stepping back she takes a deep breath, beer can crumpling in her fist. "I remember." She tells Glitch after a moment, dropping a small ball of tangled metal into a nearby bin. "Still, got that. For the most part." A slow nod. "And, yeah." A slight grin to Teagan. "Will see you and Sparks back." A faint pause. "Home." She nods, turning to pad for the exit, but looking back to Strum, even as she gives her a wide berth. "I get being angry." She tells her in a quiet attempt of a peace offering. "I struggle with that myself." And with that the Hyena slips out and is gone.
Glitch looks around as tempers flare. Teagan's comment about him not knowing what to say gets a pixellated tongue stuck out at them. "Hush, P2. I'm serious. This one applies."
He turns back to Sturm. "Final Fantasy III. Titled six in Japan. Super Nintendo, 1994." His hands come up in a dismissive dual wave. "It's a video game. A story. About a woman named Terra. She's a human weapon, bred by an evil empire to use magic in a world without any, used as a mindless doll to slaughter people. When she comes into contact with...something that reminds her of her true heritage, of who and what she really is...she breaks free."
He pauses, takes his vape out of his pocket, and takes a quick hit, puffing it away from anyone else in the room, trying not to look smug. "Anyway. My point is...she was mind controlled before. She's on her own now. Doesn't remember shit. Doesn't know why she can use magic. She's taken in by a group of rebels, fighting against the Empire that used her. They want her to join, use her powers to help fight back and all that."
He shakes his head. "But it's not that easy, right? She was part of that Empire. She was on the other side. She killed people, even if it wasn't her choice. Hard to just put that away and trust a bunch of random people. The game slows down there. You don't have to say yes right away. You can...say no, and take some time."
He rolls his shoulder, winding down from his soapbox. "...you went through all this shit already when you oathed in here. But I'm just saying...you don't have to make decisions and pick everyone you're gonna be friends with right away. We should give you some time."
Sturm grinds her teeth at first - still on edge after Laura's growl. She almost stops Glitch when he starts rambling - even going as far as to raise a hand in an attempt to gesture for silence - but he keeps going, and she closes her mouth when she realizes that he means she is the main character in this analogy. She takes a deep breath, stepping away from the wall as she chews on her words.
"Thank you. You said I was the boss monster the other night," her voice is a growl - probably just on account of habit at this point - but she's actually not frowning for the first time that anyone here has seen. Sure, it's not a smile yet, but it's a fuckin' start. "... but okay. That is... surprisingly fucking helpful, actually." She pauses for about thirty seconds. "I would like to talk... Uhh. With her, I mean. If that's alright - and I understand if that's not an option right now - but I think that would help..."
They smile a little broader when Glitch sticks his tongue out at them. Sorry, Sturm, Teagan fought too hard for too long for the love of one (1) emo muppet to not enjoy it now that it's theirs. Their attention slowly swings toward Sturm as Glitch's explanation becomes more relevant. "Told you," they agree at the end. They did get smacked in the face by Persona. This is all very logical to them.
"To Significant? Yeah, we can make that happen. I'll let her know, if you want, that you want to talk to her."
Glitch tries not to smirk. The fact that he got through to Sturm is enough. He meets her not quite a smile with one of his own, and steps forward to hold out a hand. "We have a common enemy. The real monsters. The Final Boss. I said you were a...mob. A monster. You were made into one, maybe. But now... now you're a player. You're in control."
"Yeah, if you would, but uhh - no crowds, please? I know you folks probably share everything with one another anyway, but I... don't think I'll - uhh. That it'll work with an audience, y'know?" She scowls through most of what Glitch is saying, but she does crack a laugh - like a legitimate, honest-to-god, friendly laugh - instead of a derisive snort. She doesn't take the hand, though. Probably not ready for that level of physical contact yet. "That's cheesy as fuck, get out of here."
They roll up to their feet. "You are correct in that. It'll all get back to us. But I agree, it'll probably not be good with an audience. If you want a third party there to break up any potential fights, great. If not, then, you know, get the fuck to it. I'll pass on the good word." Teagan doesn't extend their hand when Glitch's isn't taken, instead just picking up the booze. "Take care of yourself."
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