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The centre of Greenwich burns alive late into the night, long after the city that doesn't sleep starts to question the possibilities of a power nap, and whether last call is actually a thing. Lights burn into the dark, the Albert Chambers building ablaze under a halogen moon. But a thumbnail cuts through heavy cloud cover and bits of precipitation undecided on snow and rain.
Somewhere not far away, three lives evaporate into the aether, cradled by a valkyrie's arms and oil on crystallized ice and cold lubricants.
No one really looters downstairs, and the trudge up the many, many floors that lead finally to Scarlett's home do not appeal to her. She wears her coat wrapped around her, a garment not really necessary to keep her warm. A puzzled look graces her face, drawing sharp lines of the Midgardner's countenance; eyes burn too bright to be purely normal, even traced in thought. She hums the same quiet tune in refrain as she enters the building, as though dreading losing it, much as a dream dissipates when someone awakens. The notation is strange, a bit old, between a hymn and a lullaby in a minor key.
*
It has been a very busy night.
With the Hellmouth expanding as it has been, it seems as though Liv has spent more time away from home than actually in it. Certainly more time has been spent rushing around Midtown and Hell's Kitchen than she's spent at her day job, but she was lucky enough to have a few colleagues willing to carry the load just a little longer.
Gods willing, just a little longer.
By the time Rogue has scaled the stairs and emerged onto the ninth floor, there Liv is in all of her glory — clad in her leather and chain armor, a sword sheathed at her hip, with her long braided hair in mild disarray as she digs in a pouch at her hip for her key. At least, until the humming reaches her ears. Then she's freezing in place and blinking slowly, blue eyes sliding to the side to see where the tune is coming from.
*
It's a somewhat known fact the girl on the top floor maintains the rooftop gardens, a lovely place where one does not go without permission, so help them God. Hints of wards and stronger spells dance up there, teleportation gateways and even, on one occasion, a rainbow come down to earth in a thunderstorm. Whatever else, the bohemian has a suitably impressive resume and reputation that they leave her garden be. And anyone who doesn't might end up summarily tossed down the stairs, since the only access point is through her roof.
Perhaps that garden is the only thing keeping Scarlett from hurling herself off the building into the distant sea, at some point, provided she could simply find release in the cold, dark waters that have taken so many lives over the ages. Maybe not hers, but the notion of peace, quiet, and something not related to demons would be nice. She barely seems to notice the blood on her gloves, nor the shadows upon the stairs until reaching the landing. Something comical might be made of the balance, the collisions of two worlds.
For one, the hair style she prefers - intricate braids, interwoven in thin lines into one spindled mass of fire - does not owe its origins to a particularly chummy medieval recreationist; they are, however, common enough in another realm ruled by Mad-Eye Odin. (Best Halloween costume ever.) Her humming, obviously, has something to do with it. The young woman pauses misstep, putting her hand down upon the banister. Sword, sheath, chain. A woman who has ridden into battle observed by one who went hunting with the court stares for a moment, her gaze widening. "Are you searching for something?" It's an innocent enough question. Somewhat.
*
"My keys," comes the equally mundane reply, but as Liv straightens up and turns towards her neighbor, her hands have fallen to her sides again. Apparently, her keys are just not that pressing an issue. Not now.
Her brow furrowed, Liv gestures questioningly towards her. "That song… where did you hear it?" she asks, her head canting slowly to one side. This was just eerie. Two weeks ago, with the exception of a friendship hundreds of years old, she'd seen neither hide nor hair of anyone from home. But ever since that incident in Central Park, Asgard seemed to be everywhere she looked.
Perhaps it was just her imagination.
*
The certain shade of green in her long leather coat hearkens to forests, among other things, and the vixenish shade of her hair might bring to mind another auburn-haired troublemaker of sorts. Scarlett draws in a breath and suppresses whatever emotional turmoil might want to bubble out, pulling in three rhythmic breaths and releasing them the same, after a count of two beats. The exchange centers her enough, even as she pulls her hands from her pockets. "Perhaps one day keys will be unnecessary. Less to get lost," she muses, gazing evenly at Liv rather than the door. Most of them have deadbolts of various varieties, though one joker on four has replaced his with a smiley face.
The query given to her brings a slight pause. Liv receives another look, and the girl pauses in the hall. "A medic was humming it in Hell's Kitchen." Truth resonates along that, even as she hums a few bars, a touch louder. "Does it sound like something you have heard before? I swear I have, though I have yet to place it. Perhaps you can spare me the agony of making the poor gentleman down at the record store recall it."
*
The response is not one Liv was expecting, judging by the way her eyebrows leap up her forehead. "A medic in — really? That's…" Unusual. Interesting. Troubling. She drags a palm down across her face as if to chase the thought away, giving herself a light, mental shake to regain her balance.
As for the question, Liv develops a somewhat odd smile and hangs her head, lightly pinching the bridge of her nose between her fingers. Two-hundred years, she'd managed to keep her secret, and now? Now, it seemed almost comical to try. What the hell. "He won't know it," she replies with a tired-sounding laugh. "It's… how to describe it." She loosely folds her arms and shifts her weight onto one leg, her lips pursing in thought. "…a lullaby, for the dead and the dying. To see them home."
*
The reaction lends a grave tilt of the young woman's head, whatever inner light she might normally bubble over with currently lidded and subjected to submarine pressures. "That's?" A gentle nudge, no more, follows from her. She no doubt still hums it in her head, trying to hold onto blurring notes and sliding cadences. Music has a way, like perception, of altering over time.
The redhead shakes her braids off her shoulder, the long, complex spindle swishing over the leather in a clattering of the small metal clasps used to hold the bunch together. "He might. He seems to have eclectic clientele and a musical library as large as the one belonging to Congress. It would be a lullaby for the departed? It sounds not a little like something suitable for them." How the medic knows it remains so much to be seen, though her eyes close against the weathered memories still painted in noir details on her short-term memory. There are disadvantages to having firsthand experience in these things, especially with blood still wet on her covered fingers.
"Perhaps I take a step too far in guessing you ventured forth to Central Park, or one of the other horrors besetting our fair city."
*
That's? "Surprising," Liv finally supplies, the gentle nudge proving to be more than adequate to the task. "A couple of weeks ago, I'd thought I was the only one around here who'd have known the tune, that's all. Seems I'm not as alone as I'd thought." From her tone, the tall blonde is still trying to figure out how she feels about this.
"I mean. I suppose you could ask him," Liv allows, absently running a hand back over her hair. Her own braids are much like Scarlett's — small ones at her temples to keep her hair out of her eyes, joining into a larger, more conventional braid at her back. "If he has it, it would probably be with the music from…" She gestures awkwardly. "…Scandinavia? Norway. Perhaps Iceland." Her lips give a slight twitch in amusement.
At least the smile doesn't fade at that presumption. It would be silly to deny it, given her attire. Liv just nods once. "I've been spending a lot of time in the Kitchen, lately. You've been staying safe, I hope?" She may not know her neighbor remotely well, but the concern in her question sounds very genuine.
*
"Safety for me is relative. If I stay safe, other people do not, particularly given the unusual beings running about. A good number of them have no care whatsoever for the well-being of our fellow citizens." The bohemian's smile is shadowed in her eyes, not quite reaching it, holding what amounts to a barb under the rose petals. "They cannot be reasoned with. You at least have a blade. I have started to contemplate whether there is any way to resist their efforts without resorting purely to violence. I have not aligned those two desires terribly well." A shrug follows, her leather coat flexing with her easily enough, a supple motion hinting at her lithe physique beneath.
"The music of Iceland. Now I no doubt have enough add the right lyrics to it, and find it scribed on a stone or in an ancient book at the back of a church in a village of two hundred people, don't I? Delightful." As if she might up and go to Reykjavik right now, the tone leaves a possibility of it. Still, the redhead raises her non-mired palm. "I am Scarlett, by the way. I do not know I have mentioned it."
*
Scarlett's musings on safety just make Liv smile. That's a viewpoint she understands very well. Well… aside from the seeming aversion to violence. That's something they don't share in common. "It's easier to avoid a physical fight when you're not dealing with monsters," she replies, at least sounding sympathetic. "I mean. Literal monsters, not 'bad people' monsters. And, sometimes, there's no shame in running, or asking for help."
And then she's reminded of her manners. As absurd as it might be when dressed as she is, Liv immediately steps forward and extends a hand towards her. "Possibly once, in passing? But it's been a while. Liv Sigrunsdottir," she smiles. "Nice to meet you a little more properly, Scarlett."
*
"When others run, I tend to be the one assuring the monster thinks twice about pursuit." Not far from the building, around a restaurant, there is a trashcan proving that point. Albeit one emptied of its contents, but that will nonetheless have an impact. The redhead tugs at one of her thinner plaits, spun around the wider body of the middle. She looks at her glove and sighs, offering the hand least besmirched. Death doesn't ride well in her wake, too full of life by half. "A pleasure, Miss Sigrunsdottir." The latter name gives her not an instant's pause, her tongue rolling among those rapids surprisingly well. "Icelandic?" She pauses for a moment, and then asks, in a language dead more than a handful of centuries, "Or you are a person of the Grey King?" Okay, it's not a perfect translation, but other epithets for Odin are considerably more complicated or rude. Calling him the great liar or the raven could be taken wrong.
She doesn't bother looking before she leaps.
*
"You and me both." The blood on Scarlett's gloves doesn't even seem to register on Liv's awareness. Certainly not enough to prevent a friendly, confident handshake. Scarlett herself seems unhurt, so Liv is unworried, simply wiping her palm clean on one of her sleeves afterwards. No harm done.
…and there it is. Liv can't help but laugh, though she does immediately holds up her hands to still any questions before they can come. "Guilty as charged," comes the reply in that same tongue, but she slides back into English almost immediately. "Lord, this has been an eventful week."
*
No harm, no kindness either. Some might not be pleased to hear the echoes of the Aesir tongue in a mortal, but Midgardners are a wily, crafty lot. "Has it been so harsh upon you? I suppose you have enough cares. Demons, undead, vampires, mad worshippers, leirjotnar, and the Christmas shopping season upon us even earlier," Scarlett utters, a sigh lingering upon the end. These are the lot of the average New Yorker: Macy's trying to make the most of the hard times by putting out toys galore. A huge cloud of darkness swallowing up parts of Midtown. No safe corners anywhere.
"I shall hold to English, if you do not mind. In your esteemed tongue, I sound rather like a four-year-old, and you no doubt need nothing on that front." Rue marks that pretty smile. "Or is there else I have somehow missed?"
*
"In my — oh." Now Liv looks truly surprised, tilting her head as she regards Scarlett with renewed curiosity. "For a moment there, I thought I was just so oblivious as to have missed another Asgardian in my own damned building," she admits with a laugh.
To say that Liv's personality is different from the Princes would be… fair. "There's nothing esteemed about it. It's just a language," she says with a wave of her hand, her smile growing lopsided. "As good and as flawed as any other. I have to admit, it's unusual to hear a local speak it. How'd that come about?"
*
A tip of her head matches a thin smile, and the blithe regard that gives the belle all the social graces one might need to survive a blade flung her way. "There have been. Save, however, in other persons for the most part. And I have quite literally been upbraided for poor pronunciation. I try not to presume upon what my petty learning has gained me." There shows the worthwhile products of Barnard College and Columbia University, glittering upon the atmosphere. "I've studied it. To greater and lesser degrees. I remain guilty as charged, yet a student until I gain a better degree of proficiency. Though I might be halfway to a skald's designation, if no one asks me to strum a harp."
*
Edit: Put your name in there, Scarlett.
*
Slowly, Liv folds an arm across her chest and lightly cups her elbow in one hand, the other coming up to lightly cup her own chin as she listens to Scarlett speak. Although she does not do so aloud, there is clearly laughter dancing behind the Aesir's eyes, her lips still quirked in a lopsided smile. "I don't know. You certainly talk like we do. I've never been so eloquent," she admits with a shrug of one broad shoulder.
*
"Oh, I can be simple. But then some teacher comes along and whacks my knuckles. Ladies don't speak so," Scarlett replies, the echo of the sly smile curving her lips… telling. Leave it at that. Then it's gone in a heartbeat, and she stands upon her toes, trying to ease the cramping in her calves from walking for how long, how many places. "May I ask what brings you here? Surely not simply the troubles."
*
"Oh, I've been here for a while," Liv replies with another easy laugh, lightly waving the hand that had been cupping her chin. She takes a quick glance up and down the hall for any other neighbors before she adds, "I had occasion to visit a few centuries ago and liked it here so much, I decided to stay." That is certainly not inaccurate, albeit not the entire truth. After a thoughtful pause, she adds, "Oh, sorry. I would invite you in to take a load off and wash up, but if my roommates knew I'd invited someone new into the apartment when vampires are running amok, I'd never hear the end of it."
*
"I should not mind. My own home is here," she gestures lightly towards the sweep of doors dented in the wall, "and I should probably get out of these before I grow too tired. It's been a pleasure. I have no doubt I will see you again, going here or there." Scarlett shakes out her braids, and then braces her hand against the wall, sketching a simple enough rune. "I act on behalf of the princes, the Lord Protector of Midgard in particular." That title does warrant the slightest grin; she cannot help herself. It might be a sole lasting spark of sunshine. Maybe the morrow will bring more, and perhaps not. "Should you need to transmit word to them, tell me, and I will see that it is done. You need not alter course as it happens."
*
With a slight furrow of her brow, Liv leans to the side enough to watch as Scarlett sketches out the rune, and a quiet, thoughtful rumble comes from the back of her throat. "I'll keep that in mind. Though the Embassy — " She makes a little bit of a face, at that. " — is on my way to work, so hopefully I won't need to trouble you for anything like business too often." If she's honest, she's kind of hoping she can get back to her nice, quiet, uninvolved-in-Asgardian-affairs life once this Hellmouth business finishes blowing over. But that's almost certainly too much to ask for. "Still. It is very appreciated. Thank you."
*
"Indeed, I can often be found in there," acknowledges the redhead. "When not everywhere else. Such is the life of a girl about town." Let all things surely resolve where they will, Scarlett brushes her fingers down the jamb of the doorway. "It has been a pleasure. I am certain we will cross paths soon." Probably unnervingly soon for anyone's tastes, but she does not speak of that, either. The Norns have their secrets, sometimes revealed to her. Sometimes not. With that, she plucks her keys out of her pocket and unlocks the doors, humming that same mournful tune, cool as the ice, soft as spiderweb as she accesses her own sanctum.
*
It's manners more than anything that see Liv remaining silent until Scarlett's inside with the door closed behind her. Then, under her breath, she can't help but murmur: "What an odd duck." Her lips twist slightly, her brow briefly raising in a shrug, and then she turns back to rummaging in her pouch for the key to her own place. Once it's found, she sighs in relief and lets herself inside, and the familiar sound of "Max? Jack? I'm home~" wafts out into the hall as she closes the door in her wake. Home sweet home.