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Kai has places to go, people to watch, coffee to drink. There's a bounce in his step as he makes his way down the street. The Village just brings it out in him, a certain liveliness. His pad might be in Hell's Kitchen, but Greenwich Village is home. He's got a satchel with him, old and well-worn, slung over one shoulder. His goal is a sidewalk cafe just up the block. It's a good place. They let him sit there for hours without buying anything more than a cup of coffee.
*
Greenwich Village slumbers in the mornings and stirs restlessly by afternoon, though it won't be until late evening that it truly crackles to life. Half those brilliant artists never even see lunch time, and those who do usually drag off to a job somewhere while they wish for gigs and brighter things to come. That makes Kai even more of an oddity, so terribly cheerful and awake, whereas most are slow. Then there is the sunbeam in human form, descending from the four steps leading into a particular record shop specialising in all the music good parents prefer not to let their children listen to. The latest pressing of a single is a hot commodity, especially when it's Dazzler's; she might have that, or she might have the music by a rather well-known little rock outfit that caused girls to faint on sight. Hard to say, as she hums some antique melody, but there are two oddities about Scarlett that stand out; one, the hair. Not just being flame-haired, but the braids themselves are purely Asgardian in design and dimension. The second, she just about traipses in front of him, looking back over her shoulder and giving a startled look to the blue-haired patron sliding inside. Is that a human colour? Evidently!
*
Most days, that is exactly Kai's story. Only getting up before noon to wait tables because he has to. Even the hash-slinging industry lets their lackeys have days off, though, and Kai is just too full of energy to snooze. He's really not the best beatnik sometimes. Awake in the morning, happy about it. But then the living sunshine descends, and several things happen very quickly in that weed-addled Alfheimian mind. First, everything about this woman is swinging. Far out. Second, a running catalog of what music's in and out runs through his mind in case he has to comment about it (the obvious answer is: jazz, jazz, and more jazz). Third, those braids are only really popular in… Kai's stride falters, and he goes very still. The way mice do when snakes are around, so they won't be seen. Since that doesn't work on humans or Asgardians, he squares his shoulders, lifts his chin, and smiles. Nothing wrong here. He's not avoiding Asgardians, nope.
*
As the beatnik movement goes, Scarlett is well-known to them, possibly even more by reputation. She carries the record in a bag over her wrist, paper with woven handles, because plastic isn't something the shop specialises in yet. Jazz may be a shared poison between them, given she's also a hardcore fixture of late in the Village Vanguard, and might speak as fluently in the masters as those folk singers gathered in Washington Square every day. Not in this case, to be sure. The braids that she wears are dotted by snowdrops and pale crocuses striped in purple, take of that how one will. The elaborate coils and interwoven strands are difficult to perceive as anything other than what they are, and there's some kind of story in there for someone knowledgeable in how to read them. Along with the luck knots and fate lines, there's the invariable placement that all but screams she is no warrior, but skald. That might be worse. They learn things.
"Pardon me," she calls out in sunny tones, the bell-clear expanse of her voice English as English can be. Catching herself at the last moment, she flattens back against the front of the building, letting Kai past. "I should not be so distracted by someone's dress around here, shouldn't I?"
*
Asgardian and someone to fanboy over? It's too much. These are the conundrums that crop up on Kai's life. He's probably seen her at the clubs, but never close enough to approach or be cool enough to hang out with (though he is pretty cool). He smiles at her, a little shyly, and he says, "Not at all, I wasn't paying attention to where I was going." His own accent is straight out of London, and he's actually speaking English, not his native Old Norse that Allspeak massages into English for the natives. There's time to just breeze on by, make a clean get away. Just go on with his life and not give the skald anything to learn.
But… but… "I saw you perform two weeks ago, and you were out of this world. So far out, it was swinging. You're just…" He gestures vaguely, waving a hand to encompass all of her. "You're so far out."
*
Coolness is a state of being. One can be cool and not know it, or even doubt it. The redheaded bohemian brushes her hand down the line of her short, bell-shaped coat, the dress underneath not a whole lot longer on the whole. "Are you sure?" she asks, blinking immensely green eyes, widened somewhat in concern. A brief look assures she hasn't totally run the poor elf over, albeit Scarlett takes responsibility on that front. Her faint wince marks her features for a moment, and then she tips her head. "No, I was every bit to blame for running down the stairs and not seeing where I went. So unlike me." Reasons for that lie in another space altogether. She brushes her fingers along the edge of the bag, transferring it to her right hand. It allows her to punctuate her statements with the light flick of her wrist or curl of her fingertips, another element in to play.
"You do me far, far too much credit. If you mean the set at the Well, that was entirely impromptu and learning a few things. They did all the work, I just happened to sing," she sighs. "Experimental fusion, and I am definitely no Coltrane." Yet. As if she wouldn't jump him in an alley given the chance!
*
Kai's eyes widen, and within the deep blue there are silvery flecks like the reflection of the moonlight on dark waters. He usually wears shades, but he couldn't find them this morning, so the full brunt of the excitement expressed in those big peepers is on full display. "That's the best kind, though," he says. "Not the stuff you practice over and over. If you ask me, there's no other way to do experimental fusion." He shakes his head, curls bouncing around because he forgot his beret, too. "No, you deserve more credit." Get out of here, his hind brain says. Just look for an excuse to leave. There's still time. Kai opens his mouth to speak. Don't do it. "Can I buy you a cup of coffee?" Damn it.
*
The aurorae might be jealous that someone stole their fire to set into the sculptural countenance the girl turns upon the world. Excitement has a dangerous habit of spreading, a glittering spiral of wildfire. "Oh, but you need to practice sometimes to warrant any sort of aptitude. Too many times, it looks effortless until you pick up an instrument or sheet music, and open your mouth. Experimentation comes after mastering the fundamentals, and those I think very much overlooked. But you are terribly kind." Neroli stains the air between them, the sweet, uplifting burst of a citrus infusion teasing the senses. "I thought to ask you the same, to make up for the trouble of about plowing you over. Then coffee as your treat, and the dessert as mine? Assuming you are not offended by a pastry or such."
*
Dessert? Or, as Kai calls it, breakfast. "Sounds groovy," he says. He nods toward the coffee shop, selected in part due to its proximity to the record store. He starts that way, but he paces himself to walk beside her. "I'm Kai," he says. "And I don't disagree, not at all. You have to know the rules before you break them. But you were far out." He waves a hand then, adding, "You didn't plow me over, and almosts barely count, do they." He sighs softly, contently. Dessert. "I make music," he mentions, "but mostly art." He gesture with his satchel. "I don't show it. I just make it because I like to."
*
Dessert, as they both call it, is probably just another form of delicious fuel that comes sometimes slathered in syrup or dripping with frosted sugar. Nothing wrong about that, or delicious jam. "Scarlett," she replies, the merry offer of her name given freely in exchange. "Kai, that's a harmonious name. Someone had an ear for poetry." Her leaf-green eyes narrow with the widening of a smile, and she measures the pedestrian traffic, light as it is, for the moment to step forth into the void. Her easy pace requires little effort to match, though she can move fairly fast when need be, rolling off her heels. "Art, what sort? Charcoal, painting, media barely invented yet? I think there is something fine to be said about someone who creates for the sheer pleasure of it. So easy to destroy, but creation takes infinitely more effort."
*
Scarlett. The name causes Kai to tilt his head curiously. He's heard the name recently fro a new and close friend. Then again, how many Scarletts are there in New York City? Then again how many of them are Asgardian? "It's just short for Gerhard," he says with a small smile. "My parents are Norwegian." He then says, "I dabble in this and that. Painting murals, sculpting in whatever medium I can get my hands on. I draw a lot. I've got a book of sketches that are just the Village. In fact, I was going to come down and lay some pencil to paper today." With an eager nod, he adds, "You're so right. So many squares and pigs destroying, walking along to their own cosmic entropy without pushing back. They're the ones who want to maintain order, but our chaos is where the real structure is, chicka. Putting up light against the dark."
*
Scarlett. Kai. The road probably goes both ways. How many are there of either? In this case, precious few and shrinking with every word out of their mouths. "Are they? What a delightful diminutive. I admit it wouldn't be one I expect to hear often round here, but then such is the glory of the city. We have almost every kind of person drawn to the bright lights. Never a dull moment." Some might say that with world-weary New York bombast, but not her, adopting a brilliant grin. "Sketches will take you far around here. I think half the buildings around us beckon for a mural, if only to cover up the grim shades and gloomy concrete. It's supposed to be worse in Chelsea, and along the waterfront." Idly thoughts spin around there, and dissolve into a watercolour miasma.
She lets him talk while they navigate their way to the cafe. After two or so years in the area, she can probably name every last eatery and its operating hours without referencing a notebook once. "Creation requires destruction, but ever in balance. You cannot have nonstop tearing down without building up, and the judicious consideration whether tearing apart that building or field or old wallpaper, even, serves as the ideal route. Could it be preserved, transformed? Not everything needs to be closeted away, but look at how many relics of the past end up in a dustbin or as kindling because no one valued them. Endless growth is as unsustainable as endless ruin. So."
*
"Sometimes even the stuff that looks like it has value needs to be swept away," Kai says. His parents have incredible value. To him, anyway. Yet they're his past, not his present or future. He smiles suddenly. "The squares want to break everything down into grey, but all they're doing is making our canvases." They get to the cafe, and he takes a seat at one of the sidewalk tables for two. The satchel gets put on the ground between him self and the building, one leg resting against it. Harder to snatch that way. "That's deep," he tells her. Most people don't dig it. They just break free and keep on floating in outer space."
*
"True. One makes way for the spring by clearing out the winter's bracken. It is altogether too difficult for some people to appraise any value, though, and they hack down the forest for wont of a parking lot. What they consider to be efficient, pleasingly uniform, and smooth holds no glory or grandeur, nor does it stir the heart. Function put before form undermines the whole purpose in the first place, as if they could not be wedded," sighs the bohemienne; hers is an easy take on life, reflective as much as it is animated. "Emotional responses matter as much as anything, in this grand creation or destruction, and your canvases may well be found in the spaces betwixt a tree and a particularly illuminating archway around a window, where some would say the space has no purpose or importance at all." She takes her seat opposite him, setting her record bag on the tabletop until she can settle in, napkin thrown over her lap, a consolation prize for good behaviour. "Ours is a generation not at all like the rules abiding traditionalists who came before us, and that may be where the disjoint is. Our society exists in a moment where we question the values that came before, and we sleep fitfully, rocked by the turbulence and turmoil of an hour of change. We look not upon the familiar with any gratitude, but rather a sense of unease. It is not to be trusted. It is not the essence of who we are."
Her posture is pitch perfect, even if the moody vellum scripted by her voice is not, ripe with possibilities and the inferences of a life questioned frequently. "We are awakening to the possibilities of an unfamiliar place around us, and even the things we know are not the same. I look upon these buildings, structures, and ideals as something like my hand in the dark, seen for the first time, the familiar rendered unknown in every contour of the palm and spreading line for the fingers. If we look at it again for the first time, then we can be moved, and those passions directing us towards a meaningful breakthrough. Ours is an era that seethes, and our fraught fumbling for a higher answer, a more provocative outlet, are making us monsters to the timid and lanterns held high in heretofore unknown corners."
*
Kai takes out a silver-plated cigarette case, one valuable thing he won't hock. He opens it and offers Scarlett one before taking one for himself. He's got a long, sleek black cigarette holder he pops it into. Tres chic. "You speak pure poetry," he says, "and you're blowing my mind." He smiles at her, sudden and bright. Leaning in, he says in a lower tone, "Here's the secret, though, the big reveal when they say it's our generation: there've always been hip cats like us, chicka. The American revolutionaries, the abolitionists, the Interwar boys in Berlin and Paris. Martin Luther and his gang. We've always been here, pushing ever forward and dragging Squaresville with us onto a new map. In the best possible world, our children will tell us to get with the times as they leave us in the dust."