OOM: Christmas dinner with Pyrrha and Egil

[ostro_goth]

[[Ctd. from here.]]

Teja opens the door, laden as he is.

His usually comfortable, creatively untidy room is still that -- there is even Ferdinand the cat, sprawling all over Teja's bed, fast asleep. There are simply two new doors, one of them leading to a kitchen that provides all the modern comforts and appliances as well as a space to comfortably sit and eat, the other leading to Egil's room in Loki's apartment on the 12th floor.

One better should not think about how that works.

Comments

[scarred_grin]

"It pays the tab, but... yeah. She's not even telling me to clean anymore. Leaves a guy chained to her bed for a week, but doesn't tell me not to clean--that was awkward. Now I'm not even supposed to clean, so it's gotta be worse than that."

Or she's just having Jack do the cleaning, so Pyrrha doesn't have to know anything about the current Loki situation. One or the other.

Egil reaches higher, and can just grab hold of the tail. Success! Now to do what he does with everything else, and try to put it in his mouth. Really, he wishes he were taller.

"Anyway, I hope you like your presents. Do you want to open them during the cooking, or save them for later?"

[ostro_goth]

"When we are done cooking," Teja says. "When we have eaten, and are lingering comfortably."

Ferdinand is so lazy tonight, he doesn't even mind Egil gnawing on his tail.

[scarred_grin]

"I'll get his chair when this is in the oven," she says, and starts in on the cooking.

Step one: slicing and frying the plantains.

"I spent a long time working on the one present and I'm kinda nervous about it. I mean, I like it, but I hope you will too. Puppy, you be good over there."

Tails don't taste very good. More yipping ensues--he wants to play.

[ostro_goth]

Ferdinand dangles the tail, as if to provoke Egil to catch it.

"I look forward to seeing what it is," Teja says.

Pause.

"May I help with something?"

[scarred_grin]

"Yeah, if you could... we're gonna need a plate with some paper towels on it, to drain these on. And if the cheese isn't pre-grated, that'll need to be done too."

She can't remember whether she put 'grated' on the list or not. It doesn't matter much; it's not a very time-consuming task.

Egil, sneaky little thing, with a look of serious determination manages to grab hold of the blankets and pull himself up mostly-standing, to stare at Ferdinand for a few moments. His legs can't hold him for long, though, and he's soon back sitting on the floor again.

[ostro_goth]

Ferdinand blinks at him, slowly.

"I know what a cheese-grater is!" Teja says, and manages to find one from a cabinet.

"Also, Egil just stood to look at the cat."

[scarred_grin]

"I'd hope you'd know what a cheese-grater is," she says with a grin.

They've talked about them before, and all.

"Yeah, he does that sometimes. Not for long, but he likes looking at things, and all the good stuff's out of his reach. We can't use tablecloths, he'll just pull them down."

[ostro_goth]

"I never used tablecloths on my own free will," Teja says. "They were not invented in my time."

He gets the cheese grater, grates the cheese, and watches Ferdinand teasing Egil from the corner of his eye, to make sure it wouldn't get out of hand.

[scarred_grin]

"They'd be bad with cats anyway. Or anybody else who's often at ground-level and can pull them down."

Egil reaches for Ferdinand's tail again, while he considers his next move. He wants to play, so either he's got to get up there or Ferdinand has to come down.

"I think plain tables are easier to clean anyway. I don't need draperies."

[ostro_goth]

"Neither do I," Teja says, emphatically.

He puts down the cheese grater and picks up Egil to lift him onto the bed so he can lay with Ferdinand.

[scarred_grin]

"Teja, Teja!" Egil says happily, before settling in against Ferdinand. He won't chew on his tail anymore, he'll just pet him in his clumsy-baby way.

"I like your decorating style. Not fussy, not pretentious. The kind of place you can live in."

[ostro_goth]

"It is not decorating, merely furniture, and some modest creature comforts," Teja says. "What I need -- a bed to sleep, a table to work, a fireplace to linger by. A bath."

Teja does love his baths.

[scarred_grin]

"But it's you," she says. "Somebody else could have perfectly utilitarian furniture and it wouldn't be the same. This suits you."

She sets about frying the plantain slices.

"That's about what I have, only my work supplies and my projects are a lot messier."

[ostro_goth]

"They are things as I would have had when I was alive," Teja says. "When I was new here, I suppose the room was meant to help me feel at home."

[scarred_grin]

"How do you want it to be when we're living together?" she asks. "You get to choose how it'll be. It can stay the same, or it can be something different."

Family pictures are the only thing that is not an option. Pictures are going up.

[ostro_goth]

"If this sort of comfortable mess is safe for Egil to be around, then it should stay as it is," Teja says. "But the house in Tuscany can use some changes; there are things there that do not really serve well."

[scarred_grin]

"If we're putting in workshop space, we'll have to be really careful about it," she says. "Especially when he's old enough to walk but not old enough to know when things are dangerous."

If she's going to be doing carpentry, well. She doesn't know if that can be childproofed.

[ostro_goth]

"Then we must lock the workshops with the dangerous things, when we are not in them," Teja says.

[scarred_grin]

"And he's gonna need a room there, too--not like the one here, I think it should be a different style. There can still be plants and things, but not a forest room."

Something more... local, maybe. Whatever the average kid in Tuscany might have, or maybe what a Goth kid would've had.

[ostro_goth]

"He must have a room with a good window; the Tuscan countryside is ornament on its own," Teja says.

[scarred_grin]

"When he's older, he's getting art supplies," she says. "All the art supplies. He needs a little table he can work at, just like we have, but all his own."

[ostro_goth]

"Any child needs that, for his drawings and homework and play," Teja agrees.

[scarred_grin]

"Yeah, but he really needs one," she says. "All the creative energy he's got, from his biological family and from us? I don't know what he's gonna be called to make, but he's gonna make something."

And she'll support him in whatever it is.

[ostro_goth]

"He shall be free to make what he wishes; including nothing of substance, if the mood strikes him," Teja says. "We cannot yet tell what he would pur his mind into."

[scarred_grin]

"Artsplosion," she says. "Everybody's got one, they just don't always know what form it's gonna take. But everybody needs an outlet for it, and kids even more so--they got so much energy, and if they can't put it to creation, they put it to destruction."

That's a long way off, though. Right now he's enjoying just lounging with Ferdinand.