deernet | [VIDEO | un: inkmetal]

[only one of vi's brows goes up in response.]

Your work. Of course. Yeah, totally.

[she'll follow - hanging back a few paces, walking slow, looking upward and around, and nodding in approval.]

Everything's a lot right now, honestly. My...uh, "workshop" [can airquotes be heard?] was a lot smaller. No complaints here, though.

[that last sentence. deliberately vague on what she's referring to. it's not false confidence, she's got confidence to spare, but this. this is ...overcompensation, a sense of "gotta keep the game going", only she wouldn't exactly call it a game, either. mindgames are not really her thing.]

Before I remodeled my carriage house here, my workshop was half a dorm room so I am used to working in smaller spaces, too.

[And when she pushes aside the curtain, Vi can see that this is a cozy space. A variety of lights all over that seem to have individual controls. Bigger than a closet, with a third of the space taken over by a long table covered in inkwells of a dozen different colors and shades, quills, needles, knives, a tattoo gun, sketchpads, a stack of paper, and other materials. Neat somehow despite the sheer amount of items. And there is still enough room for two people to move around without immediately bumping into each other. Saeri has to keep her head slightly bowed under her strings of lights.

She'll close the curtain after them, affording a bit of privacy. Maybe her heart is beating a little bit faster. Has the fun little run of flirting ever gone this far? No. Did that mean she was going to back down? Hell no.]

As you can see, I have a lot of options for you. But a promise is a promise.

[And so she holds out her prosthetic hand. There is clearly a deep engraving on the palm of the metal hand. A diamond with a "X" bisecting it, creating four quadrants with rune symbols etched into each.]

Purification runes. [Yes she's being cheeky.]

[it's early enough in her time here that she's still (visibly) caught off guard by - well, all of it - but the coziness, the variety and scope of inks and tools, the lights - the intricacy and order of it all. and the strings of lights. she might look at them a little too long.

shit. nope, stop looking around like an idiot, vi.]

I like options. [it's back to flirting again - and why shouldn't she, saeri is pretty, smart, interesting and talented, and not shy. what harm was there in it? it certainly distracts her from all the other less pleasant things she's been pushing to the edges of her mind.

but then saeri's hand is out and vi looks at it - no, it's not skin - but this is...]

Runework. [it's almost a whisper, but not quite, and she leans in a little closer to look at the shapes - the symbols residing in each quadrant, a mystery of a language that made things work, that stopped other things from working.] So, like, if you touch something, or someone ...it takes away the corruption?

What do you use to inscribe the metal?

[It's not skin. Not anymore. But she couldn't give up any of her runes. Her arm may have been gone but the runes would stay. Something about the way Vi looks a them though... She breathes in deep and lets out a little huff. Breathless laughter.]

Hah...uh...used an engraver pen with a reinforced diamond tip. I have a few for different sized projects. And it purifies organic matter for consumption. Needed it to eat for a while when I was on an impromptu vacation to the middle of Hell-knows-where.

[The fact she doesn't grit her teeth just talking about it is progress. Or maybe she has so many other things to grit her teeth about something had to get pushed down the rankings.]

Kind of funny to put something for organic matter on the metal hand, huh.

[vi can be oblivious but she isn't to the shift, here. makes note: reinforced diamond tip.]

Like the canteen in our bags, only ...much cooler, and not limited to liquid. Could have used something like that back home. Could have used it in my workspace. Which, by the way, was also an impromptu vacation to hell no.

[it sounds like saeri has been through something, and similar or not, it's a phrasing she can identify with, even if bitterly. so what else to do but use humor as a deflection?]

Yeah, kinda. But not the belly-laugh kind of funny. It's resourceful, though.

[Considering the nature of Vi's tattoos that she could see, she wonders just what brand of "Hell no" she got saddled with. But she doesn't ask. Because of the well known "no one's damn business" etiquette.]

I walk my life on the lines of irony as I live to defy expectations. Like right now.

[And with that Saeri brings her right hand up and easily undoes the buttons on her vest one-handed. She's had a lot of practice by this point. Metal fingers aren't always the best with buttons. Doesn't take that long to undo the top buttons of her blouse either. The scar down the center of her breasts is a lot more visible this way, but she's not trying to bring attention to its surgical precision. She pulls the top of her shirt partly to the side and reveal another of her tattoos right along her breastbone. It's in a perfect sphere with a line through the center. What may look to be shapes compiled against each other actually runes melded into seamless geometric order.]

A promise is a promise, after all. This one is a health rune.

Can't say I've ever heard that before. I like it.

[there's a bit of that devil may care sort of charm there, but it's covering surprise, and doesn't quite manage to obscure the solemn, sincere interest that follows. it's not the first thing vi notices, but the precision is hard not to notice. she knows what it is to have a steady hand - but this is a different thing altogether, literally and figuratively deeper. in its cut and in its meaning.

obviously, yes, saeri has been through some shit. more shit than vi had imagined. looking at those scars, she can't begin to separate the voluntary from the necessary, the discipline it would take to hold still, (had she been able to feel every bit of it, or did she have something to take the edge off? all the questions she wants to ask, but also: the code of "not my business") the discipline to exact the precision she imagines any kind of real magic needs. one wrong move and it's probably a lot more serious than a wobbly line, or a general 'oops'.

there's a beauty about them that's both tangible and intangible, and vi is having a problem finding her words. it doesn't happen very often, so she catches herself repeating saeri's words.]

A promise is a promise.

It's--

--it's amazing.

How does it work?

[She doesn't usually show off her tattoos or scars like this. Not that she hides them. She would show them off easily when wearing her training clothes back home. Tanks, sports bras, and spandex shorts don't hide much. But it's different, baring herself like this, her shirt half open.]

It's not your basic "keep me healthy" spell. Let's just say it boosts my immune system and a few other things. Without it, I'm not having a fun time.

[She is moving over to the other breastbone with little fanfare, showing off the diamond with tendrils spreading off of it like vines. Inside the diamond is three trident-like spears crossing over each other with other runes branching off from them.]

This one is for if you get trapped in a totally different alternate universe in which things are trying to kill you and the world wants to corrupt you into some kind of monster. Too bad it doesn't work the same way here.

[for all her talk, vi hasn't purposely shown her whole body (...) of work to anyone either. her arms are easy enough to see - some of her back, because yeah, tank tops were part of her stillwater uniform - or shall we say tank top singular - it's not like they provided duplicates without extenuating circumstances.

that's a nod - no judgment in it - so much of the undercity's sick, affected in one way of another, it's just another thing she's learned to accept, although she hates that it had to be accepted when it could have often been prevented.]

Your world sounds like a hell no all of its own. Don't get me wrong, mine was no picnic either. Right? Nah, that would be too easy if things just ...worked the way we want.

[the vines are of interest - eyes trailing over them, tilting her head as she sees the tridents. an idea beating its wings at the edges of her thoughts. vi has already taken a deep breath - she's been holding it, and on the exhale she gives a little laugh - expelling unexpected nervous energy.]

Gotta admit ...I'm having a fun time. You're hot, basically a fucking wizard, and a good artist to boot. That's a tough act to follow, I don't even think you're done.

[it might be the best job interview ?? she's ever had. also, it's the only one.]

[The eyes trailing over her with such interest and assessment only makes that weird twisting feeling in chest more obvious. The eye of someone who Gets It but also there's more to it. Someone might say she's maybe pushed this too far, but Saeri would never admit to that. Why back down when you could double down?]

You could say it's adjacent to hell. And sometimes you get stuck there for a while.

[Not including her maybe causing the apocalypse, but why bring that up.]

I've never been called a wizard before. A witch yeah. And words a lot less nice than that. [She chuckles, fingers running over the edge of her shirt.] I've got more, but I'm leaving my pants where they are. Although, the one on my back does have some fashionable side effects.

[She lifts her hand and gives a blue lock of hair a tug.]

[being stuck anywhere isn't great, but there are bad places to be stuck and worse places to be stuck. and adjacent to hell sounds ...like exactly what it is.

what is backing down? never heard of it.]

Well, every word I can think of so far is pretty nice. People are assholes. A lot. They like to think they know everyone's deal. Like to put everyone in a box.

[she means metaphorically. but it can be literally, too. she's been through that. does not recommend.]

Ursula's. Not a pants optional kind of place. [taps her head] Keeping notes. [she is certainly not going to push here - if saeri wants to keep her pants on, it's a shame vi can't see the work, but it's just going to have to stand.

and now she's gone still, watching intently.]

Keeping notes without a notebook. I like it.

[Says the girl who writes down nearly everything. She does finally finish removing her shirt though, shrugging it off to hang around her elbows. There's a circular tattoo on her shoulder with runes all around the inner edge and what looks to be three spears crossing through an eye, but she doesn't stop to show that one off.

Instead she turns her body so that Vi can see the inverted triangle on her left shoulder blade with the border covered in what looks to be lightning bolts, hooks, and other runes. The center is arch with what could be tree beneath, sharp and jagged branches extending out from it. The style not unlike all the other tattoos on her body. Except. This one just so happens to be the exact shade of blue as her hair.]

Never use untested ingredients in your ink if you don't want surprise results.

[vi doesn't avert her eyes as saeri's shirt is shrugged off, she flicks her gaze down-sideways-back up and over the shoulder before the girl has turned, but this piece is glorious in its detail - hook and curve and sharp and branch - a burst of vibrant color. this is when vi realized she'd been holding her breath so there's an exhale.]

Results as in "surprise: blue hair"?

[it's not near enough the shade to make her think of ~~powder~~ jinx, but she does pause over caitlin - and the moment her mind swaps that one in, she feels a heat running up the back of her neck and making its way into her cheeks. she slides a hand up to press between her shoulderblades - as if she could force the flush back down. she can't and so she covers with a side to side neck crack. like you do.]

It's cool, though. It's more than cool. [casual, casual...] What'd you use? [what does it do? were the results a surprise too in its powers?]

[Saeri can't even see it, facing away from her like she is, but she definitely can hear something. It's a good thing her skin doesn't blush because she probably would be right now. Instead she rolls her own shoulders, which makes the opalescent shades of the blue ink shimmer just a bit.]

It's a standard AIMs piloting rune. Lot easier than worrying about losing a runestone when you've got it right with you all the time. [She pauses as she's pulling the shirt back up.] Oh right--uh...AIMs stands for Automated Industrialized Suits. Mechs. Think bigger, fancier excavator armors.

[the iridescence is an added bonus - it's like and unlike any bodymod she'd seen in the undercity - both in style and function, oh, it's brutal and beautiful, precise and somehow ? primal. she's sure she can't find the words to do it justice. but she tries to memorize this as best she's able - even if what she sketches later isn't perfect, even if she can't remember every rune in its placement she'll keep trying until she captures the feel of it.]

Piloting rune.

[Like for a ship? the words make enough sense - she thinks of chemguard suits but more streamlined and not fueled by shimmer. what if viktor or jayce had or could design a suit - what would that look like - only funneled through the aesthetic of these runes - her mind is flooded with possibilities. bigger. fancier.]

Okay so. It's over. You won. You've reached peak badass because holy fuck did you say industrialized suits? Excavator armors? [her blush is fading, but her enthusiasm is definitely not.] Do you know Viktor? Lives in Willful Machine? About my height, thin, well-dressed with a cane? I know you said you just got ....back, but I figured you might.

[Saeri kind of freezes at that. Her eyes a wide and somewhat bemused by the reaction. She knows her own skill, knows just how good she is, but she's not used to people reacting like this and it always leaves her feeling like she took a misstep into an alternate reality. Which she did. But not the point. She still has no idea how to deal with that.

She huffs a half chuckle and starts buttoning her shirt back up.]

Heh--yeah--I know. Mobilized construction armor is the shit. My guild builds and pilots them for their reconstruction jobs. [Easiest way to take a compliment is to deflect from having to take it.]

Never heard of this Viktor guy, though. Maybe he got here after I left or right before. He an engineer or a pilot?

[one thing that pushes vi's buttons - one of many things - is when someone obviously does not realize how awesome they are at something. she's not going to blow smoke up anyone's ass, but from everything she's seen - everything she's heard described - this is some a-level shit.]

Maybe. He's an inventor, so yeah, close enough to an engineer? One of you big brains, one half of the team that created hextech. It's like... science plus magic. I dunno how it works, that's not my specialty. But I know what it's like to use some badass gear.

You ...turn yourself into the badass gear. Also industrialized suits, come on. Say it with me: I'm a badass. [she's not going to let saeri freeze on this. nope. nuh uh. no way. and she doesn't care is she's used the word badass too many times, either.]

[Normally, Saeri would laugh and say "Of course." She knows she's a great Runist. She has to be. Anything less just isn't acceptable. But this feels different. The way Vi reacts makes it feel different. Maybe she's just unused to praise, so used to hyping herself up, reminding herself, proving to herself. Or maybe it's because Vi gets it in a way barely anyone else does. They may be different but there's a lot about Vi that is so very, very familiar.]

Takes on to know one, huh. I can tell just by looking at you. You are the badass gear without all the bells and whistles. Your ink isn't the same as mine...but we could definitely start changing that.

[And you know, she's going to take that exact moment to slide her flesh fingers over those knuckles.]

[vi grins at the words, she can't not - she's been ping-ponging back between solemnity and smiling ever since she walked in. it's not the worst kind of whiplash - there's a lot happening, and yeah, this is what they agreed to - a sort of i'll show you mine if you show me yours - but. but. this is deeper than that. there are scars here, real and metaphorical, and she thinks maybe saeri doesn't just do this, you know, on the regular.

but it's the unexpected gesture, the brush of the girl's fingers over her own that causes vi to suck in air through her teeth. and blink.]

We could? [why did that come out like a question?] We should. We should do that, because that's why I'm...

[vi's not used to honest estimations in this context either - that kind of praise? it's different when it's after launching a couple goons into the alley air, but here the words have a different weight. it's a weight in her chest that makes it hard to swallow, harder still to find words, so what she does - at first - is cover those fingers with her other hand. why? how are people like this here? she's unguarded in her words now.]

...thanks. We're both badasses, I guess.

[just a couple of awkward badasses, sure, sure.]

If we're gonna do that, I should probably show you what you're working with.

[She doesn't do this. Most of the time her flirting is superficial and unreturned, making it easy to play it up and tease. No harm done, only a little fluster. How did doubling down when someone decided to flirt back turn out like this?

Not that she knows what this is. But she's not backing down. Even if Vi's hand covering her own makes the pinky of her prosthetic twitch just a bit. She smirks, not acknowledging the tell for what it is.]

It's only fair, I'd say. You most me half naked and I haven't even seen most of the placard you've got.

[vi notes the twitch, but doesn't know what to make of it - if anything. she doesn't move quickly - as she has to disengage her hands for that. and maybe in some cases you just shrug off someone's gesture of friendship (?) vulnerability (?) a t t r a c t i o n (??!) - like water off one's back but that feels disrespectful, an abrupt tonal shift that might send a message of didn't see that or whatever. she's not sure what's happening, but she's very sure she doesn't want to imply it means nothing, so she lightly squeezes saeri's hand before she pulls back. a half turn toward the curtain because there's nothing much of note tattoo-wise on the front of her besides her cheek. the gears on her neck have been visible near always, and can still mostly be seen when she moves.

sansa's construction of the tunic has allowed for it to slip on and off easily, which vi is appreciative of in general, but maybe not as much in this moment. all she has to do it reach up and unclasp the metal fastening at the back and it falls - fine, it's an ode to her non subtlety - dark lines leading to interconnected machinery and outward, downward into gears at her shoulders, her back. puffs of cloudy lined interspersed between them - clusters at the elbow and and long lines down the backs of her arms. more steam, more smoke, more toxic gas (something else?) as if pressure were being both held and released. as if her spine were made of steel. arms, too.]

Mine doesn't do anything fancy, but it's a bitch to make a straight line with no mirror half the time, and it's not like there's a way to erase it if you fuck it up, but...

[time to offer up her own bit of vulnerability.]

...I didn't do it just to look cool. I did it to remember who I was. Who I wanted to be.

...where I came from.

Who I was fighting for.

[she taps her cheek just below the VI, there.]

To tell them I wasn't prisoner five-one-six and never would be. Not really. If they were that set on beating the shit out of me, at least they could put a name and not a number to my face.

[Oh, everything about this is territory Saeri has never been in. But for some reason she can't back down, can't put on the brakes, can't slow down. That's not who she is. That's not what she does. She doesn't know how to slow down when her mind is telling her that she has to keep going.

Something about Vi is like meeting a kindred spirit and how can she even know that? She's never felt that. Not like this. But she can't hold back the urge to touch, because the lines aren't perfect but they are so alive. Scrappy, vibrant, real, and jagged like she should be in perpetual motion, like Vi is always a moment between actions, like a machine that keeps going, fighting.

Her fingers slide up the middle of her spine first, then over the clouds of smoke at her shoulders.]

It's gorgeous. [She says it softly, breathlessly.] It looks like it took a lot of time, to get these lines, to make the gears and pistons, to fit it all together...

[Her hold hand slides down Vi's arm, covering the ink. Her fingers are long enough that it could wrap around most of Vi's bicep. She wants to know more, about Vi's life. Because everything about her says she's been through shit and punched her way out of it. Saeri can respect that. For all her need for knowledge, for all the drive to know, learn, build, there was something deep, primal and undeniable about the desire to beat life into being what you want. To not accept anything less. Yeah, she gets it.]

We are what life makes of us, but we make what we want of our lives, no matter what anyone else does. I'd say we get that more than a lot of people. [She leans in a bit, closer to Vi's ear.]

But admit it, you knew just how badass it would look.

Edited 2022-08-03 04:10 (UTC)

[she's not prepared for that. had she been prepared for any of this? not at all. it's like how she only half looks before she leaps because she knows the lay of the land - or expects she knows. she's rarely been tripped up in that respect, even here it's been the easiest learning curve of everything.

this is not that.

she's given a few surprise hugs in her time here so far. (okay one, to be exact soon to be two) and it's been her initiative - tight, spontaneous near-lifting off the ground kinds of hugs - but this is not the clap of hands on her back, the pat-pat-pat that sometimes accompanies. this is not---

(it had taken so much time and time was all she had, except for her thoughts, which were as dark and stark and interconnected as the lines she'd channeled them into - memory interlocking with memory - some gone up in puffs of smoke but never truly gone - some so tight, so focused they may as well have been graven there in bone instead of skin - the puffs like rising steam to keep it down, to keep it in, to push through it - and some a distant, impossible hope - a flare in the dark - a hiss of smoke that might never come no matter how many shitty nights she spent on that freezing floor wishing she'd done things differently.

she had still been a child, but she'd had vague ideas of what kind of tattoo she might get someday - people she'd seen come in and out of the last drop, some of them were marked in ways that made them look more dangerous - others were just dangerous looking in the first place - and the addendum to that: this kind of overkill.

it's the machine she's become, it's a testament to her own trials, to powder, too - because that's the memory that has pushed her through those nights, those days, those beatings - the constant replay of the same night over and over and trying - so often failing - to imagine a different ending - the burden and weight of it on her back both literally and metaphorically - this is the machine that powder built.)

---it's not unwelcome. but it's unexpected, and she's suddenly holding her breath again as a finger traces a line - and words follow suit. soft words to mirror a soft touch - and vi is used to neither.

a surprise exhale when saeri moves closer, and a small space of silence hangs before she speaks. it is soft, too.]

And when life tries to make us something else, something we don't want? When it tries to define us differently? We look it in the eyes and say hell no. It's like you said before. we defy its expectations. It says give up. I say 'make me'.

[she'll turn, it's not quick or practiced - it's also a surprise, her guard's dropped to a level she's also not prepared for, but she rolls with that, because (also surprisingly) this feels like a safe zone. for her, there have not been many of those.]

Yeah, I knew.

[and when she's fully turned, she leans as close as saeri might allow, and rests her forehead against the girl's chin - it would have been her forehead had vi been taller. the last little bit of air huffs out like a sputtering blue flare.]

[They are kind of awkward and stilted in this intimacy and yet somehow it's seamless, the way they pushed and teased and fell into this, like they walked off the edge of a cliff and kept walking not even knowing how fast they were falling. Because that's what this feels like. Falling through the sky in a way that she's never felt before. How had this happened? It's blown past the parts of her that normally turn everything into a game, a joke no one could take seriously so they never threaten anything more. So she never had to think about what more meant and the potential loss of it.

Something in her says to step back, to adjust herself, land on her feet and walk away.

But another part of her is a gaping, open wound of rotted emptiness that she never expected someone else to see right into like this. Because she's been like this all her life--the scar on her chest the cruelest and most amusing metaphor life could have gifted her with--and the only other person who ever did might be dead and gone and that's on her. At any moment of the day that knowledge hits her in the face like a physical blow and she's backing away and refusing to let it consume it like she deserves. It's all that she deserves.

And yet here's someone who sees it and gets it and Saeri has no fucking clue what she is doing except letting it happen. Because when Vi's forehead rests against her chin Saeri may as well have frozen for a moment, eyes wide and breath caught in her throat. It's like a computer needing a reboot, the way her mind just stalls. But her body seems to understand. There stuttered reaction gives way to hands running over those arms, one warm flesh and the other chilled steel, back up to those shoulders and those lines and they dig in where the puffs of smoke escape the machine.]

Never turn down the chance to tell life to fuck off and look badass at the same time, huh? Guess there's a lot of things we agree on.

[She tilts her head down more, bending over to take away the space that steams between them so she can press their foreheads together.]

I can't wait to put my ink all over you. To add onto the machine you've built.

[And maybe that shouldn't sound as suggestive as it does.]

[honestly, vi is used to awkward more than she would like to admit - it's become a sort of default normal-abnormal so that yeah, at least half the awkwardness is lost on her, and - oh, that metaphor. they both carry their inside scars and burdens on the outside, too. buried memories, dead and gone buried people, same and same.

yeah, it's like that now. a hug happens. again when did she become a hugger? now, she supposes. and she doesn't try and lift saeri off her feet, she just returns the gesture with unguarded sincerity.

she can't help hum a little laugh at that. at how it sounds - and if things had been less ...whatever this is, she might have let a half-joke slip, but she doesn't.]

I have a couple ideas. Well, really, it's just one idea. I'd have to describe it from memory, and then you could just put your own spin on it.

[she will break the embrace, but give her a moment. give her two moments.]

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inkedspell - 2022-08-06 02:37 (UTC) - Expand