ways_infirmary | (no subject)

Sunshine chuckles, then thinks better of it, her left arm pressing lightly against her ribs as though to keep them from moving. The last time she laughed, it dissolved into pretty horribly painful coughs.

"Bar takes good care of her patrons, but I can imagine she... thinks she knows better than we do, some of the time."

"She probably does," Steve says, and puts the bouquet into the vase. "Um. I don't know how to make it pretty." He pokes a flower.

Sunshine grins, but holds back any light laughter she would normally indulge in. "They're already pretty, of course. Hand it here?"

Her ribs and collarbone would protest, if she were to try and twist in the ways required to pick up the vase on her own.

"My mother was a florist, when I was little."

He gives her the vase. "My mom was a nurse. I'm very good at bandaging fingers."

"I've gotten pretty good at bandages," she says, wryly, moving the flowers about so there aren't any gaps, "but I'm not sure how much I remember about flower arranging. I remember more about the language of flowers, what each kind means, but still not very much."

"Now, that's something you don't hear much about anymore," Steve says softly, watching her work with the flowers. "Aside for red for love, of course."

"There are some flowers that actually have some minor magical properties, and sometimes people would want to send a particular effect or meaning with their bouquets," she smiles, turning the vase to see if she missed a gap. "Not often, though. Most flowers have different shades of meaning, anyway. Sunflowers are... both admiration and pride, I think, and could also be used to mean gratitude or appreciation."

"Magic?" Steve says. "Really?"

He touches a petal on a sunflower.

"Do you know the story of Clytie?"

"The Heliotrope maiden?" Rae smiles slightly, nodding slightly.

"Just minor things. Some flowers can act as minor protection from harm, or offer warning against a threat without the person having to name the threat aloud."

"That's the one," Steve says. "And here I thought I had something cool to tell you. Oh, well.

"I know when I was a kid, people would use flowers to give messages sometimes. 'Don't forget me,' things like that."

"I devoured stories like that, as a kid," she admits, wry. "Myths and legends and folktales. When most kids got in trouble, they got their allowance taken away - I'd get my trips to the library or the used bookstore taken away."

"Books were some of my best friends, growing up," says Steve. "And I've been reading Greek mythology again lately, because of Orpheus."

Rae nods. "I did the same, when I found out one could meet gods and goddesses and faerie kinds here. I didn't... you know, I didn't want to make assumptions, or cause offense."

She adds, wry, "I still have to watch my mouth - some of my world's slang is centered on the names of different gods and goddesses, and some of them do come here."

"I think I've managed to avoid that so far," he says with a laugh.

"Me too," she smiles. "Hopefully I'll continue to."

"I'd rather not have to explain to Thor what it means when something in my world is said to be 'totally Thor.'"

"What does it mean, in your world?"

Sunshine winces. "Usually something meant to be impressive and genuinely cool but that ends up just being big, loud, and kind of dumb."

"New Arcadia's Other Museum was supposed to be a big deal for the city, but the overall effect is.... eh. Most of the exhibits are real lowest-common-denominator stuff. So, like that. Totally Thor. To get into their real holdings you have to have like three Ph.Ds and dispensation from an actual god."

Edited 2013-08-26 04:37 (UTC)

Steve laughs. "Yeah, don't tell him that."

"Yeaaaaaah," Rae winces.

"Anyway, he's not much like the myths and legends make him out to be, at least those I've heard, so there's next to no danger there."

"He's pretty great," Steve agrees.

"He is," she smiles.

And he's not a drunken lecher! Even with just that, he's already winning. But Thor when Sunshine met him was genuinely nice.

"How have you been, Steve? I'm sorry about the pies on your birthday. There was... a sudden upset in plans that pre-emptively prevented pie-making."

"It's no problem," he says. "We can try it some other time, if you want.

"I'm... adjusting. It's weird sometimes, adjusting to a new century, but I've got some good friends and I've got Orpheus, and when it gets to be too much, I come here."

[ooc: Bedtime. Slowtime okay?]

Edited 2013-08-26 05:20 (UTC)

"I'd like it if we could - something really upsetting happened when I went in to start on them, and it just kind of skewed the entire rest of the day."

Sudden decapitated heads of humanoid fish-creatures in fridges will do that to a person! Especially if the person in question is a squeamish baker.

"I'm glad you have support from your friends in your world, and Orpheus, and your friends here. It's not an adjustment anyone should be expected to make easily. If you ever need something to do, you know, to get your mind off things - well, I've found kneading dough to be very therapeutic."

She may already be training herself not to think of what she'll do for the same feeling of centered calm in the coming weeks until her fractured clavicle allows her to put pressure on her hand or lift things again.

"I'll try that sometime," Steve says. "I've never baked much. I should change that.

"Do you want to talk about what happened with the pie? Or--" He gestures toward her latest wounds. "Any of it?"

"Uh..." Sunshine winces. "Regarding the pies... I found out rather suddenly that someone had stored the rotting, decapitated head of a humanoid catfish-creature in the kitchen's fridge. The smell had kind of... permeated."

Re: Sunshine awake

Re: Sunshine awake

Re: Sunshine awake

Re: Sunshine awake

Re: Sunshine awake

Re: Sunshine awake

Re: Sunshine awake

Re: Sunshine awake

Re: Sunshine awake

Re: Sunshine awake

Re: Sunshine awake

Re: Sunshine awake

Re: Sunshine awake

Re: Sunshine awake

Re: Sunshine awake

Re: Sunshine awake

Re: Sunshine awake

Re: Sunshine awake

Re: Sunshine awake

Re: Sunshine awake

Re: Sunshine awake

Re: Sunshine awake

Re: Sunshine awake

Re: Sunshine awake

Re: Sunshine awake