(no subject)

[tragic_mask]

Arriving at the Visitor's Center, Melpomene takes a look around.

"Well, this is it. In all its touristic glory. "

Comments

[mechanicalswans]

"So I make it more difficult for them," he says quietly, "make it more costly, so they will change their minds, or possibly be killed trying to get the materials or payment."

[tragic_mask]

"I see," she says.

[mechanicalswans]

"It's my only defense," he says with a light shrug.

[tragic_mask]

"I think I understand. So the more you like someone, or want to complete their commission, the easier you'll make things on them."

[mechanicalswans]

"Exactly," he nods. "I have a bit of a romantic side still, it turns out, and that makes me go much easier on certain people even if they are strangers. But I am kinder to my friends."

[tragic_mask]

"Good to know," she says with a smile.

[mechanicalswans]

"I would make you just about anything you could want, easily," he says with a small smile in return. "I won't say I would make anything easily, but most things."

[tragic_mask]

"I'm sure my imagination couldn't encapsulate all the things you could make," she says. "So don't worry about that."

[mechanicalswans]

"I don't know you completely, not yet," he murmurs, "but what I have seen of you, I can't imagine you asking for something I would not willingly, even gladly, make for you."

[tragic_mask]

"I'd hope you wouldn't know me completely already," she says. "I don't like to be so transparent."

[mechanicalswans]

"The only way to know someone, truly and completely, is for them to be dead," he says. "But I don't even know you completely up to this point--very far from it. And I prefer it that way. Just as long as I know you at least a little..."

[tragic_mask]

"I suppose that's the best one can hope for, with gods."

[mechanicalswans]

"I feel honored that you let me get this close to you," he says with a smile. "And I hope I don't disappoint."

[tragic_mask]

"No," she says. "You match and exceed all my expectations of Northern forge gods. Such as they are."

[mechanicalswans]

"What kind of expectations would you have had?" he asks, eyebrow raised. "Some particular to Norsemen, or to forge workers, or some combination of the two?"

[tragic_mask]

"Oh, both." She nods, sagely. "Of course, my image of forge gods comes from Hephaestus. But he's a lot less formidable than I imagined the Norse gods to be. He's a big hunchbacked softy, when it comes right down to it."

She quirks a brow. "So, my expectations were of someone like Hephaestus, only... dangerous."

[mechanicalswans]

He chuckles quietly.

"The Norse types are outright bastards, and you'd do well to be wary if you meet any. Even I am, and I grew up among them."

[tragic_mask]

"Oh?" she says, eyebrow lifted. "What sorts of things I be wary of?"

[mechanicalswans]

"That you might be killed--even if it wouldn't work, not completely, it wouldn't be a pleasant experience. Taken prisoner, held for ransom, used as a concubine... being disfigured for sport, that's another one. Being sent to very unpleasant realms and held there."

[tragic_mask]

She makes a face.

"Not that my people aren't cruel, in their own Mediterranean way, but... yours sound ghastly."

[mechanicalswans]

"I think that yours... being immortal, and being among immortals, and knowing that they would always have to put up with these same people, there's a certain amount of forced civility. We never had that. Sure, as long as the apples held out... but after that?"

[tragic_mask]

She nods. "You're right... there's a certain sense of required social interaction... and besides, it's impossible to kill us, so most of us don't try."

After a moment, she adds, "That's not to say that life can't still be torturous, if Hera wants it to be."

[mechanicalswans]

"Give someone a little power and it makes them want more," he says. "Give them a lot, and they are insufferable. It's always the way."

[tragic_mask]

"Oh, yes," she says. "One way you can tell that gods were made for humans."

[mechanicalswans]

"It makes the humans feel less inferior to have their flaws--'Oh, if the gods were lying, murderous, adulterous bastards then I can point to their example!'--but it's really nothing to aspire to."