What do we care, if the world is a joke? // We'll give it a big kiss, we'll give it a poke. Who: Elpis & Tattoo What: She's awake; he's confused. (SWAK!) Where: Tattoo's shop. When: Monday, morning. Why:The difference between a kiss and a tattoo is largely a matter of delivery.
It was, Elpis decided on her first morning awake and sane and out and aware of what was done, all very strange.
She'd expected the weakness and the patchiness, and the cool exposure that came from being unshielded by Legra's nerve. She'd expected the slow burn weariness drip-drying her veins. She'd expected regret.
What Elpis hadn't expected was...normalcy.
For the first time in centuries, the spirit of Hope felt unremarkably stable and, well, lucid. It'd been rather disconcerting, at first, when she woke up on Pandora's couch--alone--and stared at the ceiling and didn't immediately feel her thoughts swallowed by blind overload. More amazingly, the coherency had continued all the way to the bathroom, and through the kitchen, and even in and out of Pandora's closet.
Her power level, Elpis discovered sourly, was being significantly less surprising. She'd barely managed to conjure together a sweater--only to have the sleeves begin unraveling before she even finished pulling it on. Borrowing clothes was quickly deemed the wiser action.
Which is how a sixteen-if-you-squint-year old something in an oversized sweater and paint-dabbed jeans (also noticeably wrong sized) came to be sitting in a tattoo parlor's counter, swinging her legs, and talking animatedly with passing customers and workers alike.
(Talking! Actually talking! When was the last time she'd dared chance the sound of her own, true voice in mortal company? It made her want to juggle accents for the sheer silliness of it.)
Legra would like the place, with its pretty-skinned people and pictures and odd laughter, and so Elpis liked it too. Her affection radiated, making people a little keener to spot the perfect design, a little faster in picking and paying, a little more willing to be thrilled.
Also, they'd given her soda and a very, very bendy purple straw, and cake. Life was good.