RP:Not Fire, but Fire
Summary: Lita and Nortengaal discuss tattoo designs and art projects.
Lita had been. Busy. Which was the short version. Exhausted was only the slightly longer version. But it felt nice to just enjoy a few hours at the shop without a hustle and bustle of tourists coming and going. The shop door is propped open with a brick, allowing a slight breeze to carry the smell of the ocean inside. Lita is sitting atop one of the glass display cases which dominate the center of the room, one leg bent beneath her, the other hanging over the edge of the case, bare foot swaying lazily. She's hunched over a sketchbook in her lap, her fingers smudged with dark charcoal as she muses over the mess of the page and whatever she's trying to get out of her head. Wearing the usual little black sundress, the new leather bracer on her left forearm, raven curls gathered into a messy braid over her left shoulder. She chews at the inside of her lower lip, huffing in frustration at the sketchbook.
Nortengaal had been by the shop a few times in recent weeks, hoping to catch the proprietor at work. He’s seen her recently of course, and could probably have approached her about getting some ink done then. But honestly he feels weird asking somebody about their work when they're not actually in their workplace, so he’s just been hoping to run into her when the shop was open. As luck would have it, he sees the door is propped open as he approaches, meaning at least somebody was here, if not Lita herself, and he gives the door a knock as he darkens the doorway, pleased to see it is in fact Lita who’s in the shop today. “Hey!” he says in greeting as he enters, eyes roaming over the various showcased pieces around the interior. “Hope I'm not interrupting anything.”
Lita straightens a bit when she senses someone approaching the shop. The door is open, sure, but that doesn't mean all are welcome. Her shoulders tense some with anticipation and it takes her a minute to realize the steps are familiar. She looks up to see the friendly bearman and relaxes slightly, dark eyes drifting for a moment to his hands where that yo-yo had resided in recent nights. Curious thing, spinning toys on strings, dancing with the right sort of tension. She lifts a hand in greeting, her palm and wrist smeared with with the same smudges of dark coal that marred her fingertips. "Please, interrupt away," she sighs with a smile, letting the sketchbook fall against her knee. "I think my brain needs a break from this project." She draws a steadying breath and sighs. "What can I do yah for? Please tell me Leo's agreed to let you repaint the cellar and you're here to talk color schemes!" She's teasing, probably. She doubts anyone would care what color the walls are.
Nortengaal chuckles and shakes his head. “No,” he pauses in consideration. Now that she’d mentioned it…” Not today at least, though when I get to it you’ll be the first to know.” He rubs an itch on one of his fuzzy ears, gold hoops clinking together gently. “I’m actually here to get some ink done, if you have the time.” Approaching the countertop he pats his pockets a second before pulling out a piece of paper with a rough sketch of what he’s looking for on it; a bear’s head in black and white, half of it realistic and half of it more stylized, with wisps of flame accenting the edges of that half of the portrait. Seems like he took Mahri’s advice after all, though with his own spin on it. “Hopefully this gets the idea across, I'm not the best artist around but I'd like to think I do ok.”
Lita perks up some at the mention of tattoos. Any art, really, did the trick. She liked art more than people most days. She leans forward even as he's taking that page out to share it and she reaches for before suddenly realizing she has charcoal smudged all over her hands. Maybe best not to smear his work. "Here, let me just uh," she sets her sketchbook aside on the glass case and wipes her hands on the hem of her skirt, as if it's a rag. Good enough and she didn't even have to get up. She's classy that way. She takes the sketch only after, dark eyes flickering over it, already tracing the lines of it in her head. She'd done a bear before. And Leo's wolf. The fur wasn't the tricky part. It was the fire. It didn't make sense that he'd want the stylized half of the bear to be *burned*. She didn't know much about the man, truthfully, but enough. Maybe that was a more personal affect then, and not at all literal. "Two questions." She murmurs, tapping a finger idly against the corner of the page. "Maybe three. Where do you want it? Black and white or colors? And," she looks up at him then finally, this last question more for the benefit of her own curiosity, "is the fire not really fire?" If he looks puzzled by that last bit, she'll clarify, "It's a coin, right? Two sides of it. It's a good concept. Old, but well done here. Lends itself to a very personal thing, which is hard to put on display for the world to see." She respects the meaning of it, the drive, even if she doesn't know what that is for him. "But that would make me think if this was fire, then the other side would have smoke. No smoke. So, not fire. But, fire." It makes sense in her head, even if the words sometimes don't come out right. This was why she'd fallen in love with art at all. The words weren't always necessary.
Nortengaal ’s brows raise a little in surprise and a wide smile breaks across his face. She really got it in one, even if it’s only half of what he ultimately plans for this particular piece and its twin. The second piece he doesn't have drawn up yet, focused as he was on this one first. Plus, once he see’s how this one turns out he’ll have a better idea of how the other one would look, and can decide if he even wants the second part. Pointing to the inside of his right forearm he circles an area an inch or so above the wrist. “I was thinking about here. It’s actually part of a set i was considering, but i wanted to see how this one actually looks on me before i set about drawing up the second piece. And i was thinking black line work mostly, maybe some red in the eyes. Adding white would look a little odd with my darker skin tone i think.” Looking up from his arm he meets her gaze with a little nod. “Not fire but fire.” He doesn't elaborate any further, because he doesn't need to. She clearly understands better than he could ever put into words.
Lita reaches out a hand for his wrist, tugging him closer so she arc her thumb across the space he's indicated on the inside of his forearm. Sometimes she forgets that people have personal space. Not that Nort's entirely a stranger. Mahri and Leo both trusted him so that made him alright in her book, at least easier to be at ease around. She settles the sketch in her lap, across her knee, her free hand lifting to his forearm as well, her fingertips dragging across the space he'd indicated as she turns his arm a little one way and then the other. She's quietly measuring the space of him and the picture he's wanting in her head, trying to see it, even now. "White wouldn't look odd at all with your skin," she says gently. "But with this piece would detract. It would be a focal point, draw attention, you don't want that here. Red in the eyes would be good, not too dark. More of the same color echoed in your fire but not fire. And something else too, I think. Something not sinister exactly, but a warning." She taps a finger against his wrist as she thinks for a moment, dark eyes narrowing at his arm. "Gold, I think. Just enough to make someone look twice, as if not sure of what they'd seen. Yes, I think that's what it will need." She squeezes his wrist affectionately and pats her other hand against his arm as she looks back up to catch his gaze. "This will work, I'll do it. When can you come again to start?"
Nortengaal lets himself be pulled closer, not bothered by the encroachment into his space. Truth be told, his personal space ‘bubble’ is wildly variable to who he’s around, and Lita is a friend, or at least friend shaped. Plus she *does* need to see the area in question to do her artsy calculations. And what fine calculations indeed - damn she’s good. Taking his rough sketch she not only read the deeper meaning of it, but also pinpointed exactly what it needs to truly shine, Nort is glad he came back to have her do this work. Not that he’d doubted her abilities, seeing what she did for Mah and Lora, but its always more impactful when it’s personal. Meeting her dark eyes with his own red ones he smiles widely, very pleased to hear she’ll take this on. “Any day this week I think, unless something comes up my schedule is pretty open.” Gently extricating his arm from her grasp he reaches for one of the many pouches on his waist as he asks his next question, less exciting than the works being planned but important all the same. “What do you need for payment? I don't see it posted anywhere and I don't want to forget about it in my excitement.”
Lita would be delighted to know that she is friend-shaped. It is, she's decided in recent months, a not so bad shape to be. "This week. Can do. Give me a day or two? I'll make sure I have all the colors ready." Gold gradients without sparkles could be tricky things and she didn't want the colors to be overly bright. "Can I keep this?" She asks, lifting the sketch he'd brought with him. And then he's reaching for one of those pouches and she realizes he's asking about payment. "Ah, no, your money's no good here." And not just because he was a fellow guild member and friend-shaped himself. "We'll say you owe me one." She offers him a playful wink here.
Nortengaal lets his hand drop, and instead reaches for the flask he keeps in it’s own little holster, unclipping it to pull it out and take a little sip, it’s current contents a mix of honey whiskey and the fire whiskey he’s been oh so fond of lately. He offers it to her afterwards, letting her know what's in it just in case she’s not interested in the mix. “By all means go ahead, I don't really need to hold onto it.” he says, indicating the sketch. “Sure, I can give you all the time you need. If I don't run into you here, I'm sure ill see you at the Jolly Roger sooner or later.” a good-natured chuckle follows. “A favor eh? Sounds good to me.”
Lita takes the offered flask with a bit of a cheeky grin. "Don't tell Leo, eh? As far as he's concerned, there'd no drinking at the shop." Which was still true during business hours. Not such a grand idea to be doing tattoo work while sloshed, or while a customer was. Too much blood. She takes a sip, her brain having already forgotten anything after honeyed whiskey that he'd mentioned and when it tastes a bit off, she sniffs at it curiously before handing it back. "Interesting." She croaks a bit with a little cough. "Not fire but fire." She teases him. "So it's a running theme then."
Nortengaal laughs and takes another drink from the flask before recapping it and putting it back in its holster. The bearman then puts a finger to lips while simultaneously summoning a small red orb to it’s tip, hovering just in front of his nose. The telltale shimmer of heat shows briefly around the orb before it disperses with a tiny ‘puff’ sound. “You could say that.” he says with a smirk. Dropping his hand from his face, he indicates the sketchbook she’d been working on when he arrived. “Mind if i ask what you were working on so intently?”
Lita leans back a bit when he magics- she'd assume it's magic- that little orb and puff of smoke. If not magic then, dragon? She'd seen dragons do that whole fire breath thing. But then the ears and fur would allow for an entirely different set of questions. She's staring at him a bit wide-eyed, not at all sure to start with that, when he asks about the sketchbook. And she's a bit thankful for it. Maybe there was just something in that flask. "Uhm, yeah, but it's sorta just a piece of a whole." She holds the sketchbook up to show him and it really doesn't look like much of anything, just smudges of black in varying gradients and depths that look less like art and more like somebody expelled a demon onto the page. She doesn't wait for the question of explanation, or for him to say something like 'oh it's one of those abstract things'. "So a friend of mine showed me how to work a forge recently. It's kind of fascinating and terrifying and beautiful in the primal creation of it. I'd never done it before. Fire and not fire, not really my thing. But it was..." she pauses here briefly with the memory, "...fun." and then she hops off the edge of the display case and tears the page from the book, laying it on the floor. And then another and another. They're not in any particular order, some overlap one another at strange angles but slowly a vague image starts to appear. "But there's something about not just creating the life of the fire there but the nurture of it that I kind of wanted to capture, and I just..." it wasn't working and it's frustrating as hell. While the image all put together looked well enough like the depiction of a fire dancing in a stone forge, the movement was there but not the heart, that integral spark. She'd no idea how to capture that on paper here. Crouched next to the pages, she glances up at him. "I think I'm gonna have to burn it." Literally, to get the effect she was aiming for, that might be the only solution.
Nortengaal was going to comment on the single page - he couldn't tell you what it was, but it certainly looked interesting - but then the artist starts tearing out pages and laying them down and the overall picture becomes clearer. Nort nods as she explains what she was aiming for, and he can see where her frustrations are coming from. He’s no forge worker himself, but he knows a thing or two about creating with fire, and can see how hard that would be to truly capture on the page. “That might certainly achieve what you’re going for.” He rubs his chin stubble thoughtfully. “The question is would you try and draw the effects of *that* too, or just hold it in your mind for yourself? Also, I don't know what other mediums you work in, aside from skin of course, but have you tried painting it maybe? The colors might help breathe that life you're looking for.”
Lita smirks a little at his question about whether she'd try drawing the effects of burning the sketches. Meta, but probably not unreasonable for her. Her grin turns a bit sheepish as she tilts her head up at him and shrugs a little. "Art deserves more than to be held hostage." She muses. "And pieces like this, they get under your skin. Very demanding." She stands, tugging a bit at the end of her braid where it's fallen over her shoulder. And she laughs suddenly at his question about paint. Not that he'd made a joke at all. "I do paint. Messily, because I think brushes are more restricting than they should be. I was saving that as a last resort but I think you're right and it's going to have to be the route I take next." She folds her arms over her chest and bites at the inside of her lower lip, still entirely amused by whatever thoughts he'd inspired. "What colors? Don't think too hard about it, just the first three that come to mind. Not just the names of them but what you see them on."
Nortengaal blinks, surprised a bit by her sudden laughter. What’d he say that was so funny? A slight lift of his shoulders follows. Whatever it was, at least it was enjoyable. “I don't think I've ever heard anybody call brushes restricting before, but i can totally see that for you.” He tilts his head at her question, unsure of what to make of the last bit, but gives it his best shot. “Deep purple on rocks, Black on bees, Green on fire.” Talk about your non-sequiturs, but it’s the first three things to pop into his head. “Not sure if that helps, but that’s what I got.”
Lita moves towards the worktable to snag a pencil and then reaches for one of the pages on the floor so she can take notes on it, scribbling as he talks. "Purple, rocks, black, bees, green, fire." She was nodding until that last one and looks at him with furrowed brow. "Green for fire?" She's not confused by it so much as curious again. "What are you burning, exactly? You're supposed to wait 'til the sticks are dead." She's teasing him, probably. Hopefully he's not out burning dryads in his free time. I mean, she'll try not to judge. Dryads can get pretty snippy.
Nortengaal chuckles and shrugs. “Honestly your guess is as good as mine. I just went with the first three things that popped into my head.” Really though, what *would* burn green? There’s probably something out there that does. Of course with enough/the right kind of magic, anything was possible, whether that was the intended outcome or not. Probably even better if it wasn't - the coolest stuff usually is the unintended kind. “Why’d you ask that, anyways?” Consider his curiosity quite piqued, that was probably the most interesting question prompt he’s gotten in a while.
Lita is tapping the end of the pencil against the page, mulling over his color choices. Like all things, trying to see the thing in her head before she created it. It was a simpler creating with tattoos, honestly. People already had that spark, that heart. She didn't have to create it just highlight it, in a sense. Her job with tattoos was only to be a vessel. Sometimes it was for the person themselves, like with Nort and Lora. Others were about representation like Mahri's and even Leo's. So many were about loss and honoring the past, just trying to remember. "Painting is different." She says, forgetting for a moment that he can't hear the things she doesn't say out loud. "Meri's always been better at painting than I am that way. She connects better to the things she paints, I think. It's more natural for her." And it was a thing she greatly admired in the woman's work. "But, since you were so kind to suggest the next medium, I figured you might as well have the honor of also choosing its colors. I like a good challenge so this will be a fun one."
Nortengaal nods his understanding, even missing part of the train of thought as he was. “Makes sense.” Insofar as anything does when one talks about art, it being highly subjective as it is. “I didn't know Meri painted, I'll hafta ask her about it sometime when she’s got a moment.” Perhaps surprisingly for a man of his general proclivities, Nort is someone with an appreciative eye for art in all its forms. It’s what drew him to the shop in the first place, the things on display in the windows, and what kept him here the first time he visited, everything else inside. “I’m happy to help, I look forward to seeing the end result.”
Lita is always happy to share the art things. And also make people bug Meri about art things too. "Oh, me too!" She says excitedly about the piece's end result. As if she wouldn't be the one painting it. "Good or bad I'll find someplace to hang it I guess. I hope." She tried to keep the art in the shop limited to the tattoo work, especially now with Leo moonlighting from time to time. The beach house didn't lend itself to much an aesthetic of purple and green but she'd find a place. "I might actually need to ask a favor of you tomorrow, if you've time. I'm heading up to Vailkrin again to meet with someone and that usually wouldn't bother me any but with the newest edicts out of Xalious about vampires, well it just seems everyone's loyalties are being tested these days. I wouldn't mind some company on the trek, I s'pose is all. Think you'd mind tagging along?"
Nortengaal looks off to the side a moment, running his week plans through his mind. Not that there were many honestly; working on the new space, probably meeting with Leo about it at some point, the new tattoo, drinking at any given point. Yeah, his schedule is pretty clear. “Sure, my schedule is pretty open, I’d love to join you.” It’ll be a good chance to get to know the woman better, and to be better known in return of course, and who would pass that up? Nort might even get some insider info on Mahri, it’s been a while since he’s seen her but his interest hasn't waned very much. And unrelated to that, It’d be really crappy for something to happen ‘round those parts especially, considering the citizenship of the area, and he really doesn't want anything bad to happen to Lita. He likes her, and she’s important to the captain and the others to boot.
Lita claps her hands together excitedly when he agrees to join her. Kasyr himself might not be as excited about her bringing a plus one but hopefully he'd understand with recent happenings. "Perfect, it's a date!" She offers a playful wink with the words. "I should lock the place up and head home for a spell." She remembers suddenly that she'd offered him use of the room upstairs on their last meeting. "Oh, while you're here, let me show you the upstairs." She waves a hand for him to follow and she turns to pad barefoot towards the stairs at the back of the room the staircase has been built into the corner of the building so a sharp right turn at the top stair leads directly into the vacant second floor. There is no door, and no inner walls, just the same open floor plan as below. There is a bed on the western wall and a washtub on the other side, a privacy partition half folded around it. On the wall directly across from the stairs is a desk littered with books, the window above it open. There are also no curtains. There are various boxes stacked about the room, containing extra supplies for the shop as well as some of Leo's tools brought from the JR. "Cal comes and goes, mostly keeps to himself. I've told him you and Gore might stop in on occasion but I don't recommend venturing out the shop's back door. I'm not responsible for what happens after." She holds her hands up at that. "It's not much, but it's maybe a bit more comfortable than the JR."
Nortengaal was ready to leave at the mention of locking up, and was pleasantly surprised at the reminder of the offered room. He’d kinda forgotten about it, truth be told, focused as he was on the JR, and he follows her up the stairs to scope out his secondary living arrangements. “This is a pretty nice space you’ve got up here. And yeah, probably a little more comfy than the JR.” he says with a laugh. “More private that’s for sure. Way less likely to have random people just dropping in. Is there a key or something somewhere I can use? Or like a window maybe? I’m not picky.” He nods. “Don't go out the back door, got it. Um, who’s Cal btw? Somebody I should introduce myself to at some point id wager.”
Lita doesn't know where to start with Cal for the night. That's a whole other venture. "Cal took over smuggling operations when a previous key player skipped town." Condensed version. "He's friendly enough if you don't ruffle 'is feathers." She turns to head back downstairs and pauses a moment to look over her shoulder at him again with a warning, "Don't ruffle 'is feathers." And then she's heading back downstairs, assuming he'll follow. "There's a loose brick under the lip of the front window. Key's inside it most days, though if Cal's about or I'm in and out, we tend to leave the door open, honestly. Not much in here worth stealing we can't either find or replace." And nobody thus far had been stupid enough to try anyway. She nabs his sketch from the display case as she heads towards the front door. "We'll do this 'gain tomorrow, yah?"
Nortengaal nods again, the description good enough for him. “Don't ruffle the feathers, got it.” He does wonder idly if that's just metaphorical or if he’s got actual feathers, but he supposes he’ll find out sooner or later. Either way, he’ll be aiming to stay on their good side. Nort follows Lita down the stairs and towards the door. He’s got some more work to do at the Jolly Roger before he hits the hay for the night, and a stop to make before that to the Broken Barrel to meet some drinking buddies and maybe gather some more intel on the state of the world. Only time will tell what’s actually useful info and what isn't. “Sounds good, I'll swing by same time tomorrow, we’ll make a night of it.” he says with a smile before he touches his forehead with a couple fingers by way of goodbye, a hat tip without the hat, before he exits into the cool night air.