#magic lamps

With Soren there the mad fun is assured. Ok, most of his ideas need magic to come to life, but when did that ever stop him? Or the fact that he really doesn’t like cold. Necessary sacrifices for the greater fun. He just worms into Max’s warm blanket between rounds, and maybe shamelessly pull puppy eyes for some minor fire spell too.

Maxwell thought he opted for the safer side when he chose to sit at the bar and keep warm with Soren’s special drinks (mass created by the baffled then fascinated barkeeper). After he naively took a brave gulp from a “Burning Ice” - mages special, (a blue, faintly glowing creation, spiced up with a pinch of lyrium for appropriate customers), Soren put a new drink on the menu: “Lukewarm Ice”, with much, much less alcohol. Noted as special dedication for Max, just to be a little shit. XD  Still, since watching epic snow battles spikes up daring in people, Max got curious about a drink named “Enemies Blood” on the menu. After a careful sip, he let it wait for Soren. It turned out to be also a very potent, and a very sweet beverage. With salted glass rim. Uhh.

HEY EVERYONE, you are all INVITED to join this madness, and have fun.

Xander had never exactly been the biggest fan of looking after his weapons - it wasn’t that he didn’t love his bow or sword, but he just found it incredibly boring having to sharpen it or keep it clean. But his grandfather had always told him you could judge a man by how they kept their weapon and Xander wasn’t about to let the family down even further with a few spots of rust. Entering the small set up being used to prepare weapons felt strangely quiet, but he supposed most people wouldn’t choose such a late hour to sort out their belongings. Nodding at someone he passed Xander made his way a little further into the area, trying to find a good spot to set up when a familiar face caught his attention. Walking a little closer he raised an eyebrow at Martina and the look of such concentration on her face, he wasn’t sure what sort of response he would get from her - though he was leaning more towards shouting - so decided to go with a casual, “I’m starting to think one of us is following the other if we keep meeting like that.”

Martina didn’t want to fight with the people who killed her best friend. She didn’t want to walk around the Legion and wonder who had the killing blow. She didn’t want to fight. Yet, she continued to. It was her duty, her job. She had too many connections here. Too many people she could have trace her back to Milo if she left to join her son and her brother. She had to fight, she had to survive. She had begun to help with weapon maintenance, the job leaving it so that she didn’t have to speak to anyone else. Not that many people were looking to talk to the girl who exploded at nearly everything. Though lately, with the sadness simmering in her chest, she hadn’t yelled in a while. It was surprising and apparently more scary, considering just how many people were avoiding her now. She looked up surprised to hear another voice, and somehow was no surprised at all that it was Xander. “My guess is it’s you following me.” Her voice lacked the emotion it usually had, sounding tired and worn now. “Since you came in after me.”

Xander frowned at her words, well more how she sounded then the words themselves. He wouldn’t have said he knew her extremely well, but from all previous encounters Xander had gotten the feeling the girl didn’t do a lot of things quietly or without emotion. In the brief moment of pause, he wracked his brain, trying to remember if anything more awful had happened in the last few days. But as far as he knew since the news of the two legionnaires dying there hadn’t been much news. Unless of course she had known one of them… Xander didn’t want to push it and accidently say the wrong thing, though he wasn’t sure he could do a whole conversation like this. Was is weird to miss someone shouting at you? “Hm, that sounds like something a stalker might say. For all I know you’ve had my schedule copied.”

There were only a few things that made Martina as quiet as she was at the moment. They were rare moments. For all the terribleness she felt at the moment, at least she wasn’t so angry she couldn’t function. That was a worse time if she had to be honest. She was fine with her regular anger. That was fun at times. Yelling and scaring people could be fun. “Don’t check my journal, I certainly don’t have it copied in there next to my most intimate thoughts and feelings.”

“I’ll be sure to skip those pages when I have root through,” he joked before shifting from foot to foot a little awkwardly. After a moment of thought Xander shrugged his quiver off his shoulder followed quickly by his bow and he moved to stand diagonally opposite her. Xander was picking up on her vibe to want to be left alone, but something about the whole situation made him want to stay put, even if they did just work in silence. “Mind if I take this spot? I think you picked the best one.” He didn’t really wait for a response before putting down his weapons and starting to put them in some sort of order.

“Please do, they reveal all my deepest darkest secrets. Like who I’m crushing on this week.” Martina couldn’t imagine what someone would find in a journal of her deepest darkest secrets. She was not a good person. It wouldn’t be an easy read, and she was sure Xander would never look at her the same way again. Good thing the journal didn’t really exist. She shrugged,“Better you than someone who hates me. I don’t have the energy to have to bitch someone out today.”

“Oh well now I have to go looking for it. I’ve been dying to know who you’re crushing on,” he said shooting her a quick grin before turning his attention back to his weapons. Emptying his quiver of arrows Xander began sorting through thing until he found the ones that needed the most attention. “What you mean no shouting today? Are you feeling okay?” It was meant to be a joke but as soon as he said the words Xander worried maybe now wasn’t the right time.

“I’m sure the answer will shock you.” Martina answered. She didn’t have the time to have a crush on people. Especially after the last person she had a crush on turned into a sea monster and was killed. She didn’t know if crushes were worth it after that. “I’m just tired. Being mad all the time is really tiring, not that I can really help it. I don’t know I’m just too tired to be shouting right now.”

“Now you sound like one of those click-bait articles,” Xander mused, putting on his best announcer voice he continued, “You’ll never guess who THIS girl has a crush on!” He gave her a quick grin with eyebrows wagging before pulling his features into a more neutral expression, nodding in understanding. “I get that. People always seem to forget that being mad takes up so much energy.” And from the short time Xander had known her, he got the idea she was mad a lot. “But hey, if you want, I can shout at people for you? Give you a break.”

Martina couldn’t help the little laugh that left her at his voice. She was surprised by the sound herself and her face showed it. “You should go into that. Announcing stuff. That was pretty good.” The smile lingered on her face as she continued to work on her weapons. “I can’t really help getting mad, it’s an unfortunate genetic thing from Great Grandma Ira.” Now that she knew she was a legacy, she let it be mentioned more often. It was a little thing that she seemed to love, even if it made her mad. She let another laugh out,”If you could that’d be great.”

Xander felt oddly proud of that compliment, and though he knew his father would never allow it to happen it was nice to imagine a life where he just got to annonce thing into microphone. “I’ll remember you when I’m a famous voice over,” he joked. Rage and fury, that made her make a little more sense. “Bet that’s not easy, being mad all the time. I wish these godly relations of ours would give out some fun gifts for a change.” Sometimes when he really gave it some thought Xander realised he was actually quite lucky, at least Apollo and Victoria had only ever given him a deep sense of competition. “Think of me as your own personal shouter. Let me know when I can start work.”

Martina couldn’t fight the grin that was taking over her face,“I expect you to tell everyone I’m the one who convinced you to go into it.” She nodded, a little more solemn now,“It’s kind of exhausting. I’m so mad all the time it makes it hard to be a functioning person… And if I’m around people who are mad, I feel that too. All I got from being a demigod was a war, bein’ mad all the damn time, and visions that are usually about someone dying.” She smiled at him again, feeling more at ease in his presence than she did with most people. “When someone starts to piss me off, I’ll let you know?”

“Oh you can count on it. You’ll get an honorable mention when I win my first award for my work as well,” Xander let his hand rest dramatically on his chest as he tried to give her a serious look, but his face broke out into another grin and he pulled back, looking back down at the sword in his hands. He let out a low whistle as she talked, suddenly understanding why she always seemed to want to be alone these days. Anger wasn’t in short supply around here these days, and Martina must have been swimming in it. “Shit, and with all these going on you must be like...like an anger time bomb or something.” Xander hadn’t didn’t think he was ever particularly angry, but he was always in the mood to shout. “Sounds like a plan to me! I’ll be at your beck and call.”

“Wow, a famous person name dropping me in an awards speech, I would have never thought I’d see the day.” Martina was finding it rather easy to be around him, perhaps because he wasn’t prodding her with questions or his mood seemed stable enough that she didn’t have to worry about suddenly getting mad. “I constantly want to punch people in the face. I’ve come to blows with both walls and the floor quite often lately,” She said motioning to her bandaged knuckles. “You better be ready to yell at all the dumb dumbs around then,” She said with a little smile.

Xander gave her a lazy shrug and a quick grin, “I’m all about making those far off wishes come true, my friend.” With a sigh Xander let his sword fall back to the table with a dull clang and picked up an arrowhead instead, suddenly remembering how much he hated weapon maintenance, though he supposed it was slightly more fun doing it with someone not annoying. Glancing at her hands he couldn’t help but wince a little in sympathy, you had to really give the concrete a good pummeling to warrant bandages. “I think we need to get you a new anger outlet. Have you ever considered taking up painting?” He asked with a raised eyebrow, partly joking.

Martina rolled her eyes at him good naturedly, though her little smile showed how amusing she thought he was being. “You sounds like you’re trying to be a genie, should I get you a lamp to live in?” She has to be thankful that Xander was someone she could joke with. She very rarely was able to joke with people. She flexed her fists a little, before shrugging. “I used to make music, but between the Legion and university I stopped. Maybe I should go back into it. Painting has always been so… messy. I always feel like I’ll ruin my clothes.”

Shrugging Xander resisted the urge to start wiggling his fingers in her face, “Y’know what, I think I would be quite happy living in a lamp. At least there’d be less weapon maintenance to do.” It also meant he wouldn’t have to deal with an ongoing war or family problems, which seemed like an added bonus really. Raising an eyebrow at her he asked, “What kind of music did you make?” He didn’t really have her pegged as the musical type, but clearly he was missing something. “That’s the whole point of painting! To get a little messy,” he said with a laugh.

“Living in a lamp would be way easier than living out here at least, less people to deal with too.” Martina grinned at him,“I would honestly still probably do weapon maintenance in there. I think it’s relaxing.” She was sure a lot of people disagreed with her, but there was something prideful to it for her. People would know that she knew what she was doing if her weapons were kept nicely, she thought. “I switch  between club music, like remixes and things like that, and acoustic stuff,” Before she realized she wanted to be a surgeon, she was rather sure that she would have ended up in the DJ scene. “I hate cleaning up messes though! I’m guessing you paint then?” She asked with a smile.

“Y’know, I think we’re on to something here. Living in lamps could be next big trend. I think we should make it happen,” it was a wild and whimsical idea and Xander rarely had them that he felt the need to grab on to it tightly. Shaking his head at her he almost pushed the reminder of his arrowheads over to her side of the table, “How on earth do you find this relaxing? It’s so boring!” He wasn’t sure why that answer shocked him so much but Xander found himself blinking at her in confusion for a moment, “Huh. So like, DJ kinda stuff then, yeah? Are you any good?” The question left his mouth before he could stop it and he cringed a little before shaking his head at her, “Not much anymore, and it was more like...throwing paint. Don’t exactly have the time do much of anything, even before all this kicked off.”

“If anyone could make it happen, it would be us. We’ll start working on the protype lamp apartment as soon as we can,” Martina would admit that this conversation was rather silly, but she couldn’t really remember the last time she let herself just be silly. She smiled a little,“Probably because it’s so boring. When else do we get to do normal boring stuff? It makes me feel prepared for anything too. Like if my weapons are ready, so am I.” It was a bit like a tradition to her now, cleaning and preparing her weapons to make sure she was ready to face the next day head on. “Yeah, like DJ stuff,” She hummed, before pulling out her phone,“I’d like to say I’m pretty good, I’ve played a few places. You can take a listen if you want.” She wasn’t huge into sharing her music anymore, but she supposed this was as good of a time as any to start again. “Like Pollock? Were you any good?”

“The sooner the better if you ask me,” he said with another grin, glad that she was at least playing along with his stupid idea in the same manner as him. Tilting his head a little to the side he considered her point, he supposed there was some merit to it, sometimes getting to do the mundane activities was needed especially in a war. “Hm, I guess that makes sense. Gives you one less thing to worry about when you’re in the thick of it too,” now Xander felt like he should have been putting more effort into his own belongings and prepping for a fight. Dropping the now assembled arrows back on the table top and wiping his hands on his jeans Xander accepted the phone with a smile, “I just hit play?” he asked finger hovering. Letting out a laugh he shook his head, feeling hair brush against his forehead from the movement, “Oh no, i’m fucking terrible at it! But it’s a great stress reliever so,” he gave a nonchalant shrug.

“We’d probably be able to sell loads if we advertised right. Think of it, lamps will be the new yacht.” Martina didn’t get to relax often, she certainly never got to relax for this long. Some new terrible thing would come up, or she have some bad vision, or her brother would need something. “I’ve been the kid who broke their weapon during training because I wasn’t taking good care of it. It’s really not fun and I can’t imagine that it would do me any good to have it break during a battle.” She had broken enough weapons that she was at one point well known at the forges. Comes with fighting almost purely based on anger. She leaned over and pressed play for him, music beginning to play. It had a good beat to it and was certainly something people would dance to. “That sounds like something someone who was good at it would say, I’m not going to lie.”

“They’ll be so popular we’ll become millionaires overnight,” and have the perfect excuse to get the hell out of the city, it seemed like the perfect dream. Xander raises an eyebrow at her, holding back from laughing at the image of her getting angry at her own broken weapon, “Everyone's been that kid at least once. I don’t think many people start out with the desire to take the best care of their weapons.” At least he hadn’t. Raising the phone a little closer to his ear he nodded his head to the beat, it wasn’t hard to imagine it playing in a club or just in the background of high school tv show, “This is really good. You’re really good.” The music was still playing when someone across the room called out Martina’s name so Xander lowered the phone, thumb hitting pause as he passed it back to her with a grin. “Trust me, they’re awful. Maybe i’ll show you them sometime when there’s not a war or people asking for our attention,” he said with a nod toward the stranger, though Xander was sure she must know them.