"And thus,
My immortal soul,
Forever doomed to eternal darkness
Cries red tears
For the last time."

The poet ended his speech with a rather dramatic gesture that annoyed Tasia even more than the poem had. She was no poetry aficionado – quite the opposite – but really? Souls bleeding red tears in a dark abyss? How lame was that.

For her part, she’d gotten all her emo poetry out of the way in the eighth grade.

And was he…?

Yup. He was wearing lipstick.

For her part, Tasia really liked lipstick. She wasn’t even completely adverse to it being on men. One of her best friends from her college days was a transvestite. Nope, the only problem with men wearing lipstick occurred when they ended up prettier than her. That was something she absolutely could not abide.

It just wasn’t fair.

That’s why she’d lost touch with George-slash-Candy.

Tasia had wanted a party tonight. Actually, she’d just wanted something to take her mind off her new job. I mean, it was a pretty good job – great perks, all things considered – but weird. Wait, wait. Why was she still thinking about it? Resolutely, she shoved all thought of work into the dark recesses of her mind.

Oh god, now she was sounding like the poet.

Sipping her beer, she sat there looking, well, not glum, but pretty darn close. She certainly didn’t look very happy.

What she needed was a distraction.

"Why do I let you talk me into these things?" Athena Morrison asked, glaring darkly at her mirror image. Okay, her mirror image if she'd cut her hair short and dyed it a nice vibrant series of colors that made it look remarkably like flame. Of course Athena or Atty as she was known to her friends wasn't exactly that daring, so instead of looking at a mirror, she was staring into remarkablely familar lavender eyes and a smirk that wasn't at all familar.

In other words she was glaring at her twin sister; Electra Morrison. Electra or E as she was more commonly known, only ignored the glare. Or rather she simply enjoyed it, smiling that smug smile that Atty knew she always got when she was down right sure that she was going to get her way. And considering that they were currently dressed up and walking into a club it was pretty safe to say that E had gotten her way.

Athena wanted to argue, she wanted to say that she wasn't interested in looking for another gig, especially now that finals were finally over and she could actually get a good night's sleep. But then E was stuck on this whole becoming a rockstar trip and it didn't seem like she was even close to giving up on her dream. Not that Atty ever wanted her to give up on her dreams, no E without dreams would be like a sports car without an engine. It was the heart and soul of her and currently it was glowing bright.

That alone was enough to have made her agree to tag along and so she had.

"Wait here, Atty. I'm gonna go speak with the manager." Athena tried to glare again, but ended up smiling, taking in her sister's happiness.

She shrugged then.

"Alright...just don't take too long okay. I'm not real comfortable wearing preformance gear off the stage."

Something about that must have been funny because, Electra laughed. Actually she chuckled and suddenly Atty was watching her sister cover her mouth with her hand as she turned on six-inch crimson heels and marched off in search of a chance to preform.

Atty for her part was left standing in similar six-inch heels. Hers however were a cool dark blue; it matched her dress, the same as her sister's. The silk sheath was strapped at the shoulders, it looked almost like silk or lace and the pattern looked a lot like spiderwebs. Electra had originally called it goth eloquent, but their friend and bandmate, Luna had probably said it best.

The two of them looked like rock and roll Elviras, complete with opera gloves that had been cut to make them fingerless for guitar playing.

All in all it was a funny costume choice, that was until you realized while they were preforming that you were listening to a group called "The Furies". They had the wierd sisters/multi aspects of fate thing going and most of their fans really got behind it. The only thing was, building fans. And so Electra had heard about this poetry thing and that the club manager would be around.

So like with most clubs in the area, she had to talk to him, had to try getting them booked. And so that left Athena to her own devices. The albino girl all alone and dressed up with no guitar to play.

Running her hands thorugh hair that was white, literally white rather than blond, she looked about and decided to take a seat at the bar where she simply order a coke.

What Tasia wanted was music. Good music, preferably, but not necessarily. Something with some sort of melody that would either lead her to be distracted, or give her a bad enough headache that she’d be distracted.

She took another sip of her beer.

Her eyes slid sideways and stopped.

There was a girl.

A girl with white hair.

A vampire girl with white hair?

She wasn’t sure. It was hard to say. It didn’t look like it. Looked like the girl was pretty normal, whatever that meant. She was also wearing ungodly-slash-wickedly-awesome shoes. For a moment, Tasia coveted those shoes.

Well, now she had an excuse to introduce herself. That being said, there were two possibilities. Possibility A: Girl is not a vampire, Tasia (maybe) has new friend with awesome shoes. Possibility B: Girl is vampire. Girl tries to eat Tasia. Tasia squeals to Marcus.

Possibility B didn’t even consider the fact that Tasia might die. She was like Doctor! You think she died, but oh no! She just changed her face and kept going. (Of course, the Doctor was a Time Lord time-traveling genius, so…)

Getting up, Tasia tried to discreetly move over two stools. Then, playing nonchalance, she said, “Nice shoes.”

Totally sneaky, was she.


(OOC: PS, Doctor Who ftw. *nerd*)

Of all the things that Athena Morrison might be, vampire wasn’t one of them. Actually the mere idea of vampires might have made her laugh, after all who thinks that blood drinking ghouls are stalking the streets? Really? Not anyone sane, that’s for sure, but as things were, Atty sipped her coke and tried to look unassuming. Something that was pretty hard in her performance clothes and yet something she pulled off just the same. Blame it on her unnatural hair and skin color; the eerie loveliness of her lavender eyes. Atty might not be anything special as so far as species went, but phenotype was most assuredly something different. And exactly what had taught her to be unassuming. When you’re a kid, being different bites, especially when you’re an exact double of different.

And Electra her sister was different in spades.

Actually truth be told, both of Mama Morrison’s little girls weren’t exactly average material. As if the albinism wasn’t enough of a clue.

Crossing her ankles, heels clicking against the barstool, Atty took another sip of her coke. She had eyes only for the clear glass and dark liquid mostly , but as she lifted her glass, wiped at the bar with a napkin and then used said napkin as a coaster, she caught movement out of the corner of her eye.

Turning to meet the movement, lavender eyes took in a young woman. Oh, thank God. Atty was pretty sure she was so not in the mood for getting hit on tonight and especially not while she was dressed like she was.

Every guy she met seemed to expect her to be easy or a dominatrix or something along those lines in this get up. It also became a real pain to say that you weren’t interested. But a pain for whom exactly?

After all she’d been state Judo champion two years ago.

Of course Atty didn’t have to worry about all of that this time, uhm well at least she was pretty sure. Maybe this girl was…

Atty shook her head, blast it, she was being so very rude.

“Uhm…” She spoke. “Thanks. I mean thank you. They’re not that comfy though, mostly just for show. Well for shows actually.”

Atty blushed then, realizing she was babbling.

Extending her hand then, she took a slow breath.

“Sorry. I’m At--uh, I’m Athena. This is just my performance outfit.”

It took Atty a moment and then she realized she really didn’t want this mystery girl getting the wrong idea about her.

“That is to say, it’s my stage outfit, I’m--well I’m in a band…”

A few weeks ago, that would’ve been Tasia. Completely and utterly oblivious to vampire-folk and just living her life. That had certainly changed, hadn’t it? She wanted to hunt down Anne Rice and punch her in the face. If there was an Anne Rice. If she wasn’t a pseudonym for Lestat.

That would be sooo like the vampiric world, wouldn’t it?

Had Tasia known that this girl got guys just coming up to her – routinely, even – she wouldn’t have been jealous, per se, but a little annoyed. Tasia was always the one doing the pursuing. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. Tasia liked to think that mostly it did.

And no, Tasia wasn’t a lesbian. She’d tried to be once, and that had fizzled out rather quickly.

Was there anything Tasia hadn’t tried?

Skydiving, but that was next on her list. And totally irrelevant.

The girl spoke, and it was decided right then and there that this girl was not a vampire. She was far too darn cute.

“Well,” said Tasia, looking thoughtful, “I could give you that crap about how pain is beautiful, but I don’t really believe that. You can be totally beautiful without pain – pain just helps.”

Said the woman with tattoos and piercings.

“Athena, huh? That’s a sweet name!” Tasia took the offered hand and shook it. “Mine’s Tasia. Not common, exactly, but not quite as epic as Athena.” She shrugged in a what can you do? sort of way.

“Band?” said Tasia. “Are you going to be playing tonight?”

She was trying to keep cool, but she was excited. It showed.

Atty smiled at first and then gave up on being coy or whatever it was that she was being and simply laughed. Tasia, she’d said her name was Tasia, right? Well Tasia had a charisma that was almost virulent and add to that witty banter that Atty would be lying if she said she didn’t down right love; and well what could you say, Athena was a nerd and unashamed. It was probably bad that she had fallen into an easy conversation with a complete and utter stranger and yet that was just what happened as she laughed at Tasia’s comment about pain and beauty.

“You know somewhere right now; a Cosmo magazine writer just felt a disturbance in The Force…when you said that.”

Yeah, she was a nerd and unashamed.

Which was exactly the reason Electra always tried to make her feel shame and as such urged on her lack of shame creating a perpetual cycle that would last through out all the day of eternity until the sun burned out and the earth fell into lifeless darkness and oblivion, or until one of them got bored with hassling the other. Which all things considered between twin sisters…oh yeah that sun thing was probably going down first.

“Beauty without pain is like heresy to the whole of fashion and ruthlessly brutalizing a girl’s sense of self images crowd. Be careful, the walls may have grown ears.”

There was a teasing turn to the young woman’s lips then and light touch of blue lipstick she was barely wearing caught the light suddenly looking darker no doubt and serving to reinforce the whole monotone concept that she and the rest of the band had come up with where their costumes were concerned. It was true that they all looked like rock Elviras, but they’d each chosen a color and it had sort of become a signature during performances. Even their instruments matched, making the whole thing a little more professional that most people expected out of the average college band. Especially the college “girl band”.

Atty’s smile became soft then, her expression was neutral, all in all she was going for polite. But then again while she was better at it than Electra. Ha! Ha, ha, freakin’, ha! Better than her at it? You have to be capable of something to no be very good at it.

Still Athena’s politeness wasn’t everything she might have wanted it to be, indeed no doubt not as much as her mother wanted it to be. But still Atty shrugged.

“I don’t know how sweet or epic it is…” She was suddenly saying about her moniker. “My parents are…well my mom is a Mythology Professor at DU and my dad, well dad’s an Anthropologist. They both love Greek mythology far more than two people in the twenty first century should…not that I can blame them. I love it too. But the point is that it was not easy growing up being named Athena, especially when your twin sister is named Electra.”

Finally it made her laugh.

“We’re sort of a strange bunch…and more than just with the twins or the being albino.”

At the mention of the band though, Atty felt herself smile again. She really wasn’t as into the band as her sister was. After all she had absolutely not aspirations toward being a rock star and/or the idol of millions, but she’d be lying if she said she didn’t love it. Lying is she said that she didn’t love the music, didn’t love strumming out a baseline that resonated slow and deep in her belly and only stoked embers that erupted into the full six-alarm conflagration that became a really good and really fun performance.

So yeah, she kinda loved it. And she liked talking about it too, not one of those artsy types that feel no one can understand their vision. After all what vision? You worked on a song, and it was yours, no one could take it from you, but it didn’t make you magic either. If anything it was just fun and so was most of the things associated with it. Most of course being the operative word.

Seeing Tasia’s excitement though wasn’t a good thing. If they’d been about to play, then Atty would have welcomed it with wide open arms. But as it was, she only shook her head, feeling a little bad even if she was only disappoint someone that she’d just met.

“Sorry, but nope. My sister dragged me here so she could talk to the owner about us arranging something, but its just talk right now. And even if it wasn’t, our drummer is out of town at the moment visiting her folks. So…yeah.”

Atty felt kind of bad at that, and it showed in her expression.

Holy Batman shorts!

Tasia had to pick her jaw up off the ground. Then she started to laugh. “There’s absolutely no way at all that a Cosmo writer could be a Jedi. I vehemently refuse to believe it. If anything, they’re totally Siths. Seeking power, disrupting harmony, that sort of thing. Evil, I say.”

It was true. Tasia had been a photographer for a small, but hoity-toity, little fashion magazine based right in Demaitre. She’d quit her second day. No job was worth being surrounded by those types every day. Tasia could still hear them wording their tabloid photos in her nightmares.

She flapped her hand at Athena. “If the walls have grown ears, they can hear me tell them to shove it. I’ve hung out with much scarier people than vindictive fem-bots.”

Fear her! Fear her… fearlessness! Yeah!

Listening to the explanation about the name, Tasia was almost bouncing on her stool. “We’re like, both Greek! Okay, not really – unless you really are Greek? I certainly am. Don’t know if I introduced myself.” Mocking the interview process, Tasia sat up primly and said, “Hello, my name is Tasia Xanthopoulos.” Laughing, she said, “How come you got the cool goddess name? You’d think my family would do that to like, I dunno, tie me to the homeland or something. There’d be no escaping it then.” She paused to consider. “Not that, with my family, I’m escaping it now.”

She returned her attention to Athena. “But Athena was like, a wicked powerful goddess, and Electra was an awesome Marvel superheroine! … Until they made the movie. It sucked. Don’t see it.”

No, really. It did suck. Tasia wouldn’t suggest it to anyone.

Her expression kind of sank when she heard there would be no music.

But hey! Potential new friend! Always fun!

So Tasia shrugged nonchalantly, and said, “Hey, no big. It would’ve been awesome, but maybe next time, right?”

If she ever got an evening off ever again.

Damn night shift.

(Okay, so it wasn’t that bad, and Tasia knew it, but she liked to gripe about things anyways. It was actually a sort of awesome job. Paid to get that strange coloration out of her tub, anyways.)

Atty laughed again and like before she totally couldn’t help it. Especially when she got the sudden mental image of a Cosmo Writer completely and utterly dressed like Darth Vader, typing on a far too tiny for his gloved fingers laptop and chatting away about the upcoming fads from Milan. Only to have that total jerk of an editor ‘Skywalker’ show up and slice said laptop, not to mention the desk on which it was sitting, in half with a blur of blue that hummed slightly with a decidedly signature sound. Actually that vision was more than enough to make Atty want to catch her breath, but instead she only laughed and nodded at Tasia’s statement.

“Okay, you’re right…” She said around her laugh. “They’re probably pretty evil. Though I think maybe just more like Nazis chasing Indiana Jones evil than spread chaos and ruin throughout the galaxy evil…”

And that of course made her smile again. It seemed her dad’s love of Dr. Jones was wearing off on her. Not that it had needed much help after watching all the movies with him when she was younger and then having just recently caught the new one much to a standing ovation on his part in a crowded theater. Which while embarrassing, oh so embarrassing, had however ended better than she’d have thought. After all it wasn’t bad when everyone else joined in, now was it?

Another laugh then, and it came out a bit like a giggle, much to Atty’s dismay. God, she was so not a giggler. Yet even thinking about that brought the image unbidden of Isabelle Carr. New friend and football mega star, female mega star even…of good ol’ DU.

Isabelle had called her a giggler, and she wasn’t, dang it. Well okay, maybe a little. But she was tough enough to back it up dang it.

“Vindictive fem-bots? “ She asked then, smiling once again as she considered the words. “That sounds like an awesome album name…would you mind if we used it?”

That had been a joke, well sort of. After all that really did sound like a killer album name and it fit their style perfectly. Take a little old school rock, add a touch of punk and goth, and mix it with all the abrasive anger that their dear lead singer could concentrate into a good beat and you had their band. The Furies. Once again a play on the Greek mythology, but when life gives you lemons as the old saying goes...

Only there lemons had turned into something that wasn’t sugary sweet or bitter. Electra was a better song writer than she gave herself credit for and Luna could make and mix with the best of them. She’d written most of the baselines that Atty had ever played and yet she swore that Athena had some magical touch for bring them alive. Yeah, right! But in short they worked well together.

Athena shook her head then.

“Nope, not Greek.”

Of course she laughed at Tasia’s mock interview introduction; man she was so easy sometimes. Uhm…at least when it came to laughing. Ha-ha. But not so much in other areas. Really. Really-really.

Atty smiled again then and shook her head.

“Tasia Xanthopoulos. Can I just say that, that is some name…and trust me you don’t want to trade. I’m Athena Morrison. If the no of before wasn’t enough…Morrison, not much Greek about that, though we do have an aunt and uncle that live in Scotland. Though I think that’s more about personal choice than heritage and pride.”

Atty just gave a little shrug then. Her family wasn’t that deep into its roots. Maybe she should change that, but it was the way of things so far.

And then she could only shake her head to hold back the laugh that she suddenly felt at what Tasia had said next. Of course she could have laughed, but then she had no doubt that Electra would beat her up. Oh, never mind that she was do doubt many hundreds of feet away, probably deal with a guy of some sort, a guy that would probably either discount her as a hack or assume that she needed the job bad enough that maybe she’d go less moral routes…

…okay that wasn’t fair. After all the person in charge of this place might very well be different from some of the more sleazy joints in which they’d preformed.

But at any rate, that special, near telepathic bond that twins share would let Electra know almost immediately that she, her sister Atty had laughed at something that plagued much of her existence. That being the existence of Elektra, the marvel heroine.

Yeah, right...twin bond…that one was even older than the Elektra comments...plus a total lie.

“Actually it’s Electra with a C instead of a K. Not the movie one. Which by the way was a horrible movie and one that I think my sister might kill the next person that brings it up…not a threat, just saying. But actually she’s named after Electra, the one from the Greek tragedy. Not so much better, but hey at least it gets less talk, well aside from that whole female equivilent of the Oedipus complex nonsense.”

That was also another way to push E’s buttons. Not real fond of the reverse Oedipus complex doctrine was that sister of hers.

Atty smiled then as she nodded at Tasia.

“Maybe. But if you want them I could always get you tickets to our next show.”

Atty just shrugged then, she didn’t know if Tasia was interested, but she thought she’d throw it out there. Well that and…

“You know, no one really calls me Athena. Well except my folks. Most of my friends just call me Atty.”

Tasia waggled a finger at Athena. “You never know. They could totally be hatching a secret conspiracy – I guess all conspiracies are secret, but whatever – to take over the galaxy. I wouldn’t put it past them.”

Really, she wouldn’t. In fact, she couldn’t think of anything more logical. That was probably a result of far too many sci-fi shows, though. She had a love of sci-fi shows.

They were just full of hunky guys!

And that included the infamous Dr. Jones, although she wasn’t sure if he technically counted as sci-fi or not.

For a moment, at the inquiry as to the use of her phrase, Tasia stared blankly. Then she said, “Whoa, I’m brilliant and I didn’t even know it.” She shook her head. “Of course you can use it. I just threw it out there. I don’t have a copyright on it or anything. It’s yours!” She smiled brilliantly.

Then:

“Not Greek? Can’t be friends with you then,” she teased. “We Greeks are… Greek. I don’t know. My family is all Yay Greece! I haven’t the foggiest idea why. I’ve never been there, so that might be working against me, somewhat.” She laughed. “No, I wouldn’t want to trade. Then I’d miss out on seeing people’s priceless expressions! Although, to be fair, mine’s not that bad. I once knew a guy named Konstantinos Francogionopoulos. No joke.”

Actually, Konstantinos had lived next to her growing up. They’d even gone to the same Greek Orthodox Church. Tasia’s parents had been convinced that she was going to marry him. She laughed in their face when he came out of the closet.

Cool guy, was Konstantinos.

Tasia raised her hands in surrender. “I won’t bring it up then. I don’t want to be dead.” She almost said that she spent enough time with dead people already – but didn’t. That would’ve led to extremely an extremely strange question-and-answer period.

“Really?! Tickets would be awesome!”

She was super stoked now. She held out her hand.

“Nice to meet you Atty Morrison. Most people just call me Tasia.”

Atty actually managed not to laugh this time, but she did smile a rather wide little smile that for just a moment gave a flash of perfect white teeth.

"I'd go with world domination..." She said amusement flashing in lavender eyes. "Bad guys always want world domination. Galaxy just seems too much to me. I just don't see them having the resources."

Plus even with the evil that is Cosmopolitan, she just couldn't see things going past good old planet earth. Besides she'd always been more of an action movie junkie herself. Not that she didn't like sci-fi, but action was more her thing. Give her a good old fashioned action romp anyday. Well maybe only the old fashioned ones.

After all, all the new stuff seemed to be really light on story not to mention the philosophy that had pretty much built the genre. Too many explosions these days and not enough dialogue or character moments.

Was she the only one that knew every line to “Desperado” by heart? Or the only one that cared? Your hero couldn’t just be a generic pretty boy. Not that there was anything wrong with pretty boys. Just not when they could barely throw out one liners that had been cool decades ago when Charles Bronson or Clint Eastwood had dropped them flawlessly.

Another smile out of Atty greeted Tasia’s understanding of her own brilliance. Of course Atty wanted to break it to her that he doubted any work dropped by them in album form was likely to gain the title of genius, and yet Tasia’s bare energy and happiness made it impossible for Atty to break it to her. So instead she simply laughed and gave brilliant smile before she added.

“Thanks, thanks a lot Tasia.”

Who knew, maybe by some stroke of luck “Vindictive Fem-Bots” would be their breakout smash. Stranger things had happened…

Athena just listened then; mostly because Tasia was going pretty quick. Actually as strange as it sounded Atty was glad to meet someone that could talk the way she could. Electra always got annoyed and Isabelle always teased her. Luna, well Luna was ever silent. It was like she was hording words away for the winter like a squire does acorns. She always chose the most efficient way to use them and the least involved.

It was a bit uncanny until you came to understand that-that was just how she was as a person. Reserved Atty liked to call it. Even if Luna herself called it anti-social. Or rather anti-social and loving it.


Then she looked thoughtful.

“I don’t know about Greece or even being Greek, though I think my folks met there. Dad says it’s lovely. He has all of these stories…”

Atty looked wistful then.

“Eh, he’s probably just blowing smoke though. That’s how he is, my dad, he’s been to so many places and seen so much that he gets all romantic about it.”

Atty just laughed again and she smiled once again at the thought of people’s expressions at the name Tasia Xanthopoulos. She could see how that would be fun.

Of course “Konstantinos Francogionopoulos?” She wasn’t even sure she got the name close to right.

“Please tell me he had at least a nickname or something.”

Then she grinned, even as she mentally took note of Tasia’s surrender; Atty wanted to tell her that she’d been speaking figuratively. But then again knowing Electra, well saying figurative could very well be turning things into a lie. E wasn’t the murdering type, but then again she’d been getting flack about her name a lot worst than Atty could ever imagine. After all at least Athena was a powerful goddess, where did Electra take people. Bad movies, good comics, or even more morally objective tragic heroines. Not anyone’s idea of grand namesake material.

Still Atty nodded at the mention of tickets.

“No problem.” She said.

She took Tasia’s hand and gave it a firm shake.

“Nice to meet you Tasia Xanthopoulos. Sorry if I mess up on your last name. But good to meet you Tasia.”

What Tasia really wanted to say was:

Yeah? Well, I didn’t see vampires being real either, but there you have it. Conspiracies abound.

But she didn’t. For one, she doubted Atty would believe her. There were some days when Tasia didn’t even believe herself. For second, Marcus would use his freakin’ annoying jedi tricks and figure out she’d told someone. That would be a big boo-boo. He could like, wipe her memory or something!

She’d had enough bad memory-loss experiences due to tequila, thanks very much. She didn’t need Marcus, the sexy jedi vampire to swoop in and add to her already comprehensive experience.

She wondered if Marcus actually swooped. That could be pretty awesome with the right cape.

Anyways.

Instead of saying that, she said, “Yeah, you could be right,” and shrugged. Normally, she would’ve put up a bigger hypothetical argument, but she was caught up in the image of Marcus dressed as a super hero now. It just wouldn’t get out of her head. Getting annoyed with her mind, she gave it a shove to the dark mental corner with the cobwebs so she could focus on the task at hand.

“No, no, no,” said Tasia. “My family has the same stories. They make Greece sound like this magical utopia where the rivers run gold and it rains wine or something. I don’t know. I think it’s a relatively cool place – from what I’ve read – but it’s just a place, you know? I think places can be pretty amazing, but not worth gushing over them the rest of your life, you know?”

Of course, Tasia could be a little biased.

She laughed at Atty’s comments about a nickname. “We mostly called him Connie. He didn’t love it, but I, for one, made quite clear that I wasn’t about to run around yelling KONSTANTINOS all the time. Too many syllables. If he objected to Connie, I could find something worse to call him.” Tasia shrugged. “After that, he agreed that Connie was fine.”

Again, she flapped a comment away. “Don’t worry about it. I survived public education with that last name. I think I can deal with mispronounciation.” She winked.

For a moment Atty simply nodded. Well okay, she did more than nod, she also smiled between sips of bubbly coke that she realized she didn’t really want, but was determined not to let go to waste. She smiled that smile that Tasia seemed oh so capable of keeping on her face with little slips of wit that spoke rather loudly of natural charisma rather than putting on a show for anyone or anything. Atty was pretty sure she was just getting Tasia Xanthopoulos and there was something about that, which was both interesting and just the slightest bit enviable.

Athena didn’t have the kind of charisma, she knew, she also just wasn’t that interesting, but she found Tasia someone that she liked almost immediately and someone she most assuredly wanted as a friend.

Atty laughed then.

“You know if it did rain wine, what could anyone do with that? If it was red, I think wearing white would be pretty impossible. And how do you charge someone for a DUI just because they got caught in the rain on the way to their car? Plus rivers running with gold, only good if you can actually buy water to drink somewhere.”

Yeah, her jokes were lame, but hey Athena was pretty sure that was a part of her charm. Well that and maybe being the color of fresh driven snow with hair to match, ah and then there were the eyes. Purple while not average eye color; was actually a mark of her form of albinism. The only real pigment she possessed was in her eyes, it wasn’t much, but it was a pale, barely there blue. Of course not enough blue, it mixed with the red of the optic nerves and well there you go. Red and blue…

Growing up, Athena and her sister were always the odd balls, they were still odd balls actually, but at least people were nicer about it now or at least they’d both grown up enough to not care if someone was nice or not. Plus they could and always did explain. It wasn’t a taboo and people didn’t have to dance around it. And the thought of her childhood made Atty smile then as Tasia talked about going through public school with her name. It wasn’t the same, but yeah she thought she understood and she said just as much.

“I think I know what you mean.” She laughed. “Though public school wasn’t so bad was it? I mean I went there and I don’t think I’m about to fall into a drugged stupor or perpetrate any undue gun violence. Even if I do know Judo, not about to drop any undue assults either.”

She gave a shrug then.

“And wait, Connie…” Another smile. “Um, why not Kon, or Stan, or even Tino. But Connie? That’s just sort of mean. Though I think between the options I would have took Connie too. I wouldn’t want to risk the wrath that is apparently Xanthopoulos.”

She laughed at that last.

“Though I guess it hurts the old pride a bit more when you’re a guy. I’d guess anyway.”