Artistic Delight (Jordan)

[Sophie Nyström]

The Guggenheim Museum should have been the expected museum to have procured that particular piece of her family history. Located in Manhattan, with its exquisite tastes, and peculiar architecture, it was one of the best museums in the nation with backers who had deep pockets. A bust of her during her time as one of the advisers to the Roman emperors in Constantinople had found its way to the museum. Perhaps she should have left it alone, she looked different now than she had those thousand or so years ago. Yet for some reason she decided that she wanted to procure it herself and put it with the rest of her collection.

Despite living with her sister in San Diego, Sophie still had her storehouse up near Seattle, as well as an actual home in the Emerald City. The storehouse was full to the brim with ancient treasures, most of it somehow related to her or her sisters. It was a hobby of hers, keeping trinkets and statues and what have you of their various lives through history. It was a reminder of who they were, what they had gone through, and where they had come from.

Sayeva didn't know about it and she did not need to know, she would suggest some silly hyper analytic thing about her keeping a hold of the past. Sayeva did not understand, not when her past came back into her present and brightened up her world. There was no need for Sayeva to hold on to trinkets like Sophie did, Sayeva had all she would ever could hope for from her past in the form of Brogan and herself. She didn't need the paintings, the statues, and all the other things that Sophie had commissioned of herself and those she cared for.

Dressed in a scarlet halter dress that came just above her kneecap, matched with three inch pumps, and carrying a black leather Gucci purse, she arrived at the museum in the cab. She had called ahead to the museum about the exchange, with her apparently needing to appear in person to negotiate the terms. She did not care what it cost, she would get the bust and return it to its proper place in her storehouse. Yet since she was here, she might as well also have looked around the place and see what all they had on display and enjoy its spiraling design.

Entering through the lobby, she took a floor plan as they recommended so she could not get lost. There were parents with their kids in hand, exposing them to a cultural mecca, and others who were here just enjoying the pieces. She wondered if she would find anyone in this impressive place worth talking to or if it would just end up in another business trip.

[Jordan Mercer]

Oh, dig my shallow grave
It's not me you'll save
'Cause I'm a lost cause
I'm a lost cause
a lost, lost cause!
-Imagine Dragons, "Lost Cause"

The chat room people had said he needed to get out and enjoy himself, so here he was, out, and trying to enjoy himself. There he was, at the museum. He hardly remembered how he had gotten there. He hardly remembered getting dressed up. He hardly remembered anything before this moment.

He went through the motions. He picked up a museum map and paged through it absently. Evelyn was heavy on his mind. She always was when he came to New York. But business of his own had brought him here, unavoidable business, the sort that could not come to him in Massachusetts or meet him in Vegas or any other place. He had given Lilka the slip so she would not see his condition when he was in this city and flown up reluctantly.

He had gone up to her apartment. It had not been sold. That, he soon discovered, was because her parents were keeping it, exactly as it was. He still had a key. Her parents did not blame him for what had happened to Evelyn, even after he had finally confessed; they had reprimanded him strongly, but they had shared the blame among all of them, and her schooling and other stress, and Jordan’s blow only the last straw. That was something of a relief, but it only made him feel that more guilty.

He had looked around the apartment, remembering. That much was clear. Now, standing in a nice suit with a brochure in his hand, he felt lost. But his mind told him to move, so he did. He went around as though looking at the exhibits, but hardly saw anything. But his gaze happened to sweep the room and fall on a familiar face - only familiar from the chat room, but still familiar.

His legs propelled him toward her. She was an anchor. He was afloat, no, drowning in a sea of unfamiliarity in a place that was his home, a stranger in a strange land, and she was something familiar, something to grasp onto. She would probably not be glad to see him. He was not glad to see her. But her presence was almost reassuring.

“Sophie.” He only knew her real name because her sister, Sayeva, and Brogan had used it a few times in the chat room. “I don’t mean to bother. I just thought I would say hello.” He placed a hand on her arm so she would turn around. “I’m Jordan. Mercer. From the chat room.” He noticed vaguely that she was dressed up as well, but there was a spaciness, and unfocusedness, in his eyes that made it seem as though he were not entirely present. “It’s good to see a familiar face.”

[Sophie Nyström]

Of all of the potentially interesting people she thought she could meet in the museum, someone who already knew her was not among those. Nor that someone being someone who only knew her through one of the various chat rooms that she visited online, this one happened to be geared towards powered individuals. And that it had to be this specific individual among those was not very good for Sophie, as she did not particularly get along with him. Though that had less to do with the personality of the individual in question and more to do with the genetic accident that resulted in his malehood.

"Do not... touch me." Sophie nearly hissed as he placed his arm and turned her around. That was invading her space and crossing a threshold he had not been invited to cross, nor welcomed to cross. "A simple hello would do to suffice, Mr. Mercer." Her voice carried her agitation with him, with his deciding her could touch her. That would be the first strike for him and unlike other people who seemed to allow three failures, Sophie would afford him just two. It was fine to err once if you were human, to err twice was inviting yourself to be forfeit.

As much as she wanted to stay pissed at him though, he looked disheveled and lost, a certain glaze on his eyes showing he was not all here. She knew that he had said something about not feeling quite... perky in the chat room days before and she had told him to get out and enjoy life. It seemed at the very least that he had taken the first part of the advice to heart, the second seemed to be lagging behind quite a bit with the way he was looking at her.

"You look absolutely awful. Are you drunk? Please tell me that you are drunk, because I told you to enjoy life and I would rather you look this way cause you're drunk than any other reason." Like life had sapped the spirit from him, he look so lethargic. What was eating away at this individual that he needed a reassuring face from someone who he only knew in a few brief online conversations? Sigh, this trip suddenly went from looking quite favorable and enthralling to a major downturn, but such things needed to be handled with a woman's touch.

"Come, walk with me, let us spend the next little while together and maybe you can go about being a more happier person." Even if that meant she had to use her powers and change his outer shell to someone, something else. Whatever it took to get him looking like he was the walking dead and more like someone who deserved to be among the living, among those who could call themselves descendents of the gods and goddesses. The blood of the divine ran through him... the Goddess herself was part of his lineage, he needed to live up to that history.