#anywhere

Between here and there, then and now....

"Oh!  404!" A Sparrow remembered. And Piper bustles about her apartment.

A light knock on the door.

And the door pops open! She was waiting. "Ah, Miss - Lady, Er. Baroness." A small bow. "Thanks for stopping by!"

"Julia, or Sparrow, or Deryn... like a buffet!"

"Well, I'm just Piper, so that's a snack." A small smile. "Uh, my place isn't much, but, um, want to come in? I don't need a lot of your time..."

"Sure?" She enters and offers a smile.

"Everyone here's been super friendly. The rock-and-roll satyr keeps giving me lemonades."

Piper tosses some stuff out of the way to make room to sit. "So, Um. I saw the work you did so far on the walls. It's... amazing, to be honest. Did you get requests, or is that all from just up here?" Tapping her head.

Standing for a moment after inviting Sparrow to sit, as if unsure if she should also sit in her presence - but then shrugs. It's HER apartment, after all, right? And perches on a breakfast nook stool.

"Well, Caesar gave me a lot of freedom... the store, they had to be those particular horses."

"Dagmar's dad's store? Well, yes - she's horse-crazy. And he's daughter-crazy." A grin.

Sparrow collapses easily on a floor cushion. "Yeah, I've heard. She's a bit hard to read for me - trolls can be very.. oh... contained?"

"Oh, you're telling me? I've been living here for a year and I'm just starting to decode some of their moods. It could be a lifetime's study, if one were inspired to do so." A small smile. "I, wanted to apologize to you as well. If I was a bit - rude, when we met earlier?"

"Well, Liam vibes."

"I'm used to it. And before, living at Firnost, it was also apologize-for-being-a-sidhe..."

She fidgets a bit, but it seems to be from her own nerves. "That's not quite fair. To be more honest - without giving you a load of TMI, I've walked on the wrong side of more than one sidhe, and it may have.... colored my reactions more than I care to admit. But I'm trying to be cognizant of that. The Liam's I've met here have all been nothing but kindness and a fair welcome.

"Well, you're square with me so far!" A smile.

A smile, glad to see the apology accepted, and without any sticky followup questions. "Well, then two other things. First is, not to hedge on your creativity an' all, but our self-styled Grandame of rock and roll, Etsie, had hoped to see a bit of a metal theme outside her unit, if you haven't worked down that way yet. And I've found, to toot my own horn - or would that be Pipe? That I'm rather good at inspirational music to work to. If you were so inclined..."

"Metal? So - chainmail bikinis and motorbikes, you think?" Her wings rustle as she considers.

"I wonder what ancient greek metal would look like..."

She touches her necklace - the charm is a violin bowed by a paintbrush.

"Oh, that's a pretty thing." Noticing.

A sad smile. "It was a gift, from another satyr... long ago, nowadays."

"Ah, well, a lovely memento, then? But I'm sure whatever you draw, with your own inspiration or any, will be nice..."

"Sassafras." Wistful. "Wonderful musician."

"Oh! You think a minotaur might be metal?"

"That's pretty hard core, yeah!" And a bit of a sad smile of her own. "Sorry if I brought up a sad memory."

"It's sad, but... not that sad. Sassy was a friend."

"But she needed to go her own way, right?" A shrug that follows through to the wings. "So - hey, do you know much about this Adam fellow? Kinain?"

Piper looks startled. "Was he here?" Half out of her chair, a glance at the door. Then she catches herself, and slides back into her seat. A bit of a disconsolate expression of her own.

"Not yet - Brekke asked me to talk to him."

"If... if there's something upsetting, don't feel you have to say anything. I don't know him at all..."

"Oh... patrol business? I -had- wondered if something was up - I never see her here, and was a bit worried. There was a shark here, once... Adam actually helped defeat it." A small smile, that fades. "We... um. We were dating. We recently broke up. "

A sympathetic wince. "Oooo, yeah. That's tough."

"Either end of that equation kind of sucks, really." She flops back on the floor, looking up at the ceiling.

"It's... I shouldn't be feeling so sad about it, I guess? After all, I dumped him, so I'm the bad guy. Right?" A small smile. "I keep thinking I've bounced back, satyr-style, but then I keep getting these twinges. I... I think I did the right thing... but I still -miss- him."

"Even if he is kinda clueless." A sigh, somewhat exasperated.

"I think that's normal?"

"Breaking up is hard. Sometimes you have to, but there you are. Being dumped is hard. The Fiona seem to recover better than I do."

"Not this one." A sigh. "Or maybe, not yet. I hope he feels better soon... he's a good guy, deep down. Just... he has different goals, different... perspective on things. And I thought he understood... but then I guess not. Well, it helps reinforce that it was better to cut things off. Before we got deeper entangled and I hurt him more..."

"If you don't share expectations... yeah." Sympathetic.

"And I... like..." A shake of her head. "You were at the raid, right? Outside escape division?

"Yup."

"Lots of redcaps - oh! Adam was the kinain with Frank?"

"Yeah... I heard that he fought well." A nod.

"Against redcaps, at that."

"So I guess he has SOME Fiona.."

A small nod. "I... uh. I didn't see it. I was inside. And... after the raid. I was kinda shaken. By the people - the victims we saw in there. And what they went through." She looks away, arms crossed. "And the guards, and all."

Sparrow sits up and looks at Piper.

"That... that can be bad, yeah. You have somebody you can talk to about that?"