#rutgers

"Oh, that sounds like the best of both worlds." She looks unfocused for a moment, trying to remember....

"Right? Everything you want for a holiday."

"Plus, I am pretty sure we won."

"We?"

"We..." Struggling.

"Masey?"

A smile again. "I like her."

Odin is now curious. Who is this Masey? He has not approved her yet. Is she bringing tribute?

"She's... nice."

"Really, like... low-pressure?"

"But not too low-pressure. Like...at the club? She gets you to join in without pushing you to join in, right?"

Blush, nod.

"Just.. I dunno, she's easy to relax around? Kind of?"

A bit of a blush of her own. "Yeah, I get it. And...sometimes we need a little help to relax. Like, the right person for it."

She chews on her lip and nods.

"I can be uptight. Gwydion, right?"

"Yeah. I guess most of the Gwydions I know are like that. I mean, that's not bad, but it keeps you from letting yourself have fun, sometimes."

"I mean, it's not just a Gwydion thing. I've had some uptight moments, too."

"Well, maybe it's more a me thing."

"You are better at letting go and having fun. Was Goldfinch good?"

Odin knows he shall die, die of famine in the lap of an uncaring person

"You have food. Brat."

A wry grin. "I'm not always good at letting go. But...um...yeah, satyrs can be helpful in that regard," she says with a bit of a blush of her own. She's pretty sure Dagmar already figured out the bit about Basil.

"Anyway...yeahhh...I mean, I think it was good. I, um, felt pretty damn good waking up. But...I remember being angry. I mean really angry. Like...like I wanted to hurt somebody." A pause. "I don't remember if I did."

"Well, they probably deserved it."

"Didn't wake up with any hurt friends?"

"No, thank goodness. Um...the friends I woke up with seemed fine." Another blush.

BLUSH.

"Well, okay then. Good!"

"Yeah." After a moment, she looks down and exhales. "I can sort of feel the unseelie part fading back, y'know? I mean...it's still there, but...um..." She trails off.

"But we're through."

"I don't feel as... yeah. I should work harder to get back - Gwydion."

"Not like there's anyone here to rat on me."

"Hey, you weren't slut-o-matic all month," she says with a blush.

"Nope, just dressed that way."

A blink. "Um, no. No, you weren't. You showed a little skin. That doesn't make you...that's not the same."

"I mean, that's... it was the Dreaming doing its thing. So you got hit by it, too, and so.. so nobody has to judge anybody?"

A deep breath, and a nod. "As long as I wasn't too awful to live with?" she asks hopefully.

"Nah, you were fine."

"You didn't mess with my stuff, and I don't mind if you get a little... preen-y?"

"I mean, you are pretty awesome, so it's not unjustified."

A smile. "Yeah, I didn't want you to bite my fingers off if I reached for something wrong. You get kinda redcap-y," she adds with a wink.

"Awww!" She's touched by the compliment. "Thanks! And you...damn, you kick ass. And...listen...I know you might feel like you shouldn't? But you can totally rock that more-revealing look. It didn't look silly on you or anything."

Another tug on the sweatshirt.

"It helps since that.... since the scars changed."

"Yeah?"

She pushes up a sleeve - her arm covered in the treelike marks of a lightning scar. "Dreaming didn't take away the old scars, right? Just changed them."

"These... maybe people think they're a cool tattoo, or something special, but not just evidence of what I did to myself. Before."

Sylvi makes a tentative gesture of reaching to touch, pausing for permission.

A slight nod, allowing it.