Wallace
"—Hey everyone! It's nice to see you all again and be able to have a Live, but life's just been so busy at acting camp..." 

It was a fine day, and Gabe was spending the cold Swedish afternoon in his room and live-streaming with his fans. It was something he'd often do back home, spending most of the time chatting and overall entertaining the online masses. 

It was fun, and since it was related to his social media presence, he could say it *Technically* Wasn't a waste of time. He could indulge himself in some good company, just this once.. Especially because his new roommate didn't seem to be around. 

He sat by his window, using the Swedish city as a backdrop for his live. Gabe was dressed well, too— a classy white button up that was a *Bit* Too low and light brown slacks made him look nice, but not overly so.

The comments began to pour in, and he got to work, spinning even the most mundane things into intricate stories. Heart emojis, comments drooling over his appearance and complimenting his laugh and the perfectly constructed smile he'd honed over the years... It was a spotlight, and Gabe was basking in it.
Aaron
*SMACK.*

It was times like these when one normally stopped to ridicule themselves for their situation, or perhaps laughed a little, in the *I'm-so-fucked* Fashion popular with teenagers clinging to walls. This particular instance of that no-doubt *Very* Wide demographic, however, was too busy focusing on the daunting task at hand. Or, perhaps, she was already way past it. 

A brief, flat sting, as her arm smacked hard into the rain-dampened concrete by the window, and then the taste of wet rocks ran on a high current through a distant river of nerves. Sigrún's grip held true as she launched herself upward- slipped- and caught herself with human hands on the ledge of the window. *Welp. Now or neverbeforeIslip-*

"GA-*HHHaaaaaabe-*"

This one had better be hers. Her lair, the Cavern Unfindable, the Door Unshakeable, the Goddamn Closed Window, the Home-Place That's Two-Thirds Empty. It was a nicer place to feel sticky inside than the lingering, stubborn sun, if only for the evidence of another presence. Sig clamped down hard on the plastic shape wedged between her teeth, and pushed off once again from her precarious position, willing said presence to stand close enough to the window to pick up on the dull *THONK* Her palm made as it hit the glass full-force. 

Her face, just high up enough to peek over the top, was streaked in its usual dried black-green tears; hopefully, she wouldn't be mistaken for a bird or something. Better let him know she wasn't , just in case he thought that.

*"GAAAABELETMEIIIINNNNNN I FORGOTMYKEY-"* Another jump- *"GABRIEL MY SWEET CHEESE YOU'RE MY ONLY HOOOOOPE!!!"*
Wallace
Gabe's eyebrows furrowed as... Some noise outside the window began to yammer on and on. Truthfully, Gabe did not care about things that did not pertain to him, and would have been happily content to ignore the banging on the window... 

...If the livestream chat wasn't going *Fucking crazy.* 

*Is that a monster??* 
*GABE WHAT THE FUCK IS BEHIND YOU* 
*No he can't hear us he has AirPods in 🚶‍♀️🚶‍♀️🚶‍♀️* 

Similar messages began to flood the chat of his Instagram live, and Gabe panics, turning the damn Live off with a confused stammer before opening the window, if *Only to give Sigrun a piece of his mind.* 

He opens the window, with an over dramatic, wayyy too forceful push. 

"*You.*" Was that the older brother voice, out in full? His southern twinge was stronger than usual, the crashing tides of mild annoyance letting his usually taut reins slip. 

A sigh. He pinches the bridge of his nose and squeezes his eyes shut, as if contemplating every action that made him sent to the hell that is Sweden. 

"...I was *Doing something,* You know."
Aaron
"And I am a *Foooolllllll*," Wailed she, something twisting in her stomach. She adjusted her hold on the ledge, and swung herself up so that they were at eye level, elbows locked and hip bones pressed into the jut of concrete.

*Gulp.*

As funny as his ruffled feathers were, Sig did feel a *Tiny* Bit bad about getting on her roommate's nerves quite so often as she did. She sort of hoped that they could skip the part where he was mad at her for being annoying and be the best of friends, but here he was scowling at her while she wondered what his favourite colour was. His voice seemed tangier now, though. Had to be something.

"..Sorry."

Not one to feel too sheepish for long, Sigrún melted onto the floor of the dorm. 

Gabe didn't leave her much room, but she made do. The colossus was a child once; children know how to bend space and physics to their devilish whims, pushing walls and branches aside and willing their little arms to fit through cracks they could barely peek through. Most grow, and forget. Sigrún did grow, but she never forgot. Blank-faced and strategically tangled, the amateur wall-climber and her mottled-grey tentacles squeezed through the space between the wall and his arm, a river of unnervingly mobile flesh trailing along its path to the floor. Blink, and miss the little trick to it.

"Glad this was the right one. Gave this little redhead a heart attack- what's the ambulance number here? I feel like I should know that. This is a place unworthy of what will be my no-doubt legendary death. Can't be stuck here, people to haunt elsewhere."

And she was up, dusting off the front of her bespiked leather jacket. A siren, painted across the back panel in curling strokes of crimson, jabbed her trident at him. A small, nearly inaudible sigh, under the *Pop* Of a knuckle.

"Can I make it up to you?"
Wallace
Sigrun *Sulked,* And... 

And Gabe's expression shifted, for barely a microsecond. An ounce of remorse crossed his face— the same feeling of regret when he's pester Blanche about her chores, only for her to send the puppy dog eyes his way. 

Curses. He's too weak-willed. His father would chastise him for acting like this... 

... But his father Gabe was not, and so he plopped down onto the couch. Any remorse present on his face contorts into a smug grin, and he shoots a winning smile Sigrun's way. He puts a hand on his hip, and poses in a position he's clearly pulled thousands of times. 

"Well, if you're *Reallly sorry*...." 

His accent was thick with southern drawl as he dragged the really out. Sure, Gabe felt bad about being upset with Sigrun— but he wasn't just going to *Turn down an opportunity like this.* He felt bad, but he wasn't stupid. 

"Draw me." 

His eyes, half lidded in an unusually smug manner, gazed at Sigrun as if challenging her to say no. It was an unusual expression on his face— for someone who pasted on generic pleasing smiles via paint roller, openly showing his teeth and the mischievous twinkle in his eye was essentially unheard of. 

It didn't help that the situation was the perfect cover he needed to learn more about Sigrun. The burning desire to pick apart her art piece by piece, examining every sliver of her sketchbook for more about her, and the self-driven egomania of a portrait of him combined into a concoction that would certainly cause nothing but trouble.
Aaron
"*Oh*, tricksy bastard, *You*. Waiting for an *In*, were you?"

*Faen*, a devious little trick, but that was certainly something Sigrún could do... And, in the coldest truth, there was no way to get to know someone quite like staring at how his shadows and contours intersected, how every muscle tightened and twisted beneath his perfect (*Perfected*) glowing expression. Oh, what fun it would be, to push those things past their limits and see what she could make... It was rude to stare, she had been told, but not when she had a good reason. Getting a good look at this prick was reason enough. An equally toothy grin spread across her face, reaching her eyes a heartbeat after her black-streaked cheeks.

It was a good thing she was an artist, or else she would just be a lunatic for no reason, which is no fun at all.

"Strike a pose, Gabriel." 

She shrugged off her jacket, slinging it across the back of her chair; she was wearing a tank top today, black, the tattered image of a green album cover printed across the front. Looped and layered trails of red stretched and warped as she stretched her long arms out above her head, listening for a *Pop*; the light of her desk lamp caught her skin in a strange way. Faded stretch marks sliced across her cold skin like silvery fish darting through shallow water in a manner of elegance unique to the girl-shaped creature rummaging around in a (somehow already disorganized) drawer for some paper.

A twirl of her favourite pencil- 2B, the end gnawed to hell and back- and she was sat facing him with the most battered, stuck-back-together-with-glitter-glue, utterly-totalled and well-loved pad of paper leaned against her propped-up knee, her tentacles lazily draped around her arms.. Her pride and joy, with just enough room for her roommate's proud show of sharpness and pomp. And the hidden tale of teeth, blood, muscle, and silver beneath it.

"Finally, the opportunity to draw someone else's boobs for a change."
Wallace
"Waiting for an in? What do you take me for, a *Schemer?*" He scoffed. "Never." 

The sarcasm was overt, but Gabriel was never one for subtlety. Those fishy irises staring back at him were a bit unnerving to some— and perhaps in a different world, he would join the crowd of those awed by the kraken, but to Gabe it was just another audience member (even if she had a backstage pass). 

If it was anyone else— literally, if *Anyone else* Was the subject of Sigrun's foul comment, a sexual harassment case would be coming her way faster than you could say calamari. 

Fortunately for the fishy friend, it was *Gabe*, and at her joke he bursts into a cackle. 

"If you wanted *Boobs*, you should have said so." A smug grin slides on his face as he undos the top two buttons of his shirt.
Aaron
The snicker that ran under Gabe's flashy, gleaming-toothed cackle was nothing short of sinister; Sigrún's low, scratchy voice didn't cut cleanly through the air like his did, but the grin curling into her cheeks was unmissable. *AHA! Funny-haha indeed. I am a genius possessed of unflappable charisma and this encounter is going well.*

And hey, the man's boobs were indeed immaculate. From a purely objective standpoint. Not that he seemed unaware.

"Nice-nice," Giggled she, kicking off her boots and assuming the horribly shrimp-like position that pretty pictures just flowed so nicely from. 

"Really, though! I get that I look like I'm staring into your soul, but I swear I'm not going to devour it or anything." A quick, broad bunch of lines, and then she gnawed on her lip as she leaned closer to render something more finnicky. "People stop posing for you so much when they're convinced you're a devil."

And Sig was rambling, her racing train of thought sending sparks off the rails into memories from back when her pupils were first splitting, and that somehow changing everyone else's sights. Her lightly-accented voice, though, wasn't laced with airborne bitterness or lingering hurt beyond playful annoyance. *'Ha! Kids told me I was a demon. Funny schoolyard rumours, ah?'* Then again, with the strange creature she was, who could really tell.
Wallace
"Devils don't look like you." Gabe scoffed, shifting his weight onto his elbow and turning his face the other way, his body turned to emphasize his muscular build. A light palm brushes a curl from his forehead, and his eyes flit from Sigrun's hunched pose to the spot in the wall he deemed as worthy to hold his gaze. 

"They look like swamp creatures. *Rougarou*. Boogeymen. People say demons don't exist, but they *Do*. Ghosts. Ghouls. People say they believe in astrology and tarot cards, but none of 'em know the *True* Magic of hoodoo. They don't have to conflict with the Man up stairs, you know?"

With Sigrun's silence paving the way for one of Gabriel's classic monologue, his posture and expression fell into a more comfortable position as he spun conversation like gold. 

"You believe in any of that stuff, Sigrun? I don't talk about it too much, 'cause people here don't understand the culture. They'd just mock it like they do any form of religion, you know?"

His accent began to slip through at the oddly personal talk, but words of demons and monsters always piqued Gabriel's interest. Besides, Sigrun was a good listener— and he had nothing else to do while posing for her.
Aaron
"Oh, I believe," Sigrún confirmed, lifting her eyes from the trouble spot currently being attacked by an eraser. *This* She could work with. "All sorts of 'stuff'. I'm the flesh and blood of legends, ah? My brethren in the sea, the shadows of the old sagas- I've seen things, with my own two eyes..."

The imperceptible flames of a campfire, surrounded by imaginary spectres with wide eyes and ears nipped pink by the cold lapped at her face as shadows spread across it in a familiar pattern. Figuratively, and then literally, as she adjusted her posture and willed shifting greenish-black shadows to dance in the hollows beneath her eyes and cheekbones.

"My mother's people are wary of something like it- the *Stállu*, cannibal-giants. From the days we mounted sacred bears' heads on trees, and knew not to whistle beneath the Aurora Borealis." The two loose tentacles absentmindedly coiled around her arms, legs, and chair rippled with the colours of cold earth and blood. "They slaughter and devour children, and try to force a man's knife on himself. Remains of their houses are far north of here, can go see them!"

The twinkle in her eyes was something as real as the beasts she told of. Stories for stories were the best trades, she thought, and a connoisseur couldn't help but tap its feet excitedly at new lore to drink in. 

Exaggerated in her retelling as she was, Sigrún truly believed. As she said, she was living proof that theirs was a world of creatures beyond the confines of cold reason, and she knew for facts as alive as the wind in her hair that her kin jumped from their songs and carvings to dance in her blood and in the shadows of her wandering paths. She wanted desperately to know more about the things that crept in the shadows of Gabe's faith- and to keep him this relaxed, for it added just the right curve to his spine- and figured she'd press further. Stories for stories, after all. As was the way of things.
_ _

"My father's people were wary of *Draugr*, nasty folk too stubborn to finish dying and stop guarding their precious things. 'S why you've got to tie the dead's big toes together. Else they cause all sorts of problems." 

She turned to rummage through another box, and produced a thin, blackened branch. It left dense, creamy dust on her fingers and paper.

"Folk from beyond and within *Noreg* And *Sápmi* Cast ridicule and scorn on the old things, but- *Hah*- I need not lecture an American Southerner on what the pale and pushy fellows from elsewhere wielding crosses and their own inflated self-importance think of old magic."
Wallace
Bonk responding soon

Sigrun began to wax the tales from her homeland, and Gabe... Actually *Listened intently,* Looking at her with a half-surprised, half- interested expression. 

Truth be told, he hadn't really thought Sigrun to be someone capable of conversations like this. She seemed too... Flighty, too absorbed in the moments of the present to particularly give thought to the surrounds around her. 

It was a pleasant surprise, alongside the portraiture. Perhaps he hadn't pinned her down as well as he assumed. 

At the *Pushy fellows wielding crosses* Comment, Gabe's eyebrows furrow. It's a comment he had received many times at the Cradle, and shrugging it off was almost second nature. Still, she could see the change in his posture: the slight tenseness, the hand twitch as Gabe stilled his sturdy fingers from fidgeting with his necklace. 

"Can't exactly pronounce any of the names you just said, but... I agree somewhat." A moment passes, and he's back at his relaxed state. 

*Drat*. He can't use his powers to keep his focus on something, not with Sigrun in the room— the familiar nagging of ADHD manifests in the tapping of his fingers against the covers of his bed, and the slight rocking of his ankles side to side. 

Five minuets drag on, and it feels like *Torture.* 

"Well," He says, after the staying still becomes unbearable. "Are you done yet?"
Aaron
"Huh."

*These things take time, Gabriel, you know that. Sheesh.*

...

*SHIT IT'S BECAUSE I HAVEN'T LET HIM MOVE-* "Oh yeah, yeah, I've gotten what I needed, just... Ah. Embellishments now." 

Embellishments indeed. Sig was on a roll, rooted to the spot, which was rare for her- strange visions were locked behind her silvery eyes, and the keys to all her lockboxes full of articulate bones and shadows falling *Just so* Smudged the side of her hand pitch-dark, not that she was aware.

She was, though, aware of a moment of tension that was definitely her fault. She stopped for a moment, to make it more sincere, as she had been snapped at to before, fiddling with the arm of her chair with a hidden sucker on a limb now patterned the colours of the carpet. 

"And, ...Sorry. I didn't mean it like that- I say rude things, and I see myself doing it, and I don't stop and then I've said something unsavoury and.." *Ghh.* "I mean no ill, is all. To your faith." 

*Sigh.* Awkward to address, uncomfortably gnawing to leave be- for someone who hated being misunderstood like she did, Sigrún sure did say ..Everything half-baked that crashed against the barrier between her head and her mouth. Stern lectures on *'times and places, vennen, times and places'* Haven't been completely for naught. Anyway.

"To take away from me having one foot in my mouth and the other on the gas pedal. Tell me more about your ghouls, Gabriel.." 

Without her looking, a tentacle loosened from around her chair to wrap around a book from her desk and bring it toward her lap. Its cover was a collage of old-looking medical illustrations of bones.

"..While I remember how.. Finger bones, uh, work."
Wallace
At Sigrun's stammering, Gabe waves a dismissive hand at her. 

"'S no worry, Siggy. *Siggy? When did I start calling her that?* You were eighty percent not an asshole in your monologue, so I'll round up and give you an A." Said dismissive hand pushes aside away an unruly curl, the metaphorical spotlight in the room intensifying on himself at the motion. It *Oozed* Confidence. 

"Seriously, don't worry about it." He reassured the other, "And don't worry about *Me*. Do you really think someone like me could be doing anything less than fine? The world isn't your stage— you have to make it your own, and that takes *Effort*." 

It was a provocative metaphor that was sure to dazzle anyone in earshot, even if the sentiment behind said statement was *Utterly empty*. In actuality, Gabe was doing worse than he'd like to admit, the strain of work and anxieties and stages of grief manifesting like cracks in an otherwise flawless marble statue. 

Not as if he'd ever admit that, though. Please. He'd rather die. 

And so, just like the state directions he was so used to — *Turn downstage, pivot the waist, shoulders to the audience*, — he deftly manipulated the conversation away from himself. 

"Actually, the only ghoul I want to address is your medieval speaking patterns. Why do you only call me *Gabriel*?" He raised an eyebrow at her, straightening his back tighter to make up for his brief moment of doubt.
Aaron
*Kool aid man entrance. I just stand there staring, unblinking*

At that, Sigrún grinned, differently this time. Her twisted-ribbon pupils glittered with mischief; there was practically an icon of a padlock floating above her head, snapping open and fading into the cacophony of horrors and bones behind her. She swiped her stick of charcoal against her bottom lip, pretending to ponder something thoughtfully. Oh, this was already well-baked.

"Heh. Your world's a stage, is it? Hard-won, viciously held? Interesting." She turned toward one of the corners of her growing masterpiece with her other hand, holding something red. It seemed that switching to her left didn't faze her. She continued, fiddling with an earring; it made a very satisfying sound, knocking against the silvery ring on her pointer finger, she thought.

"Mine is an epic. The age of stories, Gabriel, is still unfolding around us, though the new epics aren't carved in stones as they once were, nor sung around fires in sacred places..." She cocked her head to the side, delicately considering something he couldn't see. "We're both named for very old stories, yeah? An archangel, and a valkyrie- did you know that? I think it's neat." A dimple creased as she squinted at something else; her scratches grew faster, covering more ground. "Somewhere back through time, someone looked at us and decided they wanted to see an angel's brilliant strength, or a valkyrie's roaring victory." 

Victory, for which she was indeed named. 

"The old stories in the new, splashed together in a place as electric with potential as this- a Valkyrie and an Archangel meet on a stormy day, and the chorus swells in the distance..." Sig fidgeting grew incessant. "Despite the circumstances, which... *Grr*-" She wrinkled her nose, and then looked back up to meet his eyes- "What an opening." 

"Also, it just rolls off the tongue real nice, don't you think?"

Sigrún flipped her page around, and pushed long, loose curls back from her forehead with slender, cool fingers. *Done.*
_ _

Gabe's likeness, rendered in black, white, and something reddish and dense; his shining smile curled a touch more devilish than it might have really been, and the curl he so pointedly swept away was marked stubbornly across his forehead. Vintage horror comics and Sigrún's own home-spun lunacy had wrought the skeleton behind him, grinning and glowing, three hearts latched together in its ribcage. Her hidden signature, coiling red tentacles curled by its feet, was opposed by a wheel of feathers, perhaps muscles. 

Nothing horrifying, like he had joked about dreading, but her love and care always did seem to contain someone's insides. Just part of the deal.

"Your bone structure really is exquisite, by the way."
Wallace
Words detailing the tales baked into the clay of tradition washed over Gabriel's ears, leaving him momentarily stunned. Imagine that— an actor made to dazzle with his words, with the air sucked out of his lungs by the crooning of a certain squid. 

*An archangel and a valkyrie...* 

Gabe hadn't gave his name too much thought. It was something his mom picked out for him long ago, and she'd told the story to him many times when he'd crawl on her lap and beam whenever she mention her sweet little Gabriel to others. 

The story went that he was originally going to be named after his mother's brother, a man named Darius he never had the fortune to meet. On the day before his mom went into labor, she told him that she saw a vision— an angel, watching over her, smiling fondly. *A guardian angel, like he was destined to be.* 

Sometimes, Gabriel wondered where that smiling angel went. It certainly wasn't watching over Désirée Trahan anymore. 

 "It's beautiful." He swallowed something crawling itself up his throat, gingerly taking the page. It was *Him,* And yet... It was something more, a broken skeleton at his side. Something about the portrait made his heart churn, and his eyes fluttered to Sigrun's nervously. 

It was revealing, terrifyingly so. He felt sick, but he felt seen. 

"An angel and a valkyrie, hm..?" He mused, tilting his head every which way to view the drawing. 

"I like the sound of that." He flashed a grin at Sigrun— this time, a genuine one.
Aaron
Sigrún would be telling a lie if she claimed not to be worried about the reveal. She told tales, yes, however true they needed to be, but the girl did not lie. That was cause for much trouble, she had found, and it bled into everything she made; the portrait was a tale indeed, but not a tall one, and that was a risky thing to just hand to someone. That rarely stopped Sig, though. Yet more trouble.

Fortunately for the both of them, though, the storytellers appeared to have an understanding- whirl in enough loops, always come back to what was real in the end. That was the truth of both of their art, plays and pictures, making sense of the world by distorting it, and making it more beautiful all the same. 

As Gabriel turned the page this way and that, his roommate's uncoiled limbs may have shifted in the corners of his vision. They quietly wrapped around her legs and torso, turning the colours of her clothes- they were very convincing. So convincing that all one would need do was to blink and they would vanish, absorbed neatly into the folds of her camo pants and vine-patterned tank as though they were just a figment of anyone's imagination. She stretched her long, red-swirled limbs, sinking in her chair.

When he deemed it right to look back at her, he met the eyes of someone startlingly human; her eyes, of course, still were not human eyes, but they glittered with recognition. Perhaps, affection? By now, he had likely seen stranger things on her face.

An angel and a valkyrie, on a day a little less stormy, smiled at each other.