Dreams of Fire

[Thalia]

Katya. A good solid Russian sounding name. Not that Thalia was a Moscovite herself, but she appreciated the authentic ring of such a pretty name, and she was already feeling predisposed towards liking the girl next to her. Her lips quirked up into the shadow of a friendly smile, a little of the suffocating anxiety retreating, a little of the tension easing out her limbs. She associated it naturally with the strange presence of affinity she felt around Katya, but it was also a fact she was good at burying memories, patting the fresh grave flat and starting anew. Something terrible is going to happen. She knew it, and she also knew - in some deep place she was very adept at ignoring - that her fear was not unfounded. But what could she do? Nothing. Accept carry on.

"Nice to meet you, Kat." She didn't think twice about shortening the name, nor asked permission; it was both unconscious and amiably meant. The train jolted and the lights flickered like mad, but despite that Thalia had been jammed up tight in her seat as though through fear, she gave barely a reaction. It was ordinary after all, and whatever nameless thing that had frightened her had not made her jumpy.

She laughed at Katya's assessment, and felt better for the levity. It didn't seem to bother her an iota that she was so dishevelled and... red. "Not really," she admitted. "Just needed to get out for a bit I guess." Although she'd probably run out of red paint now. Of course, the mess itself had come from destruction, not creation. At the moment of birth, when fleeting comprehension had finally dawned, and she'd realised what she'd painted... she let the memory dip below the waterline, dulling the bubble of emotion, and shoved a hand in a pocket, lifting her hips a little to search. The business card was a little worse for wear - it'd probably been in there a while, and by the look of it might have suffered a cycle in a washing machine. But it was readable.

A smudge of red obscured part of her name. For a moment her gaze caught on the blazing red thumbprint, like an echo of the oppression that had sent her running from her studio. The moment was brief, and she handed it over with a grin. A name, a number, a website - the latter of which she tapped. Not that she presumed Katya was interested in the wares of an eccentric on the metro, but the innate sense of kinship she felt prompted the offering of friendship.

By now, soothed by the distraction from her own troubles, she lit upon something Katya had said with curiosity. On my way to work, not that I need to go anywhere? Yet Kat was on the metro, laptop in hand, on the way to somewhere she didn't need to be. "What do you do?" A nod of the head indicated the computer, curious but not pushy.

((Grovelling apologies for the tardiness!))