tushanshu_logs | [OPEN] The Joy of Painting

Entry tags:

[OPEN] The Joy of Painting

Characters: Zatanna Zatara | Midii Une | Aya + OPEN
Date: mid-october
Location: Earth Sector
Situation: Pottery Painting!
Warnings/Rating: things might get a little messy....

ZATANNA

[The 19-year-old Mistress of Magic...was not much of an artist. Although, in her defense, she had never claimed to be. Performance was quite different from paintbrushes, and while her sleight of hand was superb, well...]

[Still, she managed about as well as anyone who's last art project involved allowing a former boyfriend to smear her in body paint so she would turn visible again (long story): after about a half hour, she came away with a few simple, yet seasonally appropriate designs on the bowls she's gathered.]

[She also looked quite proud of herself as she held up one of them.]

Maybe I should use these when I decorate the Welcome Center.

MIDII

[A month shy of her 16th birthday, and Midii had already found herself a present. A teapot. Simple, personal, and something she knew she would get a lot of use out of.]

[It was said the custom was meant to be a social event, and yet she still sat a bit aways from the rest of the group. Several small cups of paint scattered around her. A few drops of every color, in fact, and a small, thin brush she'd used to paint dozens of little hearts all over its surface.]

[One for each friend or otherwise familiar face she'd lost. Not just in Keelai, but...before.]

I wonder...if I should make any cups to match.

AYA

[For her contribution for this most interesting cultural tradition, Aya painted...a green turtle. Because of course she did. She was dressed no differently than ever, unaffected by the cooling temperatures, with the only subtle alteration in her appearance being a...small streak of green on the side of her helmet. Darker than the shade of her construct skin.]

I do hope I have completed the process accurately.

While I have knitted articles of clothing before, I have seldom done anything of this nature in the past.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Most of the girls I know aren't all that interested in the things I am back home.

[To be fair, not a lot of guys her age were, either. Which kind of explains why she fell in with Tony and Rhodey, because they shared the same sort of drive. Sort of.]

Except for the shopping. But it's been different here, and a lot more of my friends are girls. It might have to do with the fact that I'm living with guys. I mean, my dad is a guy, obviously, but he's not a teenager. We got a roommate, though! Marie. Kinda quiet, but she's really nice.

What a coincidence. My dad's a guy, too.

[Her former roommate. ...actually, her other former roommates were guys too. Dick and Jack, back in the treehouse. Then later, Jack when it was the two of them at the Welcome Center. Not to mention, the time she crashed with Kyle for a bit after her place got wrecked.]

[Huh. Go figure.]

Back home, I guess you could say my two closest friends were M'gann and Artemis. And they were both in the superhero business, so we had a bit more in common than your average Gotham teen.

Here...I guess, for a while, my two closest were Annabeth and Korra. We didn't really do girly-girly things, though. I think the closest Korra and I had to a girls' night out was that one time we accidentally got drunk at the bar she worked at.

[Oops.]

[Pepper laughed at herself for a moment - yes, dad = man, duh.]

The only girls my age I met in the superhero business were actually supervillains. Not exactly great friend material. Whitney turned out okay when she stopped being crazy - turns out it's not a great idea to put experimental tech on your head.

[Her smile turned a little sly.]

'Accidentally' huh? How'd you manage that?

Let's just say...I didn't know my own tolerance levels back then.

And Korra could be distracting when she wanted to be.

Ah. Yeah. Seems like a recipe for trouble. It's a little weird not having a legal drinking age here; I think my dad would probably be more upset about me having alcohol than fighting bad guys, honestly.

[Or possibly be more upset by who she's had drinks with but odds are Bakura and Virgil Potts will never get the chance to reveal that particular detail to each other. Pepper shrugged.]

Dad logic.

Mmm...it was kind of a little of column "A", a little of column "B", actually.

Dad's Italian. A glass of wine wouldn't have thrown him over the edge...but going to save the world without permission? Worthy of getting grounded for life.

[Giovanni Zatara logic.]

[When Virgil was here in April, he'd seemed more proud than anything, but it's possible he just hadn't had time to absorb the implications of his daughter being a superhero. The transition to Keeliai had a way of overwhelming people.

She did laugh a little at the contorted logic their respective fathers had.]

Grounding me stopped working around the time I learned how to get out of handcuffs. That didn't really keep him from trying, though.

How many times did you go save the world without permission?

That he knew about? Once.

[The actual number was...slightly higher.]

Nice. I've got the same track record with world saving, but he's caught me helping on a bunch of other stuff.

[Yes, hacking into FBI servers on a regular basis was definitely 'helping'.]

I think he'd prefer I spend my time doing this sort of stuff, [she added in an amused tone, holding up her unpainted mug.]

[It really was a shame Pepper and Dick had never had a chance to met; call it a hunch, but Zatanna would say they'd get along quite well.]

I think dad would have preferred I at least finish high school first.

Guess that one didn't work out so well, huh?

[Oh, yes, most definitely.]

Guess not. I have no idea if I'm going to finish high school. I mean, I think I'd like to, but an alien mothership is about to fall on top of Manhattan the moment I get back so... could be a while until things are back to normal.

[How inconvenient. At least the aliens waited until Zatanna was old enough to finally join the League before invading.]

You're sure they're not friendly?

I mean, one of my teammates is literally from Mars, and she's pretty cool.

I wish. [Pepper looked a little a grim.] They're definitely not friendly. Pretty much first thing they did when they showed up was start firing. Tony and Gene are from after the ship explodes and crashes into the city; it's maybe not as bad as it could be, but it's gonna be pretty bad. [She was skimming a lot of detail, but this was darker than she'd meant to get into.] The ship is going to blow up a second or two after I get home; I'm not really looking forward to that part.

We'll make it, though. We always do. Things'll just be really, really different.

[So...not a ship full of M'ganns, then.]

If they're from after all that...have they ever told you what happens? I know some people can be a bit weird about the whole spoilers thing on real life, but...I also know what it can feel like not knowing.

[If only.]

Yeah, it turns out... okay, mostly. A lot of people don't make it, but the alternative was the whole planet blowing up, so. [She shrugs.] Apparently Tony and Rhodey and me all get our identities revealed. Gene vanishes. Beyond that we don't really know, since Tony and Gene are only from the day or two after.

[With a slight frown, Zatanna crossed her arms over her chest. That...wasn't the greatest news to hear, but Pepper was right. It could have been much worse.]

I know about my future too. Only it wasn't any of my friends from home who spilled the beans.

[...well, okay, Wally had blabbed about the Watchtower, but that had been so long ago, she'd pushed it from her mind. Considering the Big News she'd learned.]

[Pepper tilted her head, curious.]

Did you go see Milyn or was it something else? Those letters we got from ourselves a while ago?

[She started to shake her head, then paused.]

...actually, no, I did get a letter. But that wasn't what I meant.

This is something that happened to me way back when. Before your time.

[That left a lot of time, really, since Pepper had only been here a year and a half.]

What happened? I mean, if you're okay with telling me. I know pasts and futures are sort of sensitive subjects around here. [She was curious, of course. She would never not be curious.]

No, it's fine. I don't mind sharing.

It was during a landfall. One of the first, I think. That I knew of. [So...close to five years ago, give or take.] I came across a woman by the name of Eva. She was kedanese, but...she could do magic. Just like Emperor Eshai. She used some kind of local magic to show me parts of my future. Namely, the moments that I'll return to when I eventually go back.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[OPEN] The Joy of Painting

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject