Aug 21 01:05:40 <Antichthon>	Athene adjusted her denim jacket over her black-and-white striped shirt. She'd been trying out a lot of new outfits lately, and this jean skirt and jean jacket combo really worked with the "brawler" sense she liked in her fashion. She'd forgone the AR glasses today, and her hair covered not only eye , but her scarred cheek. She looked about as good as she was going to get. She took a breath and knocked on Gloria's door.
Aug 21 01:10:15 <Knave>	Gloria didn't get visitors. Nobody wanted to see her, in any sense of the term. Nobody wanted to talk to her, either, especially not if they knew her. She imagined if someone did want to get in touch they'd write a note around a brick and chuck it through her window, or spray-paint something on her door. Who would visit her? It was probably just someone going door to door, preaching about something she didn't care about.
Aug 21 01:10:15 <Knave>	The knock probably wasn't worth her time. Probably better to just sit in the dark staring at the wall.
Aug 21 01:10:16 <Knave>	That being said, the sounds of heavy footfalls come just a few seconds after the knock, and the door jerks, but doesn't quite open before being shut again. Strange. “Who is it?” Gloria barks a second later.
Aug 21 01:13:25 <Antichthon>	"Athene." Her kind smile somehow made it into her voice, who knew how.
Aug 21 01:16:46 <Knave>	There's a grunt from behind the door. After another few seconds with only the slight sound of scuffling stone, the door opens with a Gloria behind it, dressed in a lilac shift almost falling off one shoulder, her platinum blonde hair loose and a complete mess around her sharp, monstrous features. Her eyes are already downcast before they're revealed, well away from Athene's face. "What?"
Aug 21 01:20:11 <Antichthon>	Gloria's surly attitude did nothing to dull Athene's composed smile. "Hi, I just stopped by to see how you're doing, after yesterday's events. Do you have time to talk?"
Aug 21 01:22:30 <Knave>	Gloria shrugs pointedly, her stony shoulders rising and falling in a five-second tectonic event. "Yeah." She doesn't budge from the spot, blocking off the darkened room beyond her.
Aug 21 01:24:47 <Antichthon>	"Are you doing alright? I'd count that as a mission, considering how it went. Which makes it your first mission, if I'm right. Everyone needs someone to talk to after their first mission." And it wasn't like Gloria had many friends. Or any.
Aug 21 01:27:40 <Knave>	"Guess again." Gloria grunts, "First was a hotel, a week ago." She doesn't lift her gaze nor change her posture, and her tone sound utterly disinterested.
Aug 21 01:30:45 <Antichthon>	Athene winced faintly at getting that detail wrong. "Sorry. I try to keep up to date with everyone at Sanctum, but I guess I haven't been doing a very good job." Beat. "Do you eat?"
Aug 21 01:32:57 <Knave>	"No." She shifts in place, perhaps uncomfortably. The movement, slow and grinding, is thoroughly inhuman as to be quite unreadable. She lifts her head and directs her gaze over Athene's shoulder.
Aug 21 01:37:26 <Antichthon>	It was rare for Athene to skid her wheels in a social situation, but Gloria wasn't exactly giving her much traction. "Well...I bet you like it up on the roof. Want to go get some fresh air?"
Aug 21 01:39:51 <Knave>	The reptilian pupil's of Gloria's unblinking eyes scan, for a moment, across Athene's face, gaze landing on the wall behind her other shoulder. After a few silent moments of consideration in complete stillness, Gloria steps forward into the corridor and pulls the door of her room shut behind her loudly. "Sure." She gestures with her head for Athene to lead the way.
Aug 21 01:42:51 <Antichthon>	Athene flashed her brilliant teeth. "You go first, please. It's...difficult to walk behind me." She took up about the whole hallway.
Aug 21 01:46:11 <Knave>	"Hrn." Gloria shrugs, and sets off at her stop-gap walking pace ahead of her, slouched and hunched. It gets to be truly something to behold when they reach the stairs, and Gloria's jerky movements seem to slow her down twice as much. Every now and then, as she climbs, she reaches out a claw to idly brush the wall for no apparent reason. When she emerges onto the roof, without pause, she continues walking over towards the edge.
Aug 21 01:50:30 <Antichthon>	Athene admittedly was staring. There was something so very intriguing about how Gloria moved. Sort of made Athene think of those desert lizards that jerkily jig along to confuse predators. Athene was silent until they were on the roof, save for a few grunts when she got stuck in the roof door and had to really tug to get through. Most of her coiled up in the corner and out of the way, and her human half joined Gloria near the edge. "It's a shame we never got to see the view from the roof in that other Sanctum. It would have been really impressive."
Aug 21 01:52:52 <Knave>	"Hrn." Gloria grunts absently and nods. Up here, her attention is on the grounds below, although the slightly twitchy movements of her head and her eyes give the impression that she's slightly hesitant to fully focus on it. She takes a few paces to and fro along the edge.
Aug 21 01:56:22 <Antichthon>	Athene watched her sidelong. After some silence, "You know what's great about being this long? I can do this." Athene stuck her human half a good ten feet out over the edge of the roof and grinned. "It's great. I can imagine I'm flying, like a dream. Do you ever have those? Dreams where you're flying?"
Aug 21 01:58:35 <Knave>	Gloria looks at Athene, then looks at the roof under her. She crouches, her claws digging into the edge of the roof, and leans forward. If she has any doubts about losing her grip and falling off, they don't show on her stone face. "Yes."
Aug 21 02:04:07 <Antichthon>	It made Athene rather wary, anyway. Her tongue flicked and stayed out a while, capturing Gloria's weird, stony scent. Nothing about her smelled alive. "I think everyone has flying dreams," Athene said. "There are so many different kinds of people. Some alive, some not alive, some look human, some don't. But they all dream of flying, I think. Maybe that's the definition of a person. Anything that dreams of flying."
Aug 21 02:06:43 <Knave>	"Probably, yeah." Gloria says, "Think I read that in the OED." Through the awkward way her mouth forms vowels, and the layer of stony scraping, and the sarcasm, the last bit is a bit hard to make out, but not impossible. Gloria locks her gaze on the horizon.
Aug 21 02:09:19 <Antichthon>	"OED?" Athene either didn't notice the sarcasm or was being polite about it.
Aug 21 02:11:08 <Knave>	"Oxford English Dictionary." Gloria says without any enthusiasm or energy. She could have called her stupid for not knowing, but she couldn't be bothered with it right now.
Aug 21 02:13:18 <Antichthon>	"Ah." Athene looked down. Back up. Another brief silence. "Gloria," she began, carefully. "The students here wouldn't reject you."
Aug 21 02:14:58 <Knave>	Gloria keeps her eyes fixed on the horizon. A chip of stone from the brickwork crumbles down from between her claws. "No." She agrees bluntly.
Aug 21 02:18:20 <Antichthon>	Athene closed the distance between them, just a little bit. "You need friendship as much as anyone else. You aren't-" Made of stone. "You aren't an island. You need someone to talk to."
Aug 21 02:19:20 <WyrmKnave>	Gloria's head twisted towards Athene just a fraction, and her eyes didn't flicker from whatever they were looking at. "And what have I got to say?"
Aug 21 02:20:33 <Antichthon>	Athene shrugged. "Everyone has something to say."
Aug 21 02:21:27 <Knave>	"I take it you've asked them all, then?" The words slide out of her mouth like granite over marble.
Aug 21 02:23:09 <Antichthon>	"I try to," Athene said blankly.
Aug 21 02:27:34 <Knave>	Gloria makes a sharp sound, that might be tutting. Slowly, her head returns to its upright position.
Aug 21 02:28:27 <Antichthon>	Athene met her with a level gaze. "You can be hostile to me all you want, it's not going to make me leave you alone."
Aug 21 02:29:31 <Knave>	"No skin off my proverbial." She grumbles, "You do what you want." She shifts the set of her shoulders, then continues, "You're decent company."
Aug 21 02:30:32 <Antichthon>	"You need more than company. You need friends."
Aug 21 02:31:59 <Knave>	"And you know what I need, do you?" The tone isn't hostile, or accusatory. Any moreso than she normally sounds, anyway.
Aug 21 02:35:51 <Antichthon>	"Everyone needs friends," Athene said. "It isn't good for you to hide in your room all the time. You know I'm right."
Aug 21 02:38:10 <Knave>	"And you know I know it's right as well." Gloria puts on faux-amazement in her voice, "Tell you what, since you know me so bloody well, you just imagine my half of the conversation and we'll pretend we're friends, eh?"
Aug 21 02:41:06 <Antichthon>	Athene opened her mouth. Closed it. sighed. "Gloria, I'm just worried about you. Because it seems like there's no one else in your life who gives a damn."
Aug 21 02:42:45 <Knave>	"I'm flattered." Gloria bites, then lowers her hackles, "I like spending time on my own."
Aug 21 02:46:14 <Antichthon>	"I can relate to that," Athene said. "Really, I can. And...and maybe you're different. Maybe you don't get lonely, and if I'm wrong I'm sorry. But you seemed lonely to me."
Aug 21 02:47:04 <Antichthon>	"...I'll leave you be, if that's what you want."
Aug 21 02:48:03 <Knave>	Gloria sits in silence for some time. "I don't know." She shifts the grip of one claw, then the other, "I'm used to being alone. People bother me."
Aug 21 02:49:56 <Antichthon>	"Yeah," Athene snickered. "They bother me, too. Horribly."
Aug 21 02:50:47 <Knave>	"Yeah?" She prompts, touch of curiosity under the grain of her voice.
Aug 21 02:53:23 <Antichthon>	"Oooh yeah," Athene said. "Except for Ellie and my girlfriend, everyone bothers me. The first thing I want to do when anyone opens their mouth is bite their head off, literally. But you can still enjoy being with people even though they irritate you. I hate it yet it's my favorite thing ever."
Aug 21 02:55:23 <Knave>	"Hrn." Gloria nods slowly, then makes a little choking noise. "You can stay if you want."
Aug 21 03:00:29 <Antichthon>	"Mm." Athene nodded and fell silent. It retrospect it was obvious, with Gloria silence meant a lot more than words.
Aug 21 03:01:46 <Knave>	-scene silenced-