seventeen ♢ video

[versusnurture]

I have a question.

Maybe it's a weird question. [Not that all of her questions aren't weird. But.]

If you have a quality you want to accentuate, that you want people to notice. With hair or jewelry or things like that. How do you do it? Because.

[She pulls her hair back away from the right side of her neck to reveal a pale scar, horizontal, reaching almost halfway around. It's not a totally unknown sight since she stopped wearing her scarves, but it's not something she's been showing off, either, not exactly.]

I'm sick of hiding it.

Comments

[versusnurture]

You didn't listen at all, did you? I don't want to hide it.

[maced_eggs]

So draw some fuckin' flames around it and call it a day!

Either that or, 'course. Body glitter.

[versusnurture]

I think a neck tattoo would damage my future job prospects. And I don't have any body glitter.

[maced_eggs]

Don't you? I thought, y'know. All pretty girls had stashes of body glitter stored places.

[versusnurture]

I didn't realize that was a requirement.

[maced_eggs]

Course it's a requirement.

Right. What about piercings?

[versusnurture]

I never saw it in writing.

I have one in each ear. Should I get one in my neck too?

[maced_eggs]

Yes. I think you should. Little hoops piercing the collarbone.

[versusnurture]

You're gross. Do you know that?

[maced_eggs]

Can't help how I was made, darling.

[versusnurture]

You probably could help it a little.

[maced_eggs]

Yeah.

But I don't want to.

[versusnurture]

Why?

[maced_eggs]

I like the way I was made. I don't want to run around changing it for other people.

[versusnurture]

Is that why you're here? Because you don't adapt?

[maced_eggs]

That's a very personal question. I don't think I want to answer it.

[fridgetothefire]

Tattoos, uh, don't have to mean hiding.

[She's answered in video, in only a tank top, ink and burns bright on her arms and shoulders until the edge of the fabric, holding herself a little slanted with defied shyness, blushing just a tinge. She's shown them to several people, but not publicly on the network before.]

I mean, I'd start with something less permanent. But it's not a completely terrible idea.

[versusnurture]

. . . Oh.

[Abigail stares. She's never seen burns so extensive, or tattoos so beautiful. She's cowed, but entranced, too, and doesn't know what to say.]

I didn't mean.

It's different from what I thought.

[fridgetothefire]

I mean, I don't know anything about jobs in the real world, or America -

[two separate categories, clearly]

- so you're probably right about that. But a design around it in body paint or henna or something, that could be cool.

[versusnurture]

[Clearly. There's also the fact that part of the reason she was arguing about it was because she's angry with Mason.]

I don't really know that much either. And they probably wouldn't like the scar itself if they didn't like a tattoo.

I don't know how to do any of that. Do you?

[fridgetothefire]

Henna isn't hard - it's just vegetable dye and steady hand. I helped mama with it once at a wedding.

[Well. Tried to help. Toddler Anya may have really wanted a frog on her hand instead of the traditional Roma design.]

[versusnurture]

I have a steady hand.

[At least for killing things. She assumes the same principles apply for art?]

Maybe I'll try that. Before the dragon, anyway.

When did you get yours?

[fridgetothefire]

Almost a year ago, when we stopped in Los Angeles.

That was right around the time you arrived, I think.

[versusnurture]

I remember.

You made better use of your time than I did.

[fridgetothefire]

Well, I'd been planning it for a while. My first decent port, I pretty much spent the whole time shivering and riding a giant Ferris Wheel.