Welcome to Gaia! ::

The artist in residence appeared some moments beyond the sound of her name on the landing of a stair up to what should have been warehouse windows. The windows at the top of it were plainly converted into a door to some space beyond.

Stroud was dressed for work- a button down worn thin and soft as one of her cousins, marked by stains, glues and chemicals. Covered boots and likewise age-soft, tight jeans to avoid catching in any of her equipment. Her Hair was pulled into a bun and a coffee mug in hand that serendipitously had some anglophile saying about the queen to match her Union Jack belt buckle.

"I see none of your cats, so they can't have dragged you in." Long legs navigated the stairs in twos on the way down with practiced ease. "Something to drink? I was just having a break in my smoking room. There's Ashton VSGs and I have an open Glenlivet 18- or are you just cigarettes? I do have two packs of Dunhill, and some hand rolled Cavendish cigarettes. Its a pipe tobacco, so a little different."

"Unless you'd like a shorter drink. There's coffee, tea, water." Stroud approached to much closer than handshake distance, taking the other woman in a more European embrace and kissing her cheek. "Welcome."

Stroud's easy smile got a lopsided-playfulness, accompanied by a gesture to draw Ariel beyond the foyer towards the samovar and casual social space. "How would you take it? Black or ?"

"I'm a professional restoration artist for everything from paintings for museums to furniture. Antiquarian pieces are the more common, especially in a city with so many of the rich around. Its lucrative."

"I did do all of my own pieces as well. I prefer how well made objects were even a hundred years ago before the culture became one focused on disposal. I don't like trash, making it or accruing it. "

"As this is not a gas station, what fancy indulgence can I tempt you with? It doesn't have to be for now, you can take home a parcel when you leave tomorrow." Stroud looked over as it was offered and stated both- looking to see how the bountywoman took the implications.

The elaborate sideboard that the samovar was installed atop had an opening leaf door that revealed a custom-inbuilt small refrigerator, the other leaf opening to reveal a matched set of Moghul-styled coffee cups with what looked like gold inlay coating the insides. In a moment a cup was filled, creamed, and offered out.

"I'll set you up with a case of Davidoff Classic's then, " there was a private glee to it, like some previous memory brought to the fore. The last case I gave away was a more entertaining mix. But I don't know how much you like that sort of play. Far more meat and potatoes in your values and choices of carouse.

"I like a great many things. I'm a hedonist, Ariel. I glory in satisfaction and pursue the perfection of the senses. Pain and Pleasure are both the epitome of my taste. The question for you, in your interest in me, is how many of my devils are you willing to court?" Stroud smiled, drawing herself a cup, black, from the samovar. A sip. Then a lap of it from the top like a cat, looking from under heavy ash lashes.

Then a grin, letting down the cup to rest and warm both counts of curled, length fingers.

Stroud quirked, smiling at the other women. "Devils to some. Angels to others. It is not a binary, that is a social construction. Such things to show you. "

"Such things to know. Flesh is a limitation, but I love it so. If there's something flesh does best, it is feel, be a gate to open other ways. Exploring beyond the bounds of regular perception." Stroud nursed more of her own cup. " All things at a time. If you want to learn. The path cannot skip steps or you will be doubling back and back, lost and looking for those you have missed along the way. "

"It's easier to reach for infinity with more hands."

"You don't shirk all pain, and you have found some pleasure in it in your training- the strain of muscles and the wounds of battle. But what of pain in its own sake, Ariel?"

"Talk to me about yourself and pain."
"We hardly know each other. You can ask me as you like, what you like."

I did...and I was carrying the statement in expansion?

Stroud's eyebrow arched a little higher, but her smile didn't waver. You're pretty much parroting back what I've just said, with some added words. Not ideal, Ariel. Trying to cover up that you don't know the answers I'm looking for? Or don't understand the questions? Or maybe really just believes that sort of regurgitation is what someone wants to hear, like middle school history teachers at their lecterns. Topic and interest do not a savant build from this castle of sand.

At least she's good for ease of eyes and throwing at bodies.

"The Marinus family resides mostly in Grosse Pointe, having made a fortune in manufacturing during the industrial revolution. Have you ever been to Michigan? It's a strange, flat place with a 'modern' history going to the 1600s. Three Major automotive companies headquartered there drowned that before dying as well. The corpse of Detroit is beautiful, I do love it, but a living city is more appealing."

"I got my degrees from Western Michigan and Ann Arbor and I got out."

"Shipping here between New York City, Philadelphia, DC, Richmond and Charlotte is faster and more direct for business. The lakes add time to ground transport."

"Mishnah Pride has a large local presence."

"You're cute when you're uncertain and pouting. You've got the lips for it." Stroud crossed to where the other woman had come to standing, reaching to take her hand in a deliberate intimacy like Thelma and Louise. "The smoking room is up the stair. This way. It keeps the antiques better to have it separate. The flavors are better preserved in a controlled environment as well. "

The smoking room couldn't have been more posh-carved and shining wood, leather, real alpaca fleece throws, brass fittings and small emerald accents. It belonged in a fiction about Sherlock Holmes and an Prussian Duke. The lighting was soft and inviting, the room scented strong of Cavendish. "You've passed all that by, you know. Whatever still churns that bitterness at the mere mention of name, it is shadow of the real game. An agent is greater than a sum of money or expensive dresses, high rises or magazine fame. "

"Dominoes fall in line when Metallia decides she is done with them. And you are one of her chosen." Stroud fished out a cedar-lined, blood burl wood cigarette case from a drawer of them and held it over to the bounty woman. "Smokes."

Sounds like you feel abandoned by them. Which begs the question, so righteous your wrath- whatever you were doing did you listen to their pleas?

"Sometime you have to give up on people not because you don't care, but because they don't. You sound too angry about it to really be beyond it. Like an atheist too angry with god to actually believe there is no such thing as a god." Not that Stroud had followed any of the tabloids that filled Ariel's memory. The artist couldn't care less about petty life scandals except as pure information. From Ariel's reaction, and her words, it sounded like the ordeal went the ways of teenaged rebel-with-a-cause then gone sour. The devil was in the details, though, and the assumption of archetype only took predictions so far. That conversation had no point but riling.

Everything either for the bedroom or battlefield. Well, we have that well established. "Loyalties are important to you. You act always a loner, though. Paradox in that. Just not willing to let yourself find people to be loyal to? "

"Are you going to look for a partner or a team to work with regularly in the ranks?"