rose-coloured glasses // petelia!

[✨ zozo.]

Stumbling into the Mutt-Maker's floor is, well, exactly how Astrid imagined. Scary-looking people with jawlines that tell her she doesn't want to meet them alone in a dark alley on one side, nerds on the other slamming information into computers and running simulation after simulation.

She picks the nerds.

"Petelia?" one of them snorts, not looking up from their transparent screens. "Back there, you'll know her desk when you see it," nothing but a lazy poke of their thumb over their shoulder. Astrid doesn't blame them - she still looks like an intern.

"Right, uh, thanks?" a mumble, they're not paying attention anyway. The youngest Gamemaker in a decade, the echo of Flickerman in the back of her head making her shudder, saunters past desks until a bright pink wall with washi tape drawings pinned into the plaster comes into view.  

"Miss Quartz?" Astrid squeaks, imposter syndrome hammering in her chest when wide-eyed admins gawp at the nerve of this girl simply waltzing up to one of the greatest mutt-makers of all time. Legacy across generations, written in her DNA to become a Gamemaker.

And then there is Astrid, accidentally in her seat because a man died and left the throne to her, standing with her feet angled inwards and gnawing on her bottom lip.

"Um, I'm Astrid, and uh-"

That gets a few more pairs of eyes, a familiar reaction her name has started to cause. She wishes people would kick the habit, almost as much as she wishes she couldn't hear the whispers that follow.

"I wanna hire you?" high-pitched and too fast, a question mark in the place of a full stop, she's shit at this. Everyone in this office knows it, all eyes on her and her now-yellow hair. Legacy, being awkward and terribly underqualified is Astrid Zane's.

Why the fuck did Jeremiah leave her this? What a sick, fucked up practical joke.

He could of just haunted her instead, the bastard.

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[Deleted]

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"It caught on fire again?!" 

Oh come on -- ever since she started breeding monkey paw's, her karma just hasn't been right. Don't worry, completely ethical, kind of. Off shoot of her spider monkeys, yada yada, they shed their hands whenever you bathe them. It evolved on its own mostly, Petelia herself didn't even know how quite how she made that one happen, but still. When life gives you free monkey pendants on a keychain, make a profit. 

Or in her case, piss off the universe. 

Ever since Jem started holocasting off Libilibi, Petelia's fell down a D.I.Y. rabbit hole as one would imagine of her. Instead of injecting a genetic split for spitting cement though, she's just started gluing cotton swabs to fairy lights. "They're like little clouds, Jemmie! I'm telling you, this whole handmade-districts craft aesthetic is so it." So fetch, she'd tell her favorite little niece. So happening.

It caught on fire and embers spit onto the corners of her tablets, melting off the pink little stickers she had stuck on everything. "It's ruined- ruined! Do you see this, oh my," it's hideous. Terribly underdecorated, the equipment works fine of course -- "I can't work like this." She'll just have to go back to her four bedroom studio apartment and live off the small lump of cash she's built up from years of mutt work. 

What ever will she do? 

It isn't until she hears the squeak of her name that she looks up from the tablets -- so ugly, but still so attention grabbing. She spent her three hours at work looking at cat videos, and found it hard to tear her eyes off of their little noses to look up for just a second. You can't just pause a pygmy hologram, so she lets it purr as Astrid introduces herself. "Mhm, mhm," beautiful name, very chic. Somewhat familiar, "oh!" 

Well, well, well. She looks up less briefly, taking her eyefull of Astrid with the Yellow Hair. "Oh, oh your hair is so cute," Petelia isn't too fazed. Every few games or so someone will pick her up into commission and until then, she collects her salary and watches Libilibi's on the clock. The cat starts to cough and she can't even stiffle her laughter, admittedly more distracted than she should be but can you judge her? 

"Sorry, sorry, I just can't stop watching these things! Lookit those little whiskers," she pokes them like harp strings, the hologram reacting on its own. "so are you like... the Astrid?" Cheekily, she says as she digs her chin in her shoulder -- there wasn't anything in her recent mentions about a baby gamemaker coming to see her, but y'know. 

Dig the nerve! 

Or maybe she just deleted the notification; lord, she needs to organize her workspace better. 

"I'm all ears. Promise!" 

[✨ zozo.]

There's a teenage girl spinning in her seat, chewing on bubblegum the colour of Petelia's office and tapping away at her tablet. When Astrid squeaks her name and her cheeks turn scarlet the girl looks up from over her phone and rolls her eyes - "Didn't you murder your boss?"

"What? No!" Hot flush, embarrassment. Rage. This girl's no older than she, pumps resting on her desk, and no sooner had she made the comment she simply shrugged and went back to tap, tap, tapping on her device.

"M'Kay."

She didn't seem convinced. Astrid sighs, realising this is why the juniors laughed at Astrid and wished her good luck when she'd hit the floor level button in the elevator. Astrid shuddered, turning her attention back to Petelia Quartz - "Uh, thanks?" she thinks, a self-conscious tug of a strand of hair between fingertips.

The Astrid is a strange new title, one that comes with every rumour and accusation that comes out of the mouths of teenage girls with pumps and bubblegum. Her first reaction is Yes, a hesitant one. Because she's not sure what being The Astrid means. Two weeks in, 120 hours of work, blue hair to black to yellow and changing things seems wrong. If she cannot change things then she is not Astrid Zane, she is simply Astrid - or perhaps not Astrid at all.

The Astrid is a caricature, a phony, a part she has to play. So she plays it, pretends to know what she's doing as she scruffs the fur on the hologram with her thumb. Magical, how it real it feels - but it's just pretend. 

Just like Astrid, the Astrid.

She lowers her voice so Pumps can't hear them, although from the glance over her shoulder Astrid's sure she's not paying anyone in this office attention bar her own reflection. 

"The one and only." Her voice calmer now, after a hard swallow. She recognises this girl, chameleon on a camera and in the headquarters with Elysium and Valentine. Her words are hollow, so she distracts with a smile.

"Can you make this..." she looks for the right word as she takes her hand back from the pygmy hologram, details girl in the office of an ideas kind of woman. 

"Atomic?"

A wink for good measure.

— ★ —