Being for the BENEFIT [open!]

[Romy Tabea Brannen]

There really was nothing better than this honey-almond cream cheese. It was low fat, and slathered all over a perfectly toasted bagel. That was just how The Flying Carpet did things, and why Romy loved it beyond measure. She was sitting at the large antique table in the middle of the layout, away from the bar, with her copy of The Illiad marked up with highlighers, notes in the margins, and tabs marking up pages with important passages. Also spread before her was a notebook with outlines of an essay for her Intellectual Heritage course, covering the topic of heroism. It was fitting, really. But those things had taken the back seat to her mixture of pomegranate juice and the smoothest vodka she had ever tasted. It had a little citrusy burst, and was absolutely delicious, despite it being only four-thirty in the afternoon.

That and her bagel.

She was sipping slowly, enjoying her drink for the taste more than the effect, and nibbling at the bagel. There was a lot going through her head--dates for photoshoots, phone numbers that she needed to call to book more shoots to pay the bills and set up heating in the textile mill, comparisons and conclusions to include in her essay, other readings that she had to get done before the next day's classes, and how to budget her time with a night of patrolling center city planned. But she knew that she had to put her schoolwork first, so perhaps she could cancel that, and send Trinity out by herself. She could care for herself. But was that fair? Well, why not? She had to complete school and get photoshoots where she didn't look like death on legs to make money to keep the roof over their heads, so why not? Still, it didn't sit right with her.

But this bagel did. So entranced by the bagel was she, that she didn't even take notice to the comings and goings of others. Pen in her left hand, she scribbled down in her graceful handwriting a passage about Ajax and Hector that was sure to win points in the explanation of heroes in the Greeks' minds. She liked to think that she and Trinity did it better, though. The metahuman pulled her scarf more closely around her neck and recrossed her legs, lengthened further by knee-high boots and dark skinny jeans. The heat in here was divine after the bone-chilling tundra of the mill. She thought she'd never leave.