Wellspring Arms & Meditation Center, Sunday

[firstnameagent.livejournal.com]

There had been an incident at the dry cleaners. It was unfortunate, people had been stared down, it was getting fixed. But that meant Coulson didn't have any suits ready for today. Fortunately, he found an old flannel shirt and was at least able to avoid going shirtless all day.

But then when he got to the shop and tried to set the stereo in the relaxation area with whale song, it turned out there was a CD of grunge hits of the 90s stuck in there.

It was a little weird, but Coulson would endure.

Comments

[atreideslioness]

Ghanima raised an eyebrow as she came in, a small smile hovering over her lips. "I wasn't aware you were into older music trends, Phil."

Sometimes, Ghani thought she was funny.

[firstnameagent.livejournal.com]

"Some people find nostalgia relaxing, and that is half of the purpose of this store," Coulson pointed out. "And if grunge makes anyone else angry, it might be easier to sell them a weapon or two."

Coulson was working all the angles as a salesman.

[atreideslioness]

"Well, it doesn't make me angry, but I do need a weapon or four," Ghanima answered cheerfully. "Two, at least; my brother's daughter is old enough for her first blade, and I need a sword for an old friend."

[firstnameagent.livejournal.com]

"How old do you consider 'old enough?'" Coulson asked as he stepped out from behind the counter to lead Ghanima toward all of the sharp objects. He wasn't judging when he asked that. He was just trying to get an idea for blade size. "And all of our blades are over here. I'm sure we can can find anything you need."

[atreideslioness]

"Almost walking," Ghanima replied, following him. "She'll be two in September already, so something small and simple is fine."

[firstnameagent.livejournal.com]

"That's slightly younger than I expected," Coulson admitted as he veered toward the smaller blades. "I trust your brother is concerned enough about safety that I won't have any toddler blood on my conscience."

It wasn't exactly a question. If somebody who managed to be a teacher at this school for this long was going to give a child a knife, he assumed the culture was familiar enough with weapons that children weren't constantly cutting themselves. At least, that's what he would assume about Asgardians, and that was his best reference point here.

[atreideslioness]

"Children in our culture grow up with weapons, since those who can't wield weapons can still die on the end of one," Ghanima offered. "By three, we're expected to be able to defend ourselves, if needed." And kill, but, well, that was hopefully a thing her niece would not need to ever do. "We've discovered that growing up around sharp things often builds a healthy respect for weapons."

She smiled at Coulson. "I've found that a teenager given a sword for the first time will be the bravo and wave it about, but one who was raised with them will generally keep their hands to themselves and admire the craftsmanship instead, until given permission to handle it."

[firstnameagent.livejournal.com]

"I have a friend from a similar culture. But his people tend to be somewhat invulnerable, which probably does most of the work with preventing injuries," Coulson said.

"Now that my conscience is clear, here's where we keep our selection of daggers. For a small child, I imagine you should either go with one of these or a multi-tool with a variety of blades." He pointed to a couple daggers he thought were especially nice. Maybe not exactly what a two year old might want, but it was a place to start. "Of course, I haven't met too many children who really need several screwdrivers and a USB flash drive, so a dagger would be the better choice."

[atreideslioness]

"We're not invulnerable, even if we can be hard to kill," Ghanima laughed. "Although that's mostly just us being contrary."

She looked over the daggers thoughtfully before selecting a fairly simple design. "This one, I think. Lovely work, but not too heavy for a small hand."

[firstnameagent.livejournal.com]

Coulson smiled but didn't comment on being hard to kill. After all, he didn't survive due to being contrary so much as he survived because of a concentrated amount of sass and timely medical intervention.

"Excellent choice. That's one of my favorites at that size," Coulson said. He pulled his phone out of his pocket to make note of which dagger Ghanima chose for record-keeping purposes. He kept very good records of the inventory, as one might imagine.

"And how about your friend's sword? Are you looking for anything in particular, or do you want to browse a bit?"

[atreideslioness]

"He is - was - a swordmaster. It's not my preferred weapon, so if you have any suggestions, I'd appreciate it," Ghanima said. "I have to confess that I did not listen as closely to Duncan's lessons as a child as I should have."

Because when your devoted family retainer and former uncle was being cloned and brought back for the second time - so far - nothing said 'I missed you, sorry you got stabbed,' like a sword.

[firstnameagent.livejournal.com]

"I'm really more familiar with guns and some of the smaller blades. Things you're more likely to see in an Earth city, really," Coulson said, starting toward the larger blades. "But I'm sure we can find something he'll like."