"As I said, I am large and warm." And for anyone other than Alonso, that's basically all she is. Gisa is more than content to change the subject, and when Pilar and Alonso head off to sleep, after Gisa has made up the couch for Pilar, protesting that it is no trouble and she will not let a guest sleep on the floor and the shower is there in the corner and so on, she gestures toward the store itself, which is literally the one place in the building where someone won't be sleeping. There's where she and Iris can talk and not disturb anyone.
Iris isn't really all that much help in getting people situated, but she definitely seems to be glad to see Pilar, and interested in making sure she gets settled and is taken care of. There's not really any doubt about it with Gisa around, though, so she stays out of the way, and actually helps a bit with cleaning up from dinner. After shedding her clothes, anyway. The truth is she's really just about as well covered without clothes on as she is with them, at least to Lost eyes.
When they move to the shopfront to talk without disturbing people she's still unclothed and looking a bit more comfortable for having her wings and her tail free of the confinement of even the loose clothing she tends to wear. "I'm glad you both seem to get along with her," she says as they find themselves alone. "I thought you might, which is why I told her she might want to come." She pauses and eyes Gisa up and down. "Are you really warm?"
"Well, I have only just met her," agrees Gisa, settling into her favorite chair in the front of the store with a glass of wine. Of course she has a giant confy recliner and a big glass of kosher red wine. That's how a golem do. Apparently. "But I get along with very many people. I can think of only one person who I do not actually get along with, and it is because I am too concerned for her safety." Leaning back in the chair, she lets out a long, contented sigh. Goylomim work hard, okay?
"I am actually very warm." And true to her word, Gisa isn't bothered by Iris's nudity. "These flames in my eyes are not for show."
Iris is going to need to sit somewhere, and in a manner of speaking she's a giant lizard, so the most attractive place to sit is the warm spot. It's why she asks, "is there room for two on that chair, then? And I hear you," her grin flashes reptilian teeth. "Quarreling senslessly with people isn't very awesome, so I don't do it. There are people who deserve it, but most people don't. I'd rather find common ground with people, and hope that we can all be better for our associations."
She thinks about this for a moment, and then shrugs. "You can sit on my lap. You may as well." She is a large resting rock, after all, after a fashion. And how nice is it to just be close and chill and know shit isn't about to get Weird? "Exactly. There are much better things to worry about than the fussing that many people get up to. I have walked the world a long time since I got back. So many of them are so young, even if they are old. I try to remember that." A big golem sigh that sounds like a bellows working.
Not needing to be asked twice, Iris comes over and slides onto Gisa's lap. She spends a moment getting comfortable, making sure her short tail and her wings -- not to mention horns and claws -- aren't jabbing the golem uncomfortably anywhere. She's pretty much the same temperature as the air of the shop, and once she's settled she lets out a contented sigh not that different than someone slipping into a hot tub might make. "I've been back a long time too. Close to sixty years. I know what you mean." She seems like she might go on for a moment, but she changes the topic again. "Can I ask you to be careful with Pilar, when it comes to mothering her? I appreciate that you like to take care of people, but she tends to do what people want her to do and not what she wants, except when it comes to really important things."
The golem is quite accustomed to ... well, basically everyting. She doesn't get bothered by things. She just doesn't. So she lets Iris get settled, and then wraps her arm companionably over the dragon. This leaves one arm free to lift her wineglass. It's basically perfect. And it's true: she is warm. It's like snuggling a very large coffee mug, really. "Eighty-seven years," Gisa sighs. "I do not age very quickly. Or at all, anymore, it seems like. I just... don't."
And then she's listening to the thing about Pilar. "Hmm." Gisa pauses. "I am used to people who do not take good care of themselves, and having to be sure that they do actually take care of themselves. I do not try to force people to do things that a... well, I don't force people to do anything. I just. Did she really want to sleep on the floor?"
Like a coffee mug, or one of those electric rocks that people put in the terrariums for their lizards. An ambulatory one that's a much better conversationalist. Once she gets settled she goes still, much like the feathered serpent she appears to appears to be, and true to her word doesn't do anything to make it weird at all. "Neither do I," she says. "I was born some time in the 19th century, I don't really remember for sure. I escaped in the 60s. I still look like I'm around 30, I think?" There's the slightest motion of her shoulder, a suggestion of a shrug, but she doesn't move other than that.
"Mmhm," she says. "Don't ask me why that's what she likes, but she does. You wanted her to sleep on the fold-out bed, though, so that's where she slept. I'm telling you because I'm sure you wouldn't want to take advantage or make her do things she didn't want to do, but it can be easy for people to do that to her without intending it."
Gisa, on the other hand, pets Iris absently, but pets her rather like one would pet a cat. There, there, dragon. Pet, pet. "I was born after the first aliyah at the end of the nineteenth century. Right when Zionism was really first starting. Modern Zionism. My parents were Russian. They fled the pogroms." Gisa rolls her shoulders a little, a subtle gesture that jostles Iris just a little bit. "I still look around the same age. Even for a Lost, I do not age very quickly."
A heavy, heavy sigh when the conversation turns back to Pilar. "I thought she was just trying not to be a bother. I cannot be a bad host," the Elemental explains. "Yes. I understand. It's very easy for people to walk over a person like that." And just like that, it was added to the 'how to protect Pilar from other people' file.
Moving a sleepy Alonso.
Iris might be a dragon, but she has feathers, and they're really quite soft. And, like a bird, she seems to enjoy having someone pet and/or ruffle them. She doesn't really move, but they fluff out a bit, like a person's hair standing on end up in her case it's feathers. "I was born somewhere around here. I don't remember where I grew up, and things have changed so much. My mom died before I knew her, and my dad was..." she doesn't say, but it's easy to tell that it's not good. "He died when I was little too. I went to an orphanage, but got adopted by a family that was good to me. I was a frightened, timid, quiet girl. The person I was and the person I am now, they're not the same at all. There's no Iris Rothstein now, just Iris Drake."
She nestles her head against the crook of Gisa's neck, the base of her horns where they meet her skull pressing gently into that space. The sound of keratin on clay is really not a great sound, so she's mindful of it. "Thank you for understanding about her. I get cross when people take advantage of her."
She keeps petting Iris, though her hand stops for a second, stuttering like a record needle skipping. All the rest of the conversation just sort of falls away, centering around that one word. That one surname. "... is that the name of the family who adopted you? Rothstein? Here in Vermont?" And then Gisa is petting Iris again, making a small noise of assent to the thanks she's given. "I try never to hurt people unless they are hurting my guarded ones."
"No, it's the name I got from my parents," Iris says with another of those every so slight shrugs, but she also lifts up her head. "Why?" Her brows pull down a little in genuine confusion. She's awesome, but she's not the brightest star in the sky. When you have horns you kind of need a thick skull to support them.
"Rothstein is ... not always, but very often, especially in the United States, a Jewish name. Ashkenazi Jewish. Jews who came from the Levant and moved through western and northern Europe. Like me." Gisa's heat actually increases, the same way someone's heartbeat might slightly increase. "Iris Drake is a very fine name. I do like it, and I like the name that you chose. It isn't a certain thing, but I could -- if you are from around here -- we could -- " A pause. "It may not matter to you. It matters to me. And it would ... it would give some sense to how the mezuzah came to be in your possession."
Iris's brows pinch further and her nictitating membranes blink across her eyes and back, then her head tilts slightly in uncertainty. Then Gisa says that Iris Drake is a fine name, and she lets out a bright laugh, and the faint luminescence in her pearlescent scales briefly grows brighter. "It's a truly ridiculouus name, and I still occasionally have fits of giggles about it. I appreciate you saying you like it, though." The laughter subsides and she lowers her head again, leaning it on the golem's shoulder. "I wasn't raised Jewish. I've never even been to church. Synagogue? Temple? I don't know what ther right phrasing is. I know more about Islam than about Judaism because it's always in the news, mostly negative, and I've read more because I wanted to know what I was talking about if I weighed in on it." She quivers briefly, which ruffles her feathers more or less head to toe, and her wings shift and re-settle on her back. "That isn't to say no, I just don't really knowo what you're asking."
"I named myself something that means 'carved from stone,' because I could no longer be my given name when I came back. My Fetch was still alive in those days, and it felt strange to call myself what she was called. Gisa means 'carved from stone'. So, yes, Iris Drake is a very fine name. It is a name that has a meaning to Lost, but to humans just sounds like a name. You are an iridescent dragon. Quite clever." Gisa goes back to absently petting Iris as though nothing of import is being talked about. Or perhaps everything of import is being talked about. "Synagogue, Temple, both are correct. Some call it shul, like the Yiddish word for school. Most call it synagogue here." She sniffs slightly, a small sigh following. "I am asking your permission to trace your lineage and find out if you are ethnically Jewish. From there, it is your decision if you want to reclaim that lineage, that right. Am Yisrael Chai, and perhaps it lives in you." Beat. "I think that may be why the mezuzah you brought me found its way to you. We have a word. 'Beshert.' It means, basicaly, preordained. Inevitable. That God wanted something to happen. Something that has the fingerprints of divine providence. It is possible that this applies to you being here. To the mezuzah. To all of it."
"It's an awesome name, at least," Iris says, not clarifying whether she means hers or Gisa's. Then stillness, listening and letting the warmth that radiates from Gisa soak into her. Enjoying the petting, too. "You have my permission," she says without reservation or hesitation. "It sounds like this is important to you.
"It's an awesome name, at least," Iris says, not clarifying whether she means hers or Gisa's. Then stillness, listening and letting the warmth that radiates from Gisa soak into her. Enjoying the petting, too. "You have my permission," she says without reservation or hesitation. "It sounds like this is important to you. Now I'm curious too. I'd rather just forget my father, but I don't have anything against my mother, I just never knew her, and it isn't her fault she fell ill. Just remember it's also possible that the name is just a name, and that mezuzah came to be in my possession because I'm an avaracious dragon who saw something shiny and gold and decided it would make a good mattress."
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