Something New For A Change

The shop was vaguely empty, maybe one or two other people inside of it. Perfect, in Edward's opinion. If anyone who knew him, or his parents in any case, saw him go inside and snitched on him, he'd pay the price.

Despite the fact that Edward now had a new style and a new outlook on life, for the longest time, since he was a child in fact, he had always wanted to get a tattoo. Now just seemed like the perfect time to do it.

When he walked into the shop, he realized he still hadn't decided on what he wanted to get a tattoo of, though the choice seemed obvious. A Dragon. It had to be a dragon. Though the question still remained inside Edward's head. "Which dragon?" he asked aloud.

Walking around the shop for a moment, taking time to think about all the dragons of the world, and which one he would like. Hungarian Horntails are cool. he thought.

But they are also dangerous, and I'm not a dangerous person...at least not yet. he smirked to himself at the thought of him ever being a dangerous person. He did really like Hungarian Horntails, they had to have been one his most favourite dragons of all time, mostly due to their strength and size.

For a while longer, as he continued to circle around the shop, he thought that maybe that was what he wanted. Definitely, what I want. he said to himself. He was about to walk up to the counter where the tattoo artist stood, when the door opened and someone oddly familiar entered the shop.

Ninette strolled up to the boy, heals clacking and hips swaying as she moved across the shop. She wasn't entirely unfamiliar with the place, the idea of adorning herself with ink had been one she toyed with on and off time and time again. It was simply just not something she had gone through with yet.

If Ninette was going to be stuck with it forever, it was going to be one of the few things she actually thought about. She didn't want a reminder of something she was fond of today, if she was going to despise it tomorrow.

"Dragon's again, huh Superman?" she leaned her back against the counter, looking out at the door she had just walked through. Her gaze raked over him, "And is that girlfriend of yours going to be okay with this?"

Edward grinned as he realized it was Ninette. He hadn't seen the girl since their meeting in the gardens at school, so to see her now, made Edward happy. He liked her, she was nice enough and was pretty cool in his opinion.

"Obviously." he said with a grin. "What brings you down here?" he asked casually, opening the book of tattoos to see if there was a dragon worth putting on his skin.

There were quite a few he liked, and found kind of interesting. Ones that he would never have thought of in the sense that the designs were quite new and intricate.

"I never knew you would be interested in getting a tattoo." he thought aloud as he turned to a page where he saw an example of a Hungarian Horntail. It was simple, but it was enough for him.

"What brings anyone to a tattoo parlour? I wanted a cup of tea, and thought this was the place to go." Rolling her eyes her tone was heavy and soaked with sarcasm, so much so that even a monkey could not have missed what her intention had been. Although Ninette's mood may have been increasing slightly, there were still something the girl had no patiences for.

And obvious questions seemed to be one of them. The rules of small talk - which those questions appeared to be a part of - just simply did not make any sense. If you did not have something dire to talk about, some reason for doing it, then what the hell was the point of talking at all?

Manners, in such a way, were rather futile. Redundant and pointless - it was one of the many reasons Ninette refused to exhibit them.

"Really Superman? You continue to surprise me with your opinions," reaching behind her she picked up the first book her head grabbed, flipping through it, "I think there are some rumours floating around that I have a tattoo or true. All unfounded of course, supported by males who wished they'd seen those parts of me, however, I felt it might be time to make a few of them slightly less of a lair."

Edward merely gave her a weak laugh. He noticed the sarcasm in her voice but even that couldn't have made him feel better. Something else in her voice told him that the topic, or any topic related to small talk conversations seemed to bother her.

Then again, he supposed it was rather annoying since it's the same questions, same answers every time.

"Well, is it a good surprise or a bad one?" he questioned. In his experience, surprise could either be good or bad, and he hoped that his opinions were not surprising in a bad way.

"Really? Well, I must be way behind or deaf because I don't think I have ever heard that rumour." he said scrathching his head.

Staring at the page with the tattoo he had in mind, he pushed the book in Ninette's direction. "What do you think of this one? I rather like it." he said with a shrug, as he leaned against the counter.

((Eddie's Tattoo))

Spoiler:

"Does a surprise have to be either or?" she proposed, raising an eyebrow. Her gaze didn't rise from the book she had begun to flip through, watching the images pass with a blank and uninterested stare. It was more an action to be doing something, than because she wished to do it. "Can't a surprise just be... a surprise. An unexpected thing, that arrives with neither positive nor negative connotations? Its just... a thing."

Letting out a soft breath, her amused expression deepened, "Well I guess you are just behind since you seem to be hearing me just fine. Maybe I'm not as popular with the rumour mill as I use to be." Ninette gave an elaborate pout, "What a shame. And here I thought they'd be in love with me forever."

Ninette was joking, of course, but there was a part of her that wondered what would happen to her, if she was no longer the queen of the rumour mill, if no one was talking about her, would she care? It was true she hated most of the things that they said about her - the painted an image that was not true, not completely. But it was the image that she had adopted, that she kept going. She hated every part of the false person she had let them make her but...

At least they were talking about her. If they stopped talking about Ninette Fontaine then who would she be? The simple answer came to her immediately: She'd be nobody.

Looking up at the sound of his voice she set aside her own book and looked at his with more interest. Her head turned to the side, and her lips pursed as she went about appraising the piece of art that she was given.

"Not bad I suppose. Then again it all depends on where its going." She looked up at the boy, eyes dark with mischief, lips in a wide smirk, "So Superman. Where's it going?"

Edward raised an eyebrow at her question. In truth he hadn't really considered it that way. To him a surprise was either good or bad, not just something that happened. "Dunno. I usually find surprises to be good or bad." he replied with a shrug.

"Hm, well I don't usually pay attention to rumours, whether I hear them or not." he said with another shrug and a small smile. Rumours never ended well, whether they were good or bad, at least in his opinion. He liked to form his opinions of the people he met, not listen to other people's and just think the worst or the best of someone as soon as he met them.

Edward had made that mistake too often as a child. He would hear something about another person he hadn't met yet, and as soon as he met the person, he already had a positive or usually negative opinion of him or her. Since then, he stopped listening to people.

"Well, maybe up here." he said gesturing to his left upper arm. "To go with my actual Dragon scars." he replied smirking. It would go perfectly, since it was a small, young Hungarian Horntail that had indeed caused his arm to look scratched up. "What do you think?" he questioned, looking for her honest opinion.

She hummed, running a finger along the picture that she was staring at, following the lines of the dragon as she raised an eyebrow at the boys remarks, "Not listening to Rumours hmm? How forward thinking of you."

Ninette didn't truly believe that someone could not listen to rumours. They could ignore them she supposed, judge for themselves if they were truth or lie, but in the end, rumours were everywhere. There was no way to simple not hear them. It was her firm belief.

After a moment, she handed the book back and gave a shrug. Hopping up on the counter she had previously been leaning on she swung her legs slightly. Giving another frown she reached out and grabbed the arm in question, pulling it closer for inspection. Looking at the sleeve that was in front of her, she turned it slightly before rolling it up herself.

"Dragon scars huh? Well those should be so impressive we don't need tattoos too. You are going to overwhelm that girlfriend of yours with manly symbols superman." Turning the arm again, slowly she began to run a finger up his arm, "She'll hardly be able to keep her hands off of you."

Edward shrugged. "Never was one to listen to them. I've heard them, sure, but I don't bother to listen." he replied glancing around the room. Rather than acknowledging the fact that he had heard rumours, no matter what they were or where he heard them, he chose to ignore them.

Watching as Ninette hopped up onto the counter and then rolled his sleeve all the way up to his shoulder. The scars on his arm seemed to be even deeper than they were last Edward had looked at them. They were in truth rather deep, when he first recieved the scars, he was sure he had seen his bones beneath.

"Yeah, well, why not add to them?" he asked chuckling. "Yeah, she'll faint the moment she sees them." he said sarcastically. In truth, Kat didn't even know he had the scars, he had never showed her. And after not seeing her in the past few months, she probably never would.

"We'll see." he said with another shrug, before turning to the man behind the counter. "This one I think." he said showing him the picture of the tattoo. He liked it, he was sure that was what he wanted.

Ninette was only slightly miffed that her attentions had no reaction. She hadn't really meant much by them, it had been more of a reaction, but still there was the annoyance that he didn't seemed to notice anything. She had never had anyone do that - at least not in a long time.

Leaning back, she watched him move off with a bored gaze, turning back to the book that she was originally holding. All the images move passed her without striking any interest. She wasn't sure what she was doing any more.

Perking up, she leaned over to reach where her companion had gone to talk.

"So that's the one then? Forever and for always?"

Glancing over at Ninette as she spoke, he nodded to her. "Yes, forever and for always." he said, his voice full of certainty. Though Edward had never gotten a tattoo before, and he didn't know what it was like to get one or to have one, he was certain that this was the one for him.

He loved Dragons, absolutely adored everything about them, so it seemed only fit for him to get one of this Dragon. Hungarian Horntails were powerful, and strong, just like him and his new attitude towards the world.

"I think it suits the new me." he said with a devilish grin as he pulled out the right amount of money and handed it to the man. "You wanna come and watch, or...?" he asked turning to Ninette as the tattoo artist walked to the back where Edward was supposed to follow.

Shrugging her shoulders Ninette hopped off the counter, straightened the short skirt that the movement had miss placed and moved to follow him, "I got nothing better to do. Beside, gotta make sure there is someone around to tell the story when you scream in pain." Her smirk and tone weren't entirely kind, but she was moving as close to playful and teasing as Ninette ever got.

She supposed she admired the boy his commitment to the tattoo. Ninette hoped that he didn't come to regret it one day. She was well aware of what happens when one does something that can't be undone. Ninette had done many just such things to herself. Oh sure the marks of them weren't on her skin - no one else could find any evidence of the mistakes that she made, but she knew that they were all there none the less.

"So why don't you tell me about this 'new you' superman."

Rolling his eyes and laughing to himself, as he followed the tattoo artist to the back of the shop, he turned to Ninette and grinned. "I hope you won't be too disappointed when I don't." he said, sitting down on the leather arm chair.

Holding out his arm as the artist requested, he glanced down at the only place where the scars didn't affect his skin, he said, "There, please." It was a wide enough canvas so to speak so that the Dragon would look huge.

Edward looked away then, as the artist began to do what he needed to prepare his arm for the "procedure" of getting a tattoo, and he looked up at Ninette.

"I guess you could say I'm more...confident, independent, and less self-conscious. Or at least I try to be. Ever since my parents started paying less attention to me, I decided to really be myself, be the person I know my parent's would hate me to be." he replied with a shrug.

Feeling a sudden sharp pain in his arm, he took in a deep breath and leaned back into the seat, relaxing himself. He wasn't nervous, nor was he afraid of the pain that came with the tattoo, he was just trying not to think about it incase his brain decided to help him freak out.

Glancing back over at the blonde standing near him, he laughed slightly at her reaction. "It really doesn't hurt, so I doubt you'll see me cry or scream in pain." he said.

She was pretty disinterested in the act of getting a tattoo. Although she joked about hearing the boy, scream she hardly cared either way. Oh sure she'd be sure to taunt him should any reaction come about that deserves taunting but Ninette wasn't exactly holding her breath for it. In fact she hardly even noticed when the artist start puncturing the boys skin and placing in the ink.

"How unfortunate," she drawled after a moment, a slight smirk crossing her face as he talked.

Leaning against a counter that was by her green gaze took him in slowly, watching the slow art of tattooing with an almost interest as her mind processed the words that he had spoken to her.

"Good for you." Was what she finally said in a neutral tone before she fell silent once more.