^^ the Loft ^^

--- Anza ---

The tall woman who'd been yelling at her sighed. "I will be back, Mary." She said sternly, and stomped out.

The small woman smiled and hopped off the large chair she'd been at, then approached us. "I'm Mary, as you heard, and my father and I run this establishment. The loft rooms, both of them, are yours, for a rent of $2,000 a month, collectively. It's kinda cheap, but don't worry, it's not a bad place, it's just way too cold for most people. But, Gabriel said you were from Russia, so I hope that's no problem for you?" She asked us, hands on her hips.

I blinked slowly. "How old are you? I'm sorry, I'm just really confused."

She smiled. "I'm 34, dear. And yes, I'm sure that a 4-foot tall adult is a little odd for you, but do try not to stare. It's rude."

I chuckled. "Sorry, I have a hard time not staring at beautiful women."

She swatted at the air in front of me, and walked into an elevator. "None of that, dear. I'm a happily single woman, but I appreciate the compliments. Now let's go, this is the elevator that goes up to your apartments."

We gathered our belongings, and stepped into the large freight elevator, just as the doors closed. "You're on the 'R' floor, for 'Roof', but that just means you're on the highest level." She said, and poked the button.

The elevator lurched upwards with a shrill squeal, and after a few seconds stopped. She growled and kicked the controls, then nodded as we started moving again. "Sometimes that happens. A little thump and it remembers what it's supposed to do." She explained.

I grinned. "I love this place already."

Gregor hummed, while Indra and Tara smiled a little.

Tina stealthily poked all the buttons, then hid behind Gregor, and I snorted as the elevator jerked to a stop, opening the doors.

Mary sighed. "Well, it ain't going up now, so we might as well take the stairs. Come on." She stepped out, and we followed as she opened a door, and led us up a red metal staircase.

The second door was locked, but she unlocked it, then tossed Gregor a Keyring with six keys that matched each other. "That's the key to this door. The elevator opens right there, so the only way to get into the apartments up here without this door are the windows and roof."

I took a key, and smiled, memorizing its components, in case I needed to pick our lock, then stuck it in my pocket. We walked through the door, and I grinned, looking around at the long room, with wooden floors and one concrete wall. "It's huge!" I spread my arms wide to envelop it all.

Mary chuckled. "This is the first half. The other is behind that wall, there."

"That's the one we're supposed to knock down?" I asked, and tapped the floor with my foot, getting a feel for its strength, and found that there was concrete under it.

She nodded. "Yup. There's a little door, but that's mostly for me. Your brother won't fit." She chuckled at his curious hum.

"And is this wall load-bearing or no?" I asked.

"Nope, you can tear the whole thing down. I can get some jackhammers from the-"

Indra gripped a small Relic, and then simply tapped the wall. A large portion of it turned into sand, and he stepped through, whistling softly.

"-... the... okay, that's- Uhm... easier, I guess." She stuttered to a halt.

He nodded and touched the remains of the Wall, turning it all to sand. "Is it alright to add this to the gravel on the roof?" He asked her.

She sighed. "Sure, that's what I was gonna do with the rocks anyway. How'd you do that?"

He shrugged. "We all have our magical gifts... mine is Elemental Relics and wood magic."

She nodded. "Ah, an Earth Relic. That explains it. Well, I'll be downstairs if you need anything!" She smiled and walked out, closing the door.

I walked around the large room as Indra and Tina carried handfuls of sand out the windows and onto the roof that was level with our new building.

"This place is at least 100 feet long, and maybe 75 feet wide. Plus the little second story. This is almost twenty times the size of our old place!" I laughed, and opened a window.

I took a deep breath, and hummed at the random scents. "So! What do we need, Gregor? A list of things we need." I spotted an entire wall made of chalkboard, and grinned, using a little piece of chalk to write what I'd said.

He chuckled a little, and sat on his heels. "Beds. And planks of wood, preferably in the same color as the ones already here. If not, the cheapest ones will do, and we can stain them ourselves."

I nodded. "Okay, beds and wood. Next?"

"Uhm..." he scratched his head.

"Curtains!" Tara laughed, and tossed a handful of sand at Tina, who growled and retaliated with an entire skirt-full, using her skirt to hold a large pile and pour it down her sister's back.

I nodded and wrote that down. "Yes, we will need to cover all these windows, indeed. Next?"

"We might need a bathroom and kitchen?" Indra said dryly.

"Right, the piping is already there, I think... okay, that's definitely more important than curtains or beds..." I hummed.

Tara opened a door on the other side of the stairs, and hummed. "I found a bathroom... but I nominate Tina to clean it!!!" She grinned mischievously.

"No Fair!!!"

"I actually nominate Indra. Kill it with fire, my friend." I saluted him sarcastically.

He sighed and searched his trunk for a moment, then walked over, and promptly flambéed the stone bathroom, directing the smoke out of an open window. He raised a thumbs-up, and grinned at us. "It's clean!... sorta. I might have wanted to use water, not fire."

I tossed a water Relic at him. "There."

He nodded and sat down, focusing on the task at hand.

I turned back to the chalk board, and added 'stuff' next to 'bathroom'. "Okay. But we still need a kitchen, beds, curtains... anything else? Essentials, Tara." I said when she raised her hand hopefully.

She grumbled. "You're not essential."

"A Radio, actually... well need to be able to hear the news or weather forecasts." Gregor nodded.

"Didn't we bring ours?" I asked.

He shook his head. "It wouldn't fit in my bag, and I figured they'd take it at the border anyway. I viewed coming to America as a very different experience."

I sighed. "Okay. A Radio." I added it to the list. "Anything else?"

He shrugged, and Tara shook her head. "That feels like the important stuff." She nodded.

I nodded. "Okay. Now how to acquire them... and pay rent. 2,000 American dollars... I'm curious as to how much that is... Gregor, you have any idea?"

He hummed. "I'm used to Krone or Rubles... I'll find out tomorrow. Gabriel got me an interview with someone at the Stock Exchange, should be interesting."

"Then I will go and find a job doing some sort of manual labor. Maybe the docks will have work. Docks always have work." I nodded, and sat down, leaning against the wall.

"I'm done cleaning!" Indra pronounced proudly, and I sniffed once to verify.

"Very nicely done, Indra. Tara, Tina, please finish getting the rest of this sand out of here, then get a bath. We can get ours later." I nodded.

Tara nodded and started kicking the sand out of the window that reached floor level, whilst Tina took one of her scarves, and attached it to a wooden dowel, using it like a mop to push the sand out more expediently.

I praised her for her creativity, and then turned to Gregor and Indra. "Alright... it's Monday, Gabriel said, and so that means that it's the first day of the work-week. So, if we tour the city a bit, we can see everyday business attire, as well as common colloquialisms... yes." I justified my wishes to see the Empire State Building and the other monuments.

Indra smirked. "You mean you want to see the monuments."

Gregor shrugged. "She has a point, though. If I'm going to work with these people to provide for us, I must be prepared."

Tara and Tina finished the sweeping, and they went to test out the new and improved bathroom.

I looked up, and hummed. "Those beams... they aren't roof supports. Those are floor supports."

I walked to the end of the room, and noticed that the roof actually had a closed-off area, which I'd ignored before. I leapt and grabbed one support, and pulled myself up onto it, then knocked on the plywood.

One panel swung in on squeaky hinges, and revealed a small office-space, complete with a busted-up computer, filing cabinet, and heavy desk.

"Ooh, Gregor, guess what?" I called out in a sing-song tone.

"Hmm?" He rumbled from somewhere beneath me.

"You've got an office! Computer needs fixing, and the filing cabinet needs scrubbing, but other than that, you're in business!" I grinned and leaned over the edge.

He reached and grabbed the beam, pulling himself up easily, and peered in. "You're right... and it's tall enough for me to stand in... we expand this a bit, and it can be my cabin..." he nodded slowly, then picked up the computer. "Yeah, screen needs replacing, but the hard drive is still intact, looks like... we'll get it looked at when we go tour the city."

I grinned. "Sweet. And the filing cabinet?" I pulled open one drawer, and coughed from the dust flying out of it. It was full of files, all clearly labeled with dates and names.

Gregor reached over me and pulled out one of them, then flipped it open. "This is a Stock portfolio... not worth much, it looks like only $30,000..."

I pulled out another, and tried to make sense of it. "And this says... Uhm...70K?"

"No, that's the amount spent. This one is negative 30K... they lost a little money, it seems." He pointed at another number, a total.

"Oh... okay, so this is a bunch of stock portfolios? What's that mean?" I asked.

"Well, if these are the original copies, then that means that these are basically checks, waiting to be cashed by their owners. If the owners are dead, then the holder of the portfolio, us, would be allowed to claim it." He nodded.

"Well, considering the amount of dust, and how old that laptop is, they may very well be dead." I chuckled.

He nodded. "This is good news... very good. We should sacrifice a goat later. Very good fate at work."

I blinked slowly. "Do you see any goats?"

He frowned. "Pigeons, then. And we can eat them, after."

I sighed. "My first meal in a new world... pigeon. A lot like the old one."

He patted my hair, and stared taking notes on the stocks in the folders, then carefully replacing them.

I opened the drawers in the desk, and and found a rather sexy photo of a red-headed porn Star, from the late eighties, perhaps.

I whistled softly. "Very nice... whoever this guy was, I respect his taste in women." I said simply, and tucked the photo in my pocket, then copied the woman's proportions, which I found much more pleasing.

Gregor shook his head. "Brat... get serious."

I chuckled and continued checking the drawers, but found nothing except dust and a few bags of very expired breath mints.

Indra stuck his head in, and grinned. "Well, this is promising... good bones. We can expand this, out to there, make this your cabin, eh? And I'll take the bottom half..." he pointed at the last support beam, and nodded. "It's high enough, I think."

We debated about the right size and height for a good bedroom, while Gregor continued to work. After about twenty minutes, he took down the last names and numbers of the fourth and final drawer, and then nodded, closing the book.

"Alright. Tomorrow, I'll take these to be authenticated, when I go for my interview. When Tina and Tara get out of their bath, we'll get out into the city, and get a feel for it." He nodded.

I grinned. "Yes!"

Indra paused, thinking of something. "Weren't there two apartments up here?"

"Yes, that's why we knocked down a wall?" I answered curiously.

"So there should be a second bathroom." He said quietly, and began tapping the walls to find the piping.

I marked out the places where the electrical outlets were with chalk, and then the places with pipes, and I found the site of the old kitchen, located to the left and down from the office. There was also a place that used to hold a stair up into the second floor, but it was empty, now.

"So here's my idea... we recreate the kitchen and bathroom here, and then Wall this off, leaving the middle as a living room, and the other side can be turned into you girl's room." Indra nodded.

I hummed. "It looks like that's what's going to happen, yes... but with one condition, and that is that if you manage to score a gaming system or TV, or anything of that nature, it goes in the Living room."

He sighed, and nodded. "I can live with that... I think."

I nodded and then looked around at the empty place. "And we need that plywood so we can start remodeling this place as soon as possible. I already have a bunch of ideas." I grinned at the thought of all the things I could do for this place.

Indra hummed. "If I had a few seeds, I could get trees within a matter of minutes, and then chop them up. And the sand can be repurposed into glass or marble, if pressed right."

I nodded. "Okay, well, the bathrooms will definitely improve with a marble coating, and you can do that when they're done bathing... or now, if you want to mess with them."

He grinned and searched his chest for a Earth Relic, and then knocked on the bathroom door. "Girls? I'm fixing something, use the curtain!"

I stopped paying attention, and focused on the building. Gregor was patiently awaiting my verdict, as always, so I sat next to him. "I think this place can be great, if we let it." I said simply.

He nodded. "I think you're right."

I nodded and stood up, dusting off my pants, then took the scarf-mop that Tina had made, and started to sweep every surface of the room. A nice breeze came through the windows, carrying out the dust I knocked into the air.

The floors were a hardwood, not plywood, so they cleaned and shined very easily. I used some sand, and scrubbed away any stains or bumps in the wood, leaving the entire surface clean and shiny.

"Alright, and now for the windows..." I soaked the scarf, and started cleaning the windows washing each pane carefully.

There were a lot of windows, but with Gregor assisting on the other side, we finished in around thirty minutes, just in time for Indra to finish the bathroom, and be shooed out by the girls.

He nodded. "Alright, there's marble walls and flooring, and the sink has a marble counter. Anything out here?"

"The entryway, that should be marble, just in case we track in water. From the door, to the living room." I mapped it out.

He nodded, and started carefully cutting the wood from the floor, in a long rectangle, starting at the door, and leading down an imaginary hallway that would be between the girls' rooms.

He set it aside, and then poured a lot of sand into the cutout, and smoothed it down meticulously.

With his claws, he carefully drew symbols of protection into the sand, and then touched his Earth Relic to the end. It all shrank slowly, and turned into marble, with the symbols still carved into it. They glowed softly, and then settled, fading.

He nodded, then picked up the wooden planks he'd removed. "And one guess where these are going..." he grinned and started carrying them up into the rafters, laying out the rest of the floor for Gregor's loft within a loft.

Instead of nails, he just asked the wood to wake up, and it grew into the shapes he wanted, staying still and sturdy. The symbols from the marble spread, at his command, and settled over the entire room, awakening the spirit of the building, and gently taking control, which it gave willingly.

Once Indra was finished setting the wood he had removed, he started coaxing the boards out of the Kitchen and Bathroom, which were on either side of the office, near the middle of the room.

He was quick and efficient, and ended up using some of the gravel from the roof to aid in his Marble creation.

Then he used the extra wood to Wall in the back of the room, just beyond the kitchen and bathroom, as well as the space between them, effectively building himself a fortress... with no door. I snickered as he cut out the door from the inside, and set it aside until he had hinges.

I nodded. "Well, you've got your side figured out, huh?" I asked, trailing a nail along the wooden partition.

He nodded. "Yep." He moved his chest of Relics into his room, then his duffel bags.

"Alright, well, now we just need to worry about our side, I guess." I hummed.

Gregor hummed. "Less to worry about, though... now we just need to get some money, catch some pigeons, fix the computer, then get some supplies. Alright. Easy enough, yeah?"

I chuckled. "You like to joke, you know, for someone who rarely smiles around me."

The snarky brat frowned at me in response.