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"Well, I'm glad to have her here. Mostly because living with a bunch of boys does get old eventually." Look, Lola loves the boys, but they are boys. She doesn't have much going in the way of lady friendships since... her last two gal pals both left. She was adding her latest diced veggies to the pot and stirring, "How did your dad react to Winter?"

It was sorta... a new development, it had to come up in conversation right?

"I've only had brothers before this. I always wanted a sister." It would have broken up the monotony of having four older brothers, which would have been a bit much for anyone, but especially for Ivar, who spent a majority of his childhood trying and failing to keep up with them.

"Loved her, of course. Children have always been one of his great weaknesses." Ragnar had always loved his children with an intense nature, so it stood to reason he'd be the same with his granddaughter.

"Things seem to work out here, some of the time." Not all the time, not with everyone. But enough of the time, in ways that seemed to make people better. Lola still didn't have anyone from home. But she'd made a lot of friends here, so it wasn't like she could complain.

"That should make things easier all around, does he know about her... you know, powers?" Winter being different was only a problem for people that tried to touch her. Lola, for everyone's benefit, could calm her down with a well placed intention... at twenty paces. Which was just a nice trick. Especially since Lola still hates kids.

"After nine months, I think I was due some good fortune." To have the double blessing of both Gyda and his father come in within a few days of each other had made him very happy indeed. He'd been noticeably less angry and psychotic the past couple of days. Ragnar was perhaps one of three people in the Quarantine who could put a leash on Ivar when he went out of control.

"Yes, I told him ahead of time. Honestly, he seemed more taken aback by how she looked then the fact she can steal the life force from people. But Winter seems to like him." That was a good things. Winter didn't tend to use her powers on people that she liked.

"...has it really been nine months?" You'd think Lola would keep perfect track. But she mostly just lets things happen. So she's forgotten except when someone asks her. Well, okay, there was the fact she got new memories, and those kinda screwed her sense of time too. It didn't feel like that long.

"What's up with how she looks?" Okay, to be fair Lola's bad with what babies should look like. Also the fact that Lola's hair is blue, and she thinks that's normal. Because it is.

"I know. It's a long time." A few more months and Ivar will have been here a year, plus he's almost seventeen. It's a bit heady to think he's been gone from home for so long, away from everything familiar, and from the revenge he still had yet to carry out.

"She was born an albino. You know, no colors but white and with her eyes red." He sounds a little defensive. Yes, he knows not all children look like her, but his daughter is perfect regardless of what she looks like.

"So many people come and go..." Lola mused, not really to Ivar. But they've been here this long. Of course there were so many people who'd been here for years, but they were people that wanted to be here. Unlike everyone they knew. Who were always mixed.

"Oh right, that." Lola had noticed, because her mind always went to colors and such. She just didn't think it mattered terribly. Lola's always got such an odd way of thinking about looks, which is where this topic had gotten to. "It'll mean she has to take more care with what she does, wearing more layers to protect her skin, no tanning. But it gives her a lot of options if she wants to try things out. All make-up she wears will just pop, and if she wants to she can do whatever she likes with her hair color wise."

Lola's not really envious, but back when she dyed her hair being snow white blond would have been convenient.

"They do." Ivar remembered all the friends he'd made that had left the Quarantine. Some had hurt more than others, but he remembered them all, wondering if they'd gone home, or somewhere even more fantastic than this.

"It always comes down to make-up and hair with you." Ivar says this in a teasing tone. It's what Lola's strength was at. "By the time she's old enough for all that, I'll be almost thirty." In other words, he'll be old. Never mind that his own father hadn't had him till he was around thirty-four or thirty-five.

"I play to my strengths," Lola beams, she does come back to hair and make-up, and clothes, and just generally the stuff she knows. She knows a little about how Winter will need extra skin care. Light skin is easily damaged, but that's not a super big concern just yet. When do babies start moving on their own?

Lola does shudder a little at the talk of getting old, "I'll still look good when I'm older, being short helps people just assume I'm a little younger than I am. But yeah, let's steer clear of thinking about getting old."

"I'm surprised you've never tried any of that makeover stuff with me." Maybe because Ivar was as stubborn as a mule and would resist all changes to his appearance. Better to save that for people that were actually receptive towards it.

"People are going to think you're twelve for another ten years," he says with snark. As for Ivar, he's pretty much looked the same since he was about fourteen, being one of those teens who went through a huge metamorphosis in about six months, going from looking a child to an adult in record time.

"Because I imagine getting you a nice shirt and you'll wear it to work and get it covered in blood." Also she's not as good at fashion for men, she does fine but it isn't her area of expertise. She can offer advice for what fits better, what shows off better, but she can't really do makeovers like that without a real goal that they can express to her. Like Yael did.

"Only if they don't look at my butt, my butt's way too good to be mistaken for a child." Lola reached maximum height early, but she didn't really fill out until she got to high school. She could do all sorts of things to make herself look more mature if she felt like it. Darker clothes, less showy make-up, non-blue hair. But none of that seemed like fun, so she'll just stay how she is a little longer. "You work out enough you'd never have to worry about that."

"Point taken." Lola knows Ivar a little too well. He mostly stuck with the clothes he's always worn for comfort and because they were easy to use when he was on patrol.

She has to go and say, so of course he's forced to look at her butt. "You're right." That's definitely not the butt of a child. He nods at her assessment of himself. Besides his looks, Ivar's far too cynical and brutal to be mistaken for being young, aside from the odd moments where he throws childish temper tantrums.

Lola, fortunately, isn't opposed to people looking. She dresses the way she does to get some attention. Her issues are with that being someone's only attention, or unwanted touching. She puts too much work into her make-up for people to only stare at her ass.

"Winter will be fine once she's old enough to really work with what she has and not just be a bundle of lifestealing powers and crying." Lola does not like babies, even babies that are more or less easy to maintain by just throwing some soothing energy at them from the other side of the room. "I mean, some people really love the tanned look, but a lot of people make the pale colorless thing work. Like Nico."

Don't use Nico as an example!

"Just you wait until she starts properly walking and talking. Who knows what she'll get up to then?" It was easy enough to control her powers when she was small like this. Ivar was working hard to make sure that she wasn't going to absorb the life force of people when she got older. He wasn't a good person, but that didn't mean his daughter had to be a bad one.

"Yes, he does seem to have that whole Prince of the Undead thing going on." At least Lola can be assured Ivar will never dress Winter in all black like their friend. He's got pretty eclectic taste when it comes to the baby's wardrobe.

"I read a lot about parenting, never about lifestealing kids and how to keep that from happening. I imagine it'll be a lot of work, if we're both here to witness it," Lola's mostly hopeful, but at the same time things don't seem to settle down here enough for her to... settle into them. So there's this air of 'it all ends' she can't seem to shake. It doesn't stop her, but it does limit her planning for the future.

Lola has only judged a little about what Ivar has put that poor child in. On the plus side a lot of its cute so its good judgment, and none of it has been aviator jackets so that's another plus. "He wears what suits him, not sure how that happened and I'm pretty sure I don't wanna know."

"Yes, it's going to be very hard." Something in Ivar's eyes grows dark and goes far away for a moment. He's thought a lot about Winter and how she's going to grow up. Ivar knows he's not a good person, but he wants better for his daughter. He wants her not to just steal life on a whim or because she can. What he wants is for her to have enough control to know when it's appropriate to take a life and when it's not. Considering Ivar started killing when he was five years old, he sometimes feels like the worst possible person to try and teach a child that. But he'll do his best. It's all he can do.

"Probably from hanging around a mausoleum too much." Of course, seeing what ivar wore on a day-to-day basis, he had no right to judge.

"But according to my dad worth it. At least that's how he felt with me and when I was happy." Lola didn't know anything about parenting, she was the opposite of a parent. But she had a great dad who loved her and he was always pleased when she's happy. So, she hopes that goes for any good parent. Even if she knows nothing about the murder things.

"I guess... maybe I should make him a project of mine." He's not as likely to end up covered in blood and guts as Ivar.