The mall's 'discount' CD store is located at the far end from the food court, and because of such is away from the usual loud, thick bustle of the central mall. People still walk by, especially during peak hours, but a person can move without invading the personal space of five others.

The store inside sports aisles on aisles of CD racks, in a number of genres, all organized more or less alphabetically. Posters and jewellery are also sold here, for reasons unclear, and there's a small but growing DVD section. It's in this DVD section that we find Andrei Petrov.

In his hand is Kill Bill Volume One, but that's not what his attention is focused on. He's actually scoping out a collector's edition Lion King DVD set, and trying very hard to appear to be not looking at it at all. His mismatched eyes-- one hazel, one death-white-- rest on the Lion King display, but his posture and head position point towards Kill Bill in an attempt to mislead anyone who is looking or, at least, save his pride.

This young man with the secret love for Disney is tall and thin, in a 'growing boy' sort of way that has yet to fill out despite the fact that he's stopped growing. He's wearing a black T-shirt with a grey short-sleeved dress shirt pulled over top, unbuttoned. His faded jeans aren't tight, persay, but do manage to show off his pencil-thin legs. His hair, mussily brushed back, is as mousey brown as ever, except for that single, natural white streak that makes him look like a movie cliché.

Kristopher Hekas is a woman with a quest.

"God damn," she mutters quietly, sand-and-oil voice quiet and irritated. You'd think that here, land of free enterprise and not so free music, here in this diverse city with this diverse mall, one would be able to find something so simple as a Queen Adreena cd. But nooOOooo. Too much to ask, she supposes, a scowl on a fairskinned face that looks habitually disgruntled as it is.

Falling into the slow perambulation of a browsing customer, Kittio tries to rake her wild crop of chestnut curls out of her face and only gets halfway before hitting a particularly stubborn coil. And- aah, what is this we spy?

The girl in the teeshirt with the robot on the front backtracks a few paces. Kill Bill Volume One.

OOooh.

She stands there for a few moments, to all appearences blissed out at the sheer volume of yellow jackets, or perhaps just temporarily spaced out (which is actually the case).

"Hey." Charcoal eyes slide past the yellow and onto the vision of neutrality she's standing next to. "Er.. Sorry if this sounds... however it sounds, but are you related to-.." Related to... damn. What was his name again?

Flashback time. Kits is very small, maybe ten. Mum's got someone over for coffee. Tall and a vivid memory of... cold.

Andrei tears hsi eyes from the Lion King display and flips the Kill Bill case over in his ahnds, as if he's been inspecting it all along, as he hears someone approach. When they speak to him, his eyes slide off the bright yellow and towards the girl.

One hazel, a faded and uninteresting brown like his hair. One, the left one, a sharp, cold white. Together they give him a lopsided look, as though the brown were fuzzy and the white solid and more real.

He raises his eyebrows, suspicious and curious, challenging her to go on.

"To who?" he says, in a tone that is probably best called 'demanding' though it lacks imperiousness.

Another frown. Kristopher dredges her memory- something she's never been good at, she supposes she inherited her mum's memory. Jeez. She was probably going to get Alzheimer's before she hit thirty, thanks a lot, Mom.

She doesn't quite like this guy's tone. She'd apologized before she'd even begun, too. And it's rare to get an apology out of her for anything, let alone before it happens.

"Uh... Az... something? Azrael. White hair, white.. eyes...?" Ooh, that's creepy. He -has- got the expression, too, almost, except she remembered Azrael looking more... bemused. Like a grown-up looking at a city of blocks built by a small child. Like, Oh, haha, kids, what will they think up next?

This one certainly hasn't got that air about him.

Andrei frowns.

Jeez, people keep... recognizing him. Who knew his father was a celebrity in the magical world. One of these times, it's gonna get on his nerves.

Well, at least she's kind of cute.

"Yeah. Him. He's my father." Instinct makes him want to say 'dad' but there's something about referring to Death as 'dad' that doesn't sit so well with Andrei's mouth.

He narrows his eyes a bit and places the DVD back on the shelf. "How do you know him?"

Curious.

"Oh? Oh, wow."

Kristopher does love being right- when it happens.

"That's funny. He didn't really seem the sort to have kids." He seemed more the sort to... like... freeze kids, and keep them in some sort of ice castle very far away.

Or at least, that was how it'd seemed to her, at ten years old.

"I guess my mom knows him. I think they still go to the pub together sometimes." She tilts her head to one side slightly, wrinkling her nose thoughtfully. Cold.

"Your mom goes to the pub with him?"

Hard enough to wrap your head around the idea of a walking, talking, child-spawning god of Death. Harder still to imagine him with drinking buddies.

She gives Andrei an odd look. Can it be that weird for his dad to go to the pub? Maybe he doesn't normally drink, or something?

"Well, yeah. I guess my mum's kind of wacky herself. She's the sort who gets philosophical after too much to drink and keeps lots of cats."

Heh. Understatement.

Eying Kristopher uncertainly, Andrei gives a slow nod.

"Fuck. I guess she'd have to be." Drinking buddies with Death. Well, on the plus side, he supposes, she'd know when she's gonna go.

"What is she?" Said without vehemence-- he's curious.

He assumes she, and by extention Kittio, have to be something other than human-- or at least some sorta witch or something. I mean, normal humans don't tend to be buddy-buddy with the Grim Reaper.

She grins.

"Old punk- you know. Done the drug circuit. It left her a little funny in the head and I don't think she was quite sane to begin with." Hah, a little.

Hey, maybe that's it. Maybe Moira knew Az from her days as a too-young punk princess, back in Los Angeles. It would kind of make sense. Kristopher'd met some of the old crowd, or whatever and, well... They could be a little weird.

"Oh." Isn't what he meant, but he guesses that's an answer. He shrugs.

"Yeah."

Pause. Curiosity takes over and he flashes Kittio a scrutinizing look. The brown eye isn't very effective but the white eye is his Father's eye, and seems like it could freeze your thoughts in clear ice to inspect them more closely.

"Have you seen him recently?"

Is he here in this city?

Of course Death is always in the city- and every other city- but Kits wouldn't know that.

"I think Mom went to see him or something last week," she replies, that thoughtful note in her rather grating voice, inwardly flinching- that damn eye- but she'd never ever show something like that. "Yes, it must've been, because she doesn't talk about him much and she never drinks alone, and she didn't say who she'd be with."

Jeez. Her mother got more than she did. Something wrong with this picture.

Kristopher arches an eyebrow slightly. "You don't see your dad much, do you." Good guess.

Scowling habitually, Andrei shakes his head.

"I've never met him. No."

Even as he says it, he turns and fiddles with the Kill Bill Volume 1 display, as though looking for exactly the right DVD amongst fifty exact copies.

"Really? That sucks, I'm sorry. No wonder he didn't seem like he'd have kids- he doesn't keep them." She wrinkles her nose. Bleah.

"Never met my dad either- but you know who he is, right? 'S a start." And Kristopher tilts her head the other way.

Oh yeah.

"I'm Kristopher, by the way. Kristopher Hekas." A hand is presented for shaking- thin, pale hands, no rings, but a length of ball-chain wrapped several times around one wrist, the dark muted chocolate-purple nailpolish mostly chipped off. Haphazard job of painting them in the first place, no doubt.

Andrei turns back to lift his thin eyebrows at her, notices the hand, and Raises the eyebrows further. He doesn't make a move to shake. Charmer, isn't he?

"Kristopher? What kind of girl's name is that?"

Pause. Wasn't he supposed to do something now... oh, yeah.

"I'm Andrei Petrov." His faint accent intensifies as he pronounces his name.

She lets a smirk tug at her mouth and shrugs, withdraws her hand and slips it into her pocket instead.

"No idea. I did say my mother's nuts, didn't I? Kits or Kittio for short, if that makes it any more feminine."

Andrei nods congenially and says, "Call me Andy and die."

It's sort of meant to be a joke.

"D'you smoke? Wanna go outside?"

"Definitely. I'm not finding what I was looking for anyway." She chuckles, more-or-less, shifting her weight (not much to shift, but hey) to the other leg.

"I couldn't call you Andy anyway. Reminds me of a kid I knew in gradeschool- absolutely bonkers. Not quite your sort, I think."

Andrei snorts and shakes his head.

"I'm pretty fucking sane for this world," he says, swearing casually and congenially as he strides towards the door. He hooks his head back over his shoulder and glances at Kits as if to ask if she's coming.

And so she is, long legs going at an easy lope behind him, a bemused expression on her typically sullen face.

"Heh. If insanity is hereditary I'm probably screwed."

Oof. Second major understatement in fifteen minutes. Not doing too good there, Kits. Bleah.

Out the doors of Discount CDs, around the corner, down the corridor to a back exit. They're everywhere around here. He's already getting his pack of cigarettes out.

"Yeah. Well. Heredity can be strange."

No fuck.

"Hah. No kidding." Oh, little does Kristopher know.

"Oh wow, I never noticed this way out. Funny how many of them are hidden in weird places like this.." She mezzes out again for a moment.

Miss Kristopher, Space Cadet Extraordinaire.

Andrei pushes open the glass doors with his shoulder, slipping a cigarette in between his thin lips and offering one to Kristopher.

"Yeah," he says, the slim white stick wiggling as he speaks. "Guess they gotta have a bunch in case of fire and shit."

Speaking of which, he pulls out his lighter and flicks a little flame into existance.

She accepts it and the light, inhaling the warmth and the tar and the nicotine.

"Heh, it'd suck so much to accidentally set fire to a mall. We used to know a couple who'd gone off to Japan or something, and while they were gone the friend they were letting stay in their place left a cigarette burning somewhere and burnt the floor out. And their cat got eaten by the dog next door. How's that for a shitty phonecall? 'Hey, got bad news and worse. Your cat's dead and your house has been burnt down."

"Wow." Smoke from his first drag curls out as he speaks. "That is pretty shitty."

It's strange. For once someone who recognizes him by his fucking father is normal. Well. Relatively normal.

He decides to express this relief.

"You know, it's nice, for once, to talk to someone who knows me by my father who isn't a fucking freak."

This time she definitely chuckles, flicking away a bit of ash.

"Dad gets around, huh?" Understatement number three. "It can't be -all- bad, can it?"

Well... theoretically it can, but Kristopher is going to pretend not.

"Well, yes." -Obviously- Death gets around. He gives her a bit of a stare.

"It's mostly bad. Blah blah blah son of death, blah blah blah demi-god, blah blah blah autograph." He's making the last one up, but occasionally that's how he feels-- the recognizeable son of a high-profile celebrity.

"I don't know which is worse, the people who are scared of me or the ones who want to fucking use me. It's nice to meet someone... normal."

Andrei's turn for a gross understatement

Kits pauses, and returns the look. He sounds so serious and disgruntled about it, she can't figure out if he means it or if it's a joke or anything. Her expression settles into a blank stare for a moment and then she arches one eyebrow.

A clearly "Either you are on something or on to something. Do continue," sort of expression. Kristopher shifts her weight to her right leg and tilts her head to one side, rather feline.

Catching the look, Andrei shrugs and obligingly continues.

"You know. Normal. Not someone trying to use me for their own gain or like, fucking study me, or trying to blame me for something my fuck of a father did to them."

He shrugs again, tossing his shoulders back and tapping a bit off ash from his cgarette.

"I don't mean normal-boring or anything. Just like. Normal-not a complete freako."

he uses the term 'freak' an awful lot for someone so sensitive to being called one himself.

Who the hell is this boy?

"No, no, I gathered that much," she agrees, unable to keep the bemused-bewildered grin off her face and out of her voice. There's -got- to be something she's missing here. She nearly desperately wants to know his definition of "freak," but that would probably be an untoward thing to ask.

He scowls at her and sucks on his cigarette, then pulls it form his mouth to tap more ash off the end.

"Yeah, well. Whatever. I lost my point anyways. How about that fucking weather."

Mm. Small talk.

She chuckles, relaxing. There's always time for Twenty Questions later.

"No sweat. Weather's a bit of a stretch, though. How about general residence? You lived in Bayfield long?"

He shakes his head.

"'Bout a year. Lived in rez for a while-- just finished my first year at fucking Keaton U."

Grin. Smoke. Exhale.

"Just found a place to live for next year and shit. How about you?"

"Mm..." She has to think about this one for a while. "Twelve years? Thirteen? Something like that. A while. Mum's got some huge place overlooking the park- the sort where you can live there with parents and not run into them for days. I guess I'm starting at Keaton this year. Doubt it'll last long- I write. 'You should be doing things hands-on,' sez she, but of course writing is only so hands-on before it's hands-off."

A shrug, and another lungful of smoke. Weather's not actually that bad, heh.

"Writing's cool."

Puff puff.

Silence.

Maybe a good time to ask questions, then.

Questions. How does one phrase this? Are you insane, or merely silly? What the hell is your father? Kristopher somehow doesn't quite think that's the right approach.

Well.. close enough.

"Andrei? What -is- your dad?" Heh. Close enough.

Cigarette in mouth, he gives her a suspicious sidelong glances. The end flares red as he takes a drag, then pulls it away from his mouth.

"Death. I thought you knew...?"

Damn. If she didn't know, he shouldn't have told her. But she'd recognized him, hadn't she?

She blinks, shakes her head. Something is -not- connecting here.

"Death? Dead? No. I have no idea." He doesn't seem like he's joking. Inhale. Exhale.

"No, forget it. Fuck." Fuck. She has no idea what he's talking about. That's great. He runs into someone who knows his father and acts normal and that's because she is normal and has no idea who hs father is/

Fuck. Good move, Petrov.

"No, come on, now I wanna know." For all she knows he could be in the music industry, or an artist or something.

Or it could be something genuinely bizarre, and that'd be better.

"Please?"