[closed]

[sorcerous]

Characters: Loki, Sif
Open?: No
Where: Drunk Duck Inn and Tavern
When:Rebirth Height 8, late
Warnings: Loki is a warning. A warning of angst and petty bitchery. Also probable mentions of genocide and arguments and identity crises. Will update if necessary.

He has taken a single room at the inn, pending time to find his own space. It is simple -- he has no need of ostentation. He has few possessions, too, though being poor in wealth bothers him little, knowing how poor he is in everything else. Power, companions... There is naught in his room but bed, ever-so-limited wardrobe -- and, of course, the mirror.

A hand-mirror. Silver, embossed and engraved, with a handle. It is face-down, on the bed, half-covered by the pillow as though the owner didn't quite know whether to hide it from sight or leave it in plain view.

The door is locked, but not warded by any noticeable means.

Comments

[brosif]

"Nobody is equal to Thor."

To say otherwise would be lying. But she doesn't mean it as an accusation towards Loki. Thor is her friend, and she loves him dearly. But her entire life -- everything she's ever accomplished, every battle she's ever fought, pales in comparison to what the Aesir view as her main attribute: the woman Thor once liked best. The maybe-bride.

She looks up Loki, and leans her head against the door.

"I did not always think you wrong. If it makes any difference."

[sorcerous]

"Nobody equal to him in hardheaded stupidity," spits Loki, "in impulsive, idiotic --" Courage.

He bites hard on the inside of his cheek, until he tastes his blood.

"I should be his equal." And Loki has never lived up to that should. He has always been less than others want him to be.

[brosif]

"Is that why you struck him down?"

Strangely, there isn't any anger in Sif's voice. She just honestly wants to know.

"So that there would be no one to compare yourself to?"

[sorcerous]

Loki wishes he knew. That moment of death -- Thor's voice, settle this, his infuriating nobility, the knowledge that anything Thor could say would never be enough. The breathtaking satisfaction of beating Thor, of turning away and leaving Thor to die alone at his back. The cold emptiness of the throne room, the ever-present knowledge that Loki had crossed a line that could never be uncrossed. He had become a monster with that movement, dealt a blow that no redemption could undo. And there was a horror in that, but a satisfaction too...

He ignores the question.

"The mirror was given to me by a woman," he says. "A woman encountered in a false town called West Haven, a figure of great power in this world. It shows how each person sees their own self. It should not be used so carelessly."

[brosif]

"Not everyone sees themselves as secretly as you do, Loki."

She wondered, idly, how he might have seen himself before he knew he was a Jotunn. If it would have still been an image he hated.

"I think the boy will try and follow the expedition, tomorrow."

[sorcerous]

Loki's mouth turns sour.

"He has the wolf in him," he tells her. "But he is young." He is unable to defend himself, Loki means. He is helpless when it comes to real teeth, real claws.

There was a brief time when Fenrir was just a cub. He would lick Loki's face and chase after his heels; Loki turned to a wolf himself, and he taught Fenrir how to kill.

He does not disagree with the Aesir. Fenrir was dangerous. It was worthwhile to have him bound. But Fenrir is still his child, and Faolan has ever-so-distant echoes of that child in him.

[brosif]

It explains enough -- the boy's stilted speech, and Loki's concern for him. Sif once spoke more freely to Loki than other Aesir might have. But she has never talked of his children. Now is not a good time to start.

"I cannot divide my attention between the forest and the boy, and he won't listen when I tell him he is unwelcome."

[sorcerous]

"Use him or outwit him," says Loki. "Those are your choices. Take one."

Another option, of course, is to have Loki distract him. But he does not plan to offer.

"How can you stay so still?" he asks. "How can you stay your hand, when you know what I am, and what I have become?" What he is: Jotunn. What he has become: a murderer.

[brosif]

"Who says I've stayed my hand," she says, dully. "Perhaps I poisoned you and you haven't noticed yet."

In truth: she has no idea how to proceed from here. She can't forgive him, even knowing the full circumstances. But he wouldn't ask for such a thing anyway.

[sorcerous]

He makes a derisive noise. "The Lady Sif, a poisoner? Never."

[brosif]

She shrugs. It was something to say.

"I'm thinking. You can withhold comments on how hard that may be for me."

[sorcerous]

"Consider them withheld," says Loki, primly. There are ever-so-many insults he is holding back, Sif; he deserves a bit of respect for that.

[brosif]

"All right, then."

She's quiet a moment, fingers tapping again against her knees.

"I'm thinking about prophecy," she says, slowly, working it out as she goes. "That's better left to other branches of my family tree, but nonetheless. I've always hated it. The idea that we don't have control over our actions and are punished for it anyway. It goes against everything I believe. And yet your mother weaves, my brother watches, and Odin knows."

As far as Sif knew, she'd never been part of a vision. It was easier to write them off when you had no part in one.

"I'm thinking of what Odin whispered, and how Thor had to die before he could reclaim what was his. How what you did insured what he became. So, I'm thinking about prophecy. And I'm thinking about you. And I'm wondering who I might be, if my entire life had been structured around the ideas of another."

[sorcerous]

His heart flares with pain, fury, fear; he detests her, in this moment. Her words portray him as worse than nothing -- as a puppet to Odin's will, and a pawn of prophecy.

He tightens his hand so hard on the bed's wooden post that splinters break loose. So hard that he drives them deep into his palm, focusing on the pain, on the blood that wells from his skin.

[brosif]

The blood surprises her, even now. He’s almost always in more control than that. She rises, but stops before she goes to him. She doesn’t suspect that any assistance would be appreciated.

“I was born to be a lady, and found ways to change what that meant. You seem to be at such a place. If you are Jotunn, you are still Loki. You can abide by tales of the wicked frost giants, become the monster. Or you can make tales of your own. I suspect they’d be much more interesting.”

She looks around for some sort of cloth to staunch the bleeding, but the room is quite bare. She takes off her own sash and places it on the bed. She doesn’t suspect he would take it if she held it out to him.

“If it’s worth anything, I think I am glad you aren’t dead. And I don’t care that you’re Jotunn. I just care that you’ve been an ass.”

With that, she turns to go.

[sorcerous]

He takes the sash in his uninjured hand, and holds it, curling his fingers in its folds.

"Were I to do it over again," he tells her, "I would do the same. I would destroy the Jotunn, and prove myself worthy for Asgard's throne. I would not allow Thor to lay me low."

The lies spill from his tongue so easy -- they belie Loki's terrible confusion, his conflict, the emptiness within him. Sometimes he looks back on it and he thinks he always expected to lose. He expected Odin to let him go. He expected Thor to sour love to hate so quick, quick enough to overpower his brother.

Loki bows his head. Blood leaks from his palm, and he cries with silent, shivering tears.

[brosif]

She doesn't look behind her. For whose sake, she is not sure. Her own face, unguarded enough, is too expressive right now. Regret, sympathy, and anger all rolled into one. She clears her throat before she speaks.

"You can lie better than that, Loki. Though I hope you do not need to."

With that, she takes her leave. The ride home will feel much longer than the ride here did.