eswareinmal | (no subject)

[ Loki's skin is pale; he, once again, looks human, his eyes green, his hair dark. His fingers are restless, tapping. ] Shall we have a tale?

Here, I believe the appropriate beginning is, let's see... Once upon a time.

Once upon a time, there was a little world. It had no boundaries, but it was small enough that it needed no boundaries. More on that later, I certainly expect. This world was made by balance between order and chaos. Order created and arranged, and chaos introduced an element of randomness. Evolution. Each required the other to innovate.

But, then, Order isn't so very good at innovation, is it? Perhaps inevitable that one day Chaos would begin to dominate. The balance reels, and the world changes -- or perhaps it's that the world changes, and the balance tips. Either way, each avatar, one of order, one of chaos, are locked in eternal battle. Thorns began to spread, and so Order had to try, again, to reach beyond itself. Literally, this time.

As we stand: order reached to heroes, but could not cope with the element of instability the heroes produced. Thus, it boxed them into confined roles, shaved off the bits of them that would not fit.

Take care, heroes, for chaos would destroy everything -- but order would destroy you from within.

This is, as it stands, all I know. Let you ignorants be satisfied with that.

[ OOC: Thread between Sif and Loki below includes NSFW content. Be thyself warned. ]

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So it's illusion. Are you still frosty?

[Which is not the question she wants to ask, but she's working up to it.]

[ A hint of a smirk. ]

Now that would depend on what you mean by 'frosty'.

Well clearly I'm not talking about your warm and fuzzy personality.

[If they were five years old, this would be where she stuck her tongue out at him and laughed.]

Is your crazy jealous girlfriend still working with a popsicle down there?

[Yes, she could have just asked him if it was purely visual, or also tactile. But it's more fun to make crass jokes at a god like thing. Besides, this is the theme of their non-friendship. And surely he'll know what she means.]

[ For a moment, he can't quite decide whether to be offended or not. ]

That is none of your business.

And ... it remains to be seen.

[She smiles a little - he's gruff, yes, but he's talking.]

You could make it my business. I've been led to believe that friends discuss romantic troubles.

[She can't tell if hes nervous or not. She thinks that maybe he is, but he's a hard book to try and read.]

Well, if it goes horribly wrong and you need someone to come to the rescue with a cup of warm water, you know where to find me.

[Beat.]

You nervous?

You are too kind. [ dryly. ]

Nervous, of Sif?

[ A question that goes too personal, he thinks. It isn't nervousness that she's asking about. It's fear. ]

[Sif. Yeah, that gets a bit of a wide-eyed reaction from Cho. Fucking his brother's wife. Seems more Greek than Norse, but she supposes after a certain amount of time you just get bored.]

No, nervous about maintaining a full body multi-sensory illusion while heavily distracted and not operating at peak mental efficiency.

[She'd like to tell him that this is why he doesn't have any friends, because he seems to always assume the worst of the people he also refuses to talk to. But then he'd just hang up on her. Or de-orb on her. Whatever.]

And I am kind. I'm a very kind person.

[He'd know that if he gave her a chance, if he didn't just dismiss everyone outright. They can all count on each other, or they can count on the locals. She'd rather take her chances with jackassery than incompetence.]

[ Quite a reaction; it seems she recognizes the name. She's rather more surprised than Loki would have expected. Perhaps she's met Sif. Perhaps Sif was ... rather less abrasive than she is ordinarily. Possible indeed that Cho has a strange impression of her. ]

It isn't merely an illusion. It is a shift.

Ah. Now we're getting somewhere.

[Before when she called it an illusion he didn't correct her.]

An actual reworking of the way your body functions? I'd be nervous. Then again, for me control means managing not to scream if there are people in earshot.

[Ordinarily not the kind of joke she'd make with someone so hesitant about opening up, but Loki's nailed a horse and given birth to an eight legged foal, she's pretty sure that anything she could tell him about her sex life is incredibly tame by comparison, like discussing the weather.

She wants to hear more about what he's managed to do, but she'd like it if he actually wanted to tell her. Either way, it'll give her a little more insight into how he views her. It's nerve-wracking as hell, counting on people you can't read to have your back. She doesn't love the feeling.]

I suppose a sorceress of your skill has her pick of the best of lovers?

[ Arching an eyebrow. ]

I've never been one for noise, myself; it is the subtle things that are pleasing.

[Sex as smalltalk has him almost smiling. Good to know.]

Oh, yes. You're looking at the woman who nearly single-handedly created Void magic in Rowan. That's like being a rock star. All the Demons wanted in my itchy wool panties. Some of the human Majiks, too.

[The Elves less so, but that was only because she refused to fit herself into their stilted lifestyle.]

In my opinion, and relatively limited experience given who I'm talking to, if you're not loud during and aching after then you're probably doing something wrong.

[Teasing, yes, but a gentler kind of teasing. Admitting her lack of experience compared to him leaves him open to still feel superior, if that will back him feel better about talking to her.]

Void magic?

[ He's never heard of that. Curious tilt to his voice; he's always willing to learn a little bit about a new subject. ]

[She's not sure if he's being sarcastic or not, like an adult asking a child to tell them all about their imaginary friend or explain why rain falls. But she decides to assume the best. If he's laughing at her, she knows he's doing it alone.]

The manipulation of nothingness. Literal and figurative. Rowan is a bounded world. The concept of a vacuum, by the time I got there, was something most people didn't think was possible. There was no place in the world that was empty.

[She makes herself comfortable, and the angle at which he's viewing her through the orb changes slightly. After a moment, the faint sound of a blade (and a tiny one, at that) on a whetstone can be heard.]

After the city we were in was conquered, the Demon army kept close tabs on us. I became... very close with one of their Mages. He wanted to prove that Magefire burned independent of any sort of mundane fuel, but in a world with no empty space, you can't really do anything but speculate.

I made him a vacuum. [She smiles, remembering his giddy enthusiasm and the kiss they shared once he'd created that little blue flame. He'd been so happy.] First one ever. I started the Void. [There's a tinge of regret mixed in with the pride of accomplishment in her voice. She has to take responsibility for the bad as well as the good.]

I didn't use any Sorcery to create it, but since the seat of power is in the hands I guess it started the conversion process anyway. A new magic created from a new concept. Kale became the first Void Mage, I changed the balance of my power. It was a pretty big deal.

[ How interesting. His world is full of boundless stretches of void; the Aesir and the Jotunn have learned to traverse it, to skip it, without ever learning to control it. They didn't think to control it. What was there to control?

He could use this information. ]

Tell me of the Demons.

[She can see a hint of genuine interest in his expression. Just because he's crap at making friends doesn't mean he doesn't want them on some level, probably buried so deeply that he doesn't even realize it's there. No one can survive in a vacuum, and while she means an emotional vacuum, the thought still makes her smile.]

They're a lot of fun. The shortest lifespans of the three elder races, but they get their money's worth. They live in very close-knit communities, have large extended families and very rarely make lifelong romantic commitments. They're loud and colourful and kinky and intense and they don't hold anything back.

[Somehow she gets the feeling that's not what he's asking about. But it's still a truthful answer. And it's not going to kill him to learn how to talk to people. Or to put it into practice - she's fairly certain he already knows how to be friendly, he just doesn't want to be.]