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Post by Loki Odinsson on Dec 20, 2013 20:29:53 GMT -5
"You've usually had the decency to wear trousers," Loki said dryly, nodding at the decidedly pantsless illustration. "It's... you and I, and Asgard as we know it, are some kind of... echo. Maybe they're all echoes. I haven't figured that out yet. But there are alternate Asgards, alternate Lokis... alternate Thors. "We're already the odd ones out, it seems. The Loki in this book is Odin's sworn blood-brother, though how or why, it does not say. The Thor is this Odin's son, though not by Frigga. They do, however, have a pair of twin sons, Balder and Hoder." He took the book from Thor and turned to another illustration. "This Loki gradually..." He took a deep breath and steadied his voice. "Over time, he comes to turn against Asgard, though... differently than I did. He murders Balder by guiding Hoder's hand- Hoder is blind, you see- he kills Balder with a dart of mistletoe, the one thing that Frigga did not entreat to promise not to harm Balder. Loki ensures Balder's inability to return from Hel, and no one is the wiser until he intrudes on one of their feasts and confesses in the midst of insulting the lot of them." He turned the pages again and opened it to another illustration. "He flees, he is found, and he is bound deep below Midgard, beneath a wyrm whose fangs drip poison over his face. His wife catches it in a bowl, but when it overflows..." He glanced back up at Thor again, with a meaningful grimace. "When this Loki escapes his torment, that is the beginning of Ragnarök. I thought perhaps none of this would be a risk here, in this... this reality, you could call it- it says here that Loki is the father of Hela herself, and Jormungandr, and Fenrir, and you and I both know that's impossible. They've existed long before I have. It says he- I marry the Lady Sigyn, you marry Sif-" He paused again, with another look at Thor. "-whose new hair remains gold, even after being shorn and restored by this Loki. The details are so twisted from the reality you and I know that I had begun to find some measure of solace in perhaps avoiding all of this. But that solace was shaken when this Loki confronted me in Grand Central Terminal, and now..." He shook his head and swallowed. "I don't want any of this, Thor, but I'm afraid. I'm not even the only one of myself- there's another Loki, another one whose story is identical to mine until- we were the same until- we were the same when we let go of Odin's spear, but-" Loki's voice broke. He was beginning to speak much faster now, much more raggedly. "I remember it all continuously. I don't recall any kind of splitting in two, but we did- the one Loki that was and is both of our past became two Lokis, falling in different directions, until I found myself here, and the other... "He crossed into this reality once, and again the same night the Loki of this book did. He would have killed Teja if I had not intervened." Loki pressed his hands against the counter to still them again, and tried to calm himself. "No matter what I do, where I go, which self I am, I am pursued by a monstrous destiny. I don't want this, Thor-"
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Post by Thor on Dec 21, 2013 2:42:50 GMT -5
Thor put a hand heavily on his shoulder and gripped. He had listened intently, but he could not truly know what his brother was thinking. What he did know what that he would do all in his formidable power to protect his brother from himself, his other selves, fate, or anyone else that came knocking.
"Then it will not come to be. I will make sure of it. I am not this Thor; I am your brother, and the son of Frigga and Odin; though father desired it, I have not married Sif, and will not; none of these will come to pass. This[," he said, gripping both shoulders now and looking his brother dead in the eye with a crooked smile, "is our world, here; we are no other versions of ourselves. Our fate is as we make it."
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Post by Loki Odinsson on Dec 25, 2013 20:37:24 GMT -5
Loki nodded, looking away.
"It's not that I don't trust you."
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Post by Thor on Dec 26, 2013 2:12:02 GMT -5
Thor folded his arms over his chest as he did when he generally went into a deep thinking mode. Regularly, his hands were free, as subconsciously he knew his hammer to be only a moment of instinct away.
"Why would Fate be so cruel as to give you so much and then overwrite it with... that?"
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Post by Loki Odinsson on Jan 18, 2014 1:57:09 GMT -5
"I don't know," he said in frustration. He could taste bile rising in his throat. He felt about ready to scream himself hoarse at Thor, the great useless idiot, always so disgustingly optimistic.
Loki took a deep breath again to steady himself, closed his eyes. This was what he needed to avoid if he didn't want any of this to come to pass.
"...just promise me that if you ever think that that is what I am becoming, you'll... put an end to it."
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Post by Thor on Feb 20, 2014 2:18:45 GMT -5
There was a knock upon the apartment door, loud enough to be some Midgardian or other who was angry or desperate. Thor looked with surprise and concern toward Loki, then glanced in the direction of the sound.
"Pardon me, brother," he said finally, placing his sandwich down and adjourning to the other room.
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Sif
- Masterful Virgin -
Posts: 14
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Post by Sif on Feb 20, 2014 4:24:26 GMT -5
Under ten minutes before, there had been a radiant burst of light from the sky, rainbow-bright and awesome, striking the sidewalk. When it disappeared, four people in impressive armour and weapons were standing upon an ornately charred surface. Strange things were not precisely uncommon in New York City, but in the post-Manhattan age, this sort of thing would generally lead to gaping. However, the figures only spoke amongst themselves and walked into a nearby apartment building, so no one got the opportunity to speak to them.
"This is where Heimdall told us we could find him," said an enormously tall blond man as they entered.
Sif looked back at Fandral, her lower lip briefly between her teeth.
Years ago she had had hopes that the him in question would return her feelings. That was before he had been abruptly banished to Midgard, before his brother had gone mad, taken over their realm, and sought to destroy them. Before Thor had fallen in love with a Midgardian woman - a girl, really - and in destroying the Bifrost to stop Loki's mad plot, given up all hope of ever seeing her again, and been quietly consumed by grief.
It was the quietness of that grief that had eventually caused her give up hope and try to move on with her life as his dear friend and no more. Thor had not been the quiet type before it, and in recognizing how it had changed him Sif saw that any chance of things returning to has they had been were gone.
She was as eager than they were if not more to see Thor again, but retrieving him like this bore with it a taste of bitterness. She could not help but think of the last time she had come to this realm, thirty years ago, with no thought in her head but that of happiness and pleasure. She had not then known she would never see the Thor she knew again.
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Post by Fandral on Feb 20, 2014 4:29:47 GMT -5
Fandral knew vaguely more about Sif's feelings than he let on, though not enough to have tried to comment on them. He knew enough about her that if she hadn't said anything she didn't want to be asked, at any rate.
"Oh, cheer up, now, when has Heimdall been wrong?" he said cheerily enough.
"But which room?" asked Volstagg in earnest. "There are so many!"
It was Hogun's brilliant idea to ask, so they knocked upon the first door, and began to ask the inhabitants about Thor, but before they could get anything out, the wide-eyed occupants informed them.
Fandral laughed at this.
"You would almost think we reminded them of him..."
The door number was somewhat confusing to find, and they needed it written out for them. Midgardian letters and numbers were not understood in Asgard, why should they be?
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Sif
- Masterful Virgin -
Posts: 14
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Post by Sif on Feb 20, 2014 4:30:39 GMT -5
They approached the door as one, and all simultaneously stopped.
After a pause, Sif stepped forward.
"I'll do it," she said, and hit the door rather too hard.
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Post by Thor on Feb 20, 2014 4:32:39 GMT -5
Still frowning in confusion - perhaps he had mishandled something the other day while moving? - Thor opened the door.
His face unclouded immediately.
"My friends!"
He opened his arms, though the embrace was prompted more immediately by Volstagg, who pulled the entire lot of them into his own arms with a happy shout. The lot of them were suddenly all speaking at once, and Thor was overjoyed to see them, for he had had little good news of late, no matter how happy he was to spend his time with his regained brother (whom, admittedly, he momentarily forgot in the fray).
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Sif
- Masterful Virgin -
Posts: 14
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Post by Sif on Feb 20, 2014 4:33:52 GMT -5
Sif's anxiety, or what she would admit of it, evaporated at the sight of him, for at the end of all days Thor was her true friend and she would feel no discomfort in his presence.
"What have you been up to? You've been sorely missed!"
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Post by Thor on Feb 20, 2014 4:36:16 GMT -5
"Nothing, nothing!" said Thor with a good, warm chuckle. He had not quite explained to them his reason for leaving - that Heimdall had seen Loki, and he was alive. But it was too good a thing to keep secret! "I live here in the home of a good Midgardian woman named Megan Elness and I find money by performing manual labor for the Midgardians - they are very delicate. And I have good news - my brother is here!"
Thor stepped back and swept his arm out to gesture back into the room with a wide, proud smile.
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Post by Fandral on Feb 20, 2014 4:40:22 GMT -5
The temperature in the hallway dropped. Volstagg looked around at his companions, Sif back at them hesitantly, and Fandral just barely glanced with his eyes without using any of the rest of his head. Hogun, of course, looked unsurprised, but then Hogun had such skill for that.
"Yes, of course," said Sif with uncertainty not characteristic of her at all. Thor beamed at all of them, and they wondered what on Midgard was inside of this room. The area had seemed so nice and well-lit, too. Ah, good-natured and loyal Thor, he couldn't even read their expressions.
Somebody had to be brave and Fandral was sometimes good at it. He chose to make his way inside as though nothing was wrong. He had always dealt with Loki best.
"Ah, excellent, excellent, Thor," he said, warmly gripping his shoulder, expression turning to an inward groan the moment he'd passed him, and there was no chance of Thor seeing his face. He heard the rest of them enter behind and Thor shut the door with an endearing deliberate gentleness.
Fandral and the others glanced around, as though there was going to be more than one Loki, and he was going to look like a crazy-eyed degenerate with far too many lower teeth, which didn't seem all that impossible at the time.
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Post by Loki Odinsson on Feb 20, 2014 10:17:36 GMT -5
"Thor?" Loki's voice said peevishly from the kitchen. "What in the fuck is going on out-"
He didn't get a chance to finish, because as soon as he got a good look at the newcomers, he smiled broadly.
"Friends! Thor, did you know about this? If I'd known we were having company I'd've dressed for the occasion."
As he said this, a blue-edged gold shimmer enveloped his body and shifted his purely Midgardian clothing to something more appropriate for the occasion, albeit with bare arms and minimal armor as a concession to the heat. He didn't break stride in the slightest.
"Fandral... Hogun... Volstagg, old man, how have you been..."
He stopped in front of Sif, and for a brief instant, his smile faltered.
"...Lady Sif," he said finally, with a respectful nod of the head.
Not wanting to push his luck any further, he quickly turned back to the others.
"You've good timing. The mistress of the house is out, so my brother has the place to himself. Will you be staying long?"
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Post by Fandral on Feb 20, 2014 16:18:44 GMT -5
Loki's entrance was enough of what no one expected that, predictably, Volstagg and Fandral evinced delight to see him and even Hogun and Sif cracked smiles of relief. Volstagg began talking of family matters and pulled him gracelessly into a hug, and Fandral stood back and laughed about it.
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