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Post by Loki Odinsson on Oct 14, 2015 23:37:00 GMT -5
He shrugged uncomfortably.
"Well, he said, "I haven't found an account yet that got it right."
He looked around for a place to put his cigarette end. Unable to find one, he rubbed one hand over the other, and it vanished.
"I'm not Odin's blood-brother. I'm his son, if you can call it that. He bred me for a purpose, in a frost giant's bed, and with that kind of pedigree I suppose it's not surprising I turned out monstrous to a race of monsters."
He paused, and shut his eyes for a moment.
"...but, I suppose I'm being ungrateful," said Loki, glancing sideways at Nina. "Bit of a problem of mine, really. I can see that now. Whatever else my father may have done to me, he gave me to my mother. He gave me my brother, he raised me as a prince... I suppose that ought to have been enough."
Loki's voice faded again, contemplatively rather than on the edge of another breakdown. He looked down.
"It never felt like enough, that's all. But that's... that's my own doing, really. It's my fault for wanting more at every turn. I didn't know I was really a monster out of a bedtime story, so I can't blame that. I would have once, but... well. Seeking blame is another one of those little problems I've come to notice in recent months."
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Post by Nina Fortner on Oct 15, 2015 3:09:06 GMT -5
Nina's hand crept up her throat, like she was trying to keep something back. Another confession, or worse: more tears.
"Oh," she choked out.
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Post by Loki Odinsson on Oct 15, 2015 9:55:09 GMT -5
Loki looked at her again.
"Are you all right?"
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Post by Nina Fortner on Oct 15, 2015 10:06:03 GMT -5
"Yes, I'm fine," she lied to the known god of lying, and then stopped.
What did she have to hide from him?
Short of someone else from the same system, like her father, who else would come so close to understanding her? And he was asking. He seemed genuine. He had volunteered so much about himself already, she was being silly to think he was putting himself above her just because he was another being.
She sighed.
"Well, no. How much time have you got?"
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Post by Loki Odinsson on Oct 15, 2015 10:09:20 GMT -5
"A while," he said, with a small shrug.
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Post by Nina Fortner on Oct 15, 2015 14:39:39 GMT -5
It was a long story, but not the first time she had told it - and somehow, telling a self-professed monster bred by monsters for a purpose, it felt like a series of facts, and not a long confession of personal sins. She almost felt as though she were describing events that said nothing about her worth or her worthiness at all.
By the time it was winding down into the present day, having moved on from the sordid history, the explanation of the genocidal Third Reich's obsession with racial purity and super soldiers, Adrian and Anna's affair and Anna's subsequent pregnancy in imprisonment and her giving birth to nameless monsters, and, of course, Johan Liebert, Johan Liebert and his litany of crimes, and more recently, her integration into Adrian's household, Meg's little baby, Curt's studies of her and how they possibly intersected with their struggling affection for one another, and how badly she had upset Megan, they were walking down the black-watered beach, listening to the roar of the waves. She had forgotten to go into the house or call her father. She was distracted by something else entirely.
"It's hard to be here in Greece," said Nina, aimlessly kneeling to pick up a piece of driftwood, turn it over in her hands, and then tossing it into a swell that swallowed it completely and lapped at the wet sand for more. "I feel that I am living somebody else's intended life, and all I can do is pretend. The destructive path I was on before... it was more of a comfort to me. It was better to be immoral than to be somebody. If I destroyed my brother... perhaps I would not have to accept... certain things. But he is in this world, and so am I. As long as he exists... I don't know who I am. If he were gone perhaps I could be not him."
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Post by Loki Odinsson on Oct 15, 2015 16:29:41 GMT -5
"You can't very well destroy him yourself," Loki said cautiously, brow furrowed in concern. "Call me paranoid, but your situation seems a bit too delicate to rock the boat with a little fratricide. Me, on the other hand..."
He spread his hands.
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Post by Nina Fortner on Oct 15, 2015 16:32:59 GMT -5
Nina gave him a short glance, but her expression was not easily read. She seemed to be considering it, or holding back an obvious response.
"No, Johan is my problem," she said quietly.
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Post by Loki Odinsson on Oct 15, 2015 16:45:11 GMT -5
"I'm just saying. I could use a little absolution and it sounds like you could use a dead brother. The offer stands."
There was a little pause before he added, "If it's any consolation, you don't remind me of him in the slightest. Outside of the, er, physical element, of course, but even that's a bit more like your father."
Another beat.
"Sorry. That was a bit harsh."
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Post by Nina Fortner on Oct 15, 2015 16:48:22 GMT -5
Nina gave him a wan smile. "Oh, Adrian seems to have been a looker in his day," she said in mock generosity.
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Post by Loki Odinsson on Oct 15, 2015 16:55:55 GMT -5
Loki laughed. He looked up toward the sky.
"I can't say I don't know the feeling," he sighed. "It's not really the same, but... well, you have my commiseration."
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Post by Nina Fortner on Oct 15, 2015 16:58:46 GMT -5
"That's more than I asked for," she reminded him. She was following his gaze. He looked milky-white blue in the moonlight, and she assumed she did too.
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Post by Loki Odinsson on Oct 15, 2015 17:17:18 GMT -5
"The fact is," he admitted, "I never intended to come here. I wanted to die. I wanted to have never existed at all, or to have existed as someone else. Something else. So I tried to let that happen.
"Instead, I came here, but I didn't, at the same time. I think I sort of... split in two. My other self..."
He looked back at her and laughed grimly.
"My other self landed in some rather bad company, you could say. He's still there, in the universe next door, trying to find some way of filling that hole in himself. I'm starting to think there's no filling it, personally. I could almost pity the poor bastard."
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Post by Nina Fortner on Oct 15, 2015 17:18:42 GMT -5
"How did you learn that?"
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Post by Loki Odinsson on Oct 15, 2015 17:20:25 GMT -5
"He showed up."
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