lucetilogs | variety is the spice of life

variety is the spice of life

Who: Everyone who wants to be here!
What: Total Recall 2014
When: The first week of the event, roughly April 9th-16th, give or take a few days depending on your character's timeline.
Where: All over Luceti, presumably
Summary: Chaos! Madness! Unreasonable happenings! You know the drill. Alternatively: characters wake up and sigh because god, not this again.
Rating: Varied. Anything frisky goes to appointments as per usual, chums.

Due to the size and variation of this event, it's probably best to have several logs for it to avoid one getting overcrowded and broken. Feel free to have your characters post their own entries, of course, if you'd prefer- you're more than welcome! This is for people who like to consolidate. Another log ought to be posted around the 16th for round 2.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Not- [The response hitches, softly but clearly, and he curls his hand tighter around the worn grip of his weapon until his knuckles blanch. But he does not raise it.] -not alive. And so this cannot be Loki standing before me, speaking to me. Though whatever you are, you play his part well.

[Down to the resentments, the assertions Iofast is willing to worry down to a nub, to argue beyond reason or sense. Whatever has made this fantasy, it has crafted it well.]

I am quite dead, 'tis true. A spear through the heart tends to have that effect. Yet I'm also quite alive, I assure you. This village has the distressing habit of raising the dead and pressing them into service. [He smiles bitterly.] All told, better to be dead than still in Odin's charming little cage. Though you all seemed so content to watch me go slowly mad.

[It's too convenient a tale, but even so Iofast wishes to believe, fierce and desperately so. Even through the outrage that accusation kindles in him.]

Content? Content-!? [That is a slight to far, and he strides closer, bristling.] Oh, thank every fate and power for keen-eyed Loki, who saw through to my secret glee that we might be parted at last!

[He smiles thinly.] Oh? Or were all the interesting predators gone from the zoo? If only I'd known, I would have paced around my cage a bit more for you. Did you particularly enjoy the bit where Odin had me dragged to the throne room in chains just to remind me that he really wished to cut off my head?

[He pulls up short, hands flexing, breath shivery as he forces it through teeth bared in something between a snarl and a wince.]

You seem already sure of the answer, regardless of what I say. Regardless of what I-

[What I have done. What I have, might have, thought I had been to you.. He breathes again, then finishes, in a voice that will not flatten no matter how he tries.]

. . . regardless of anything.

Then please, tell me how I am wrong. [He makes an imperious gesture with his hand, turning to begin to pace, the slow, caged animal prowl he had practiced so well in the dungeons.]

As I imagine you will be the first to insist that I only truly know myself . . . I can only insist that it has never brought me pleasure to see you suffer. That I would have had there be another way.

[Iofast turns slowly, keeping him fully within his sight, shoulders slumping as he huffs a mirthless little laugh.]

And now you shall call me a liar.

[So soft, almost like the murmur of a lover. Loki knows how to use his voice like a weapon.] All of you are.

[What response even exists, then, for surety such as that? What defence is there against such a denial?

There is none, and the helplessness sticks in Iofast's throat, forcing his next words into a quaver that he cannot help but hate. But he speaks regardless, slow and deliberate.]

I think . . . I think I shall continue to believe Loki dead, then, if all that remains of his draugr is bitterness over wrongs I never offered him. [Let this creature try to name his sins. Iofast knows he bears none, and he takes a step backward, then another, back toward the town.] I think I shall warn any who might have known him. Their grief is already enough.

So you will now deny me even the life I yet have? [Still quiet, but even more mocking.] A life in which I am free of that prison called Asgard. A life in which I am loved for myself. What luxury you have, Iofast. Who do you mourn, a man who actually lived and breathed and bears the scars of exile, or the lie of a prince?

[Part of him wants to believe that he was mourned in that way, that he even could be. But he's no longer capable of believing such fantasies. Odin made him a lie, and the others played into it. And then all that was left at the end was a line of old so-called friends baring their teeth adorably in defense of their shining prince against the criminal they'd all come to watch in a cage. And yet he'd done one better than any of them, and (nearly) died for Thor.]

[His smile takes on an even more wicked edge.] Or do you mourn the monster who died for your beloved Thor? Surely not.

Edited (have some more tl;dr) 2014-04-20 15:28 (UTC)

I mourn Loki!

[He is shaking apart, he can feel it. Loki never had difficulty needling him, but this cruel shade of him manages it more deftly than ever. It is the rawness of loss and the strain of conflict, he knows, but the knowledge does nothing to stop the tight heat rising through his throat and to his eyes, and it does not keep his voice from rising nearly to the point of cracking.]

All he was, all he became, all he might have been! I mourn it all, and that you will mock and deny me for it, I mourn that as well. [A hard blink sends wetness rolling down his face and he grimaces, scrubbing it away with the heel of his hand.] There. Are you satisfied? Or shall I bleed for you next?

[This shouldn't be so hard. What cares he for tears? This shouldn't be difficult at all. And yet. He remembers the times with Iofast too well. He remembers the feeling of cameraderie keenly.]

[So very softly, but no longer mocking:] And what might he have become? He was never anything but a stolen relic.

A stolen relic. At last I have heard the cynic's definition of a prize.

[He gives a miserable noise, nothing more than the muscle-memory of a laugh and the air to make it audible, voice still thick with the threat of emotion.]

I would not limit what he might have been by naming it. He was always cleverer than I, and there was no telling what might bring him delight, or where a new talent might gleam out and reveal itself. [He steadies himself, shaking his head.] I would have had him be anything, had he but remained my companion as well.

[Loki laughs, continuing to slowly pace. He rubs his hands together as if to rid himself of the memory of some haunting touch.]

I screamed for you, Iofast, when they flayed my skin off on the other side of Hel. I screamed for you, and Thor, and Juti, and Valka, and... [...Saldis.] Well, it doesn't matter now. None came for me. None heard. It was as useless an effort as the tears I shed when my brother sewed my mouth shut.

[He stops and looks at his old friend, anger and sadness in eyes that seem older than the world.] The Allfather took me as a war prize so many centuries ago and meant for me to be a tool, a pleasant little puppet. And when I no longer had use because of what Thor did in Jotunheim, he was pleased to see me discarded and told you all that I was dead.

[His voice drops softer still, not angry, not venomous, but filled with a naked pain that he never intended to let free. But this argument was perhaps too unexpected, and he's had his defenses worn down by living an easy life for over a year, one where Rogue has daily chipped away at the armor in which he wrapped himself. Perhaps the cracks are finally beginning to show.]

And you believed him. All of you believed him. What sort of companionship is that?

Edited 2014-04-20 23:13 (UTC)

[Each of Loki's clever knives is blunt as a root, compared to that question, and Iofast is certain it shows on his face how it stings. How it cuts through the tender softness of his own thoughts, asking him again and again if they failed him, his companions, if they could have prevented or even forestalled this fate.]

One clouded by duty, and troubled thoughts, and- Loki. The things that we had seen of you, then. We . . .

[No. He cannot put this on all of them, and he shakes his head, barely, and corrects himself.]

- I. I wished for certainty. I wished to understand.

[It is all the explanation he can offer without censure or outrage, both of which he knows will be received even more poorly than everything he has already said. But it is the truth, Loki's actions, even before today, have left him only more uncertain than ever.]

Edited 2014-04-20 23:24 (UTC)

The things you had seen of me. [He laughs at that. Everyone is so shocked, when nothing he has done has been a whit more brutal than anything Odin has perpetrated. He has no more blood on his hands than anyone else. And no horror any of them felt can compare to that which shattered him when he was exposed to himself as nothing but a lie.] Are you well satisfied with what answers Odin has provided? I am sure he has made the matter quite simple and certain.

[He jaw tightens at the unspoken accusation, and he casts an arch look at Loki for even voicing it, for faulting him in taking the single thing set before him by a trusted hand.]

Perhaps I would be more dissatisfied, were his answers given some competition.

Have you really bothered to ask? Perhaps I missed it somewhere in our delightful conversation, between your accusations that I am but a vengeful shade wearing a Loki-skin suit and your annoyance that I have been less than pleased to be a guest in the Allfather's dungeons while I wait for him to get around to executing me.

Between the confusion and your insults and doing your best to sting me into madness and-!

[And madness, madness is what it must be when heat flares again in his blood with another one of those smug accusations, another calculated barb to paint Iofast as the cruel one, the monster, the careless fop laughing and making merry while his companion rots.

Madness it is when he strikes at the lapel of Loki's jacket with the aim to catch it and slam him against the nearest tree, for even in their days of fellowship, Loki was always the quicker and more cunning of them, and with blades besides. But the madness thinks, in that roaring moment, that even to feel steel bury in him would be better than this, trapped with a Loki who hates him and will not rest until he hates himself.]

[And Iofast meets...nothing. No resistance. Just an image that shatters away to nothing.

From off to the side, leaned casually against a tree, Loki remarks:]

Be mindful now that you were the first to strike, Iofast.

[He tilts his head.] And do not dare speak to me of madness. Until you have have hated your own skin as I did, until you see your life shattered into pieces that reflect only the undeniable fact that you are the very monster your brother has sworn to slay, you will not for shame speak of madness.

[Nothing. Of course he reaches for Loki and finds only empty air. As ever, a treacherous dark part of him whispers, you are not permitted to touch him unless he wishes it so. But he need not even touch you to make you writhe. That is the truth of power and weakness, Iofast.

Slowly, he pushes up from the tree, meaning to leave this time in truth, more worn-down than a day of sprinting in circles around the village might have made him. Loki always did win their battles, in the end.]

And because I have not died, I will not for shame speak of wounds. Because I have not suffered as brave Loki has suffered, I am clearly the happiest man alive.

[There can be no remaining fight, he thinks, with his lie of a surrender spelled out so plainly, and he turns to go, back toward the village. Loki will hold his returned strike in reserve, and this ugly errand has taken long enough. Now he needs light, and sound, and people.

Oh, mercies, he needs anyone else.]

Whoever you are, you play his part too well. Good morning to you.

[Loki laughs at that, because it's just so ridiculous, too ridiculous by far, but he catches his breath with a strange hitching sound. He is good at this. He's always been good at hurting people with words far sharper than daggers.

But why was it like this? He remembers how he and Iofast were, so far in the past. A past now dead and forever out of reach.

He's not really aware of moving, but he's still as silent as always, as fast. One moment at the tree, the next up behind Iofast, his hand reaching out to catch at the man's--friend? enemy? he no longer knows-- sleeve.

His voice is quiet and strange to his own ears.]

Don't you know me at all? Ever have I been the greatest coward in all nine realms.

[And already he curses himself for speaking, for moving, for not just taking his victory and resting upon it. Why?]

[Only wary hurt keeps the hope from Iofast's gaze when he looks back, and even then it struggles toward that promised opening, a tiring fish still fighting the net. But he stills, if nothing else, though he does not smile, does not make as if he recognizes that slim chance to reach his once-companion. He's already been tempted into range of a blow too many times in this round.]

You must be, to try now to keep the company of a man who has betrayed you so deeply. [Is he trying to joke? If he is, it's pathetic, but he can't even say for himself any more what he means. He had never even expected to see Loki alive again, but here he is, hale and full of nothing but hatred for him.] Have you no pride at all, old friend?

[Has he no pride? It's a good question, the one he should ask himself. And Loki is a coward; he believes in strategic retreat. Suddenly, that seems a good idea.

His brows draw together for a moment and there is something in his eyes, some sorrow or pain or even regret, then his fingers loosen on Iofast's sleeve, and he lets his hand fall away. He takes a slow, careful step back.]

A point well-made. [He fights to regain that hard shell of distance that he allowed to foolishly slip for a moment. His next words sound more like teasing than an insult, however.] You must be a fool indeed to waste your time speaking to a shade.

[This was a mistake. What did he think would come of it?]

When have I been anything but? [There's a cadence that he catches the hook of to answer, and he is almost afraid to think too long on it, lest it disappear.] Iofast, who carries club rather than blade or hammer or spear. Iofast the over-clever, the loud, who makes merry from beginning to end in every quest.

[He is a bard's son, if nothing else. And he knows that there are endless sides to a story, and holds the gift to present the one that fits best the circumstance. And if it is only a fool who the shade will gentle for? A fool he will be, for the moment.]

You cannot be Loki, surely, if you think me anything else.

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