lucetilogs | spice is the variety of death...? idek

spice is the variety of death...? idek

Who: Everyone who wants to be here! ...Again!
What: Total Recall 2014, Part 2
When: The second week of the event, roughly April 17th-22nd. As in the last log, the start date is flexible. The end date less so.
Where: All over blah blah blah
Summary: More chaos, more madness, everyone is just so done with this nonsense gosh
Rating: Varied. Anything too high-rated goes to appointments!

Slow but steady, here is the second log for the event. As before, feel free to have your characters post their own entries if you'd rather do that. Here is the first log as well.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[It was awkward, but she had to do it. It wasn't fair to let Steve's routine dissipate just because he wasn't in his own body. So, despite feeling a little strange, she went for a run. It was exhilarating to run as quickly as she was, a dead sprint in her own body, but a paced jog in this one. Dressed in a pair of sweats and a t-shirt, "Steve" was jogging through the woods along the rivers. It's there that she comes upon Loki, dressed differently and moving...water? She slows and stops, watching.]

[Loki continues through the form he's practicing, his movements graceful and deceptively slow, appearing almost gentle. He manipulates the water like it is a thing of art, turning it to ropes, tshaping it into ice and then fluid globes. At last, he turns it to mist and lets it simply dissipate into the air.

Only then does he turn to look at Steve. He's known the man was there for quite some time. He recognizes the man on sight, knows his reputation, but they are not friends of any sort. Loki doesn't really have friends in the village; he's kept carefully to himself since arriving, preferring to be alone so that he can perhaps properly mourn. Though it feels more like rubbing sand into an open wound, most days. But what else is there to do, here?]

Is there something you want?

Didn't mean to disturb you.

[She doesn't forget how Loki reacts to Steve even on the best of occasions, but it's interesting to be on the receiving end of his coldness for once.]

What was that?

You'd have to try far harder if you wanted to disturb me. [Yeah, when he's not using his words as a means of survival, Loki has rather run out of patience with being polite. He's too constantly angry and depressed, and no longer feels compelled to hide it. In fact, this has been a golden opportunity for him to slowly fall to pieces in relatively privacy.]

[His brows draw together slightly and he tilts his head. Well, that's right. Steve Rogers comes from some other world where they don't have bending. He's heard that, hasn't he?]

Water bending.

Are you learning from that girl in the village?

[Stare.]

Do you mean Katara? [Ignorance, or insult? Well, he'll go with ignorance.]

She is very good for someone of her age. But I'd be the one teaching her. [Hah.] I have taught her in the past.

[....What. Peggy just stares at Loki for a moment, not sure what she just heard. She's absolutely certain she's never seen or heard of Loki "bending" before and other than his strange clothes today, she's never heard of him teaching Katara.

She tries to keep her face as stony as possible, but it's a little harder when the face isn't hers.]

From what I hear she becomes a master in her own time. How long have you been practicing?

Of that I have little doubt. As I said, she is very good for one of her age. She lacks only practice.

[He crosses his arms over his chest, his expression going downright cranky.]

Since I was five, which would put it at nearly thirty years. What business is it of yours?

Curiosity. In the time I've known you, I haven't seen you bend anything until now.

[Other than people's patience. Which he's trying hers quite well.

Maybe this is why he and Steve don't get along.]

Then again, neither of us are like we usually are, now are we.

[If anything, he really just sounds exasperated. He used up all of his pretty words surviving in the Fire Nation. He doesn't see the point of bothering any longer, not here. He might not quite believe Aang's grand ideas about peace, but he knows Aang and Katara won't put up with him being mistreated or tormented. It's something of a relief to finally speak his mind.]

Considering all the time you've known me really just numbers these last five minutes, I don't see the point in that statement at all.

I am like myself as always. I don't know who else I'd be. And it isn't as if you know me at all to make that judgment.

[Five minutes?

It takes a moment for this to sink in, but then she recalls that time the entire village thought it was someone else. She sucked in a sharp breath and then let it out slowly.]

I see. I believe I must have mistaken you for someone then.

Is there someone else with my name running around? I haven't heard that to be the case. So you have found Loki.

[Raising an eyebrow so hard at you, Not-Steve. Though then he does lose a bit of his exasperated edge.]

I suppose I've been unkind. [He's not really practiced at being kind any more.] Few people do know me. I've kept to myself.

[Which has felt very good for the most part. But the longer he's had, the more he's found himself longing for that sense of community that was taken from him week over a decade ago. It hasn't been so long that he's forgotten entirely. Though there it's part of him that fears if he does integrate in any way it'll just be destroyed again.

He sighs, but his tone is much more reasonable.]

What brings you out here today?

[This had to be a shift. There was only one way that Loki would think he was unknown in this village and that was if he thought he wasn't himself.

Still, it seemed that he knew who he was on some level, just not enough to remember his real life. Instead, he was part of the bending world.]

I knew of one other, but apparently he is absent now.

I was exercising, thought I might get away from the village for a bit. Too many people.

And you?

One other person named Loki? It's a very unusual name. Was he also of my tribe?

[He shrugs.]

Practicing. I do not trust this place.

It is, which is why it stuck in my mind. He wasn't of your tribe though. [Not exactly a lie and not exactly the truth either.]

Understandable that you wouldn't trust it. I don't either. May I ask your reason?

Hah. Well I suppose other worlds might have names like mine.

[He shrugs. No reason to keep this story a secret.] The Fire Nation invaded my village fifteen years ago and slaughtered my wife and children because I was among the water benders who fought them. I was their prisoner until very recently.

[Flat and matter of fact. A story oft repeated. He can almost pretend it doesn't hurt any more.]

It's given me a healthy sense of paranoid. And a desire to always keep my more rarified skills well-honed.

And what of you?

[Definitely not the Loki she remembers. Interesting that he'd give himself a family again though; one very different from his actual life or even the life she'd come to know during their last encounter with becoming different people.]

I'm sorry for your loss; even if it was fifteen years ago.

[She doesn't really feel like talking about why she's out here, but she can certainly give a viable "reason."]

I came from war, like you, and it's given me a healthy distrust of anything that seems like a prison.

[He nods.]

Thank you. [It doesn't help. Nothing does. But it's nice to have the loss acknowledged at least. Perhaps now he has space to properly mourn, only he has no idea how.]

Precisely. This seems a far nicer prison than the one I last knew, but I think it's only a matter of time.

[He gestures with one hand, opening his fingers. The movement reveals a deep, precise cut across the meaty part of his palm, barely scabbed over. The thin scars of many such similar cuts are apparent.]

...Just don't get yourself taken by the metal droids and you can generally avoid further torture.

[She notes the cuts, feeling her shoulders tense as if seeing someone being hurt caused a physical reaction in her. Or him. It's hard to keep the distinction in her mind sometimes.]

Those look fresh...Have you gotten them looked at?

From what I've seen, that's a matter of chance. [The bitter expression on his face doesn't have anything to do with a smile.] So just like being tortured in my former prison.

[He glances at his hand, then drops it to his side.] Of course they're fresh. I made those cuts myself.

What? Why?

[Why harm himself now that he was out of prison?]

[Loki hesitates. This is the most secret technique he has, the most powerful thing any water bender can do. Better to keep this weapon in reserve, is it not?

But is this man going to be a threat to him? Unlikely. If worse came to worse, the man would be nothing but a marionette. Who might he tell, though?]

What business is it of yours?

When someone is cutting themselves open, I make it my business to make sure they aren't going to do worse.

[His lips curve into a smile that is not really a smile. He finds the very idea amusing. Does this man think that after surviving the torment of captivity and exile for fifteen years, he'd kill himself? He's far too good at surviving for that.

Though part of him does wonder, what he will do now that there is no revenge. He needs some sort of purpose, because otherwise there is nothing left to drive him to eat and sleep and even breathe. He's coasting on momentum alone, now.]

Define worse.

I'm sure you're smart enough to figure that out.

[Worse to themselves, worse to others; there's a lot of ways a person who is desperate can cause harm.]

It may seem prying of me, but it's in my nature.

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