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Who: Loki
Broadcast: Everyone
Action: Paisley
When: Right now!

[Action]

[Guess who just shows up to breakfast one... afternoon? Loki emerges from his office, looking for all the world like a man who has just woken up from an extended nap, barely open eyes, trying to stretch his back and shoulders, the whole nine. He wanders into the kitchen, fumbles around until he makes himself something hot and dark enough that he can pretend it's coffee, and stares suspiciously into the cup before drinking.

Ugh, his mouth tastes like someone glued one of Thor's feet to it. Ugh. What possessed him to sleep like this...

(Guess who has no idea he's been missing for weeks~)]

[A bit later: Broadcast]

[Awake now, and... well, he looks amused. Which is to say as if he's planning on flaying someone alive.]

Why yes, I have returned. Hide all of the party favors, lock up your sons and daughters, cancel the pedestrian fireworks displays.

A funny thing, missing time. You'd never know it was gone until someone tells you. Has anyone else fallen victim to such thievery?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Words have power. They can be dangerous, twisted and beautiful. One must be careful with how they are . . . displayed for others.

[ Leto couldn't care less about his reputation or how others see him. But touting his titles around makes it seem he's throwing his weight. Best to leave that to others. ]

Here, I am Leto for a Loki.

[ And another name he will not say. ]

[He sighs, a sound of near satisfaction in this case. As if ah, someone finally understands a point he's been attempting to hammer into thick heads for years.] A truth even I shall admit to.

[This is why he loves lies so dearly. They're a power on their own, and can pave the way to truly devastating truth besides.

But oh, that's an interesting turn of phrase. Seeing as how things had been in Luceti...]

We are legion, it seems. Which of me have you known?

I knew of one who broke the chains that bound the name Loki, who overthrew the petty suspicions and grievances of Asgard and those who only knew of reputation. He won them. He defeated the name Loki, to earn it back as prestige.

[ None of these things will be pleasant for Loki to hear, but it was the truth. Leto considers telling him what end came for a little Loki, who fought and won, and was defeated by Loki himself. A vessel to be taken over.

No. It was too soon for such truths. ]

We were kin, after a fashion. We were on a team together.

Oho, that one. I met him, myself, in a different place than this. [He smiles.] He didn't like me very much, because I am not the Loki he knew and did not care to let him make free of my secrets.

But we saw eye to eye on certain matters.

I am the Loki who is son of Frigga and has no father, who became ash on a dead world to save his brother. The most sincere love is always signed in blood, yes?

What manner of team? Loki isn't generally known to be a... team player.

Edited 2016-03-03 00:01 (UTC)

A team that was family. We had all lost our memories and worked together to regain them. We were all . . . close.

[ Close is a small word for Ruby. Overprotective, deeply possessive of each other and their ties were a better word. Oh, they shared their feelings with others easily, but they clung tightly to the ones they made. ]

I know which Loki you are. I see all time, all possibilities, all paths in fate and destiny. Your skill lies in magic and perverting the truth to your means. Mine lies in words and the shattering of time.

Ah. That sensation, I might understand more than you would think.

[He doesn't actually recoil--he's too good at the game for that--but there is a momentary look on his face, as if he's smelled something bad. The hoarding of knowledge is as true a sort of power as magic, and he hates the intimation that someone might have the upper hand in that regard when it comes to his own closely guarded secrets.

On the other hand, this Leto fellow hasn't crassly called him out as a liar for the death thing, so. Judgment is reserved, curiosity still wins for now.]

[Dryly.] If you know the infinite fields of my ilk, you must be very good at picking one from the crowd. Though I hear I have an uncommonly nice smile for my sort.

But time. Hah. I have a more than academic interest in that, these days.

Edited (added the html!) 2016-03-03 03:40 (UTC)

I'm afraid I won't be able to serve anyone's interests in that particular field. What is, what will be, what might be is my purview alone. You do not want to perceive time in its entirety.

[ It's a warning Loki will ignore. He moves on from that, like water. Leto doesn't linger. ]

As far as infinity, you are not a unique interpretation of Loki. You have learned, but you have not changed.

You make a great many assumptions. That must save you much time and effort. [Delivered like it is of no matter at all. But he's annoyed. He's beyond sick of being judged by people who have known him long and still don't understand him. No one ever has except Frigga, and now Rogue--and Billy, be he's nowhere around. It's even more annoying coming from people who don't know him but are convinced that they do. Not really any different from Rogue's friends.

But he's also not going to argue with this godling. Just mentally place him in a much less friendly box.]

I'll be certain to send anyone with questions about me in your direction. That ought to save me a great deal of aggravation as well.

Edited (wow how does english) 2016-03-03 05:04 (UTC)

Why? You do not aggravate me.

[ Ah. He interpreted what Leto said wrongly. Well, no matter. ]

Assumptions are based on hearsay. Rumours. I do not know you the way one person may know another. But I can see your footsteps in time. What you have walked, many have. That is all.

You know your own legend. Surely being told you're not unique should not come as a surprise.

[No comment on that other than a slight, meaningful movement of the eyebrows. He must not be trying hard enough. Well, he isn't actually. He can be downright charming when it suits him, and genuinely likable in those rare moments when he's distracted enough that he isn't paying attention. This isn't any of those moments.]

Every grain of sand is unique, form and place in time and part in the fabric of reality, yes. And yet all is the same, composed of malleable words.

[He shrugs one shoulder, chin resting in his other palm. This is suddenly interesting again.]

[ He can't help it, he lets out a bark of laughter. The timbre of it sounds old, old as starblood, but his voice sounds young, like the first snow on the ground.

To Leto, who grew up on a desert planet, who is quite literally a desert creature, metaphors about sand are not the most becoming. ]

Sand! Of all the things to choose, why that? Have you looked at sand so closely that you can divine such properties?

[Interesting reaction. He'll just mentally file that away.]

I rested upon a beach of black sand after being torn to atoms by a singularity. [He laughs.] It tends to stick in the mind, these little things.

[Little things are best when you're too shattered and mad to contemplate bigger things even in abstract.]

Grains of sand, humans, stars. Each one different, all utterly the same.

[Scatter the sand, watch the humans run, gamble with stars. Economies of scale.]

[ He murmurs, bemused. ] Is that how it happened?

I hesitate to compare sand to stars, but I am a desert creature. My views on sand are a tad bit more knowledgeable than others.

Of course not. [Grin. Well, actually yes. Mostly. But now that he's gotten over his habitual clench at someone knowing more than he likes, he's enjoying this conversation. He so rarely gets to talk with people who are on a similar level to him and want to play. He definitely hasn't had anyone like that in the fleet thus far, so this is refreshing indeed.]

And my view on stars likely more knowledgable than my opinions on sand. [Though more accurately, he's a creature of ice, but he hates that part of himself still. He's just better at disguising it these days.] And yet it's all made of the same fundamental particles and energies, just begging to be twisted about.

Perhaps you know a bit too much about sand.

I am a desert creature. And where I am from, sand is simply sand.

[ It would sound derogatory or self-demeaning if it was said by anyone else, but Leto speaks like they are facts, carved into immortal stone. If Loki looked closely, he would see the strange brown skin layered onto Leto's own skin breathe and hiss. The Worm doesn't like Leto's statement on sand very much. ]

How do you twist a star? Or do you twist yourself to prove a star's mettle?

Mmm. Definitely know too much. [Yes, he might be teasing.

And that is interesting. Another mental note filed away.]

A star is but radiation and gravity. There are fascinating things to be done with radiation. Or put lead in its heart and it dies by inches. Though it is a large piece of reality to turn about, yes?

The question is always whose will gives way first, yours, or the universe.

[ He shrugs. All his movements seem to be filtered through a lens, like he's put on a skin of someone younger than him, or someone he's imitating. Not quite right, something quite off.

That line softens his demeanor, unintentional. Loki, the littlest one, always tried to push the boundaries, tried to teach them to break the rules.

Lie a little, he had told Dune, when you need it. ]

As long as you don't get carried away.

[There's a definite tilt to Loki's head as he observes this, notes it.] You mostly do a good job of appearing human. [Offered as a casual observation. It's not something that requires that much effort. Humans like believing everyone else is human.]

What's the point if you can't be carried away? [After living in the extremes, everything else seems painfully dull.]

I am the most human. The culmination of every human experience that ever existed. As such, my humanity is subject.

[ Leto is human, but isn't. Is a god, but isn't. He fills the spaces between, to occupy all areas. ]

It leaves room for regret. Our hearts are only so small.

Skin deep, or skin shallow? [Well, he can buy that humans can evolve a lot into something more interesting. They're practically bacteria, right now. There's nowhere for them to go but up the evolutionary ladder. Not that he has any confidence they'll be able to do so.]

Ah, that is the mistake. I cut my heart out and buried it in a lock box on that beach. It works much better that way. [The number of lies he's packed into two sentences is rather astounding, really. But he's more curious what the answer to that will be.]

[ To that, he parries lightly. ]

I have two skins. Which one is shallow and which one is deep?

I'm sure you tried, Loki. And tried very hard.

[ But the success of such a thing has yet to be determined. Many have claimed to do such things with their hearts, forgetting that their feelings are still circulating, a hellish cycle. ]

I'd have to know more of the quality of the leather before I could guess. [Oh, this is fun.] Beast or man?

Don't be ridiculous, Leto, I haven't known a moment of hard work in my life. [He tried so bloody hard when he was a child that he cracked whatever heart he had to pieces. Trying produces nothing but salt and ashes. He's just learned to like eating bitter things.] Half-hearted digging with a dull spade, surely.

It walks with no legs and it burrows deep.

[ Riddles for the trickster. It'll keep Loki entertained. Though Leto wonders if he'll be able to guess. The Arrakis sandworm aren't exactly prominent in other parts of the universe. For obvious reasons.

He shakes his head. Pity and sadness would serve no purpose. And only Loki can save himself. ]

Perhaps. I've only walked in the heart of one Loki and he triumphed. And such knowledge was bittersweet.

[He considers this for a moment, eyes narrowing to slits.] Worm or wyrm?

[He is very entertained. And for that, he would be grateful if he knew how, any more.

But this is even more interesting. He's not the same Loki he was in Asgard, that's to be certain, when he and his younger self loathed each other utterly.]

The one I knew had a goal I found most interesting. To have succeeded, I find even more interesting.

[ It takes him a few minutes, stepping off to consult his memories of worm and wyrm, phonetics, dialects, syntax, the old Romans, the English ways . . . ]

Worm. Though similar to the wyrm in feeling, I would say. The Arrakis sandworm dominates the desert. Its gaping maw swallows ships whole and to escape, you must walk without rhythm.

[ And even then, the chances of survival are abysmal. Only the Fremen could make crossings in the desert. ]

[ Softly. ] He won. A comedy in thirty parts, a tragedy in thirty-one. But he found the truth of Loki. And thus, could defeat Loki while being robbed.

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