it's a mingle, a paisley mingle

[timelapsed]

Who: Paisley crew and/or visitors and/or Chloe
Broadcast: N/A
Action: The Paisley
When: Anytime in March p much

[ Welcome to the Paisley, where the drama's made up and the points don't matter ]

Comments

[precedented]

( meant to say already instead of always, whoops. )

Hardly. I've never been good with hmm, the simpler aspects of life. The expression of a feeling, the touch of warmth. I leave that to humanity. It is not my path to tread.

Then why don't you do it? It sounds like your kind of fun.

[complicatedliar]

[Figured.]

You seem to be doing well enough to me, in regards to emotion. [Says the most emotionally constipated guy who ever graced Luceti.] I can say nothing of touch or warmth. [He doesn't like being touched in general, unless he controls the encounter or really likes the other person. And he radiates cold.]

I have done, in the place I lived before this. I might again, should I become sufficiently bored.

[precedented]

An idea to shelve away, for the moment of utter ennui.

[ A terrifying possibility, becoming bored. Leto and Loki both have that potential to be destructive when they're at a loss.

He rolls his shoulders. The Worm hisses. ]

I manage. No one has tried to kill me, so I consider that a personal victory.

[complicatedliar]

[Finally, someone other than Rogue appreciates how terrible that possibility would be.]

I've all my magics here, so it will be far down on the list. [A brief flash of a grin.] I could be convinced to help you edit such a column. As an experiment.

No one has tried to kill me either.

I fear I'm losing my touch. Complacency, perhaps.

[precedented]

[ He considers this. It would be a way to stir up the fleet without getting too out of hand. A suitable means of escape from his own tedium. Isn't that why he was here? ]

All right. Why not? Two heads will prove better than one.

[complicatedliar]

[Oho. This sounds fun.]

Excellent. We shall have to think of an amusing name for ourselves.

And I can play an auntie very well if the mood strikes me.

[precedented]

Hmm, a name . . . What do you suggest?

[complicatedliar]

Hmm. Something that sounds innocently human would be best. [He laughs.] I'd say Peggy, but there's already one of those about. She's rather keen for a mortal, by the way. [Fun to poke with a stick, he means.]

Susan, perhaps? Something exceedingly plain and sensible sounding. Thinking of the books of theirs I've read. Elizabeth? That one has a diminutive form that seems well-liked: Lizzy.

[precedented]

Not Susan.

[ The response comes quickly. It was instinctive. ]

Agatha. Agony Aunt Agatha. Triple A, for humour's sake.

[complicatedliar]

It does roll off the tongue.

[Familiar name, in a way.]

The humans have a writer of mystery stories, named Agatha. I've some small affection for the name, so I think it suits. [He did a LOT of reading in Luceti, and most of it was fiction, because the nonfiction was laughable. He corrected the text books (or sometimes incorrected them) for fun.]

[precedented]

Agatha Cristie.

[ The intonation in which he says that name is strange. It doesn't sound like Leto at all. In fact, it sounds like an older woman. When he talks again, his voice has returned to normal, though it has a dreamlike quality to it. ]

I remember her. We met in the hospital, long ago.

[complicatedliar]

Yes, that would be it. [The change in tone doesn't escape his notice, but neither does he offer any great outer reaction, other than a mild curiosity.] I wonder what brought her there.

[Leto's use of we is also noted. Interesting.]

[precedented]

Many things would bring someone to a hospital.

[ He seems to back to himself again, a brief fey mood. ]

[complicatedliar]

[Dryly:] During her time period, I believe they are called ambulances.

[precedented]

Is that what they were? I forget.

[ Had he forgotten? Who could say. He seems too congenial to make an issue out of it. ]

[complicatedliar]

How lucky for you that I am here to remember such trifling details. [Really, Leto. Really.] Perhaps I ought write out one of her books for you.

[precedented]

[ He grins. ]

It would serve little use. I have them all up here. [ He lightly taps the side of his head. ]

It makes reading books a bit tedious.

[complicatedliar]

Oh good. Then you could be a good fellow and tell me of Death in the Clouds, our library never did get that one.

[precedented]

I'm not so bored that I would recite books by heart, Loki. Which I'm sure you're well aware of. Find me on a bad day and perhaps I might.

[complicatedliar]

Rude. I make mine own offer and good faith and such am I met. [A little flick of his fingers.] If you're so busy as all that, then why let me detain you at all?

[precedented]

Because, Loki . . .

[ He leans into Loki's personal space. ]

I know exactly how much time it will take. I know the when, the if and the how. Every beat of time is mine to know and mine to use. I am always in control.

[complicatedliar]

[Hah. He's not going to back off of this. Too much pride and--

well, he's not going to admit this even in the privacy of his own mind, but he finds this terribly attractive

--he leans in a little himself. Not quite touching.]

Then tell me, darling, what am I going to do next?

[precedented]

Even the odds.

[ He pulls back, satisfied. ] If you can, of course.

loki this is your life and these are your choices

[complicatedliar]

[Thinking about it would be a foolish thing. Thinking about it would mean he'd be doing the same calculations that Leto likely has. It's a rapid blaze of realization that while six dimensional chess has been Loki's method for the most part in these past centuries, what will serve him best here is his much more fundamental nature: chaos.

For all his plots, Loki's chaotic nature has been the determining factor of his greatest successes--and his worst defeats.

So he goes where his nature pushes him. Which in this case means closing the little distance Leto has gained, quick as a striking snake, and nipping his ear. Not hard enough to injure, perhaps slightly too sharp to be strictly teasing or flirtatious for something so thin-skinned as a human, followed by a hot murmur of:]

I'm a chaos god. I break odds.

[precedented]

[ Pain. It's been so long since he's felt physical pain that it sends a tremor down his body that he doesn't fully control. But Leto doesn't linger on the sensation, quickly reaching out to curl his fingers in Loki's hair tightly.

( he's overstepping himself. leto is not supposed to want things anymore. a dangerous emotion for him )

Air mingled with air. Time trembles when Gods are near. ]

Then break me. And do it well.