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

[touchofrogue]

Ah. That. Well. That.

She looked at him and then glanced away. It hurt a little, because... how did she even say this? How did she bring this out without hurting him? Quietly: "...ya know I meant it when I said that ya kept me comin' back to you. But I can only come back because I've had ta go an' change... and I don't know if ya see that. And that scares me."

Was he with her because it was a habit? Or was he with her? Did he still want to know her, down to finding out the parts of her that were different? Was he interested, which felt insane considering he... well, he was there, holding her hand. But that didn't change the way she felt.

[complicatedliar]

Loki kept hold of her hand as he considered these words. He could try to give her an answer he thought she wanted to hear, or could be honest. Well, he still maintained his oath to be honest to her.

"I know you have lived when I haven't been there, and had new experiences." But that wasn't necessarily that different from other times when they'd been separated. They lived together, not within each other. "I cannot know what that feels like for you, from the inside. But as I am a keen observer of you... what I have seen of you as the lady I love is not so vastly changed from who I have known."

Would she be angry he didn't see her as vastly different? If she were vastly different, his feelings necessarily would be, too.

[touchofrogue]

Rogue was silent for a time, remembering the first time they'd been torn apart. He'd returned home; a year had passed for him, seven days for her. He'd been imprisoned during that time, his mother had died... she still remembered how it felt when she'd first seen that new scar on his chest and feared the worst.

He hadn't kept anything back from her, could she say the same? He'd been the same man, but there had been ways he'd changed too -- sharper curves, harder edges, and so much more pain...

"I ain't saying I'm a completely different person..." She sighed quietly and asked, "How did it feel for you? When ya came back from Asgard that first time?"

[complicatedliar]

He considered this, reviewing his memory of that time. "I do not think I had changed, over much. But when one lives with oneself day to do and change is incremental, it might not be so visible." It wasn't like when he'd fallen through the black hole. He hadn't felt like a different person crawling from the wreckage. All there'd been was his grief for Frigga, but... he'd told Rogue of that.

And had that made him so different as a person? He didn't feel it to be so. His feelings toward her hadn't changed, which seemed the most important part. "The greatest change I experienced in that time was with how I related to my brother," he offered.

So had her time changed how she might relate to him? Possible. How had he not noticed something like that.

[touchofrogue]

She was quiet again, considering. How could it be that he hadn't felt any different? Was there something wrong with her, that she didn't feel the same?

(Or maybe it was something to do with him being so old - what was a year to someone over one thousand? Maybe it had to do with first times and first loves and the constant, grinding down of helplessness, how there was nothing she could do to bring him back, how losing him had nothing to do with either of them and she hated being so helpless.)

She wasn't sure what else to say, having already opened up far more than was normally comfortable. "Okay," she said. She didn't let go of his hand. She hesitated and continued, "Where I feel I've changed most is... well, isn't so much a change, maybe, as an awareness."

More quietly, "D'ya have any idea how much I missed you?"

[complicatedliar]

"Awareness," he echoed, with a slight nod. "Awareness comes with experience. And you have experienced much when I have been gone." But that wasn't something that would be evident to him necessarily; it was something that affected how she viewed the world, but would only touch how she interacted with it in subtle ways. He didn't know what it was like to be in her skin.

"I can guess," he said. "But I cannot know. I do not live in your skin."