Julia and Loki drink questionable alcohol from the previous world. Julia admits she's back to having a hole in her soul, Loki gives her good advice which Julia would rather just not. They talk about
magic.
⚠Nada.
The selection of alcohol wasn’t great. Ikol would confess to that. But, he would also be quick to note that it wasn’t great because the best the previous few stops had to offer was…
Dismal? That might be mean. Sure, the good people of Irkalla did their utmost, but the finesse of crafting a drink was lacking throughout the city. What had been on offer was the rough equivalent of a homebrew. Very pungent. Very interesting. Alarmingly viscous, even. Ikol had popped the top just moments ago and concluded that this was akin to something you could buy over the counter in a pharmacy. The stuff that promised to sooth a cough, but was also a Midgardian way to take the edge off if dosages were skewed a bit.
It was blue, as well.
Whatever. It would be a conversation starter, if nothing else.
He meandered towards Dexter Hall -- journey unremarkable -- and took an appraisal of who had decided to spend time within. A small grin formed up on his face as he noted someone sitting alone.
He walked over. He swung himself into the opposing chair. He placed the bottle of mystery drink on the table in front of him, and then leaned around it.
“Hello,” he told Julia, grin intact.
Julia had her nose buried in a notebook, scribbling furiously. Next to her was a plate piled high with chicken nuggets, far too many for her to eat on her own, but she had figured out how to work the deep fryer in the industrial kitchen and of the frozen food in the walk in freezer, questionable chicken nuggets seemed safer than the next appealing option-- frozen fish fingers. Besides, everything tasted good fried.
She’d made a good dent in the plate. Each time she attuned to the magical mortar and pestle she’d found in the ruins, she found she was always ravenously hungry. Probably nothing to be concerned about? Big magic required big calories, maybe? They reset each week so… it was probably fine.
When the bottle made a clunk front her as it hit the table, Julia blinked out of her stupor and stared at Loki’s smiling face.
Shit. Was she supposed to smile back? After Carver and Malachi, Julia entirely questioned her ability to act normal. Instead she blinked a few times in surprise and answered, “Hey?”
While the notebook wasn’t strictly titled Good Things I Can Do to Make Up for My Lack of Shade and Keep People Off My Scent, in fact it wasn’t titled at all, the list was curious. They were all projects and ideas Julia listed out, big and small, to be helpful. She always loved her projects.
Part of her wanted to close the notebook, but she also didn’t want to attract attention to it, so she remained still. If Loki were a T-Rex in a questionably accurate blockbuster franchise, that might have even worked.
“What’s this?”
“I’ll take it,” Ikol replied, accepting the lukewarm and decidedly neutral greeting. He did have a habit of upending people slightly with his love of small prods and pokes, so contending with someone more unflappable was probably good. And good in a way that was Julia’s favor, even.
He gestured at the bottle, hands splayed so that the bottle was neatly framed between his long fingers. “This is, presumably, awful stuff that I paid too much for. Have you ever encountered anything so truly questionable that you thought, ‘Yes, I should get this. It’s sure to be an adventure. The ending may be a rough one, but the journey should be one worth a good story.’ That’s this bottle. Awful stuff, good story.”
A moment’s pause was taken to get a better sense of what he had interrupted Julia from. Plate of nuggets. Notebook. He raised his brows.
“You seem game for as much. I’ll judge not how many chicken nuggets anyone wants to eat, but the nuggets themselves suggest you’re the right choice.”
Julia pushed the plastic plate of nuggets few inches forward, making a scraping sound along the table’s surface in a wordless offering. Like the alcohol, she couldn’t say they were good, but they were warm and greasy. She gave him a small shrug.
“So, how are we doing this? Drinking directly from the bottle? Is this a challenge to see who can drink the most, or a dare?”
Her face wasn’t expressive. Perhaps she was taking the nature of the challenge too seriously. Her tone indicated interest, but this was Julia. If they were going to make a good story out of this, she was going to rise to the occasion and perhaps (or usually) push it just slightly too far.
She peered into the glass trying to gauge the contents inside.
“...Is the wine blue?”
The nuggets were left for now, but Ikol nodded by way of thanks.
“We’re doing this…” He lifted his hands again, palms shown, then turned them around with a smooth movement. Somewhere in the pivot two glasses appeared, one in each hand. Magic or not, sleight of hand was a talent for a Loki. He slid one glass closer to Julia. “Like civilized people. I do appreciate the raw energy of drinking straight from the bottle, but some habits are hard to break when you were raised by royalty.”
The bottle was plucked off the table’s surface and the top was dispatched. A small amount to start was poured into each glass. The liquid was as blue as a summer sky. It actually didn’t look too tragic, save for the way it flowed like syrup.
“Also, I wouldn’t call it wine. It’s something, but not wine. As for how we’re doing this? The only condition I have is this: take a shot with me, right now. If we survive it, then perhaps there’s a game. Deal?”
The dead, unreadable dimness of her eyes lifted when Loki produced the two glasses. Magic or slight of hand, she was impressed, and her eyes lit up in a way that did not happen normally in her current state.
Her lips formed a small smirk when Loki mentioned royalty. Amusement, humor-- it was a riskier side of herself to show because she had no filter to really stop her from laughing at inappropriate moments, revealing her dark side. This was safer, though. She was merely charmed by him. Being charmed wasn’t evil, right?
She totally had this.
“Oh my god, is this supposed to be wine or cough syrup?” Julia peered into her glass as Loki poured. It was inappropriately viscous. She let out a small huff of a laugh. Now she could safely close the notebook and set it aside. It would be rude not to give Loki her undivided attention, would it not?
Items on her untitled list included; check out the showers in the gym (clean? fix up?), figure out a way to bring dorms down to ground level, ask Mobius if he needs help with project, ask Natasha what she’s up to, donate blood, check on Loki…
Perhaps Julia was merely bored or desperate for something meaningful to do?
Ikol lifted his glass and gave the thick, blue syrup a dubious look. “Hard to say,” he admitted. “First taste might reveal some truths.”
But even while he was busy looking into his glass, he picked up on the movement of Julia closing the notebook. His eyes darted to the side, enough to catch just a glimpse of one page. It looked like a list. The few words he tracked seemed to make sense in a list. Then, the notebook was shut. He looked at Julia and was quiet for a brief second. It was clearly a look that suggested he might return to that later.
“See, it occurred to me that Thor might have been a good pick for this, but only in the sense of his talent for slamming drinks back like an absolute monster. Really, I haven’t spoken to him since he arrived, and that would be a lousy first chat -- I digress. Alternate universe family. Somehow complicated while also not complicated at all. Anyway. Anyway. On three?”
Julia did an excellent job of casually pretending she didn’t notice that look. It was cultivated from years of practice, pretending not to hear people when they doubted her or told her no, then doing the exact thing she set out to do regardless. Depending on the situation, her strength could also be a glaring personality flaw.
Instead, she held up her glass and smiled, “One… Two… Three!”
It had occurred to her that the wine might be enchanted. That was precisely the kind of thing Julia would have done. She drank it anyway, finding the risk to be acceptable. Friends were supposed to trust each other, right?
Maybe they weren’t quite friends yet, but Julia knew she needed them.
She made a face-- a confused face-- not quite ‘baby eating lemons’ face-- and swallowed down the concoction.
“It’s like a melted wine jello shot…” Her expression wasn’t quite pained, more like she’d prepared herself for something worse, and was still waiting for something worse. “...I don’t hate it?”
Julia’s jump to the countdown came as a small surprise, but Ikol was ready. He lifted his glass, and his expression went slack. Perhaps even pensive. The mental database of tastes and flavors that he had called up as possibilities didn’t seem to be anywhere close to what the blue drink actually tasted like.
That wasn’t a bad thing.
“Melted wine jello shot. Never had, but --” He wagged a finger as he thought through both the flavor and texture of the individual elements of what must go into one. “Might be that. I’m willing to take you at your opinion. It isn’t awful.”
And with that, Ikol reached for the bottle and poured a little more. ”So, your to-do list. Is that something for the week, or for the long term?”
“Don’t know,” Julia said casually. She tried her best not to frown. “I usually do better if I have some kind of project or goal to work toward, and my previous project pretty much fell apart, so…”
Julia poured herself an equal amount of wine from the bottle, wine being the generous term for what they were drinking. Wine flavored nyquil? She drank from her glass to avoid talking about it for a beat.
“...Not that I have a great track record of picking out projects. They usually have a way of blowing up in my face.”
Which might have explained the quality of the list; which were mostly benign but deeply unimpressive ways to be helpful around campus.
Ikol hummed, half because he had taken a drink and half because he was trying to get his bearings on how he wanted to direct this conversation. As if that was his to command. He knew at best he could try to nudge it in certain directions, but there wouldn’t be any prying anything out of someone. Besides, he was trying for a friendly line with Julia. Willing her to spill seemed… Old Loki.
He stopped. He assessed. A different avenue was selected and he readjusted his course.
“Well, you’re among the company of another who made some misguided choices. Not strictly speaking of the drink of choice here, but I suppose it gets lumped in.” He set his glass down and didn’t reach for the bottle again. A pointer tapped the rim of the glass.
“Is it because fiddling with your shade makes things harder? I can’t confess that I know how it feels to go without, but… I do understand the murkiness of vessels and souls and magic and the combination thereof.”
Julia paused and wondered if Loki knew. She thought about her next words carefully, “I was pretty much at the professional level for fucking up before I lost my shade.”
She took a drink and emptied her glass, but didn’t move to pour herself more just yet. Maybe she should tell someone, rather than just let her friends eventually figure it out and confront her over it. There was the whole matter of trust to consider. Julia sucked at those kinds of decisions before having her shade removed.
Of all the people she could trust, Loki seemed highest risk, highest reward. Those were the kinds of odds Julia had the most difficulty resisting.
“Doesn’t matter now. I lost it anyway. The Other Loki’s evil half took it for his Julia the week before last. So why aren’t you talking to Thor? Is it him or is it you?”
It wasn’t like he knew her very well. Maybe her casual delivery would cover up that bombshell. There was also the matter of the subject change.
Ikol stopped tapping the glass and looked up. His brows lifted, just slightly, in recognition of a concession. Admission? He leaned in and put his elbows on the table top.
“Me and he, I would say.” First business: a forfeit of some information in kind. Julia had given up some, and so it was time for some repayment. This was the song and dance that went with trying to decipher if trust was earned -- and maybe if there was a kindred soul to be found. “My family tree is horrendous to start with, and the way a Loki relates to a Thor depends on timelines and whether or not Laufey’s son…” Ikol’s slight inclination of his head was in lieu of a bow. “Was taken in by Thor’s father. This is Thor where no such thing happened. He understands that there is a bond, but the details of that bond are known to only me.”
He shrugged. “How do you explain to someone that they should both care for you and explicitly not trust you?” It was rhetorical. Ikol sighed, and notched his chin on one hand. “Out of interest, are shades one and done in your world? The likelihood of regrowing one…?”
“Non-existent. The hole starts to close up, but all that does is make it impossible to put a shade back in. With the reset, I guess I don’t have to worry about that, at least.” She shrugged, as if missing a piece of her soul was no big deal. Though that attitude was likely not going to convince many people she could handle not having a shade, that she wouldn’t devolve into some kind of psychopath.
Julia was still convinced she could game it out. She did okay most of the time.
She looked up and made eye contact with Loki slowly, speaking carefully, “I haven’t told anyone. Carver and Malachi figured it out. Not sure if others have and they’re just not saying anything or…”
But that was a problem for future Julia. She didn’t bother asking Loki not to tell anyone. He either would or he wouldn’t. Her preference was implied.
She considered his rhetorical question. “You should probably just start with talking to him. You’re charming and you bring questionable alcohol. Who wouldn’t love that?”
“A silver lining, to be sure,” Ikol replied. He tapped his temple with his fingers as he mentally chewed on what Julia had told him some more. “Saves a space for a shade to fit back in, if you solve how to get yours back.”
Julia’s level eye contact pulled him up from a deeper consideration. He noted her tone and the intentional manner of her speaking. So, this was a secret. Sort of.
He knew those. He knew that confiding in anyone came with an understanding that the information was not to grow legs and visit anyone else -- not by slip, not by gossip. Precarious. He was sitting on his own secrets, debating what to reply with.
“I wasn’t created with any such shade. Let’s call this a case study, hmm? If you want to get down to brass tacks, then my existence is the merging of a vessel and a bit of magic with what amounts to the memories and base programming for a Loki that once was. Magic took over the vessel. A soul was never really part of the equation. And yet…” Ikol gave Julia a glance, expression inscrutable, but he pulled a small smirk before reaching for the bottle. “Here I am. Magically-speaking, I believe that makes me closer to a golem. A charming golem with questionable alcohol.”
Julia reached for the bottle and poured herself a small amount of alcohol to pass a little time before she spoke. How much to reveal? It seemed if anyone would understand, Ikol would.
“I suspected the other Loki wanted it for his Julia. We’d had a conversation earlier in the week. I also suspected the other Julia was planning something big, some way to ensure their side won. She would have also been powered up based on what I could tell by their relationship. I needed a way to take her out and neither one them knew what suddenly having a conscience and guilt would be like, so…”
She took a sip from the glass and winced. She couldn’t tell if she liked it more or less as she continued to drink and the alcohol hit her small human frame harder than Loki’s.
“The fact I even had my shade back was impossible. I literally blew my shot in the Underworld to get it back when I had the chance before I ended up here. It makes zero sense Loki could find it in Fillory, in an alternate timeline, at least 200 years in past, so I didn’t really question where it came from. I at least know he didn’t rip it out of some random person because I refused to teach him how, so that’s something.”
Julia finished her glass, but didn’t reach for another. She wasn’t sure how intoxicated Ikol could get. It seemed rude to get too far ahead of him.
“Honestly the way you’re built makes more sense. Why should someone’s humanity be tied to a piece of their soul? It’s stupid. It should come from … I don’t know … however science explains it. Leave souls out of it. Mollymauk— did you meet him? We called him Purple Guy. He was purple with horns? Kinda how I was last week…”
Julia couldn’t tell if she was ranting now because she was starting to get heated— anger being one of the few emotions she could still feel— or if because maybe she was more intoxicated than she realized.
“According to Caduceus, the pink really tall cow guy that was here, Molly didn’t even have a soul. Or like he did, but it was just a small fraction of one? And Molly wasn’t a psychopath. It’s complete bullshit.”
Ikol listened, taking a sip of the drink as Julia continued. He could hear the frustration she was experiencing over being given a situation with no discernible fix in a place where every week brought some new variety of nonsense to contend with. He didn’t have any good answers for her, which was frustrating -- less so, relatively -- because he liked to imagine himself some cunning being that could outstep and outsmart any challenge set before him.
Not that it was his challenge to overcome, of course. It wasn’t. And Julia wasn’t sharing because she wanted someone else to effectively solve her. Ikol mentally scolded himself for beginning to think down that path at all.
He downed his glass, and set it in front of him.
“Many things are bullshit. Tell me…” His expression softened and he paused as if to let himself get his words in the right order first. “Do you think yourself a psychopath? Or are you just aware that what you once were may be gone, and you haven’t allowed yourself to be the Julia you are now?”
“I think I’m a high functioning psychopath?” Julia said. The only question was how high functioning was she? She certainly had more awareness over her internal circumstances, but did that really put her in any better shape than other shadeless magicians like The Beast?
“Most of the time,” she added quietly. “I am figuring it out. Except maybe that week we were in a simulation and I came out of it, but that was bullshit and it’s not like I actually murdered anyone that week even if I was kind of a bitch.”
Julia listened to herself and couldn’t tell if that was a valid bar to set for herself or if she was making excuses for what she’d been prepared to do that week.
“The way you put it sounds better,” Julia said. “But I started out allowing myself to be the Julia I am now and nothing good came of it. So, I have to be better than that.”
“Let’s assume for the moment that you’re…” Ikol tilted his head and gave it a brief thought. “Morally-handicapped more so than a psychopath. And if you have a handicap, what you do is find the tool you need to overcome it.”
He fiddled with his glass, and then continued. “When I became me -- when the echo of the original Loki assumed this body -- the soul already inhabiting this body was forever snuffed out. I started my life in my victim’s body. I thought the way to fix everything was to rework the story and reframe what a Loki is.
“It’s a fool’s errand. You can’t change any of that. I don’t think so, not anymore. Not for all the cleverness and cunning I could shake at it. Honestly, the smartest thing to do is find good people and accept help. That’s the big secret. That’s the tool.” He gestured around the room, although it was largely empty except for them. “Find your allies. Make sure they’re better people than you. And keep trying.”
Julia wondered for a moment if she was supposed to feel a certain way about what Loki told her. She didn’t have all the facts, and maybe she didn’t need them, but she felt like the Old Julia would have frowned, flinched, felt something. Julia now just filed it away as a fact. A comparison. She didn’t judge him because she was a good person, she merely lacked the capacity to do so.
His advice, however, made her come close to rolling her eyes. She knew she wasn’t supposed to, so she stared at the ceiling instead until the urge passed. It wasn’t even bad advice. It was reasonable even, like make your bed, drink plenty of water, don’t stay up all night.
Because if Julia had her way, her friends would remain people like Loki, like Carver. It wasn’t like they were bad people. They might have even been better than her. They just didn’t have the same moral compass as some people, which might have been why she hadn’t confessed to Natasha.
“I have a friend back home. He’s my best friend. Usually whenever I do something, I just picture his face, how he would look at me.”
That was kind of close to what Loki was suggesting, right?
“Well,” Ikol started, as he sat back with a shrug, “That isn’t the wrong idea, in general. I think having a physical being with you and telling you when you’re veering off course might be more successful, but I also think that you and I sitting here and drinking this aberration isn’t going to solve anyone’s moral strife.”
He leaned forward and grabbed one of the neglected chicken nuggets, took a bite, and pulled a small grimace. Room temperature. A bit chewy.
“Might I interest you in another project for the moment?
That caught Julia’s attention. She immediately sat up. Even if she had attempted to play it cool otherwise, it wouldn’t have worked. She’d already given herself away.
Probably not a great sign. Was it better that she trusted his idea for a project as a friend, or worse that she was instantly interested in the words of a trickster god?
Maybe both.
“Uh, yeah. What did you have in mind?”
If Julia had been muted and inscrutable at best, this reaction was set at a stark contrast. It made Ikol smirk, but he stifled his laughter before it escaped. He held up a finger to plead her patience for a few seconds.
After a bit of fishing in one pocket, he extracted a single small pouch. It was placed on the table between them, right beside the bottle.
“I procured this. It’s supposedly dust that can reincarnate a fallen creature. I have just the one. If expended, that’s it. I don’t know what it’s made of, and I don’t know what makes it work.” He tilted his head as he looked at Julia. “We workshopped on Hoth. I think we could feasibly do something with this.”
In some ways, Julia was brilliant, even a genius. Thirty-nine other timelines confirmed she was one of Brakebills’ greatest students ever to attend-- though her particular magical discipline likely also helped.
In many ways, however, perhaps the most important ways, Julia was easily manipulated and a fool. Her arrogance and pride kept her from seeing it, kept her making the same mistakes. And now, it was on full display for Loki. Want to get her to do something dangerous? Evil? Just promise her knowledge, offer her a project.
What else did she really have to lose?
After a pause, Julia smiled.
“Maybe we don’t even have to figure out what it’s made from. Everything on Derleth resets, right? Everything we showed up and had on us resets. …So what if we can figure out a way to trick the resetting mechanism and make it work for us? Not just this dust. Alcohol, decent food stuffs…”
And on and on Julia went. Her face was animated. She looked happy. Julia was the most human she’d ever been since losing her shade once more.