Loki (godofstories) wrote in noexits, @ 2022-06-30 22:46:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log/thread/narrative, marvel (comics): loki laufeyson, → week 039 (pilot - the green) |
Day 7 | The Green
Thus concludes this chapter of Loki, haunted by a life taken to forge his own and forever in the shadow of the Loki who forced him to do it. Which will win in the end?WARNINGS Ghosts & Guilt.
He supposed he should appreciate it. Green was his color.
He didn’t appreciate it. It was green, but it was also a green rotted by the murky sky above. As if someone had a heavy hand with their paint palette when they should have left well enough alone. Instead of leaving the canvas be, they had tried to fix a mistake with more and more paint applied until the end result was an unfocused, unidentifiable mess.
The sky, for all its lack of feature, had begun to dim. It was the last night, Loki reminded himself. The obvious reason for being here was because Resets were promised to Kate Bishop, here, every week’s conclusion. But some attention was due to the fact that the seconds ticking away were equal in part to seeing any specters emerge from that sky again. The hours could be counted on two hands. Soon: just one.
Kate would be here any moment. He merely had to entertain himself until she arrived. He looked up, absently. And for that, he missed a figure materializing along the overgrown ledge of the Peaslee. It was only upon bringing his gaze down that he realized his company.
“Why won’t you go?” The wave of a hand was meant to be a signature of indifference, but the worried line of Loki’s mouth wouldn’t fool the astute. He didn’t face the ghost child, not directly.
No reply came.
“I know what you are.” Loki crossed his arms, then realized how petulant it looked. He belatedly felt silly for it. Then, sillier, given that the only audience wouldn’t react. “You’re that shred of doubt in the back of my mind. Do you wait there? Until it’s quiet? Until I think I’ve lost you?”
No reply came.
“Say something. For god’s sake, you’re still something of a Loki. Speak --”
The child blinked,
and brought its hollow gaze
“you.”
It pointed.
“carry me with you.”
A conversation had not been expected, despite being requested. Loki’s words had been stoppered. The instant cessation made him sit upright, on alert.
“Yes, fine. I carry the guilt. I tried to embrace you, you know. Apparently, it only made you settle in.”
The child blinked
once again.
“you carry the choice.”
Loki shoved himself to his feet. As if standing meant anything in this face-off. Perhaps it was a belated attempt to assert himself and retain some dignity in the wake of an implication that he -- clever Loki -- missed the point.
“What choice? What choice is there?” He should have measured his tone. He could hear the temper. The child didn’t even flinch. It looked. Hollow eyes. Perhaps they both recognized Odin’s echo in that moment.
“I asked you! What choice is there? If this place is any indication of anything, then my magic is still tainted.” A hand, this time more aggressively, cast at the sky. “Maybe it’s me. Maybe it’s Derleth. Maybe it’s the culmination of both, and for all of it I don’t… I don’t see...”
The child turned its chin up.
Slightly.
Higher even, on another ledge of Peaslee’s tiered rooftop. Another figure. Perhaps always present,
but unnoticed.
Great horns atop the helm, older than them all.
“IT IS TIME TO CHOOSE.”
Loki stared. Few things stole the voice from a trickster known for exactly that one thing. Months of the Child, sure, he had contended with its presence. But the Original…
He thought back.
And back.
Moments where there was movement out of the corner of his eye. Someone in the distance, but gone inside the limits of a blink. A sense that something bigger was peering over his shoulder. Unease.
Loki looked down. The Others did not.
“You want me to choose between you,” he said.
Said one.
“to choose your path.”
Said the other.
“THE FIRE.”
“let it burn.”
“WE’LL SEE YOU.”
“soon.”
There wasn’t a chance to reply, to bolt at them. The sensation of seering came quick with an onset that Loki had entirely missed in the midst of trying to find the failsafe -- for what was a trickster god without that?
He dropped to his knees.
The flames were too fast as they encircled him.
And he didn’t think fast enough.
The world went from green, to yellow, to black.