Ikol and Kate reunite after his disappearance, and she is a little confused by his
transformation.
⚠
Character thinking another died.
There, Loki thought. Exactly where I expected you to be.
There wasn’t arrogance behind the thought. It wasn’t as if a bet had been won, or he’d delivered a cutting blow to someone trying to out-game him. In fact, the soft, nearly-silent sigh that punctuated the unspoken words would have clued anyone in that if there was any measure of emotion here it was something less barbed: relief.
Derleth changed people, it seemed.
Or maybe that was credit wrongly given because all Derleth had done was put Kate in his path and vice versa.
He stepped up onto the roof from the stairs within the Peaslee Theater. Bare feet against the cool surface of the roof didn’t make much sound, which meant Kate didn’t stir as Loki closed the distance and crouched down to sit beside her. She would probably wake. Her innate paranoia would probably clock his presence without him having to shake her, and so… he waited.
He waited and considered that of all the places she could be right now, she had scaled to this height. To this location. It was an answer to an unasked question. It quieted the little nagging voice in the back of his mind. Kate was here because it was their spot.
She'd come here because it was the last place she could think of that he could go. The wards were back up. Kate had no interest in waking someone up at 3am, but damned if that itch wasn't there. They could just crawl right back into bed after she got her answer. Did Loki reset this time? What happened last week? Where did he go?
The whole week had been bullshit. The area had been picked over so much that there wasn't much to pick so Kate had turned to hunting birds. She foraged and went out into Dunwich to find anything that could be useful. The truth was: she was almost useless when there wasn't a city around.
The shifting light in the void was unmistakable. Kate jerked herself groggily away from the shadow, hoping that it wasn't the alligator version of her partner come to snack on a hand. She needed those, and she needed to open her eyes to see whatever was happening. She blinked herself awake, senses still partially paused, as she looked up at him.
"You."
She pointed to where there should have been a char mark on the ground.
"I thought you died."
“Me.”
He had done a quick survey of the network. It was enough to realize that while the bulk of Derleth had been fighting legions of undead, he’d been tucked away somewhere. And also nowhere. Perhaps he liked to blame ‘Derlethian nonsense’ for a fair share of what went awry in a given week, but there was also a very prevalent other variety of nonsense. Lokian nonsense. And the other Loki didn’t have sole claim to all of it.
He had to crouch a bit. It was a small measure of stooping that hadn’t been needed before, but it was mostly hidden away in the way he leaned forward to lasso his knees with his arms. The tattered ends of sleeves ended mid-forearm. He tilted his head as he looked at Kate. It was almost like seeing her for the first time. A new perspective in a sense.
“I was having a team meeting with me, myself, and I.” Loki’s eyes followed Kate’s finger to where she was pointing. “It came up unexpectedly...” His attention drifted to something out of focus, and perhaps not within the tangible realm.
“Or, rather, expectedly. In hindsight.”
Kate's mind was slowly waking up enough that she noticed differences, and there was a lot. His hair was disheveled in a way it wasn't before. One of his horns was broken off, like Sylvie's. He had no shoes on, his clothing was in shambles, and finally… He was missing a tooth. What the hell had happened?
She sat up and really looked at him. Was he the same Loki from before? Or had he been replaced with a new one? Again?
"What happened?"
Her question brought Loki’s attention back. He met her gaze and found it searching, likely for answers. Who wouldn’t have questions in the wake of everything? He’d vanished for a week, and now he was here. But different.
In all honesty, asking him what happened was a nice, whole-approach way of trying to pry back the lid on it all. But he could see that there was some hesitance, and that meant answering something she hadn’t yet asked.
“I am still me.” He held out a hand to her, palm up, inviting her to reach back. “Trust in that. I only needed to embrace being wholly me. It seems that Derleth agreed given that I’ve a few upgrades… But I am still me.”
People who disappeared and came back new in her world usually came back for the worse. Case in point: her dad in his younger body with mind control powers or her mom whose death had all been a lie and she was a vampire. The last time she dealt with a newly changed Loki, he had manipulated them all into bumping his age so his powers were stronger.
She didn't want to distrust him, but everything about him was ragged and run down, as if he'd lost a fight against himself. She held her hand out to take his, but before she dropped it there, she said, "No tricks?"
“I had to make a choice about who I was. That Loki you knew? Still me. I needed to turn a page. That’s all.” His expression softened, and he looked at their not-quite-touching hands.
“No tricks…” He echoed after Kate. “Only mischief,” Loki replied, finally. He waited for her to make the decision, hand held steady and permitting the space between his palm and hers.
Her relief was almost a tangible thing between them. Instead of reaching for his hand, though, she darted forward and threw her arms around him. That whole week he was gone, not knowing if he was alive somewhere or if the faeries had somehow taken him, had been worse than those last moments before she died during the collapse of Butler Hall. The pain hadn't been physical then, but it cut just as deeply.
"Try not to do that again? Or at least leave more than a char mark on the roof, okay?"
The sudden forward momentum of Kate might have toppled most, but Loki was a veritable pillar thanks to his unique physiology. He threw up his arms once he caught onto what was happening, and so Kate was received into an equal embrace. Newer memories of Verity staying by his side had been consoling, but Kate had carved out a piece of his heart for her own in a different way. Her acceptance beforehand had helped guide him through his choice. Now, it reinforced him.
“No, no. Of course not. Next time, a note at minimum.” His tone was easy, casual and clearly the mark of someone playing along despite knowing that for all the power of gods and the strength of wills -- that nothing was guaranteed.
“It shouldn’t be a concern for some time,” he continued. He pulled away enough to gesture at the sky, one hand cupped upward. “My former selves had come along for the ride. I suppose they were always there. They thought they could force my hand to choose one path or the other. Terrible tricksters both, really, because they didn’t consider that rules only bind those who abide them. Others turn to imagination.” He let his gaze slide down to Kate and gave her a crooked smile. “Inspiration.”
"Tell me that you kicked them both in the balls and told them to shove it where the sun don't shine?" Her fingers coiled in the thick fur at his collar, as if holding onto him would keep him from disappearing. The clothes… they seemed like he had been stretched out enough to rip the ends of his coat and pants. Reminded her a little of the Hulk.
Last week had been a monster of a week, and that was before you counted the zombies. Kate didn't enjoy killing animals with her skills, but it was that or starve, and there were way too many mouths to feed to put on airs about being squeamish. This week, she planned to feed the squirrels and some of the other creatures in the Green as a way to make up for it.
"So you out-tricked your other selves?" She paused. "So what does that make you now? The Trickiest Trickster God?"
“Oof,” Loki replied to the first question, and he settled his arm around her to try and make their rooftop huddle more comfortable. “No. No, low shots. No skewering. Just a flat-out refusal, I would say. And then…”
He held out his free arm, which gave the set of them a view of the fire-touched, burnished sleeve. “I suppose Derleth might have been trying to coordinate one of those updates, but I wasn’t the right Loki at the time. The moment I became the right Loki… well. Speculation, of course. Who even knows? Magic. Magic is always half guessing in the dark and discerning in the light.”
The arm was lowered. He looked back to Kate, brows drawn and mouth taut for a second. “I am sorry. The intent wasn’t to leave you alone. I saw the network.”
It wasn't the first time they'd seen one another a little emotional at something or other. There had been plenty of times before coming here and now at Derleth they'd had weird emotional strings that unraveled each week. They seemed to keep one another steady enough to deal with the hits, but there was only so much another person could do. At some point, you had to deal with things yourself.
Kate shrugged a shoulder. She knew that. His response was exactly what she'd thought. Well, maybe not the apology, but the rest of it was definitely there. She didn't think he'd ditched and gone to some other world without her.
But what she said was, "You owe me a pizza when we get somewhere with pizza. And I want it New York style."
Loki’s gaze dropped first, then he tilted his face to look at Kate better. “For all that, your demands are pizza?” He let the question linger in the air, but he suspected Kate’s query was just the easiest grab. And so he went with it.
“Fine, pizza it is,” he replied, but he’d already started to gather his limbs together. It didn’t make a difference that he was somewhat tangled up with Kate because as he started to stand up, he merely tugged her along. “But for now, I can promise breakfast. And if anyone is occupying the kitchen, I’ll throw them out.”
He glanced down -- a little more down than previously -- and frowned momentarily. “Where’s the furred one?”
"It was, like, three in the morning when I got up. He wasn't really interested in leaving the bed, so I let him sleep in." Lucky was great, but he was kind of a butthead when he didn't want to do something. Sometimes he liked to bury himself in her pillows if she tried to get him off the bed to leave the room and he didn't want to. That was very rare, but it was silly and frustrating all at once.
She almost felt flung when he tugged her out of her chair, and then realized just how much taller he was now. Kate looked up then down, then back up. "Bro, did you hit a growth spurt?"
In the span between standing and waiting for Kate to adjust to the upright, Loki took out his phone and started to scroll through some of the morning chatter. He pulled a mild face to find out that, once again, a group had descended on the kitchen and was holding full court there. Perhaps other plans were in order.
“Did I…?” He looked up. But mostly he looked down. It took a second to rewind what he had heard and catch what Kate was talking about. “Ah, yes. In a sense. Full magic, full height. Also, it may well have to do with eating my vegetables. You know what they say.”
But then he paused and a little of his punchy outlook dimmed. “I promise I’m still me.” He held out his hand to her and nodded toward the stairs. It was an invitation to come with him.
Kate had to admit, she was kind of digging this new look. It somehow suited him more than the previous look, which was pretty fantastic. It might take a little getting used to, just because of the height difference, but she figured it would be fun to climb. Pun intended.
She didn't hesitate this time, slapping her hand into his. "I'm starving, but after we eat, we're finding someplace private. It's been a week without you, and I've got a lot of exploring to do."