nishka//loki (nishka) wrote in paxletalelogs, @ 2017-04-19 22:21:00 |
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Entry tags: | kali, loki |
Du blir løyst frå banda som bind deg
Who: Nish and Jayati
What: Nish and Jayati meet for a drink.
Where: Pax, Third Floor
When: Monday, April 17, 2017, evening
Listen: This is what Nish could almost hear in the mead hall. (And here is what it means.)
Nish had been lying in bed in her apartment, staring up at the darkening sky above her, marveling at the colours bleeding across it as if some unseen sunset was happening around her. It was all so real. It couldn’t be a dream, could it? Was she really going crazy? Was this all in her head?
But it couldn’t be...she’d seen other people, and they saw it too. There was the frantic messages on the network. There was the fact that none of them could leave the building. If she was crazy...that meant they all were.
’Not necessarily,’ Loki chided. Ever since their ‘lockdown’, Loki had been more and more vocal, his voice as loud as if he was sitting right next to her, as commonplace as her own.
“You advocating for me to start taking my meds again?” she asked aloud with a grin, “I thought you hated the pills, you can’t speak when I take them.”
’Fine, fine. Hey listen...we should go. There’s something I want you to see.’
Nish’s eyebrow rose, but she didn’t. “Ohh? Like what? This better be good…”
’Trust me, it’s worth it.’ he said, and she could hear amusement and...excitement in his voice. Curious, she got up from her bed and headed to what passed as her front door these days. ’Wait, he said, and she stopped short so suddenly it alarmed her. Her head turned towards the kitchen and she walked into it without thinking about it, her hand moving up to a cupboard to pull out her favourite mug, the 18oz-er that she used for tea when she had a lot of work to do, or a lot of relaxing. ’You’ll need this,’ he said cryptically. With a shrug, she clutched the handle of her mug in one hand and left her apartment, moving on autopilot to the elevator and pressing ‘3’ without a second thought.
When the doors opened a wave of nostalgia hit her. Her eyes widened in awe, her lungs took in deep gulps of air, scented with memory. Everything around her was familiar, but strange at the same time, the fingertips of her free hand brushing lightly against the ash roots lining the walls, her boots sinking slightly into the earth at her feet. Soon the hallway opened up into a large room dominated by a massive hearth with a roaring bonfire that dazzled her eyes. Her breath caught in her throat and tears sprang to her eyes at the sweetness of the memories flooding her at the sight. The walls of the room were lined with battle-scarred shields and swords and crossed axes hooked onto the wood beams, the roof above the flames open to the night sky where she could just make out a glowing ribbon of the northern lights. Her heart raced, but instead of the worrying pace of her damaged heart, this was from excitement and anticipation. Her eyes fell to the giant kegs around the fire, separated at intervals by log benches where dozens of warriors could sit comfortably around it to tell stories and drink mead.
’You remember,’ she heard, and Loki’s voice was filled with joy. She didn’t, but she felt as if she was just on the cusp of it, as if something was still holding her back from full understanding. Sounds of chimes and singing and laughing and talking in a half-understood language taunted just beyond the range of hearing, adding to the feeling that she knew this place, that she’d been here before, and that it was where she belonged.
She rushed forward, crouching by one of the kegs and, now grateful for her large mug, filled it to overflowing with the familiar and yet still strange golden brew. The moment it touched her lips memories flooded her once again, and she drank deep, sitting herself cross-legged on one of the benches, eyes closed as memories of another place, another time, danced behind her eyelids to the haunting almost-music.
Whatever Jayati had resembling a sleep schedule before everything went sideways was long gone. Along with her sense of time which had previously been something she had been rather proud of, but she wasn’t sure what time or what day it was. Some of the windows she had seen showed the sun in vastly different positions, and no matter how much she slept she never felt like she had.
That was probably nerves though. Maybe. Who knows.
Some of the residents were enjoying this--Max in particular, and if she could come and go as she pleased then she would probably be fascinated by it, but she couldn’t so she wasn’t.
Jayati was, no, is good at taking orders. The Triads had showed her the value of a good leader, how to judge when an order was too much for her to follow and how to gauge the best way for her to balance out their weaknesses. So a loss of a bit of control wasn’t the issue, but that was when she was handing it over to someone she trusted and respected.
This was not that at all.
She felt like a rat. Or a child.
The only floor that had suited her was the one that was obviously modeled after hindu traditions. She knew about her mother’s faith, though she tended to only heed it when she was scared or the sort of sad that felt like an abyss. But it gave her some peace, because it reminded her of her mother. But she couldn’t stay still, even there, and found herself exploring until she was drawn in by--
A quiet sort of music that she couldn’t pinpoint nor ignore, and a beautiful sky that belonged in a painting of an otherworldly land. Definitely not California. It was beautiful, though a bit cold for her tastes and she continued to explore until she felt the outer edges of heat until she saw the great fire that was the source of it. There was a bench there among some trees she couldn’t identify, some kegs? Or barrels?
Finally, her eyes found her friend looking...happy?
“Nishka, are you...Well?” Concern did not come easily to her, moreso showing it so blatantly, but Nish just looked so different from the last time she had seen her it was hard not to be a little worried. Along with the fact that she was drinking something, probably whatever came out of those barrels which seemed like a reckless idea.
Nish’s eyes opened and focused immediately on Jay, and she smiled. “Hey,” she greeted, canting her head towards the seat next to her, by the fire. “I am...I think. I’m…” she paused, looking around the room again, feeling at home, at peace. “It’s this place. I belong here. I just...it’s like a dream I had, but the meaning of it is just out of reach.” She paused for a moment in companionable silence, and then looked down at the mug in her hands. She took another long drink from it and then offered it to Jay.
“You’ll like it. Don’t worry, it’s safe. It’s honeyed mead,” she said, though didn’t know that until the words came out of her mouth. She managed not to look startled by that sudden knowledge, though she was starting to get used to Loki putting words in her mouth and nudging her actions with his will. So far though, they had all been for her benefit.
Like a dream? What a peaceful dream that had to have been, much more serene than Jayati’s own whose dreams were usually exaggerated memories or bloody battlefields against inhuman foes in places she didn’t recognize. Probably her mind overworking due to stress. But she was glad Nishka had found a place where she could relax and be happy, she hadn’t known the other for very long but she seemed to have a great many demons just like Jay did.
“Mead? I thought you could only find that at ren faires.” Liquor did sound nice though, and her self control when it came to saying no wasn’t exactly one of her stronger traits. So she took the mug in hand with a nod of thanks and took a drink finding it--surprisingly smooth and pleasant actually.
“Well if we’re going to be drinking…” Jay sat herself down by Nishka with little fanfare, passing the drink that was already warming her insides back to her, “What is it about this place that is familiar to you?”
Nish shifted so that she sat cross-legged on the bench facing Jay and accepted the mug back. She drank what was left in the mug and then moved to refill it from the keg next to them, setting it between them on the bench.
“Everything,” she said with a wan smile. “My grandfather...he used to tell me the old stories when I was little,” she blurted out before she could keep the words in. The mead was loosening her tongue, but she wasn’t minding it. It felt good to talk; she’d been so lonely lately. “This is Norway...or at least, what it looked like a long long time ago. I used to dream about it, because he described it as if he’d been there himself.” Inside, Loki was listening attentively, and she could almost feel him smile at the story, and she echoed the sentiment on her own lips. “He would have loved all this.”
There seemed to be nearly an endless supply of the mead which was going to spell trouble sooner or later, but she could hold her liquor well enough that later would be a bit.
Hopefully.
She took another drink and leaned back on the bench so she could tilt her head back and peer at the sky, “That makes more sense than anything else these days.” The place was good for her even, the anger that had been chewing at her since Sunday abating a bit, like the tide receding from the beach. Or maybe that was just from being in the presence of someone she trusted, “I’ll be honest with you, I barely have a highschool education and I know fuckall about Norway.” She gave her friend a rueful smile, “But I can see why you like it here.”
Nish laughed, and didn’t hold back. It was joyful, carefree, and she was sure the mead was to blame, but enjoyed it anyway. “It’s up north, and it’s the land of the Vikings.” She paused, the mug halfway to her lips, and grinned. “One of them, anyway,” she added with a half-shrug. Many had come from Denmark and Sweden too, but the most famous came from Norway, or so she’d been told. “We were the first to sail across the sea to England, the first to discover the new world…” another pause, and she realized what she’d said. “They were, I mean.” She took another drink and set the mug down.
“Sometimes...well, it would be nice if I could just...leave everything behind and go back to a simpler time. This time.” It was a desire she didn’t even know she’d had, but part of her suspected that those words belonged to Loki. Just as she was sure the images on the canvas in her apartment were his memories.
Oh! The vikings! She smacked her hand on her thigh as she remembering something suddenly, the tail of a joke she hadn’t seen in years, “Vikings, rape and pillage that’s what that is, rape and pillage.” Jayati grinned before laughing, “I would have been an excellent viking, I mean, not the raping but the razing villages, fighting for leadership and all that. The fun bits.” Shit. That was probably not something good to admit, it made her seem like a bad person didn’t it? Maybe it was the mead making her so honest, at least that’s what she would blame it on.
Jayati narrowed her eyes at the slip, “Careful Nishka,” She stood suddenly, walking towards the bonfire so she could nudge at one of the outer sticks with her leather boot, “I miss my old life, and there are some aspects of this I like,” Scarred and calloused hands gave a vague gesture to the seemingly enchanted floor, “But eventually it’s going to go away, or I’m going to blow a hole in the side of the building, either way. But it’s temporary. We can’t get back the things we lost.” The last bit came out bitter and cynical, because yeah. She missed simple, missed grasping onto her rage and bloodlust and riding it until she was giddy and high, and then exhausted. But those days were gone.
Jay’s last comment struck a chord with her, and with Loki. She felt...nostalgia from him, so powerful it almost brought tears to her eyes. But she herself felt regret, the loss of her carefully built image, her new life, at the hands of Abel. She clenched her teeth, anger swiftly replacing all other emotions. “Like my reputation?” she muttered darkly, taking the cup again and drinking deep.
They passed the rest of the night with companionable chatter, only turning in to their respective apartments when they were both good and drunk.
[ooc: I’ll miss you, Alice <3]