ᴀɢᴇɴᴛ ᴍᴏʙɪᴜs (timetwister) wrote in valloic, @ 2021-08-09 11:39:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !: action/thread/log, ₴ inactive: loki, ₴ inactive: mobius |
WHO: Mobius & Loki
WHAT: Loki's gone dark, so Mobius goes to check on him in person and finds Frost Giant Loki with 20-pack abs
WHERE: New Asgard
WHEN: Today
WARNINGS: Nah?
STATUS: Complete
Living by the ocean was something Mobius appreciated in ways he couldn’t quite put words to - but he just knew that he was supposed to be near the water, able to open windows and breathe in the sea breeze and feel the salt in the air scrape along his cheeks. The cottage he’d selected sort of resembled what he imagined a weather-beaten boathouse might look like - it was small, natural, and rustic with exposed walls and interiors painted white, a stone fireplace, and a tiny porch; access to the house went through a narrow natural ravine with gnarled birch shrubs that grew densely in the area - honestly, it was perfect for him. He didn’t have any complaints about that. What he did have a slight bothersome feeling about was the fact that - whilst shit was hitting the fan, as it were - Loki went completely silent. Mobius talked to him daily, for the most part, and it seemed especially important to keep in touch now that an avalanche was beginning to careen downhill. He didn’t understand a lot about what was happening (and neither did anyone else) - he just knew that the effect of rotting decay and death was crawling outward, beginning in the forest and eking along at a pace that was alarming. And if magic was being siphoned too, he worried about Loki. That trickster god had already ‘died’ once (or twice - on several instances, probably) and died for real, so Mobius wasn’t about to let it happen again. He wasn’t sure what to bring, if anything - mostly he just cloaked himself in a dress shirt and tie (no jacket - it was too hot), pressed slacks, and a whole lot of stubbornness. Then he went to Loki’s front door and knocked. Loudly. A few times. Though, honestly, knocking was mostly just to announce his presence only because he ended up letting himself in. “Loki? It’s just me - “ Better say that before he had a dagger thrown at his face or something. The thought that the loss of magic could have an affect on outlanders - could have an affect on him, more specifically, was not something that Loki had given much thought to. Those speaking of prophecies being muddled could have simply been referring to the lack of magic in this situation causing some kind of blockage to their powers rather than them losing them, so when Loki woke up on a perfectly balmy summer morning feeling too warm for his clothes, he knew that something was innately wrong. It happened slowly at first. The tips of his fingers had been tinged blue in a way that made him look like he had frostbite, something that slowly spread up his arms and hands like a sickness as the glamour that he had worn since he’d been a baby slowly faded away into non-existence over the course of a few days. He couldn’t bring himself to pick up his communications device and leaving the cottage was certainly out of the question. He was alone with his thoughts. In theory, Loki knew that the people who mattered were aware of this, on some level. Mobius had read his file. Sylvie presumably was a Frost Giant, if she truly was a version of him - if nothing else, she wasn’t Asgardian. Fandral must have had some idea, the same as Atreus and Torunn from their prior knowledge from either the internet or world-hopping, but many people would find something acceptable in theory, but horrified when faced with the reality of the situation. He didn’t know if he could handle the horror on their faces without burning the entirety of Vallo to the ground. It was at least a day or so - he wasn’t sure, he hadn’t kept track and had let his phone run out of battery - before the knock on his door sounded. As predicted, he did pick up a dagger but only to slide it into a sheath at his waist, frowning to himself as he made his way to the door and then it opened, because of course Mobius couldn’t simply settle for knocking. He slammed the adjoining door to the bedroom perhaps harder than he had intended to, taking a slow breath. “I would advise leaving.” "Loki - " Mobius started a little when he heard the door slam. To anyone else, it may have been a strong hint - something very final, in fact. But to him, it was just another obstacle that he'd have to work around. He'd studied Loki for years, endless trips to the archives, endless files, endless events playing out on reels - and it was true that Mobius's feelings about him were...sticky. Complicated? He didn't know. What he did know was that the embodiment of actual chaos and mischief had caused him to overthrow and throw away everything he had dedicated his life to for eons; he didn’t regret that either. So a little huffy slam wasn't going to stop him. "Loki - " he tried again, hand pressed to the door. This time, he wouldn't barge inside - not in such a private space. "Please let me in.” Jesus, he felt like the princess in Frozen. Was that how this was going to go? “Or just - tell me what happened?” Loki truly did dislike the way that Mobius just had a way of worming into his life. It wasn't necessarily something the other man even did on purpose, aside from the TVA situation - if he truly wanted rid of him, he was sure that he could get away. The worrying part was that he didn't want to and he hadn't wanted to since their initial interview. He was… irritating. Poked at the sore spots and never really showed any indication that he viewed Loki as the threat that he was, but he had to admit that there was something magnetic about it. Being known in the way only a man who had viewed a file and a tape of your entire life could possibly know you. That didn't make this situation any easier or any more pleasant, though, and he rolled his eyes to himself when Mobius just insisted on making his way further into his house. "I'm not going to let you in," he wasn't even sure he could. Mobius was human and he had watched frost giants give Asgardians frost bite with a single touch. What damage could he do to somebody who was essentially a human being? "My body isn't reacting very pleasantly to the lack of magic in the air. It's nothing to worry about, just unpleasant. Perhaps you should go to the city for a while?" Oh. He understood, finally. Because Mobius had read the file - he knew of Loki's origins (the 'ice runt' thing had been a dead giveaway), knew that glamour which made him appear Asgardian had probably slipped away like a fistful of sand through fingers in the face of all of these magic problems. Was it going to deter Mobius though? Well. No. "Sorry, pal, I'm not going into the city," he replied, though he did turn and go elsewhere - to the kitchen, specifically. Where he rummaged around for the only thing he could think to grab that would help in this situation: an allmighty pair of oven mitts. Then he was back at the bedroom door. "I'm also not leaving until I see you. And I'm ready. I'll be fine, just open the door." He wasn't afraid - not of Frost Giant Loki, not of any Loki. Despite his unpredictability, and how he wildly see-sawed back and forth between regal elegance and wild madness, Mobius still wasn't afraid. There weren’t many things Loki was sure he would never understand but Mobius had somehow become one of them. He was simultaneously sincere and at the same time, always seemed to be a step ahead of Loki - perhaps because of the sincerity. Honesty wasn’t something that Loki knew how to face after being lied to for apparently his entire life by everybody that he knew and even his attempts at a brotherly relationship with Thor were somehow less solid than whatever this was. Despite everything Loki had shown him, Mobius still offered some level of trust that nobody else ever had. ‘I’ll be fine’. He believed that, for some reason, although not enough to consider opening the door without taking some extreme measures. He had a penchant for hugging, after all - and he would never admit that it was something he liked (or even needed, perhaps) but he wasn’t sure how much of a hand Lee could save without the additional bonus of magic if it had been instantly frozen off of his body. He settled on a coat from his wardrobe because his magic simply wasn’t working well enough to do anything more than produce a pathetic little spark from his fingertips, tugging it around himself and grimacing at just how much warmer it made him. The mirror on his bedside table was quickly slapped down to the ground when he caught sight of himself, all- blue and crimson-eyed. It was almost enough to stop him from opening the door but he wasn’t entirely sure that Mobius would leave if he didn’t, so he opened it, moving to sit down on his bed with a frown on his face, not looking at him. Aha, success. Mobius went into the bedroom, tugging on those oven mitts and flexing his fingers inside of them - the air was cold, felt like the kiss of winter's breath, but it didn't prevent him from sitting next to Loki on the bed. The closer Mobius got to him (emotionally or - whatever), the more he just saw things for what they were when it came to the TVA - saw the lies and the cracks and the gnarled, twisted ideologies. The TVA had broken Loki open the day he arrived, leaving the pieces for Mobius to pick up and examine - which he had. But the TVA had also left him in those pieces, since Loki was useful to them as some kind of fractured entity and he'd fallen in line with it in order to achieve what he so desired: just a hint of acceptance. It seemed like a cruel thing for the TVA to do - but maybe not surprising, considering how soulless the organization truly was despite how they claimed to operate outside the bounds of concepts like ‘good’ and ‘evil.’ But right now, he didn't need to do any of that to be accepted. Mobius already did. "I’m sure losing your magic must feel awful - I mean, I don't know firsthand what it feels like, but I can try to understand," he said. "I just didn't want you to be alone during that." He held out his hand, oven mitt palm up, for Loki to take. Loki raised an eyebrow. He hadn't really expected anybody to put the pieces together, if he was being totally honest - perhaps he hadn't given those he called his friends enough credit, perhaps the majority of them simply wouldn't care. He wanted to point out that Sylvie was alone with this right now because Loki couldn't bring himself to leave the cottage, couldn't find the energy to go and look for her in the city when like this, he would stand out. It took him a moment to realise what Mobius was offering, glancing down to the space between them where he had picked up- the oven mitts. He hadn't ever needed to use them because he would just move anything out of the oven with magic when he needed it and it was another stark reminder that he felt like he was missing a limb right now, like something intrinsic had been carved from his very soul. He huffed softly, eventually, embarrassed but sick in a way that he'd never really been before which was enough to bridge the gap between mortification and need, reaching down to carefully touch his hand through the oven mitt - making sure he made no sounds indicating pain before he gripped his hand, cheeks flushed a deeper blue. "I feel ridiculous," he murmured, but his posture relaxed ever-so-slightly. "I suppose this confirms that the TVA didn't somehow imbue you with magic yourself, if you feel fine." It was a guarantee that Mobius would be checking on Sylvie too - her cottage wasn't far from here and, besides, both her and Loki were important to him. It was possible that she hadn't experienced the same effects - from what Mobius understood, it just varied from magic user to magic user - but all the same, he'd feel better once he saw for himself. There were plenty of hours in a day and he'd spread them out to do what he could to help, since he couldn't really jump into the fray to handle this. Whatever needed handling. "I don't know what the TVA is but it's not magic," he chuckled quietly. "Just - really omnipotent tech, I guess." The details about He Who Remains were still fuzzy - but he'd apparently created the TVA using his brain and his skills as a scientist, and what that was due to, Mobius wasn't certain - living for an eternity? Being immortal? And yet he went down with a stab wound so he wasn't invulnerable. He'd just created an infinitely complex, unfathomable puzzle. His other hand covered Loki's hand, now trapped between two oven mitts - just for a moment, because Mobius assumed the warmth made him physically uncomfortable when he was in this form. Then it was back to one oven mitt interlocked with one hand. "Blue's my favorite color, you know." "Omnipotent tech. There appears to be a line between sorcery and technology, but even I am not entirely sure where it lies," sorcerers could use electricity, after all. Asgardians all seemed to have some inherent magical ability to them that either entirely depended on whether or not the child was taught to hone it or ran in the bloodline of the Royals, because Thor and Hela both shared abilities that were far beyond that of an average Asgardian. He would not have been surprised to learn they all had some kind of ability, though, despite shunning it themselves. "I only like blue on clothes," his mother had often worn blue. He didn't think it was a choice she made out of anything other than personal preference, really - green was his favourite colour but he had always been dressed in it. Along with his horns, it represented life and greenery, a mastery of sorcery when paired with the gold of royalty. He looked over at Mobius again, frowning slightly. "Why are you here?" "I'm not either," Mobius admitted - sure of where the line was, anyway. The TVA's gadgets helped with tracking variants, dictating the 'proper' flow of time, resetting anything outside of that, and getting themselves to specific Nexus events. They had holoprojectors and time twister collars and reset charges - those were basically just 'disintegrate everything in the vicinity' but still. Some powerful toys, to be sure. Plus Ravonna had a pretty sweet stereo system in her office - one Mobius had never seen anywhere else. Maybe that was magic too. "So if I'm magic and I start feeling weird I'll let you know." He was good for now - mostly just concerned about Loki. Which was why Mobius returned the glance, an innocent blink of those powder blue eyes. "I was worried about you. We talk every day, for the most part. Then you just went quiet - kinda eerie, to be honest." Talky, talky - he really did know how much Loki liked to share his thoughts and judgments on, well, damn near everything. They did talk every day. Loki wasn't really sure when that had started, exactly - there was definitely a sense of relief in having somebody around who understood. Somebody who was… Incredibly hard to push away, despite Loki's best efforts. Even at the times he was sure Mobius wouldn't forgive him, he had - after what felt like an endless stint getting kicked where it hurt by Sif, he supposed. Oh. Loki had more issues than even he'd realised, it seemed - he looked back over at Mobius and felt a surge of something that he really didn't want to think too deeply about, chewing on the inside of his cheek as he looked back at him. Always so earnest and honest, even when he was at the end of a proverbial dagger. If Loki wanted to, he could have reached out and grabbed him anywhere unprotected. He'd never even considered it, but it was more of an intrusive thought that wouldn't get out of his mind. You'll be the death of him. You'll kill him, by your hand. You tried with everybody else. "I'm not sure my phone would even work right now. I haven't touched it since this started happening," he wiggled the fingers of his other hand. "I'm not sure what else there is to be done with it. I can't even really offer much assistance without magic." Whatever this was, it had defeated him so quickly that it scared him, genuinely. "I think a lotta people are in that boat," Mobius said. "No one likes having a part of themselves just - taken away." Especially so quickly and so harshly - it had been in a blink, a streak of lightning and all of it was gone. For some, anyway. Others - maybe it was slower. A gradual leeching of their carefully cultivated and honed magic. He didn't enjoy it, whatever it was. Seeing people suffering like this was never fun. "We'll get through it though," Mobius shifted closer to Loki, feeling the cold radiating off of him despite the coat he wore. It didn't stop Mobius though - not much did. "Do you need me to do anything? Check on the horses, or...something?" Loki had been hunkered down in the cottage for awhile - maybe he didn't remember what day it was. Sometimes even Mobius had trouble keeping track. Time was weird for him, had been ever since (he assumed) he was brought to the TVA - he remembered everything, yet nothing at all. Like every place where he laid his head down at night to sleep but not how he got there. It was frustrating at best. Mobius felt warm, even through the coat - despite it being too warm in general, he desperately wanted to lean into it because it was familiar. He wasn’t sure he’d ever met anybody who was quite as tactile with him in the way that he was, another one of the many things that Loki had added to his ever-growing list of ‘why Mobius baffled him’. The conversation they’d had a few days prior on the- Tag application had been running through Loki’s head since as background noise, trying to decipher whether or not it was a joke that he wasn’t privy to or if Mobius had some kind of genuine interest in him that went past the whole ‘Loki research’ thing. No. It wasn’t something that was worth thinking about, really. He wasn’t going to ruin what could actually be a genuine friendship with anything that would just cause things to be weirder than they already were. “The horses,” he exhaled. “I think Fandral may check on Sleipnir while he’s there, but- it’s likely worth taking a look. I’m not sure if he would be caught up in reaching here if the forest or waypoints are suffering,” he frowned a little. “They usually just graze around the village, honestly. Sleipnir is too smart to run off.” Prior to, well, all of this - Mobius's only job had been protecting the sacred timeline. He believed he'd been made to serve and he did it without complaint, accepting his lot with a certain amount of contentment because he was doing good things. It was all about order and harmony - he never wanted a deeper connection with anyone, never yearned for something like touch. Then Loki catapulted into headquarters and Mobius discovered his internal monologue was full of shit because they touched frequently and it was like electricity skittering through him each and every time. Like, geez, what had he been missing? Was touching someone really that great? Sure, he tested out the theory with other people - the theory that maybe he was just touch-starved in general. He'd fist bump Casey or let his fingers brush Ravonna's when she handed him a drink and everything else was just all recoil and nerves because he didn't care for any of that. File it under 'well, crap.' He couldn't exactly touch Loki now, lest he wanted frostbite, but he still had those oven mitts on so he patted Loki's knee before he moved to stand. "I'll check on them," he promised. "The forest seems like a mess and I don't trust the waypoints much either." Some were alright but others probably not. "And I'll be back later for you too. Just to keep you company, if you want." “It’s not looking promising, no,” Loki let go of his hand so that he could stand up, walking over to the poky window and drawing his curtains. It didn’t seem so bad where they were just yet, but he had seen reports of the forest dying off just before his fingers had started turning blue and it was almost like he could feel the life draining from the world. Vallo’s lifeblood seemed to be magic and without that, he wasn’t sure how much the heart of this world would be able to nurture. “I wouldn’t take a waypoint,” he frowned. “Or walk through the forest alone, really. I don’t know if you can ride, but Sleipnir would take you through safely if you needed to leave New Asgard,” they were rather unluckily sequestered quite far away from the rest of Vallo, tucked on the coast and away from the bustle of the city. That maybe wasn’t the best position when Vallo was being cut off and magic was useless. At his offer, he was tempted to refuse - to tell him to leave him alone and not come back, but Mobius was an exception to many of his rules. “That’s up to you,” he murmured, turning his head slightly to look at him over his shoulder. “It can’t be comfortable for you, here.” “A ride on Sleipnir? How could I refuse,” Mobius grinned. “I’ll see if he wouldn’t mind giving me a lift someplace if I need to go. But for now, I’m okay.” Walking through the forest alone seemed real dumb and he wasn’t about to do that - he was generally a risk taker but even he had to admit that there was a difference between ‘risk with good end payoff’ and ‘straight up idiocy.’ He watched Loki by the window, and fidgeted a little - mostly because Mobius just wished things were back to whatever constituted normal around here. And he knew Loki was the one uncomfortable, not him - but pushing him away (even halfheartedly) seemed to be a defense mechanism, maybe one of the last at his disposal; Mobius just had to navigate that. “Then if it’s up to me, I want to come back. I’ll be here for you - as long as you let me.” For all time, always. It carried less terrible connotations when it involved something he chose. “He is a legendary horse. He would do his best to ensure your safety,” Loki shrugged one shoulder, although he was somewhat relieved that Mobius didn’t seem to have any immediate plans to leave the area. If he truly had it his way, he would have preferred they all stick together as much as they could - he trusted Mobius. Maybe less so Sylvie, but the worst part was that he wanted to. There were elements of her that forced him to look at himself in a different light, both positive and critical. “I’m not going to stop wanting that,” perhaps it was too obvious but Loki felt raw regardless, flayed open by his lack of magic and lack of any physical defense. It left him feeling mentally weak too, his emotions laid bare in a way he was not comfortable with. Still, he was too tired and too frightened to throw up his barriers and tell Mobius to leave when he truly didn’t want that. It was almost like his defense mechanisms were finally working in favour of what he wanted rather than what he feared, for once. “By the way - oven mitts? Really? I should be offended. I’m not a pie waiting to be taken out of the oven. There should be some gloves around here, somewhere. This was originally a fishing village in Norway.” The huffy indignation about oven mitts made Mobius grin, a curved and coiled spring. "I'll bring gloves when I come back," he drawled in a softly accented promise, sounding like chocolate in the ears. "Wouldn't want you to feel like a quiche from the oven, kitten." He should go. He didn't really want to go but he should go. Because he'd checked on Loki and he was okay, relatively speaking - staying here too long and being sort of oddly mesmerized by the cold burn that came along with touching Loki and the way the color of his eyes in this form resembled blood freshly spilled probably wasn't a good idea. "Don't get into too much trouble while I'm gone," he added, moving to scoot out the door. There it was again. Kitten. Mobius had referred to him as a cat a few times in the time that they’d been in the TVA together, mostly as a way of attempting to bring him down a peg - from Loki’s knowledge, cats were a species that had fairly successfully enslaved humanity in such a way that they thought they were the ones in charge of the situation. It was hardly an insult, although he hadn’t said as such out loud. “I’m not sure there’s much trouble around here to get into,” he gestured vaguely to the village they were in. Of all of the places Loki could have chosen to settle down, it was definitely among the least exciting in Vallo - the biggest events of the year tended to be along the lines of a herd of deer finding their way into the village to graze. Still. Kitten. He huffed at the diminutive (if it even was that, perhaps it was just an insult) and walked over to Mobius, grabbing his hand through the oven mitt. “Be careful. If anywhere is dead or dying, don’t touch it. Avoid the area.” Loki was a few inches taller than Mobius - and he didn't mind that, surprisingly (not that there was much he could do about that). It was refreshing to be around him - so clever and thoughtful, and even a little playful despite all he had been through; Mobius was something of a stick-in-the-mud, only maintaining these hazy dreams of jet skis and the sparkle of the sea and previously having written it off as something unimportant and unremembered. But Loki had sort of shown him that he could have those things if he chose to - that free will was important. So he easily figured out how to account for the height difference and their stark difference in temperature - when Loki took his hand Mobius slotted in, letting his other hand grasp at Loki's waist, right at the coat, nosing at his shoulder over the material so he didn't burn the tip of that crooked thing right off. It was the best version of a hug he could manage - or something close to it, anyway. "I'll be careful," he assured. "Not gonna give you anything else to worry about." Then he pulled back, feeling the chill ripple through him - because there were layers between them, but still. An exhilarating jolt, if you will. "But I'll see you later, okay?" Loki didn’t dare move his hands when Mobius came to him, somewhat awkwardly hovering them as though he was afraid to touch him - which wasn’t really far from the truth, was it? If he just caught a piece of untouched skin he could cause him serious damage and that probably should have been enough to put Loki off anything regarding the two of them, but it… didn’t. He squeezed the hand he was holding as an effort to show that he wasn’t angry at his actions, holding his hands behind him as he took a step back. “Later, yes,” he nodded a little, casting a vague hope to anybody who may be listening among Vallo’s potential gods for this to come to an end. Everything they’d experienced before had been solved with magic, at least to an extent - the prospect of it just being gone was something he wasn’t sure anybody here had faced before. Without magic, Fandral surely would have perished after Loki had found him. He may not have even been able to find him without it - it didn’t bear thinking about. He should probably see how the perimeter of the village was doing, especially if the wards were failing. Good. Later. There were things to do - he'd check on the horses, and Sylvie, and since Loki's technology was dead and dark Mobius would also check the network. He'd gather some updates and then when he returned to Loki's cottage he'd hopefully have better news. Probably not, but - Mobius could still hold out hope. Gathering himself and squaring his shoulders, he headed out - but first stopped to drop off the oven mitts, leaving them on the kitchen hook where he'd found them. Now he was never going to look at oven mitts the same way again or pies, but that was fine. There were probably worse things to associate with a trickster god. |