[ In the dark the parts of him that bristle and feel... afraid, frankly, of this topic of conversation β one which he has not had with anyone, even his brother β settle a little. He can pretend he's unafraid, eyes blinking in the dark, soothed by her touch. ]
It would matter to them.
[ It's almost funny, how he was not accepted by Asgardians as one of their own (mostly because of his own behavior, he supposes, but also because he wasn't) but also probably wouldn't have survived very long on Joutenheim either. Unless they, or Laufey, suddenly developed a tolerance for small giants with magical abilities.
Seems unlikely, to him. ]
Considering my biological father left me to die, it would probably matter a great deal.
[ There would have been no welcome for her husband among the Qunari either. Par Vollen would have had him chained and collared. His horns tipped, his clever words taken with muzzle, sewn up with thread, or pulled from him by the root. He would never be alone. If found alone, killed. A saarebasβ a dangerous thing.
She does not think they would keep him now. Not as he had grown.
He could have gone to the Vashoth when he knew, if he had wished itβ the life of a mercenaryβ but he had been raised a human, would be an outsider there as well.
And this man; no welcome at his birth, little enough as he grew. Outside, always. They are made alone everywhere they go.
Maybe if he could not belong to the world, the world belonging to him was the closest thing there was. If love would not give, he would take with fear. Had she not chosen the same?
Alexandrie wriggles herself upwards along Loki's body until she can settle again with her head against his, nose against his cheek beside his ear, hand coming up to settle against the other side. Breathes there, thinks I will be your home from somewhere so deep in her chest that it makes her eyes water, though she does not cry.
[ What is the saying? A child who is shunned by the village will burn it down for warmth? It definitely applies to this Loki, even though he attempted to destroy all of Jotunheim instead of just a village, and he'd be entirely unsurprised to find that other versions of himself are very much alike in that regard.
Alexandrie shifts, climbing his torso, and he moves his arm aside to allow her to make herself comfortable once more. Once she's settled his hand returns to fingers against her spine, though this time they're still. No patterns, no distractions. Just the sound of her breathing and his, the feel of her breath warm against his skin.
Her question surprises him; complex in its simplicity. Not what happened, or even why, but what did it mean? That her voice is hoarse makes him worry he's been too forthright, telling her these things, but.
But.
There's something to be said for sharing even the darkest parts of oneself. Of hearing someone else's voice in response to the terrible things he's done, and not hear judgment. Concern, perhaps, which is an odd and complicated feeling, but not judgment.
He swallows. ]
I told myself it was to prove my loyalty. To Odin, my father. To Asgard. That if I orchestrated their downfall while Odin slept, he'd have no choice but to finally see me, regard me as worthy in the same way that Thor was regarded as worthy.
[ He hesitates. Takes a breath. That is not what she asked, exactly. ]
It was revenge. In a very nice package, mind, with quite the bow, but still. For being abandoned, left to die. For being not good enough to keep.
[ The word 'considered' was probably supposed to go in there somewhere, right? ]
She had thought so often of vengeance, but she had never gotten Rolant. His two cronies who had laughed with him she had. One killed in a duel of her orchestration, one ruined so thoroughly he'd fled the court. She'd thought she would be happy, but she wasn't. Vicious, manic, drunk on the power she'd been denied perhaps, but not made whole. She thought she would, if she could get Rolant. He'd burned to death in the civil war and she had been so angry, so denied.
All these years later she'd found him living, having faked it all. Thought about it again, and felt nothing. Knew it wouldn't matter. Ripping out the heart that made her nothing would not undo what he had done. ]
Did it work?
[ It is gentle, careful, because she knows his answer. Knows its bitter taste. Knows it is the same as hers.
Gutting someone else has never stopped the bleeding. All it means is everyone dies. ]
[ Loki scoffs, as if the idea itself is ridiculous. Perhaps it is.
It occurs to him that Odin's acceptance of himself is simply a memory of a recording from the TVA, not even a memory of his own making. It twists in his chest, brings his breathing up short. ]
Definitely not.
[ He remembers how he'd felt, in that moment. Devastated, empty, like none of it had mattered, like he hadn't mattered. He closes his eyes and remembers the rushing silence of the abyss before the wormhole, and how he'd been willing to let that be it. Allow his story to end there.
Then it hadn't. Because Lokis are survivors, or perhaps because he was too weighted with the glorious purpose of proving himself worthy. To Odin, to everyone.
The words 'I tried to die' are on the tip of his tongue but he can't bring himself to say them. He hasn't tried since then, not really, but something about that acceptance of the nothing that may follow never really leaves him. He survives, and he fights, but that little part of him is never truly gone. ]
[ She strokes the side of his face, and nods against him, and her heart breaks because his did. Because she knows there is a spot of numb silence that lives in him. That wakes with him, and walks with him, is waiting when he laughs.
They had crawled out of it together, she and her husband, blinking into the sun of what it meant to have given their hearts to someone who wanted them. What it had meant to be loved. What it had meant to let themselves be loved.
Here in the dark she tightens her hold and presses her lips to that space just in front of this Loki's ear and silently promises she will go back for him. She would go back a thousand times.
And he had told her where to find him when they met. That his truth is in his leaving, that he is still left there. It is living in his name.
Tender, and carefulβ so carefulβ when she reaches. ]
[ He's not sure, anymore, if his eyes are opened or closed. Blinking in the dark does nothing to diffuse the feeling of emotional vertigo, or make it any easier to tell, so he shifts away just enough to turn onto his side and face her. He can make out the vague shapes and planes of her face, here in the encroaching dark of this tent, and moves his hand to keep hers against his face.
It's quiet outside and warm in here, beneath the blankets and tangled up in her, but he feels cold and a little hollow. Like there is a fire that can't quite reach the corners of the room it's lit within.
That fire is, of course, the redhead in his arms. ]
It seemed... more honest. Thor is Odin's son; I am not.
I don't know, [ he says, and his voice is tired. A small bit afraid. If he is not Odin's son or Laufey's son, then whose is he? Is he no one's at all? Maybe it's foolish to be this concerned with a naming convention, but that doesn't make it any less important in his personal cosmology. ]
[ Her hand movesβ tracing along the side of his face to smooth the hair at his temple, back again to his cheek, and she leans to brush her nose against his. ]
[ Can she promise him that she would, no matter what? Even if he's less... pliant than he is now? Less honest?
Possibly as much as he can promise her forever, he realizes. Asking would do nothing to soothe him. They have no control over the future, he knows that. They can only control how they respond to it, and possibly poorly at that. ]
You're too kind. [ It sounds like a joke but it isn't. ]
[ She winces into closing her eyes at what feels like a withdraw; too far. She'd pushed too far. ]
And I am not always now.
[ Even softer, slightly pained: ]
Is it kind, do you think? To see you and to be so desperate to be close, to be wanted, to be held, to be loved again, that I will press my hands into every wound I think you have to show I know you?
I have thrown myself upon you with my weight of years, and tried to press them into hours so I might have you not in future, but right now. Have pulled a flower open because I wept with want of its bloom, Iβ
[ He opens his mouth but all that comes out at first is a huff of breath before he leans in and kisses her nose.
He had told Mobius that no one was completely good, or evil, and he thinks of that now. Kindness, and unkindness, are not quite the same dichotomy but it feels... similar. Even murderers can be kind. Even the gentlest soul can do harm. ]
What do I really know of kindness? [ He asks her honestly. ] Too much and I distrust it. Turn away from it.
I'm unused to it.
Besides which, you didn't promise me kindness. You promised me honesty, and you promised me now, and as much as I don't want to sour you on me I'm terrified that if I don't, something else will, and I'll be even more unprepared for it than I am in this moment.
[ She said she wanted forever, and he thinks he wants that too. Is afraid of what it will mean if he isn't granted it. If he has it only for a moment just to have her turn away. ]
I'm a sharp and dangerous thing. I've cut you on purpose and now without even intending and you've done me no harm.
[ More trust than there has been, in the matter of Alexandrie's heart, is still a tenuous and fragile thing; so much moreso, here, with him. With how she'd pressed it into his hands faster than thought, believing it already there.
They were different hands, but it's too late now by far for her to take it back, and every moment she believes he holds it precious in his chest next to his own means she is safe again forever and every moment she does not is one in which her body knows she is abandoned. That it isn't the same, won't be the same, he does not love her, will not love herβ
But the simplicity of a kiss for her nose and she is quiet again. Able to listen to him speak without the rising howl of wind behind it.
She takes a breath, long and deep, looks at him as if even in the darkness he could see the firmness of her truth in it. ]
I have held the blade that sometimes bleeds; have chosen it, knowing it will, and chosen it with joy.
[ Softer, then: ] I am not afraid of what you are. Only afraid that you will see I bleed and turn away to save me in a way I do not wish for.
I will not ask for trust, but I will ask for this: that you will not leave me when I love the parts of you that you cannot. That you will not leave me when you fear I will leave you and your only choice in it is when.
[ Something Loki is learning, here, in the dark, with Alexandrie Lucette Seraphine Arienne d'Asgard, is that being seen? Is akin to having a spotlight on one's soul, when it's been content and furious to hide in the shadows.
It is hot and bright and terrifying.
Her words cut him to the quick because it is what he would do β leave her in anticipation of being left, turn away because he's hurt her too greatly and surely, surely, she will tire of him and his shenanigans.
He's tired of them.
Loki can feel her gaze upon him in the dark, waiting for his answer. ]
Du har mitt ord. Even if I am afraid, I won't turn away from you. [ A breath, shakier than he'd like. Can he do this? Will he manage to keep his word? ] But I can't promise I won't be afraid.
[ She lifts herself up a little so she can move higher in their little makeshift nest and tugs at his hand, offering her arms and the softness of her breast as a pillow. ]
I cannot say it will not.
But I can say that if it does, it will notβ
[ She chokes on it, and suddenly her voice is rough with emotion because she believes. She still believes that if her lord, her love, her Loki, the man whose House and name she bears, had had a choice in it, he would be home. ]
It will not be a thing that I have chosen. And wherever we may be, I weep for you.
[ He takes the invitation, moving to rest his head on her shoulder, face close to the skin of her chest. It's best that she doesn't promise him that nothing terrible will happen; they both know better than to presume that.
Neither of them are children after all and they've already lost so much. ]
Don't weep too long, [ he tells her quietly, seriously. ] You've cried enough over me just today.
[ He wants to promise her that whatever happens, he'll make the attempt. Try to reach her, to reconnect, to... something.
But he's not sure he can promise that, all things considered, and he'd rather not lie to her right now. ]
[ Loki makes a soft noise at that, unsure of what to say. He trusts her to choose what is best for herself but still, it unsettles him, the thought of her crying over him for too long.
(Would it be better, if she cried only for her missing husband, or worse?) ]
Alright, [ he says for the second time, acquiescing to her. It feels a little less terrifying this time around, but Loki is no less exhausted by it. ]
[ The soft noise makes her smile a little, fragile, against his head. Prompts another kiss, a stroke of the slope of his shoulder before she settles her arms around him like the shelter of wings. ]
[ Loki sighs into her arms, enjoying being held this way. He's tired, and as much as he hates the idea of falling asleep right now perhaps it wouldn't be too terrible.
Perhaps he'd only have sweet dreams, nightmares chased away by her kisses. ]
[ Decisively said, as if she is in charge of fortune. A thing of childlike surety, chosen belief.
She is quiet for a little while, feeling his breath against her. Smiling fondly in the dark and thinking of nothing but the simple solace of his weight in her arms.
Then her quiet huffs of mirth again, stirring his hair. ]
Is it telling, do you think, that all our planning is for sorrow? No sooner met but we turn at once to fretting we will part?
Let us dream a little, instead. Tell me something that would give you joy.
It speaks to our experience. Good things taken too soon.
[ Loki's words come out a little sleepy at first. Her questions rouse him from a twilight state, taking a deep breath in and being rewarded by the scent of her and her perfume all over again. What would bring him joy?
To not feel this afraid always, but that is not quite what she means is it? ]
To hear you laugh, happy and drunk.
[ The sort of manic energy that one gets from having imbibed too much alcohol is just about his favorite thing; he remembers, suddenly, Sylvie's annoyed expression when he'd gotten drunk on the train, and how he'd wished he'd been able to get her to drink too. To smile or laugh or relax a little. ]
To take you dancing. To spin you in a room of onlookers who are jealous for reasons they don't wish to understand and to not care about it.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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It would matter to them.
[ It's almost funny, how he was not accepted by Asgardians as one of their own (mostly because of his own behavior, he supposes, but also because he wasn't) but also probably wouldn't have survived very long on Joutenheim either. Unless they, or Laufey, suddenly developed a tolerance for small giants with magical abilities.
Seems unlikely, to him. ]
Considering my biological father left me to die, it would probably matter a great deal.
[ A beat. ]
I killed him. Later, of course, not as an infant.
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She does not think they would keep him now. Not as he had grown.
He could have gone to the Vashoth when he knew, if he had wished itβ the life of a mercenaryβ but he had been raised a human, would be an outsider there as well.
And this man; no welcome at his birth, little enough as he grew. Outside, always. They are made alone everywhere they go.
Maybe if he could not belong to the world, the world belonging to him was the closest thing there was. If love would not give, he would take with fear. Had she not chosen the same?
Alexandrie wriggles herself upwards along Loki's body until she can settle again with her head against his, nose against his cheek beside his ear, hand coming up to settle against the other side. Breathes there, thinks I will be your home from somewhere so deep in her chest that it makes her eyes water, though she does not cry.
After a moment there, a little hoarse: ]
What did it mean to you, to do so?
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Alexandrie shifts, climbing his torso, and he moves his arm aside to allow her to make herself comfortable once more. Once she's settled his hand returns to fingers against her spine, though this time they're still. No patterns, no distractions. Just the sound of her breathing and his, the feel of her breath warm against his skin.
Her question surprises him; complex in its simplicity. Not what happened, or even why, but what did it mean? That her voice is hoarse makes him worry he's been too forthright, telling her these things, but.
But.
There's something to be said for sharing even the darkest parts of oneself. Of hearing someone else's voice in response to the terrible things he's done, and not hear judgment. Concern, perhaps, which is an odd and complicated feeling, but not judgment.
He swallows. ]
I told myself it was to prove my loyalty. To Odin, my father. To Asgard. That if I orchestrated their downfall while Odin slept, he'd have no choice but to finally see me, regard me as worthy in the same way that Thor was regarded as worthy.
[ He hesitates. Takes a breath. That is not what she asked, exactly. ]
It was revenge. In a very nice package, mind, with quite the bow, but still. For being abandoned, left to die. For being not good enough to keep.
[ The word 'considered' was probably supposed to go in there somewhere, right? ]
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She had thought so often of vengeance, but she had never gotten Rolant. His two cronies who had laughed with him she had. One killed in a duel of her orchestration, one ruined so thoroughly he'd fled the court. She'd thought she would be happy, but she wasn't. Vicious, manic, drunk on the power she'd been denied perhaps, but not made whole. She thought she would, if she could get Rolant. He'd burned to death in the civil war and she had been so angry, so denied.
All these years later she'd found him living, having faked it all. Thought about it again, and felt nothing. Knew it wouldn't matter. Ripping out the heart that made her nothing would not undo what he had done. ]
Did it work?
[ It is gentle, careful, because she knows his answer. Knows its bitter taste. Knows it is the same as hers.
Gutting someone else has never stopped the bleeding. All it means is everyone dies. ]
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It occurs to him that Odin's acceptance of himself is simply a memory of a recording from the TVA, not even a memory of his own making. It twists in his chest, brings his breathing up short. ]
Definitely not.
[ He remembers how he'd felt, in that moment. Devastated, empty, like none of it had mattered, like he hadn't mattered. He closes his eyes and remembers the rushing silence of the abyss before the wormhole, and how he'd been willing to let that be it. Allow his story to end there.
Then it hadn't. Because Lokis are survivors, or perhaps because he was too weighted with the glorious purpose of proving himself worthy. To Odin, to everyone.
The words 'I tried to die' are on the tip of his tongue but he can't bring himself to say them. He hasn't tried since then, not really, but something about that acceptance of the nothing that may follow never really leaves him. He survives, and he fights, but that little part of him is never truly gone. ]
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They had crawled out of it together, she and her husband, blinking into the sun of what it meant to have given their hearts to someone who wanted them. What it had meant to be loved. What it had meant to let themselves be loved.
Here in the dark she tightens her hold and presses her lips to that space just in front of this Loki's ear and silently promises she will go back for him. She would go back a thousand times.
And he had told her where to find him when they met. That his truth is in his leaving, that he is still left there. It is living in his name.
Tender, and carefulβ so carefulβ when she reaches. ]
And Laufey's son, more than Odin's?
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It's quiet outside and warm in here, beneath the blankets and tangled up in her, but he feels cold and a little hollow. Like there is a fire that can't quite reach the corners of the room it's lit within.
That fire is, of course, the redhead in his arms. ]
It seemed... more honest. Thor is Odin's son; I am not.
I don't know, [ he says, and his voice is tired. A small bit afraid. If he is not Odin's son or Laufey's son, then whose is he? Is he no one's at all? Maybe it's foolish to be this concerned with a naming convention, but that doesn't make it any less important in his personal cosmology. ]
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[ Her hand movesβ tracing along the side of his face to smooth the hair at his temple, back again to his cheek, and she leans to brush her nose against his. ]
But I will hold you, as you learn.
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Possibly as much as he can promise her forever, he realizes. Asking would do nothing to soothe him. They have no control over the future, he knows that. They can only control how they respond to it, and possibly poorly at that. ]
You're too kind. [ It sounds like a joke but it isn't. ]
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[ She winces into closing her eyes at what feels like a withdraw; too far. She'd pushed too far. ]
And I am not always now.
[ Even softer, slightly pained: ]
Is it kind, do you think? To see you and to be so desperate to be close, to be wanted, to be held, to be loved again, that I will press my hands into every wound I think you have to show I know you?
I have thrown myself upon you with my weight of years, and tried to press them into hours so I might have you not in future, but right now. Have pulled a flower open because I wept with want of its bloom, Iβ
[ A bare whisper, now: ]
I cannot think it kind.
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He had told Mobius that no one was completely good, or evil, and he thinks of that now. Kindness, and unkindness, are not quite the same dichotomy but it feels... similar. Even murderers can be kind. Even the gentlest soul can do harm. ]
What do I really know of kindness? [ He asks her honestly. ] Too much and I distrust it. Turn away from it.
I'm unused to it.
Besides which, you didn't promise me kindness. You promised me honesty, and you promised me now, and as much as I don't want to sour you on me I'm terrified that if I don't, something else will, and I'll be even more unprepared for it than I am in this moment.
[ She said she wanted forever, and he thinks he wants that too. Is afraid of what it will mean if he isn't granted it. If he has it only for a moment just to have her turn away. ]
I'm a sharp and dangerous thing. I've cut you on purpose and now without even intending and you've done me no harm.
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They were different hands, but it's too late now by far for her to take it back, and every moment she believes he holds it precious in his chest next to his own means she is safe again forever and every moment she does not is one in which her body knows she is abandoned. That it isn't the same, won't be the same, he does not love her, will not love herβ
But the simplicity of a kiss for her nose and she is quiet again. Able to listen to him speak without the rising howl of wind behind it.
She takes a breath, long and deep, looks at him as if even in the darkness he could see the firmness of her truth in it. ]
I have held the blade that sometimes bleeds; have chosen it, knowing it will, and chosen it with joy.
[ Softer, then: ] I am not afraid of what you are. Only afraid that you will see I bleed and turn away to save me in a way I do not wish for.
I will not ask for trust, but I will ask for this: that you will not leave me when I love the parts of you that you cannot. That you will not leave me when you fear I will leave you and your only choice in it is when.
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It is hot and bright and terrifying.
Her words cut him to the quick because it is what he would do β leave her in anticipation of being left, turn away because he's hurt her too greatly and surely, surely, she will tire of him and his shenanigans.
He's tired of them.
Loki can feel her gaze upon him in the dark, waiting for his answer. ]
Du har mitt ord. Even if I am afraid, I won't turn away from you. [ A breath, shakier than he'd like. Can he do this? Will he manage to keep his word? ] But I can't promise I won't be afraid.
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I am afraid too.
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What do you do, to stop feeling afraid?
[ Is there a cure? Probably not. But everyone does something. ]
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[ Little quiet puffs of mirthful air come from her nose. ]
When I rage, it covers up the fear. I feel it less, but it is always there.
[ She squeezes back. ]
Speak of it, and then be held and told it is not real. Or at the very least, that I am not alone.
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[ Besides which, his shrieking would bring someone to the tent, surely, and Loki doesn't want that.
He brings their entwined hands up to his lips, where he can kiss her fingers. ]
I'm afraid something terrible is going to happen. That just when I begin to feel certain in this, in you, that it's going to be taken away from me.
And I don't know what I'll do, then.
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I cannot say it will not.
But I can say that if it does, it will notβ
[ She chokes on it, and suddenly her voice is rough with emotion because she believes. She still believes that if her lord, her love, her Loki, the man whose House and name she bears, had had a choice in it, he would be home. ]
It will not be a thing that I have chosen. And wherever we may be, I weep for you.
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Neither of them are children after all and they've already lost so much. ]
Don't weep too long, [ he tells her quietly, seriously. ] You've cried enough over me just today.
[ He wants to promise her that whatever happens, he'll make the attempt. Try to reach her, to reconnect, to... something.
But he's not sure he can promise that, all things considered, and he'd rather not lie to her right now. ]
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I will weep as long as I need to.
It is how I keep my promise of forever on my own.
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(Would it be better, if she cried only for her missing husband, or worse?) ]
Alright, [ he says for the second time, acquiescing to her. It feels a little less terrifying this time around, but Loki is no less exhausted by it. ]
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Of course I should rather not.
I should rather keep you.
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Perhaps he'd only have sweet dreams, nightmares chased away by her kisses. ]
I should rather like to be kept, for once.
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[ Decisively said, as if she is in charge of fortune. A thing of childlike surety, chosen belief.
She is quiet for a little while, feeling his breath against her. Smiling fondly in the dark and thinking of nothing but the simple solace of his weight in her arms.
Then her quiet huffs of mirth again, stirring his hair. ]
Is it telling, do you think, that all our planning is for sorrow? No sooner met but we turn at once to fretting we will part?
Let us dream a little, instead. Tell me something that would give you joy.
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[ Loki's words come out a little sleepy at first. Her questions rouse him from a twilight state, taking a deep breath in and being rewarded by the scent of her and her perfume all over again. What would bring him joy?
To not feel this afraid always, but that is not quite what she means is it? ]
To hear you laugh, happy and drunk.
[ The sort of manic energy that one gets from having imbibed too much alcohol is just about his favorite thing; he remembers, suddenly, Sylvie's annoyed expression when he'd gotten drunk on the train, and how he'd wished he'd been able to get her to drink too. To smile or laugh or relax a little. ]
To take you dancing. To spin you in a room of onlookers who are jealous for reasons they don't wish to understand and to not care about it.
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