On game #2 App (Throne of Shadows)

[brosif]

Once, I wished to travel across countless worlds in the name of war.

Now, there is only one place I wish to see. I would return there in peace. If you are to bind my name to yet another game, find one which sets me home. Not one comprised of a city of ill-appointed courtesans, with a traitor in their midst.

I have been kept from Asgard for far too long.

Comments

[sorcerous]

A traitor?

[brosif]

If there is a more accurate word, I know it not.

[sorcerous]

I do not like this change in you, Sif. I have been your friend, ere long, and now I am called traitor, at every turn.

I did not think such cruelty your craft in trade.

lkafadf

[brosif]

This change? I stand loyal as ever. You betray all whom have ever loved you. You murder thousands, declare war on both realms, and think to name me as cruel?

What new trick is this, Loki? I grow tried of them.

[sorcerous]

And how like you, to think it is a trick.

[brosif]

How like you, to think me so gullible. I believed in your games, once. I shall not be taken in again.

[sorcerous]

Then go. What need have I for a friend who thinks me a monster?

[ -- afraid he's gone too far, then. Would he have said 'monster' before he knew? Ah, this year spent away from Asgard has dulled so many things, so many memories. ]

[brosif]

You named yourself a monster long before I did.

[The thought brings up memories of Schwanheim, unbidden. She pushes them down, but they color her anger still. She pleaded with him, and he made the same choices still.

Her rage is not on behalf of Thor alone.]

And then signed for the title in the blood of innocents.

[sorcerous]

[ He recoils. Plays as though he can hardly breathe. ] What -- new lie is this?

[brosif]

[She moves faster than she thinks, and grows all the more furious at him as the cause of it. She strikes out, and grips her hand around his throat. The other is set upon her sword.]

If there is a drop of truth left in you, I would squeeze it out myself. I am not Thor, Loki. I will not run through a shadow and into a cage. I will not cling to false hope you may supply.

[sorcerous]

[ He gambles that she will not hurt him, that her anger will leave bruises, not breaks.

He considers a handful of cutting remarks, discards them all. How would he have reacted? ]

I thought you better than this. I am condemned by whisper and ignorant rumor -- and you should remember how Asgard whispered about you. [ His voice is hissed and harsh, his hand tight on her wrist. ]

[brosif]

[There it is. She is certain -- a thousand years in his company, in his lies. He is excels at deception. Is more skilled at wordcraft than Sif shall ever be.

But he lies to himself, too. Changes history as it befits him. And Sif does not.]

And there, Loki, is your mistake. Not a truth, but not far off.

[The hold on his neck loosens. The hold on her sword does not.]

You have never thought me better than this. You have always blamed me for favoring you ill, even when there was no such blame to place at my feet.

[sorcerous]

[ No; he will not lose so easily. She is not sure. She cannot be.

And, besides, there is one more truth left at hand. So his gaze on her is bleak, and when he says the words, perhaps they hurt him too: ]

I thought you better than Thor.

[ Thor: ignorant, shortsighted, passionate. All the reasons Loki loved him and hated him. Sif wanted to be one of them, wanted to be him, but she always understood more. She had no patience for Loki, and that was the greatest betrayal, because she had a true chance at understanding him. ]

[brosif]

I am not. And that is an honor.

[It is easy to believe a lie that is so deeply preferable to the truth. That the man before her is the man they lost. That his genocidal actions are, once again, mere possibilities.

But Sif does not doubt her senses. She ignored them for months, and Asgard paid the wereguild for it.]

In time, I believe I would have forgiven you Sansa.

[She shakes her head, and though not overt, there a sense of grief in her actions. Distant, and unimportant compared to what duties lie before her.]

That time has passed. You will not hold my trust again.

[sorcerous]

[ He did not hurt the girl; all he did was for the betterment of that realm. That she fails to see that damns her.

An honor, to be lesser than Thor?

-- In time, every Aesir will fall before Loki. And in Sif's, he will take delight. ]

Who? Who is Sansa? What have I done that is so terrible?

[ He slaps her hand away, as though in frustration. He is her Prince, and she should not touch him. ]

[brosif]

I will not play this game. If you know your actions, you have no need of my narration. If you do not, I shall not put them into your head.

[They have been speaking five minutes -- and already, he makes her tired. Resigned to the clear task ahead.]

It is not for me to sort out your lies. I leave that to Odin. My only duty now is to return you to Asgard.

[sorcerous]

And thank Odin for it, then. I am certain that he will know the truth. [ This is not a lie. ] And I wish nothing more than to return home. The Nysgod are nothing to me, and I worry for my mother, and my father, and my brother.

[brosif]

I can pledge to see you home.

[It is not a comfort -- merely a fact. She could do nothing other, now.]

To take a prisoner of Asgard is an act of war. Your father will respond in kind.

[sorcerous]

He would not be so hasty. The Nysgod are very powerful, and the All-Father knows the uselessness of an ill-judged war.

[brosif]

And yet not powerful enough to procreate on their own.

[sorcerous]

Magic powerful enough to create life could destroy Realms.

[ He is utterly serious. ]

[brosif]

Then we should tremble in fear before the drunken farmhands and milk maidens of Asgard, for that is a power they hold in abundance.

[sorcerous]

Doubt me, then. We'll see where it gets you.

[brosif]

I believed in you, once. I would see where another path would take me.

[advancedbosoms]

Why do you need an ass guard?

u in danger gurl

[brosif]

Asgard. The realm eternal. My proper home.

i only cower somewhat in the face of danger

[advancedbosoms]

Oh.

Is this, like, a D&D thing? Do you have one of those foam sword things that [she makes a thwump noise].

[brosif]

My sword is not made of foam. I assure you.

...and I know not what you mean by "D&D."

[advancedbosoms]

Dungeons and Dragons.

You know.

LARPers?

[brosif]

A dungeon is a terrible place in which to keep a dragon. Their fire can turn metal to dust.

[advancedbosoms]

Dungeons and Dragons, not Dragons in Dungeons.

But no seriously, you talk like an Elf.

[oregoniandionysus]

Excuse you. I think I make a very well-appointed courtesan.

[brosif]

If such a thought brings you comfort.

Are you the prince's chosen mate, then?

[oregoniandionysus]

...no. No, he hasn't gotten around to choosing yet. Thus why the Grasp is still pulling people in, I suppose.

Although I wouldn't put it past the thing to keep yanking candidates even if he had. It's been on the fritz for a while now.

[brosif]

And what if the candidate he chooses holds no interest in such an arrangement?

[oregoniandionysus]

They get to go home. So they say. In practice, that's never going to work if they can't get the Grasp fixed.

[brosif]

So in reality, you are all prisoners. And this "Grasp" an excuse to keep you in place.

[unified]

Sometimes our path does not take us home.

[brosif]

I have no interest in any other journey.

[unified]

You are a warrior. Necessity guides a warrior, not sentiment.

[brosif]

I have given sentiment its day. It colors my actions no longer.

[unified]

Foolish of you.

And if you world forbade your return, for your crimes? Would you still protect it?

[brosif]

Yes. It was.

I have no crimes to answer for.

[unified]

You made no mistakes, from sentiment, and poor judgment.

[ Really, Sif? ]

[brosif]

[Shut up midget Frost Giant.]

I have committed no crimes. Certainly none that would bar me from my home.

[unified]

I have.

[ His voice is calm, but not matter-of-fact. It is an admittance. ]

I killed the few to save the many, and I stood by my principle and lost my standing.

And I work to protect them still.

[brosif]

I knew another man who labored under the impression that his actions, though drastic, were for the good a world.

In the light of day, they were for nothing more than his own selfish desires. If your world has seen your actions and judged them as crimes, perhaps that is exactly what they were.

[unified]

You are of a warrior race, are you not?

I would find it difficult to believe that you would have turned away from a fight with the Vagaari. [ He emphasizes the name, lightly, knowing that she would not recognize it. ]

Pirates, and slavers; they preyed on the innocent because they had no enterprise of their own. They sent their slaves ahead of them into combat, and into areas of... dubious atmosphere, and they would work them to death without remorse. In order to slow retaliation, they would place their slaves in clear chambers on the outside of their ships, so that their terror was visible to any attacker. Living shields, on a large scale.

[ He describes it smoothly, without hesitation, with a kind of tight pain in his voice. ]

They had not yet attacked the Chiss, and so we were forbidden to use violence against them.

This was my crime.

Do you wish to continue in your righteous anger? Or shall we speak with one another as the civilized would?

[brosif]

You mistake my suspicion for anger.

[But when she speaks again, it is more somber than not. She has no reason to believe him, and no equal reason to disbelieve him. Though there are differences in height, and smoother skin, he has the misfortune of resembling a race that Sif has been raised to cast out.

But he has come across the warrior at a time in her life when they are all realizing the full extent of what those prejudices have cost Asgard.]

If your words are true, then your homeworld's policies are without honor. I believe that to stand by and watch as atrocities are committed is no different than committing them yourself.