appropriate season to bring out an au is appropriate, so thinks the mun.

[flaerd]

My! What a privilege it is to be among your ball and chain again mortal.

And just in time for winter? How quaint. Truly, I applaud your efforts for poetic revival.

I'm humbly excited to see what sort of disaster this place you plan to take me to is going to end up in.

Oh, what fun to be had with an ever sharp scribe like you by my side.

What could possibly go wrong?

Do me a favor if you're taking me from my realm, hm? Do try to impress me, wont you?

I think you aught.

Comments

[tricksandmischief]

......

So you are one who has accepted it.

[flaerd]

[ This aught to be fun ] you can't get away from yourself by moving from one place to another.

[tricksandmischief]

I... am not trying to.

Not any more. My mun is having me face... you. Myself.

In at least one of my games.

[flaerd]

With me, it will be three. We'll be a fun little trio of what could have been in different circumstances! [ His excitement. Let him show you it. ]

I assume you never had a chance to received answers to all those questions that came the day you discovered what you really are.

[tricksandmischief]

Strangely, my mun was even considering just yesterday to bring forth an alternate just like you... and here you are already.

No, I...

Odin fell instantly into the Odinsleep and therefore avoided any questions I had.

[How convenient of him. Loki was still bitter about that.]

[flaerd]

The more the merrier, they say.

[ Oh, please. Odin. ]

Odin has lied to you your entire life, what can you possibly believe his word is worth?

[tricksandmischief]

I do not believe it is worth anything.

But why should I believe you any moreso?

[flaerd]

[ It's a strange feeling not caring about yourself and truly recognizing it. Being face to face with your own face and realizing you couldn't care less about them. ]

because I know how much it eats at you; at us.

[tricksandmischief]

[He frowns. That much is true.]

Does it continue to bother you?

[flaerd]

Does it look like it still bothers me?

What bothers me is all the time I've lost and useless efforts put toward trying to be something I'm not; believing this illusion of grandeur. Asgard is nothing but an empire built on the bodies of every other realm. And they dare to call those beneathe them barbaric.

[tricksandmischief]

So what of Jotunheim? Tell me what you know of it.

[flaerd]

Perhaps a discussion somewhere you'll remember, don't you think?

[tricksandmischief]

Now you are being evasive.

[flaerd]

So untrusting.

What do you want to know about Jotunheim? I trust you recall it's desolation just fine.

[tricksandmischief]

Are you claiming you have more trust?

I have seen the grim reality of it and hear that the entire world is just as... unpleasant. I would rather rule Asgard.

[flaerd]

[ He just smiles an awful smile at that first question but it slides into something more neutral again. ]

Heard from who? Other Asgardian's who say what other Asgardian's have told them? From where has the root of these claims hailed, and why did we believe it so readily?

[tricksandmischief]

That is why I was asking you instead.

[flaerd]

Are you ready?

[tricksandmischief]

I am.

[flaerd]

The Jotun are not bumbling fools, surprisingly! Quite educated. Actually a might bit more coded with honor than I'll ever be. It's an old warrior culture that refused to change when Asgard took power.

Magic is common. Mostly elements. Sometimes I think Asgardian and Jotun are too similar for my own liking with how they both seem to like fighting among one another.

[tricksandmischief]

Yes... That the Jotunn are warriors who enjoy battles is something I already knew. Much like the Asgardians.

There are other ways to conquer besides dashing in and smashing things.

But I never believed that they were fools.

[Well, maybe just a little for believing Loki. That had been Laufey's foolish mistake. And yes, he's still referring to them as separate to himself at most times.]

[flaerd]

That's a lie. You believed them as oversized apes with a brain the size of a pea.

I asked him why- why did he attack Midgard? He said it was because he was young. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

[ A beat ] Either way, I have something really important to tell you.

[tricksandmischief]

[Loki frowns.]

What is it?

[flaerd]

You weren't left to die.

[tricksandmischief]

.... What do you mean?

[flaerd]

He told you that you were left to die, didn't he? Odin? It's a lie.

We were locked up in the throne room with our mother, she was killed and we survived. Then he found us.

[tricksandmischief]

We?

[flaerd]

Is this not how your story goes? Were you not found in Jotenheim 'abandoned' during the war?

[tricksandmischief]

Odin changed his story. First he told me it was in a temple, then abandoned on a rock...

Either way, abandoned, yes.

But when you say us... Are you implying that you are my brother - or do you only claim kinship by being my alternate.

[For now he doesn't even want to think about his birth mother. That was another issue entirely.]

[flaerd]

I guess we'd be twins, wouldn't we?


[ To be fair, he isn't as upset over the real mother thing as he is about Odin's lies in general. Frigga is still a fragile topic. She was the only one that remotely believed in him his entire life. ]

[tricksandmischief]

We do not exactly look alike.

[Loki speaks wryly, but of course that was only on the current surface... If he let his true form through, then...]

So what do I call you?

[flaerd]

I realize that I'm the prettier one, but you can't win it all. [ he smiles again ] Endear me with an atrocious two-faced nickname, how I long to hear your thoughts on it.

[tricksandmischief]

The simplest would be to use our family names but I have no wish to call myself Odinson any longer.

[flaerd]

Oh? No quick quip, silver tongue?

[tricksandmischief]

Not everything has to be a clever joke.

[flaerd]

[ He idly tugs on the fur around his shoulders. Fair enough. ] I do not mind being Laufeyson.

[tricksandmischief]

Then you may be that and I will continue being Loki.

[flaerd]

And just think, we'll get to have this conversation all over again when the mun decides to write me up in that little world I'm being tossed in to!

How delightful. I suppose this is goodbye for now my little not-Odinson twin.

[tricksandmischief]

Ah. Then I look forward to our more official meeting...

[mjolnirwielder]

...Loki?

[flaerd]

oh, hello! [ Jovial tone is about to get a whole lot colder ] How fair thee, Odinson?

[mjolnirwielder]

[I feel frostier already!]

[watching you warily, but not without affection]

Well enough. I am concerned for you, however.

[flaerd]

[ Oh, please. ] What concern could you possibly have for me?

[mjolnirwielder]

That you seem to travel further and further from the roots of your upbringing. No, not your physical heritage. Your upbringing.

[flaerd]

My upbringing, Thor? [ Is this what you missed, really? His rage? Well then! You're in for a treat. It still exists! ]

My upbringing cast in the shadows of you? The one where I was different, I was strange, I was isolated, laughed at, mocked, left behind, never good enough. The one where I was constantly slighted for staying home to read while you wandered the realms looking to pick a fight?

Is that the upbringing you're talking about, Thor?

I was brought up to believe that I was a monster, meanwhile it was actually you! And Asgard. The true monsters of these realms.

[mjolnirwielder]

[listening, mouth in a grim line; he won't just ignore you or yell at you]

You had - you have - a family. You have been mistreated; I will not ignore that and you did not deserve it. But you have also lied and murdered, Loki.

You are more than my brother, but you are still my brother.

[flaerd]

I have murdered? What a statement coming from you!

What of all the times you adventure into realms and pick a fight. How many lives that you deemed 'below you' had you destroyed? You went in to Jotunheim and killed hundreds of their men because one of them mocked you. They were going to let us leave, Thor.

That and countless other times. Wrapped up in 'glory'. You kill hundreds of people, people sing songs about you and drink. But if I? What a monster I am!

No. No, Thor. Asgard is not my home, not my family. You are not my brother.

[mjolnirwielder]

[small shudder]

Indeed. You are entirely correct, and I regret my behaviour.

Yet if you think that means that your murder of innocents has no consequences and no import, you are incorrect. My misdeeds do not cancel yours.

[he stalks right up to you, not quite within stabbing distance]

There we will always disagree, for you will ALWAYS be my brother.

[flaerd]

[ There's a couple things that run through his mind but the first one that hits him is this: ] What innocents? As if to say there is such a thing or I've went upon something similar to your rampage.

[ And the temptation. Oh, the ire too. It was there, and he wanted to strike, but he stood tall instead. Grit teeth, knot tight in his belly. ] Then by all means continue to delude yourself, Odinson. Whatever misdeeds I have done in your eyes, I certainly ask not for your forgiveness nor the All-Father.