multiversallogs | [open] If thou wouldst drink of my life

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[open] If thou wouldst drink of my life

Who: Loki and YOU???
What: So, Loki kills the guy who comes to release him from the room and he immediately gets branded and black bagged. Dragged back to The Spire, he's shoved in a sensory deprivation chamber of some sort for possibly a week or maybe two.
Where: The Arena; Griss Twist
When: Weeks after his arrival
Notes: Nothing yet.
Warnings: Possible violence / terribleness; who knows!

He did not know how long he had been there. A familiar feeling, truth be told, that after the panic and anger subsided and the bruised ego finally came to terms with itself, recovered, Loki had come to find a sense of peace there. In the darkness. Where nothing and nowhere enveloped you to it's breast and you say nothing, hear nothing, feet nothing, smell nothing, and taste nothing. Was he still alive? Was he still breathing, was he still here, was he still functioning?

He was nothing. This was going to be his home until death: nowhere. Not here, not there, everywhere and nowhere. Of no home; of no family; of no name but Loki.

Upon his release, terms read -- You have been branded as a violent criminal. To release the brand from your flesh you must work for it in bloodsport. -- his mind flitted to the question, 'what would happen to Thor if these mortals (or otherwise) are so strict' He had little care. He did not anticipate turning a new leaf, it was not in his nature, it benefited him none, and most importantly it was not exciting, expanding, or fun.

So here he was.

Something more at work here indeed. Those men who came for him, scarred him with something so searing hot he couldn't breathe and put him in this blackness were a power beyond what he'd known and he knew to fear. Though he'd meet it snake-grinning and proud-chested, he knew to fear. Loki was beyond that, now. Beyond the aching pain of sight again, the pasting need for hydration, the agonizing hunger, the ringing of his ears to once again hear. From nothing to everything. All at once it surrounds him. Footsteps, chatter, bells ringing, doors slamming, food cooking, dogs barking -- and the stigma one would expect.

Made him smirk. Monster. A criminal. Yes, he was, wasn't he? The thing that people feared.

He looked unwell; but his dress was clean and unique compared to the others about, alien, and something that stood out clear from those surrounding him. He cared none, basked in the difference if anything because he was different, and moved forward. Curiosity managed to grab his attention at the 'blood money' he was to pay -- this gladiator fighting, and this was where he would be. At the top edge of that Colosseum.

A green serpent knot glowed right through the layers, right through the armor on his chest. Runes were worked in to it for those who read it. Simply it read, 'violent'. Shame, truly. To get off on such a poor start.

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As if this world weren't surreal enough, some number of hours after Loki's release a mechanical buzzing-ring sound abruptly begins to emanate from somewhere about his person. That sound is coming from what turns out to be the little object that was in the arrival room with him, the one that the idiotic propaganda-steeped pamphlet identified as a CiD.

Someone's getting a call.

Displayed on the video screen is a young woman seated at a table or desk of some kind, pale-skinned and dark featured, pretty, in an angry sort of way, smoking a cigarette and staring, unimpressed, directly at him. How exactly she got his contact information is anybody's guess.

"Where the fuck have you been," she deadpans, and flicks her cigarette ash in the only thing (besides, presumably, her own CiD) on the desk, a black enameled ashtray. The rest of the environment around her is too dark to be visible, but she's definitely indoors. Not many clues to her identity for someone who'd just arrived and gone straight to the Arena-- but anyone else would've seen at least one of her billboards by now. Meet Penelope Lane: She's Kind Of A Big Deal.

If it was another place at another time, he'd take to a library first (and he would most likely later on) or wander endlessly to understand his whereabouts. Watch this network upon that device he were given. Asgard was not one place to use such things but they were not oblivious to the technologies on Earth they were, rather, more advanced - aided with what might widely be known as magic to most.

It appears, rather, in his hands. To save the effort of rummaging through plentiful layers. He'd looked it over in the arrival room, gathered it's basic functions enough to know how to turn it on, answer, make 'calls', and so forth. Thus the answer comes back in the same form of a video.

He were not hiding precisely where he was nor how roughened he looked; but it was very interesting that she was or seemed to be. Whomever she were. She knew him. He did not know her. How interesting. "Had been sidetracked, shall we say? I do apologize."

But he'll play along for now. He's made a woman angry.

To be fair, it's not so much that he's made her angry, just that he's given her yet another excuse to sharpen her proverbial claws on the face of someone of arguably male persuasion. Just another day in Baedal.

"Apologize to this," she immediately replies, and holds up what appears to be her wallet, purely for emphasis. "You didn't want my money, fine, but you let me fucking know you're not going to fucking show up, it's called common fucking courtesy."

There's a pause, and she blinks, narrows her eyes, and leans closer in towards her CiD. "You look like shit," she says, delicately as usual. "If you were going to turn up looking like that, maybe it's for the best, because that shit is not what I hired you for."

This is what passes for 'friendly concern' in Penelopeland.

Well then, it's not as if he's never met a woman who was very woman and very ready to split the skull of any man daring to cross her womaness. The thought might have tickled him a bit if he knew it but alas. Now what to do about this, precisely. Also, what in the nine would he need her money for? A moment's thought.

"And I had," it's sweet (with an undercurrent of sly), motion of his hand to his heart where that marking laid. Oh. So. Clear. Perhaps he had gone mad, and truly been here before -- he knew of those with powers strong enough to erase thoughts and previous memories. Once ago he would not have believed anyone but the All-Father yet he were not so naive now.

"Side-tracked, I mind again. How would you have I make up for this shameful lack of courtesy?"

Do tell.

"Yeah, 'getting sidetracked' is when you get a phonecall from your boss and can't finish dinner for an hour while he talks your ear off. 'Getting sidetracked' is when you get too absorbed in what's on TV to finish paying your bills right away. It is not fucking disappearing for months at a time with no explanation."

She doesn't sound especially worried about any of this, mind-- more inconvenienced than anything. Still, it doesn't appear to be the sort of thing that goes without comment from her. She leans back in her chair and folds her arms across her chest, glaring at her CiD, thinking. It's not a matter of thinking of something she wants from him, it's what she could conceivably get that concerns her, and for good reason.

"You owe me," she finally concludes. "Someday I'll call in my favor, and you'll give it, no whining. And definitely no disappearing act when I do. We square?"

Really? He happened to have disappeared for a few years before his presence was made known to the All-Father once again upon entering Midgard but she needn't know that. He just purses his lips with the tail of a smirk at their corners.

"Oh do I?" He sees that, and not that it would be hard to miss. His aptly shaped little brand. A horrible experience predating worse days, but he'd not show it anywhere save for the mess on his face. Exhaustion, to be sure. Those green eyes still poisonously alive, mind.

"Had I gotten something from this deal? As the way I see it, neither of us benefited from my untimely disappearance." Months at a time. What was he doing a few months ago? Midgard, this wasn't adding up. "And thus to owe you it would be you also owing me. Should we discuss this somewhere more," a brief pause, "solitary, perhaps?"

A moment passes where she stares, blinking rapidly.

"No, I'm fine where I am, thanks. Look, you made a promise to me, and then you backed out of that promise. Therefore, you owe me. That's business." She's not exactly speaking slowly, like you'd explain something to a child, but she sure is enunciating carefully. "What I would have owed you, had you actually come through on your side of the deal, was a fuckload of cash, which I was both ready and willing to part with, as was previously established. Instead, you balked. Therefore, I don't owe you squat, but you owe me damages. I'm not running a charity. Businesses don't operate themselves. You cost me time and prestige, and short of doing some very shady deals in very bad parts of this city, you can't get that shit back. I'm asking for a future favor in return, rather than suing the shit out of you for breach of contract. Call that the favor I'm doing you."

Well then. He does like how you do said business, truth to say. How unfortunate he cannot quite say he remembers any of this -- which leads to more interesting theories. More on that thought later. He just takes a moment to look upward.

She does realize anyone surrounding, close enough, could possibly hear -- actually that might be a mutual disadvantage, let's fix that shall we? The arena is loud indeed, but nevertheless if he was here than there might be the possibility of others not mortal here as well. He doubts she is one, he would not likely do dealings with a mortal.

More on 'if he was here' and the theories of that later as well.

Now, back to business. "Very well," it's calm and accepting. "Then I shall await your call."

"Cool. Nice to be on the same page."

She picks her cigarette from its ashtray and leans back in her chair, taking a lazy drag.

"You'll hear from me."

And she ends the call.

Right. Well.

He rose a hand to his head as the vocal cloaking spell was finally released. What a headache. A small exhale, device sliding away again with the twist of his palm.

This is already interesting.

Loki will come to know some regular faces around these parts. Men and women and monsters that train and fight side by side, or never meet until the clash on the pressed dirt of the Arena's floor, for the same reasons branded into the demigod's skin, or for reasons that manifest in one Jaime Lannister. (Which happens to be a senseless absence of reason.)

He doesn't immediately notice the very noticeable new face -- someone makes a remark, probably a jibe about armour and having things in common, because he's sort of developed a character, but it's really that telltale mark that snags Jaime's attention and has him breaking away from his usual companions. He is not one to fade into the woodwork either -- 6'2", lantern-jawed and golden-haired, Jaime also wears his armour as if he's worn it almost all his life, which would probably be true. It is silver and red, a lionesque image set into his breastplate, a skirt of scale mail almost down to the knee, and a heavy looking sword set at his hip. In contrast, his weaponry and defence is heavy and old-fashioned, medieval, whereas the god he's approaching isn't wearing anything he's ever seen.

Probably, Jaime is to fight later. He doesn't look like he came here to watch.

"Intimidating, isn't it," he suggests, by way of greeting. "The crowds. They can be, the first time."

Edited 2012-08-17 07:42 (UTC)

Ah, but while the man approaching does not strike a familiarity with Loki, the armor does. It was not of the far North, no. It was something he knew. It was a mortal that approached in this armor. His own? Yes, likely not at all something known (as those who once worshiped them on earth donned themselves quite differently); but if one was knowledgeable in history then they might notice the intricate engravings within golden plating were knotting, in fact. Someone hand crafted this armor with care.

Loki tips his head and rocks his body back for a moment to look over the man's shoulder at the whispers behind him. A smile brightly painted on his lips as theirs clamped shut. Literally, incapable of opening.

Then he looks back to the man. "What was that? I fear I did not hear you over," another spared look to those behind him, "the chatter."

If you are good little mortals, the spell will wear off soon.

Then, Loki turns to the scene below. "I am not the one fearing. Did you get that impression?"

The use of magic does not go unnoticed -- it would take Jaime on a particularly unobservant day for that to happen. Fear is not a thing he does much of, either, but there is a sort of bleakness that isn't quite masked when it comes to noting the stranger's trick. It's a two-fold thing, coming from a world that lacks in technological innovation in comparison to many, with magic as an out-dated, too rare artform for Jaime to know it any better. Loki, in these respects, has a couple of advantages.

Still. Jaime approaches with his usual laden swagger, neither concerned for his well-being nor particularly pitying of those bewitched.

"It was a guess," he allows, tipping a look at the brand that glows bright and vivid through chestplate -- Jaime has no such marking, himself. "With so much at stake, the added pressure of performance can make even the most seasoned of warrior's blade slip."

He was not hiding. He had no desire to hide at this point in time. Not hiding his magic, not hiding his armor so different from everyone else, not hiding his brand. Sporting it all, almost proudly, like he aught to. Finished with hiding. Finished with obeying rules not made for him. Finished with trying to be the good son, trying to be the smart one, trying to be reasonable, and caring, and just. Finished with the scorn for honest innocent tricks. He was done. He'd been done since the bifrost when the All-Father said to him, no. Denied him of everything he tried so hard to make things better, to prove himself.

Done with it. He would never be good enough, how would he ever be good enough? How could he be loved as an Odinson when he was made to be a token of war, a spoil taken from the breast of death? A monster raised to be what? Raised to be what? Not a King, certainly not. So what was he, what was he?

For a moment, he looks misplaced. The raw of that week (two weeks?) still somewhere hidden within his mind. He folds his hands and turns properly to the man. There is no letting up on that serpent smile. "And what think you I have at stake, this mark?"

"Of course," Jaime says, with an easy jockish quality that doesn't exactly radiate the same innocence as other big blonde armour wearing bullies that Loki happens to know. "I've seen men and women bleed down there for the sole purpose of its removal..." He squints, as if in memory of a thing, all affect. "...not that I quite recall right now if I've ever witnessed bought freedom."

But who can say. Jaime's fingers stretch and clench again where his palm rests light on the hilt of his sword.

"I see no chains," his body tips forward just a little, that serpentine smile still gracing his lips. And you, dear Jaime, can interpret that however you wish.

Vivid green eyes look over the man and watch the twist and turns in expression without speaking or revealing much more. Although it might be obvious that Loki was interested enough. This human had yet to irritate him. Perhaps the time of which he hailed had a bit to do with that, but all in good time would everything be revealed.

"I'm no mere man." As by example of those surrounding then which had slowly began to regain their ability to speak. A few minutes before this. He couldn't make too much of a boast. That would be just rude!

"Anxious?" His eyes turn down to the clenching fist. "Certainly not nervous, I do presume."

There is that flick of a sidealong glance when people once again find their voice, and there's a slight tick in his jaw that communicates-- well, something. Discomfort, certainly, but fear is not a thing that reads off Jaime well. Let's call it dislike. Made more apparent as he says; "Oh, so I can see. But as long as you have flesh to cleave, it's all the same down there." It isn't, really -- Jaime is a man, and ever at a disadvantage for it, and he knows it.

Queries after his nerves gets an easy smile, Jaime casting a look away and indicating the city beyond the arena. It's not that he answers, but the subject of chains; "We're all imprisoned, but do you see bars? Such is the beauty of Baedal.

"Call me ready, stranger, not anxious."

And does that disturb you? He does not ask it but it's written all over his face. The slight twitch at the corner of his lips. So easily read, that question. He needed to behave himself, didn't he? They strayed. With good reason. Yet if they strayed to speak with those who took him already that could cause a problem.

"Your outlook on life's whimsical nature is amusingly bleak," he rolls a calm look back up to the man and then down to the arena. "Typical of a mortal, I suppose. With such low thresholds and miniscule length in years it would be so easy to misplace an opportunity for a hindrance."

He pauses, his body turns again away from the man and toward the grounds below as another round is about to be had. "Let me guess. You had found yourself here in a moment of presumed importance." Another beat. "You serve a Lord, or had, but you are not one. Am I correct?"

"I don't come from a land known for its whimsy."

Jaime turns his back on the fights -- normally, he watches them with all the avid study of an athlete watching his favoured sport. Instead, he takes a lean to consider Loki, making no real effort to conceal the fact he is listening and learning in some way. The corner of his mouth crooks up at talk of mortality.

It evens out again when assessment gets personal. Jaime could lie, he knows, but he's never been a really great liar. It's exhausting. "A knight of the Kingsguard bears no lordly title of his own," Jaime agrees.

"Yet you had always thought there were only one until now?" Either, this man hails not from the Midgard he knows or has passed the time where man believed in other worlds, in gods and in monsters. Loki knew no such thing as another Earth but he would not quite deny it's existence.

"A knight indeed." He does not carry himself like a King nor Prince, Loki had assessed. A warrior though was what moved his body, it seemed. Loki knew Kings and Queens, Princes and Princesses, and warriors. "Is this why you fight here?"

That first part only gets a nod. One world, and Jaime has very rarely even crossed the Narrow Sea and thus has seen very little of even it. The Seven Hells could count, but he's never visited, and as far as he knows, Baedal could be one.

"Oh, I fight here for fun," Jaime answers, flippant. "I fear dullness above all else. Of course, I earn my shekels and pay tribute to Gediron in blood and bruises, and in that, we will have a commonality."

That is a sentiment he can get behind. Oh how he did take such grave displeasure in dullness and stagnation. It needed not to be bloodsport to rouse him, no. So long as there were minds, other bodies, powers and magicks to learn, he could most certainly make use of the.

Yet this caught his ear enough for him to tilt his head in a slow roll toward the man. and pay tribute to Gediron. That sounds like -- "Do tell me more of this Gediron, if you would."

"One of the gods of Baedal."

This is stated rather matter-of-factly -- Jaime's belief in gods has ever been a footnote, a ticked requirement, never one to seek the aid of the Warrior or waste his breath or thought on prayer, even if he would always be the first that he gravitate to in the praying places. "His followers often frequent the fighting ground, if they be warriors -- they say he favours only victors, men of strength and courage. Even mortals," he adds, a little wry.

How interesting.

"They say," there is a pause. Well, this could become very interesting indeed. One of. It does seem that this is a matter of interest to Loki, the man might notice. He tilts his head to the side. Amused at the remark about mortals. "Is it too uncommon to speak with them?"

"I've not had that privilege," Jaime says, as all he can confirm on the subject. The interest is caught, but Jaime is not one of the Lannisters that have a vested interest in toying with the social nuances of people -- his brother departed the city some time ago, his sister having never set foot. So he says; "Why, are you of a religious persuasion? You could try the temples, if this place does not prove to be temple enough."

"I am a religious persuasion," is more apt. Legends cast him as an enemy to the Gods but a God nonetheless, no matter his true roots. He'd looked in to that: what Midgard 'knew' of him. He watches, certainly one could put two and two together.

Between the attitude and the line of questioning, even Jaime can come to conclusions, if later than the sharper wit of his siblings. Loki's assertion gets raised eyebrows and then an easy grin, ever arrogant to the point of nihilism when it comes to the challenges presented. "Then perhaps they'll favour you with their attention. It shouldn't suit you at all to shamble along with the rest of us."

Except that Jaime's tone says that that is exactly how it will work. "In the mean time, I'll say I've never fought a god before."

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[open] If thou wouldst drink of my life

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