thoughtformed | [LOG] 'Til all my sleeves are stained red

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[LOG] 'Til all my sleeves are stained red

Who: Kid!Loki and Aradia
When: The night of the Kanima instagram?
Where: Aradia's room, in East 102
What: Secrets. Lots and lots of secrets, and irons in the fire, and how much work it takes to be Loki's confidante.

She wasn't worried. Was she? Sort of, possibly, in an abstract way. Just because he'd called on her aid once didn't mean that he needed her to bail him out of every single piece of trouble he got himself into, and she wouldn't insult him by acting as though it did. Realistically, it didn't look large enough to pose too much trouble; on Alternia, that would have been moderately dangerous at best, being as how it looked person-size. He should be all right. She skimmed ahead, briefly, saw no deaths. He didn't need her to bail him out.

And maybe he'd only stumbled on it by accident. That could have happened. But somehow Aradia didn't think with Loki that anything just happened. Somehow, somewhere along the way, he'd have had a hand in it. Even then, she didn't have to know. He'd promised honesty, not absolute disclosure, and she didn't have the right to ask for it.

And yet she was irritated, to not have known. Just a bit, enough for her to notice the edge on her mood. Aradia didn't want to dwell on what that meant, because the possibilities of poor repercussions, according to this timeline, didn't exist; everything turned out fine. There was no room for but what if it hadn't.

He didn't have to tell her anything! Just, she sort of wished he had.

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Well, there were a few things that he vouched on.

The whole thing started when he had seen the creature heading toward the school--it was one of those whole ordeals where he found himself in the right place at the right time on a very small island. So, he did as any curious, determined and sort-of reckless Asgardian god would, he followed the creature. Not to say that it wasn't dangerous in some sense of the word--he had seen far worse, and he had run from far worse, but the fact of the matter was that he was still helpless in the face of any beast who would not listen to his own particular brand of reasons.

Oh, Hel, and that was one of those times.

It had been going on for a while, the stake out and the mystery. It was only then that the creature had been in full exposure and at the mercy of his camera. And then he ran, and then everything seemed to snowball, but now the whole island knew what the creature looked like, and he finally had a step up. Not that he was used to having any kind of step up, but rather he worked with what he had. He had his suspicions, but nothing concrete enough to really make any move in any direction. Well, it was time to do what he did best.

But first things first.

As the group dispersed and everyone went back to their apartments, he took a detour around the apartments to East, catching on to the sill of one of the windows and making a show of knocking.

She was mad.

She was definitely mad.

Ah, well, another scolding would probably do him some good.

An angry troll could be a frightening thing to behold. Between the horns and the fangs and the claws, the powers and the inevitable large, formidable build of the adults, it would probably be a good idea never to piss one off. They were by nature aggressive, defensive and violent when provoked, purposely selected to be so.

Aradia was not, as her species went, tall of stature or intimidating on sight. She had flat teeth, and while her horns were big, it would take some serious effort to gore anybody with them. She was short. She was slight. She had the sort of face that was designed for smiles and laughter, and no matter how flat a line her mouth was set in it would always still look rather like a pout than any expression of serious disapproval.

None of which offset the fact that she had a nasty temper, when riled up.

It wasn't surprising that he showed up at her window. She'd sort of expected him at one entrance or another, though why he'd feel a need to use the window and dodge Laura, she'd never know. But she glared at him from her seat on the bed, her hand gripping the back of Indy's neck hard to keep him from dashing off for the face outside the glass, for a long minute. Then she got up to stand in front of the window, her arms folded, considering him.

And then she yanked the blinds down in his face.

Definitely mad.

"Arad—" Loki couldn't even get her name out.

The window was easier, without disturbances. It meant that if he had to, he could use the door and Laura would let him in, but if Aradia was mad and insisted she didn't want to see him then Laura would most likely not want to see him either. Well, it wasn't one of the worst messes he got himself into.

"Let me explain, at least."

Oh, Odin's balls.

At least she hadn't moved from the window yet. Aradia knew she was being slightly petty, and slightly was an understatement; he didn't have to tell her anything. He didn't, and she knew that. But if he had something to explain then there was something going on, and she was starting to get a rather Vriska-like feeling about all of this. Just how many repercussions were there going to be?

"I'm sure it's a very good story," she said loudly, to make sure he could hear her.

Oh, he could definitely hear her.

"It would be better story if you would hear of it," he rubs the back of his head. He's very used to getting himself in and out of trouble. He only hoped that her temper was short-lived enough for her to hear him out. She sounded really, really mad in that last message she sent him.

He's lucky he didn't die. He's lucky she likes him so much, enough to open the blinds and then throw open the window to lean out and glare at him, her pupils blowing wide in the shift from light to dark, sharklike as she gets right up in his face.

"All the better for the fact that I get to hear it from you now, and not from your ghost later, I would even imagine." Though at least she wasn't loud, anymore, hissing flatly through her teeth, and from somewhere in the depths of her vocal chords, a sound no human could ever make. "How lucky for us both. How dangerous was the thing you poked with a metaphorical stick?"

Loki's eyes go from her face and back down again. He lets out a breath. Ah, Kate had already scolded him. Numerous times. He had gotten it from Billy as well. Usually it was the All-Mother that he stood before, and it wasn't exactly him and his recklessness she was scolding, but the outcome of whatever terrifying adventure she sent him on.

He doesn't show much fear. He has it, that pang of guilt for making her worry. But he also knows how to talk. He does so without hesitation or pause between his words.

"There has been larger, in comparison. The Kanima has been something I've sought since my arrival, and a very unique opportunity presented itself."

He stops for a moment and deflates, looking defeated.

"I thought I could stop it from killing someone. Yet that person is still dead, another is carried off and paralyzed, and I still stand.

"It doesn't seem quite fair."

Aradia knew as soon as he started talking he'd have a good explanation. He was good at talking, and he already knew what to say to defuse her. She should be more worried about that, will try to be more worried about that, another time, that he might even be better than Terezi at pulling people's strings correctly, even more subtle. Some other time, when she wasn't hanging half out the window in the freezing cold air, and he didn't look like a puppy that'd been kicked one too many times.

"They call that survivor's guilt," she says finally, her voice evening out, losing the dangerous undertones. "Don't blame yourself, the timeline was already set by the time I went to look. I suppose you'd better come in and tell me all about it anyway."

And she steps back to let him in, shooing away the dinosaur to let him have some room.

Edited 2012-12-28 04:21 (UTC)

Unlike his Evil-Self, he was earnest when he spoke. He was good at wording it, and picking the phrases that were most likely to get him out of trouble. It was all he had really, as he could wield no bow or sword like the powerful warriors of Asgard. He was just Loki, and he had words.

And right now, he also had his sincerity.

Despite her invitation he still pauses, and moves one of his hands in the shape of an "L," turning around to show it to something behind him. He swings his legs over the sill of the window and slides in, closing the blinds behind him and making scrunchy face.

In a single motion he pulls back both hoods, his hair brushing against his cheeks, and the crown rolls along his wrist.

"I followed it," he says, glancing back at the blinds and then at her, "Kate and I have been investigating its presence on the island since I arrived. Someone related to the beast is killing people. I was being honest when I said it was a limited opportunity. I followed it, though I didn't plan on making myself known," he holds out his hands and shakes his head, "it attacked Lady Natasha, so I improvised. I thought I could spare her."

She notices the gesture, from where she's settled back down on her bed, drawing up the mountain of blankets around her. There's somebody else out there- waiting for him? Listening?

"Does whoever else out there want to come in, too?" she asks, not to dodge what he'd just said but to make sure there would be no distractions. And she pats the bed, holding open the blankets to offer to share the space and the warmth.

It's not just for comfort or affection's sake, either; Aradia's room is a disaster area of books and things she's collected, weird skulls and photographs and talismans and basically anything vaguely death related and occult, along with endless piles of reading material and papers and the various odds and ends a teenage girl might pick up and never know where to put them, and thus delegate them straight to the floor. Apart from the bed, and Indy's nest in the corner, there really isn't many other places to safely sit.

He was beginning to feel like a guilty man stating his case, standing before her like that. The offer takes him a little by surprise, but he speaks through the look on his face.

"No one but the cameras, and they aren't very pleasant company. Another matter we should discuss." His room is just as bad, books upon books upon books, scrolls and ink pens, all stacked on top of one another. (There was once where he managed to stack them almost to the ceiling, but that was a story for another time.) "The island is being watched," he doesn't look to amused when he speaks next, "and I've had the honor of talking to the Anon behind it."

Finally he moves, sitting beside her with a huff, he lets his shoulders slump a little. His expression, opens a little more to show the distress that had been rolling inside of his belly ever since Natasha had been injured. With a bit of a groan, he puts his face in his hands.

It's not the first time Aradia has had a friend with problems like this, and it surely won't be the last. She lets him sit, for a few moments, before she scoots around to sit behind him, throwing the blankets back around them carefully to preserve the heat. Her arms wrap around his shoulders as she kneels behind him, holding him to her, cocooned in the blankets and the heavy dry fall of her hair.

Is that ok? She doesn't know. They haven't talked about what happened in the forest since it happened, but he came to her, and he let her see this. If he shrugs her off now, she might be a little hurt, but how fast they ought to move, or where they're going, Aradia still doesn't know.

"We don't have to talk until you're ready to talk about it," she said quietly, to his hair. Funny, she couldn't remember if she'd ever seen him without his hoods before. "Just calm down, first. It will be ok. You are ok."

And there was the affection again.

Once the All-Mother had asked him if he remembered the face of his real mother. Of course he didn't, he couldn't remember the face of Laufey, either, and was probably better for it. But along with the violence in that relationship, came the missed affection. That part of his life was a blank, and what he had replaced it with was the streets of Paris, which were only kinder in comparison. He had wanted a better life, and being Loki was a better life.

"You were angry at me, are you still?" he asks, his voice curious, managing to look somewhat sheepish. Had the anger passed, as he had suspected? This was certainly not the kind gesture of a cross Aradia. He hoped not, anyway. He could still be taken surprise by a sudden trollesque cultural misunderstanding.

She hmphs! behind him, unable to see the expression on his face without smothering him. But there's no dangerous noises, no sudden tension of aggression in her body where it rests against his. Though it takes some amount of overcoming reservations, to open up to someone new, an ingrained cultural paranoia about weaknesses, she doesn't regret hugging him, nor anything else they've done. Not yet.

"I was not angry," she says, a bit huffy. "I was irritated, and I was worried. If I had been truly angry, you would definitely have no room to doubt it."

Which is sort of bullshit. She was definitely angry on some level. Just not as angry as it was possible for her to be.

Edited 2012-12-28 07:33 (UTC)

"I'm sorry," he sounds sincere, anyway. It's an apology. An apology from Loki, but still an apology.

Not yet is a key term for someone like him. As hard as he tried to keep his friends, there's always that sinking feeling that in his endeavor to do the right thing that he'll somehow lose them. It had happened before, with Leah, who swore on her heart that she would hate him forever.

She sighs behind him, lets go and eases back. Now she's the one starting to feel guilty, for giving him such a hard time over something he's so obviously upset about. It's too late to change it now; she can't help feeling how she feels.

"It's fine," she says, settling back down again, drawing her legs up to her chest. "You didn't promise to tell me everything, and I had no expectations that you would. I'm sorry I snapped at you."

There's a glance back at her, his expression still rearranged to be slightly (but still openly) upset. It had thrown him off, and he still blamed himself for not being able to stop it. At the time he hadn't thought of the consequences it cause for the people that he trusted, but it had happened. He wanted to make people aware of it, and somehow he was sure he stumbled along the way.

"I just don't want people to die if I can help it."

If this were someone else, Karkat, she would feel no guilt about digging in the knife and twisting it, telling him sometimes nothing can be helped. You will never be able to save everyone. The unkind truths of a time traveler; some things can never be changed and never prevented. Aradia is used to casualties, and some of them have been close friends, romantic partners former and present. There's no point in blaming yourself for something that can never not happen, has to happen.

"I know you don't," she tells him quietly, because whatever this is it's not about her trying to teach him a lesson or guide his actions. And even if it were, she wouldn't do it the way she's done for others. "Tell me what happened?"

"I believe that there's someone on this island that wants to kill people," he says, looking at his hands, hanging between his knees, "and that person is using that ugly lizard-man beast to do it. But this person may feel that these actions are just, so what then?

"It's easy to say that there's good and evil--and that death comes as a consequence. If this person feels that they're right, then even if we stop the Kanima they'll find another way."

He was a force of chaos, and he struggled with what that meant on many levels. Good thing or bad thing, he's beginning to learn that there are just things and sometimes those things hurt, but the "good" and "bad" are what people call them. The distinction scares him.

But he was Loki, a chaotic force of change. The rules didn't apply to him.

But those are lessons that every troll learned long ago. That things are, and they could be called one thing or another, and it would suck either way. Justice is not Aradia's department. Causality, and fate, and the workings of time, those are her strengths. She doesn't pass judgment.

"I have a friend who is an expert in justice." And how she wished Terezi were here, right now. "I think if she were here, she would tell you that just because you feel that something is just, does not make it so. And I think she would also say that it would be justice to make them pay for their crimes."

The question of the objective nature of justice, though...her death will only be permanent if it is heroic, or just. Which implied somewhere, something is judging, or there is a standard to be held up to. That's a difficult thing to consider. She doesn't quite know what to do with that yet.

"I am not her, but if I were, I think I would suggest that the thing to do is stop the Kanima, however that can be done, and then catch the person before they find another way. Which sounds simpler than it might be, but you never know! Somehow I think they can't have too many fallback plans, if they are relying on a rather obvious assassin to do their dirty work for them. It's not very subtle."

So runs the thoughts of a member of a species growing up with the concept of backstabbing and manipulation.

"Good and evil are philosophy," she continues, watching his back for his reaction. "It's best not to worry about that until you've deal with the immediate problem, which is: there is a giant beast running around killing people. Is it difficult to kill, or is killing it out of the question? Do you know who controls it? Do you know how?"

Edited 2012-12-28 21:01 (UTC)

It ran deeper than good and evil. It was easy to categorize the things that he had done in another life. Those were evil. This is ... more complicated. But it always is more complicated.

Then again there was always a Plan A, a Plan B, a Plan C all the way to Plan ZZ if necessary. He had a knack for running with the consequences and relying purely on his wit. It had saved him more than once, as it had saved Asgardia and Thor.

There's a bland look in her direction, and he examines her expression, his eyelids heavy over inhumanly green eyes.

"You're very good at this," he says, finally, and then leans back on his hands. "It could be arranged, though if possible, I would rather find out where the beast came from, or if there are others like it."

Possibly for backstabbing and manipulation purposes.

"I hate to say it could be of some use, but it could be of some use."

He waves his legs, his boots skidding lightly against her floor. As a chaotic force it was hard to say why he cared so much about saving everyone. It was, perhaps, the debt he felt he owed to a prior life of causing nothing but pain.

Aradia would kick him squarely in the ass if she knew he was winging it that much. She's always been meticulous, holding the various strings and threads and plucking at them just so, the right conversation, the right moment to appear and prevent something or push events in a new direction.

She looks back at him, just as bland, perfectly serene.

"That's practical," she agrees. No judgement. "And also true. It could be. But that's an abstract bonus, not a goal. Take your shoes off if you come up on the bed for real, I have to sleep here."

And him? He's a chaotic force of nature, nothing seems to go quite right when he's involved, even if the pieces fall oddly into place. His Evil-Self had been the opposite, calculating and particular. It didn't hold quite as true in this incarnation. A God of Chaos that caused chaos but never flowed with it never seemed quite right. Then Evil-Him became old hat.

"An abstract bonus? Possibly another piece," he was mulling this over, kicking off his boots so he could put his feet on the bed, resting his arms over them again. He looks thoughtful. All it would need was the set-up. And then he looked thoughtful, like he was constructing something in his head.

He remembers the battle with the Serpent, and what he had to set up to get his brother killed. This is not so involved, but his resources were dry.

And then it strikes him awkwardly, and he looks shocked at his own revelation.

"Oh, Hel, Aradia. It's a person."

Aradia waits patiently for him to go on, well used to waiting for people to put all the pieces together. She can't exactly assist him in drawing any conclusions, but she seems perfectly content to sit there and keep an eye on him, elbows on her knees and chin in her hands. At least he doesn't seem so upset, anymore?

"Is it?" Without the evidence or the context, she doesn't know what he's talking about, but she's pretty sure in this instance she's only meant to be a sounding board.

"The Kanima is a person," he says, more clear this time, putting a hand to his head. It's as if he's trying to draw out some kind of idea. And why hadn't he seen it before? All the conversations on the forum, the way that Derek had approached him in the post, it made sense.

He pauses and then looks at her curiously. He had got caught up in it, the whole idea where he could save people.

"That makes things more complicated."

And she was just listening to him.

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what do we do with all these teenager feels.

Sob I don't know at some point they have to talk about feelings

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