The Silence of the Storm

[shardofwinter]

Rations have been cut. Again. Everyone is on one bowl of watery soup a day. Sometimes with crackers, sometimes not. Most people are too tired and weak to do much more than sit around and talk, and nobody discourages them in the slightest. Work has to be rotated constantly as people weaken quickly, but the fires still need to burn, people still need to guard the cooks and rations, and the sick still need to be tended to. Soon the hardest job is keeping up morale while the big expedition comes back. All the gods and heavens of the multiverse help them if they don’t come back with supplies, and soon.

The boundaries have tightened to an almost suffocatingly small space. It doesn’t take much to imagine where they will be by the end of Winter, which at least makes planning a little easier. People are already relocating to deeper in the Plaza. Unfortunately it means that those who have enough energy to often end up fighting with their neighbours, as the close quarters tests everyone’s patience. There are a few spaces carved out for like minded people to shelter from the dreary situation. Mechanics and those like them have set up a nice little place close to the Crossroads Café, and a break area for those helping the sick is sheltered in a room behind the injured and ill. Zandros moves from groups to individuals, looking for help in creating some form of morale boosting display that will adhere to Isidor's instructions. People are surviving in whatever ways they can, but it's reaching breaking point.

((It's the Final Event Post, everyone! OOC Post is here! This is for those stuck at the hub while the Main Expedition is going on. There will be a second part to this post for the Return of the Expedition. In the meantime, have fun!))

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[coldsong]

Trust and believe that thought has crossed his mind. Once he was promised he would long for something as sweet as pain. He's still waiting for that to come to pass, but even with all his newfound strength, he's hesitant to discount the possibility that Thanos will find a way to make good on that threat. And the Titan has a dark sense of humor.

He wouldn't complain if she touched him, but he understands why she does not. She has real reverence for her gods, and for him by extension. Other Nexus residents might scoop him up in this shape, but she has never been overly familiar.

"Oh, my. What pretty words you have!" He tilts his head again coyly. "I'm not hiding. But I cannot save you. I have no food to give, and your fires have not gone out. I cannot fight winter, nor would I do so if I could. Why should I court resentment?"

"Besides. I don't belong here. Not right now. I need to be in the open air. I only came because my mother would have wanted me to give you a kind word."

[volurofthehearth]

"Your mother would have wanted it? Or you want to make sure I always think of you fondly?" Runa narrows her eyes as she teases, her lips still pulled in a smile.

Sighing, her expression softens. Though she jokes, she does think of him fondly. True, she's not foolish enough to think he's an open book, but he's about as tame as the snake he takes the form of.

"I think you'd be more valuable here than you give yourself credit for." She leans closer to speak softly. "Think of how your stories and your own pretty words might distract everyone from their grim surroundings. Not everyone is used to long winters like we are. They need our voices, our songs and our laughter to help them, too. Maybe not as much as food or shelter, but... it's important."

[coldsong]

"My goodness," the snake exclaims. "Adversity makes you sassy, Mrs. Durant." The voice is rich with amusement, though. She hasn't offended him.

"I admit, I have high hopes for the spring, when this is over and you begin to be able to bake again."

He studies her with a red-eyed, opaque gaze, considering her words. There was a time not long ago where that would have appealed to him, the idea of the attention, the ability to kindle some amusement in the people around him. Some would, no doubt, be grateful for the lifted spirits. Others would take note that he chose to suffer alongside them rather than withdraw. Just like one of their own.

It wouldn't be a bad option, but...

"Not this time," he says quietly. "Your point is understood, but...no. Entertainment cannot be my role."

[volurofthehearth]

Sassy? She laughs. When was the last time someone called her that? When was the last time she went out with her sisters...

"I will be baking plenty once I have my oven back," she assures him. It's the one certainty of all of this. Without a doubt she will be baking more than she ever has when she gets a chance.

It shouldn't surprise her that he doesn't want to take up her suggestion. Especially not when he phrases it like that. Loki does like being the centre of attention, though, she's sure, so a little part of her is disappointed she won't be seeing him around more. But gods will do as they please.

She rests her chin on her hand again. "You do what you want to, I know. But what is your role? It sounds like you have one in mind."

[coldsong]

"I should take up a hobby, I suppose, other than general mischief-making," he says with mock-thoughtfulness. "Perhaps I should garden. Or take up knitting. Thor and I talked of that over Yule."

He's unlikely to do either of those. They require more organization than he's interested in putting forth right now.

"Not so much set in my mind yet," he tells her, more seriously. "But it has occurred to me that I have always existed as a blending of one thing and its opposite. I am a contradiction, and I am the boundary where worlds overlap. Much like the Nexus itself."

"That is what I am, and in my youth, the worshipers I chose to respond to were the ones most like me. Misfits, tricksters, and outcasts."

[volurofthehearth]

"What do you want to see more of in the world? That's what my mother asked us when my sisters and I were trying to decide what we wanted to do when we were older. My sister Luna said beautiful dresses. Gry said birds. Carita said love. Ragna said sense... I wish I'd said something clever like 'laughter' or 'happiness', but I said cakes."

From the mouths of babes. Though truly back then she and Luna were the only children there. She laughs at the memory and then turns her smile back to Loki. "Whatever hobby you decide on, use it to make more of what you love to see."

Runa listens to Loki speak about himself, a touch of a crease on her brow. There's something about the way he talks about himself. A hint of disdain, reflected or felt, or... is it something adversarial...? She can't quite put her finger on it.

"A contradiction," she repeats softly. Sadly. "It sounds like compromise. Like balance. Like you're a diplomat, not a trickster. Don't ambassadors and diplomats have to speak two languages to two cultures? To know enough of both to blend them together?"

[coldsong]

"Poetry," he says mildly, almost like it's a non-sequitur. "But I am no poet. More pretty words, and perhaps less judgment from the pure and mighty. But all of those are noble aspirations, as well, and cakes are not the least of them."

The scales flicker again, more gradually this time, the bright blue darkening to glossy black, tail to head. "I was raised as a diplomat. A counterpoint to Thor, whose ways have always been direct and uncompromising. Perhaps that is one difference between my world and that of other Lokis who conform more closely to mankind's tales of us. I was raised in the palace, a capable diplomat, a skilled musician and dancer, a superlative sorcerer, and a decorative shadow at Thor's shoulder. It was not enough, but I do not regret the skills I learned."

"I have heard your stories. The Loki of which they speak is a wild creature brought unwisely indoors, as am I, but he always knew he was wild. I was not told until..."

Pause. "I was not told. I learned for myself, and it was bitter."

The gloss of the scales fades, leaving a matte black so dark it almost seems to pull the light in. But the red eyes are little embers. "Is not the Loki of your tales as much a harbinger of the end of all things as he is the playful Trickster? How is that reconciled? One cannot fear laughter, nor easily face Nothingness with gaiety."

[volurofthehearth]

"Maybe you just need practice." Maybe. Perhaps. Could. Loki will have to forgive her persistence. Hope is a reflex at this point. Encouraged by her husband in spite of her sister-in-law. In spite of current events.

She goes quiet as she listens to Loki talk. There's something beautiful and bittersweet in the way that he speaks that makes him easy to listen to.

Lonely. He sounds lonely.

It takes her a minute or two to answer. Not because she's thinking of the best thing to say, but because she's been made to think. To think of the Loki before her and the Loki of her world. To think of the past and the present, of tradition and truth.

"I think my ancestors did. Or tried to. They ran into the chaos and bloodshed of their time stark naked and in a frenzy. Death was a glory, and war an opportunity they gleefully took. The end is not something to fear. It is something to prepare for."

"Some may fear the omens of things to come, but..." She smiles softly again. "I would be a poor völva if I feared what I should be listening to."

"You are a god of change. Of the end of things and the start of things. Isn't that the greatest challenge for a diplomat? To join together what each side cannot comprehend or understand, the old and the new?"

[coldsong]

Her endless well of optimism is as endearing as it is foreign to him. He'd smile at that, if he were in a shape that could. In the serpentine shape, all he can do is duck his head a little and flick his tongue through jaws half-parted. "I'll keep it in mind," he says, and he probably will, in fact.

He's not sure he'd be a good poet, himself, but he could certainly encourage those who are, or might become.

"There is Death," he says. "And then there is Death. A change in states versus a reckoning, versus an irreversible abandonment to entropy. But perhaps the one type is no more to be feared than the other. All things end, whether to be renewed or simply to cease to be."

"I mislike war for war's sake," he adds. "There is so often a better way. But valor when valor is truly needed is a beautiful thing."

He quiets, listening to her opinion, her talk of change and omens. And he has no desire to captain a ship made of the nails of the dead, but even here he's been a harbinger of change and battle, to the alternate of his own brother. There are few constants in the multiverse. Change is one of them. There is power in what she suggests.

He unwinds, moves a couple inches closer and rests his chin on her wrist for a moment. It's ambiguous, hard to tell if it's a thank-you for an interesting perspective or a seeking of affection. "Change," he agrees softly. "And blurry boundaries, and the breaking of things taken too easily for granted. Yes."

[volurofthehearth]

Two fingers stroke from his head down his back with a feather light touch. Just one, an affectionate acknowledgement of the touch he offered first. That, and something for her hand to do as she hums thoughtfully.

"Loki, the harbinger of Ragnarok. The Ultimate End." Father of Hel, and Fenrir, and Jörmungandr. The father of children thrown away for fear of their power. Runa can't help but wonder: If this Loki is so unlike the stories she'd been told, maybe hers is kinder than she thinks. Maybe his children aren't the monsters they've been made into.

"People always say to live each day as if it's your last. I would say you remind us to. All things change, and all things end." Smiling, she shakes her head at him and coos, "And to whoever says otherwise, we can tell them 'Ah, but you forget Loki'."

[coldsong]

Ooh! That's nice; it feels like a light back massage. He's still for the touch, then gives a little sigh when she stops, and makes a mental note to ask Harley to do that later.

"In my end is my beginning," he murmurs, coiling up again. The ember-eyes are banked, light softer behind them. He's thinking. "Do you suppose the Norns would follow me across universes?"

That might be rhetorical. In any case, her analysis is a positive spin on the dark shamanism he's been dwelling on of late, and he lifts his head as she coos at him. "Good. Don't let anyone forget Loki." There's warmth and amusement in his voice.

"Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps the End of Things can be as easily faced with laughter as anything else difficult in the universe can be."

[volurofthehearth]

"A universe is just another thread in the weave of Fate. Any völva worth Freyja's gifts could tell you that." She's not sure whether he's worried about the Norns or hopeful for their intervention. Unsure of what he's looking for, she adds, "But there are many hands that make that tapestry."

"Maybe not easily," she says softly. "But if it were my last moments, and I had nothing else to lose? Why not laugh?"

A morbid topic, but the young völva has had plenty of reasons to think of death. It doesn't seem to faze her, judging by her warm, gentle smile. Like Loki, it makes her think. It makes her remember.

Her brow twitches, twisting her smile with embarrassment. "Am I encouraging you to cause Ragnarok?"

[coldsong]

In point of fact, he doesn't think the Norns like him very much. Still, he's lived longer than he probably should have, given all the things he got himself into. Maybe he's wrong.

Death is made more fearsome by denying its power. Accepting the inevitability that one will end, that the very ground one stands on will some day be forgotten, is difficult, but once the work has been done, it becomes a less painful truth to face.

"Oh, my dear," he says with a sigh. "In my world, I'm afraid it is done, after a fashion. Please don't trouble yourself about that. And I've no interest in duplicating the experience here."

[volurofthehearth]

Her eyes go wide and her expression drops. It's already happened?

Asking about his world seemed too much like prying. An audience with a god is rare enough. Ruining it by treading into unknown territory and asking questions that could turn a good mood sour would have been ungrateful, and unwise. But then maybe it made sense. Maybe that was why he was in the Nexus, escaping the nothingness of what remained after Ragnarok.

All she can manage is a worried whisper. "Is everything really gone?"

[coldsong]

Coiling into what is nearly a figure-eight seems to be an expression of discomfort for him in this body. "Not quite in the way the prophecies implied. Certainly not the ones the stories of humankind report. But...Asgard is no more, where I come from. And something more terrible still has been set in motion."

The sheen fades from his scales in a shudder. "Would that I could have laughed."

"My world is not the same as yours. You have not, I hope, the same disaster to fear, but--well. Perhaps it doesn't matter. A hundred-thousand twilights await for every universe. It is only for the Fates to decide when and how to end the thread that they spin. But should you ever hear the name 'Thanos', beware it."

"I hope that he does not exist where you come from."

[volurofthehearth]

"Thanos?" The darting of her eyes reflects her thoughts as she tries to recall if she's ever heard the name before. Thankfully she ends up shaking her head. "I've never heard of Thanos. I know about Thanatos, but I'd hope it's just coincidence their names sounds so similar. The Greek god of death isn't someone I'd hope for anyone to meet too soon."

She quiet for a second. A second where everything about her softens, shrinking ever so slightly. "I am so sorry for your Asgard, though. I didn't know... I can't imagine what that's like. But... If you ever want to talk to someone, about anything, my door is open."

[coldsong]

"I've wondered about the etymology, myself," Loki murmurs gloomily. "But he is not even human. It seems it must be a coincidence."

"And from what I've heard of that Pantheon, Thanatos is probably more pleasant than Thanos."

But he's had more than enough of this train of thought. He looks up at her and forces his scales to shift back to green, red eyes turning gold. "Thank you. It may be best you don't try to imagine it. But I will not forget your kindness, Runa."

"It's time I was gone from here, but hold on. Relief is coming, at last. I am sure of that."