faderift | [CLOSED] I lie so you won't have to

"Very little, honestly. The topic shifted in a moment, and she only expressed a degree of distaste at your name and then a level of concern after my well-being on this trip." But. He knows what he understood to be her dismay to also be true.

He knows her well, after all.

Loki narrows his eyes at his companion in the dark.

"So I'll ask again: what did you do, Asterion?"

His scoff is harsher this time, puncuated by an almost ragged exhale. The joke's worn off. This isn't funny anymore.

"I haven't done a damn thing. I haven't gone near the woman since the first time we met— "

Concern. Concern. The word knifes its way through him, like little pinpricks running just up his spine. Like bristling fur. What does she know? What does she think of him? Where did she get it from?

Bastien? Had he blabbed about—

"I don't know what it is she's so upset about but I mind my own business, darling, and I have right from the start." Bitterly, his shoulder sinks to the mattress, chased by his back. Covers tugged almost comically high when he rolls over to face away from Loki instead.

"Go to sleep. We've work to do, in case you've forgotten."

Edited 2021-09-19 01:40 (UTC)

Believing Asterion is easy; he's so clearly agitated by the idea that Alexandrie doesn't like him that Loki doesn't think he's lying about it. Still. She must have had some reason, even if as Asterion protests he's done nothing to Alexandrie directly.

He considers it as Asterion turns over, clearly prepared to ignore him. She has deep ties to Riftwatch and its people, so it could simply be a matter of someone else he's managed to slight boiling over into Alexandrie's regard.

That's how it is, when people have ties, friendships, family in a place.

"She is my business," he informs the darkness of the room, slightly amused at Asterion's hurt feelings, but his words are as much truth as they are disliking not having the last word. "Goodnight, then."

He isn’t the most pleasant partner to share a bed with. Loki may have wanted that lounger after all: the man talks in his sleep, whines in his sleep, snores faintly and thrashes (intermittently) like a man drowning—

Morning comes. Astarion sleeps in. Maybe, in a sense, to make up for a night of restless slumber.

They've the entire day to prepare for what's ahead of them. Put their ear to the wind, pick up information, familiarity, lines of contact— potentially even scouting out the city in advance. Whatever Loki decides, it's clear enough that Astarion isn't going to rise any time before noon...ish.

Loki doesn't sleep well most nights to begin with, and he doesn't sleep well with strangers in the bed beyond that; Asterion sounds and smells and the presence of his body on the other side of the mattress feels very differently from what Loki's grown used to, so there's a good chance he'd not have gotten much sleep even without the snoring, the talking, the moving about.

Morning comes. Loki gets up, cleans himself up a bit, and wanders off to find food, news, and gossip to start his day. Also coffee, which has grown very expensive with the war growing closer, but he has the coin to spend so why not make a few very subtle waves with a Tevene accent and the means to buy coffee for more than one person. It's half past noon by the time he's had enough of Asterion's laying about, and sets the coffee on the bedside table before shaking the other man's shoulder gently.

"Up with you, come on. I've brought food."

His response is— it’s poor. A snarl at touch, a snort at the flood of consciousness as it comes rolling in, and if Loki isn’t careful Astarion jolts upright fast enough to likely knock into the man responsible for rousing him.

Either way, he blearily clears his throat. Squints.

“You....what?”

Where is—

“Oh. Yes. Right.” Wycome, he thinks to himself, shrugging off the blur of memories from a day of travel mixing with a full night of half-formed haunts. Two slender fingers work against the bridge of his nose on either side. He exhales slowly.

“What time is it?”

He can smell food. The faint tang of acrid sea salt. The overly distinct traces of sunlight heating stone. Loki himself. Sharp senses.

Loki jerks back just in time to avoid a collision, straightening himself up and tugging at the bottom of his jacket while Asterion gathers his wits about him.

"It's halfway through the midday hour," he tells him, picking up the coffee, and handing it to Asterion. Carefully. "Here." It should help wake him up, at the very least.

Anyway, he waits for about the count of five to ask: "Do you always sleep so poorly?"

The coffee’s taken unceremoniously, sipped at even less formally, tired eyes so heavy in those initial waking moments that they might as well be operating independently of one another.

But the heat of the drink helps, and in short order he looks a touch more alert: spare hand rising to comb a heavy tangle of pale hair away from his eyes.

“Only when I don’t...” he stops, starts again, “only when my mind is, shall we say, a little too active for its own good.”

In other words, yes.

“It’s better here than it was in my own world, at least— so I’ve got that for a consolation prize, if nothing else.”

He takes another sip. Lifts his stare.

“Thank you for this, by the way. I hope it wasn’t too much trouble for you last night. Sleeping, I mean.”

Edited 2021-09-20 06:15 (UTC)

Instead of just looming over Asterion as coffee works its magic, Loki moves to set the breakfast he'd purchased (sausage sandwiches on pastry, honestly, and some fruit) on the end table where he'd placed the coffee.

"Is there ever a time when your mind isn't too active for its own good?" Gentle ribbing, but ribbing nonetheless. He knows what that means, and he feels a tiny bit bad for Asterion, as witnessed by the fact that he didn't sprinkle the man with water again just to hear him hissing.

"You're welcome." He picks up his own coffee and then gives a little shrug. "Probably wouldn't have slept much even if you'd been a rock."

"Kindred spirits?" Astarion asks in turn, blearily offering the most waning of smiles. So dull, in fact, that not even a single fang shows for it.

He sets the coffee aside, stretching out for a few beats as Loki pulls away— loose shirt having fallen fully off one shoulder, a fact he neither seems to care about nor wants to acknowledge.

Wake first, appearances later.

"A long life with a healthy dose of paranoia and plenty of regrets does not equate to a heavy sleeper," is said easily enough, Loki raising his coffee to his lips. "Besides, I'm only recently used to sharing a bed through the night."

The falling arm of the loose shirt is noted, but Loki doesn't want to ask why he bothered to wear one in the first place. Seems a little rude, when put that way.

“Hm.” Astarion hums in thoughtful assent, head tilted almost entirely sideways as his arms drop.

Kindred spirits indeed.

He clambers to the edge of the mattress, stealing his own meal with all the grace of a magpie plucking up trash.

“So. I was thinking we’d spend today doing a little prowling. Get to know the lay of the land, take in a little gossip, maybe even make a few friends in lower places— if the opportunity arises.” Granted, that final addition is a longer shot than the rest, but if they can get even the most minor of advantages, it’ll be worth looking into.

Servants know so much, after all. Especially the ones right near the top.

There's a slight chuckle at Asterion's grab for the food.

"Not a bad idea; you'll probably have better luck with the servants than I will, especially if they are also elves." Not a dig, just an expression of facts as he understands them to be. Another sip of coffee. "Considering where we are, whichever of the casinos or gaming institutions the Duke tends to frequent might be a good start; the servants of the Duke proper likely won't speak to strangers."

If they're any good they won't, anyway.

“My thoughts exactly,” he snaps back brightly, clearly having shaken off the height of his own initial exhaustion now that discussion of opportunity’s in play. “Sharp as daggers, aren’t you?”

Another bite, another momentary pause, before— impatiently, considering he’s still chewing on one side of his own mouth—

“Mm, and— " the back of his hand lifts, held in front of where he’s eating, “your funding. I’m certain it’ll cover us both throughout the days to come, but if you start to lose at any point, we should work out a signal of sorts. Some way that I can discreetly come to your rescue.”

It’s not cheating, after all, if you’re not the one responsible for rigging the game.

"One does try." Smirk, smirk. Sharp as daggers indeed. The last of his coffee is consumed, the cup set aside, and Loki picks up a piece of fruit, considering it and Asterion in the same gaze.

"A gesture, then, or a word for our signal?" He hums. "A word or phrase is probably better, so you don't have to be looking at me to know I'm in need of assistance."

Even if it was cheating, Loki would not be against it. Chaos, after all, requires some finessing of reality.

“Indeed— although we should pick it nightly, I think: it’ll be far too obvious if every time you lose you start chatting about Ferelden stratagem or rain in Tevinter.”

His legs cross where he’s settled, a contrast to the absurd sense of refinement he sometimes nurses— now wholly lost to wicked enthusiasm.

“Have you any abilities?” The wording is careful, the question just as much. Here in Thedas, it’s the sort of thing that might inspire either suspicion or tension in equal measure, after all.

“Magic, unusual proficiencies— that sort of thing.”

A nod. "Sensible." The last thing he wants is for this to all go awry, or even for them to be caught cheating at cards. It doesn't seem like the sort of thing that would move them very far towards their goals, or Riftwatch's for that matter.

"I do, as does Loki d'Asgard, though the overlap there is not complete." He gives a little shrug. "I can summon a blade and copy the appearance of another person, though I cannot maintain that for long and I must study them a while first. I can change into a snake. I can remove myself from the field of vision of most people but I still take up space, so there's always the chance of knocking into someone. I can cast illusions, but they don't last as long as I'd like, here."

“Illusions?”

The rest is interesting, of course, but the potential there— given locale and logistics— certainly overwhelms almost everything else.

“What sort of illusions?”

Loki pulls his mouth to one side of his face in thought and then gestures widely.

The room's floor fills with flowers and grass, as if they were in a field instead of an inn. It's all very realistic appearing, except for where it interacts with his legs, or Asterion's; in those places, there is a shimmer of green and gold light, where the illusion is interrupted.

"If I can imagine it, I can craft an illusion of it. Maintaining them takes attention, and they won't last for very long."

Astarion's quiet for a lengthy beat, running his fingertips through the feathering illusion where it runs closest to him, seemingly fascinated by the way it shifts and recomposes of its own accord. Red-eyed stare relaxed beneath long lashes. Slender fingertips held loose and lax, brushing at nothing.

He thinks, briefly, about what it'd been like to see an array of stars looming overhead within the confines of his own home. A note for later, to introduce the two illusionists if they haven't already met.

And then, just as absently:

"...Show me your home."

Loki blinks. It's not the sort of request he would have expected from Asterion, but.

There's no reason not to do it.

He starts with the planet itself, suspended in the center of the room where Asterion can look at it from any side. After a moment it becomes larger, until the buildings, mountains, and spires can be seen.

"It's gone now."

It's beautiful. Glittering like crystal, golden as the damned sun. And Astarion thinks in absolute silence that much as he lived for the bustling nights and brighter lights in Baldur's Gate, if he'd been imprisoned there instead, the scope of two hundred years might not have looked as bleak.

Granted, they would've been just as miserable, but the scenery at least—

Well.

"What happened to it?"

Nostrils flare and Loki swallows. The temptation to shut his eyes, or to lie and say I don't know is strong.

Instead, he blinks and sweeps his hand out across the illusion, disrupting it in a sea of green and gold sparks.

The scene changes after this to one of two figures fighting and then, finally...

An explosion.

When it's done, Loki inclines his head in a bow.

It's Loki's face that Astarion watches in the aftermath, once that jarring burst of light disspiates— dragging the rest of the illusion along with it. His breakfast tucked away in hand, his posture still slouched where he sits across the edge of the rumpled mattress, bedding tangled around his heel.

"Who were they?" He asks with a slight tilt of his head, voice softly set, not satisfied to simply let that wordless explanation wane with a whimpering flicker.

His expression is very closed off, more shuttered than it has been at any point in this trip thus far. For a moment it seems as if he might not answer at all, but then:

"My sister, Hela, the Goddess of Death, and Surtur, a Fire Demon, lord of Muspelheim.

Thus it was predicted and thus it did occur." He takes a deep breath and pinches the bridge of his nose with one hand. "All hail the fucking sacred timeline."

Shaking his head, Loki takes a bite of fruit.

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there's a delay of almost an HOUR on notifs on my end

hssssss

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