faderift | closed | date but not date-date (UNLESS...)

Entry tags:

loki,
mobius

closed | date but not date-date (UNLESS...)

WHO: Loki, Mobius
WHAT: Dinner and a drink, with some odd canon update shenaniganry
WHEN: a wednesday in early drakonis
WHERE: Kirkwall, evening, a tavern called ~The Innocent Magpie~
NOTES: after this conversation

It's fine. It's all fine. Nothing Loki has said about himself, and nothing Sylvie has said about him, will deter Mobius from making good on Loki's offer of food and drink. Even if, in all technicality, it had been Mobius' idea first for the vague flirtation around the bonfire.

He hasn't spoken to Provost Stark about the events that had been described. It's tempting. He might have to, just to get another perspective on the whole thing. But he tries not to let it bother him. Whatever happens to their enemy, he knows that Loki is making a conscious choice to be better. And if he can't give someone a chance, then...what's the point?

It does amuse him that he keeps getting drinks with people with no real effort involved. Though perhaps Loki and Sylvie have...similar tastes? Astarion mostly just wanted to suss him out and not say no to a free drink. However he feels now is anyone's guess. He arrives at the ferry dock at the Gallows right around the appointed time. He can see the boat on its way, and he's eager to meet up with Loki.

Who doesn't show. And doesn't show. And doesn't show. He's willing to give the benefit of the doubt, but once the ferry arrives, he boards reluctantly and takes out his crystal.

"Ferry's leaving in a second. Where are you at?"

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That's fair, although he doesn't feel like that particular question will necessarily lead in that direction. "I don't, mostly."

It's big, it's disorientingly designed, it's loud, it's dirty, it's got some very unfortunate history and the remaining physical and mental scars to prove it, Ostwick was nicer--

"I don't hate it, but frankly I think I like the Riftwatch the most. The garden's nice, though. A good use of space." Would be nicer if there was still a Chantry on the spot, but. "Maybe it being a big cultural center for it being a port city? And all the migrating that's happened in the past few decades. Lot of viewpoints, even if it means there's never any agreement on anything."

"Oddly enough, despite not living in the Gallows any longer, I don't disagree with you." He gives a little flourish and a shrug. "The architecture is brutalist, to say the least, and the stairs and lift from Hightown to anywhere else is, frankly, highly unpleasant."

Another sip. He thinks he knows the garden that Mobius is talking about. "Do Thedosians tend towards cultural centers?" He'd gotten the impression that one didn't share their culture as much as they made certain that everyone else knew how much better it was.

"Not really. Unless you mean a shining pillar of one singular culture being the most itself as possible. But ports are always gonna have a lot of mixing around just from their very nature. It really brings to light how at the end of the day, we're all just people trying to get by. We're really not all that different, and a lot of the differences we do find tend to just be in whatever stories we choose to believe in about our people. Pageantry."

"People hold on to that pageantry more closely than most would expect. They define themselves by it, even; it can be a hard habit to break." He's seen it here, talking to native Thedosians. Their agitation when someone doesn't know the differences between one people and their neighboring nations, or the proclivities therein.

Granted, he knows that dealing with Rifters who think they know more, and better, cannot be easy. Still. "And not knowing about those things is seen as a flaw, not a learning opportunity." So he gives a little shrug. "It would be an interesting shift, if it could be managed."

"Oh, definitely. Even between cities, it can be a thing. Lots of people are Marchers, right, but the Free Marches are really more like a bunch of city-states that banded together under a banner. So you get a lot even among Marchers with the pageantry, the differences between Wycome and Ostwick and Starkhaven." He gives a light shrug. "We all want to think we're special and that the places we call home are the best. Sometimes people get...more intense about it."

Loki nods. He's been to Wycome; it shares with Kirkwall the fact that they are both Free Marches cities and both port towns and there the commonalities end.

He wonders if Mobius wouldn't be suited to, say, Project Felandris, or some sort of outreach program for those who have found themselves unseated by virtue of a war being on.

So he nods, and takes a sip of his drink. "I've asked you a lot of questions, or perhaps just several involved ones. I feel like I've taken my turn with it. Do you have more questions to ask of me?"

He hardly minds answering questions (so long as they are not about himself), and he's a terribly curious man. Magic he is unfamiliar with, Rifters and their points of origin, even subjects about this very world--he can always learn more. But it also invites more scrutiny and further questions of himself. A balancing act.

But he likes Loki. And wants to know more about him. "Tell me more about where you come from. What's the architecture like? What sort of things did the people do for fun." He spreads his hands. "What's food like, or other cultural staples? Do our drinks stack up to yours?" And then, only a little sheepishly: "I know that's a lot of questions at once. Mostly I just want to know what it's like compared to Thedas. Or, compared to Kirkwall, even."

"I come from a place called Asgard. The architecture is..." He frowns, gently, trying to think of how to put it. The easiest way to do it is to show Mobius, actually, using illusion magic, but that's not necessarily in the spirit of this date and also, it would out him in the tavern as being a magic user, so.

Instead, he's going to puzzle this out.

"In all of the places where Kirkwall is dark, heavy, and solid? Asgard was light, tall, airy, a place full of gold and brightness. The food is different. A lot less spice, in general. Alcohol, however... I miss the wines of home. There's nothing like them here." Loki actually finds most Thedosian wine to be unimpressive and underwhelming on the whole. "It was very different visually, but there was a very different history there too, which explains some of that. It was a place and had a civilization dedicated to art and light and that was reflected in what you could see of it's cities and buildings, it's fashions and culture."

Mobius ends up with an elbow on the table, face leaned in hand. Not out of boredom, no, not with the gentle smile on his lips and the way his eyes light up. Asgard, a place of art and light and joy and gold. He's never been all the way to Val Royeaux, but he's imagined it to be not dissimilar to the description. "Maybe we can find a wine to your liking as we travel." (Maybe something in Antiva!)

"It's always easy to romanticize home, but it does sound beautiful. If ever there's a chance..."

To take a reverse trip through a rift? What if he's stuck on the other side as Rifters are? A man out of place and out of time somewhere he doesn't belong--would he even still feel the Maker's presence?

"...well, it'd be nice to see, anyway. Visit if possible. Thedas as a whole but Kirkwall especially must seem so dingy and dreary."

"Maybe. I'll need to sample more wines, clearly." He gives Mobius a little smile.

It's nice, having that sort of... undivided attention given his description of home. Loki misses Asgard. Misses its beauty, its people, its culture. He wishes he could bring some of that into Thedas, even just the books, the fashion.

The food can stay. Candy is a terrific invention.

"I don't know if it would be possible, Asgard... when I left it was still a bustling place full of light, but I know that tragedy is set to befall the place. Besides, I would hate to take you from your home in the same manner I've been taken from what is familiar to me." Loki gives a little shrug, and takes another sip of his drink. "But, if you remind me back in the Gallows, I can show you what it looks like."

His mouth doesn't curve into a full frown, but some of the wistfulness dims out of the expression, a divot between his brows of concern. "You know what's going to happen to it? Is it on a particularly obvious path, or do you actually know something?"

Future sight is...a very dangerous kind of idea to throw around, especially if it has a magical basis.

"It was... predicted, to put it simply, a great deal of time ago but the arrival of that prediction was not pre-determined. However, I met these... people who had the ability to view time in a line, and move along that line as they wished. They were the ones that told me about Asgard's demise."

It feels very strange to tell Mobius about the TVA without really telling him about the TVA, because part of Loki still feels like he should know. But the TVA is gone now, thanks to Sylvie, or at least changed so far that they no longer hunt down variants on their Sacred Timeline(s), so.

He's aware, though, that it sounds impossible and ridiculous both. He just doesn't know how else to explain it.

"My brother lived through it. It's been a while since I've seen him though."

"Seers that travel in time... Must be convenient for them. They could 'predict' anything they like and then go whenever they need to to make that happen."

It's probably much much more complicated than that, and yes, the idea seems strange and alarming, but it's not something going on here (that he's aware of), and is that truly any stranger than people falling out of the fucking sky? Making light might be something of a defense mechanism, but really, what more can one do in the face of the patently absurd?

Besides, is he wrong?

"I don't mean to bring up any poor memories."

"Exactly. I worked for them under duress, for a time, but I did not enjoy it." Well. That's about half true. He didn't trust them, and came to learn he was correct in that distrust, but he did like some of it. Corey, and Mobius, and even B-15 to a degree.

Loki shakes his head a little bit.

"It's all right. Mostly I miss my brother, and that place. It can be hard."

"One doesn't usually enjoy working for someone under duress," Mobius points out with a little laugh. "Can I ask what your brother is like? It didn't sound like you had very good opinions of your family, earlier."

The whole adoption thing leading to trying to pull a Corypheus thing.

"Mostly it was my father that I was angriest with. My brother and I rarely see eye to eye, but I do lore him deeply."

Loki sighs a little, trying to think of how best to describe Thor to someone else. "Where I am dark, my brother is light, quite literally. He's large, and blond, and boisterous. He's incapable of subterfuge, much to my chagrin."

"Polar opposites. That's cute. Must've been a pain in the ass to grow up with." He scoffs lightly. "Also sounds like he'd get on famously here. Not that I'd wish that on you. Or him, I guess is what I mean."

"He would, I think." Loki is quiet a moment after that, considering what it would mean for his brother to be here. Any iteration, really, that had grown up alongside Loki, might also have lived through his death. How's would he explain himself? Would Thor believe him?

He sighs. It doesn't matter now, perhaps.

Perhaps it never will.

"...Shit, I'm sorry." Even if some of the memories are good, he's gone and reminded Loki of things he doesn't have now, can never have unless a certain brother of light falls out of the sky. And aren't things complicated enough? "I'm usually a little better at this than...this."

"It's alright, really." Loki shakes his head and offers Mobius a small smile. "Imagine it's usually a bit less complicated, these conversations, with people who call this land their home. There's no need for apologies."

"Still." Loki's not wrong. And at least it's not the barrage of invasive questions Mobius has taken to give Rifters; they're past that initial stage already.

"But if I'm gonna say some crap that makes the evening a little less light, I think you should know. I haven't asked Provost Stark anything. About what you mentioned at the bonfire." Because that had been Loki's suggestion, after all. "And I don't have any plans to. In case you were wondering."

Loki tilts his head to one side, frowning. That's not at all what he
Expected Mobius to say, or decide for that matter.

"I'm sure you can guess what I might ask. Why not?"

"Couple reasons. Partly I don't want to drag someone else into it, especially not my boss. No idea how he feels about whatever he knows, but just coming up to someone and asking point blank about a terrible event that I, under normal circumstances, wouldn't know about feels pretty rude. But also?"

He leans closer, giving Loki a searching look for a long moment. "I haven't known you to lie to me yet. And I'm pretty good at picking up on that. That...that's not something you pluck out of thin air and make up to tell someone. Maybe Stark would be able to give me more context, maybe he'll soften the blow, maybe he'll just confirm everything you said. But I don't need him to. I mean, yeah, outside context would be nice, but I don't doubt that it happened. The only thing I might doubt is if you're up-playing your involvement or downplaying the reasoning behind it."

The scrutiny is no more comfortable for its familiarity. He wonders what it is, exactly, that Mobius sees when he looks at Loki so closely. Is it something he could put into words or just... an understanding, a feeling about the collection of atoms in front of him?

He's not going to ask. But he does wonder.

"I don't think I'm doing the former." The latter, however... He takes another drink.

The implication is clear. In a way, it makes him feel...a little better? Because if it's something more than 'because I was mad I was adopted', then it's probably a better reason. A more reasonable...reason. Not that there's a good reason at all to do what was done, but--

"Do you want to chase me off? I mean, pretty nifty defense mechanism, see someone get too close so you deploy the worst information about yourself."

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