faderift | fast enough to get in trouble and not fast enough to get away

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fast enough to get in trouble and not fast enough to get away

WHO: Mobius, whoever has business with him
WHAT: open-y log for mobi during fantasy september (and like late fantasy august too if need be), for various catchup purposes
WHEN: both pre- and post-arlathan forest
WHERE: [makes a general motion to kirkwall] Around
NOTES: warnings will be in subject lines if/when need be!

Before the mission to the forest, Mobius still has plenty to deal with. After the Conclave, the 'secret' of his life being a(n ex-)Templar does not stay quiet for long. It isn't something he ever addresses publicly; he's not taken to speaking on rumors just because they exist. But if someone comes to find him about it directly, he might actually be willing to talk to them about it.

So long as it isn't someone interrogating him under some ridiculous pretense of the good of Riftwatch.

But that isn't the only thing to deal with. Sylvie and Loki are both gone, wherever and however Rifters go. Sylvie takes a little more time to notice, but given her absence on the training grounds and around her usual library haunts where she, catlike, likes to cause him some trouble, it doesn't take too long. Loki--of course he noticed Loki being gone right away. Given they had finally started to see each other, at least sexually, and Mobius trying to get used to the idea of sleeping with someone and staying, in their bed, together, instead of leaving immediately after. Not every night; he was hardly about to move into Loki's-which-was-Alexandrie's place. But often enough.

So when he awoke in Loki's bed one morning to the conspicuous absence of Loki, well. That took a much shorter amount of time to figure out.

It stings.

After the mission to the forest, Mobius returns worse for wear. Like a lot of other people, in fact. He is in various states of burnt and bruised and battered. He'll heal as surely as anything else, with time and patience. But.

He has very apparently lost some kind of use of his hands.

The fingers still bend and curl. His fists can still form. Can still point, can still count on them, or give a thumbs up. But on the training grounds, his sword has a habit of slipping from his grip as though there's no grip at all. When jotting notes down, he's snapped more than a few quills and has taken to putting up with writing with the nubs where the tip remains. Meals have become fraught affairs, where he is slow and careful with utensils--and finger foods don't always fare much better. He can be seen, when not spilling half of a meal, grabbing at bowls or cups that he is warned are too hot to the touch and not minding at all. There's not much yet that seems too cold, but no temperature seems to bother his hands at all.

He tries to eat during off hours, or to take things somewhere a little more private. His training sessions have shifted to earlier in the morning (which, given the habits of nightmares, is not much of an inconvenience) when there are even fewer people. But it isn't as though he can hide the way he sometimes grips things too tight, or too loose to drop. He hasn't yet taken to wearing gloves, so one might be able to catch nicks and cuts and scrapes and a few angry red marks.

He's fine, basically. Definitely fine. Others have had it worse.

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"I don't know." Well, he does, and he doesn't. Yeah, people do tend to like to talk about their partners, but also there are so many extenuating circumstances that he would never judge someone for keeping that private. "His whole--that part of his life as a whole was very messy. Which is also why it seemed like a bad idea. Sylvie was pissed at him, and they were apparently a thing. Lady Alexandrie had left for home, and they were also apparently a thing, which also involves him looking like her husband who is, as far as I understand it, literally a Thedosian version of Loki."

A shrug, and he keeps hunched, stuffing a bit of ham in his mouth instead and speaking around it. "Didn't really think it was great to step in the middle of all that." Washes it down with some rum. Burns good. "Compelling arguments were made."

"... He called him a 'native variant'," Abby recalls, her face scrunching up. The rum is starting to make her feel warm, which is nice. The kitchens have cold stone under foot, "Whatever that means." She never really found out? She didn't have time to ask if Loki thought there might be a Theodosian version of her running about the place.

Maybe it's better she never knows.

She chuckles dryly around the lip of her glass, lifting it. Doesn't actually sip. "Gotcha."

And now he's gone. She sighs heavily. "... Could he ever come back?"

"Well," with a click of his tongue, "apparently both Sylvie and Loki knew a variant of me back where they're from, so." That's been a lot to contend with. From the perspective of a native Thedosian who barely has much understanding of the concept of the world he inhabits much less others.

So that's fun.

And what's fun is he's about to bring up a name he knows is complicated. Maybe he could skirt around it, but context for the source of information seems important, in this case. Glances at Abby, glances at his drink, pours a little more into his and offers the bottle back at her. "Ellie says it's possible. That it's happened before."

Eugh... that's really weird to think about, but it's not as if this is the first time she's ever considered something like this happening. Ellie has told her as much. She knew Abby in other worlds, even before she came here. Abby wonders what their relationship was like- did they talk? Did they feel connected to each other, despite everything?

Speak of the devil–

Abby's expression changes, but perhaps not the way Mobius might expect it to? She looks strangely exhausted for somebody so young, and even a little guilty. One hand curls around the lip of the counter, and she digs her fingers in.

In a moment, she'll take the bottle from him, and give her glass another glug. "Okay."

Maybe she's seen it happen. "I hope he does."

Abby doesn't explode or growl or scowl even as the dreaded name comes up. It's an oddly subdued look. He doesn't know whatever happened with them after cuntgate, if they made up or decided to mutually leave each other alone or what.

And he thinks he might ask, but he also thinks maybe that's not a great way to derail the conversation.

He sits up on the counter and watches her for a moment. "Me, too." For both their sakes. And for Loki's own. "I know you're not good, but, you good?"

They're sitting side by side on the counter now, not quite touching, but still close. It's nice having somebody there. She says "No," tonelessly, and sips, shrugging a shoulder. Looks at him, sarcasm in her little grin, "Surprised?"

They haven't had a heart to heart for a while, not after she had that last spat with Ellie. God, the network argument. It seems so fucking stupid to her now. Did that really hurt her, at the time? She rubs her neck, frowning into her glass again.

Suddenly, "I'm fucking sick of talking about her." Guess who. "Can we- talk about something else?"

Anything at all. Seriously.

No, it's not surprising. But clearly Abby's got some still yet ongoing stuff with Ellie. And this, frankly, isn't about her. He tips his glass at her. "Sorry for bringing her up." Even tangentially. He should've just said what he heard without mentioning a source.

So. Do they just talk about Loki? Is this just...a wake? A post-death pity party? Is it even a death at all? There isn't even a body to burn. Do they try to talk about something else like they aren't having a sad commiserating moment here?

"Stark'll be happy he's gone," he settles on, neutrally.

Abby makes a neutral sort of sound, shaking her head to indicate- it's not his fault. Ellie lives here, so she can't avoid all mention of her forever. She'd have to leave Kirkwall to truly escape her, and that isn't exactly a possibility.

She lowers one hand from her glass, flips it shard up in her lap. Tilting it from side to side makes it glint in the dim kitchen candlelight. Stupid thing.

"Stark can get fucked," is a blunt assessment of that situation, even though she has no strong feelings about him one way or the other. And now she's wondering if Ellie would be happy if she left suddenly in the night like Loki did. She doesn't want to think about that either!

Instead, "Do you know if he... went back to anybody? He told me he has a brother."

He lets Abby work through what she needs to uninterrupted. Though her comment on Stark gets a mild snort. He doesn't mind the man. And he understands that there is history that can't just be swept under a rug. But.

The question, though, is a little more complicated than he'd like. "I don't know that it's necessarily a matter of going back," he starts, licking his lips. "I've heard it explained that Rifters here aren't...the same versions as the ones from home. No, that isn't quite right--you're the same person with the same memories, but it's like you're a copy. There is a you that is there, and there is a you that is made by the Fade and thrown out a rift here. Now, I have no idea if that's even true. Just what I've heard."

Which still doesn't really answer the question as intended. Like, yeah, it answers that Loki isn't technically going back to anyone, but he might remember more things that happen to him if he ever comes back? Complicated.

"Think he went back to Sylvie. They went back to each other." He brings his drink to his lips, but hesitates. "And to their version of me."

Abby makes a little sound of something that might be discomfort. "Right." And really she knows that, but she's never fully reconciled with knowing some other version of herself is living out a full life back on Earth. It's fucked up. Sometimes she feels really jealous of the copy: the Abby, presumably, that gets to stay with Lev.

She looks at Mobius just in time to catch his hesitation.

"... How do you feel about that?"

"About the idea that, if there are an infinite number of other worlds out there for Rifters to come from, there exists the possibility of there being an infinite number of other me's, other lives I don't get to live or experience, other ways of thinking, other personalities, other people I'll never know?"

Because that part blows his mind. How is he supposed to feel about something like that? It's unprecedented. It's out of his scope of true understanding. It seems impossibly large and too vast to quantify. It makes him feel unique; it makes him feel terribly small.

He sets the drink down. A little hard. Huffs a tired sound directed at the floor.

"Or how do I feel about them getting to know another me that they're supposed to know instead of me?"

Jealous, maybe. Or relieved. Or abandoned. And if the Loki that goes back doesn't go back with the same memories, will anything change? If Loki comes back, will he still remember? Do they 'go back' at all or do they truly cease to exist until such a time as the Maker makes them again out of the Fade?

He feels like he doesn't have to say 'I don't know' to that either way. How would anyone feel with that hanging over their head?

Well when you put it like that.

"Both," Abby answers, watching him. Perhaps it's mean to wonder if it messes with his faith but she can't help herself. Sometimes she tells herself the whole other worlds thing isn't real, in the same way that extra lives in a video game obviously aren't real, and that makes her feel a little better about it, even put it to the side completely.

These are heavy questions she's asking. It's not really the time, right.

"Sorry," she says, clumsy after her realisation. "You- we can change the subject."

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fast enough to get in trouble and not fast enough to get away

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