[open] I could just hear them now, 'how could you let us down?'

[icasm]

WHO: Loki and anyone who is around
WHAT: Loki arrives and connects, reconnects, sleeps, causes problems, etc.
WHEN: last two weeks of Firstfall, first two weeks of
WHERE: The Gallows & Kirkwall
NOTES: nothing yet, will update as needed

∞ : an arrival, more or less : open to all : the Gallows infirmary

The return to Thedas is wholly unpleasant, as far as returns that don't involve time-skipping go.

Instead of returning as he'd left, or as he was, back in whatever reality his consciousness was split(‽) from only to spit him newly out of the Fade and smack dab on his ass, surrounded by demons, in the nearby wilds of the Planasene Forest, Loki reacquired consciousness dressed as he had been the first time the Loom fell and the TVA with it — including his TVA work suit, peacoat, and a copy of OB's "bestseller" The TVA Handbook in his pocket.

He did not arrive armed at all, and an attempt to summon his daggers, a sword, anything only had him frowning at his empty hands as volunteers from Riftwatch fan out in a half circle around him. Someone tosses him a short sword with a yell that he'll have to help defend the group; of course he will, what else would be expected? That he would just cry, curl in on himself, give up?

As appealing as that short list of options was? No.

The short sword will do, for now.

He falls asleep in the cart taking him back to the Gallows more than once. Is only woken up each time when someone grasps his shoulder and shakes roughly - no amount of calling his name or gentle treatment appears to make it through the heavy fog of intermittent narcoleptic catching up to massive amounts of sleep debt. He spends the next five days more or less asleep on a bed in a corner of the infirmary until he manages to remain awake through an entire meal... without anyone speaking to him directly the entire time.

For, you see, the moment anyone turns their back to him or isn't engaging him in conversation, he tends to doze off nearly immediately. But at least he is given clearance to leave the infirmary and take up room elsewhere in the Gallows, seeing as how he's apparently not actively ill or appears a health and safety risk to others; he's just, as he keeps telling whomever may ask, rather tired.



[ Individual & localized starters in comments, feel free to wildcard to your ♥ content | I will match your format ]

Comments

∞ : gathering intel : open to all : all over the Gallows

[icasm]

The following is a list of places where Loki can be found during the remainder of his quarantine at the Gallows:

the library:

Truth be told? He's looking for Mobius, but he hasn't been informed just yet of how much of Riftwatch has already left Kirkwall and the Gallows in order to assist the Exalted March, He does know that the war is still happening, that Kirkwall has suffered some direct attacks, and has heard rumors of time travel related magic (and he'd rather not investigate too closely, thanks; it gives him a headache hangover just considering it).

But Mobius isn't there, either still in the desert or just not in immediate sight when Loki arrives in the library, and instead of asking anyone where his friend (still? former? ugh, the uncertainty of it all plus knowing it's been over a year since he was last in this world, is a weird sort of torture for Loki) might be instead, Loki takes to the stacks.

Eventually, he has several titles on a table in front of him, spanning from bawdy romances to small pamphlets on current events. And in just a moment more, he's asleep face down on those books, snoring quietly.

the dining hall:

An unfortunate aspect of mortality: the necessity of consumption. Eating, that is, and while Loki's appetite is nowhere near as impacted by being human (again) as the countless hours/days/years of sleep debt he has to recoup, he does get hungry. Getting hungry means going to the dining hall during all sorts of hours, as much out of boredom as it is out of hunger.

But, hey. There is a mural in here? Loki doesn't remember that. Is it new? He stands in front of it with a discerning eye, hands clasped behind his back.

And yes, he can, of course, be found very asleep, his hair just missing the fall into a bowl of soup cooling nearby to his folded arms beneath his head, oblivious to the otherwise noisy and populated space.

& elsewhere in the Gallows:

Late in the day and well into the darkened evening, Loki can be found training in whichever area is less populated - first with the short sword he was given upon falling out of a rift and then practicing pulling a dummy closer to him (via telekinesis, which just looks like he pulls an invisible line between himself and the object in question) and then repelling it back, with a small blast of green light/energy. To say he tires out pretty early after attempting the magic would definitely be putting it lightly.

There are the communal baths, which are only heated at certain hours, and Loki is a little too... let's say privileged to be willing to immerse himself in cold water for fun or bathing purposes.

Otherwise, well. He might be found poking around various offices in intense nosiness (including offices he has no business in) once he's learned that Tony Stark no longer heads the Research Division (and then he immediately signs up for said division, thumbing his nose at the memory of being told to leave it alone by the former Division Head). Byerly, it would seem, is also no longer head of the Diplomacy Division. Which is a bit of a surprise; Loki always imagined him the sort of man who would hold tightly onto whatever power he managed to grasp, but what does he know? Perhaps it's been a very long nearly year and a half, or however long he's been gone.

Linear time is a pain.

the research office

[youwonscience]

Tony Stark is gone, but his office isn't vacant. Even before the promotion is announced, Cosima's been spending a lot of time there. As Tony's assistant, she feels it's her job to get the office in order as best she can. So she's sorting through notes and plans and reports, trying to identify the most urgent and the most promising.

When she hears someone outside the open door, she says, "Come in if you want," not immediately looking up from the current set of notes she's deciphering. She's more perched on the chair than properly sitting in it, and an absent frown of concentration colors her features. It's as if she has something on the tip of her tongue and can't quite pin it down.

[icasm]

"Alright," comes Loki's response, though it's still a solid few seconds before his feet cross the threshold. He's never been in this room before, because there had been a boundary set early and he'd been determined to adhere to it.

To be, if not the better person, at least not the antagonist.

He and Tony only had a handful of interactions, most via voice and little else. Still. He feels haunted by the idea that the man, whose local title Loki has forgotten, is actually gone.

So.

Instead of distracting the woman at the desk he simply takes small, measured steps around the room, hands clasped behind his back as he peers at this thing or another. Non-disruptive but feeling all the stranger, nonetheless.

[youwonscience]

She finishes making a note, then looks up. "Oh, hey." She'd met Loki briefly the last time he was in Thedas, and unlike Tony, has no particularly unpleasant associations; they hadn't been close, but she does remember with sympathy him telling her his home world was gone. Still, without knowing what (if anything) he remembers, she doesn't want to presume. Thus: "I'm Cosima, new head of Research. Can I help with anything?"

She'll let him say if he remembers, or not, letting him set the tone. If he does remember her, she's much the same to look at as the last time, though maybe a bit more muted in demeanor. It's been a hell of a year.

[icasm]

The 'oh, hey' sparks recognition; Cosima has a voice Loki finds memorable, at the very least, and he looks up, squints, and moves his eyes side to side as he tries to recall.

"You were working on..." Give him a moment. "Microscopes, last I was aware, I think? How did that go?"

Neatly avoids the conversation of 'do you remember me?' from either party, because he'd rather... not. Newly muted demeanors are going around, it would seem. Loki looks tired; not quite exhausted, but the shadows under his eyes are still pretty new.

∞ time to re-experience the world around you : open : around Kirkwall

[icasm]

the docks, the ferry, & various public & commercial spaces in Kirkwall | open to all

There's a strong sense of nostalgia that seizes at Loki's chest while he's at the docks. Staring at the boats, trying and sometimes succeeding at determining which building has been repaired or replaced since he last stood here.

Not counting the time he was recently brought to the Gallows, of course, seeing as how he was mostly asleep for that. Plus it was dark. Plus he just... wasn't paying much attention when he was awake.

Loki can be found wandering about, dressed in fairly common clothes easily recognizable as part of whatever Riftwatch has available to new arrivals and recruits. Plus his heavy peacoat from the TVA, because there is no reason not to have a coat in this weather.

Is that houseboat a new acquisition of someone's? Someone from Riftwatch? It looks like a wholly chaotic mess to Loki from the outside: a barge that was built up, presumably over time, into a several-story abode with little rhyme or reason toward the architectural standard. Who would even live directly on the water... especially in winter? Even when Loki actively ignores how cold it is, he can't imagine going quite that far and wrinkles his nose at the thought. Doesn't help that he's peering through one of the exterior windows, attempting to get a sense of the resident(s), as he does so.

Surely, someone is going to spot him.

The ferryman is new, to him, Loki thinks, or at least his scowling and untrusting countenance isn't incredibly familiar; either way, he gives the man quite the wide berth, which is either a great idea or an incredibly bad one, considering that Loki falls asleep while waiting for and riding the ferry to Kirkwall. Feel free to rouse him from either activity, seeing as how the ferryman is disinclined towards any of that.

In a Lowtown tavern there are any number of drinks that can be purchased, along with otherwise empty corners to tuck oneself up in, and given the temperatures outside and the rapidly dwindling daylight, Loki's gloves do not immediately out him as a Rifter. He sticks to mead and whiskey, and alternates at least one evening between being incredibly drunk, occasionally singing along with whatever poor minstrel is working there for likely not enough coin, and abruptly falling asleep at said corner seat.

Speaking of Lowtown, the market district is also somewhere Loki can be found, occasionally asking questions of various vendors to try and better understand the limitations the current war efforts are putting on common goods and trade. Also just to poke around at items available for purchase. He doesn't currently possess enough coin to buy anything of much note, and he's just missed the gifting of this year's Satinalia, but he does manage to get his hands on a quantity of elfroot. For personal use, obviously.

⋉ picking up where we left off (more or less a wreck) : closed to Benedict

[icasm]

[ continued from here ]

"Ah," Loki responds, and then someone does spot Benedict's request for another and Loki's adjoining nod - they're served new tankards within moments. "Too much is happening, is it?"

[altusimperius]

Being more of a wine person himself, but fully of the recognition that beggars (that is, people in slummy pubs) can't be choosers, Benedict takes a cautious sniff of the tankard's contents and then sips. The face he makes indicates that the result is not favorable, but he doesn't complain, continuing to hold it in his hand with every intention of drinking again.

"Always," he confirms drily, and shrugs. "But that's not a bad thing, considering the circumstances." You know, the whole Being At War thing, "some are just better suited to it than others. I guess."

Perhaps it's his already advanced state of inebriation, the presence of a familiar face that had seemed lost, or just the futility of having a full drink he doesn't like but is going to finish anyway, but the moment yields an unusual candor: "Sometimes it's just. Being in a crowded room, surrounded by people, but you're still completely alone."
He drinks again, and makes a face again.

[icasm]

Ok the sniff, taste, make a face bit is very familiar, and also a little amusing; Loki finds himself smirking and adjusting his position in his seat to be a little more upright. Which is good, because the final thing that Benedict says - or admits to, as the case may be - is more than a little familiar, and a great deal heartbreaking all familiarity aside.

Alternatively, even moreso, as Loki knows exactly what that feels like.

He takes a heavy swallow of his own refreshed drink (it's swill, but it's definitely fermented swill, so it will do the job thank you very much), setting the tankard down on the table and tilting his head at Benedict as he folds his hands over his lap.

"You should find someone." He puts a hand up, certain that Bene will protest at the very least or take grave offense at the worst, and attempting to cut any of that off before he finishes. "Hear me out. Beyond the obvious reasons: that distraction in the aspect of forging a new path in regards to any relationship would be a welcome addition to whatever is happening for you, emotionally right now, and the fact that anyone worth their salt would do well to dispel the feeling of alienation at play..." Loki puts his hand down and leans back a little. "There is something to be said for rediscovering oneself through the eyes of another. And finding reason for yourself when you are for someone else."

[altusimperius]

As Loki speaks, Benedict watches him with an expression that starts off in the realm of exasperated amusement and gradually sinks to a wan and weary desolation; his loneliness, drowned and suffocated and stamped out by booze and smoke and keeping too busy, is suddenly visible in sharp relief.

It's not that he doesn't agree.

"Easier said than done," he says in a low tone, shame radiating off him, "and easy to squander the chance when it's there." It's difficult not to think of Colin, the person who no doubt came closest to loving him and being loved; a resource he wasted, for lack of knowing how to use it.

"Besides. I don't think it's hyperbolic to say there are few in this company who would have me. And outside the company, it's best not to be too upfront about what I am. ...or where I'm from."

⋉ all the things we left behind, forgotten, unsaid : closed to Alexandrie

[icasm]

Loki takes the stairs... as in walks up all of them... to Hightown from Lowtown.

He could, certainly, have acquired the means to travel by carriage up to the household where Alexandrie formerly resided (as far as he knows) but it gives him time to think, and a chance to be irritated at how easy it is to become winded on the ostentatiously long and steep pathway. If the guards look at him askance, well. It's not that he doesn't belong, exactly.

He knows the address of where he's headed.

The De La Fontaine apartments appear as he remembers them, with delicate and decorative stonework employed in stark contrast to its immediate neighbors in Hightown.

He stands at the threshold for some time, simply staring and not managing to muster the strength of will to knock. He imagines he knows how this will go: Mssr. Renaud will answer the door, and look wholly unimpressed, and Loki will ask if his things happen to still be in storage here, and if so, could he collect them?

And could he still pass along letters that he wished to reach Mme. Asgard in Orlais?

Loki does not imagine it appropriate for him to simply take up living there again... not when there's been such a great span of time in between his abrupt leaving of Thedas and his return. Not when he hasn't had a chance to speak to Alexandrie directly about it, either via letter or some other means.

Eventually, he collects his wits and nerves and whatever else is required to knock at the door.

If he's lucky, someone might even answer.

[coquettish_trees]

As with much of his recent experience, this too does not go as Loki imagines.

What opens is, rather than the door, a window on the second floor. And what comes out is not Mssr. Renaud, but the rather chic oval rug that ornaments the floor near one of the hall’s side tables. Then comes the dust from its violent shaking, shortly followed by the entire rug and a shriek of alarm as the maid shaking it loses her grip and tosses it into the small front garden below. The woman leans out and stares at it, looks back into the room, and then bursts into laughter. A laughter quickly twinned by the bright familiar peals belonging to the lady of the house.

And then there she is, leaning out the window alongside the maid to search it out, the flame of her hair shining in the crisp light of autumn’s mid-morning. Disappearing again. The laughter, and some discourse in muffled Orlesian, comes down the stairs, and when the door finally opens it is Alexandrie. She’s looking back up the stairs, giving a last light direction to the maid above about not throwing anything else out the window unless it is the vase the marquis got her for her birthday this year, the apartments behind her full of bustle and movement. Then she turns and walks full face into Loki’s chest.

“Oh!”

Summer sky eyes turn up to him, dancing with irrepressible mirth and a charming plea for forbearance, her mouth full of laughter and apology and… stunned silence. Her whole body goes still, rug forgotten.

“Oh.” A breath. A hesitant hand reaching its gloved fingers up to hover, not quite touching his cheek. Her eyes dart down to take in the clothing, are back up in an instant. Then, as quiet as the breath, “…min kjære?”

It is not what Alexandrie had imagined behind the door either.

[icasm]

There's an open window, then a carpet, a maid, the carpet again, a shriek. The gentle thud of the rug landed in the garden close enough that he could hop the fence to retrieve it. But Loki doesn't consider that, not when the maid begins laughing, and then...

His knee-jerk thought, upon hearing her voice, her laugh, that he has well and truly gone and lost his mind. What could be the likelihood, that they should both find themselves in Kirkwall? Now, especially? After he vanished and reappeared?

He is dreaming.

He's been dreaming all along. Clearly, and most certainly. What else could be true? Loki takes in a sharp, dismayed breath.

But then he sees her, just before he manages to shut his eyes against the idea of unreality (or whatever that would even mean in this situation), and the two senses combined are enough for him to rethink his immediate determination that it wasn't real. He sees her; she's laughing, then she's gone again, yet he can still hear her voice and person moving through the interior of the apartment, and then before Loki realizes that all of this commotion means it is unlikely anyone is aware he's standing there waiting, Alexandrie Lucette Seraphine Arienne d'Asgard strides directly into him.

Loki's hand is at her elbow as soon as she reaches for him; he swallows, and, foolish as he has ever been, tilts his head so that her fingers brush against his cheek. "Hello again, Alexandrie. I did not know you had returned from Orlais."

Well. There's a lot he doesn't know, all things considered.

[coquettish_trees]

If Loki was anyone's dream, he was hers.

Alexandrie had thought it once before, during conversation about the Rifters. It is hard to think it anything else now, with his feet on her doorstep the very day after she returned to Kirkwall. Her elbow tingles where he touches it. The sweetness of the light pressure of his cheek against her fingers makes longing to feel its warmth catch in her throat. Is he thinner? More spare even than he had been, coiled whipcord energy that he was when she last saw him stride like a keen edged knife through the world? Where had he gone? What had happened to him?

"I did not know you had returned from..." She is gently stroking Loki's cheek with the tip of her forefinger, the only part of her body save her lips that seems able to move. Eyes wide and full of him, she huffs a tiny helpless wisp of a laugh. "I still do not understand how this works."

the boat.

[elegiaque]

Even from the foreboding outside, it's clear that the interior must be much more luxe; the closer he gets, the clearer that someone has taken the time to truly raise the standard of quality, that extensive work has been undertaken to strength, smooth, soften. The consistent finish on the exterior despite the mishmash of various built-ons, the way that the deck and stairs are far more level and consistent than any other visible part.

The way that a shuttered window opens, above, and Gwenaëlle — with her hair down and dressed in a summer-weight gown, not the working wear he more usually saw her in before — leans out of it, eyebrow raised, a hand steadying herself on the sill.

“Are you back?”

—is a complicated question, though one with a simple answer. Yes, because he remembers; no, because he's a stranger anew. She doesn't seem to expect one answer or the other, especially, but rather whichever is the case will doubtless decide the shape of the rest of this conversation. Perhaps whether or not she continues having it from out a window, or how many threats it contains.

[icasm]

"Yes. Only recently."

He shades his face, trying to sort out what's odd about her gaze, and then deciding he can just accept that time passes and things change and he'll perhaps stop staring.

"This is very impressive."

It's obviously hers. Why would he assume anything else? He can't imagine Gwenaëlle tolerating a space that was not her own. "Are you interested in tea? At this moment? ...Is tea something you happen to enjoy?"

Yep, that's the order those questions go in. Sure.

[elegiaque]

Probably it doesn't bear examining, the way that it's always sort of suited her that she makes him palpably somewhat nervous. He stops staring, but her (unusual) gaze lingers, studying him until she's satisfied and the corner of her mouth twitches with unwilling amusement.

“As it happens. Come aboard,”

is an instruction almost more than an invitation as she disappears from the window-sill, presumably to find her way downstairs to the door.

[icasm]

Good. Yes. Great, even, he just... needs to locate the door since he's just been staring through a window. Windows, perhaps.

He knows how boats work; you find the places where it is connected to the dock and usually, it is just a straight shot to entry from there, correct?

Okay. Tea, with Gwenaëlle. He can learn what is important to know, and be assessed. Yes.

He takes a breath and tries the knob.

lowtown tavern.

[cozen]

Bastien had heard—had made a point of hearing, keeping tabs on comings and goings from the Gallows even more carefully now that he doesn't spend as much time there—that Loki was back. Heard it, noted it. Did not seek him out because they were never particularly close before, were they? Only connected by three lines on someone's diagram of the Gallows' dalliances.

But the minstrel's name is Albree, and Bastien has promised to buy her a drink afterwards, and she promised to play—

"This one," Bastien says, sitting down next to Incredibly Drunk Loki without invitation. He joins the singing along for a single line, harmonizing quietly, and leans over to confide, "Auisia Dieudonné wrote it sometime in the nine-tens, but it was slower and it didn't have the chorus, and the king lived in the end. No one liked it. This version is mine, you know. I fixed it. Years ago."

Spoken as if he is an old man. Which he half is, these days, as long as he's not being compared to a god thousands of years old.

He looks Loki over from the corner of his eye.

"How have you been?" is perhaps too familiar in tone for how unfamiliar they were before, but unwarranted familiarity usually works fine for people who've had enough to drink.

[icasm]

Oh! He's being addressed! And joined! Yes, this is good. Socialization means that this, this thing he's doing where he's getting levels of inebriated on a weekday evening in the middle of a war that could be best characterized as... unfortunate. It means it's... better than it could be.

At least Loki has a good singing voice. "It's excellent. A vast improvement, of which I am certain.

For that matter, so does Bastien. Byerly's boyfriend. He hadn't seen him on the island. But anyway, a good voice, because bards, entertainers, musicians in this world are also assassins. Musical murderers for hire. Or. Social interaction.

It's complicated. Politics, society, etcetera.

See? He knows things. He remembers.

Loki suddenly realizes has taken entirely too long to clock the question.

"Oh." Yes. He should answer that. "Ah. It has been... a while. For me." Longer than three years. "Complicated? I have been in a complicated variety of ways. In that. Time. Span."

infirmary.

[portalling]

Rifter quarantine procedure still requires a quick medical checkup and then to keep them inside the Gallows, which works well enough once Loki is bundled back from the new rift in a cart. He comes in walking like a zombie, dead on his feet, slumping through the doors of the infirmary only long enough to pass out in one of the beds. Was he injured during the fight? Poisoned? No, just —

Asleep.

So it’s an in-and-out blur of occasional faces checking on him, forcing some bland broth into his hands whenever he stirs, the spoon clattering to the floor as he never finishes the bowl. The Head Healer has taken a specific interest in the new arrival, his curiosity hopelessly piqued about this strangely familiar face. Every time he thinks Loki might be awake enough to interrogate, then the man (god? frost giant? just-another-rifter?) falls asleep again, and the days continue to slide by.

Still exhausted, evidently.

But after five days, he finally emerges from that fugue long enough to have a conversation.

And in the corner sits Doctor Strange, reading a book. At the sound of blankets rustling and a groggy noise from his patient, he looks up and peers at Loki over the edge of Hard in Hightown.

“Are you alive?” he asks, dryly.

[icasm]

A cough, and Loki finds then summarily drains the water at his bedside, craning his body so that he can refill the glass.

He hasn't clocked who it is, exactly, at the end of the bed... but then again he and the Sorcerer Supreme never actually met. That was the other Loki.

The dead one. This brings these two back to the question at hand: is Loki alive?

He coughs again, and empties only half the glass this time, followed up with: "It would seem that way, yes."

[portalling]

“Good,” Strange says, honestly, snapping the book shut and settling it against his knee. He prides himself on having a perfect patient survival ratio both home and in Thedas so far, and he’s not planning on letting that change anytime soon. He’s straightened a little in his seat, his blue gaze intent, watching the man carefully as he gulps down that water. Tracking his groggy movements, trying to assess his state.

“You didn’t exactly manage to say anything coherent when you came in here. Are you Loki?”

There’s the vague impression that if the doctor could brandish a pen and clipboard right now, he would, taking assiduous notes; for now, however, he’s just tasking himself to remember.

[icasm]

"I am." Sipping water try his time while he frowns at the man across from him in an attempt to place where they might know one another from.

Doesn't take him long to give up on that project. Whomever he is, it's either been too long or the interaction was too indirect, or possibly both.

"This is the Gallows, in Kirkwall, yes?" Another series of sips. "I've been here before."

[portalling]

“Yes, I heard as much from miss Baudin. Welcome back. You’re in the infirmary in the Gallows, and I’m the Head Healer. I’ve been overseeing your rest over the past few days.” His fingers drum restlessly against the book as he measures that frown, that blank lack of recognition.

How strange, that Tony would vanish and now the universe delivers Loki on his doorstep, as if it’s some bizarre cosmic balancing of the scales —

“I never encountered you in Thedas, but we actually met once, back in New York,” he says mildly, unaware of the technicalities. “Doctor Stephen Strange, at your service.”