[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

[youwonscience]

"Wow, theoretical physics. Definitely outside my wheelhouse, though having someone with that perspective could still come in handy more than you think. The Fade, for one thing; it's seemingly touching a lot of different worlds, in one way or another. Or at least making us all believe we're from different worlds, which like ... creating that convincing an illusion would be almost as impressive, in some ways. About a year ago, some of us got to see glimpses of what seemed like worlds some rifters originally came from, and it was ... anyway. Not a physicist, but I do think it's cool and potentially useful. And honestly, I'd rather have the department flush with a lot of different specialties."

She leans back in her chair. "Did you know Mobius last time you were here?"

[icasm]

That was a lot of nearly incomplete information to parse, give Loki a moment to mentally sort through it all, tilting his head and frowning. While answering her question, of course, which he does with a distracted wave of his hand nearly immediately. "Yes, we're... well I suppose I should say we were, as any number of things could be true now, close. We knew each other."

Biblically, one might say. Not Loki though, in part because he doesn't know that book and isn't a monotheist besides.

"You think that the Fade convinces us... hold on." He puts two fingers in the air, with all the focus of someone who is working out the edge of an unknowable puzzle. Very mad scientist vibes over here (probably kinda similar, actually, to other people she's known). "I had been operating with the idea that we are copies, isolated to the world surrounded by the Fade, because we remember none of it if we 'return' to where we came from. Not that it strictly matters, in the end. Whatever experience we have of this place is entirely self-contained to this place, but it is... interesting. Is this world isolated from time and the multiverse otherwise?"

[youwonscience]

"I think the copy theory is at least equally likely, and it's kind of the one I'm operating on day-to-day because it causes the least cognitive dissonance. Like, my subjective experience is that I came from another world, was here in Thedas for a while, went back with no memory of Thedas, then turned up this time with both new memories of home and the memories of my first Thedas trip. The copy thing is a framework that works with that, and it's one that hasn't been immediately disproved. I'm just saying ... it's a supported theory, not a proven fact."

She shrugs: What can you do?

"But as far as I know, no one in Thedas has had contact with another universe except in connection to rifters. Well, and I suppose you could make the argument as to whether the Fade is another plane of existence or just a place that's connected to the rest of Thedas in a way that's different than my understanding of spacetime. Again, not a physicist, so I don't want to assume. But apart from the Fade, no one knew anything of other worlds before rifters showed up, as far as I know."