faderift | but I still hold out hope that maybe someday

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but I still hold out hope that maybe someday

WHO: Mobius, whomstsoever decides to bother him
WHAT: it's another catchall /fingerguns
WHEN: All month long
WHERE: around, about
NOTES: tbd

Sure, the library is like a home now ever since he sidled on into the Gallows and decided it all needed a little upkeep, spiraling out into taking it under his wing and being a resident bookworm with, sure, a penchant for being precious about the resource of the word. And he spends a good amount of time there on the daily as it is, though less through the new year with the new title. So long as nobody's destroying things or starting fights, it can all be tended to with assistants (thanks Abby!) and not need to be micromanaged under his care. He won't be breaking any arms.

Where he's been spending more time is in the archivist's office, spending time...well, archiving. Cosima appreciated the assistance with what's already been started, though it's clear there have been differences in organizational tactics between whoever all has been in here over the years. It's relatively quiet work to sort through reports and notes and track down dates and related project pages and suss out where to put it all in a manner that makes sense. And then there's rooting through new documents or half-finished projects that have come before. Having the good Lady Lamonia's collection of personal letters and libraries of journals and such donated to Riftwatch's care has been...fun. (It has not been fun.) He's been more than glad for assistance in perusing sultry love letters for tidbits of gossipy information about other lords and ladies from across the Marches, because frankly it isn't the most interesting thing to him, and he's not sure why it's all been donated to them. And whoever left this particular project barely started with some archaic archival system the likes of which might only be understood by the Maker Himself didn't do Mobius any damned favors. Please. Save him from this. Uuuuuuugh why is it another perfumed letter talking about beauty and oh did you hear what Marquis Audile got up to and blah blah blah...

When he spends time away from that, he makes a point to spend some time each day in the chapel, dutiful in his beliefs in his own ways. Quietly praying and keeping to himself, cleaning up if it's dusty or a bit of a mess. When in the dining hall, he keeps an eye out for friends and associates, and even occasionally makes the acquaintance of someone he is less than familiar with, though more often he keeps more to himself. The less than stellar function of his hands might always be something of an embarrassment to him, he knows. Which never stops him from training, keeping a firm grip on his sword at all times, shield at the ready strapped to the other arm, or simply going through the motions to keep himself in shape. Bookworm he might be, but he won't skimp on being battle ready.

He also lately is spending time out in Kirkwall proper, asking after printers and asking them where they procure their supplies, asking too after those who make paper and parchment. Does research on the side, since naturally he'd turn to books first, on how best to start setting up that kind of practice within the walls of the Gallows. Maybe there's space in the basement somewhere? Or an empty office space? Negotiating prices for deliveries might help in the short-term, but...

[or y'know hit him up elsewhere, or hit me up for a bespoke prompt]

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It's been actually kind of awkward to have Loki back around. There's a lot between them that hasn't been said, a lot left unexplained, and Mobius hasn't found it in himself to be detailed about anything. What's clear is how the both of them have changed in the time spent. He hopes that doesn't mean they're now incompatible. They were fun; it was good, what they had. And even if the disappearing wasn't Loki's fault, there's still an undercurrent of sting when he thinks about it.

The Maker and Andraste both have Their plans and ways. Mobius just has to trust this. Every time he flexes the hand that now bears the mark and power that can help the world and eventually kill him (unless he chops it off at some point), he is reminded that faith needs to hold fast even in the darkest times. Especially in the darkest times.

Not that these are things that he says. And it must burn Loki in some way, the way they both know they aren't talking about the most important things, the way some of what each knows and feels is kept locked in their chests, as though that's ever been the way they've communicated with each other before. Maybe that's why Loki keeps staring at him when he thinks Mobius doesn't notice. Looking away again when Mobius lifts his head. Like trying to must courage to say something? Or just analyzing him from a silent distance? Loki clearly thinks he's being smooth and clever about it, but even if Mobius has yet to actually red-handed catch Loki doing it, he can still feel the eyes on him.

And it's so damned distracting. He sets one of Lady Lamonia's letters aside with a sigh and stretches in his seat before making his way over to Loki, sitting heavily beside him, and flatly asking: "What."

It shouldn't be surprising, the fact that Mobius manages to call him out with both intense directness and a level of exhaustion that Loki can feel resonating in every atom of his being - and yet it is. So enjoy that slightly startled expression and then immediate abashed look. Not for nothing does it also active Loki's own sense of longing and resignation about the version of Mobius he'd left behind, in the TVA, on Earth, waiting for the version of himself that supported and maintained the sanctity of the many branches of timeline on the tree of all known reality.

Who is and yet distinctly is not the man sitting here. Himself, Mobius. Pick one.

Loki smooths the document he's been attempting to read (with very little success, too distracted by Mobius and then by pretending to not be distracted by Mobius) and finally he lets out a heavy breath.

"Tell me about your hand." Softly. He doesn't want to ask but he does want to know. "Please."

His hands are almost perpetually gloved, ever since the realization that giving up sensation meant a lot more accidents waiting to happen. And now they cover the gentle glow that all Rifters receive and the blessed of the natives to get smacked with one from an errant rift.

Given Loki says hand singular, it doesn't take a genius to guess what he's asking about. There's a desire to rebuff, a petty thing, but Loki says please. And everything feels softened.

"What would you like to know?" It isn't an exciting story to tell. And he hasn't had it long enough to be able to do a whole lot with it. But there are feelings wrapped up in it that are difficult for him to express from simply knowing how others around him might react. Maybe not Loki, though. Maybe not him.

Loki frowns a little, pondering what he wants to know, and how to state it. He had been gone long enough that the people he knows and cares about here in Thedas have been irrevocably changed, primarily by things he's only read of or knows secondhand at best - he still hasn't discussed with Abby the truth of having been dead and remembering a different reality as that one was eliminated, for instance, and he is nowhere near foolish enough to invite Gwenaëlle's irritation or scorn attempting to muddle through any queries about her eye - and so while I want to know everything is a true response, it doesn't quite fit the bill.

He loves Mobius. In a way that is much less effusive and publicly visible, perhaps, than his passion surrounding Alexandrie, but it is love nonetheless. And while he and Alexandrie have fallen into a very familiar pattern (spurned forward somewhat by Loki's despising of group housing, truth be told) the same cannot quite be said of himself and Mobius.

Mobius saw him at his worst, and then Loki vanished overnight, asleep at Mobius' side. Everything that has happened since feels both unfathomable to understand in any meaningful detail and necessary to comprehend before they can move forward. There is no real returning to the past, not even when you repeat it over and over again.

Something they both know firsthand, hm?

"Your shard. It's more recent than..." What does he call it? The injury? The sacrifice? Loki sighs noisily because if he brings it up directly they will get off track from his intended starting place. "The rest. What happened, that you ended up with one of your own?"

Mobius is aware that he must be frustrating, being reticent to talk details when he's the one that constantly wants to know everything about everything. When they could be open, if in a roundabout way, to each other before.

When did he get so sensitive, anyway?

"Nothing of note. There was a rift, out in the countryside, somewhere we'd been trying to help improve things before, and several of us were given the gift in the process." Couple poor souls on the run who stumbled ass backwards into the whole thing, too, it seems like. These things happen, like it or not.

He flexes his hand. "It's almost a blessing unto itself that it was through relatively mundane means and not," with an encompassing motion, "in the midst of something far more exciting."

Well. Many people are frustrating, heavens knows, and Loki doesn't find it an immediate disqualification for his involvement and interaction.

But right now Loki is watching Mobius talk about the shard in his hand, as if they both don't know that keeping it - and the hand it is embedded in - will eventually have a mortal cost. Which, alongside Mobius' determination that the ordinariness of obtaining it was a sort of blessing, returns Loki's thoughts to the notion of sacrifice, and the truth that his friend has to wear odd support straps for his utensils at meals, lest they go flying when Mobius is more focused on other things than keeping visual track of his fine motor skills.

So he frowns, a little. It's not about 'the gift' but it's not not that. "You still feel it is a blessing from Andraste?" A shake of his head. "Of course you do. Faith is your strong suit, and I'm not suggesting you should feel otherwise."

He's had his reactions, quietly if passionately, all to himself. It's good, then, that Loki makes the correction, makes his intentions a little more clear as to what he is not implying. Because others would. They would judge him for his enthusiasm, the religious ecstasy, and it makes him have to take a long moment to not break into those feelings right here and now.

That it will eventually kill him doesn't mean much. Eventually the lyrium use will turn him into a vegetable. Eventually this war will see the end of him. Hell, there are people who have been here since the beginning of this with shards in their hands that haven't died just yet. He could wake up one morning and have a heart attack. He could choke on a particularly fatty cut of meat.

Nothing Andraste asks is ever easy.

"She picks Her chosen," he says quietly, "deems them worthy of Her blessing. All my life's come to this. And, honestly, I'm kind of afraid of squandering the gift."

Things Loki considers but does not say includes a level of incredulity at the amount of direct involvement Andraste might have in... any personal life of anyone alive in the current age, much less the bleeding through of the Fade that has occurred as a result of every choice Corypheus has made in living memory. It's there, in his mind, from both the position of a man who is unlikely to believe in any gods beyond the ones he's met personally - which is many of the various Midgardian pantheon, truth be told - but not on his face.

Because there are other things to consider. Mobius is his friend, and Loki can't dismiss Mobius' feelings automatically anyway, even if he is not built to understand them.

"What would be 'squandering the gift'? What does that even mean?"

"Not using it effectively. Maybe I should be out there more, doing more. Should've been taking time this whole while to hone the skills necessary to use it all better."

Which are unreasonable demands, he knows, which is probably why he hasn't done all that in the first place. And he wouldn't expect the same of Loki. It's hard not to want to be a hypocrite about the whole thing, so...he sighs.

"It can't be for nothing, is maybe what I'm trying to say." Which is perhaps not true, but it's how he sees it. "I'll figure out how and where to use it as it comes to me." A glance over at his friend, askance. "That's why you've been staring at me and pretending like you haven't been?"

"...I don't think that not using a skill to its full potential effectiveness is the same as something being squandered. I also don't think you would be nearly as harsh on anyone else who happened to have a Fade shard, so please, do me a favor, and be kinder to my friend? Namely, yourself." Very. Pointed. Look.

Which crumbles almost immediately after, because now Loki has to consider the staring and his various reasons why. "I want for us to be close again, but I have no idea how to begin. Or. If you would want to. It feels like so much has changed, things you don't want to discuss."

Mobius gives a sound that's somewhere between a laugh and a scoff. Doesn't answer about the being kinder, but, sure, point taken.

"A lot has changed. Are you gonna tell me everything that's happened to you, or is it painful to think about?"

Because that's a lot of what's behind Mobius and his reluctance. He doesn't want to recount his hands, or delve deep into the shard, or talk about Granitefell, or talk about even some of the more amazing things he's seen when it leaves him grieving and wanting. "I'm not trying to push you away." That pain is something he has to figure out himself; it's not on Loki to deal with or fix. "You can ask questions. Kinda feels like you just wanted everything to slide back into the way things were, and it's not like that. Not that easy."

"The problem of retelling what's happened to me isn't pain, though it does exist. The problem is story, and the problem is time, and the problem is the friends I don't believe I'll ever see again, and the idea that there is always a last time, and it is always sooner than I'd think, like, or expect.

I suspect that is the problem of us as well, or part of it. I've never come back, before. I have always left the past behind, until I had no choice but to confront it, again and again, and relearn the same tired lessons endlessly until I accepted the truth of them. And then I had to move forward. It's not the same as coming back at all."

Loki has leaned back in his seat a little, frowning at his own hands folded in front of him on the table. He turns his head to Mobius. "I want to ask, certainly. But I don't think that demanding a retelling would actually solve the problem of time minus distance." A little shake of his head. "It isn't that I want what was. It's that I want it to be a part of what is to be, and I have no idea how to do that."

Story and time and people he'll never see again. Mobius is the one frowning now, trying to suss out the meaning. The Maker, or Andraste, or both, has always given him clarity, insight, but he wonders if in gaining some things he's lost others. Maybe he's losing his touch, so to speak, since here he is, trying to read Loki like the open book he always feels like he is, but coming up short. Trying to understand what the fuck he's trying to say and left trying to sort several pieces. Or is that his mind starting to addle?

"Neither of us knows what coming back is like, is what you're saying. What to do with the coming back, how to pick things back up."

The few times he's come back, it hasn't gone well. Starkhaven's more or less gone, for instance.

He takes a long and steadying breath, shoulders up, holds it. Lets it go and sinks back down. "We figured it out before. We'll figure it out again."

Loki can see it, on Mobius' face, the fact that he's managed to talk circles around being in a time loop for an uncountable number of centuries. He doesn't want to be direct about it, because being direct means coming face to face with the feeling that he was outsmarted and outplayed, that there were no options other than letting the wrong person win or personal forfeiture.

Which, for the record, was the option he chose at the time. The him that didn't know/remember/experience Thedas.

The Loki that remains here is glad it's not likely to come up again as something he has to do (hopefully).

He watches Mobius breathe through it. Hears but only halfway pays attention to the things Mobius says along with that bit of breathing exercise - not because it's unimportant, but because what Mobius says with his body might be moreso.

Mobius' body says this won't be easy. Loki agrees.

"Okay." A beat. "Sorry for the odd staring."

Mobius shakes his head, just a little. "It's not like you not to be more upfront with me, but then, it isn't like me to hold back. If you wanna know how we get back to us, or how we move forward to a new us, I don't have the answers. But I also wouldn't worry too much about it."

He rises from his seat and moves to the door, shuts it all the way. The work they're doing isn't anything sensitive, and sometimes there's more help, and sometimes there's Stephen making his attempts to throw what he calls 'paper airplanes' across the hall and diagonally to the room to get his attention. But this might be. More sensitive.

"I'm sorry. For not being more forthcoming. For being..." No, he's not really sorry for anything that he is, now. Different. Changed. Things that can't be helped. "I'm sorry for making you feel like you can't talk to me."

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but I still hold out hope that maybe someday

for Loki

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