Inbox (Caldera)

[coldsong]

"Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Attack while they are distracted.

Kindly leave a message."

Comments

omg why is this your FIRST FUCKIN INBOX THREAD LMFAO [text; @ogreslayer]

[likeiron]

Hey. Is this Loki? I have a favor to ask.

text @Jokulros people are just intimidated by his aura idk

[coldsong]

Indeed it is. And to whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?

[And what madman sent you to me for a favor, for fuck's sake, is what he doesn't say.]

[likeiron]

Nina Ironfist, the Ogreslayer. I'll cut to the chase.

Gadriel thinks I'm corrupted by sorcery. He... might be right? I was healed by a mage after I got burned in the volcano, and now I can suddenly heal myself with fire I never had before and didn't ask for.

He wants you to check... for corruption.

text, @odaring (sorry for him)

[odare]

[Finnick has made up with Nina, but afterward he's reading and listening to the replies on Gadriel's post, and can't help but still feel angry, bitter, and a little betrayed by his friends. Loki, Lioriley, Beleth... People who, in his mind, he's sworn his life to protect and his unwavering loyalty. They're empathizing with his enemy even as Gadriel tells them he's killed someone, a fellow Visitor. A whole crowd of people empathizing with him about murder, as though Gadriel is the victim. Finnick doesn't like this feeling, hot anger and spite and jealousy, hypocritical though it is, considering people empathized with him when he almost killed Gadriel (not that he expected or asked for that). Underneath it, though, is fear. Of what, he's not quite sure. Perhaps that they'll all turn on him, team up with Gadriel and stab him in the back. Perhaps that Nina will no longer have want or need of him with Gadriel to protect her, that Gadriel will somehow steal all his friends and Finnick will end up alone. Perhaps they'll all decide the real Finnick, the one who is violent and vengeful, is not so likable after all. He's starting to feel like the crazy one for still holding ill will toward Gadriel, and that's irritating, too, because he doesn't think that makes any sense.

He messages Loki somewhat impulsively, acting partly on these emotions. He'd otherwise not be so blunt.]

I think we should talk. I'd like to know where your loyalty lies.

[coldsong]

[Oh, Finnick. If Loki had a Bone for every time someone questioned his loyalty, he would be the richest man in Caldera. Unfortunately, the way this is worded makes him spiral briefly, trying to figure out what he did that could be interpreted as betrayal this time and as a consequence there's a long pause before he replies.

Slightly longer, because it's Finnick and Loki's knee jerk response of haha you expected loyalty from me why? won't do here. He likes this man. He likes him a LOT.]

What did I do wrong? I don't know what you're talking about?

[Help??]

text, @odaring

[odare]

[This comes in the middle of the fucking night.]

Hi love,

I've been possessed by an idea and I need you to tell me if it's completely stupid.

xoxo, Finn

[coldsong]

[Loki sleeps like shit, so it's actually only about fifteen minutes before he notices and responds.]

Call me love and I'll follow you anywhere.

Your response options will be as follows: 1. No it's a great idea or 2. It's completely stupid, do it anyway.

Now, do go on.

[text] ingenuity

[badnewsandshitlist]

I hope that I have reached the correct scroll, but is this Loki? This is Percival Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski De Rolo III and I have a small request to make.

I wish to learn how to utilize my minor illusion ability in more successful ways and I have a feeling that you may be the best person to ask for help.

[coldsong]

Finally someone takes note of my expertise as a master of the medium! How have you been, Princeling? My gifts are at your disposal.

text, @bearpaws

[pokeabear]

Loki, I hope that you and yours are safe after the battle. Please let me know if you need anything.

[coldsong]

[Oh, Halsin. Clearly he hasn't heard the story...]

Well I, for lack of a less crude way to phrase things, fucked up. But I am currently alive and safe, if rather in the doghouse.

You should check in on Finnick when you get a chance. I've upset him and you might be better at reassuring him than I am just now.

random text message time, @doe

[soldforless]

Important: would you rather fight one horse-sized duck or fifty duck-sized horses?
Answer carefully. It’s a personality test.

[coldsong]

[Oh boy, you have come to the right person for this discussion.]

Fifty is a lot, but I think I would still opt for the duck-sized horses. A horse's primary weapon is its hooves and they're not going to be able to reach above my knees at that size, so I just have to guard my legs enough to keep from getting hamstrung.

Whereas a horse sized duck will presumably have its strength scaled up, and I know from experience getting clubbed with a swan's wing can knock me silly (don't ask). I have to assume the wing of a half-ton of bird could just crush me like a bug.

Would you rather only be able to walk on all fours, or only be able to walk sideways, like a crab?

post-revival

[odare]

The blood ritual seemed to work. The runes lit, Loki's sapphire disappeared. The priests there assured Finnick that he would be at the undine healer's hub the next day.

So here he is, at said healer's place, nervous. His initial anger has subsided some, especially after speaking with Beleth, but he still feels unsure of where he stands with Loki, and he's worried about his well-being.

Finnick asks at the desk for him and is ushered to Loki's room. Quietly, he steps inside, breath bated as he looks toward the bed for the man he loves.

[coldsong]

Loki feels...sick. Nauseous, overheated, weak. It's nothing to do with the ritual that's resurrected him and everything to do with how he feels about it. Sitting up in bed in the little room at the healer's hub feels like his prison cell in Valaskjálf, a few miles from the Palace. No windows save the transparent walls that allowed the Einherjar to keep an eye on him. Limited furniture--and he was spoiled there, in comparison to the other prisoners, at least he had books--just a bed, a table and chair, a couple shelves, and the awful, still, dead-eyed clarity growing as he pulled the cobwebs free from his mind.

This time, at least he only killed one person, although the Norns know he tried to slay Percy, too. No, his deeds weren't so bad this time, by comparison, but he still feels...something. Too much. Too little.

Violated. Numb. Confused. Satisfied. How much of that was him, and how much was outside influences?

He's told he ha a visitor, and who it is, and he tries to put his tangled hair in some kind of semblance of order, but by the time Finnick enters, Loki is still just sitting up on he edge of the bed, shirtless in Jotun form, braiding and unbraiding the ends of his hair like he's trying to figure out what to do with his fingers.

He manages a smile when he meets Finnick's eyes, but he doesn't say anything, waiting for some kind of signal.

text, @slowarrow

[loosed]

Welcome back to life.

[ He doesn't not mean it. But he also doesn't leave the nicety hanging there alone as if he might not have some other motive for reaching out. Obviously he does. ]

What happened with Solas?

[coldsong]

Thanks. No one's ever said that to me without immediately making an effort to send me back to Hel.

Am I correct to assume you're looking for an answer more in-depth than 'I stabbed him while he turned me into stone'?

[text] ingenuity

[badnewsandshitlist]

Loki, are you busy at the moment? I could use a bit of quiet, if you have some to spare.

There's nothing urgent—just… the kind of evening where the silence turns sharp if you sit in it too long.

I don’t need advice. Or comfort.
Just… company. Someone who understands what it’s like to be too much and not enough in the same breath.

Had a run-in with Skandranon and Nina. It didn’t go well. I deserved most of it—maybe all of it—but I’m honestly a bit wrung out, and everything’s louder than it should be.

If you’re free, I’d like to sit near someone who doesn’t flinch when the room gets heavy.
No fixing. No judgment. Just two people who’ve seen too much and are still here anyway.

I’ll bring something warm. Or something sharp. Your call.
Either way, I’d just like not to be alone tonight. And you are one of the few that I do not have to make drastic gestures for.

[coldsong]

At the moment, I am merely reading one of the books I borrowed from the Salt Spire library this week. A Calderan philosophical treatise, but anything related to the world's history is weirdly redacted, so it's slow going.

Which is a roundabout way of saying I'm available, yes.

Bring a book, if you like. I'll handle the something warm. Gods know I have seven or eight different sorts of tea here. Can you find the way yourself?

voice @N7, after the events of the...event

[earthborn]

So.

How'd it go?

[coldsong]

It being what, exactly? The chaos with Lulu, or the situations preceding it? I'm still trying to work out how I feel about the implications.

this is for the quest i promise

[odare]

Hey love.

I think a couple of my friends are gone for good.
Anthem and Zevlor.

[coldsong]

Oh...

I'm sorry to hear that, kjaere. Are you all right? I never did talk to him but I rather liked Anthem.

[Wasn't mutual, and he knows that, but still. She seemed fun.]

[While Loki is Sleeping]

[goethbeforethefall]

[Solas only knows one way to be sure, absolutely sure, that there will be privacy. For all their power and fallible impulse, the Leaders of this place, the gods of Caldera, did not yet stoop to gazing within the minds of their guests.

And so, one night, some weeks after last they spoke, Solas comes to Loki in dreaming, and shapes the dream into something other than memory or invention; an ice-bound cathedral, a snowy mountain pass, and the sleepy shadow of a forest-wrapped village, far below. It is an open place, crisp with ice-bite in the air, and there is a distinct feeling that nothing has come here but ghosts and animals for a very long time indeed.]

Not long ago, you issued an invitation to trade. Pain for pain. [He turns, hands clasped behind his back. The pelt across Solas' shoulders is a wolf's, hoary and wild, but every other aspect of his dress is the skilled hand of a master craftsman, a memory of beautifully-jointed golden armor and green silk, layered and embossed like a thousand autumn leaves, and a motif of watching eyes woven subtly into the brocade of his sash. A commander's armor.] Will you honor that offer, Falon?

[coldsong]

[Loki is fully capable of dreamwalking, himself, though he hasn't done it in years, and is not so fully capable of shaping someone else's mental landscape. He is in peaceful, cool darkness until Solas' arrival, no thoughts in particular shaping his dream, and so it is a pliant, tranquil space that Solas enters and shapes into something new--or something ancient, perhaps.

Loki's own form is vague, shifting frost and light and shadow as he appears, and only the silhouette resembles the person Solas sees walking the waking world. Gradually, unhurried, he weaves himself together in threads of green-gold seiðr, until he appears as his Jotun self, red-eyed and glacier-blue, with the threads of power running along his skin like stitches. He is taller here, looming closer to the size of his giant progenitors, but it doesn't appear to be a deliberate attempt to project dominance. He seems mildly surprised by it, in fact, and rolls his shoulders before dwindling down to Solas' height.]

Well met, eiðbróðir. [He greets, and there is a melody in his voice that isn't there in the daytime, as if some part of him is unvarnished here, unmasked. The hum of wind and the jingle of a thousand silvery bells.] I remember, and I honor that offer.

Does it ail you tonight, in particular, this sorrow of yours? Or did it just feel like the proper time to come to me with it?