Open-ish, for Nexus_crossings
Jun. 14th, 2019 01:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
coldsongThere is a sensation that Loki knows, for which there are no words in any language he has ever heard. It’s a feeling particular to a shapeshifter, the sense of something caught, pinched or wedged or wrong-side-out. He felt it in his earliest days, when he was first learning to shift—true shape-changing, not illusion; there is no such risk with illusion—and he would get the bone structure slightly wrong, or some thin, obscure internal membrane would get tangled. Pain, deep-inside pain, and restless agitation that cannot be ignored. Wrongness.
It happened more and more rarely as he aged, grew to understand his body, what it could do and what it needed. Mostly, for the last few centuries, the deep-inside pain only happens if he keeps a shape too long without shaking out his body and unspooling his seidr. Like a cramp. Like a reminder he is not beholden to one body. He doesn’t really even belong in a single body.
Today, he feels the discomfort. He is out of joint, bent up inside, and shifting doesn’t seem to help.
It’s too warm for the Jotun shape. Another few weeks will be the time of year he used to get summer fevers, as a child. Age has made him hardier, but he’s still not looking forward to the beat of heat on his skin, the sear of angry sunlight. But he’s missed stalking the snows in this shape. Ironic how the form he hated and eschewed for so long is so much a part of him now.
Even oversized, eight feet tall and wandering barefoot in the woods, it feels like him. But the pain only eases for a little while.
He steps into the water of a little lake in the Wilds, sinks to his knees in it, and the coolness washes over him, but there is still something inside him that will not ease.
She is a good shape for the Plaza, a pretty woman, dressed in flawless, tailored dark clothing, green-eyed, with inky hair that lies straight and smooth around her face only to ripple and coil into waterfall-waves as it nears her shoulders. She walks from shop to shop, peering in windows as if she’s looking for something.
More often than not, it’s her own reflection she’s looking at, gauging the stress and tension around her own eyes. Her skin feels like it wants to shiver and writhe and peel away from her body.
Loki has never tried the shape of a Jotun woman before, and in the quiet by his frog fountain, the ruined playground where he has made a safe house, he tries.
Bare feet slip into the green water, heedless of the algae, circling around to touch the frogs’ heads each in turn. North, South, West, East. It takes several cycles around the stagnant water before the algae clears, and the surface lies dark and clean. Another moment before it stills.
Loki was not expecting the face that looks back at her. The skin is not cobalt but white, white as bone, the eyes shadowy and dark, the long, thin fingers tipped with dark claws. It’s not a normal face for a Jotun woman. Loki has seen few of them, but she knows that much. There is something else here. This, this is the face of an aberration, a predator, a blade.
She likes it.
The pinch inside is unfading, the agitation maddening. An animal shape is a last-ditch effort, and Loki chooses the Mare because all she can think to do is run and run and run until she exhausts herself, shakes out the pain through sheer force of will.
She is magnificent, as close a match for Sleipnir as Loki could devise, a dark blue-dun fjord horse with a white face and mane shading near to black. She is small, not much larger than a pony, but when she runs the ground trembles, and she roars and neighs out her frustration at the edges of the meadows beyond the Plaza. The sound cuts through the air, stings the ears up close, and from a distance it sounds like a woman screaming in rage. In way, that’s what it is.
The sun sinks. His energy fades. The pain inside does not.
Loki brings himself to the yard beyond the cottage where the children dwell, sinks into the grass, and calls for Fonn. She brings him a hot drink, painkillers liberally poured into it, but he knows it will not work.
“I’m tired,” he says softly. “I’m so tired.”
But he will not come inside. The idea of being kept, boxed in, trapped under a roof, makes him sick. The grass shivers around him.
She brings him a blanket. “Can you rest?”
He doesn’t know the answer.
[[Loki is Loki in every form, but they may respond differently to other characters depending what form they're in. The Mare, especially, may be aggressive and wild. Tags may be slow.]]
It happened more and more rarely as he aged, grew to understand his body, what it could do and what it needed. Mostly, for the last few centuries, the deep-inside pain only happens if he keeps a shape too long without shaking out his body and unspooling his seidr. Like a cramp. Like a reminder he is not beholden to one body. He doesn’t really even belong in a single body.
Today, he feels the discomfort. He is out of joint, bent up inside, and shifting doesn’t seem to help.
It’s too warm for the Jotun shape. Another few weeks will be the time of year he used to get summer fevers, as a child. Age has made him hardier, but he’s still not looking forward to the beat of heat on his skin, the sear of angry sunlight. But he’s missed stalking the snows in this shape. Ironic how the form he hated and eschewed for so long is so much a part of him now.
Even oversized, eight feet tall and wandering barefoot in the woods, it feels like him. But the pain only eases for a little while.
He steps into the water of a little lake in the Wilds, sinks to his knees in it, and the coolness washes over him, but there is still something inside him that will not ease.
She is a good shape for the Plaza, a pretty woman, dressed in flawless, tailored dark clothing, green-eyed, with inky hair that lies straight and smooth around her face only to ripple and coil into waterfall-waves as it nears her shoulders. She walks from shop to shop, peering in windows as if she’s looking for something.
More often than not, it’s her own reflection she’s looking at, gauging the stress and tension around her own eyes. Her skin feels like it wants to shiver and writhe and peel away from her body.
Loki has never tried the shape of a Jotun woman before, and in the quiet by his frog fountain, the ruined playground where he has made a safe house, he tries.
Bare feet slip into the green water, heedless of the algae, circling around to touch the frogs’ heads each in turn. North, South, West, East. It takes several cycles around the stagnant water before the algae clears, and the surface lies dark and clean. Another moment before it stills.
Loki was not expecting the face that looks back at her. The skin is not cobalt but white, white as bone, the eyes shadowy and dark, the long, thin fingers tipped with dark claws. It’s not a normal face for a Jotun woman. Loki has seen few of them, but she knows that much. There is something else here. This, this is the face of an aberration, a predator, a blade.
She likes it.
The pinch inside is unfading, the agitation maddening. An animal shape is a last-ditch effort, and Loki chooses the Mare because all she can think to do is run and run and run until she exhausts herself, shakes out the pain through sheer force of will.
She is magnificent, as close a match for Sleipnir as Loki could devise, a dark blue-dun fjord horse with a white face and mane shading near to black. She is small, not much larger than a pony, but when she runs the ground trembles, and she roars and neighs out her frustration at the edges of the meadows beyond the Plaza. The sound cuts through the air, stings the ears up close, and from a distance it sounds like a woman screaming in rage. In way, that’s what it is.
The sun sinks. His energy fades. The pain inside does not.
Loki brings himself to the yard beyond the cottage where the children dwell, sinks into the grass, and calls for Fonn. She brings him a hot drink, painkillers liberally poured into it, but he knows it will not work.
“I’m tired,” he says softly. “I’m so tired.”
But he will not come inside. The idea of being kept, boxed in, trapped under a roof, makes him sick. The grass shivers around him.
She brings him a blanket. “Can you rest?”
He doesn’t know the answer.
[[Loki is Loki in every form, but they may respond differently to other characters depending what form they're in. The Mare, especially, may be aggressive and wild. Tags may be slow.]]
(no subject)
Date: 2019-07-07 04:39 pm (UTC)Chaos is not, in Loki's mind, inherently evil. Every religion has its own opinion there, she supposes, and the Aesir certainly preferred order. Chaos hurts, it's confusing and frustrating and difficult to maneuver through, difficult to escape and relentlessly recurring, but it is essential. Primordial. A place of infinite possibility to build from.
No timebound being wants to dwell in chaos, but they all begin and return from it. There is immense power in acknowledging that, as Harley seems to.
Even when it's torture.
"Harley, dearest," she says softly. "My memories seem to be getting the best of me. I know who I am now, more clearly than I have in a long, long while, but--I don't know."
"It takes more than time to leave suffering behind. Sometimes I am afraid to blink, lest I open my eyes and find myself in Thanos' grasp once more."
"I'm sorry. I am difficult to live with. I do not stay in one place well. I don't know what to do with myself much of the time."
(no subject)
Date: 2019-07-07 05:17 pm (UTC)Harley leans to face the Jotun woman, and tilts her head. She knows now that this is another form of Loki's, that she is speaking to. And is glad that she is trusting enough to be open with Harley in this form.
"I never asked you to stay in one place, Princess. I am sorry if you felt that I was trying to keep you still. I have my own issues staying still." She is twirling a little in the swing seat, the very minor movement proving her statement.
"You haven't been difficult to live with..." Harley means it. "All I want is to support you. If that means, that I get to walk beside you, as you journey to find yourself... that would be great. I mean... I really like you. Being around you makes me feel more like myself."
"But... I also know that there are going to be times when you need to be by yourself. Just like I will need time to be myself. And that is okay," Harley smiles softly. "I do not expect to spend all of our time together."
"I am happy with the time with you I do have."
(no subject)
Date: 2019-07-14 02:47 am (UTC)She's silent for a moment, the temperature of the air dropping around her. The dark claws curl around the chains of the swing and frost creeps along the metal. "I'm afraid, and I hate it," she admits. "It still hurts, Harley, what Thanos did, what Odin did. It's so hard for me to trust."
"Most of the time I manage. There's a lot that's passed between Thor and myself, and I can let most of it go, look at him and care for him without bitterness. I can be with you and trust your intentions, admire the person you are. But I'm not sure I trust myself fully, and--and when I fall, I fall such a long, long way, dearest, through the dark."
"I want things to be all right. I've held back here, because I knew Thanos could still come for me. I think...even though he's dead, I will keep expecting him to come back for me for a long while to come."
(no subject)
Date: 2019-07-14 03:07 am (UTC)And walking closer to her... the coldness... Harley moves until she can wrap her arms around Loki. And run her fingers through the woman's hair. Shivering all the time from the chill in the air.
"It is hard for me to trust too." Harley whispers softly.
"I have moments where I can't trust myself either... and I fall..." She laughs softly, that bitter little laugh she was talking about earlier.
"I want you there in the darkness, Princess." She admits softly. Another bitter laugh cuts through her, like a knife. And she shivers again.
"I want to fall with you. Falling is only flying. I just..." It bubbles from her, cutting her up again. Another laugh. Another giggle. And she curses.
"I want things to be all right." She grasps tightly to Loki. "You held back because of Thanos coming for you. And me... because of Joker coming for me."
"I know how it feels to expect someone to come back for you. It is still in my head. Every shadow. Every touch... Every laugh."
"You are the only thing in the darkness that makes me want to fight."
(no subject)
Date: 2019-07-14 03:40 am (UTC)"I fell through the Abyss, through space, alone," she says, voice a near-whisper. "It wouldn't be so bad with someone else. I'm only afraid of dragging you down."
Sounds like they're both already in a very similar place of darkness, though, waiting for the same sort of ax to fall. No one dragging at the other. But both holding on for dear life.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-07-14 03:49 am (UTC)And she is the one to put it into words. "How could you drag me down? When I am already in the darkness..."
It might be a little awkward, considering that Loki is still sitting on a swing, but Harley sits on the other woman's lap. Just needing to be close.
"I need you in my life right now. Loki. Don't let go."
(no subject)
Date: 2019-07-14 04:14 am (UTC)Loki's legs are strong. It doesn't matter that she's in a swing, she can hold Harley easily enough.
She has always faced her darkness alone. Even more so since her fall from the Bifrost. There were things she could not tell Thor or Frigga, even if she had not been profoundly hurt by their actions. There was no one else to turn to.
Now there is. It's a paradigm shift she didn't realize she had to adjust to. She takes deep breaths, calming, holding Harley and rocking a little on the swing.
She's quiet for a long moment, then says, "I want to sleep with you."
Pause. Wait, wait, no. "I mean, to actually sleep. In the same room, in the same bed. Just to be close. Even if only for a short while. Can we?"
(no subject)
Date: 2019-07-14 04:24 am (UTC)But the clarification from Loki does evoke a real laugh from Harley. "I would like that. To just sleep with you. In the same bed. And just hold you."
"I would like that very much."
(no subject)
Date: 2019-07-15 12:43 pm (UTC)"The nightmares are just that. Nightmares. I've grown used to them, to waking up rattled. And it doesn't happen all the time. What bothers me is when I wake disoriented, alone, and I think I'm back with the Order. And I lie there waiting for him to come to me."
"I wouldn't get lost like that, I think, if I wasn't alone."
(no subject)
Date: 2019-07-15 02:14 pm (UTC)"Would it be horribly selfish of me to want to spend every bad night with you... so I am not alone..." She whispers softly.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-07-16 01:45 pm (UTC)The smile she gives this time is softer and sweeter, no longer eerie even on the Jotun face. "Not at all, dearest, but I want your good nights, as well. At least some of them."
(no subject)
Date: 2019-07-16 02:05 pm (UTC)"Well then... I can be completely selfish. And share many nights with you." There will come times when they will need their time alone. But getting to share a bed with Loki every other time? That sounds perfect to Harley.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-07-16 04:16 pm (UTC)Arms around Harley, Loki lets her head rest against the other woman's shoulder, closing her eyes, so that they're just a little bundle of comfort swaying gently on the swing. "We can flip a coin over who reads the bedtime story?"
Because the children insist on a bedtime story.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-07-16 04:54 pm (UTC)She buries her head in Loki's chest.
She wants to trust in him being there.
"No using two-headed coins, and we have a deal."
(no subject)
Date: 2019-07-18 02:08 pm (UTC)And really, there is no limit to what Loki herself would do in retaliation for the children.
Of course, if Harley's talking about other children, children in potentia...well maybe it's better not to have that discussion quite yet, but oh, she's not above wanting a biological family, either. Another time, another place, perhaps, in the future.
"I wouldn't cheat you with a two-headed coin," she says softly, amused because she's never heard of Two-Face or his peculiar M.O.
"It's hard," she whispers a moment later. "I want to love you. I'm just so afraid. Be patient with me?"
(no subject)
Date: 2019-07-18 04:25 pm (UTC)Right now, she is not speaking about children in potentia, so there is no worry about that discussion being on the table. So it can stay as a topic to discuss in the future. Another time. Another place.
Harley smiles a little. "I want to love you too. I am just as scared."
This is the first time that they have spoken about love so honestly. "The last person I loved hurt me so much..." Her voice quivers a little. "And I am not that same girl. I want to open up... so much... but it is hard. I don't want to lose you."
(no subject)
Date: 2019-07-19 06:27 pm (UTC)It's just enough without pushing so far she feels she has to run, and she peppers a few soft kisses on Harley's cheeks, nodding and misty-eyed.
"I'm here. And we have time," she murmurs. "We can be afraid together, for now, and hold on until the world gets a little softer. Together."