ninth scroll [ video ; OPEN ]

[girlworthfighting]

[Mulan meant for this to be voice but she hit the wrong button by accident, and now is too tired to either notice or care what setting she's on. Possibly both.

She's sitting on the end of her bed, long hair lank and messy, face wan and exhausted. Her voice is weary when she speaks.]

I am grow tired of seemingly always making these calls for the same reason.

[She pauses, sighing and catching her breath.]

But here we stand once again in the aftermath of a calamity. At least I hope it is the aftermath. After these last few days, it's hard to imagine it could be getting any worse.

I want to check on my allies. Some of you I know were injured, or put into harm's way. Others I have not heard from at all. Please. Talk to me.

Comments

[video]

[attention_wenches]

[The camera is pointed at the ceiling. Loki just didn't bother fussing with the settings before he answered, and he's too busy feeling sorry for himself to pick it up. He sounds hoarse and crabby. ...More than usual.]

Alive. Terrible magic-head. That is all.

[video]

[girlworthfighting]

I take it from your tone that must be something like a hangover.

[attention_wenches]

Rather, though there's more of generalized lethargy than nausea. There are ways to avoid it but I simply didn't have the luxury. ...That said, I'm very glad my mother and tutor aren't here to see what a mess I've made.

[girlworthfighting]

[She nods, taking in the information for what it is. Instead of asking further questions on that subject, though, something else catches her attention and after a thoughtful pause...]

Your mother is a sorcerer as well?

[attention_wenches]

In her way. She's rather too practical to have much regard for the temple hierarchy and I don't know that she ever even submitted a masterwork. I've never been sure if it's being Vanir or just her.

[He's always willing to talk about his mommy. Cheers him up, even. It just doesn't come up much.]

[girlworthfighting]

[Oh, good. She wasn't sure if it might be a sore subject or not. She's never really certain, with him.]

Still, it was good of her to teach you, all the same. It meant you had something you could share.

[attention_wenches]

I don't think she could have helped teaching. It's rather her way. I just had enough aptitude to follow in that particular case. She's a much better musician than I, and I've no patience at all for needlework.

[girlworthfighting]

Me neither. [A faint smile.] My mother tried. Just as she tried to teach me cooking, and dance, and how to oversee a household.

I learned much more from my father.

[attention_wenches]

My father taught excellent lessons in staying out of the way and looking after my brother. Not that he was a one for teaching by example.

[girlworthfighting]

[She hesitates.] My father -- our society tells us that a man is brought honor through his sons. Yet my father loved and supported me for who I was, or at least as much as a man who believed what he did could. I know there were times when I confused and frustrated him, but he let me find my own way.

He was a good man.

[She misses him.]

[attention_wenches]

Sounds pleasant, yes.

[It's a touchy subject.]

[girlworthfighting]

But you were much closer to your mother.

[attention_wenches]

She's...

[He was about to say "the only one I'm surprised not to be related to," but he tries to keep this mess of a family to himself, where possible.]

We're rather more alike.

[girlworthfighting]

[Little does he know, she has a better idea than he thinks. In fact she's been contemplating bringing it up for awhile now.]

It can make all the difference, can't it? After a long day of feeling like you'll never belong or figure out your place, having someone to come home to that knows, or at least doesn't question.

It feels so warm, and safe.

[attention_wenches]

Can't say I equate warmth and safety. I might melt.

[Flippancy defeats emotional intimacy, clearly.]

[girlworthfighting]

[A pause, and then, quietly:] Because you are originally from Jotunheim?

[If this isn't supposed to be open knowledge, well, he might have a few questions for her.]

[attention_wenches]

[There's a pause, but he'll just blame Thor.]

Does that actually mean anything to you? Jotunheim, I mean. Any sense of what it entails?

[private]

[girlworthfighting]

I do not. But I believe I have some idea of what it means to you.

[Mulan doesn't always remember how privacy filters work or even that they exist, as unfamiliar as she is with technology at this level. But she is strongly and acutely aware that Loki might not appreciate anyone else knowing the rest of what she has to say. So she locks this.]

That scene, that memory with Thor's version of you, what was witnessed in that place out of time. I witnessed it too. It was an accident. I was looking for your brother and I stumbled into his vision.

[attention_wenches]

[Loki lets a few beats go by, gathering his thoughts.]

...That wasn't me.

[No, that isn't what he meant.]

What I mean is that won't be me, much as I understand him, easy as it is to see how it could go that way. But that Loki shared his past with the Thor you know. Neither of them knows what I do of the frost giants.

[He's biting down his distress the best he can. When Thor told him he cried and he doubts he'll repeat that humiliating incident, but he'd still keep any potential floodgates closed.]

[girlworthfighting]

I know it wasn't you.

But I think you might have more in common with him than you would like to admit. And I don't mean the bad parts.

[attention_wenches]

No, it's a matter of... of experience.

[He's afraid to slow down in case he can't go on.]

When Thor was a child, there was no war with Jotunheim. There was no Algrim, or at least he wasn't an advisor of father's. He sees the frost giants as simply political enemies with a peculiar culture. He has no idea of the bloody legacy I've been carrying and never knew it.

[girlworthfighting]

What the people you were first born to did or have been thought of, how does that have any bearing on you? It was none of your actions.

[attention_wenches]

If it had none at all I'd simply be as Aesir as the others.

[girlworthfighting]

Maybe being different is simply who you are, Loki. Blood or not. It doesn't have to be a sign of foreboding.

[attention_wenches]

It's more the past than the future that troubles me. After all, what that other self of mine has been accused of... Well, it bears no more resemblance to the wickedness of Jotunheim than any other place, in many ways. Less predestined, more cursed.