The known universe, in comparison to the actual breadth of infinity, is a shallow puddle. And sometimes even having a basic grasp on this fact is enough to feel as though you're treading water in an ocean, and to carry the metaphor further, Loki has, in his lifetime, done exactly that. And learned the value of sink or swim.
By the time Midgard is in sight, he's slipped into the next current.
And doesn't remember anything of the journey until it's abruptly at an end with a flash of light. Green light.
He falls fifteen feet into wet grass, the shock of it knocking the air out of his lungs as bright sunlight sears his eyes. Above him, the open rift shivers and pulses and warps the air around it. Roars and human cries fill the air.
On his feet in a stumble, until he is confronted with someone in armor, raising a sword to him, and grace possesses him for long enough to twist the weapon out of the human's grasp and slam his own shield back into his face. Wild-haired and bright-eyed, dressed in armor of black and green, Loki bares his teeth at the next man, knives materialising in his hands, until something -- what he will learn later to be a lesser terror -- catches his shoulder in a swipe and knocks him off his feet.
Ordinarily, the demons don't fight amongst themselves.
This is one of several things wrong with the everything wrong with this situation; ordinarily, demons don't look like people, and people don't break trees, and there are a lot of questions which are going to need pressing answers, and soon. The inclination of her companions (certainly the poor soldier who took a shield to the face) will probably be to kill first and rifle through pockets later, but that sounds inefficient (in finding anything out) and difficult (he broke a tree), so
when Blackwall turns, shield out, Gwenaëlle leaps and kicks off it, boot square between the stranger's shoulders for a moment before she lands hard on his shoulder, knee hooking under his chin in the friendly, implied suggestion that he be more grateful it's a knee and not a knife. Sideways with a grip on his helmet, she flings her hand (and the anchor) up towards the rift and braces herself on his neck (he broke a tree) when the connection jolts her.
At this distance, the pained sound ordinarily hidden by the clatter of weaponry and terror-shrieks is discernible, an unladylike grunt swallowed quickly.
“Is that a demon Qunari?”
“It's a helmet,” Gwenaëlle reports, witheringly, beneath the explosion of a closing rift.
Fortunately for Gwen, in the short term, and himself, in the long term, the impulse to throw her off of him is short-circuited when he sees that stream of green light zither between her open hand and the dimensional rift that -- yes -- he fell from. He blinks as it fades. Notices that strange green and black residue bubbling away in the bright grass. The stifling heat of the over-oxygenated forest run rampant begins to prickle at his more ice-inclined sensibilities.
There's a small woman on his back.
Under her hand, metal vanishes, helmet gone with a glimmer of light, and his hand -- empty of a knife -- reaches up to take her arm, tugging her down without only enough care to ensure her feet are under her. His other arm curls around her neck, pulling her back to his chest in a classic hostage taking move.
His other hand points -- full of a knife -- points at the one who called him a demon. "No more misunderstandings," he suggests, "from here on out."
An affronted, “Excuse me!” is not quite the authoritative voice of the Inquisitor that her various advisors so wish that she'd more regularly achieve; she sounds distinctly like someone who has just seen a party guest use the wrong fork. On the other hand, Loki has failed to account for the fact that the small woman on his back came there armed, or that in the position he has grabbed her she can very easily reach the sheathed blades.
And press one of them meaningfully against his groin.
“Unless you want me to demonstrate my rhyming prowess, you will unhand me.”
Guess what rhymes with unhand.
After a moment, having apparently changed her mind, she adds: “Probable Qunari-impersonating demon.”
Nothing like the edge of a sharp blade, placed somewhere critical, to summon back one's manners. His mouth twitches, sliding a glance down to what he can see of the woman from back and above, a haughty cheek bone, an upcurled eyelash, before he releases her with enough force to put distance between them.
A second knife appears in his hand, both held ready. There was a time when his sudden appearance among mortals had inspired them to all him god. This seems like a downgrade.
"Do you call everything that visits your realm 'demon', or am I special?"
The riot of colour and light around them is starting to offend him less. The vertigo disappearing, the roughness in his voice smoothing out. He slides a glance around at the others, raised blades. No guns. Primitive. He smiles. "If your men value their lives, they'll lower their weapons."
“Demons,” very distinctly, gesturing (with a knife) for everyone else to lower the assortment of blades, staves and bows that make up her current accompaniment through the Dales, “are what come out of rifts.”
(There is some murmuring along the lines of and also you, that one time. Her expression very clearly communicates it was one time, and also, no one fucking asked any of you.)
The knife she is politely not pointing directly at him (any more) is jerked towards where the rift used to be, the unpleasant demonic leavings beneath it- “A rift. And you, emerging ungentlemanly. One draws the natural conclusion.”
Mind you, most demons aren't this chatty on this side of the veil. Or knife-happy.
They have that in common; she might have implicitly issued the order, but she hasn't lowered a damn thing. Upon second, less intimate impression she's still small, but carries herself as if it hasn't occurred to her. Hair braided, armor lightweight, the upper half of her face slightly paler, as if all this exposure of it to the sunlight is a bit of a new thing - she has a lady's bearing or a dancer's, graceful, come late to something more warlike.
She doesn't look like anyone's idea of a military leader, but they are all looking to her for their cues - all accustomed to her admittedly not naturally soothing voice being the one to reason with strange, armed lunatics.
He can see that, the pull of their focus. Then it is this one who he must deal with, not least of all because of what she did with her hand, back there. (No, not that one, the other one.)
That glimmer of light draws Loki's eye, a vague prickle of awareness that comes with the territory of being so attuned to reality altering sciences. 'Rift' is noted, a common parlance, with a common problem. Demons sounds more uniform, out of her pert mouth, than some kind of disparaging word for 'visitors'.
"Then perhaps you'll allow me the opportunity to steer you towards a better one," he proposes, in a careful balance between gentlemanly and threat -- so, smarm, but with more teeth. Despite that Gwen is unambiguously his focus, he includes those around him in a more judgmental, critical eye. "Or am I to conclude that I've found myself in yet another cosmic backwater that thinks itself the centre of the known universe?"
On his forehead, perspiration stands out -- from more than just the woodland warmth, he's realising. The notion that what reserves he has available to him were spent on fending off men with shields and monsters does occur, but doesn't mean he's putting his knives away.
'Cosmic backwater' is not a compliment. Gwenaëlle isn't precisely sure what he's getting at - and doesn't like the shape of it that she can see, implications sitting uneasy in a world that can tear itself at the seams without any outside help, thank you much - but backwater that near to her in a sentence, that's simply not on.
“Give me strength,” she says, to no one in particular. (Agnostic, you know.) Her blades, she sheathes; a pointed gesture rather than a thoughtless one, by the sustained eye contact when she does it, and aware as she is that it's just so useful to lean on a staff when one is walking, so there's no need for the mages to slow themselves down in the event that her calculated risk goes the way of some of the previous ones.
About seven out of ten times it works out the way she plans. Six and a half.
“Why don't we have this conversation not standing about waiting for the Venatori's dirty great lyrium beasts? Our gentleman guest of indeterminate origin comes with me.”
She stops in front of him, pointing directly up under his chin- “I am not a chevalier. I am a lady. I neither know nor follow the rules of engagement and having found one of your weaknesses,” the balls, “please expect me to behave extremely dishonorably in the event you make me regret listening to a word you've got to say.”
Cosmic backwater. He is very sturdy, though. Sturdy could be useful.
An upgrade, then. Namecalling ceased, Loki puts away his own blades.
A glance down the length of his nose at finger pointed. The corner of his mouth curls up, and he steps aside, a half circle around. "I'm no demon," he says, different diction, same tone, "and you can consider my manifestation a peaceful one for as long as you take care where you direct your knives next, my lady." The courteous slant of his tone is matched with a supplicating gesture, palms brought together, before they fall loose at his sides.
Humour crystallises, the gaunt lines of his expression sharper with micro-tensions. A look around, impatient to see past the trees, the men in metal standing around. Venatori. Lyrium. Impatient, too, to understand. "Where we are, now, you say it is dangerous?"
“All of Thedas is dangerous,” she says, sourly, and wears the thoughtless expectation of being followed when she walks as if it's more frivolously aristocratic than militarily autocratic- which would be convincing, in her manner, if not for the lightweight armor and the shifting sands of regard from her men. The sort of respect that can't be given without being earned; the hue to it in some quarters (the ones that know her less well-) that borders on awe.
A symbol, not a person, a needed thing in a troubled time. The person, with her boots on the ground and her hair bouncing behind her when she walks, is somewhat more difficult.
“Out of your frying pan,” he had been entirely too ready for battle, if you were to ask her, but it's fine if you don't because she's not known for being particularly retiring with her opinions, “and into my fire. This is the Greatwood, where apparently everything under the sky has said, fuck this woman in particular. I am giving very serious thought to solving our civil war by taking the throne. No one has ever expected Empress Celene to sweat her arse off gadding about after bears.”
Slightly louder,
“Not very seriously.”
Her sideways regard of him is critical, assessing. Eventually, “Did you conjure the knives or was it some sort of sleight of hand?” The question seems more worryingly practical than innocently curious.
Thedas. Greatwood. Empress. Civil war. Frying pan.
All of it confusing, dangerous, curious, and a 100% stark improvement to the warship of Thanos casting its great shadow on his brother's little voyage.
When she looks to him, he's thinking. It'd be generous to say he is calculating, but his face tends to give off that impression, all cool and sharp thoughts behind sharp bones and cool eyes. His smile is similar. "What's the difference, if you can't tell?" The sort of thing Midgardian magicians say of their tricks, pretending it's magic, except backwards.
"Where do we go from here?"
Like perhaps he has an option, and he's just being polite in pretending he doesn't.
because there's a long answer and a short answer and a really short answer, the last of which is just a deep, irritated sigh that has very little to do with him,
(yet)
“one of our camps is not far from here. I knocked some deserters about and took their things, so now we have their lodge.” Her gaze doesn't linger, though she seems to take him in with some detail and no small amount of reserved judgment. Somewhat critically: “It's about what you'd expect of the description.”
What exactly all of this nonsense does for Orlais' reputation, she'd hate to think if she could bring herself to think far enough into what feels like an increasingly imaginary future and pretend that it might bloody well matter.
“After that, I'm afraid, it's going to get complicated in the way where details really do count for quite a lot.”
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post-ragnarok.
By the time Midgard is in sight, he's slipped into the next current.
And doesn't remember anything of the journey until it's abruptly at an end with a flash of light. Green light.
He falls fifteen feet into wet grass, the shock of it knocking the air out of his lungs as bright sunlight sears his eyes. Above him, the open rift shivers and pulses and warps the air around it. Roars and human cries fill the air.
On his feet in a stumble, until he is confronted with someone in armor, raising a sword to him, and grace possesses him for long enough to twist the weapon out of the human's grasp and slam his own shield back into his face. Wild-haired and bright-eyed, dressed in armor of black and green, Loki bares his teeth at the next man, knives materialising in his hands, until something -- what he will learn later to be a lesser terror -- catches his shoulder in a swipe and knocks him off his feet.
The tree he slams into splinters.
no subject
This is one of several things wrong with the everything wrong with this situation; ordinarily, demons don't look like people, and people don't break trees, and there are a lot of questions which are going to need pressing answers, and soon. The inclination of her companions (certainly the poor soldier who took a shield to the face) will probably be to kill first and rifle through pockets later, but that sounds inefficient (in finding anything out) and difficult (he broke a tree), so
when Blackwall turns, shield out, Gwenaëlle leaps and kicks off it, boot square between the stranger's shoulders for a moment before she lands hard on his shoulder, knee hooking under his chin in the friendly, implied suggestion that he be more grateful it's a knee and not a knife. Sideways with a grip on his helmet, she flings her hand (and the anchor) up towards the rift and braces herself on his neck (he broke a tree) when the connection jolts her.
At this distance, the pained sound ordinarily hidden by the clatter of weaponry and terror-shrieks is discernible, an unladylike grunt swallowed quickly.
“Is that a demon Qunari?”
“It's a helmet,” Gwenaëlle reports, witheringly, beneath the explosion of a closing rift.
no subject
There's a small woman on his back.
Under her hand, metal vanishes, helmet gone with a glimmer of light, and his hand -- empty of a knife -- reaches up to take her arm, tugging her down without only enough care to ensure her feet are under her. His other arm curls around her neck, pulling her back to his chest in a classic hostage taking move.
His other hand points -- full of a knife -- points at the one who called him a demon. "No more misunderstandings," he suggests, "from here on out."
no subject
And press one of them meaningfully against his groin.
“Unless you want me to demonstrate my rhyming prowess, you will unhand me.”
Guess what rhymes with unhand.
After a moment, having apparently changed her mind, she adds: “Probable Qunari-impersonating demon.”
no subject
Nothing like the edge of a sharp blade, placed somewhere critical, to summon back one's manners. His mouth twitches, sliding a glance down to what he can see of the woman from back and above, a haughty cheek bone, an upcurled eyelash, before he releases her with enough force to put distance between them.
A second knife appears in his hand, both held ready. There was a time when his sudden appearance among mortals had inspired them to all him god. This seems like a downgrade.
"Do you call everything that visits your realm 'demon', or am I special?"
The riot of colour and light around them is starting to offend him less. The vertigo disappearing, the roughness in his voice smoothing out. He slides a glance around at the others, raised blades. No guns. Primitive. He smiles. "If your men value their lives, they'll lower their weapons."
no subject
(There is some murmuring along the lines of and also you, that one time. Her expression very clearly communicates it was one time, and also, no one fucking asked any of you.)
The knife she is politely not pointing directly at him (any more) is jerked towards where the rift used to be, the unpleasant demonic leavings beneath it- “A rift. And you, emerging ungentlemanly. One draws the natural conclusion.”
Mind you, most demons aren't this chatty on this side of the veil. Or knife-happy.
They have that in common; she might have implicitly issued the order, but she hasn't lowered a damn thing. Upon second, less intimate impression she's still small, but carries herself as if it hasn't occurred to her. Hair braided, armor lightweight, the upper half of her face slightly paler, as if all this exposure of it to the sunlight is a bit of a new thing - she has a lady's bearing or a dancer's, graceful, come late to something more warlike.
She doesn't look like anyone's idea of a military leader, but they are all looking to her for their cues - all accustomed to her admittedly not naturally soothing voice being the one to reason with strange, armed lunatics.
no subject
That glimmer of light draws Loki's eye, a vague prickle of awareness that comes with the territory of being so attuned to reality altering sciences. 'Rift' is noted, a common parlance, with a common problem. Demons sounds more uniform, out of her pert mouth, than some kind of disparaging word for 'visitors'.
"Then perhaps you'll allow me the opportunity to steer you towards a better one," he proposes, in a careful balance between gentlemanly and threat -- so, smarm, but with more teeth. Despite that Gwen is unambiguously his focus, he includes those around him in a more judgmental, critical eye. "Or am I to conclude that I've found myself in yet another cosmic backwater that thinks itself the centre of the known universe?"
On his forehead, perspiration stands out -- from more than just the woodland warmth, he's realising. The notion that what reserves he has available to him were spent on fending off men with shields and monsters does occur, but doesn't mean he's putting his knives away.
no subject
“Give me strength,” she says, to no one in particular. (Agnostic, you know.) Her blades, she sheathes; a pointed gesture rather than a thoughtless one, by the sustained eye contact when she does it, and aware as she is that it's just so useful to lean on a staff when one is walking, so there's no need for the mages to slow themselves down in the event that her calculated risk goes the way of some of the previous ones.
About seven out of ten times it works out the way she plans. Six and a half.
“Why don't we have this conversation not standing about waiting for the Venatori's dirty great lyrium beasts? Our gentleman guest of indeterminate origin comes with me.”
She stops in front of him, pointing directly up under his chin- “I am not a chevalier. I am a lady. I neither know nor follow the rules of engagement and having found one of your weaknesses,” the balls, “please expect me to behave extremely dishonorably in the event you make me regret listening to a word you've got to say.”
Cosmic backwater. He is very sturdy, though. Sturdy could be useful.
no subject
A glance down the length of his nose at finger pointed. The corner of his mouth curls up, and he steps aside, a half circle around. "I'm no demon," he says, different diction, same tone, "and you can consider my manifestation a peaceful one for as long as you take care where you direct your knives next, my lady." The courteous slant of his tone is matched with a supplicating gesture, palms brought together, before they fall loose at his sides.
Humour crystallises, the gaunt lines of his expression sharper with micro-tensions. A look around, impatient to see past the trees, the men in metal standing around. Venatori. Lyrium. Impatient, too, to understand. "Where we are, now, you say it is dangerous?"
no subject
A symbol, not a person, a needed thing in a troubled time. The person, with her boots on the ground and her hair bouncing behind her when she walks, is somewhat more difficult.
“Out of your frying pan,” he had been entirely too ready for battle, if you were to ask her, but it's fine if you don't because she's not known for being particularly retiring with her opinions, “and into my fire. This is the Greatwood, where apparently everything under the sky has said, fuck this woman in particular. I am giving very serious thought to solving our civil war by taking the throne. No one has ever expected Empress Celene to sweat her arse off gadding about after bears.”
Slightly louder,
“Not very seriously.”
Her sideways regard of him is critical, assessing. Eventually, “Did you conjure the knives or was it some sort of sleight of hand?” The question seems more worryingly practical than innocently curious.
no subject
All of it confusing, dangerous, curious, and a 100% stark improvement to the warship of Thanos casting its great shadow on his brother's little voyage.
When she looks to him, he's thinking. It'd be generous to say he is calculating, but his face tends to give off that impression, all cool and sharp thoughts behind sharp bones and cool eyes. His smile is similar. "What's the difference, if you can't tell?" The sort of thing Midgardian magicians say of their tricks, pretending it's magic, except backwards.
"Where do we go from here?"
Like perhaps he has an option, and he's just being polite in pretending he doesn't.
no subject
because there's a long answer and a short answer and a really short answer, the last of which is just a deep, irritated sigh that has very little to do with him,
(yet)
“one of our camps is not far from here. I knocked some deserters about and took their things, so now we have their lodge.” Her gaze doesn't linger, though she seems to take him in with some detail and no small amount of reserved judgment. Somewhat critically: “It's about what you'd expect of the description.”
What exactly all of this nonsense does for Orlais' reputation, she'd hate to think if she could bring herself to think far enough into what feels like an increasingly imaginary future and pretend that it might bloody well matter.
“After that, I'm afraid, it's going to get complicated in the way where details really do count for quite a lot.”