mischiefburned:
Nevermind the subtlest upward jerk on the end of his lips.
“Coincidence from my world to yours,” Loki replied, taking her hand to shake with a firm but not so committal motion. “Seems fair that names may be passed from one slice of the Multiverse to another with little correlation to either. Hel, I’ve seen it myself.”
(And somewhere out there, in a realm he has never seen, while they were speaking, someone lamented a Loki. Perhaps he was truly the great equalizer after all. What that said about the future of this particular realm, well, that remained to be seen.)
“You mentioned a chaining of magic.” Loki let go of her to start to trudge through the brush, remembering what it was like to do this with his brother so many eons ago. Hunting with Thor was worse than pulling teeth. A bull painted red with lights flashing on it would have had better stealth than he ever did. Loki learned from an early age to use Thor as a glorified distraction in that regard. Maybe one night out of five or so they returned back to the palace with a kill better than a blind boar.
Hnh. He was getting caught up in his thoughts again. That thunder god wasn’t even so much as present here–Loki could afford himself a day without having the name in his mouth, right?
Back to Xayah. “I agree that humans have a peculiar, shall we say, relationship with magic. Even on my world. Most are scarce to so much as believe in it, condemning those that do, while treating the gridiron of technology as a second god in of itself. I find it appreciably… bizarre.” Not to say that the gods didn’t in many ways treat technology with a similar puritanical hatred as mortals did magic, but Loki played no sides. He’d have his Starkphone in his back pocket had it not been stolen from him as well as his power.
He was climbing a jagged boulder, standing on its lid to get a better surveil of the surroundings. The forest in outer Eidolon was large enough for what it was, but contained nothing interesting as far as Loki was concerned. His eyes were searching for the barrier edge. He pointed north.
“Barrier’s up ahead, should that be where you’re headed. I should tell you, though, the wastes are harsh even for myself when I’ve lived in the tundra for… quite the long time.” Then he slid back down to the earth, smiling casually at her. “Judging by that expression, my word of caution is entirely meaningless. Onward, then?”
The man’s words flowed like so much babble, the tools of someone with much to say and even more to hide. Xayah flitted along behind the man, talons dancing over the cold earth, the chill of the snow a dull roar outside of her cloak and wrappings. She shivered, despite the thick woolen cloth around her body. These woods were so devoid of life, so empty of magic, nothing like the humid jungles she was familiar with and knew like the back of her wing. Bare branches, drifts of snow, pointy evergreens - it was enough to make any vastayan sick.
“Humans,” she spat, both literally and verbally, her disgust obvious. “Take what they want, go where they please, and then claim it was their ‘rightful duty’ when staring down a dagger. When a metal war machine’s carved down an entire region of your homeland, you get a little tired of running into ‘technomancy - erm, technology, you said?.” Words, differences in tones, speaking in this tongue was rough enough on a good day, but now new vocabulary? She’d have to start taking notes.
The man had made his way atop a large rock with surprising ease and now was peering around. Following the direction of his gesture, Xayah peered into the distance. A faint shimmer on the horizon, something vaguely glowing like the sun - a quick glance skyward showed that familiar star still hung high - and she shrugged her shoulders, feathers rippling. “I mean, I’m game if you are. I don’t think I’ll freeze, at least, not like this. Shouldn’t take more than a few hours to make it to the barrier and back, if that’s what you feel up to doing.”
