meadowlarklogs

Entry tags:

[open]

WHO: Ojiro + anyone
WHERE: Safehouse, New Amsterdam's artificial river.
WHEN: Beginning-Mid July
WHAT: open log
NOTES OR WARNINGS: None really.

Morning Run
Sniper rolls out of bed every morning at 4:30 on the dot to go running, sometimes for an hour, sometimes for three. Still nursing a broken wrist, it's the one exercise they can still go all-out on, and if striving against the weakened state of their body didn't fix this whole stupid situation, it at least felt like getting something done.

They've managed to get extracting themself quietly down to an art, sleeping in their work out clothes (stolen during recent chaos, thanks kaiju) so their fumbling in the dark doesn't wake up any of the others still bunking in the safe house.

They're not opposed to company, if someone else picks up the habit. For anyone they catch awake at this hour, they give a teasing smile in the dark, whispering. "If you want to come, you have to keep up."

Sport Commentary
Sniper's inserted themself into the cooking rotation—it seemed only fair, given the amount of calories they burned through in a day—and has mastered making most of the cheap nutritious staples one-handed. Gone most of the day scouting New Amsterdam and lining up job prospects, they're always back in time to help make dinner.

Once the initial frustration of being here had faded enough to allow for idle curiosity about this version of Earth, Sniper had been drawn to investigate the cultural cornerstone they knew best: sports. The results had been disappointing. Nothing very innovative. The Olympics were still going at least, but digging further, professional sports in general seemed open only to the already-rich. There had been plenty of accusations that Sniper had used money to compensate their own small size with expert training for the pentathlon (true on paper though not in spirit), but back home it wasn't weird to see the non-wealthy go professional.

They've been steadily watching their way through the past Olympiads: opening ceremony, the pentathlons, record-breaking achievements. They use the implant with the ease of long familiarity; it was pretty similar to what they had back home (back home it didn't require brain surgery) so chopping things for dinner at the same time was easy. Judging my their scoffing, they're not that impressed. "That's the record?"

Free Lunch!
Afternoon generally finds Sniper by New Amsterdam's artificial river to find lunch. The river is a sad sight for someone who grew up seeing the ocean—this whole world was a sad sight compared to their own flourishing world—but it was lively and less claustrophobic than the rest of the city. And the food wasn't bad.

They're buying some dumplings when they spot a fellow safehouse occupant. Even if there hasn't been a formal introduction, the face is familiar, and they wave over, gesturing to the cartoon of dumplings in their hand with a smile.

"Want some? My treat."

When's the last time you had something that wasn't bug casserole?

Cast-off

Around mid-july the cast on their wrist finally comes off! You can find them celebrating doing one-armed pushups in the safe house.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Really? Mine felt pretty normal." Not that Sniper had much basis for comparison. Having been famous since they were two, this recent job interview had been their first. Still, they wouldn't expect Loki to have a problem talking their way into anything. "Your 'options' must be something."

No, certain challenges and firsts were always one of Loki's high points. He hadn't moved into the mortal realms post his own [second? first?] rebirth simply to skate by.

"Options or opportunity, I suppose—some nameless, large Midgardian corporation, just like back home. Ah, if we're to stay in this universe for the time being, I would know of it." He's squeezing one of the dumplings between dark nails. "I take it you found a place of employment?"

"Sounds fun," They say, tone implying it does not. They have confidence Loki can eke his own kind of enjoyment out of it, but they can't really fathom how. A pause as they chew one of their own dumplings, nodding. "I just need a place to live now, but the market sucks. Like everything else in this dump."

It was really difficult to find anything to like when compared to their own world, this one had screwed up so badly humans were forced to live and work and die in conditions their own world had left behind hundreds of years ago.

For Loki, anything that has the potential of being a game could be fun. He'll do good in corporate, and he knows he will.

"They never really did grow out of it, did they? It seems like it just got worse." It's not hard to get his implication. "The shelters from the attack are flooded, while others were relocated to more comfortable accommodations."

A dumpling gets tossed in his mouth and he chews, tactlessly talking with his mouth full.

"Housing is ... advanced, but the locations poor. I know, I've looked."

Sniper watches Loki out of the corner of their eye. Loki's godhood wasn't something they ever forgot about, but he was so much less weird than anyone god-adjacent Sniper had encountered before the implications of that godhood
sometimes escaped them. Some time they'd have to sit down and pick Loki's brain about his perspective on humanity.

But not right now. Sniper shrugs "They could have done better. Could still." And then moves back to practical matters: "Are you planning on living with Thor? I'm looking for a roommate."

There were always mortal whims versus a divine plan—even if that plan was stupid (thanks Odin). When Loki had been reborn-ish (ish for a reason), he had taken it upon himself to move to Manhattan. He fit in better than Thor most of the time, but he was adaptable. It came with being a god of chaos.

"He wants to keep an eye on me, 'less I get into too much trouble." That's a yes. "And replace plan with currently. We found a place, we're just solidifying some details."

Loki pays attention to how Sniper leads the conversation. It's curious.

Oh well. Living alone had it's advantages.

Sniper raises an eyebrow. "Is he likely to get into less...?" Regardless if Loki and Thor were the central divine figures of whatever the hell was happening to them—'Low profile' has not so far been a known quality of gods. And Thor had been on the takedown team too.

"He just likes to act like it." Loki says coolly, like he knows better. For all the millennia that he focused on the differences between him and his brother, they're surprisingly similar when he switches views.

Honestly, there have been frequent times where Loki has supported Thor's horrible decisions—just came out of one of those recently, actually.

Sniper's mouth curves into a sympathetic quirk. They know complicated how it is with siblings: they have seven of them. But it'd be a relief to have any one of them here. Even Cato, useless coward that he was.

"You two lucked out getting kidnapped together." They don't bother to mask their own envy.

The thing Loki doesn't say is that the Loki that Thor left was a picture dripping with pure villainy. That was a bad time, right down to the ambitious beginning of his own carefully calculated demise. It had been a feat, sure enough, and he was still a stranger in a former incarnation's body, stricken from the books of Hel.

It wasn't surprising that Thor was still concerned with his presence, anyone with half a brain would be. Regardless, he's making a decent impression. A fine place for half-a-new-start.

"We weren't, not entirely. He comes from a bit behind me in the timeline. Who knows whether that's a good thing or not. The whole concept gets meshed up between the borders of dimensions and time and other scientific blah blah blah ..."

"Just knowing something like this was possible" gestures to them in general, their general situation of being kidnapped into another world. "is more than I ever wanted to know about metaphysics."

But there's a keen look in their eye with this new information. They knew enough about metaphysics to hope that being displaced in space meant being displaced in time, too. "It sounds like a good thing. If we all got taken from different times, it's easier to think we can be put back at any time, too."

So it would be like they never left. That was thinking for too ahead, without there being a single lead on who had done this to them all, but it was the first concrete hint Sniper has gotten it might not be too late for their own world. The smile they give Loki is sympathetic but sunny.

"That does sounds really awkward for you and Thor, though."

Edited 2018-10-06 22:19 (UTC)

Displacement in space always meant displacement in time, from a very basic standpoint. While Loki's no scientist, he knows enough about the basis of reality's workings to understand where point A met point B, even with his dulled sense of everything, really.

"We've handled worse," especially from a time traveling point of view. "Do you plan on returning to your own universe?"

While things are looking pretty bleak, the possibility does strike him.

"Yeah." No hesitation. "As soon as possible and as close to when I left as possible."

They'd take pains to make that happens. Whatever it took. Their own world still had a chance, but not without Ojiro Cardigan Sniper.

"You're not planning on staying here, are you?" They look to Loki, eyebrow raised incredulously.

"Let's just say that I'm not certain how far any plans in that respect will take us."

At least now. There has to be a way to get back, because traveling through time, space, and dimensions was merely a matter of resources (that they didn't have, at this very moment). Loki was, if anything, good at adapting, and he was good at finding opportunity. Asgard, while obtainable sometime in the future, was not a place that he wished to return to today.

There were other systems at work, and other future selves to thwart.

Sniper catches Loki in a direct look. "There's nothing good in this world's future."

Maybe they had just been listening to Tully Mardi too much lately. But it didn't take a professional war analyst to see a grim future for this world. Especially if those monster attacks continued, which was practically a gaurentee.

"It's in everyone's best interest to get out as soon as possible. Unless you like the prospect of dying for someone else's screw ups."

For a moment, Loki considers them curiously.

"You may share my mother's gift for prophecy."

Asgard has collapsed and been built again time and time again—New York has collapsed and been built again time and time again. He has no doubts of the resiliency of humans and their deities, and while this world teetered, it wasn't lost. Not yet.

"The future is still where it is, in the future. But we haven't gotten there yet—this universe hasn't gotten there yet. Until we do, there is the prospect of change, and pessimism brings nothing but prediction."

He knows what's in his best interest, and he needs time more than he needs to go back.

Sniper's expression is opaque, dark eyes giving away nothing but mild curiosity. "So are you going to work save this world?"

There was a lot Sniper could say to that. Large-scale change takes large-scale destruction. Their own world had had to nearly destroy itself to become better, and it had worked, because the cost had been so horrifying the people left over realized they never wanted to pay it again. It could work for this world, that was true. It felt clear to Sniper that their group was the change, but they didn't have time for this world's problems.

"I've never been one for saving anything."

But he has. He's been the hero, he likes it, but it's not really Loki. He's better at opening doorways and creating options.

"But I'm a god of chaos, I'd be a poor one if I didn't advocate for change."

They laugh. "Fair." Sniper doesn't believe him, about not being one to save things, and maybe Loki can read that into the curve of their smile. They don't pursue it. In a way they envy Loki, a little. Saving the world sounds fun, challenging. They could do it; it'd be good practice for saving their own. But they had to assume the worst, that enough time had passed that their own world was already at war, and needed them as soon as possible.

Every time he tries to save something, someone tells him that he's doing it the wrong way, or not in the expected way that someone should. It could have lead to his distaste, and his own self-depreciation. Sometimes a little chaos was more fun than righting horrible wrongs.

"Besides, there's a clear tension that has mounted. This world might not need saving, it just might need a little push into saving itself."

Says the catalyst.

"Have you seen this sort of thing often? Worlds ending, or eras." They're not mind-reading, just making some assumptions. They didn't agree with Loki's prognosis&mdash:Sniper was very aware of the fallibility of God's when it came to understanding human nathre—but that wasn't the same as dismissing his perspective.

"Just how old do you think I am?" there's just a hint of amusement in his voice and a brow raise at Sniper. While there may be a certain mortal outlook on the divine, Loki wonders if the gap can be connected.

"But yes—in a manner of speaking. I've seen endings both mortal and divine, and I've even been responsible for them from time to time. Luckily ..." he clucks. "I don't do that sort of thing anymore."

Sniper raises an eyebrow right back. "I don't know, how old are you?"

Old enough for that particular resume, but that wasn't really a helpful metric. Sniper could have said the same thing about themself, and they were just 30. "What sort of thing is 'that' sort of thing?"

"Cause apocalypses."

He says it like everyone's gone and done it in their lifetime.

"I've been through quite a few of them, was the catalyst for most of them. So, this time around what you see is what you get—I haven't quite figured it out, but I'd say around mortal drinking age."

There are other reasons he hasn't quite figured it out, but no one really admits to killing their former incarnation. It's a bad line.

"Younger than me." And about the same age as Jehovah, the god that, with Sniper, had started a minor apocalypse of their own. Indirectly. The age strikes them more as a coincidence than a significant fact, but as for the rest... "How much do you remember, about your past incarnations? Was the causing apocalypses thing just a feature of the god Loki, or a coincidence?"

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