Another Loki arrives

[norseloki.livejournal.com]

Date: April 1, 2003, early evening
Status: Public
Setting: Just outside Tadfield Manor
Summary: Loki (II) arrives (complete)


The world had changed while he had been out of the game. The time he had spent in chains had felt like an eternity to Loki, and when he re-emerged into the world, he was no longer sure if that was really just his perception of it.

Asgard seemed a bad place for him to turn up right then, alone and without anyone to go to battle with him. He considered different options and finally settled on Midgard. That was the place where he would start to gather both intelligence and support. To renew old acquaintances and to make new ones. To take revenge on the ones that had wronged him and his children…

A bitter taste rose to his mouth when he thought of it. Midgard it would be, and then on, on to gather an army that would outdo prophecy. As far as he was concerned, prophecy could hardly be written in stone. If he went about it smartly, maybe he could turn the tide in his favour. Maybe Ragnarök wouldn't even mean his death them. He had deserved some good luck after these last decades or millennia or whatever it had been. He had not counted, and no one had ever been very specific about dates where the doom of the gods was concerned.

So Midgard it would be for the beginning, a place with inhabitants that were easily influenced and convinced of a cause…

For a little while, he seriously wondered whether someone had gone ahead and started Ragnarök without him. Nothing was as he remembered it. The last time he had visited Midgard before his imprisonment, people had ridden horses, brandished swords and warhammers and yelled "Thor" and "Odin" when they rode into battle. Warriors had been revered, not locked away apart from the others. He could not help but grin at the thought of how it must gall both Thor and his sons to see that.

Thinking of them, where were they anyway? Travelling the world, he realized that there was certainly no shortage of priests and prophets, but most of them were affiliated with some deity or other that he had never even heard about. It probably didn't matter – it just put him before a completely different problem. People were always better supporters when they believed in the cause they supported. These people seemed to have forgotten that there was such a thing as Ragnarök, let alone that it might happen within their lifetime.

Then, after some weeks of aimless wandering, in the middle of one of those incredibly big towns his path crossed that of something – or someone – he had no longer expected to find: A warrior in full battle-gear was walking down the street, ambling towards some goal without any obvious haste. No one seemed to take special notice of him, either. Intrigued, Loki followed the stranger. Where there was one, there might be more. Not wanting to draw too much attention, he took the first opportune moment to change into a shape that was less easily visible.

When he found the clothes of the warrior to be clean and utterly free of any mortal fleas, suspicion started to dawn on him. He stayed with his warrior until they entered some place where he could see larger numbers of people in proper cloths instead of the silly things he had seen almost exclusively during his recent travels. Then he left the man and found a quiet corner to change.

An hour later, he had relieved some unsuspecting person of her money-purse, acquired a mead-horn someplace and savoured the first mead since he had regained his freedom. Mead, at least, had not changed as much as people had. His suspicion was quickly confirmed. While these people made him feel a little more at home, they were only pretending. Any remaining plans of going ahead quickly with ending the world evaporated. He needed to find his place in this changed world first, it seemed, and establish himself again as a power.  

He went back to letting himself drift, going wherever chance brought him, learning what he could, never staying in one place for long.

Right now, his path hat brought him to what they now called England, and, more precisely, to a small town that looked to him as if it could have been just about anywhere in this world. He was feeling more "right" today than he had for a long time, and he was not quite sure whether it was the time or the place that caused it. Since it was getting late, he contemplated his options. He could find a place to spend the night or move on to the next town, which would be nothing different from this one, and then the next... Nights outside were still pretty cool at this time of the year, and he had had some rather unpleasant experiences while wearing different shapes these last few weeks. Well, if this town had a hotel or hostel or something, maybe he could spend not only the night but even a few days like any other person, listening, talking and maybe finding a kindred spirit. He almost laughed at the thought, but decided to act on it anyway.

The hotel, as he found out, was somewhat over-sized for the town. Good for him. If they had that many visitors, there would be lots of people with nothing better to do than to talk and be talked to. He stood at the gates for a minute or two, watching the building and the grounds silently. Then he shouldered the holdall that kept whatever all that he had considered worth keeping with him instead of acquiring anew each time he needed it, quickly checked how much the wallet held that he was currently carrying, opened the gates and walked towards the entrance of the building.

Comments

[safehouse-guest.livejournal.com]

She blushed at his words and smile, deciding not to correct him. "Not anytime soon, I think, sir."

The waiter reappeared with their tea, setting the two cups before them along with milk and sugar. Mary gestured towards the sugar. "How sweet do you want it? The tea, I mean."

[norseloki.livejournal.com]

"I don't know," he said. "I never tried it before. Also, the last time I was around, sweetening was done with honey, and I noticed that it is rather difficult to dose sugar properly."

Used at the same amounts as honey, it would make anything it touched disgustingly sweet. That much he had noticed. He had not bothered to experiment a lot with it. He had taken to the new drink called coffee, but that was quite fine without any sugar in it at all.

[safehouse-guest.livejournal.com]

"Well, perhaps you want to experiment, then? I don't want to put you off tea by adding too much sugar," she pushed the sugar towards him. "Or we could ask for honey."

[norseloki.livejournal.com]

"How much do you take?" Loki asked, carefully taking a sip of tea without sugar to judge how much sweetening it might require.

[norseloki.livejournal.com]

Loki carefully added one and stirred, before taking another sip. Caution couldn't hurt. you could always add more, but it would be difficult to get it back out again.

"So," he said, grinning. "Is the tea calming you alrady?"

[safehouse-guest.livejournal.com]

She took a sip, smiling at the familar taste, and tried to keep her eyes on her tea.

"I suppose it is. What do you think of it?"

[norseloki.livejournal.com]

"I'm not sure," Loki said carefully. "I have nothing to compare it to." He thought about it for a moment. "But it's certainly interesting, like most new things are. So now if someone says tea I'll know what they're talking about. You know, with things you've never tried it's always a bit difficult to tell if people are exaggerating..."

[safehouse-guest.livejournal.com]

"Have you ever had that experience, then? Something not being all that it's made out to be?" She blew lightly on her tea before taking another sip.

[norseloki.livejournal.com]

"Repeatedly," Loki said. "Still, I was always glad that I did it. You never know, after all..." He emptied his cup and set it aside. "So, would you say this is more like average tea, good tea or...?"

[safehouse-guest.livejournal.com]

"That's a good view, I think," Mary smiled. "This is good tea, not that cheap thing they serve you in most shops these days." She finished her tea as well and dabbed at her lips with a napkin.

[norseloki.livejournal.com]

Loki looked around the room, then back to Mary.

"It seems like there isn't quite a lot going on around here... is it?" he asked.

[safehouse-guest.livejournal.com]

"No, not very much," she agreed. "I must say I thought it would be more interesting, considering the sort of guests we've been having, but it's all been fairly quiet, actually."

[norseloki.livejournal.com]

"Maybe they all start partying once you've gone home for the night," Loki suggested with a grin.

He studied the menu again, trying to see if there was anything else that he might like to try.

[safehouse-guest.livejournal.com]

Mary couldn't hold back her laughter. "Oh goodness, no. I live here, and I've never heard anything out of the ordinary."

She noticed his scrutiny of the menu. "See something else you like, sir?"

[norseloki.livejournal.com]

Loki looked up. "Not in the menu, no," he said, putting it aside.

[safehouse-guest.livejournal.com]

She fought a blush. Surely he didn't mean that. "Well then, if you tell me, I can speak to the waiter..."

[norseloki.livejournal.com]

Loki didn't quite manage to hold back a chucke. "I don't think the waiter can help, except maybe by telling me how much I owe him. But maybe you would like me to take you home?"

[safehouse-guest.livejournal.com]

Oh. So he had meant that. There was no fighting the blush this time. Mary bit her lip. "Well, that would be very nice of you. My room is just off the lobby, though."

[norseloki.livejournal.com]

Since leaving without paying probably wasn't a very gentlemanly thing to do, he signalled to the waiter.

"Well," he said to Mary, "I don't think any room would be very far from any other place inside this building."

[safehouse-guest.livejournal.com]

The waiter appeared, setting the bill in front of Loki. It wasn't bad; two salads and two cups of tea were hardly expensive.

"That's true, and the lobby's hardly far," she replied.

[norseloki.livejournal.com]

Loki paid the waiter, adding a generous tip. He could afford to be generous. If he needed more money, there was always gambling. Or he could go to Upper Tadfield or some other place nearby and relieve some people of their too heavy wallets.

He got up and walked around the table, offering his arm to Mary.

[safehouse-guest.livejournal.com]

She smiled, standing and taking his arm. And here she'd thought gentlemen, like the sort in novels, were extinct.

"Shall we go, then?"

Don't giggle, don't blush, don't giggle, don't blush...

[norseloki.livejournal.com]

"Certainly," Loki said politely and with a smile at her, then walked her to the door.

Once outside, of course, he'd have to let her take the lead, since he had no idea where they were heading

[safehouse-guest.livejournal.com]

She could tell he was hesitant; of course, he wouldn't know where to go. He'd only just arrived, after all. Mary led him out and across the lobby, to a door just off the lobby, near the stairs to the other rooms. She paused, unsure. What was one supposed to do now?

"Well. Thank you for the dinner and company, sir, I had a lovely time."