Your friendly neighbourhood librarian at your service

[cattygabriel]

Date: April 5, 2003
Status: Private (Gabriel, Loki II) - Complete
Setting: Library
Summary: Loki has questions. Gabriel helps him find answers.

  Gabriel sneezed lightly, before suppressing a smile at the strange feeling. Some of the books there were much older than he'd thought, and he turned the crackly pages cautiously, carefully holding the cracked leather spine. He ran his fingers over an old drawing of herbs used in medieval medicine, amused at the portrayal of the mandrake root as a human baby. Medicine had once been a complicated thing, involving arcane herbology and old spells and bitter potions and poultices; now anyone could pop a few tiny pills to get rid of illnesses that had once been deadly.

  "Amazing," he murmured. They really had come far; not that all the pills and such were good, but medicine certainly had progressed in leaps and bounds. Humans were nothing if not survivalists. 

Comments

[cattygabriel]

Gabriel blinked. "Twice? What - oh."

Loki. The American Loki. This Loki must have gone through his things. Surely a god couldn't have cancer...

He shook himself, looking down at the book again, and began to read out some of the symptoms.

"People with leukaemia bruise easily, bleed excessively, or develop pinprick bleeds... some patients experience frequent infection, ranging from infected tonsils, sores in the mouth, or diarrhoea to life-threatening pneumonia or opportunistic infections... some patients experience frequent infection, ranging from infected tonsils, sores in the mouth, or diarrhea to life-threatening pneumonia or opportunistic infections."

He glanced up at Loki. "The red blood cell deficiency can also cause anaemia, which may cause dyspnea and pallor. You might also feel fatigued or develop flu-like symptoms." He didn't read on; instead, he looked at the god. "Is it possible for gods to fall ill?"

Gabriel remembered the strange dream he had had, the one featuring Loki. He'd never confronted Loki; instead he had tried to forget it, or at least forget the part with Lucifer, but now he tried to remember all the details he could of the events following Loki's sudden appearance. He remembered the hospital wing, and the mention of... chemotherapy.

Loki has cancer? It was an absurd notion, but it seemed like the only possible explanation.

Information adapted from Wikipedia.

[norseloki.livejournal.com]

Loki shook his head. "I didn't understand half of what you just said. He strongly disliked opportunistic people, and he had an idea that he wouldn't feel much more inclined towards opportunistic infections.

The whole affair sounded highly unpleasant.

"Does it say anything about drinking? Alcohol, I mean?" Loki asked, remembering his other self's abstinence.

"And to answer that other question... We once misplaced Idun's apples. That lead to everyone growing old and short-sighted and hard of hearing and whatever else is associated with old age. So I guess, without the apples, we could also fall ill."

[cattygabriel]

"Well, from what I can recall of anaemia... do you feel giddy when you stand up too fast, or after strenuous exercise?"

Gabriel scanned the page. "Not that I can see, but a lot of doctors don't recommend taking alcohol while on a certain course of medicine. It certainly won't aid recovery, anyway." Raphael wouldn't have encouraged it, either.

"Hmm. Interesting. So... your other self has cancer?"

[norseloki.livejournal.com]

"So it would seem," Loki said, feeling still half-perplexed, half numbed by the idea that the same thing might affect him, too, sooner or later.

"I think I need a drink. A strong one."

[cattygabriel]

Gabriel replaced the book and touched Loki's shoulder, squeezing lightly. "Perhaps you should talk to your other self about it."

[norseloki.livejournal.com]

"He's out doing something by himself." Loki said. "So I think I'll go down to the bar and have that drink. Care to join me?"

He didn't mind drinking on his own, but taking a person for a drink tended to be a good way to sound out his views of certain things. One thing he would not let this situation distract him from was his ultimate goal. He hadn't come too far with that one yet.

[cattygabriel]

"I would. Thank you."

Gabriel bit his lip thoughtfully as he turned to leave the library with Loki, wondering about the other Loki. He'd always thought that gods could not fall ill; they were, after all, immortal, and powerful in their own right.

But then, some pantheons did need certain foods, like amirtham or the golden apples Loki had mentioned, to confer that immortality on them. Still, even without them, surely cancer wasn't the norm.

[norseloki.livejournal.com]

"Let's go down to the bar," Loki said, turning towards the door.

He thought that possibly, mead didn't begin to cover his needs right now. Hopefully, they had something stronger there.

[cattygabriel]

"Alright."

Gabriel generally didn't drink anything stronger than red wine, and didn't plan to. He was, however, rather curious about both Lokis now.