lt_safe_house | (no subject)

Date: March 9, 2003(?)
Status: Public - Complete
Setting: Manor grounds
Summary: Loki starts to practise.

The bar was getting boring. There were no customers there at the moment and the amusing barkeeper had apparently quit. A sulky waiter from the restaurant was filling in for him running between the bar and the restaurant all the time and aside from getting tripped by a well placed foot from time to time not providing any entertainment. Loki needed something else to do.

He'd spent most of the morning reading up on sphinxes and angels in his attic hideout, so maybe it was time to get some exercise. He had promised the Sphinx to hone his shape shifting skills after all.

For this first attempt after his long illness he'd take a familiar and easy shape he decided. Besides the lawn looked like it had practically been made for a horse to run and graze on. The still falling rain had turned the ground muddy and inviting for a quick roll. He'd just have to remember to get back inside once the water got through his think horse fur or he might catch a cold.

So Loki walked out the door into the rain humming happily.

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"Ah," Belial said. "Not a god, no. Demon, though I was once often mistaken for a deity by mortals. I am Belial."

Loki. Belial had never been very keen on the Nordic gods. Too violent, and the weather was far too cold. But what was one doing on this rainy little corner of the Earth?

"I thought your lot didn't get along with the Dagda and his folk," Belial said. Not to mention the Catholics and the Protestants. "I've already been serving drinks. That woman -- Sister Mary -- seemed amenable to the idea." And he was right at home in the bar. Liquor always lubricated the tempting process; he had a certain affinity for it.

Loki snorted. "Of course you're a god. You shouldn't let your stupid top-god deny you your proper title."

He'd come across the name Belial somewhere when he'd been reading up on Uriel, though he couldn't remember exactly who he was. Of the other group in any case, just as Loki had suspected. He hadn't paid much attention to the demon party. They were supposed to be the bad guys, but then a lot of idiot humans believed Loki himself to be the Norse version of Lucifer. Maybe that meant he'd find more in common with them than the angel faction.

"I'm actually the American manifestation of myself," Loki explained. "Had to come over here to get some help removing the 'curse', though, and it will be easier to just stay here until I'm completely recovered. Call it a holiday."

"You are seriously taking over the bar? What happened to that human barkeeper?" Not that Loki would be missing him much. "Can you conjure fresh carrot juice?"

Belial made no argument -- the Old Gods tended to get a bit preachy about the One God. The Far Eastern pantheons were the worst.

"American manifestation? Interesting," he said. It wasn't particularly a vein of discussion he was familiar with. The Old Gods had shown up wherever their people had needed them. He wondered if they were just fractured pieces of the same being; Belial had often wondered at the nature of his own origins.

What had existed before existence?

He ignored the speculation and cupped his hands. A glass materialized in his palms; it had been too long since he had practiced this, so it was slow, oozing up from his skin instead of appearing.

"Fresh carrot juice it is," he said, blinked, and the glass was full.

"Yeah, I was half expecting to meet myself when I first came here, but so far it hasn't happened. Maybe the people here don't believe in me enough," Loki explained with a shrug. "That might be affecting my shape shifting as well."

He was still embarrassed about his performance, though it seemed that it hadn't looked as bad to Belial as it had felt to Loki.

And then a glass just grew out of Belial's hand. Loki watched in fascination and slight horror.

"Doesn't this hurt?" he asked afraid to take the glass, if it was still attached to the demon's skin somehow.

"Meeting yourself? That could have been awkward," Belial said.

He watched Loki with a mild, amused expression, and lifted the glass off of his hand. "Not at all. There are things that are more difficult -- my domains of influence only stretch so far -- but none of the conjuration hurts."

Not that he would let on, anyhow. Certain things were better left alone; the act of true Creation was beyond his reach. That door was closed to him.

He offered the glass to Loki.

"Might have been," Loki admitted with a shrug. "But it could also have been interesting. Two of me could probably have a lot of fun together."

He accepted the glass and took a small sip. It was indeed perfectly delicious fresh carrot juice. "That is a useful trick indeed. Pity none of my pantheon can do it. So what is your domain, god of drinking?"

No, that didn't feel right. Impressive as the ability to create carrot juice out of thin air was, Loki thought there ought to be more to this god. A fertility or harvest god might be seen as a supplier of plentiful food and drink, but he wouldn't have much power in this day and age. At least not here in the developed world where few people knew what it really meant to be hungry.

He ought to read up on the entire Judeo-Christian pantheon so he wouldn't be this clueless if more of them arrived. This place quite obviously belonged to them after all.

Belial wiped the condensation off of his palms. They were chilly, and his fingertips a little numb. It had been too long since he'd done any conjuration on the corporeal plane. Manipulating the core of something when he didn't have to tie his energy to a living shell was much easier.

"Not of drinking," he said, though that was a close enough guess. He smiled broadly at Loki. "Temptation."

Loki regarded Belial with his head tilted as he tried to work that one out. Coming from a very spontaneous and not particularly moral pantheon he wasn't well acquainted with the concept. He'd read the word, had an idea what it meant, but didn't see what the big deal was.

"Temptation? Why would that require a god?"

Belial settled down in a chair and lit a second cigarette. If he wasn't permitted to smoke indoors, whoever admonished him for it could go take a long walk off a short pier.

He blew smoke out of his nose, considering.

"No idea. Humans seem to get up to it easily enough themselves," he said. "But they don't bring me out to play unless they want something big accomplished. Anyone can convince someone to do something once, with practice."

Belial gestured to the chair across from him, and flicked his ashes onto the floor; he was tidy enough that they dissolved into dusty little puffs and vanished.

"It takes a special kind of talent to convince someone that they want to do something repeatedly, even when they know the stakes are high."

Loki sat as indicated. The fingers of his free hand twitched as he saw the puffs blinking out of existence. It was a bit surprising that his cat instincts would surface after only trying out the horse shape once, but then there was something playful and independent about cats that matched his own personality well.

"But why convince them to do anything?" he asked. "Humans should do as they wish and when the stakes are high some will be cowards and some will be heroes, but all will be fools."

Not that gods were any better than men in that respect.

"It matters to us because that's how our lot believes it will win this war -- this battle for human souls," Belial said, gesturing vaguely.

He thought it was all a load of tripe, but there it was; two sides locked in a futile struggle with human souls the currency. Idiots, all of them.

"Our pantheon," said Loki. "Have always believed that wars should be won on the battlefield. Though I admit that I've been known to resort to other means. Many look down on me for that."

He was a little worried that his opinion might insult this powerful being and he didn't want that, but you couldn't build a lasting friendship on a lie.

"Your contest of manipulating people into doing what they would probably have done anyway seems devoid of meaning and challenge to me."