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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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."