It's too brief for Abby, but she isn't sure how to ask for more. She's never been shy and still isn't, but there is a hesitance that goes hand in hand with this comradery when the wounds from losing her friends back home haven't healed. She's never felt so aware of a relationship before, or been this beholden to not fucking something up; like stepping out onto an icy lake, and hoping it has frozen all the way through.
He's trying too. Loki is right out on the lake with her.
Abby clears her throat, stepping briefly ahead of him to bellow for the dog. He comes running, tearing across the grass to get back, and leaps up the moment he reaches her, painting her pants with his muddy paws. "Wags– no, bad–"
Might want to step back for a moment while she gets him settled.
Loki does step back because filthy, wet, and muddy pawprints all over his clothes are definitely not the look he's going for today. His hands stay in his pockets as he watches the two of them, expression distant and eyes slightly unfocused.
His mind is definitely elsewhere.
He's thinking of Asgard and its people. How there's an entire timeline of people he's never going to see again, like his brother. His mother. If he does ever see them again, they won't be exactly the same as the ones he left behind.
It makes him wonder what Abby's family is like. If she misses them.
But once Abby has Wagner settled down again Loki approaches once more, taking steps carefully measured as to get the least amount of mud on his boots as possible. "I'll admit, the 'you won't fuck this up' part was not what I expected you to open with."
She's pretty muddy once she gets him seated, but she can't stay exasperated with him, it's just so hard to be mad at a face like that... she gives a frown, and a huff, but her heart isn't in it. Moments later, she's allowing Wags to lick her chin.
"Yeah?"
Loki is back by her side, and the puppy is wriggly when she pushes him gently down to sit. He looks attentively between the two of them when she stands.
"What did you expect me to open with? I wasn't gonna agree with you." No pity parties allowed, not in this case. He hasn't lost anything, and so they shouldn't indulge in worrying.
If being this muddy and dirty is what it takes to properly raise a dog, Loki will be opting out, thanks.
He is a very sweet and intelligent creature though; Loki can see the appeal.
"Hm. Well. Something something husband something something disapproval something something what are you doing is what I expected the opening salvo to be, honestly." But, you know. There's something refreshing about being surprised in a pleasant direction.
Abby snorts humourlessly, and bears through an uncomfortable recollection of Owen and the boat with a strange look on her face before she answers him. She's staring at the puppy; eventually her expression softens again.
"It would be hypocritical if I judged you for your relationship choices." Mutter, shrug... "So."
Nice, honest advice instead. You're welcome! "But what does her husband think of you? And what does–" What term did he use? Oh, yeah, "'Native variant' mean, anyway."
"Doesn't stop most," he points out, albeit gently, because he doesn't exactly want Abby to change her practice towards him and his...unconventional relationship choices. Like, at all. But he still feels it requires note. "Not that I want you to be like most people."
Most people would not be his friend.
"I don't know what he thinks of me; he's currently missing." Loki weighs his hands. "It means...it means that I know there are versions of me in different worlds. People like me, with different lives but similar arcs, if that makes sense? Some of them may even have my name. This one does.
It's part of the multiverse. Well. It would be the theory, except we are living examples that it is more than that."
"I'm not most," she agrees, giving him a funny look, "Do you want me to tell you I'm disappointed in you, or something?"
Lest he forget she comes from a place where people you love can be ripped away from you at any moment; if he has happiness with Alexandrie, he should grab it in both hands and take it.
And his explanation makes more sense to her than it really should.
Abby worries her lower lip for half a second, thinking hard. "Yeah. It– I think there are other versions of me, too."
The one that Ellie talked about. The one she fought with in Santa Barbara. "Is it normal?"
"While the familiar can be very comforting... no, not really."
He would internalize that, if she said it, and part of him would really rather not go through that process. To be haunted by the specter of disappointment of others has driven him near to madness before.
Fairly, he'd prefer to avoid that this time around.
She makes a face, while she's biting at her lip, which makes Loki wonder what she's thinking of exactly. Has she encountered some timeline divergence, between herself and her enemy here? "It's... common; I don't think it's abnormal. You don't tend to know about it until you do."
"Good," she says, watching him, expression suddenly softer, "I wasn't gonna." It's hard for people like them to ask for affection, she knows that. Just as much as she knows they desperately need it anyway.
It would be nicer to stay in that moment than stew over the variant thing, but Abby has far too many questions to be able to let it lie. "Don't tend to know about it until the person who does bothers to actually tell you about it, you mean."
Loki raises his eyebrows. Yes, that does answer his question, though he follows it up with: "I take that to mean your enemy, here, has some temporal variance that you don't? Memories that go beyond your own, or end before yours do?"
He gives a one-shouldered shrug. "I know things that the Provost didn't, when I arrived. I don't know if that's still true. I doubt he'd let me know."
"She told me some of it." The worst part: Abby's certain she wasn't being fucked with. The story cast Ellie in a bad light; worse still, she can't think of why Ellie would want to fuck with her at this point. They did terrible things to each other, but they've never lied about it.
Another glance at Loki, and this time she lingers, seeking reassurance. "... Do you find it hard? To be here with him?"
"It feels like it shouldn't; he made it clear where we stood." But that isn't exactly an answer to her question, is it? "It's hard to leave a past behind when you know people are telling true stories about your bad behavior. It's hard to have the only familiar face be one that you don't get along with, that doesn't trust you."
His hands are shoved deep in his pockets and he shrugs. "But if I wanted to be remembered better I suppose I should have acted differently."
Abby snorts in understanding, mulling over this answer. She doesn't particularly care if Ellie ever trusts her. Abby doesn't much trust her either, and yet they exist together in the same space without any disruption. Maybe that is a form of trust, even though thinking about it that way feels cloying and heavy, like the cling of mud.
She wrinkles her nose.
"You told me you tried to take over an entire planet," she says eventually, looking up. "Why?"
Loki would say that it is a form of trust, albeit a very uneasy sort.
But he sighs, at that question, and gives a little shrug. "I was angry. At my family. And I wanted power, legitimized power, and that seemed a way to do it." Not an easy one, mind, but a way nonetheless. "Not the best plan I've ever had, by far."
But none of his plans have been excellent, really.
Uneasy; pathetic? Trust that you try too hard to explain away.
"I'm guessing it didn't work out so well." And the Provost here is an enemy because of it. Abby is guessing that isn't the only enemy Loki received as a result of this plan. "Sorry," she adds, hoping she didn't make him uncomfortable, "We don't have to talk about it."
Necessary. Pathetic, not so much, not by his measure.
"Definitely not." It could have been much worse, honestly. He could have been usurped by a revolutionary underground after the fact instead. That would have been an embarrassment.
Loki shakes his head. "It's fine." It doesn't make him uncomfortable, just annoyed at how everything went down. "You should know."
She makes a noise of understanding, hands pressing into her pockets. She can't exactly ask him why he thinks she should know, not when she did the exact same to him: you should know before you decide to get close to me.
Is it weird that she likes that they have this odd thing in common: bad decisions on a cataclysmic scale. Makes her feel a little more grounded.
The dog has shot off at a mad sprint again while they've been talking. He's gonna be so tired later. Abby chuckles, and scuffs at the ground with her shoe. She holds her breath for a moment. "... D'you regret it?"
Loki also watches the dog run as he turns her question over in his head.
"Yes," comes after a beat, because he needed to figure out if they were really regrets, what he felt, or just annoyance at the aftermath; a chain reaction he didn't properly predict. "Oh, certainly, it would have been grand if it had been ever capable of working, but it wasn't. At any point. Besides which, I don't really want to run an entire planet when one gets down to the brass tacks of the matter."
She snorts, kicking at the ground. It might be the same scale, but destroying a planet, and hunting down one, specific person? They're at opposite ends: two completely different extremes, and regret, for Abby, is a messy process. She doesn't know how to make jokes about it yet.
"Yeah," she says, just to say something. Maybe she'd expected something a little more sincere in response.
"I regret deciding I needed to be the monster of the fairy tale."
That comes after a few beats of both of them standing, silently. The mabari is still running from one end to the other, but Loki has long ceased tracking his movements. "I regret that it became my legacy. That I caused so much damage, so much heartbreak." For some people he will forever be the villain. He regrets that too.
She looks at him then, watching him work through the next few words like she's gauging something in what he says. Her brow furrows. There's a sympathetic ache in her chest.
"Yeah." This time, her voice is a little hoarse. She directs a grim squint out toward the horizon. "I– feel like that, too."
Her feelings about what she did to Joel are so snarled around the core of her grief that it's difficult to parse them out, but she can call that sentiment true. The fallout from her actions ruined everything.
He hears that note in her voice and swallows, nodding. It's difficult, the matter of growing a conscience after the deeds have been done. Knowing you've done terrible things, that your future actions may never properly outweigh.
Loki draws his hand through his hair, pushing loose strands away from his face that the wind will simply whip up once more as soon as he's done.
"I wonder, sometimes, if it isn't easier to just remain the villain." Shaking his head. "But that doesn't feel like a real option, and I don't want to remain the same."
"Trust me, it's– not." It's funny to think of herself as a villain (kinda over the top, right...) but to some people she was. To Ellie, she probably was. To the Seraphites, she definitely was. "You have to find a way to break out of it. And keep going."
There is all the difference between inching forward and turning around in endless circles.
"Being forced into a world and a humanity that I neither chose nor asked for seems like a clean enough break from the past," he points out, huffing out a sigh. "I suppose once one grows a conscience it is very difficult to turn back to one's old ways."
"You didn't have a conscience before you suddenly grew one?" The temptation to make a joke is too strong, the subject matter is slightly uncomfortable. "You should probably get that checked out."
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He's trying too. Loki is right out on the lake with her.
Abby clears her throat, stepping briefly ahead of him to bellow for the dog. He comes running, tearing across the grass to get back, and leaps up the moment he reaches her, painting her pants with his muddy paws. "Wags– no, bad–"
Might want to step back for a moment while she gets him settled.
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His mind is definitely elsewhere.
He's thinking of Asgard and its people. How there's an entire timeline of people he's never going to see again, like his brother. His mother. If he does ever see them again, they won't be exactly the same as the ones he left behind.
It makes him wonder what Abby's family is like. If she misses them.
But once Abby has Wagner settled down again Loki approaches once more, taking steps carefully measured as to get the least amount of mud on his boots as possible. "I'll admit, the 'you won't fuck this up' part was not what I expected you to open with."
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"Yeah?"
Loki is back by her side, and the puppy is wriggly when she pushes him gently down to sit. He looks attentively between the two of them when she stands.
"What did you expect me to open with? I wasn't gonna agree with you." No pity parties allowed, not in this case. He hasn't lost anything, and so they shouldn't indulge in worrying.
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He is a very sweet and intelligent creature though; Loki can see the appeal.
"Hm. Well. Something something husband something something disapproval something something what are you doing is what I expected the opening salvo to be, honestly." But, you know. There's something refreshing about being surprised in a pleasant direction.
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"It would be hypocritical if I judged you for your relationship choices." Mutter, shrug... "So."
Nice, honest advice instead. You're welcome! "But what does her husband think of you? And what does–" What term did he use? Oh, yeah, "'Native variant' mean, anyway."
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Most people would not be his friend.
"I don't know what he thinks of me; he's currently missing." Loki weighs his hands. "It means...it means that I know there are versions of me in different worlds. People like me, with different lives but similar arcs, if that makes sense? Some of them may even have my name. This one does.
It's part of the multiverse. Well. It would be the theory, except we are living examples that it is more than that."
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Lest he forget she comes from a place where people you love can be ripped away from you at any moment; if he has happiness with Alexandrie, he should grab it in both hands and take it.
And his explanation makes more sense to her than it really should.
Abby worries her lower lip for half a second, thinking hard. "Yeah. It– I think there are other versions of me, too."
The one that Ellie talked about. The one she fought with in Santa Barbara. "Is it normal?"
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He would internalize that, if she said it, and part of him would really rather not go through that process. To be haunted by the specter of disappointment of others has driven him near to madness before.
Fairly, he'd prefer to avoid that this time around.
She makes a face, while she's biting at her lip, which makes Loki wonder what she's thinking of exactly. Has she encountered some timeline divergence, between herself and her enemy here? "It's... common; I don't think it's abnormal. You don't tend to know about it until you do."
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It would be nicer to stay in that moment than stew over the variant thing, but Abby has far too many questions to be able to let it lie. "Don't tend to know about it until the person who does bothers to actually tell you about it, you mean."
Which may answer his question perfectly.
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He gives a one-shouldered shrug. "I know things that the Provost didn't, when I arrived. I don't know if that's still true. I doubt he'd let me know."
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"She told me some of it." The worst part: Abby's certain she wasn't being fucked with. The story cast Ellie in a bad light; worse still, she can't think of why Ellie would want to fuck with her at this point. They did terrible things to each other, but they've never lied about it.
Another glance at Loki, and this time she lingers, seeking reassurance. "... Do you find it hard? To be here with him?"
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His hands are shoved deep in his pockets and he shrugs. "But if I wanted to be remembered better I suppose I should have acted differently."
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She wrinkles her nose.
"You told me you tried to take over an entire planet," she says eventually, looking up. "Why?"
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But he sighs, at that question, and gives a little shrug. "I was angry. At my family. And I wanted power, legitimized power, and that seemed a way to do it." Not an easy one, mind, but a way nonetheless. "Not the best plan I've ever had, by far."
But none of his plans have been excellent, really.
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"I'm guessing it didn't work out so well." And the Provost here is an enemy because of it. Abby is guessing that isn't the only enemy Loki received as a result of this plan. "Sorry," she adds, hoping she didn't make him uncomfortable, "We don't have to talk about it."
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"Definitely not." It could have been much worse, honestly. He could have been usurped by a revolutionary underground after the fact instead. That would have been an embarrassment.
Loki shakes his head. "It's fine." It doesn't make him uncomfortable, just annoyed at how everything went down. "You should know."
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Is it weird that she likes that they have this odd thing in common: bad decisions on a cataclysmic scale. Makes her feel a little more grounded.
The dog has shot off at a mad sprint again while they've been talking. He's gonna be so tired later. Abby chuckles, and scuffs at the ground with her shoe. She holds her breath for a moment. "... D'you regret it?"
/covers this timestamp my god
"Yes," comes after a beat, because he needed to figure out if they were really regrets, what he felt, or just annoyance at the aftermath; a chain reaction he didn't properly predict. "Oh, certainly, it would have been grand if it had been ever capable of working, but it wasn't. At any point. Besides which, I don't really want to run an entire planet when one gets down to the brass tacks of the matter."
i see no timestamp
"Yeah," she says, just to say something. Maybe she'd expected something a little more sincere in response.
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That comes after a few beats of both of them standing, silently. The mabari is still running from one end to the other, but Loki has long ceased tracking his movements. "I regret that it became my legacy. That I caused so much damage, so much heartbreak." For some people he will forever be the villain. He regrets that too.
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"Yeah." This time, her voice is a little hoarse. She directs a grim squint out toward the horizon. "I– feel like that, too."
Her feelings about what she did to Joel are so snarled around the core of her grief that it's difficult to parse them out, but she can call that sentiment true. The fallout from her actions ruined everything.
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Loki draws his hand through his hair, pushing loose strands away from his face that the wind will simply whip up once more as soon as he's done.
"I wonder, sometimes, if it isn't easier to just remain the villain." Shaking his head. "But that doesn't feel like a real option, and I don't want to remain the same."
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"Trust me, it's– not." It's funny to think of herself as a villain (kinda over the top, right...) but to some people she was. To Ellie, she probably was. To the Seraphites, she definitely was. "You have to find a way to break out of it. And keep going."
There is all the difference between inching forward and turning around in endless circles.
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