April 16, 2016:
Loki goes in search of Fenris and gets some answers
Morningside Heights - New York
Characters
NPCs: None.
Mentions:
Plot:
Mood Music: None.
Fade In…
The God-Wolf though you wouldn't think it, general likes to lay low. He's good at it too, been doing it for well over two thousand years ever since he escaped his confinment in Asgard and fled here to Midgard. His present activities though have made him a tad more obvious. Just a tad. You'd have to know what you were looking for in order to find him but there's a few who might.
At present Fenris is 'enjoying a walk'. Or at least that's what he looks like he's doing, walking through Morningside Heights as the sun gets low, taking in the scenery. In reality he's checking one of the area's ley lines to make sure that a recent 'surge' from the sea didn't blow it. Everything looks okay, though, so far as he can see.
"Are they getting worse, God-Wolf?" the grey-eyed blonde walking at his side looks up. She's concerned but her magic doesn't work that way, sensing the surges in the Leylines is about as good as she gets there.
Give her something in the underworld and she's good. "Something called up a large number of spirits last evening, Fenris. Seems they were destroyed, too. Certain deities of the Underworld are not happy."
Loki knew exactly where to look for the God-Wolf who doesn't want to be found:
A stoppered sink in an apartment several times too small for the family crammed into its two bedrooms. A little story about them being submitted for consideration by some show with 'Apartment', 'Dream', and 'Makeover' in the name was all it took to get in the door; another about needing to examine every inch of the place was enough to ward off suspicion about messing with the sink.
The clash of architecture and violent imagery swirling through the makeshift scrying pool was a bit harder to explain away, but a couple $20s for the brats who happened to see it meant not having to bother.
This was enough to bring Loki to Morningside Heights. Further investigation isolated the disturbance centered on the line Fenris and Astryd are walking, so from there— it was mostly a matter of waiting.
"You really ought to consider a jacket," a woman sporting a green tanktop, black workout pants, a black ponytail, and a small smirk idly says when Fenris is close enough for her to be heard. She has one hand balanced on an outdoor seating area barrier while doing some leg-stretches with the other. "A sweater. One of those hood-things, perhaps." Her eyes drift towards Astryd. "You know the things, I'll bet: pockets in front. Terribly convenient." Shifting back to Fenris, she concludes, "Not for any climate-related reasons, of course, but you do look cold. A mother worries about her spawn's continued ability to blend in amongst the little folk."
"Seems fine ye-" Fenris is responding to the Valkyrie when someone speaks from behind.
"Does she?" Fenris turns and regiards the woman who just addressed him. "My mother was from cold climes. I don't think it was much on her mind." Green. It took him a while not to twitch at green. People like the color here. It was one of his, er, parents favorite though. He had been reaching out to see if this was someone unusual but the 'little folk' bit has him fairly sure he's dealing with someone of power and substance. He suspects he might know who too.
"Still the weather's nice. Not too cold not to… hot. Not yet, anyway. Out and about? This doesn't quite seem like your neighborhood."
Turning as Fenris does, flanking him, taking up what might be considered a defensive position, the Valkyries eyes narrow at the brunette. She's seen someone wear that colour combination recently - just badly - and she'd been sure to share her opinions.
"Spawn…" the word is murmurmed. Oh yes, she's sure who this is. There was a person who used that word recently. Still, Fenris has this.
"Oh, it isn't, but you know how it is: spend a few decades somewhere, and it almost begins to feel like yours."
The smirking Asgardian shifts her eyes back towards Astryd after replying to Fenris, visibly looks her down and up, then lets out a quiet noise of amusement. "Prisoners past and present," she remarks aloud while flicking her gaze back and forth between the Valkyrie and the Wolf, "how interesting." Her eyes linger on Astryd for a little while longer before moving away.
"I thought I might see what you've heard about your brother lately, seeing as how the last I heard was rather, well. 'Disturbing', would be the word for it, wouldn't it?"
"That makes two of us. Seems some idiot is trying to wake him. I've got a fairly good idea why, too. Someone is trying to stop the Ragnarok Cycle in order to alter someone's Fate." Fate. Capital F. Not the little paths and coincidences people take but a big, natural and supernatural force that keeps patterns repeating in an endless cycle. Just who's fate Fenris hasn't worked out yet, but the number of candidates isn't really that large considering who he suspects the culprits to be. "It's working too. He's started to twitch. It's threatening to overload the Planet's ley lines even as it stands."
Astryd's wings might ruffle if they were present but the only indication Loki has of her discomfit or ire is a flat grey eyed look. Although at his / her last words, the Valkyrie smirks a little. Who had Loki thought she'd got information from?
"Question is, what have you heard since we spoke last." She'll call Loki on it.
"Gossip, mostly," Loki says while dropping her leg so she can do some waist-twists. Reaching across her chest to grip the barrier, she continues, "Updates - substantial ones - of courtly doings are somewhat challenging to come by, for whatever reason." There's the odd Asgardian - servants, mostly - who'll listen to Loki without rolling their eyes approximately every word and/or trying to gouge his out. One of them is a cupbearer who happens to have spent time working in, among other places, Rindr's offices in Midgard, but Loki's still working on getting all of that story from him. As it turns out, crossing a goddess with a security firm on behalf of Loki is the sort of thing that takes some building up to.
"Rindr certainly seemed to spend her fair share of time in Midgard before— well." She gives a brisk, broad gesture towards Fenris' summary of events. "It's a bold move, regardless of the why. It doesn't add up terribly well: why wake the Serpent just to break the cycle? Why not kill him? Ensure that he can never wake? Help him shed a bit of weight, perhaps— unless they're hoping to just throw the entire thing out of whack through poor timing, anyway." She lets go of the barrier to stroke her chin thoughtfully. "Not everything's in thing its proper place yet, after all," she muses, a bit quieter. "The cost in mortal lives would be catastrophic, of course, but given the scope of what we're talking about— it's nothing that couldn't be recovered from. Eventually."
"I'm thinking because they're trying to avoid Ragnarok. Break it. If they try to kill Jorgamundr it could very well set off the thing they'rte trying to avoid. If they do that all of their work is for naught. It's why I think they haven't tried very seriously to kill me. Disable me but not kill me." Fenris shakesh is head and glances over at Astryd.
"Though I suppose we should consider that's on the table for them. I have absolutely no idea what they'll do if they become desperate."
"No, not everything is in place." Astryd agrees. Though how she knows that … Still she rubs her right arm where a bracer might worn. "Not break the cycle…" she nods to Fenris' words… "Just gossip? That's unusual." Astryd remembers her time there. Things were normally abuzz. That there's not a lot coming out of the court is interesting but fits with what she's heard too.
"They were not successful, God-Wolf." the grey eyed woman murmurs "Nor were they successful with me." beat "They're prepared to wake the Serpent. I think anything and everything is on the table if they become desperate."
"'Become'?" Loki says with arching brows.
After a couple more beats of stretching, she straightens out of the twist then leans back gingerly against the barrier, arms stretching along its top. "Waking him could just as easily trigger the cycle— hypothetically speaking, anyway," she notes. "But I suppose it's easier to talk oneself into the gamble that doesn't include a high likelihood of being swallowed."
She falls silent for another moment spent looking contemplatively between the other two, and then:
"What does she," the goddess bluntly wonders of Fenris while lifting a hand and extending an index finger valkyrie-wards, "have to do with any of this? An exiled valkyrie targeted as part of a scheme to break the cycle of Ragnarok purely for the sake of altering someone's Fate— when did they attack her? Before, or after she began nosing into their business? She neved did say, exactly."
"Part of the method that they were going to use involved 'A Raven's Pain.'" Fenris explains. "For this reason they appear to have trapped her on this world and prevented her from returning to Asgard. They also prepared an artifact designed to subvert her will and cause her an excruciating amount of physical pain. I know of no ritual in Asgard or on this world that would call for that specifically. I guess, though I cannot confirm, that whatever magic they are using it is from the deep dark void, or realms beyond the Nine Realms." Fenris has had a long time to study magic and while he can't compare with Loki for power, his knowledge at least lets him know what he's looking at.
"If I'm correct about that though this plan has been long in the making. Astryd was trapped here three hundred years ago."
Which might make Astryds' exile slightly less laughable. A bit. She still lost a feather in all of this.
"Nosing into their business?" Astryd's chin rises just a touch. No matter who she's talking to, she still has her pride. "I was simply tracing my exile, trying to end it." Which means … she might have tripped over this one quite inadvertantly.
"Mmmm." Loki's eyebrows rise a little farther as the delinquent deities' intentions for Astryd are explained. Her tone is clinical more than anything else— though she does light up a little when Fenris corroborates the difficulty of sourcing those ritual requirements. "You destroyed it, I assume," she adds, just to confirm.
She then looks towards Astryd to note, "That's certainly what's happening now. I think they've made it fairly clear that they'd rather not be disturbed, what with the mysterious disappearance and all; that we happen to be acting against their efforts to accomplish something absurdly dangerous doesn't make us any less nosy." After a dismissive wave, she tacks on, "Anyway, this is all largely irrelevant, because any suggestions of nosiness stemmed from several seconds ago, when I was unaware that you are apparently, inconceivably a key component to this affair."
Once that's said, she steps away from the barrier to face the pair dead on. "'Nosy' isn't so bad, anyway. 'Nosy' is going to be what closes their three hundred year lead over those of us left to ponder their wake." As she begins to jog in place, she brightly says, "Well! This has been a productive, blade-free get-together. Do be sure to let me know should you learn anything more about this mess; I'll be sure to do the same."
"It's been unusually pleasant." Fenris agrees. Nosy isn't bad, yes. Ordinarily, for example, Loki's nosy would be unwelcome, but for all Fenris thinks of his Father he knows (well okay, he's fairly certain) that he doesn't want to set off Ragnarok. And if he does, he'll want it to be on his terms, not anyone else's. "Shall I give your regards to your daughter when I see her next?" Fenris does visit his sister on the regular.
"Oh one other thing, someone else is moving pieces about the board. One Kevin Masterson, a man with an Asgardian artifact and some kind of… connection to the Court, has been asking questions like this as well. He recovered some kind of encoded notebook. I don't know if it's been decoded yet but… might be worth your time."
There'd been a reason Astryd hadn't used Fenris' name when she spoke to Loki and she'd been dreading the two coming face to face. This … though… was a pleasant surprise and not too painful. Well not as painful as a certain bracer.
"The artefact is safe." She confirms to Loki. But not destroyed. Destroying magical artefacts could be dangerous. Or so she's led to believe.
"I believe Odinson might be on the trail as well." She's not heard more from the Thunderer "And the Ninth Wave has recently arrived upon Midgards' shores, with news of a song that's just begun."
"It has been … much more civilised than I expected."