with ʟǟʊʄɛʏֆօռ & օɖɨռֆօռ

[a. seemanni]

❝ I get you to swerve out of the fast lane.
You still got champagne running through your veins.
You dare me to step up and challenge you -
Neither one of us can stand to lose. ❝

roleplay between depressionshirt and ʟǟʊʄɛʏֆօռ & օɖɨռֆօռ
please don't post if you're not one of us!
x

[a. seemanni]

There had been a great lot of things gone wrong in the span of only a few weeks or so, and Thor thought there was no need to highlight that he was indeed paying for it.

It was never easy to lose a loved one, but a whole planet? He knew everyone had lost someone, that it wasn’t fair he was still pacing about like a mad man while everyone else tried to find something, anything to do, but anyone who had a problem with it would just have to excuse him. He had an entire people to lead and nowhere for them to go, was now (as far as he knew) the sole living member of the royal family of said people, had isolated himself from the general public - even Bruce had stopped knocking at his door after a while, which was a pretty hard hitter, because Banner had seven PhDs and at least one of those stupid things had to be some kind of psychology. It meant he had given up, and if he had given up, then maybe everyone else had too.

There was one thing he left for, of course. One always revisited old wounds. On the third day, Captain Rodgers had stopped him to ask where he was going, and Thor had said very simply that he couldn’t breathe. That he hadn’t been able to breathe for a while now, and when he tried to inhale, he felt as though the ocean ran down his throat until it was coming through his teeth in vicious, saltwater waves and he was drowning on nothing but the oxygen around him. That if he didn’t get out of this forsaken tower and see the world he had failed and apologize to it somehow, he was going to explode, and then he’d have failed his people and someone would have to tell them that. He had said that that wasn’t fine by him, and Captain Rodgers had understood. Thor thought people did not give the man enough credit for understanding as much as he did. Captain Rodgers just nodded and sort of .. considered? Appreciated? That there was more under the surface than the sunflower god let on. Nobody else had said anything, and he had set out on foot for a house he’d seen only once. For a home which he remembered as vividly as if he had been there seconds ago.

177a Bleecker Street looked the same as it had the day that he had come looking for his father. The townhouse stood tall and solemn against the rest of the road, apartment buildings and little bodegas nestled into its midst. All of the lights were out, the building seemingly abandoned. There had been a hope that Strange’s companion, Wong, had managed to survive, but Thor found the place empty when he finally broke free of the trepidation that held him in place at the sanctum’s front step and pulled open the unlocked door. He knew before he took a step in that there would be no awkward space hopping or the stoic face of the Sanctum’s keeper to welcome him, just the dust of a few weeks’ emptiness that made him feel hollow. The stairs seemed to call to him, if only because he felt as lost as he probably looked and the wizard’s sanctuary was somewhat familiar. It was something not out of the ordinary, and ymir’s teeth, how Thor craved something even a little bit normal. He ascended with little more than a sigh at the top, taking in the shelves and doors before him. He could remember seeing Strange, the strand of hair plucked out that the doctor might have a hard time getting if he tried again - Thor hated to keep his hair short, but he had to admit it had its advantages. Looking out over the city from the wide, circular window over the staircase left him wondering, a lot more time allotted to thinking than he would care to admit.

The runes he’d been writing on his arms for days now seemed to glow under the thin fabric of the shirt he’d chosen, reminding him that he had a place to be. He belonged somewhere, and it wasn’t here, but he was sure Wong and the strange doctor wouldn’t mind if he let himself be weak in the sanctuary of knowledge for just a second. There was a lot he wanted to be weak about, but for now he would settle for being weak over those he lost - one was not allowed to mourn in times of battle, but here, he was not knee deep in wartime baptism by fire, and he was going to cry if he damn well pleased. Then he could pick himself up, and hope to whoever he could that the old gods were holding him upright - that the old gods would keep him alive. That the glancing shadows of green that had been clawing at the edges of his vision would just go and leave him well enough alone.

(hope that's alright!)

[∂αмє υмвяα]

The Trickster known as Loki, had escaped death many times. So, it wasn’t as easy to escape death for the third time in his life. He remembered the feeling of the Mad-Titan’s hand on his neck as it crushed his windpipe. He remebered the look on Thor’s face as he fell lifeless to the ground. But he had survived the encounter with the Mad-Titan known as Thanos.

He was there, watching on the sidelines as Thor fought for (what he assumed to be) the death of his brother, and for the people of Asgard. He was hidden of course, with the limited amount of magic he had as he barely made it to Earth escaping the fiery explosion of the ship as it blew up in the vacuum of space. He saw the look of deviation on his brother’s face as the wishes what Thanos had done came true.

The once busy streets of New York that should have been filled with the bustle of life, cars honking at some jaywalkers crossing the street weren’t there as the raven-haired male, known as Loki walked the hauntingly silent city. Loki shivered as he saw empty cars littering the streets of New York. He was only here as he walked in the shadows of his brother as he saw Thor walk into the place where that Midgardian Sorcerer known as Doctor Strange lived. Who knows if he survived in the deviation Thanos caused...

His footsteps where soft and silent as he followed after his brother up the steps. So this is what the Sanctum looked like from the inside. Last time he was here, he had fallen from a portal landing just below the staircase. The distinct silence was unnerving, as if nobody was around at this time. Loki knew that he would have to reveal himself sometime soon to Thor, so that he could have at least something and someone to hold onto. As, of this moment to Thor, he was the only living Asgardian alive as well as the only one left of Asgardian Royalty.

Loki knew what those runes on his arms meant, as he idly covered them with his other hand; even though he was hidden from Thor. It was Asgardian writing, only those who knew it, or lived on Asgard could write in it. And seeing as Thor and himself are the only two left that knew that language...they where meant to be together as fates let it be so.

[a. seemanni]

Thor let the tears fall open and freely, silent as he watched what was left of New York pick itself up and do its best to continue in the aftermath of catastrophe. There were people in the street before him crying, some collapsed on the ground. Casualties from vehicles robbed of their drivers, an entire bed left vacant as it rolled sluggishly out of its lane. There wasn’t any incoming traffic to collide with it, just an empty food truck that toppled with a satisfying crunch. There were corpses in that street, and the aesir had taken personal responsibility for it - wether it was well deserved or not. He had aimed too far left. He had let this happen, in his mind. All of it was a compound of a million little things that led up to the single most fatal mistake he’d ever made in his long life, the remaining balance of it longer still. What would his mother have thought, if she could see him hiding in the sanctum with tears streaming his face and sobs coming quickly while there was still so much to do? She’d admonish him, he was sure, remind him he was a king and kings did not turn their back on their people. Leadership came with a price - it meant that no matter where he went, history had its eyes on him, and he was going to have to grin and bear it the way he always had. The sunflower king of Asgard, an anchor even as his own world was ending, outwardly so friendly you’d never know. A motorbike speeding through the chaos caught his attention for a split second, looked like a friend but with the wrong build. Barnes would never wear a helmet that tacky, though. Vaguely, the thought surfaced that that person might have lost someone. That person might be praying to any god out there that they had not, in fact, lost someone. They deserved answers, but they’d never ask him, and even if they did he didn’t have any. Thor could barely hold himself together - holding someone else seemed impossible.

With a heavy sigh, the god king wiped his eyes and squared his shoulders. He spoke in old norse, calling upon what little sorcery he had gleaned from books borrowed from his mother. Wards. Protections for the sanctum, while its master was away. He lifted his left hand and drew the runes in the air, electricity crackling into the shapes from his fingertips and adhering to the window. Thorn, uruz, raido. Only the aesir would see that Thor had placed the sanctum under his protection, and as far as he knew, he was on his own. Strange would see it, would know it was him when they figured out how to bring everyone back tot his planed, and whatever energy Thor could spare would go to the wards, so those who meant the building or anything in it would suffer a rather extreme execution via lightning. The sanctum had achieved asylum in the eyes of the young god. He wouldn’t live in it - no one would, if he had a say - but it would stay protected while it stood. While he stood, and Thor’d be damned if he’d let someone knock him down now. The tide in his was finally receding, which meant it was time to rise. It meant that a storm was coming. The static that formed the runes cracked across his skin, filling in the cold, inky handwriting littering his forearms and hands, travelled up until enveloped him and made him feel warm. He was Thor, some of Odin, King of the Aesir, and the time for crying had passed. The time for grieving needed to be put behind him, even if he wasn’t done; everyone else was still grieving and they were in motion, or at least thinking about being in motion. It was time to come back.

Thor went around the banister and stopped at the landing of the grand staircase, staring at the doors that would spit him back out onto Bleecker Street. He hesitated. There wasn’t a clear reason why, but he didn’t want to go out there. It wasn’t the bodies, the abandoned street - if those could deter him then he wouldn’t have made it there in the first place. It was a sort of finality. Once he left, he wouldn’t return again unless the ward was broken and the sanctum needed defending, quietly funneling energy into it from a distance. It had been, just for that brief moment, a sanctuary. He would remember to be grateful when Strange and Wong returned. His footsteps had an echo, almost, as he went down, but then when he stopped it was mistimed. Disharmonious. Someone was there with him. “This place is not yours. I suggest you leave now, lest you be looking for trouble.”

[∂αмє υмвяα]

Loki knew that Thor was grieving, he didn’t need to be next to him to see it. He felt it. He could see that the Thunder God blamed himself for what he had done; as he was the one was had caused it. Loki flinched slightly as he put it in that way. Thor had tried his best, but he aimed to far in trying to stop the Mad-Titan, he watched as the people around him had faded away as if they never existed in the first place. The worlds mightiest heroes where slim in number. How in the world where they going to fix a mistake as big as this? The trickster wondered to himself.

Loki watched in slight awe and fascination as he saw and heard his brother use magic. Never would he see the day where the headstrong warrior clad in battle armor use it. As the Trickster was the one who spent most of the time reading with his adoptive mother Frigga, and learning spells with her. At least he had been paying attention to a little bit of what she was talking about. He watched as the orange and yellow runes glow as Thor drew them in the air. Ward spells, he realized. To protect the place while the owner was gone; for however long that maybe.

Emerald green eyes trailed after the blond haired male as the latter made his way to return back to his original place of residence. Loki’s footfalls where soft and silent as he trailed after Thor. But, they weren’t quite enough as Thor had spoken after hearing his footsteps. He stopped in his place, holding his breath even though he was hidden from Thor’s eyes. He heard his blood rushing in his ears as he had been caught. The amount of times he’s followed Thor in his shadow hidden, and hasn’t been caught...what did he do that changed the outcome of him being caught?

Loki’s mind was in two different directions at the moment. Would he rather flee and stay hidden, or reveal himself to Thor? Either way he chose, the outcome would always remain the same. He would eventually have to show himself to Thor, as he couldn’t stand by and watch as the guilt ate Thor from the inside out. The Trickster cared deeply for his brother, maybe that is why the fates decided for them to be together as long as they lived.

The Trickster made his mind up. He would reveal himself to Thor. Even though after all the time he was around the Thunder God, he noticed the small things about him as he was around. The faint double-take look as he saw something that he wished was there, but wasn’t, but Loki was there. With a shimmer of green and gold, he dismissed the veil that obscured him from Thor’s view. ”Hello, brother. I told you the sun would shine on us again.” He said to Thor, as he appeared in front of him. To be honest with himself, this meeting between the two of them, couldn’t have been avoided.

[a. seemanni]

For just a moment, Thor seemed taken aback. Not like he was overcome with grief or like it was any cause for celebration, just that he hadn’t expected Loki to materialize in front of him. Like he couldn’t believe someone would try and hurt him that way. Of course the aesir didn’t believe it was really him. It couldn’t just be that easy, it was never that easy. Loki had evaded death twice before ( and, quite frankly, made it look easy ) because he was a sorcerer and magic came easy to him. Thor was no wizard, but something about this felt wrong; he had been absolutely sure that Loki was dead, and though his body was never set off on a longship to burn as it should have been, this could not be the man he had left to the vacuum of space. It simply couldn’t be. The disbelief gave way to rage, and then hurt, until his face was stony and no emotion crossed it. Even in the fragile state he’d sunken into, he had the sense to turn his back on the apparition and start toward the old oak doors, once again on his way out as he spoke firmly over his shoulder. “I know not who has conjured you to torture me, but you will find no success here - I have been hollow for far too long to be fooled. Return to your master, or don’t, but my warning stands. This place and everything in it is under my protection, and I will not hesitate to defend it.”

It was painful to turn the imposter away, he wouldn’t lie. Whoever had decided they would impersonate the frost giant was very convincing, down to the scars on his knuckles and a knick at his jaw that Thor had put there himself in a moment of blind anger. It was impressive, almost, in a sickening and not at all amusing sort of way. He wondered if Loki could have ever pulled off that level of detail to impersonate him. Odin, sure, but Odin had looked the same for centuries, and Loki spent every moment he could with Frigga. There was always a flaw in his glamours, though. He could never truly act the part, avid thespian though he was. That, or Thor just knew him well enough to see through anything. He liked to think that was the case, anyhow, with how long they’d known each other. Someone knew how to sting him, and they were going about it aggressively. They’d get it when he found them, if he found them. He slung one of the wide door open and turned back toward the projection with a bored, intolerant expression. Last chance, he seemed to say, toe tapping impatiently on the wood floor. He was going to have to leave soon if he didn’t want Captain Rodgers to come looking for him, and this being wasn’t going to make him worry yet another friend.

[∂αмє υмвяα]

The Trickster knew that Thor wouldn’t accept the fact that he was alive and breathing. Loki knew that for a fact, for he had faked his death before and came back when Thor least expected it. So it wasn’t that big of a surprise to Loki with the greeting that he had gotten. He watched Thor’s face display two emotions, hurt and anger. But it quickly disolved into a blank face devoid of emotion. This wasn’t the Thor the Trickster knew. He clearly saw the hesitation in Thor’s movements, as if he wanted to embrace him. But, he knew that wouldn’t happen. Not till Thor came to terms that he was alive.

Loki was torn out of his reprieve as he heard the olden wooden doors open, and spill the light from the outside into the dusty wooden floor set out before him. The old doors reminded Loki of the doors of the Asgardian library where he spent most of his days reading and increasing his litany of spells that he knew. And, to hide from Thor of course. As he was always dragged into training, where as he rather be reading. Ah, those where the days.. Loki thought to himself as he reminisced on the constant pranks that he played on Thor and on his friends in their youth. He wondered what Frigga thought of the two of them now...the last two Asgardian’s living on Midgard...

Loki could sense that the Thunder God was growing restless as he remained inside the Inner Sanctum. He wasn’t hear for the things inside no, he was here for Thor. He would remain at Thor’s side till he actively acknowledged his presence. He frowned on the inside, not letting it show on his face. Thor thought that he was something that a enemy had created to cause him even more pain. But that was not the case. He was here and alive. He rose his hands in surrender as to show that he meant no harm, but as fate would have it, he had exposed a part of a drawn rune in Asgardian on his arm as he had walked out. Loki searched for anything in his brothers eyes as he stood close enough to touch him. He wanted to lay his hand on Thor’s shoulder, and tell him that it would be alright. But they both knew that it wasn’t going to be that easy..

[a. seemanni]

Thor took no notice of the runes they shared, more focused on Loki’s hands and face as he waited to pull the door to the sanctum shut quietly and mumble one last old Norse word. It was so quiet one would miss it if they weren’t listening. It had three meanings, depending upon how one used it, but now it meant seal; lock. Effectively, Thor had locked the Sanctum Sanctorum and anyone who wanted entry now would have to knock the door off of its hinges. Would have to disturb it, which meant Thor would know, and hell hath no fury like an angered thunder god. Electricity illuminated the cracks in the wood, the spell finally binding the extravagant townhouse.

With the ward complete, it was safe, and he turned to deal with the imposter which he had left at his back. Ostensibly because, at this point, anything willing to initiate and face off with the god would get the fight they were asking for, even if the outcome wasn’t what they wanted. He was at a point restraint was extremely conditional and nothing like that would go unpunished. It would be on-brand too, he thought, if the imposter were to attack from behind. Loki had done that before, he was sure. The memory was just buried. He didn’t have time to dig it up, nor the patience to deal with the pain the memory brought up - then again, pain was only relevant if it still hurt. He was hurting, but not because of that. He had lost everything in a second, and it had been all his fault.

Finally, he took note of the markings on the apparition’s exposed arm, glancing at his own discreetly. It couldn’t be. It had to be a mistake, or maybe they which had summoned the manifestation of the frost giant were watching him, testing him like this. If it were Loki, and he wasn’t believing it quite yet, it made sense that they were bound as the sole survivors of their people. It wasn’t him, though. Thor had watched him die and felt his pulse stop. That had been real, and he trusted that. The sun might shine on them again, but it wasn’t now. He’d see Loki in Valhalla and leave the lies to the liars on Midgard. At any rate, it didn’t look like this false mischief god was leaving him alone, so he turned and started back the way he’d come purposefully.

[∂αмє υмвяα]

The Trickster watched as the Thunder God locked the old wooden doors of the Sanctum Sanctorum with the limited amount of magic he contained within his veins. The old and battered doors danced with electricity as the enchantment finally took place in protecting the building from anything that would cause it harm. He could tell that the enchantment was strong, surprising the Trickster at how complex it was. For, he knew that Thor didn’t have the natural raw talent to have magic at his fingertips like he held. Perhaps he had studied magic in his feel time? The Trickster wondered silently to himself.

Idly standing by, the God of Mischief saw the Thunder God shift in his peripheral version as if the former would attack him from behind. ’As if I would want to,’ He thought to himself. ’That would be most unpleasant. I’d rather not do any harm if I can.’ He thought to himself. Just the fact that Thor had a vauge memory of him stabbing him from behind brought a small smile to the Trickster’s face. But it vanished as quickly as it had came for it was only a vauge memory; the rest was buried deep within the grief of lost and heartache at loosing everything that he had in just a few moments.

Loki saw the fleeting glance Thor gave to his wrist and then a glance to his own, trying to find some discrepancy between the two markings. There would be none, of course. As soulmates would have the same markings between the two individuals that would be together till deaths end. He saw a flicker of realization in the sky blue eyes as if he now accepted the fact that the two of them where bound together; being the last two of a race. But it faded as quickly as it came as he could feal Thor replaying him dying by the hands of the Mad-Titan. He’d prove to Thor that he was the real deal somehow, but he needed some time. But how much time did the Trickster have before Thanos attacked again? He realized that Thor had gone ahead and was down the street already. Was he always that fast? Loki wondered to himself as he quickly made his gait to match that of the
Thunderer.

[a. seemanni]

Thor was still angry, and why shouldn’t he be? It wasn’t fair. Of course, there were things that one could have but not keep, and he had always understood that life was one of these things that never stayed as long as you wanted it to but he had never imagined that he would be the last of a people, or that he would be tailed by what was, for all intents and purposes, a ghost that he knew by heart. He walked quickly, stopping every so often to pull an abandoned that was listing haplessly out of the lonely street so it could do no more damage or lift a body from the asphalt, alive or not, and move them to a safer spot beneath shade trees or upon benches - collateral damage that he could have averted. That he should have averted. Every so often he’d lift a broken form and hear it wheeze, a pitiful rattle, and feel its breath cease altogether. That, he thought, was certainly the worst sound one could ever hear. The expiration of a life, especially claimed before it was fated to be. That kind of thing was what kept him up at night, pacing and pretending he didn’t notice when Barton found himself testing his marksmanship alongside the waraxe that had been so painstakingly crafted at Nidavellir. The two targets were always destroyed when the two of them finished, a silence between them that said something was eating Clint too. They had a quiet understanding.

The whole of the city felt haunted, like it was a city of nothing, but Thor was not afraid; he was haunted, too. The specters were out in full force among the wreckage of the city, gouges torn in the asphalt and brick and concrete of buildings and roads that were slowly being healed by the local government. New York was licking its wounds, and he had seen it rise out of disaster before. It would rise again even in a situation where the world was holding its breath. Waiting on some signal from the universe that it was time to reunite what was divided and repair a history. Every now and then, the god king got the feeling that something was lurking nearby, ancient and unseen, but he could write that off on his own phantom; the apparition of the jotnar that hung at his left shoulder, almost like whoever constructed the cheap party trick double didn’t know he was a frost giant to begin with - and why should they, when he thought about it. Odin had kept the secret so well that he wouldn’t know if nobody had told him. He remembered the first time he heard the name Laufeyson. He also remembered the last. He had been about to make a joke about it at Loki’s expense when the ship was stormed, when his people were slaughtered, when -

Thor shook his head to clear it and looked over his shoulder, unsurprised to find the thing still tailing. He had no idea how long it intended to follow him, but they weren’t far from the tower where those who had not signed the accords before the world went to hell were claiming sanctuary. He was an obvious identity, but the power radiating off of a lanyard that swung suspiciously heavily from the pocket of his jeans marked him most definitely as the god of thunder. He thought it marked him as a god of failure, if he was honest. Why had he thought he could go through Thanos in one swing? To lop the arm of would have done the job, he could have put the blade through the titan’s skull a second after, but he had been too arrogant. Too focused on one task to see the bigger picture. “Whatever master you serve won’t be allowed into my hall. You had best give up this feeble jest.”