Corner
Loki vs the Lokeans
I wake up aching and in a strange bed. No, it's worse than that; it's not just a strange bed, it's someone else's strange bed. In someone else's strange bedroom. The whole place stinks like human women, and when I manage to pry open one burning eye I'm greeted by the sight of an excruciatingly tacky purple tie-died sheet featuring a screen printed valknutr tacked to the ceiling.
Christ I can't move my arm.
Everything hurts, and if I concentrate I can feel my bones slowly trying to knit themselves back together. Shattered collarbone, broken arm, back fractured in multiple places, internal organs smashed into a thin slime; major damage, it was a long fall.
Eventually I manage to get some limbs to respond and the whole world rotates as I pull myself upright. More of the room comes into view; filled by the same tasteless New-Age-wannabe-Bronze-Age shit as the ceiling. A stick of dreadful, cheap incense smoulders chemically on a bedside table next to a grey resin box with a dragon curled in resigned bas-relief around the outside. Inside, the box is filled with completely inconsequential objects; a pair of antique dice, a random assortment of blooded bone runes, a collection of colourful tumbled stones. Random rubbish but it glows with devotion; someone's special collection. I rip the belief out of it almost without thinking, feeling the bones in my arm knit just a little bit tighter in response. When I close the lid, the dice have cracked, the stones seem a little less shiny and a faint smell of rot has started to seep out of the runes. At least I've got the use of my arm back.
The other bedside table has a bottle of scotch and a block of dark chocolate. The good kind, with 85% cocoa. The scotch is cheap and nasty, and tastes like fire when it goes down. Half the bottle vanishes before I'm feeling even remotely confident that I can stand, and even then it's mostly out of necessity; I need to find out where the fuck I am. I wish I was back home, curled up in my own bed, getting fawned over by my own wife... The thought sends a shot of panic through my gut which only intensifies when I realise I'm not carrying my cell phone. Or, for that matter, my wallet and keys; everything seems to have conveniently vanished out of my pockets.
That settles it then.
I'm steadier on my feet than I thought I would be, but I'm still grateful for my stupid tail which for once manages to counterbalance my weight and keep me reasonably upright. My back groans under the stress, and suddenly I feel really, really old. Nevertheless, I can move and after only a minimum of embarrassing stumbling I manage to get to the door. I can hear voices outside, women's voices, and every now and again I catch my own name. Great. Figuring it's now or never I throw open the door and step out into the short corridor beyond; the voices all abruptly stop, and by the time I emerge into the small, spartan living room I'm actually feeling not just a little bit self-conscious. I can feel four pairs of eyes burning uncomfortably along my scars, my face, my tail and the stitches in my lips. One of the women swallows heavily; I figure they must have bought me here, looking like I do, but I suppose handling something unconscious is a fair bit different to staring that same thing down in someone else's dingy little apartment.
No-one speaks. They all want to.
"Three questions." They all baulk slightly at the sound of my voice, then at my hand as I raise three bloodied claws. "Anything you want. Ask."
For an instant it seems like no-one is going to reply, but finally a teenage girl with red-streaked hair and a V for Vendetta t-shirt -- the comic, not the film -- blurts out, "Are you Loki?" As soon as she says it she looks away, cheeks flushed to match her hair.
"Yes," I tell her, because it's true and they seem to have figured it out anyway. They're Lokeans; every last one of them. It's something a god can smell a mile off. "And it's pronounced Laufeyjarson. Lau-fae-ya'sun. Next."
"Are you... all right?" This from a slightly dumpy thirtysomething with librarian glasses and way too many cheap pewter knock-off amulets. From the smell of it, this is her house.
I just give a shrug. "Not really but I've had worse. Thanks for the scotch, there's nothing else you can really do." I answer her unasked question, too.
A short, mousey woman looks about to speak with another -- tall, thin, black hair, modded AFI t-shirt -- chips in. "Where are my socks?"
I don't even pretend to hide the groan, the rolled eyes or the scathing look. "Why the fuck would I know? What is it with humans and your obsession with thinking that everything that happens is directly the result of someone actively targeting you for persecution?" I shake my head. "Look under the fucking agitator like everyone else."
I can't tell if the look on the girl's face is outrage or humiliation, and I almost feel bad for her until I notice the slightly smug looks on the faces of the other women. I get the impression she's one of those heathens; the ones that stick to neo-pagan re-constructionist religions like flies on shit, young, angry and not quite as clever as they think. Don't get me wrong, I love the little cunts but damn they're painful.
I take a swing from the half-empty scotch bottle. "Okay, it's my turn. First, where the fuck am I?"
"This is my house," says librarian-glasses, somewhat unnecessarily in my opinion. She catches my flat state and hurriedly continues, "In Boston, Massachusetts. Er, USA."
Boston? Christ that's a whole country away from where I should be, though I suppose all things considered it's not too bad. At least I didn't wind up back in Iceland. Fuck I hate Iceland.
"Second question; like every other person on the planet I had a wallet, some keys and a cell phone. I currently don't. If anyone happened to helpfully stash these things away for me temporarily, now is the time to bring them out again."
A wave of panic suddenly rolls through the women and they all exchange glances. Eventually, librarian-glasses -- who seems to be the de facto group leader -- says, "No-one here would have--"
I wave her off. "Okay, but if I start getting charges on my credit card someone is going to be in big trouble." That brings another round of nervous glances. "Finally," I continue, "what the hell happened?"
They fill me in. Apparently they'd been holding a blot for what the tall skinny one calls 'Lokiday' and everyone else in the universe knows as April Fool's. They're about a week out, and V explains it's because she'd been visiting relatives with her parents and only just got back. They seem almost oddly ashamed about that but it eases somewhat when I don't rain fire and wrath down upon their houses for not honouring me on the correct day. Or whatever. Anyway, the story doesn't progress much further than that; they'd been performing the ritual retelling of Lokasenna when they heard an odd sound -- that would've been me screaming I guess, but I don't say as much -- and their bonfire exploded. When they'd all picked themselves back up again, they'd found me. A brief argument had followed, the end result of which was that I'd ended up here. That had been almost two weeks ago.
"Two weeks!" I think my jaw almost hits the ground. "I've been lying here for two weeks?"
They start looking apologetic again before I can stop them. "Y-you were badly injured." Miriam, librarian-glasses is called Miriam. "We... we didn't know what else to do."
It's not like they could've taken me to the hospital. For the first time I notice that the quiet one, Carol, has her hands wrapped up in bandages. She goes scarlet when she notices me noticing.
"You were bleeding," Miriam says, and I nod. I feel like apologising. I don't.
After a moment, I tear my eyes off the bandages. When I speak, my words are slow. "Was there anything else? When I came down. Anything else you've noticed since then?"
The women all glance at each other before slowly shaking their heads. "You're the weirdest thing we've seen in days," says the tall one. Her real name is Stephanie, but she's quite insistent that everyone call her Taylor. Some kind of trendy genderqueer thing. The other women glare at her for the comment, but I ignore it; worry gnawing ferociously somewhere inside.
Without really thinking about it I reach into my pocket, but of course my fingers only find lint. Frowning, I say, "I need to use your phone."
I call Sigmund. He's worried about me but tries not to show it, and I lean back in Miriam's old desk chair comfortably for a while, just letting the sound of his voice wash over me. I still hurt. I'm trying like hell not to show it, but everything is taking too much effort and the cold dead of oblivion is still looking quite attractive. That or my own warm bed. For a moment I think about calling Elijah and getting a jet chartered to take me home, but I just can't quite bring myself to do it. Can't quite bring myself to not care about...
No-one's seen it. That doesn't mean it isn't here.
"--ki. Loki!"
"Huh? Sorry, what?"
"I asked if you're all right."
"Oh." I shrug, the useless motion not achieving much other than sending a sharp stab of pain down my broken shoulder. "I've had worse."
"It's just you called me the other day, and--"
"Wait, what?" I hate this part. I really, truly do.
I think Sigmund does as well, and his voice falters a bit. "The other day, I got a call from you but I didn't pick it up in time. You didn't leave a message, and when I tried to call back it went to voicemail."
I slump forward with a loud groan, forehead in hand. Sigmund calls my name down the phone, hesitantly. I get to the point. "I've been unconscious for the last two weeks and I currently can't find my phone."
"Ah," he says, and I can practically feel his scowl from here. "If it happens again?"
"Call me back." Then after a moment, "On this number." I don't bother trying to find it for him; I called his cell phone, after all, and he's not an idiot.
"All right. You be careful out there." It's not what he wants to say.
"I will." Which is not what I want to say either, really, but the other is too foreign, too painful, and so we both let it slide. I hang up with a resounding, old-fashioned thunk -- I haven't seen a phone like this one since circa 1985 -- and for a moment just lean back, fingers boring tightly against my eyes as a defeated groan escapes my lips.
(I want to go home I want to go home Iwanttogohomeiwanttogohomewanttogohomewantto)
It's a couple of minutes before I can force my broken body to move again, and I make the short trip from the study into the small kitchen, still decorated in the kind of fluorescent green and orange lino that looked very modern back in the 1970s. Miriam is there, fussing about with chips and cupcakes and a jug full of orange Tang. I hate orange Tang.
I eat a chip. Miriam gasps when she see me.
"I thought this would be easier for you." I answer her unspoken question, Lain's voice slightly smoother and younger. "Plus I, uh, don't hit my horns on the doorframes."
She giggles slightly, and goes back to laying out the salsa. I think about offering to help, but in the end don't bother, instead grab another handful of chips and wander back out into the den where Taylor is watching The Simple Life with a kind of faux-postmodern disapproval. She looks up and pouts a little. "I liked the tail. So hot."
I throw myself down on an ancient and obviously fourth-hand couch and shrug, licking the last of the unconvincing cheese-and-onion salt from my fingers. "Where are the others?"
"They went to get pizza." She's not really paying attention to her voice, instead studying me with a kind of calculated voraciousness which is making me not just a little bit nervous. "This might be a dumb question, but like, aren't you supposed to be bound until Ragnarok or something?"
Her pronunciation is terrible. "Yes," I say, because it's true.
When it becomes apparent that I'm not going to elaborate, she says, "So, like, what happened?"
I don't bother to disguise the sigh, or the irritated way I rub at my already-aching head. I always dread this, the Inevitable Explanation. It's a simple story but there's still something about it which makes me want to hold back; because at the end of the day, it's still my story. Few people know what happened, and that means it's a memory, not a myth. I need to hold on to that -- at least for a little while longer. Need to hold on to Sigyn's death and my release and years in the wilderness and Sigmund and Baldr and everything that makes me me; what little part I have control over, the part that's not warped and twisted and changed by human minds and tellings and re-tellings and I know -- I just know -- that anything I reveal to this boy-girl will be all over fucking MySpace within five minutes. She'll shout it from the rooftops, telling everyone who will listen she's had a Divine Revelation and that her god is loose in the world.
She just blinks at me, my reluctance to speak meaning nothing in the face of what she believes. She's a Lokean, all right -- believes her to be right down to the very core -- but I am not the god she worships, not the god she wants me to be; too cold, too cruel, too uncaring of her and her desires and her wishes and the lust the rolls out of her in a way that makes my skin crawl and my cold black hearts wish for the buffering presence of Sigmund by my side. She wants me, all right. She wants me like Odin wanted me; shackled and chained and begging to acquiesce to her every whim, to justify her selfish belief in her own uniqueness. The desire is a common one and I recoil from it with instinctive terror, glad for the presence here of the other women, glad for my own burning potency that makes me immune -- though alas not oblivious -- to her trap.
"The Ragnarok happened," I state eventually, careful to keep my voice flat and bored. I think I almost succeed.
She almost looks disappointed by that, a deep scowl cutting across her forehead as she comes to the next logical conclusion. "Weren't you supposed to, like y'know, die?"
This time, the flatness in my stare isn't an act. "Oh come on; I have no heartbeat and look like a walking corpse and you still ask that question?"
"Oh." She studies her hands again momentarily, fingernails alternating between chipped black and chipped yellow lacquer. "I guess that makes sense." She's silent for a while and I all-but hear something in her head just go... thunk. "I think I kinda knew, you know. I... yeah, I knew. All those people who think you're this tiny skinny elf-thing... that never worked for me. I was always, 'No way my Loki looks like that! He's a giant! A monster.'" She looks up at with with a painful expression of deranged pleading. "We've always had this connection, you know. I can feel you here"-- she puts her hand over her heart --"calling to me. And... I can feel her, too. I always thought--"
(Danger! Danger, Will Robinson!)
"Okay, that's enough." I make a sharp, chopping motion with my hand. "I get it, I get it. It's not enough that you have to believe in some crackpot reconstructionist New Age bullshit cult, but you've gotta make up stories about how you've got this extra special magical soul-link to its god. How you always know, deep in your little heart of hearts that he favours you over all others, he watches over you, and cares for you, and knocks your pictures off the wall and fucks you in your sleep at night because you're so. Fucking. Special.. You think you're the only one who thinks like that? The only one who's dying to be 'special'? Just for the record; you are no different to anyone else. You're not some reincarnated spirit, we don't have some special link and I haven't been hovering around you your whole life bending to your every wish."
For a moment she just stares at me, and there's an instant of panic when I think that not even my ranting is going to get through to her. It's nothing she hasn't heard before, of course, but maybe I figure coming from me it might actually...
I can see it when her whole world crumbles; something about her just goes dead and cold and I can't even feel her in the room any more, not like a god should be able to feel a believer. I stare her down, unblinking, daring her to contradict me and for a moment it looks like she's about to try. Then she's gone; out the door with a slam loud enough that it really does knock a picture off the wall. For a moment I just sit there, thinking about yet another thing I've destroyed and whether or not I can bring myself to care.
Eventually, I sigh. "Go on, say it."
Miriam steps hesitantly out from where she was hiding just beyond the doorway to the kitchen. "That was cruel." She puts the tray of food down in front of me, and I help myself to another handful of chips.
"I'm a cruel kinda guy."
She looks nervously between me and the door several times. "I feel I should go after--"
"She'll meet Carol and V on her way out; they'll look after her."
Miriam looks relieved in more ways than one, and sits herself down carefully on the couch next to me. "Taylor..." She stops, unsure of how to continue. "We're not stupid," she says eventually. "But Taylor is one of us, and..." Sighing, she takes a handful of celery sticks from the plate. "She thinks she has this kind of, I dunno, soul-link to Sigyn. I'm not sure how she think it works but--"
I grin ruefully. "I've seen them before; the internet is crawling with the damn things."
"Everyone wants to feel special."
"It's not all it's cracked up to be, you know. I spent fifty years trying to escape being 'special'." I'm still trying, when it comes down to it, and a wave of mournful homesickness washes across me.