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Post by Kitexa on Jun 11, 2012 2:46:49 GMT -5
Loki twitched, a string of bitterness crawling across his heart. "It is not an issue of effort." He muttered, one hand at his side curling into a fist. If only..if only it WERE just lacking effort. But no, he had put his very heart into his latest actions; "trying harder" was but a fantasy too ideal to call his own.
Mischief makers do not reap rewards. They receive only what they sow. Life in exchange for life. A god in exchange for a massacre.
He stood then, abruptly, and moved to the glass walls of the building. The cold demeanor he'd summoned slipped away, gazing out into the night with an aching regret. How he wished he could have shown her...given her more than one night of intimate passion. Natasha deserved so much greater than himself, and yet she chose to call him her partner. Her lover. He, who had wronged so many...
It happened so quickly it failed to register at first; calm, collected moodiness slid further down the emotional spectrum until his shoulders began to shake and his vision began to blur and suddenly a tear, then another, tricked down the sides of his face.
It wasn't fair...it wasn't fair...
He didn't want to go just yet...
He didn't want to die.
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Post by Namacub95 on Jun 11, 2012 3:11:48 GMT -5
Emily cringed, she had said exactly the wrong thing. She opened her mouth to apologise and try to back track but Loki was already on his feet and walking away from her. She hadn't meant to insult him, accidentily or not, and shame started to creep into her chest.
Was that how you repaid someone who had saved your life?
She watched him for a moment, trying to judge when it would be best for her to approach him and try to make amend for her unintentional insult. She noticed him slump somewhat and his shoulders beginning to shake. She knew what that meant and that really surprised her. He was sad...when he thought no one could see him. She definately knew what that meant.
She slipped off the couch after a moment and silently padded towards him. She wanted to say something, anything, but she felt her throat constricting. She didn't want to believe her own assessment. She had to be wrong. Loki was a god. Gods didn't just die. He looked fine to her, a little disheveled and a little sickly but not like he was on death's doorstep.
"Loki?" She surprised herself at how level her voice sounded when she wanted to scream at him to tell her she was wrong. She reached up and touched his shoulder tentitively, only to try and soothe him because seeing him like this made her want to weep too.
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Post by Kitexa on Jun 11, 2012 3:25:35 GMT -5
It isn't fair it isn't fair it isn't FAIR...
Over and over the words played in his head, a broken record for a broken man that had lost everything but his own life and now that, too, was sifting through his fingertips and there was nothing anyone could do and it wasn't bloody fair!
His forehead touched the glass barrier between himself and the night sky above, face pinching in a rare, disheveled hopelessness. Emily's gesture went noted, appreciated somewhere amidst this emotional onslaught, but ultimately...it did no good. What could she do? What in Odin's name could one sympathetic gesture do for a man doomed to an early grave? More tears escaped his eyes. An audible sob punctuated the air, arms wrapping around himself; those three words growing louder, faster, driving his skull like a hammer to a nail. It'snotfairit'snotfairit'snotfair..."It's n-not fair..." he stammered, shivering beneath his robe. "I-I do not wish to die..."
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Post by Namacub95 on Jun 11, 2012 4:16:08 GMT -5
"I know." Emily bit her lip to stop herself from crumbling too "I know."
She couldn't cry. She couldn't break. It was almost frightening to watch as Loki let his despair in all it's intensity show. She wanted to stop it. She wanted to be able to wipe away whatever was draining the life from him...but she couldn't she was only mortal. Maybe if she had known sooner, maybe if she had gone to see Loki as soon as she had recovered instead of waiting then perhaps...perhaps she might have...
She bit her lip harder to try and regain some control on her emotions. Sometimes not everyone could be saved.
"How...How long h-have you known?" the tremor in her voice betrayed how difficult she was finding it to keep herself calm "There's got to be another way. There has to be some way..."
Another way. The typical Time Lord mentality. There had to be some way that didn't involve death. There was always some way to walk away from a situation and not have a life lost. She wanted to believe there was a way. She wasn't going to accept that death was the only way that this could end.
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Post by Kitexa on Jun 11, 2012 14:05:18 GMT -5
Silence followed Emily's response, not trusting himself with a stable answer. There WAS no way out, Time Lord or not; the source of his ailment stemmed from a power source foriegn to too many a realm. Even his father, who knew of ithat cursed device's name and origin, could do nothing to permanently subdue the poison gnawing away at his life.
How Many midgardian years did he have left? Two? Ten? Enough to start life anew after his prison sentence ended?
Would there be enough time to see her again?
At last, the god pulled away from the glass, though his eyes remained glazed, adrift. "I-I..." Loki said shakily, struggling to reign his composure back in "...h-have known far longer that I-I...care to remember. The c-confines I wore in Asgard sped up the...the process; I nearly..." an unsteady inhale "I am...still standing now because I-I retain my Asgardian powers...without them, I would already b-be..." his voice cracked. "they slow the process down...but I-I am still living on time that will not last."
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Post by Namacub95 on Jun 11, 2012 14:43:27 GMT -5
"You mean...you've been...this whole time?" she couldn't help the small hitch at the last word. Time. Something that was running out.
She remembered back to the first time she had encountered Loki in person, when her doppelgänger had sprung him from his Asgardian prison in a convoluted plan to rid the world of her, James and the Avengers in one swoop. Of course, that had only ended in Loki killing her. Even then? He hadn't seemed romotely ill then...but he also seemed terrifying to her.
But things had changed since then. She and Loki were friends now and her doppelgänger was nothing but a ghost haunting the fringes of her mind.
"Do...do you think that maybe...maybe someone in Asgard can help? They wouldn't let you die, right?" she knew it was a desperate hope but it was a desperate time.
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Post by Kitexa on Jun 11, 2012 16:50:19 GMT -5
So desperatly did Loki desire to tell her yes, yes there was, yes there did and he was going to be just fine.
He wasn't. And thus, he could do no such thing.
The god shook his head, rubbing his eyes with the base of his hand. "Do you not think I-I have asked?" Loki said with a desolate smile. "The Asgardian people posess many a gift but there is nothing yet av-available to counterract the poison in my body..." Shoulders sagged again, both hand balling into frustrated fists. Frustrated with this bloody dead end...frustrated with himself. If only he hadn't been so foolish...if only he'd bothered to THINK everything through intead of falling victim to vile, power-driven madness. The god of mischief, silver tongue...the one damned god in the whole kingdom who THOUGHT before he acted and yet still he fell to the lesser idiocies.
"...I am such a fool..." green-eyed man murmured, finally looking away from the night sky. "I should have known better, I should have used my head I-I should have left that cursed Tesseract alone..."
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Post by Namacub95 on Jun 11, 2012 17:14:35 GMT -5
"They're just going to let you die?" Emily felt anger rising in her chest, she didn't understand. Yes, Loki had made some mistakes in the past...some very large mistakes but hadn't he suffered enough already? Why put him through more misery by condemning him to an early grave? "They can't do that! It's not--It's not right."
The Tesseract. Somehow everything seemed to come back to that damned cube. It was such a small thing, just big enough to sit in the palm of a hand...who knew it would be able to do so much damage? If she had known, she would have destroyed it a long time ago.
There had to be a way forward from this. More and more doors were closing, escape routes were becoming inaccessible. Emily could feel the despair and rage that seemed to have settled itself over Stark Tower. She wanted to give in and scream her frustrations to the sky or cry or do both but she didn't. She forced all her emotions down and focused on Loki.
He needed someone right now.
"You didn't know. Nobody knew." she tried to soothe him but it just sounded false and she cringed.
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Post by Kitexa on Jun 11, 2012 19:12:30 GMT -5
Perhaps it was her tone of voice that made him glance sadly at her. Maybe he simply feared his thoughts would drag him too far down should he stay inside his head.
"What would you do?" He asked hoarsly, "if you were I...what would you do if you had something to live for but-but no garruntee you'd ever...get to see them again?"
(blah, short post is short.)
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Post by Namacub95 on Jun 12, 2012 17:01:50 GMT -5
Emily was silent for a moment, her eyes down on her feet and then back up meeting Loki's gaze.
Only a few weeks previously, their roles had been reversed. She was the one dying and he was the one trying to comfort her. Maybe some god up there in Asgard loved the irony of the situation. Her liking for them was reaching an all time low. If they could turn Loki away so callously, after he had proven that he was a changed man, then they didn't deserve whatever worship they had once or were receiving from them.
"I'd make every moment count." she said finally "And tell them that I love them because that's what I'd want them to remember when I was gone. That I loved them."
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Post by Kitexa on Jun 12, 2012 17:15:58 GMT -5
A melancholic calm glossed over his face, and he broke away from her gaze, returning to the florescent nightscape beyond the tower's window. "The only thing I failed to do..." he murmured, vision filling with memories from hours before. He knew she knew he cared...he'd proven that alone by showing up to speak with her...let alone the events transpiring after. He had never held anyone like that...kissed or...touched another being the way he had Natasha. Someone so strong-willed, so fiercely beautiful...had seemed so soft, fragile...womanly...a side she showed not a soul, but tore down the walls to let him in.
Yet throughout it all...never once were those three words spoken between them.
Slowly, his gaze trailed back to the Time Lord's daughter, and this time, a small, sad, but sincere smile graced his lips. "Is it really so important to say it? Surely...one's actions may speak for themselves?"
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Post by Namacub95 on Jun 12, 2012 17:36:48 GMT -5
"You can...but sometimes people need to hear it." Emily replied, a sad smile on her face.
She could tell that Loki's mind was in another place entirely, maybe he was thinking of someone or maybe he was just tired. She knew the feeling. She still wished she could save him but she knew that not everyone could be saved. Loki deserved a chance to live, he had come so far in a short amount of time. He'd become a better man by far...and now his life was growing shorter by the day.
"I hope that you get to have more time with that person, I really do." she found herself saying "It's good to know that there's someone out there who'll remember."
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Post by Kitexa on Jun 17, 2012 21:54:27 GMT -5
For a long time, Loki said nothing, thoughts presiding over present and distracting the green-eyed god. "Love is for children" she had said...a word tossed about like a game of midgardian catch with no meaning other than good intent. And his intentions...he had made them very clear, as she had hers, though that word had not once been uttered between them.
...and yet...
"Emily..." Loki said softly, a finality evident in his tone. "...I have little time left before I return to Asgard to face my punishment...but there is something I-I'd...like you to do for me before I go, if you're willing."
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Post by Namacub95 on Jun 18, 2012 16:05:14 GMT -5
The silence was thick, Emily wrapped her arms around herself in a kind of self hug as if to lock all her feelings inside her chest to prevent the full weight of the situation from showing. She half expecting Loki to snap at her for saying the wrong thing. Instead there was only silence and Emily was almost afraid to look up at Loki do instead she looked at her toes.
Finally Loki's voice made her look up at him. She hadn't missed the tone in his voice, the hint that this could be the last conversation that would ever pass between them, she wanted to open her mouth to insist that it wasn't the end...but her words would be meaningless. Nothing but wind and words.
"Anything." she said almost immediately. She couldn't deny him this request it may be the last kind deed she could do for him since there was no way she could help him to live "Just say what you want me to do and I'll do it."
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Post by Kitexa on Jun 29, 2012 16:00:46 GMT -5
The god's face twisted into a pained smile; eyes tore away from the glass to rest on her. "Take me back to her." He croaked. "There is something more I must do before I leave." His eyes shifted back towards the door. "I will tell you where to go, if you are willing..." I just need to tell her I care before I die...
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