9218/Asgard's Requiem: Brink of Restoration

Asgard's Requiem: Brink of Restoration
Date of Scene:	16 September 2019
Location:	Asgard
Synopsis:	Sif assists Loki's magical weaving.
Cast of Characters:	Loki, Sif
Tinyplot:	Asgard's Requiem

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Loki has posed:
Much of the land of Asgard has been reformed. Peaks of mountains in the background, waterfalls flowing through the land, the sparkling seas. The plants have started to grow and return, on both land and in sea, though there are no other forms of life above them, not yet. And the sense of the world is unstable: unformed, unfinished, unready for their boots to be upon it.

So much of the world is still lacking: the winds are turbulent, hot. The earth has tremors. Indeed, a tremor just shook the world, so heavy is it that it knocked even the agile to their knees.

Loki himself had already taken a knee, pretending to brush a hand over the grass, but it was more to save energy in his current state. The tremor made him sit back hard in the grass, and he rests one palm down on the bits of new grass, the other against one knee. His illusion seems to have dropped away at some point, again, for whatever reason.

Sif has posed:
Sif herself has taken a knee after the last tremblor rocks the planet around them. Even the rattling of the leaves on their branches and limbs against one another is a symphany in a difficult rebirthing. With a palm pressed to the earth, she considers the newly-sprouted blades of green grass with something akin to a pained reverence. Her gaze rises and she scans the world around them again, wisps of loose dark hair bannering across her face.

"It struggles," she breathes, " -- but there is such life." Her eyes shift to the Trickster beside her and she thins her lips. "You have done much today, Loki. Even the strongest must rest. Allow me to take the burden of bringing us to the Sanctum next. I can do it, though it stretches my own strength in turn."

To spare any thought of his wounded (literally) pride, the Goddess look away again, towards the distant twinkle of cascading water from a high tumult of foothilly ranges. "I have hope yet for our home."

Loki has posed:
Loki ignores her at first , and unwraps some of the bandaging from his left hand. He needed the finesse of the fingers. Exposing the wounds makes the injury itself more apparent: It isn't as if something attacked him from the outside, but something from within, some deeper magical weapon inside the very veins there became so caustic as to rupture out of the skin.

"I need to stabilize it again," Loki says, tone emotionlessly focused. There's no snideness to it, because he lacks the energy to bother with that. A spell is cast, quiet words pulling on strands of the hot wind. Ovals appear around and above him, strands of magic pulled from the portal-like ovals; the strands of misty silver begin to spiral into the wind, like seeds from plants, scattering around them. It's beautiful, those sparks.

"It can't sit in-between, like this, for long," Loki says, suppressing a tremor through his casting hand.

Sif has posed:
Unable to resist glancing over at motion in her peripheral vision, Sif lets out a near-silent hiss to remonstrate the mage-god. She can see he's wounded just as well as she could before, in the Sanctum when he demonstrated his wonderous task to her in the temporary solarium. She remains on one knee and looks up at the argent winklings appearing in the air with her lips parted in appreciation.

The lack of emotion, however, in the Trickster's voice has her frowning back at him again, the temporary awe banished. "Allow me to assist you, Loki." A palm outstretched towards him doesn't dare breach the boundaries of his castings. Though the Goddess of War wields a sword, she knows better than to interrupt magic in the act at risk of backlash. "You know my line carries the seed of magic, even if it never sprouted in my veins." The offer is to draw power from her person in turn, she of the lustrous midnight-dark hair and cool blue eyes.

Loki has posed:
Loki flicks his gaze towards her lazily, after another set of adjustments to his spell. It has a touch of Loki's more usual arrogance: suggestive that he's not in dire straights at the moment. Loki collapses the magic near him, by first gesturing upwards with both palms, fingers spread apart, as if he'd throw the whole of the magic up into the sky. Indeed, the threads rise, the net lifted.

"Come sit there, then," Loki says, with a nod of his head towards the grass at his left knee. "Though take care: give too much, and we'll see your hair turn stark white," teases the trickster.

Sif has posed:
"It would be silver, not white," the Princess argues without much heat as she stands to take the few strides necessary to close the distance between them. "And it would be a reversal towards my previous color, would it not?" After all, Sif had glorious golden locks before she was well and truly punk'd those hundreds of years back.

"Nor would it be a sleight upon my person. I might get more respect yet. Imagine, the courts venerating me for my wisdom." If accused of smiling the slightest, the woman might take offense, even if there is a moonbeam's worth of a curve to her lips. She settles beside Loki to take up a graceful, poised lotus seating with her palms resting down upon her knees. Beneath her armor, her chest rises and falls in a sigh. Then the hand closest to Loki inverts to offer up her palm to him for him to grasp if necessary to open the conduit to the depths of power within the Goddess.

Loki has posed:
"As one such venerated, I can assure you it is often an improvement," Loki answers, always up to a little bit of wordplay, even if he's opening up the injuries on his hand. He looks at her hand but doesn't actively touch her. The spell he continues, though: she'll feel it, as she's within the magical net woven.

It is less of a net or a trap, and more as if he were pulling strands together, untangling knots in the area around them. So much was created, and it was starting to fall apart, to tip and twist, and he's doing a little to draw back some of that. It isn't that he's finding order, though: 'order' is the wrong word. And Loki rarely seeks order.

More that things are being set towards productive aim, instead of destructive. Making something, not seeing it corrode. "I'm not going to finish Asgard tonight," Loki chuckles dryly. "Just remove a few... knots from the tapestry," Loki adds. He returns to the focus, and clearly draws from her: he's not going to ignore an offer like /that/.

Sif has posed:
With her eyes gone half-lidded in a focus not upon her immediate surroundings but on attaining a direction of energy towards his efforts, Sif doesn't answer immediately. Rather, she continues to leave the one hand palm-up upon her knee, flower-like in its gentle curling of fingers, and wills the semi-dormant magical influence towards it.

"Wise, not pressing the recovery of the land. The rush of a healer's wishing can sometimes compromise the knitting of a bone," she murmurs, her voice hollow and detached from her surroundings. When he attends upon the Warrior's offer again, she gasps the slightest. It feels...not like a bleeding wound, but there's a slippery sensation of pins and needles moving down her arm. Sif steels herself because it's not painful -- simply different -- and cycles through breathing with meditative control.

Loki has posed:
"I know. I've healed enough bones," Loki snaps a little. The unspoken thing is 'hush, I'm trying to concentrate now', not that she could have known that, since he was just talking. It's a natural little lashing out related to that it's difficult, and soon enough Loki's done. The magic pulls back down, and Loki draws his hands in. If he was standing, the behavior that follows would be tired, woozy even, but he masks that from Sif by turning his face away, and watching some of the distant mountains.

"No quakes. Good sign. As good as it gets for now." Loki sets his hands in his own lap, while his pride and will keep him going for the moment. And then... well.

Loki stretches and lays back in the grass on his back. "I'm not dead. Give me a few moments," Loki says curtly.

Sif has posed:
Like fog burning off of water, Sif can feel the attention of the mage's focus slip away from the sensation of tingling at her palm. Fingers close upon themselves once and then flex, and again, stretching tendons somehow made vaguely sore by the procedure. Her eyes fully open, having fallen shut during the oddly indeterminable time spent in commune. Her tutor those many hundreds of years ago would be pleased -- either that, or Loki was able to make easy use of a rudimentary gesture of aid.

She considers his profile and then too averts her gaze. A glance comes of his commentary and she then shakes her head slowly. The purpled mountain ranges many miles away make for an appropriate tapestry for her attention.

"Of course. You still have the strength to speak. You could not be dead," the Goddess replies lightly.

Loki has posed:
"Yes, it's a good thing I have just limitless magical power," Loki chuckles, eyes still closed. He sits up a little, though, just to shift, and rest back again. He doesn't appear exhausted, though Loki often buffers to appear stronger than he is. Then again, in his way, he is stronger than he usually exerts, or bothers with, so how much of that is a lie?

"That said, I'm approaching the second half of this in a better way. Even if I would, of course, give my life for Asgard - no reason to do so if it isn't necessary."

Loki turns more fully, to sit up, and start to rise.

Sif has posed:
"I can imagine that your brother, for one, would be deeply distressed if he found you a shrunken, lifeless husk for your efforts. It would not be worth the cost of this world." The latent note of teasing isn't found in the dark-haired Goddess's words this time as she looks back to Loki again.

With a small grunt of effort herself, the Princess rises to her feet. A hand is again offered out to the Trickster God, in case he needs it. "And how do you intend to streamline the reformation of Asgard? It seems to me to require a delicate hand, to thread a needle and finely stitch."

Loki has posed:
"I don't mean to sound condescending with my explanation," Loki says, pressing his eyes closed for a long beat. He also waves away her hand to help him up, in his usual way of disliking anyone taking pity on him.

"But I will if I explain it through my current headache, Sif." Loki smirks at his joke, which isn't a joke, really, at all. He stays seated there in the grass for a time. "I /will/ say that the method I am using to direct the energy of the creation was a single step process, with the power sources close to my own ... and I think I'm going to redirect them /away/ from myself now. Less control, but this is a little ridiculous," he says, snorting at his injuries.

A bored yawn passes over Loki's face. It's not bored, really, it's exhaustion, but he's coating it in boredom. Better to not look weak. Ever. Certainly not in front of the war heroes, of which Sif is one. "I think I'll head back. Staying here?" Loki asks.

Sif has posed:
A wisp of a snort leaves the Goddess. She takes a moment to surveil their surroundings before looking back down at Loki. "While your efforts are gaining beauty, I do not find the state of the world comforting just yet. It is in the throes of creation. That, and I would hate to be awoken repeatedly from any form of rest by earthquakes."

With the Trickster God having sat up entirely, his shoulder is within reach of her fingertips. They stretch towards it and she warns him with, "I will be transporting us back to Midgard. I believe I will be able to aim our arrival upon your front steps. Your fine manor is likely warded against my intrusion in this manner, I would think."

Four fingerpads alight upon the upper round of his black silk-covered arm and with a blink, they've arrived back in Greenwich Village. The evening air is colder these days, but perhaps soothing after the dry and tumultuous hot winds of the recovering world of Asgard.

"We have arrived. I would not rest upon your stoop, you might find yourself answering difficult questions from the Midgardian military-warriors who patrol in the night." Her suggestion is accompanied by the smallest of smiles. "Perhaps they will spare you, dressed as you are in your finery."

And on that note, Sif saunters down the steps to the sidewalk and away, her form vanishing yet again in another blink of an eye.