futurology | VIDEO. UN: LOKI

VIDEO. UN: LOKI

[ the sound of the wind storm hollows dully against the cave walls. Loki's squidge, Bacon, can half be seen crawling in the confines of his tacky green jacket and over his knee from where he sits, sometimes ducking and squeaking when a particularly large gust hits. to keep it from screaming, Loki offers his fingers absently, which the little squidge pulls on with its pudgy arms before ducking low again. ]

Hello there, it seems like we'll be waiting this out for some time considering the weather-type circumstances. While we're all rotting away, etcetera etcetera, I thought we could amuse ourselves with a game. A little bit of team bonding funtimes, so to say. [ he twists a dark nailed hand in the air, gesturing. ]

Soo—oo ... it's called Two Truths and a Lie. How do you play? Glad you asked, it's simple! Give two true statements about yourself and add a lie to the mix, shake it up then toss it out there and see if your team members know you well enough to spot the lie.

Usually this is done with copious amounts of alcohol, but we're lacking at the moment. [ pause. ] But—ah—you could always enjoy the satisfaction of being right. It's not like we're doing much else.

NOTE | Feel free to threadjack if that's your thing!! :****

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Ahh. It is, isn't it. [He looks down at the squidge he's got tucked into the sling on his chest. For all today's been a trial, looking after Ramir's squidge as well as his own, he can admit that he's grown attached.] And I don't suppose our illustrious employers will allow us glimpses back to see how they're doing, will they?

I suppose the best we can hope is that we've given them the start they'll need to make it here.

That would be cruel, wouldn't it? Put us through all this and never allow us to see how the worlds we're saving are flourishing.

[his tone becomes a bit dry] But then the aftermath of nearly anything can be quite messy before everything's allowed to settle.

[Evan makes an exasperated little noise.] That's true enough. I mean, Nalawi was kind of a disaster at the end.

Then again, they had a few people stay behind when the rest of us went back to Oska, to -- well, help the proverbial dust settle, actually. I wonder if they'll do something similar here? A little less god-killing going on on this one, but it'd be a hell of a thing to just... leave these little guys out here all at once.

[if he were the type to choke at comments, that one would have been worth a hairball. as he isn't, the dead silence on his end in the moment before he finds his voice almost as much.]

Sorry. God-killing?

[internally drags hands down his face.]

[That in turn earns a beat of incredulous silence from Evan. Lord, when are they going to start putting previous mission briefs in the introductory literature?!]

No one's told you about the Nalawi mission yet?

[Pardon him for stating the obvious.]

Edited (misspelled Nalawi, derp) 2016-08-12 00:55 (UTC)

Time was of the essence in sending me here. [listen to all the fun just go right out of his tone. he did not just put a kid THROUGH NEARLY LITERAL HELL for more deicide.] I'm sure it slipped their mind...

[The groan that Evan gives illustrates just what he thinks of that.]

Good fucking lord. I, honest to god, ALASTAIR has good intentions and I think their cause is worthwhile, but for a multi-universe-spanning organization they are so bad at being organized!

Okay. So. On Nalawi... okay I should back up a step. Much of our mandate here is to save worlds that are going through some form of energy depletion or another, because if a universe ends up too depleted of energy, well, it ends up like Oska: disintegrating into nothing more than a shard of itself. What energy quite dictates, and what is too little isn't exactly something we're told, but that's apparently the impetus.

On Nalawi, the problem was their gods. They were sucking their universe dry, so to speak -- not intentionally, for the most part, but they were. We had to find some way to -- to deal with the problem. We were more or less led to believe that the best way to do this was to kill the two gods, and so when the team voted, that's what they voted for.

[Evan's tone grows grim as he speaks, a rarity for the young man. He'd hated the end of the Nalawi mission, hated the necessity of it, more than anything hated the hanging implication that there could have been other ways to resolve the issue.]

You might guess there were pretty serious repercussions to deal with there. The resident sentient species lost the magic powers that had sustained their society. They were basically send back to the stone age by a decision that we swept in and made for them.

[he considers that for a long moment. it's a very complicated balancing act that particular land was beholden to, and he can't say for certain he wouldn't have agreed with the idea, himself, if there was no other viable option.

(except he would have worked his fingers to the bone to figure out another solution, but if one didn't present itself...)

he can't even say much to take offense to making decisions for a population- he would do that too if he thought he knew what was best, and he generally always knows best. he pays too much attention to the details to not.]

Repercussions would have existed for any potential end to something like that, but I can see where basically destroying an entire civilization in order to save it might not sit well.

[Why do you serve THAT THING, Aizen had asked him as he was struck down by the seal. Was there some other man or woman in Nalawi who would have looked upon ALASTAIR's recruits and told them about lynchpins? He can't know, and worrying about it won't do anything.

But it does make him wonder precisely what he's agreeing to, and makes him all the more eager to remain where he is. Someone needs to keep this operation in check.]

It didn't sit well at all.

[Evan's grim tone has given way to a dull frustration. It's past, the mission's over, but -- but the lessons learned linger and frustrate, tickle at his brain in ways he doesn't like.]

I mean, in the end, that part was necessary. The magic came from the gods, the gods were draining the world, the Nalawi people would have had to learn to live without the magic or the gods either way.

It was the killing, or, or I guess the jumping to that conclusion that bothers the hell out of me. We were given so little information until things had nearly gotten to a breaking point, and when we were given the directive to get rid of the goddesses, certain among our numbers took that as gospel that meant we had to murder them, took it upon themselves to brutally dismiss every other team member who might have had trepidation over the idea. And then what were the rest of us supposed to do? [He's speaking with passion now, swept up in the remembered fervour of the argument that had boiled over the last quarter of their stay in Nalawi.] If even just two people attacked the goddesses, we were all on the line.

[he remembers children standing against the entirety of soul society, dismantling customs that have been there, since eons, and suddenly he does know the other side of that, even if he wasn't physically present and merely set those cogs in motion. Soul Society endured. Nalawi, clearly, did not.

it's so damned complex and requires so little compassion or at least a schooled compartmentalization of that compassion. he's not going to make any real friends here when push comes to shove and he sees where the pieces should fall and damn anyone who disagrees. not that he cares too much about making friends or expects to keep them when they learn the truth.

but for now, that mission is only a hypothetical puzzle to be completed innocently in what-ifs and but-if-i's on his own time. it only looks like he has the moral high ground, because he has the benefit of having time and no risks to playing with the angles.]

I could understand it, if it proved that they wouldn't stand to be caged or relocated or even sealed.

[Benihime tuts gently in his head. Is that what we do to gods now, dear heart?]

To try nothing else... There must be some here with the quite the bloodlust.

[Evan makes a grim noise, and on the other side of the network he's making quite the face. But though it holds for long moments, it does pass, and he sighs and lets his shoulders slump.]

Yeah. Yeah, there were -- or, there still are. There were... I mean, on Nalawi there were two people in particular who really couldn't seem to let it drop. The one I talked to, the one I tried to talk some sense into -- he talked about killing gods the same way some people talk about -- I don't know, about vacuuming up spiders.

[He thinks of the fuss he's seen people put up about spiders in general, and shakes his head.] No, not even that. He talked about his destiny-granted right to kill gods like he was talking about winning a spelling bee. Like it was something he looked forward to, like it was something he was smug about.

That particular person is gone and I can't say it's a loss for the team.

[quietly, he's grateful himself. the word "shinigami" invokes a godlike image, after all, even if it's far from what they are. he wouldn't count on anyone who considered deicide a birthright to be all that interested in nuance.]

I wonder if that was intentional.

[because there's no such thing as a coincidence in his book.] It's hard to imagine that kind of attitude- whether or not it achieved a desired result- would be beneficial to anyone here.

[at least he openly admits he'll play by his own rules when it suits him, but never in such a crass way.]

No, it wasn't especially beneficial.

[Evan sighs, further tiredness creeping into his voice. Nalawi is an old enough frustration that the wound is not still raw, but he's gone and scratched the itch to bitch about it some more and it's all tumbling forth again. ]

I hope you're right about that.

Forgive me, but did I ever catch your name? [He doesn't think he has, but the nicety seems like a good endcap to a conversation that he's ready to gracefully bow out from. The squidges are squirming again, his and another that he's babysitting, and more than that, he's weary.]

Urahara Kisuke. [he's exceptionally astute, so he knows when a conversation has reached its expiration date, and he's happy to bow out himself and take this information to sort through.] Thank you for the information.

Evan Friave-Goodlace.

It's no problem. Feel free to ping me later, I mean, if there are other questions I can answer.

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VIDEO. UN: LOKI

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