please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste

[laevisilaufeyson]

Who: Anyone. Everyone.
When: Afternoon of Day 11.
What: Crashing the box opening party, and everything else.
Where: Anywhere. Everywhere.

((Note: Please read the related ooc post before responding.))

If all were right, if the scale were appropriate, the sound would be uproarious. The crack of stone would be deafening, so loud as to be tangible, a kick to the chest. If all were right... but when is it ever?

In the end the growing fissure makes hardly a sound at all. No breeze stirs, no sign at all is made of the immensity of what has just occurred, and if the observers standing about hold their breaths, it isn't because they know. It isn't because they've any idea of what they've done, of how they have so neatly severed the threads of fate, have broken, it seems, a universal constant.

Such an event deserves more than the faint clatter of stone chips on the ground, more than the low grind and scrape as the box begins to unfurl. It gets no more, however. No more than that, as the first rays of light begin to penetrate its inner gloom, falling upon a hand, palm-up, fingers lightly curled. A pale hand and bony, long-fingered, filthy, the nails grown long.

A wrist, smeared with something dark, something that has dried at the edges and begun to flake away, much, very much like dried blood. Blood, perhaps, from what twines sinuously about that wrist, binding it down to the stone upon which it rests: viscera, by the look, by the smell. Intestines, if they are as they appear, glistening faintly as they catch the light.

So on up a thin arm, slow, slow as a wet gasping becomes faintly audible and the fingers of the hand twitch. A figure comes into view, a bare torso, back bent, shoulders and hips tied with the same fleshy coils as the wrist. His head, too, is bound in place, face turned upwards towards a serpent carved from the same stone as the box, arching elegantly above him, fangs bared just inches above the bound man's face.

Man, yes, he clearly is, and for some in attendance he is no doubt familiar, even wasted as he is, even...

At the tips of the serpent's fangs two drops of liquid quiver, poised to fall into what once were eyes but now hardly resemble them. Indeed, most of the surrounding flesh is ruined, horribly burned in such a way as to make abundantly clear the nature of the liquid that grows slowly, slowly nearer to dripping down with each passing moment.

This is no gift. Not just yet. Not as things are now. This is a king brought low, a creature of the most dangerous sort: one who thinks he has lost all that there is to lose – save for his life.

Loki Laufeyson breaks out in gooseflesh as fresh air hits his skin, not from the chill, but from anticipation. So much floods in with that breath, with the light which he can barely perceive through blistered and milky corneas. So much, but it's all wrong.

Thin lips press thinner.

No ice. There should be ice. This is too warm, this is...

Enraging. The wait, the agony, it ought to have paid off, it ought to have brought him in the end to vengeance, to the severance of a lineage and a lifetime that dragged him ever lower, moment by moment. What if this is wrong? What if it's not the time? Too early? Too late?

Loki's hand clenches into a fist and he pulls, and finally, now that the seals have been broken his bonds give, tear with an awful, wet sound and he is free. Free, and he knows what he has to do. Whether or not this is the dawn of Ragnarök, he knows: his is only to destroy.

Bare feet find the ground, and a body which has lain prone for years beyond counting unfolds itself, rises. He's unsteady, soles rasping softly against the floor of the box as muscles remember how to move, how to walk. He can sense them moving, the little things outside his cell, matchsticks, light them up and they burn so quickly – human? Strange.

Some burn brighter than others, though. Some might stop him doing what he has to do. And so his arm shoots out for the nearest and he bares his teeth, a monster, a beast, nothing more than a conduit for the force that brings skull to meet stone.

Comments

[laevisilaufeyson]

“I am well aware of what roaches are,” Loki responds, clearly tickled. “Magnificent creatures. Do what you will to them and they persevere.”

He props himself up on his elbows, pose and posture almost relaxed, circumstances notwithstanding. “You lie, but you lie well. Did I teach you that, or was it a talent you've always had? Frankly it's difficult to keep up. I couldn't have chosen a more competent agent.”

Which is, of course, more a compliment to Loki himself than to Clint. So it goes. “A bit thick though, at times. A bit ignorant. The Æsir are your pals in Asgard. My dearest sibling is one. His father, another. The core pantheon, if you will. Grand. Golden. Unquestioned. Utterly unconcerned about your little species, beyond what their duty dictates.”

Which is little enough, in the end, however it looks. Little enough.

“But it hardly matters now, does it?” He sighs and tips his head back, baring his neck. “What are you waiting for? See what you can do. One way or another I am meant to die today. Nothing should delight me more than to see Heimdallr deprived of the pleasure of taking my head. Do it, if you can. If your blade is sharp enough.”

It won't be. It likely won't be. A gamble, this, but either way Loki wins. “You wish me gone; take the initiative, Agent Barton.”

[beenunmade]

"Except...if you step on the little fuckers, just pointin' this out." He didn't hide the smile on his face, even if the god couldn't see it. He didn't care. There was a small manner of pride that went into it as he glanced down at the knife he was carrying with him. It really would do nothing if Loki was the individual he was going to use it on. He knew that much. Everything that came out of Loki's mouth he knew them for what they were...lies. Loki was a liar and an expert one at that. Clint knew even if it looked like he had the clear disadvantage in the situation -- it was only because he wanted it to look that way. Once again, he didn't trust him as much as he could throw him.

"You forget...I haven't exactly bee involved with any of the Asgardians. Thor or...anyone else they had stompin' through New Mexico. I don't give a shit 'bout them. You're the one who got me involved with 'em so...I base my judgements on that whole group from you. Gotta say, not very impressed so far. Y'all always talk big? Slip a dude in there once in a while to make you seem less like a douche." He slipped his knife out of sight before lifting his bow, nocking an arrow wordlessly and aiming it at the god's head.

Damn, Loki really did like to talk, didn't he? The Specialist stood in place, target sighted and arrow ready to fly. "You have fun with that pity party, big man. If it's all the same to you...'m gonna keep my track record for not killing unarmed suicidal cases to a big fat zippo." He didn't release the arrow, but he didn't remove Loki from his sights as he slowly started to inch back.

[laevisilaufeyson]

“Ah,” Loki responds, pushing himself slowly to his feet and keeping close, close enough that the head of the arrow presses against his chest when he takes a stride that's just a bit too long. “But I am not an Asgardian.”

Unfair to base one's assessment of an entire race upon a single representative, particularly when that representative isn't even a member of the species in question. No, they're much worse than Loki is, in their way, and he doesn't appreciate being lumped in with them any longer.

“Nor do I speak out of self-pity. Your people opened the cage; you must know the prophecy. With the innards of my own son I was to be bound for millennia, until the day of Ragnarök. The Twilight of the Gods. The end of my world and my life. Perhaps yours as well.” He smiles thinly.

“You've opened it ahead of schedule, I think; but no matter. One way or another, today all things must end.” So the prophecy stated. So it must be. Or else... or else it was all for naught. Unacceptable. Not to be permitted.

“You wish me gone; make it so. Turn the eye of Asgard to me. Let them come, let us do battle, and let me rest. Or take it now, yourself, if you can. If you truly want my death.”

[beenunmade]

"Then what the hell are you? Cos...Thor liked callin' you brother a lot. It's natural that I only assumed you were stuck with that title for a reason." Clint didn't release his arrow, at this distance it would be useless. Nor did he put the bow to rest with Loki being as close as he was. It was an extra protection, useless protection but extra nevertheless as he remained in place. Sure footed and ready to rabbit when the opportunity knocked, or when Loki gave him enough straight answers to get the fuck out of there. In the subject of basing his assessment on a single representative, he was pretty sure he knocked it out of the park with Loki. Clint preferred to know the darker side; that was the side that would try to kill him when his guard was down. Everyone could fake being good, it was when someone got down to the side they hid from the world. The side that they didn't use when they were in a normal social setting. That was what Clint judged out of everything and currently, he was totally judging Loki.

His head tilted to the side with an expression of utter confusion on his face. Well...ew. "I can't say I do know a prophecy that entitles you know...your child's innards and...the apocalypse. So I'd like to prevent that as much as possible. Sorry to say, but I ain't ready to die today." He was. He just wasn't ready to have Phil die today. Or anyone else for that matter. "How 'bout...we say I did 'n you don't? Yeah? You can go under a new name, we can do some witness protection crap, forget this crazy end of the world prophecy 'n go to the diner to eat some grub. You probably haven't been introduced to this Earth thing called coffee...it's amazin'. I think you'd like it." Clint knew it wouldn't go very far from this.

[laevisilaufeyson]

"I am aware of Thor's chronic inability to accept what I am," Loki responds stiffly. "To his credit, if I must speak kindly of the fool, we were raised as brothers. I was not informed myself of my true parentage until... New Mexico, roughly."

Ages ago, now. Ancient history. "I am spoils of war; nothing more than that. No princeling. No true son of Asgard. I am Jǫtun. Frost giant, in your tongue. Stolen as a babe, woe is me, et cetera, et cetera. An ancient enemy of those who raised me, which explains much. They did often treat me as such."

Not important anymore either. Essential, most days, but not today. "As for your charming offer, if I should happen to survive the day I should be pleased to stop by for a mocha and a chat, but don't think you could possibly keep me anywhere that the eye of Heimdallr could not find me. I will die, and it will be high time when I do."

After the cell, after all those years, Loki knows that death would be a blessing. Living might be, too, and if given the choice he'd choose to live every time, choose the possibility of new and better things over an end. Still, death has its appeal. To a creature as old as Loki is, it is a great and terrifying thing to face, an adventure, one of the few remaining to him.

"I will have vengeance for what they've done to me. You know how it feels, Barton; you stand here now with the same goal in mind. I could tear you limb from limb and still you want to punish me. Even if it kills you. It would, too, if you could manage it. If you consider it a blessing that you can't, in that light, count yourself lucky that you have not fallen far and move on. I am not."

[beenunmade]

"He still tries...right? The whole 'brother where art thou' shit or however you would put it the way you talk. I can't really talk 'bout Thor, I know him about as much as I know any of the other people in this place. People from where I come from excluded." He tried...really hard not to roll his eyes at what Loki was saying. It was interesting, yes. But if Loki's idea of fighting a person was talking them to death he was undoubtedly going to win this thing. Clint wasn't much of a talker when it came to this sort of thing, but he was learning a great deal of his enemy. The entire 'know thy enemy' saying popped in his mind and despite not being able to think past 'this was the guy that killed Phil' -- everything else was pretty much sympathized. He didn't show it on his face. Somehow he would think sympathy for the devil might get him killed even faster as he allowed Loki to listen to his own voice, it seemed like the right thing to do. Like putting an infant in front of a mirror for a little while.

Clint took in a deep breath, this time actually rolling his eyes with a slight scoff. "I...considerin' the fact that 'm thinking Heimdallr is sort of like an eye of Sauron sort of deal? 'm pretty sure you don't have to worry about him rainin' down the fire on ya pal." Clint would've been less worried if he thought it could be the case but he honestly really didn't think that this place was normal by any setting. The different times where people had been taken from. The seemingly different places as well. A lot of people discredited Clint for being just some weapon but he did have a head on his shoulders. He typically had to put it to use but not in the usual manner as anyone else. He flexed his grip on the base of the bow, still in the same position. He had; had a bow drawn for longer before his arms would begin to feel some sort of fatigue. Honestly, he was sure he could stand there all day if he must. If he could keep Loki from attacking everyone else he considered it the only thing he could do right in the entire time he had been there.

He kept on fucking up every step he took. Being able to take out Loki was supposed to be a good thing he supposed. His revenge. His revenge for making him have to live in a world without Phil. His revenge for taking over his mind. His revenge for the looks he would potentially get from those who would survive the attack and know that Clint was the man that shared the weakness of them all. That Clint had been weak. Really? Clint had just been a convenience. If he hadn't been there it would have been someone else. Potentially Natasha. Phil. Clint would gladly take the hit when he reminded himself of the fact that they could have been in his shoes.

"Yes. I do. But while we're stuck here...let's keep the body count down to a minimal, yeah?" He all but gritted out from where he was standing as he continued standing there. "Asgard is not coming, Loki. The prophecy won't be fuckin' fulfilled you're stuck. 'n really...if you were going to rip limb from limb you woulda done it by now instead of have share 'n care time. I kinda know more about you than I know 'bout Bruce or any of my newer teammates right now." Clint moved back, getting some distance from the god. "Today, Loki, is not a good day to die. It's not Ragnorak so...your death will be useless."

[laevisilaufeyson]

Loki rather doubts that. He has to doubt that. He's never known Heimdallr to be thwarted by anything before, save for his own magic, and he's not using it to hide himself now.

“My death was always going to be useless, Agent Barton. At least it would be mine.” One final moment of agency. One last act of choice. Better than being taken out of that box, out of his cell, where he had purpose, into a world in which he has none. Better than to let his suffering be futile.

Lacking that... lacking that what is left? “If you speak truly, and I doubt very much that you do, then I may as well kill you now. I have nothing to lose.”

Nothing to gain, either, save for a moment's satisfaction. Just a moment's, though, and what then? Kill all the rest? And when they're gone? When there's absolutely nothing left?

No. Though at least it'd stop Barton's prattling.

“Unlike yourself I don't mind doing so after talking. For all your discipline and your talent, you're quite the bleeding heart, you know.” He's taunting now, the faint smile that's playing about his lips predatory and cold.

“If even I could convince you to pity me, then what good are you? You see; if anything, I improved you.”