Categories > Anime/Manga > Matantei Loki Ragnarok > Creation Myths, Take Two
Written for the A Picture Is Worth 1000 Words challenge 4, "Four Seasons".
Creation Myths, Take Two
the cruelest month
April, and the cherry blossoms bloom as relentlessly as they do every year, bedecking an otherwise quite staid, reasonable city in pink and white petals that insist on fluttering down in picturesque showers every time you walk by. Well enough, if you wished to make an impressive entrance, or believed, as Frey did, that it was your natural and inalienable right to have awestruck cherry blossoms fluttering down dramatically in your divine presence all the time, but highly inconvenient and awkward when you are just grocery-shopping and have to pick swooning petals out of your vegetables afterwards.
beanstalk
Has it always been here? Before you destroyed the world, you refused to have cherry trees on the grounds, but everything came back together a little differently, and you don't remember if it was here when you returned, but here is a cherry tree, close enough to your run-down shack to be oppressively inescapable, yet not so close that it was impossible to overlook, especially with winter-bare boughs. It is blooming now.
There is a cherry tree in the garden of weeds you cultivated to avoid reminders of the old world, and it is blooming.
Something black falls out.
You once were, perhaps still are, a god of sorts. You've seen your fair share of plagues; been pelted with rocks, rotten produce and eggs; had divine mead, bread and bones flung at you across the dinner table; unsavoury things from underwear, flowers, Freya and Thor's homework to various mysterious objects and once a drunken Odin despairing over the shenanigans of his children (specifically Thor) have landed in your lap. That last had been comparatively fun, though, getting untangled from Odin's hair the morning after, that had been a bitch.
Having your past life land on you is definitely... different.
mirror, mirror
Utgard-Loki is sitting on your stomach, smiling merrily. It is, among other things, difficult to breathe. Is this what having a nightmare feels like? You'd think you were asleep, but the eggs in the bag have broken and are leaking out onto your chest, and Utgard-Loki has taken a bottle of green tea from your bag, twisted the cap off and drained half of it in one long gulp.
Dead, he's supposed to be dead, you think, he must be, if you absorbed his soul and power, but you remember the doubt you felt, seeing him and Spica as you climbed up Yggdrasil to Asgard. Spica. You look around automatically. "Where is she?"
His pale eyes flash ; he lowers them, hiding behind his bangs, and the corners of his mouth turn up, sly in a way that is too familiar. "Where you last saw her. She is well, and happy, of course."
Liar, you think, but the words are unvoiced, because you know it isn't really a lie, only less important than the answer to whatever question he is forestalling. Instead, you push him off and sit up, wiping slimy albumen off your shirt and thinking, half-distracted, that there is another hour before Mayura is released from school. You will have to get rid of this mystery before she comes, and where are Fenrir and Jormungandr? "What are you doing here, then?"
He grins fiercely, and tips his head back to pour the last of the tea down his throat. "I need a place to stay."
The thought of merging with -- becoming him again makes a chill run down your spine. There is no use in hiding it, so you get directly to the point. "Why?"
You can see him considering further evasion, then he tells you.
golden eggs
"I gave them what they wanted," he says, voice too careless to be easy. You can imagine it: Springtime; Spica and Hel walking together in the misty underworld, perhaps bearing umbrellas; they would turn together, and smile at the one hailing them. Who would -- would not be you.
"I don't believe this! You come out of nowhere, you take her from me, you say you can't make her happy, and this is your answer? Making, making another - how can you smile like that?"
You turn away, wanting to be anywhere but here, then his arms are around you, embracing you like a parent or lover and his lips are cold against your ear. "Would you rather I weep," he says, softly. "You know she can't come back. She cannot live here, any more than Hel can. And they are happy."
Truth, but your eyes are burning and the body pressed to your back is as cold as the wet patch on your shirtfront. "Fine. Go elsewhere. I'm not going to merge with you."
"Nor would I want you to." The other sighs, then inhales deeply, pressing his cold nose into your neck. "I'm so tired of being alone."
The spring wind is brisk. You shiver, and try to shrug him off, without much heart in the attempt. "Stop that! You're worse than Fenrir."
"It wouldn't have worked anyway," he murmurs into your collar. "We aren't so much alike any more. You still smell of him. His blood."
Odin. The spear-thrust of pain through the heart the simple reminder brings is a shock almost as great as the pain itself. Of course Odin was there too, with the others, his blood all that was missing to make the pale copy perfect -- bright and warm as... you. Real.
home
"Master Utgard-Loki! The pancakes are ready!"
You can't bring yourself to look, but you can smell the hot, sweet smell of pancakes and syrup, and hear Fenrir's excited yips in the background blending with the clatter of plates and cutlery. The /traitors/, you think, automatically. But you're not truly surprised or even resentful, because he is accustomed to being served and Yamino is accustomed to being needed, and the last pieces of your brave new world are finally clicking into place.
Your past self who is not that much like you is smiling against your ear. "Let's go in."
Creation Myths, Take Two
the cruelest month
April, and the cherry blossoms bloom as relentlessly as they do every year, bedecking an otherwise quite staid, reasonable city in pink and white petals that insist on fluttering down in picturesque showers every time you walk by. Well enough, if you wished to make an impressive entrance, or believed, as Frey did, that it was your natural and inalienable right to have awestruck cherry blossoms fluttering down dramatically in your divine presence all the time, but highly inconvenient and awkward when you are just grocery-shopping and have to pick swooning petals out of your vegetables afterwards.
beanstalk
Has it always been here? Before you destroyed the world, you refused to have cherry trees on the grounds, but everything came back together a little differently, and you don't remember if it was here when you returned, but here is a cherry tree, close enough to your run-down shack to be oppressively inescapable, yet not so close that it was impossible to overlook, especially with winter-bare boughs. It is blooming now.
There is a cherry tree in the garden of weeds you cultivated to avoid reminders of the old world, and it is blooming.
Something black falls out.
You once were, perhaps still are, a god of sorts. You've seen your fair share of plagues; been pelted with rocks, rotten produce and eggs; had divine mead, bread and bones flung at you across the dinner table; unsavoury things from underwear, flowers, Freya and Thor's homework to various mysterious objects and once a drunken Odin despairing over the shenanigans of his children (specifically Thor) have landed in your lap. That last had been comparatively fun, though, getting untangled from Odin's hair the morning after, that had been a bitch.
Having your past life land on you is definitely... different.
mirror, mirror
Utgard-Loki is sitting on your stomach, smiling merrily. It is, among other things, difficult to breathe. Is this what having a nightmare feels like? You'd think you were asleep, but the eggs in the bag have broken and are leaking out onto your chest, and Utgard-Loki has taken a bottle of green tea from your bag, twisted the cap off and drained half of it in one long gulp.
Dead, he's supposed to be dead, you think, he must be, if you absorbed his soul and power, but you remember the doubt you felt, seeing him and Spica as you climbed up Yggdrasil to Asgard. Spica. You look around automatically. "Where is she?"
His pale eyes flash ; he lowers them, hiding behind his bangs, and the corners of his mouth turn up, sly in a way that is too familiar. "Where you last saw her. She is well, and happy, of course."
Liar, you think, but the words are unvoiced, because you know it isn't really a lie, only less important than the answer to whatever question he is forestalling. Instead, you push him off and sit up, wiping slimy albumen off your shirt and thinking, half-distracted, that there is another hour before Mayura is released from school. You will have to get rid of this mystery before she comes, and where are Fenrir and Jormungandr? "What are you doing here, then?"
He grins fiercely, and tips his head back to pour the last of the tea down his throat. "I need a place to stay."
The thought of merging with -- becoming him again makes a chill run down your spine. There is no use in hiding it, so you get directly to the point. "Why?"
You can see him considering further evasion, then he tells you.
golden eggs
"I gave them what they wanted," he says, voice too careless to be easy. You can imagine it: Springtime; Spica and Hel walking together in the misty underworld, perhaps bearing umbrellas; they would turn together, and smile at the one hailing them. Who would -- would not be you.
"I don't believe this! You come out of nowhere, you take her from me, you say you can't make her happy, and this is your answer? Making, making another - how can you smile like that?"
You turn away, wanting to be anywhere but here, then his arms are around you, embracing you like a parent or lover and his lips are cold against your ear. "Would you rather I weep," he says, softly. "You know she can't come back. She cannot live here, any more than Hel can. And they are happy."
Truth, but your eyes are burning and the body pressed to your back is as cold as the wet patch on your shirtfront. "Fine. Go elsewhere. I'm not going to merge with you."
"Nor would I want you to." The other sighs, then inhales deeply, pressing his cold nose into your neck. "I'm so tired of being alone."
The spring wind is brisk. You shiver, and try to shrug him off, without much heart in the attempt. "Stop that! You're worse than Fenrir."
"It wouldn't have worked anyway," he murmurs into your collar. "We aren't so much alike any more. You still smell of him. His blood."
Odin. The spear-thrust of pain through the heart the simple reminder brings is a shock almost as great as the pain itself. Of course Odin was there too, with the others, his blood all that was missing to make the pale copy perfect -- bright and warm as... you. Real.
home
"Master Utgard-Loki! The pancakes are ready!"
You can't bring yourself to look, but you can smell the hot, sweet smell of pancakes and syrup, and hear Fenrir's excited yips in the background blending with the clatter of plates and cutlery. The /traitors/, you think, automatically. But you're not truly surprised or even resentful, because he is accustomed to being served and Yamino is accustomed to being needed, and the last pieces of your brave new world are finally clicking into place.
Your past self who is not that much like you is smiling against your ear. "Let's go in."
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