![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
changelinged) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
pixieledmemes2025-03-15 08:32 am
Test Drive Meme #2
Welcome to the Pixie Led Test Drive Meme!
The prompts will always be game canon, provided both characters who participate in a thread are either already in the game, or get accepted in the next application round.
You do not need an invitation to join the Test Drive Meme, it's open for anyone!
Please indicate character name and canon in the subject line of your top-level. For current characters, you may also indicate your character's court.
For prospective players, Invites open on the 18th, Reserves on the 20th, and Applications on the 22nd. Thanks for checking us out and we hope you'll join us!
You wake up at a party.
You're not sure how, exactly, you got here. You may have just been walking in the woods or at a meeting for work or doing any other normal activity for you. But you know you weren't supposed to be at this party, you're fairly certain.
Anyone you ask about it will say the party is for you. You and the others also waking up and looking confused. Further questions will lead to the partygoers insisting you have something to eat. You're starving and others are eating the food without repercussion, so you figure there's no harm in a bite. You finish your portion.
It's a garden party at the crack of dawn, with the sun still in its early stages of climbing through the yonder, casting a good mix of pastel hues of blue, pink, and beige on everything. Heralding the first day of spring, the Ruler of the Spring Court has found it fitting to arrange this gathering where guests can feel the blades of grass touching their ankles, as well as the rich soil beneath their feet. Flowers of all kinds surround the party as if they were carefully curated. With spring as the "dawn of seasons," which marks a transition from winter's latency to the resurgence of life everywhere, the Ruler of the Dawn Court has also seen it fit to host aspects of this party during the one time of the year that dawn occurs the whole day. Tall candles and torches grace the outskirts of the garden party, providing warmth and an orange glow everywhere. Not one flame goes out even with the occasional wind, the Duchess always makes sure of this.
There are also freshly picked blossoms and branches with leaves on every table accenting the festive spread of food and drinks. This time, a lot of the food prepared for the Adopted guests are familiar to them with a little bit of a twist. Burgers might come in small packages and in toothpicks, while hotdogs in buns are also diminutive. Cookies look delectable but they have a flowery flavor to them, as if eating freshly picked daisies or daffodils. Fruits that may have been present in an Adopted's home, such as pineapples and watermelons, have seeds in odd places. Picking this selection of food is an attempt to be more welcoming and to appease the lovely guests the fae have invited.
As the party winds down and everyone's eaten, a tall, stately woman stands up and speaks. You feel her voice more than hear it.
I am the Lawspeaker of the Fae, elected by Seelie and Unseelie alike, and you are all, now, subjects of Faerie. You cannot leave this realm once you have eaten our food, and even if you could, there is no saying how much time has passed back where you're from. Your loved ones are likely dead, your problems have likely played out. We require assistance in various matters, and each of you has been chosen for your talent and skill. You will be adopted by one of the Seelie or Unseelie Courts based on your strengths and personality. Your Court will decide what to do with you from there.
As suddenly as she stood, she sits back down.
A party is not complete without dancing, of course, and while during the last gathering held for the Adopted, different fae danced to music exclusively for them around a glowing tree, this time they are insisting their guests to join in.
This is a party for you, after all.
If the prodding of the different fae hosts won't convince you, perhaps the music will. They play easily recognizable tunes that their wonderful guests must have heard before. These melodies have certain unique effects to their mortal attendees, which are as follows:
- Upbeat Music: You will believe that you and your dance partner have been friends forever and have known each other a long time.
- Romantic Music: You will become amorous and flirtatious towards your dance partner.
- Slow Music: You will develop some tension with your dance partner. It may be negative or sexual; completely up to you.
- Quiet Music: You will assume your dance partner is a threat and try to fight them.
At the Spring King's behest, every Adopted should wear a flower corsage or boutonnière to the gathering. After all, this is to celebrate the coming of spring and what better way to do that than to honor everything in bloom.
The thing is, though, the King of Spring, while amorous and friendly, also has a penchant for playing with mortals' memories, if not also affect their desires and despairs.
So, mischievous as he is, he made sure to enchant the different flowers present in every corsage and boutonnière for the party with the effects below:
- Rose: You will recall a horrific trauma
- Carnation: You will see a vision of your future, whether it's good or bad
- Orchid: You will remember a time you lost someone
- Chrysanthemum: You will believe someone among the Adopted is your soulmate
- Dahlia: You will believe you betrayed someone important to you, whether you actually did or not
It is perhaps a good thing that no one but the Adopted are allowed to see these visions and memories, but everyone who wears a corsage or boutonnière will be able to see each other's memories and visions when in close enough physical proximity to the vision-haver, for better or for worse.
You feel a vibration in your pocket sometime after the Lawspeaker addresses everyone. When you search for the source, you will pull out your Leaf, the device the Fae use to stay in touch with each other. Anyone who's used a smart phone will easily recognize how it works.
Greetings, Adopted. This is your Lawspeaker.
Tell us all of a time you gave someone a gift. Perhaps a bouquet of flowers or a box of chocolates. Was it appreciated or not? A reward might await the most meaningful gift given.
no subject
[As many times as he's going to mourn Natasha, every day of the rest of his life?]
I'm just fine. [This little hiccup aside. The still-healing bumps and bruises and cuts and scrapes of the past few days and Yelena's thorough beatdown aside. He doesn't sound fine, but if the flavor of panic has changed, if the grief twists different in thinking of different deaths and different guilts, that can't be a bad thing, can it? If he's fine, then Loki will think twice about doing a damn thing.
Tony's here. Bruce is here. He hasn't even seen Bruce. At least he's still alive last Clint heard. Tony's a complication. Loki's also a complication, but an unwelcome one. His eyes keep going from Loki's face to his hands, a back and forth to assure himself of his standing with the god.]
You don't scare me anymore.
[It's hard to tell in this moment if that's actually true. But he enunciates it clear as day.]
no subject
[ that's all probably too complicated to get into right now, especially with this man. it's other timelines, the multiverse, the TVA and its previous duties. nothing barton needs to know, and truthfully, none of it matters, anyway.
his expression does something tired and sad at the declaration, but it's shuttered away a moment later. ]
I'm sorry that I ever frightened you at all. [ an apology probably doesn't make a single bit of difference, but it's owed. ] I'm not who I was back then. It's a bit too little, too late in some ways, though. [ he pauses, makes a careful gesture of one hand to indicate the rest of the party again. ] What would you like to do?
no subject
You took the Tesseract. Kinda derailed the plan. They put it back on track. [And as Loki said. That timeline doesn't exist anymore. None of the alternate, branching timelines they made for taking the stones do anymore. (Except Vormir. Except the Soul Stone. Except Natasha. That wasn't a branch. That doesn't get erased. It happened and it happened and it stays happened.)
What does he want to do with this Loki who both is and isn't at fault? What does he want to do with all this grief and guilt and unfinished business and exhaustion?
What he would like to do is go home.]
You still did it. What you did didn't change. Things changed when you escaped with the stone. You were that Loki. [He doesn't like to hold grudges, and he never saw Loki again after New York. It left a hell of a scar that took a damn long time to heal, though.] Who are you now?
no subject
[ he's quiet as barton seems to process, still looking far too pale and on the verge of a breakdown. he doesn't know what happened before he ran into him, what someone else had done, or said, or.. showed him, perhaps. maybe it was one of the flowers-- he's seen those, the memories they project. he's drifted through several of them, and barton has more than a few reasons to be shaky after being forced to live through certain memories.
the question earns a small, wry smile. ] Now that is a rather long story. The short of it is that I'm trying to be.. good. A good person. Better, at least. The long of it is far too long for the middle of a crowded party while you look a breath away from screaming.
[ he hesitates, still telegraphing his movements as he reaches down to touch fingertips very lightly to the hand still gripping his lapel. he's not even sure if barton's aware he's still doing it. ] May I have my coat back? I do feel as if it might be best to sit. Both of us, perhaps, if you'd prefer to keep an eye on me.
no subject
Apparently it's too long a story. And when Clint has a clearer head, he's going to recognize Loki's countenance for what it is: changed, different, tired, calmer. Not under any undue influence of space rocks or a big purple fucker with an agenda.
And it's supposedly not even the same Loki, but the important parts to their personal history still stand. Does that change anything? It's been well over ten years, and worse has happened than a little mind control. Maybe they don't have to rehash the past. Even if his brain feels wired all wrong with the unbidden.
It makes the light touch of fingertips feel all that more electric on his skin, and Clint abruptly releases the coat, practically throwing his hand down. Might have been distantly aware of the grip but hadn't, truly, been thinking about it. Pull it together, Barton. He wants to argue about what he looks a breath away from (punching your face clean off is an option, but an unlikely one), but this is exhausting, and it's crowded, and the panic has ebbed only some, and there are too many people and it's too loud and Loki is here.
He stalks off in a direction that seems a little less crowded and says nothing, initially. Because if Loki didn't do any of this, then there's no point in keeping him in sight. It's not his job or his responsibility, not anymore. Is it even Thor's?]
You gonna gawk, or you gonna sit?
[So it's not a request. Just lays the options out in a brief pause, over his shoulder. If nothing else, it might be prudent for someone to make sure he does actually get to some kind of seat in a somewhat less crowded locale without further incident. He doesn't see it that way. But his sight's never quite as good when so up close.]
no subject
he snags a water glass off a tray in passing, trying to guide the human toward a table that's empty, on the edge of the party. he sets the glass down at one of the places, then settles at another, sitting back and crossing one long leg over the other. he doubts the other man will drink a glass that loki has touched--just in case--but perhaps it will remind him to drink something.
twining his fingers together in his lap, he lofts a brow questioningly. ] Would you like the full story? Or if you prefer, I can contact my former case-worker. He's a friend now. [ he glances down at his thighs, brushing at a piece of lint on his pants. ] I'm not certain that anything I can do will help you right now, though. [ he's not even sure that leaving would do anything to help. would barton then be left wondering what sort of mischief loki could be getting up to?
it's.. exhausting, really, for both of them. loki has worked so hard to be better, to be worthy of mobius and sylvie's faith in him, to keep them and all the multiverse safe. being here, though, feels a little like being back at square one. he has to try to earn some sort of trust again, however small, and while it's the least of what he owes the people he hurt.. it doesn't make it any easier. and for barton? well, at the very least, he's certain the man had hoped he was done forever with loki. ]
no subject
So he doesn't think about it.
But that means what's left to think about is the sensation of being removed from his self, plunged under an icy cold lake, beating at the frozen surface while the thing inside his skin does everything he can to--
God, there's no winning here, is there? Monsters and magic and things he was never prepared for. He's just a guy. He's always been just a guy. (A guy with heart.)]
You have a case-worker. [And if that isn't the most incredible, incredulous thing he's ever heard. Like it's villain rehab.] What does that even mean if your particular timeline doesn't even exist anymore?
[He doesn't think it's a big question with an extremely convoluted answer, but...]
no subject
still, he's happy enough to distract him if that's what he needs, at least until someone else comes along to collect him. anything that will help, perhaps. ]
I did, [ he agrees, the small smile returning. ] Mobius M. Mobius, an investigator within the TVA-- or the Time Variance Authority. [ he steeples his fingers, touching them briefly to his mouth. ] You think, I suppose, that when you returned the stones to the past, it put time to rights, yes? But that isn't so. You still visited the past, which created new branches in the central, so-called Sacred Timeline. I'm the product of one of those timelines, and before things.. ah, changed, the TVA were responsible for.. pruning those timelines. Killing them, essentially, for the safety of the Sacred Timeline.
[ he shifts, unfolding his legs and folding them the other way instead, foot jittering faintly. ]
As an unnecessary Loki, I was brought into the TVA to help catch another Loki from yet another pruned timeline. Mobius was responsible for me at the time. [ a beat, and with as much reassurance he can muster: ] They don't prune timelines anymore, for the record, so telling you this won't harm your own timeline when you're finally able to return home.
no subject
His brows knit firmly together, though, even as he idly turns the glass in slow circles on the table, grounding himself with the coolness of the touch and the barely-there wetness of condensation that does not remind him of coming to in lapping waves--while he stares Loki down. In his own way grounding with something to focus on. Beggars and choosers.]
Bullshit. [A simple and uncomplicated response.] You get it, right, I mean you hear yourself? How everything you said sounds insane? There's a time travel guy named Mobius. Even you would pick a less on the nose name than that. God, does the M also stand for Mobius? [Fuck off with how stupid that sounds.
Is that the thing he's going to point out, specifically, at this juncture? Yes. But the whole thing, the whole thing sounds like insanity. A timeless Loki getting hauled in by some authority who does time travel for a living in order to find another timeless Loki, like, are these guys bad at their jobs or what?]
no subject
[ he gestures to the party around them, the non-human fae dancing with elves and beings from other planets. ] An hour ago you were on Earth, and now here you are, summoned by gods that call themselves Fae, face-to-face with a literal dead man. [ a beat. ] Your timeline's Loki is dead. That's one of the first things I was shown.
[ he can understand the disbelief, though. clinging to what you know of the universe is only natural when faced with the idea that there are people out there carefully shepherding your timeline along the way they're told it should play out.
then, firmly: ] Mobius is a Variant, just like I am. So is everyone at the TVA. They're good people, and they work very, very hard to take care of the multiverse. [ and frankly, loki and sylvie are the only people here allowed to make fun of mobius for being.. well, mobius. allmother knows he gives as good as he gets. ]
no subject
You've seen things that happen. [Knowing 'Loki' is dead. Knowing about the snap.] You've seen what happened? You see things that are going to happen?
[Relative to his own place in his own time, and these aren't fair questions. But since when does Loki deserve fair?]
no subject
the dots disappear, and the line begins to widen, revealing that it's not one thread, but dozens, hundreds, thousands. it begins to spread out at the one end, becoming branches and twigs, until it looks very much like.. well, a tree. ]
Mm. Not here. [ .. he might be able to, actually. it's tempting, sometimes, like here and now. going back to the moment before barton bumped into him would certainly be better for both of them. he's still not up for this. ]
no subject
[There's an absurd urge to ask Loki if he checked up on Clint. A childish desire to ask if Loki ever even thought about him after. Like that would change things, somehow. Like that would make things feel a little more worth it, in retrospect. If he had left any kind of impression.
But it's not his Loki. Apparently. And furthermore, it doesn't make a lick of god damn difference, and he needs to keep those thoughts as inside thoughts before he makes himself sick with incredulity at his own subconscious.]
no subject
[ the tree shatters into green sparks that fade in the air, and loki twists his fingers back together again in his lap. one thumb rubs against the other one, looking oddly anxious for a moment before he stills his hands again. ]
Sometimes, I follow one person's life from start to finish. It's a little voyeuristic, but I can't leave Yggdrasil, so I don't think there's any particular harm in it. [ he pauses for a few moments, opens his mouth, closes it again, pressing his lips flat. he regards the other man silently for the space of several breaths, then tries again. ] I won't tell you anything about your future, if that's what you really want to ask. Those decisions are yours to make.
no subject
In fucking Yggdrasil.]
No. I don't want to know about my future. [Because what he'd like is for it to be 'you stay retired and everything goes great and you live just long enough to see your kids grow up to be happy adults and then die in some spectacular freakshow fashion because you were never going to avoid that, now, come on, be serious', but he doesn't want to know. He's not sure if that screws up time. This probably screws up time. Everything he's being told probably screws everything up, unless it doesn't, and that's why Loki's telling him? Mostly, mostly he just wants to know if Loki understands him, where he's at right now, the reasons Loki isn't the worst thing to happen to him anymore, but the more Loki talks, the less it seems like it matters. Certainly not on a cosmic scale.
Which. Is sounding more and more like the kind of scales Loki works with now.]
Obviously someone figured out a way for you to leave. Unless you tossed an illusion of yourself here for fun.
no subject
and more importantly, while he's here, he doesn't want to know. ]
Mm, [ he agrees, brows knitting as he shifts in the chair, planting his elbow on the arm and his chin on the backs of his fingers. his eyes are drawn back toward the fae officials attending the party, expression taking on a worried hint. ] Somehow, they've stabilized the tree without me being physically there, but I don't know how. [ he can still feel the threads of the tree woven through him, through his magic, so he hasn't been cut off from it, at least. that would be.. disastrous.
it's nothing he wants to consider at the moment, though. instead, his gaze returns to the other man, the worried look smoothing into question instead. ] Barton-- [ he hesitates, straightening again. ] Be careful here. You'll want to be cautious of the court rulers, as well as what you say to the fae and how you say it. [ a beat. ] There's also another Loki here-- [ well, there's sylvie, too, but she doesn't identify as a loki, and he wouldn't warn people about her anyway. ] --and they seem to be fairly well-meaning, but.. [ a click of his tongue. ] .. still a Loki, yes?
no subject
A guy that lives in a tree in the center of all realities or something, but it's apparently made him come out the other side way more chill than Clint ever knew. That and his oddball temporal caseworker team that used to erase timelines and now protects them. For reasons.]
Is this your version of apologizing? [He wishes it came out snappier. Would an apology help? No. If he's honest with himself, it wouldn't mean a damn thing. It happened what feels like a lifetime ago, and he built himself back up, put himself back together, and moved on. Still, the idea that Loki would want to give helpful warnings to him is difficult to reconcile with.] Are all Lokis, you think, like you? Like you were, anyway. [Even a well-meaning Loki is still a Loki. And here Clint thought he has self-image issues.]
no subject
If it would help to hear one, it's the least of what I owe you. But no, I'm telling you this because it's information that you ought to know, and that I hope will help you while you're here.
[ he shifts in his seat, foot bobbing again at the question, a small grimace twisting his expression. ]
.. Most of us are, [ he admits. ] There are a few exceptions, from what I've seen, and some of us do change-- [ the old man. the kid. sylvie. loki himself. ] --but by and large, we're villains. [ his mouth quirks in a crooked not-quite-smile. ] It's not.. written in stone, not anymore, and I hope to see more Lokis rise above the role of the villain. Eventually.
[ though he's not holding his breath, either. lokis are chaotic by nature, and chaos doesn't lend itself well to neat, orderly ideas of morality. even with all the eternity he's had to grow and change as a person, loki wouldn't call himself the heroic sort, and none of the others have the benefit of his experience beyond time. ]
Anyway, [ he adds after a moment, ] as much as we both know I love to talk about myself.. may I ask about you? Where you're coming from on the timeline, I mean. And if you're feeling a bit better. [ he doesn't look quite so shaky now, at least. ]
no subject
But if that's the wording Loki wants to use, he can have it.
And maybe a little warning is appreciated. Sure. It's the least Loki can do.
He finally picks up the glass when the attention turns to him proper, takes a swig, and it's cool and refreshing and probably not poisoned or drugged, but would it matter all that much at the moment if it were? Loki as a distraction has worked, the jitters and the awful churn in his gut and the drums pounding in his chest slowed down, focus and focus and focus instead of spiraling off.]
So you've actually been checking in on me, actually know my history? I just met Kate. I brought her home for Christmas, with the dog. [Does it matter? Does it matter to Loki, for Loki? Does it matter to him if Loki who oversees countless timelines now apparently knows?] If that means anything to you. [More mumbled into his glass. Maybe he'll have to flip through thinking what all the other Clints Bartons have been up to. Maybe he's not exactly unique in the universe.
A humbling thought.]