"I'm a poor choice to talk about the afterlife. This seems to be what passes for mine." He shrugs.
Her talk of high school nightmares puts a smile back on his face, and he gives a little laugh. "I missed out on that traumatic form of education. I have private tutors, and then my mother was my primary magic teacher. Odin taught me a few things, as well."
He's quiet for a moment after her request, staring into the dregs of his coffee. "Well, it's not obnoxious to ask," he says.
"I can try. But it's hard to articulate sometimes, in words a mortal person might understand. I don't mean that to sound condescending. I am certainly the type of god whose experience is as close to that of a human as is possible for the divine. I am bound to time, I feel pain and weariness, and some day I will die and not be able to escape from it. I'm not sure how I could explain what a prayer feels like, or how it is to watch a shaman throw herself through the veil trying to reach you...or to have half-human children, watch them grow and age and die and carry on your line on the Earth for generations, and fear they are cursed because they bear your blood. Or what it is like to have an essence, a self, that is truly unable to be purity and light and uprightness, because that position is taken and darkness and trickery must exist to balance it."
"You must understand, I cannot be a 'better person'. I can only be a better Loki. Which is something I am trying very hard to be, but at my best, I am no less the god of lies, and mischief, and wild wind and ice and flame."
"I have done terrible things. Many of them were coerced, through torture, through mind control; others were the result of a shock that I am still fighting to recover from. But some I have done deliberately, and might even do again."
"I am not seeking forgiveness. The things I have done that were not of my own volition, I will not accept mercy for, because they were not my actions. Those that were done of my own free will I cannot accept forgiveness for, because to do so would be to betray that core of my being, that self that is mischief and lies."
"For that same reason, compassion is difficult for me to accept. I do not wish people to pity me for being what I am. I only want my pain to be understood, and my part in the universe accepted."
He takes a breath. "And that is difficult for people--not just humans--of good will. Like yourself, like Captain Rogers, like dear Sif, like many others I have known. Even Thor."
"So. I will try to explain, when I can. I have tried before and found my words inadequate, many times over, and sometimes it exhausts me. But because you ask me in good faith, and because I do have fondness for you, I will continue to try."
no subject
Her talk of high school nightmares puts a smile back on his face, and he gives a little laugh. "I missed out on that traumatic form of education. I have private tutors, and then my mother was my primary magic teacher. Odin taught me a few things, as well."
He's quiet for a moment after her request, staring into the dregs of his coffee. "Well, it's not obnoxious to ask," he says.
"I can try. But it's hard to articulate sometimes, in words a mortal person might understand. I don't mean that to sound condescending. I am certainly the type of god whose experience is as close to that of a human as is possible for the divine. I am bound to time, I feel pain and weariness, and some day I will die and not be able to escape from it. I'm not sure how I could explain what a prayer feels like, or how it is to watch a shaman throw herself through the veil trying to reach you...or to have half-human children, watch them grow and age and die and carry on your line on the Earth for generations, and fear they are cursed because they bear your blood. Or what it is like to have an essence, a self, that is truly unable to be purity and light and uprightness, because that position is taken and darkness and trickery must exist to balance it."
"You must understand, I cannot be a 'better person'. I can only be a better Loki. Which is something I am trying very hard to be, but at my best, I am no less the god of lies, and mischief, and wild wind and ice and flame."
"I have done terrible things. Many of them were coerced, through torture, through mind control; others were the result of a shock that I am still fighting to recover from. But some I have done deliberately, and might even do again."
"I am not seeking forgiveness. The things I have done that were not of my own volition, I will not accept mercy for, because they were not my actions. Those that were done of my own free will I cannot accept forgiveness for, because to do so would be to betray that core of my being, that self that is mischief and lies."
"For that same reason, compassion is difficult for me to accept. I do not wish people to pity me for being what I am. I only want my pain to be understood, and my part in the universe accepted."
He takes a breath. "And that is difficult for people--not just humans--of good will. Like yourself, like Captain Rogers, like dear Sif, like many others I have known. Even Thor."
"So. I will try to explain, when I can. I have tried before and found my words inadequate, many times over, and sometimes it exhausts me. But because you ask me in good faith, and because I do have fondness for you, I will continue to try."