bakerstreet

Fair enough.

Sometimes, we'd have to read aloud from the textbooks in school? And it was bad enough listening to the other kids drone their way through history and social studies, but it would drive me bonkers when they were reading literature. Like -- what is this bullshit delivery? This is a good story, you just suck at telling it.

But hey, maybe the writers sucked at getting their point across.

I'm not sure schoolchildren being forced to read aloud is the best test of a writer's mettle. That said, it is grating, particularly when they're not even paying enough attention to pick up on the jokes. Shakespeare in particular is full of earthy, low-brow humor that teenagers really ought to enjoy, on a metatextual level if nothing else.

It might not be the best test, but it's what I've experienced. And the first thing I thought of, on the subject of "oral tradition".

[Jacinda grins, because there's still a part of zir that is a thirteen-year-old boy at heart.] Well, second thing. Though that might be a bit low-brow itself.

[Fair enough! The joke makes Loki sputter with laughter, anyway, because he too is an adolescent at heart.]

Touché. What's the best scary story you've read, then? Or heard.

Is it still a story if it's true? If those count, I have two.

One might argue that all stories are true on some level, in the length and breadth of the multiverse. Everything that can happen has happened, or will happen.

But this wasn't supposed to be that philosophical to begin with, so yes, tell me your true stories.

The story that scares me the most is the Reading baby farmer, Amelia Dyer. It happened in Victorian England. Poor women who couldn't afford to keep their babies would give them up to her, because she promised to find those children safe and loving homes. For a fee, of course. But she lied. At first, she just neglected the babies, letting them starve and dosing them with opium syrup so they wouldn't cry, and just die quietly.

And then Amelia got impatient. Letting them starve took too long, so she'd strangle the babies in secret, after collecting her fee. Eventually, some of the bodies were dredged up from the Thames River. When the police raided her residence, she said that they'd be able to tell "any of mine" by the white edging tape wrapped around their necks, because that's what she always used. Hundreds of little babies, dead for the sake of one woman's greed.

That story has a happy ending, though, because she pled guilty to at least one murder and they hung her in 1896.

I've heard of such things happening. [It's a sobering story, one he would call more heartbreaking than frightening.] I'm sure she wasn't the only one to cause such horrors. Neither the first nor the last.

I'm not sure I'd call it a happy ending, though. One life for the lives of hundreds of innocents? It doesn't balance.

No one won. Everyone lost.

[Perhaps it frightens more in the contemplation of what humans are capable of, at least.]

You're right. It doesn't balance. But at least she was stopped.

[Loki has seen a lot of races across the galaxy, most of them capable of atrocities. There's no explaining why the universe is the way it is, and it's nearly as hard to explain why people are the way they are.]

True. Do you suppose it was greed alone that drove her, or was there some other thought in her head that enabled her to justify her actions?

Sometimes... some people just like to watch things die. [The words are spoken in a hollow tone, as if contemplation of the topic has turned their thoughts far from the conversation at hand.]

[Loki is not given to easy sympathy, but somehow it sits ill to watch someone go from joking about oral tradition to a thousand-yard stare. He moves a half step closer and ducks his head to get a closer look at zir face, trying to draw eye contact.]

I'm not sure where you've gone, but perhaps you ought to come back here now. [Spoken surprisingly gently. He doesn't want to touch anyone without permission, or he might pat zir shoulder for the sake of being reassuring. But not everyone reacts well to contact.]

Sounds like enough horror stories, hm? Shall we start over? What's your name?

[Good idea, to refrain from touching. Unexpected contact isn't a wise choice when zie is like this.]

I... [Zie gives a sharp little shake of zir head, like a dog trying to shake off a stinging insect.] I'm Jacin. [Sounds like "Jason". There's a slight pause, and then zie meets Loki's gaze for a moment.] Sorry. I still owe you one more story, though.

It's all right. I've been there myself, or somewhere like it. [Does everyone go to the same dark place with PTSD? Is it like a long dark cavern with infinite branching passages to every tunnel?]

I am Loki. [Not really of Asgard any longer. Odinson, perhaps, but Odin, too, is gone. Just Loki.]

I'm always game for a story, if you are.

[For Jacin, it's more the feeling of drowning, blood on concrete, forcing himself to crawl forward with broken bones -- but it's an equally dark place.]

[Zie takes a breath, then another, and tries for a small smile.] It's good to meet you, Loki.

[Jacin wraps zir arms around zirself, as if needing the contact to stay in one piece.] Once upon a time, there lived a boy who lost his family and gained a new one. But that wasn't enough for this selfish little boy; he had to go searching for his birth mother even if she'd never come looking for him. She was in trouble when he found her, and this boy -- who thought he could be a hero like his big brother, like his father -- went running into danger for her.

But his mother never wanted him, and she looked the other way when the boy was beaten. She didn't care if he died. And when the boy finally crawled back to the family that had taken him in before, with everything broken inside him, he found out that they didn't care if he died either. They already had someone new.

[Is that the end? On the darkest of days, it feels like the end. Jacin's scary stories aren't really about sudden terror or frightening monsters... just the horror that the world is a cruel place.]

[He offers a handshake and a mild smile, but if it isn't accepted, he won't be offended. When someone's in a dark place like that, it's enough that they don't lash out in self-defense.

Meanwhile, it's hard to know how to respond to that story. There are parallels there with his own experiences, and that stings, but it's far enough away from what he's been through that he's also not sure what to say, or how to empathize. It's blatantly obvious, of course, that this is personal experience speaking.]

It sounds like you're one of Mine. Of my providence, as a god of the outcast.

How old were you when this began? [Even if he's not sure what to say, he can certainly listen.]

[[OOC: Same muse, same mun... I was just prevailed upon to finally 'port the character over to DW properly. :) ]]

[Jacin manages to be polite enough to briefly shake Loki's hand, but avoids eye contact.]

"Outcast" is probably a good word for it.

What do you mean by "this"? When did I start getting.. constantly cast out?

sws.

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cw: child death

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