#sparrow's characters: loki feyrer

[writing-ceiling]

Summer 2023 Shorts #1

Neo Shorts #1

Title: Loki Has A Couple Of Uncharacteristically Philosophical Realizations

POV: Loki

Context: This short takes place somewhere between Loki joining the crew and them rescuing Maiju

Loki was in the back of the jeep (as per usual; this crew certainly spent a lot of time in their jeep. To be fair, though, it was a good jeep). He was leaning against the window and the door, which vibrated against him, but he’d learned to get used to it. Besides, what was he going to do, not lean against the door? He certainly didn’t have good enough posture for that. 

Pixel sat next to him, behind Ron in the driver’s seat. Beacon was in front of him, in the passenger’s seat. It struck him then: the silence. It wasn’t like the silences he normally knew, the tension that normally permeated what he knew as silence was notably absent. Instead, there was a calmness, like an anesthetic kicking in, or sunset on the beach of an abandoned planet. There was a serenity, a comfort that he didn’t know if he recognized. 

He contemplated it for a minute, which was difficult, because Loki wasn’t very good at contemplating, but it seemed to pay off, because after that minute, he realized what it was about the silence that seemed so unfamiliar. This crew, these people… they were different from everyone he’d met at the Federation: everyone always trying to scale their way bare-handed to the top, or knock it down from the bottom like a goddamn lumberjack. No, these people were certainly different. Neogalactic Vagrant Crew 47-K were at home with each other. They knew a peace so rare Loki could probably sell it on the black market for more money than he needed to make this plan work out (which was saying a lot, because that was a lot of money.) Still, even if he could bottle up this extraordinary interpersonal peace, find some way to quantify and distribute it, he didn’t think that he would. This crew was something special. They’d built what they had: whether intentionally or not, and Loki had a feeling that it had something to do with Maiju: the crew member he’d never met, but probably knew the most about. 

Her impact was profound, and Loki found himself in awe. 

As he observed the serenity, he found himself wanting, for the first time in his life, more than just the lofty goal of taking down the Federation and changing the world for the good. No matter how off-puttingly bratty and selfish he came off as, this was the first time that he truly wanted for himself. 

Which was probably why he found himself doing what he did next more easily, less hindered. An object in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force, and Loki was living on a frictionless plane. He pulled out his phone from his pocket, and texted the girl. 

Hey. 

She responded in a few minutes. Supposedly she was leaning against her own door in her own new crew’s car (which certainly couldn’t be better than this jeep.), and supposedly, she didn’t give a shit about him. But also, supposedly, she gave enough of a shit about him to send him threatening text messages when all he wanted to do was get close to her. 

They had been close before, but Loki didn’t know what had happened. She’d turned cold (well, she’d always been cold, but she’d turned cold towards him, too). There was a time when they had been a dynamic duo, inseparable and always acing every assignment. He annoyed the hell out of her, he knew, but there was a part of her that loved him, too, he trusted. But one day, it was like that part of her had evaporated, and she left him in the dust. Her devotion to the Federation had become less being-manipulated-by-a-huge-government-like-corporation-into-doing-their-bidding-because-she-was-vulnerable-and-they-took-her-in-to-make-her-basically-a-child-soldier and more this-was-a-cult-and-she-was-trying-to-be-God’s-loyalest-disciple-for-some-sort-of-cosmic-gold-star-sticker. 

And no matter how bad she got, she was still Loki’s first real friend, and he wasn’t the kind of person who let go of things like that. He wanted her back, and that probably wasn’t smart, because she would rip him to shreds (definitely metaphorically, and maybe also literally), but he wanted her back anyway. He wanted to build what this crew had, but with her. 

In short, he was down bad (but, like, platonically. (Probably)).

But apparently, Thorn either didn’t understand that or didn’t care, and she was definitely mad at him about the whole helping-the-people-who-wanted-to-get-back-their-crewmate-who-murdered-a-federation-officer thing, because her text back was disturbingly threatening. 

You don’t seem to realize this yet

But I will find you 

sooner or later

and when I do, it won’t be pretty.

Author’s Note: I used this quote from pinterest as inspiration, which I had saved on my Thornki board:

(Yes, it also applies to that one snail)