#ringmasterking

웃: what my muse would leave to people in their will

Thyra: The bulk of his American-based assets - nominally this is for both brats, but she’s old enough to know how to manage it best for them both.

Terry: Mesto, though Thyra might have to manufacture some papers and licencing if anyone should be sniffing around why a young boy has a snow leopard for a pet.

Ring: Sretja, Makosh, Anansi and the Nest key, because so much of his soul had to go into making that place when bound like he did… a part of him would always be there - more if Hades felt gracious that day.  It is the only parting gift he can even imagine offering.

♛: the pettiest thing my muse has ever done

Suffocated a cluster of trashy women for attempting to seduce his mate.

★: five things most people don’t know about my muse

1. The god themself doesn’t have a specific gender, but rather possesses male and female aspects and displays what they feel like displaying when in their unbound form.

2. Veles essentially named his leopard ‘Spot’.

3. Veles’ weapon of choice is the bow.  Armed with it, he is terrifying.

4. Vala as the female aspect was widely known and worshiped in Central and Western Asia.  She was the bringer of the rain and fertile fields.

5. Vala has made friends with one universe’s Lucifer and another universe’s Lucifer’s wife.  Anyone else sensing a theme?

☄: the last five Googles searches my muse made

New York Hospitals

non-scarring bedtime stories

tiger heimlich

socially acceptable ways to kill your coworker

relaxing herbs that take best to oil suspensions

✉: the last five text messages my muse sent (and a bonus!)

[SMS: Malyutka] The little tiger has an abscess I think.  She was chewing funny when I went out at dinner time and got a bit cranky when I tried to look.

[SMS: Malyutka] I had to go in early and didn’t want to wake you, but I thought you should know that leaving was particularly difficult this morning when your bare arse was still in bed with my handprints all over it.

[SMS: Malyutka] Brat.

[SMS: Philoctetes] In your personal email you will find a list of the moles and double agents in the New York office.  It was fun listening to them scrabble around desperate not to get caught, but the dead have different amusements, so I pass the baton on to you.  Enjoy yourself.

[SMS: Malyutka] I know you won’t even look at your phone until you’re finished with the show and it’s not worth worrying you now, but I’m having trouble even keeping my eyes open now.  I doubt I’ll be awake when you get in.  Your tea’s on the table, it’ll keep hot until you touch the mug.  Wake me if you wish.

[SMS: Malyutka] I love you, did you know?

☢: how would my muse fare in a zombie apocalypse?

Ohhhh Vel would have a grand old time - especially side-by-side with Loki.

Vala… she would survive because there is absolutely a killer inside her, but it would come at a price.  Eventually she would be overtaken by the Rage until only her husband would be safe nearby.

☣: how would my muse fare in the hunger games?

I have been pelted all night with visuals of bb!Psychos in the Hunger Games and just Vel bound and determined to look after Loki - staying out of the fights as much as could be avoided and letting the others pick each other off while they survived.  Possibly spending that time looking for a better way out instead.  I just really like protective bb!Vel okay

☠: how my muse would choose to die, if it were up to them

“I never used to care.  Any way would have been sufficient so long as it stuck. I have died many times, but now?  Now, if I had to choose, it would be in defense of everything I hold dear.”

♂: three names my muse might name their son

Akos, Casimir or Ashok

♀: three names my muse might name their daughter

Aadi, Kaia, Lilja, Maja

♫: my muse’s five favorite songs

I don’t think they’ve listened to enough modern music to give anything specific, but Vel did love him some Sinatra.

☤: the last time my muse went to the hospital and why

“To die.”

And that’s really all we’re going to hear about it, apparently.

▽: the first job my muse ever had

That he remembers?  King, husband, father.  That we’re starting to get glimpses of?  Loki’s Shadow

☃: what my muse does when it snows

Long ago it would have meant flight - a chance to stretch his wings and enjoy the muted stillness to the whole world.  But it has been a very long time since the fire inside him did anything beyond searing his bones.  Vel used to sleep through as much of it as possible, unwilling even to look at the damn stuff if he could avoid it.  Vala… she wraps herself up in the big comforter off their bed and crawls to sit in the window and stare outside longingly until she’s so cold that she shakes and if she doesn’t fall asleep like that she’ll retreat to in front of the fireplace.  However, there have probably been a few times when she’s given Loki a scare when he finds her asleep by the window with skin like ice to the touch.

☎: the last person my muse made a phone call to and why

Vala hasn’t even picked up a phone yet and it’s been so long for Vel that he honestly can’t remember.

♠: the riskiest thing my muse has ever done

“I picked up a bleeding soul off the floor and brought him inside what was left of my heart to keep warm.”

“I fought back.”

➹: what my muse would do on their 21st birthday if they had all the money in the world

Sleep.  Probably all day.

☞: five things my muse is good at

Horses, archery, violin, painting and loving malyutka

☜: five things my muse sucks at

Dealing with people without manipulating the hell out of them, volunteering information, sharing, trusting anyone who isn’t Lokes and cutting himself some slack.

✄: what my muse would say to the mun if they had the opportunity

♖  - You muse washing mine’s hair

Bath time had become something of a ritual.

In mosques, temples and cathedrals across the world, souls gathered at appointed times to take appointed actions with the appointed company and through the routine gain a sense of purpose, of peace, of something greater than oneself.

Since the first night he had carried her into the bus (into their home) and taken such care to cleanse her ordeal from her body, Loki had led Vala into the bath.  It was always late - the hour when the world was dark and still - and he always had the consideration for sensitive eyes to light the room only with soft, natural flame; they always took their time to soak in steaming water and simply to be...  

And Loki always washed her hair.  

The experience itself was a highlight of her day, leaving her feeling warm and loved and safe, but over the last few nights she had found herself wanting... something.  It was an ache deep in her bones inspired by the only touch she could take without fear or revulsion - that she actively sought out.  It was an ache that came other times, too - really, anytime her husband was nearby - but it was always sharpest in the bath.

It wasn’t something she’d ever experienced before - there was nothing to associate it with, no context clues to sort out this particular craving in the sea of sensations that never felt the same from body to body... and this was still so much the host.  So tonight, when he had finished rinsing the last of the conditioner from her hair, Vala moved behind him with a gentle tug back on his own damp curls.  

There was surprise at first, but Loki wasn’t in the habit of denying his mate - especially over such small things - and so he began slowly to relax, her fingers working magic against his scalp and down his neck in the process.  Vala spent far longer absorbed in the entire process than perhaps was to be expected, but the combination of new tactile sensations and the simple pleasure she found in the act of caring for her mate made her... reluctant to let the experience come to an end.

Send @ for my muse to describe yours in one sentence.

Vala’s answer was initially immediate.

“Mon raison d'etre.”

But that was the wrong language and the appropriate translation did not come out so well.

“The reason I keep fighting rather than simply accept defeat.”

Winter in the palace was one of Veles’ favorite times of year.  

Fires blazed everywhere and the furs lining the inside of his cloak were soft against the skin at the back of his neck.  It was still early enough on Sol’s day that most of the occupants were asleep.  He liked Sol’s days; the warriors never trained and spent most of it sleeping off the previous night’s hangover.  It meant he had a few hours to himself on the grounds and he frequently made use of them.  This morning it had been archery – yesterday had been a great set of winter games and he believed the horses deserved their day of rest, too – and his arms still ached in that pleasant way which spoke of good work.  

The sun had just reached its zenith and he should have been going in to wake Loki, but he found himself held up at his own reflection.

It wasn’t vanity that held him there – not really.  It was indecision.  His own golden curls he had already altered to a soft dark chocolate and pulled away from his face.  He’d settled on the shape, too, broader than his body wanted to be – something closer to these frozen gods’ masculine ideal.  It was all very well done and – he hoped – appealing, but he couldn’t seem to settle on the eyes.  Back and forth he went, ambers, greens, blues and greys… Nothing seemed right, but neither was his own amethyst going to do.

In the end, he settled on a bright silvery gray-green, like fresh moss on the side of a clean boulder.

There.

Sometimes there are nights where the pain in those cursed bones is too loud for sleep.

Veles used to slip out into the night, to walk among the trees or work with Xerxes.  But things are different now.

Not better.

Not worse.

Just different.

Vala has access to more raw power than Jack did because this body still has traces of the Dragon’s blood.  But the methods by which she was made a host left her without anything in the way of healthy mental faculties to speak of.  It makes her both more volatile and less controlled than the last host.  Unlike him, her very first lesson was fear.  Her cardinal sin is cowardice.  

She could never be that far away from Loki - not without losing the tiny bit of sanity she will manage to carve out of her ruined mind.  At least, not at first.

So instead of wandering physically, she folds herself onto the floor of the bedroom (where she can see the Ringmaster, smell the blood in his veins and hear the sound of his sleeping breaths) with heavy paper and small pots of pigment.  She doesn’t use brushes - such specific fine motor skills are best learned early or not at all - but with her own body (the twist of a fingertip, the scrape of a knuckle, the brush of a palm or the swipe of a nail) she paints the places she knows but has no name for.  She paints the voices she can hear but not label.  She paints the flavors that sometimes burst on her tongue without rhyme or reason.