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Tricksters are all appetite and unrelenting need.
It isn’t something Verity ever thought of, but she does research things when she encounters them in life and, in spite of authorial biases and the complex weave of truth and falsehood that comes from reading dissertations by people who believe what they are saying, but not in what they are saying, she does pick up worthwhile information. The idea that tricksters are all appetite is an example of this. They are, after all, mythology’s inventors, kicking at the norms of society and experimenting with new and interesting techniques that might be of benefit or might not – often the former, but generally too late to save themselves from society’s sanctions – and, as necessity is the mother of invention, it stands to reason that need would figure highly in their background. Need. Hunger. Appetite. For food, for drink, for release from boredom, for the new and the strange, for knowledge, for experience, for attention…
For power.
It isn’t something Verity ever thought of, but it makes a lot of sense. Appetite, left undefined, can apply to any number of things, and if it is assumed that the focus can change, that appetite is not directed at any one thing exclusively, then an understanding of human nature can be reached. That those most successful – by their personal definitions of success – are those driven by need, carefully contained and directed. A good story is a reflection of the human condition after all, and there is a little bit of the trickster in everyone that pushes against the norms defining their existence.
But actual myths, actual stories… They are something bigger. Something more.
Take Loki for instance, and keep it simple. Start with something easy, like food.
She can sit down with him and eat a normal meal, often something he himself has cooked, and this will be enough for him. On the other hand, he can and has been known to be the terror of all-you-can-eat buffet and sushi restaurants throughout the city. Verity has witnessed this greater act exactly once. They sat talking for hours over maki, nigiri, and sashimi and, although Verity was satisfied after their first generous order was consumed, Loki continued eating throughout the evening, never wavering in charm or social grace, until surreptitious looks from the staff made Verity nervous. They stayed a while longer, as if in defiance, and then left, Loki showing no adverse effects from the feast’s length or quantity.
In spite of this, they had once shared a single large pizza and, while he’d had the lion’s share, the amount was nothing in comparison. Yet he had spent the night whining that his stomach hurt, Verity, he didn’t feel well, Verity, resting his head in her lap while she unconsciously stroked his hair and rubbed his belly like an overgrown puppy. He had, until that moment, been quite engrossed with a documentary, paying little attention to the food.
Verity can’t decide if it’s a shift in focus or a sudden, burning need for attention that brings on such episodes. She wonders – with some trepidation – if it stems from a desire to dominate the objects of his attention and prove his mastery of them. When he wants them, his hunger is all-consuming, his appetite voracious. When he does not, it falters, unstoked and unattended.
He behaves similarly with regards to alcohol, sex, information, electronic media, and, surprisingly, art. Verity occasionally enjoys art in a very oblique way: mathematical dimensions, golden ratios, and the careful balance of hues, tints, and shades. What Loki sees in it, she doesn’t know. She’s only aware that he followed her to a gallery one day and, losing track of him in her examination of abstract pieces, later found him cross-legged on the floor of a room ringed by Renaissance works, head cocked, lips slightly parted, staring intently at three separate paintings, moving only his eyes from one to the other. He refused to go, saying there was still more to see, until such a time as something else occurred to him and the moment dissipated like a puff smoke.
What he was looking for and what he finally decided was more important, Verity couldn’t fathom, nor did she ask. Not then and not now.
She isn’t certain he would tell her, even if she did.
She isn’t certain he knows himself.
A need can’t be known until it is encountered and, as far as she knows, there is nothing in this world that Loki truly needs. He’s a god, after all, with power and prestige. What could he need? But he wants. He wants. Food and drink and entertainment and – maybe – art. Her time, her attention, her comfort…
If his drive is to dominate the objects of his desires, to take them in and wear them out, she wonders what that means for her.
And yet…
He doesn’t force her, stifle her, or silence her. Doesn’t grind her down or take advantage of her. If he imposes upon her, he apologizes and it is truth. He defers to her. Touts his godly powers – his abilities and his cleverness – boasts and brags and beats his chest, but defers to her. When she tires, she’s free to leave or curl up on the sofa in a nest of blankets softer than anything she’s ever known (the down of rocs and bennu birds). When she’s hungry, she’s fed with home cooked meals of the best foods the markets can offer and, she suspects, some they can’t (the alien fruits of far-off planets and breads of callum wheat and tammin). When she wearies, she’s shown wonders that she once would have never believed.
She has walked on a rainbow in boots with shimmering soles, trembling at the thought of the ground far below. She has drifted unseen through fancy dinner parties in the penthouses of New York, wearing nothing but a borrowed coat and a nervous smile, stealing canapés and champagne that might have otherwise been wasted. She has flown across America in a chariot pulled by goats – first exasperated, then laughing – as Avengers gave pursuit – Only a lark! Only a lark! We would have brought it back! – and returned to feed them sweet hay and apples.
She has seen the Earth rise from the blue region of the moon.
She has become all she never thought possible and she has done so through mechanics and small magics, deeply embedded. There are greater things, she now knows – raw magical power that can move the world – and part of her wants it, wants to see what can be made of it, wants to see how much more can be done with it…
But most of her fears. Because a power that can move the world can also burn it to the ground, leaving nothing but scorched earth behind. And because tricksters are all appetite and unrelenting need.
Loki wants it too, she knows. She’s felt desire roll off of him in waves in moments where the world could be turned on its axis if only the right pressure, the right power, were applied just so. She’s felt the air crackle with possibility and gathering energy, tasting of honey and tangerines, but sickly so: too sweet, too sour, rotten at its core. She’s seen his heartbeat jump through the small, sharp gasps of his breathing – eyes dilated and fingers twitching – and she knows that he can do it, grab the threads of reality and do it, pull the strings that make the world turn…
And then he looks to her and grins and winks and pulls a trick – a silly trick – and what must happen happens – never quite as well or as cleanly as it could, but it happens – and ends quietly.
Sometimes they order pizza.
He wants. He wants. And she wonders if it’s what he needs, this power and this strength. And she wonders if she’s in the way or if she slows him down. And she wonders what it could accomplish, this power and this strength, and whether it would make a better ending, turning the world upon its axis. She wonders what new inventions could be had, what new knowledge could be gained, what new techniques would benefit them all.
She wonders what Loki – laughing, snarky, selfish, kind… She wonders what he would do with it.
And then she thinks of sushi and art and scorched earth beneath her feet… and never asks.
Pizza’s not so bad.