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Still a woman, and Loki was doing his best not to worry about it. It certainly did offer an interesting spin on things, though, especially when it came to him going out and about in the hotel. When it came to attractiveness Loki had very little opinion, one way or another, regarding his own face. But as a woman he could easily see that he was attractive, at least to a certain type of person, that person being himself. It brought a strange sort of confidence to someone who was already confident, but not in the ways he was aware of.

So in that regard, he had decided, for a moment, to flaunt it. The dress he wore was a weave of green and black, off one shoulder and cut just above the knee, revealing more pale, creamy skin than he ever had as a man. A good section of calves was revealed, as well, topped in heeled, laced ankle boots. Style from different worlds was never something he had much difficulty in grasping, though certainly he had a tendency to stop once he had found something suitable and wearable. This had a distinct brush of Ruby's influence, though mostly he had simply followed the direction she had pointed him in.

While some of his peers from Asgard were more interested in keeping their body tuned, Loki preferred to keep his mind sharp first of all. He was sitting on a bench in one of the hotel's gardens, which he understood had an 'oriental' theme according to Midgard, and beside him there was a stack of books. The topics were all in relation to one another - they were extensive histories of different continents on a certain planet, covering everything from its societies to geological movements from fresh Stone Age to dirty, polluted end. One, however, described the pattern of movement of that planet within a certain solar system. Whoever could have written these documents, he did not know, for it was information that could be compiled only by a strange, vast mind. Yet Loki had read it all, and now he was translating it.

The original text was a very dead language, and he was carefully and calmly inscribing it using pen and notebook into the alphabet of Midgard. He didn't know of anyone who would like to read it, but it was something to do, kept his mind active. Translations were always interesting - though Loki read, wrote and spoke many languages, there were always words that fell into and out of use, or had no counterpart. In that he was entertained.

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"Alright," Ruby agreed, as she also knew it was the best she could get. She didn't have much experience in the sort of friendship she had with Loki, one that was new and made all the more interesting for differences that extended past personality types, but she found she enjoyed the nuances of it. 'Complex' hadn't really been a word she'd been forced to use, at least in practice, when describing her old life and her friends, though she was starting to see it differently now that there was a bit of distance.

"And I would like to learn something you like," Ruby said with a nod, though the thought of playing a drinking game with Loki was enough to have her smiling as wide as possible. "Oh my God, can we please? Can you even get drunk? Either way, that would be so fun," she enthused. "What sort of drinking game should we play?"

"Of course I can get drunk," Loki said, amused. "What's life without a bit of fogginess? It's practically the national pasttime on Asgard. As for drinking games, I think I'd rather you teach me one."

Frankly, the drinking games on Asgard didn't have a lot of subtlety. They also sometimes involved weaponry, which accounted for a good third of the battle scars the so-called warriors had 'earned'. Ruby certainly could do without a new scar.

Edited 2014-05-12 23:30 (UTC)

"Then it's a date!" Ruby exclaimed, happiness written all over her face. She'd always proven to be surprisingly hardy when it came to both drinking and eating, and so she'd usually fared quite well in drinking games back home. She was aware that playing a drinking game with Loki might be a bit skewed in that he was an entirely different species than herself, but the point of a drinking game was to get drunk - not to win.

"I have to warn you, all the drinking games I know are pretty dumb," she said. "But then again, I'm not sure such a thing as a clever, intellectual drinking game exists. Sort of defeats the purpose, right?"

"I assume you mean 'date' in the friendly way," Loki said, dryly. "Unless Graham took exception to you lending out his clothes to Sif."

He knew that if he were to play a drinking game with Ruby, then he would have to be careful. He wasn't entirely sure with her, but he had a feeling he probably had a better constitution than she when it came to imbibing alcohol. They would have to quadruple the drinking stakes for him, at the very least. "I'm not sure they exist, either," he said. "We would have to make one. Maybe you have to solve mathematics. Or recite verse."

Ruby grinned at his dry comment, swatting at him playfully for his silliness though because it was not an earnest swat it landed only on the air in front of him. Graham had never asked for anything exclusive with Ruby, yet another fact that left her feeling uncertain in their relationship, but going on an actual date with someone else would feel too much like cheating for Ruby's tastes, even if nothing had ever been made official. "Yes, of course in a friendly way," she said. "Graham didn't mind me lending Sif his clothes. Granted, I made sure to break the news to him at an opportune time so he was prone to being agreeable just in case, but he's not the sort who would mind something like that."

The thought of incorporating math into a drinking game made Ruby crinkle her nose in distaste, and she shook her head. "No thank you on the math," she said. "I'm efficient enough to count change and do check totals, but anything beyond that and I am useless. As for verse, what sort of verse? Poetry or Led Zeppelin lyrics? Or both?"

"I had to check," Loki said, raising his hands in a smooth, elegant motion. Yes, he was definitely getting used to this body. "I can never tell. I simply cannot read the signs of Midgardian women. Maybe most women." Well, he could read them, well enough; but he always suspected he must be mistaken.

"I don't know what a Led Zeppelin is, but sure," he replied. "Memory games do tend to be the most difficult."

"I somehow have trouble believing that," Ruby said, teasing. Loki was without a doubt one of the most astute people she'd ever met, and Ruby still wasn't entirely sure that he hadn't figured out even more about her than Ruby herself knew when she'd gone to him before for help with her dreams. Of the two of them she surely had to figure he was the real mystery, as she had the feeling he'd had her pegged from the first, while she'd only begun to scratch the surface with him.

"Oh Loki, sweetie," Ruby said. "We've got to get you up on Midgardian music! I mean, I doubt you give two shits either way about what our people listen to, but I'm sure there's something in the history of musical existence you might find enjoyable. I should take you home with me whenever I find the door so you can drive around with me in my car. It's pretty ideal for listening to Led Zeppelin, I'm not going to lie."

Loki smiled, faintly, but it was genuinely amused. "Perhaps I let my inconsistent love life act too much as judge," he admitted. "But I will say that your jargon is still rather strange to my ears at times. And you cannot say that culturally we are similar, so who am I but to be forced to check myself at each turn?

"Yes, next you find your door, we shall have to do that," he agreed. "I'm curious as to what kind of vehicle you would drive. And meeting your grandmother would be most interesting, I think."

Ruby had to figure that if anything about Loki's love life was 'inconsistent' it was of his own doing. There was surely more than a few attractive traits about him, but she thought that his insight and intelligence probably allowed him to peg people from the first, just as he had with her. "It's my opinion that there probably aren't an abundance of ladies that are truly worthy of you, Loki," Ruby said honestly. "I mean, I guess they always say that there's no one good enough for your friends or family members so I'm probably being a little partial." She shrugged, grinning. "Though sadly, if I had been asking you for a real and not just friendly date, I doubt I could've been that smooth or casual about it."

At Loki's mention of meeting her grandmother, Ruby's smile spread wide enough to split her face. "Oh my God, yes," she said. "I don't think anything could be more interesting than introducing you to my Granny. We have to do that." Strangers were uncommon enough in Storybrooke to cause a stir, and a stranger like Loki would prove doubly fascinating for the town's residents, in addition to being frustrating for Granny when he arrived with Ruby. "Well, if you're back in your male body by then, of course. If you arrived as a female, I doubt she'd have a suitably Granny-like reaction."

"Then perhaps you and I are alike when it comes to how we act regarding true affection," Loki replied, dryly. He was a good liar, whether or not something was close to his heart, and when it came to seduction he was far from hopeless. But when it came to someone he truly liked, he often found it easier to just say nothing at all.

"What's a suitable Granny-like reaction?" he wanted to know. "Yes, well. Hopefully I'm not in this body for much longer. I'm having difficulty reaching tall shelves like this."

Edited 2014-05-20 02:07 (UTC)

"Perhaps so," Ruby agreed. She expressed fondness and general attraction easily and without much thought, though when matters tended to move towards something more serious she was forever at a loss. It was general inexperience, she had to think, and the overall wariness when it came to getting hurt that was part of the human condition. "I knew we were friends for reasons outside of your glorious cheekbones and my bitchin' fashion sense."

"She doesn't like me talking with any men," she said. "Not beyond the realm of what is considered appropriate for my job, so I'm sure if she saw me buddied up with a fellow as handsome as yourself she'd probably have some sort of a meltdown. You being a stranger would make it all the better. Then again, I can't imagine she'd take it any better if she knew what I'd been getting up to with Graham. Not that I can take him back with me, I don't think," Ruby said, the smile that had formed on her face wilting a bit. For all the guilt she felt about not telling Graham that he'd died in the point in time that she came from, she had no idea how to approach the matter. It was far more delicate than the matter of loaning his clothes to Sif, after all.

Overprotective, motherly and fatherly figures connected to beautiful young women were something Loki knew well, and not entirely just through association with his brother and friends. Loki didn't ignore them in his pursuits of young women - it was never a good idea to do that - but nor did he always tread carefully. He was a prince, after all, which meant he could get away with a lot - until he couldn't, and his parents were alerted. He had overprotective guardians of his own. Well, he used to.

"I'm guessing a meltdown is something you'd like?" he asked. The subject of Graham seemed to bring her down, somewhat, so he lightly steered the conversation backwards. "I could try my very best not to be charming, in that case. I have a decent track record with grandmothers."

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