Maybe that's a safer topic to start with. Although, when he thinks about it? When he thinks about the best part of the past year? It is perhaps not actually the safer topic.

Mobius frowns about it, taps his fingers a little harder than need be on the table. Tips his head back and forth. What's safe to say? What isn't?

And then, fuck it: he smiles. Bright, even through the cloud hanging over him. "I went to New York."

It's tempting to leave it at that, be as confounding and confusing as Loki's being, only do it on purpose and out of spite. But that isn't fair. (Loki leaving also wasn't fair. But that wasn't Loki's fault. He has to keep reminding himself of that.)

"There was a trip into the Crossroads where things got very weird. Spirits and such trapping us all in versions of the homes of Rifters. It all felt real. Felt like we were trapped in each world for weeks, but it was only ever hours at most. So I got to see New York in its shining glory. The buildings are too tall," he comments idly, "and the night too bright and noisy, but still beautiful. If packed to the gills with elfroot stench." yeah that's the dank weed stank permeating through everything buddy

"Also saw Seattle, but a version of it that Ellie and Abby are from. That one...was not the best part. Strange and horrifying and familiar all at once. It puts things into perspective. One thing to hear from them, another to experience it. There was a religious sect that..." He shakes his head to clear the arguments from mind. "Nevermind, they were extremists, but it did lead to conversation.

"And Yellowstone," he continues with a touch of awe. "Jude's clan lives in the middle of a sprawling protected forest land. And it was a wonderful little town, everyone working together, everyone like one big family, and a bunch of us ended up having the ability to become animals, too." And more. And more. It starts to claw up his chest, the memories and the emotions attached to them. How freeing it was to be a wolf. How overwhelming the psychic sensation of feeling the emotions of others. How Jude had calmed him down and held him steady and tried to give him a crash course in tempering it(water ocean sea, Jude a placid expanse of water before a storm)--

The sense of being an outsider fading into a sense of almost-belonging. An oversized sweater and a comfy skirt for ease of changing. The cooking rotation always bringing good flavors to the tastebuds, as well as the wolf senses attuning to hunting game and the taste of a fresh kill. New York taught him so much and introduced him to a lot that he misses even now, a spectacular spectacle. But Yellowstone felt like a place that could be a home.

And maybe that's in no small part thanks to Jude.

Who died and came back shining bright. Who is now gone. Like Loki did. Jude who had invited him to sleep in his bed, wolf cuddled up close, after admitting what Loki's departure had felt like. Just to wake up in the morning with that same wolf still there. Jude the shining sea whose cold hand he'd taken and cried over. Jude whose pancake recipe is for everyone, now, but will never quite taste just right.

He wonders for a moment, if he'd still had those powers, what he might glean from Loki. Or what ghosts he might conjure.

Mobius blinks several times, looking away before it overwhelms him completely. Before the composure shatters for good.