Chapter 4
-
Mobius couldn’t bring himself to read the other note or reply for a long time.
He wasn't even really sure why the truth of what had happened hurt so much. Maybe it was the realisation that he had shared moments with Loki that he would never know about, maybe the knowledge of how much pain he had seen Loki in when he was timeslipping before. Maybe the understanding now that Loki had been suffering for a long time before he made his choice and broke the loom, and none of them had known. None of them could even have helped had they known.
Mobius took a slow, steady breath and wiped the tears from his eyes. Mourning for a past he didn’t even remember was pointless.
What happened leading up to Loki’s sacrifice was past. It had been done and couldn’t be changed, and it had culminated in him saving them all.
Slowly, Mobius picked up the second, shorter and more tidily written, note.
<I don’t know if any of that makes sense to you. I have to admit, I lost track of precisely what you will have remembered and experienced leading to that point.>
Mobius pulled over the pad of paper and pen, <Yeah, I think it makes sense. Actually a lot of things make more sense now.>
Why Loki had looked so drawn and tired just before he closed the doors on them for one.
And how he had managed to find out a way to fix things. Break the loom, manipulate branches and construct them into a tree, find enough strength to fill it with his magic.
Mobius continued the same note, <When you learned to control the timeslipping, did it become easier?>
Because it had looked horrible and agonising from the start, and Mobius really wanted to here that Loki hadn’t suffered that repeatedly for however long he spent trying to fix things.
<It did. Controlling time became as second-nature as my magic with practice.>
That was a small relief, if it was true, and with Loki it could very easily be a lie.
Mobius knew he should change the subject to something happier, but he needed to ask one more thing.
<Guess there’s a lot that happened I don’t know about. Did we talk about anything else?>
<No, we were otherwise entirely silent.>
<That's not what I meant and you know it.>
<I do. But those are conversations that need to be lived, not told by second hand memory, if they even happen at all. Every iteration of you I spoke to in every time and space is different from the person you are now. What they said may not be what you would say. You know well enough that no two instances of an individual are truly the same. Not when we are all a culmination of every moment of our lives up to that point.>
Mobius sighed.
Loki was right.
Whatever those other Mobius’ had done or said didn’t matter because none were him. Just as everything Loki did after being brought in chains to Asgard wasn’t the same Loki who was now the god of time.
Mobius just wanted to know whether any of this other Mobius’ had told Loki exactly what he felt. It would have saved him finding the words. But they weren’t him, and what Mobius wanted to say couldn’t be said like this. Written and passed through a door, with all of time between them.
So Mobius asked the first question that came to his mind instead.
<Do you still have your skin?>
<I beg your pardon?>
<Did the god of stories just forget how to read? Do you still have your skin?>
<It’s testimony to my intellectual prowess that I can read your scribbling at all. Yes, I still have my skin.>
<Good. I like you with skin.>
<How kind.>
<Would I have my skin?>
<Why?>
<Would I? Hot chocolate?>
<I don’t know.>
<About the hot chocolate or my skin?>
<Your skin.>
<And the chocolate?>
<I’d rather have some coffee.>
Mobius left to find them the drinks, returning to his cubicle to continue their talk.
<There’s something wrong with you.>
Mobius sent that note pinned beneath a cup of strong black coffee, taking a sip from his hot chocolate as he watched the time door vanish.
The hot chocolate at the TVA was really good. Sure he didn’t have a lot to compare it to. Actually it was the only he had ever tried, to his knowledge. But it was still really good.
He was about half way through his cup when a time door opened and the tray with its notepad returned. No note however.
That came after, in the form of a scrunched up ball of paper that landed in his drink.
“Damn it Loki!” Mobius glared from the disappearing time door to his drink, now being sucked up by the paper, probably already turned bitter and unpleasant by the ink running off it.
<You ruined my hot chocolate!>
Mobius tossed that back through, really hoping it was going to land in Loki’s coffee. Almost immediately, the time door reopened and another note was chucked through, luckily landing somewhere dry this time.
<Give me back the tray.>
Mobius sighed and opened a time door to send it back through, still lamenting his hot chocolate as he carefully pulled the paper out.
A few minutes later, it returned, now adorned with a mug of something that smelled even better than the TVA hot chocolate. It was thicker, richer, creamier. Lukewarm, but delicious.
Mobius took a long, indulgent sip and turned to the chocolate-soaked crumpled page. The ink hadn’t run much. The words were still pretty legible, although Loki’s beautiful cursive handwriting had lost its crisp perfection.
<I assume your skin would not peel off. There’s no temporal radiation here. Although there may be other causes of a Midgardian’s skin peeling off that I’m unaware of and perhaps are active here.>
Mobius set his hot chocolate aside to reply.
<Not sure there are many things that peel people’s skin right off. Might have to run that one by O.B. This hot chocolate is amazing, by the way.>
<So am I forgiven?>
At this point, Mobius was pretty sure he’d forgive Loki anything, except for leaving.
<Yes, you’re forgiven.>
<Great, because I have an idea.>
<That’s terrifying.>
<Charming. Go to Pompeii just before the eruption. Send a baby goat through the time door to me.>
<You want me to send you a goat?>
A long delay before Mobius got a reply. Very long. He heard nothing more from Loki until he was about to wrap up his work for the day and go to bed. The time door opened just as he was on his way to file his latest reports, appearing in midair and dropping the tray and its contents onto the floor.
<My apologies. Some branches needed my attention. As I was saying, I want to test a theory.>
<And this theory involves stealing a goat from an apocalypse?>
<Indulge me.>
<I’ve been indulging you since we met.>
<And hasn’t it been tremendous fun?>
Mobius smiled to himself. It had been painful and terrible and full of life-threatening, multiverse-threatening events. But it had also been more fun and excitement and happiness than Mobius had known in all his life at the TVA that he remembered.
<Fine. I’ll send you a small goat.>
<Thank you.>
How he was supposed to wrangle a goat was a mystery. Animal handling wasn’t exactly part of Mobius’ skill set.
Mobius went to finish filing his paperwork, because he was definitely going to forget if he didn’t do it before his excursion into an apocalypse and efforts to steal a small goat.
It was probably safe to assume that no one else in the TVA would have much experience with goat wrangling either, so there was no point bringing anyone else along. Besides, how hard could it be? Just release the goats like Loki had and open a time door in front of one. One small enough to fit through the time door.
And that was a problem in itself. The time door they had between them was small and unstable. Too small and unstable for a goat to safely pass through.
Mobius was going to need to talk to O.B.
-