small eternities
———————————————
Odin
It’s Odin who finds him first.
Of course it.
As it was at the start of his life, so it is here as well. It’s only fitting. By now, Loki has seen all manner of things—multiple versions of the man he has called father for the better part of his life, and yet right now, he cannot bring himself to call him just that.
“All-father.”
The man pauses at the foot of the steps, eyes cold and calculating as he surveys Loki’s citadel. When those eyes land on him, he gives the old man a smile.
Though perhaps to call him /old man/ isn’t quite right.
“He Who Remains.”
The moniker stings.
Loki raises a hand and lets a seat materialize across himself, the ground gets raised, and a table quickly swirls into existence as well. On top of it, an elegant board with ivory pieces appear one by one, each piece more detailed than the last.
He carved it himself.
“Is this to be my test? To beat you in a game of wits that I may gain the knowledge I seek?”
Loki lets out a soft chuckle.
“No,” he answers. Honestly, he might add. A first, considering who he’s talking to. “No, I simply would like your company for a while yet.”
He can’t remember how long it’s been. It feels like entire centuries have passed him by. He’s lonely. None of his friends have made an effort to try and come visit him—which he is both relieved and saddened by. They know exactly where he is, they know exactly how to get here too. But free will is the gift he’d given them all, the gift to /choose/. He can’t fault them for choosing to move forward.
“I cannot tarry. Time is of the essence.”
He raises an eyebrow, nods towards the seat and reaches out to slide his pawn into a new square.
“We have time.”
The other man looks wary.
Loki knows exactly where he came from, knows exactly what he’s looking for. This Odin hasn’t lost his eye yet—he’s still trying to bring the Nine to their knees. The version of his father before him is still that bloodthirsty warmonger that he and Thor had desperately tried to emulate. Still, this Odin sits, considers the board, and moves his own piece.
“How is the All-mother?”
“You’ve spoken with her?”
“No,” he sighs. Another hurt that never fails to make his chest ache. “No, I haven’t. Not yet, anyways, but she’ll visit me someday. I know it.”
“You presume to know many things.”
Loki cocks his head and shifts another piece on the board. “Of course.”
“Then perhaps you should already know my next move. Hardly fair, even by my standards.”
“Your standards are quite skewed to favor you nearly a hundred percent of the time,” Loki quips, eyes narrowing as Odin’s mouth pulls down at the corners. He’s trying hard not to scowl, which makes Loki want to crow in delight. “I should know, because I’m much the same. My father taught me well.”
“Your father must have been a shrewd man.”
Loki softens.
“He was. He is.”
They consider each other once more, and then take a few turns in quick succession. True to his word, Loki doesn’t try to glimpse into how this plays out. He isn’t even tempted by the knowledge, let alone crave it enough to win and alienate the only being that’s been here in eons. Not that he can, not here, in this place outside of time.
No, Loki wants to bask in this small pocket for a while longer.
This small eternity.
He could make this last forever.
He could.
But he doesn’t.
In the end, Odin beats him. Without the gift of foresight, his father always will. It’s refreshing, invigorating, and now he’s crestfallen because this small pocket of eternity has come to an end.
“You will give me the answers I seek now. Yes?”
“Of course.”
The man still looks much too wary. Loki can’t help it, he /laughs/.
“Oh please, father. You and I both know you’ll leave this place with what you came for, with or without my help.”
“I should hope to have it regardless,” Odin growls, “considering you’ve wasted my time enough.”
Loki’s smile drops.
Of course, even the All-father with all his power, cannot dream to spend a few more minutes here when his life elsewhere is still unfolding. He cannot /waste time/—not for this—not even if Loki has an abundance of it to give the man should he simply /ask/. The old bitterness that he thought he’d long buried comes back, quick as a whip. Loki reaches out and touches Odin’s head—fills it with what he needs, and sends him away.
He’s breathing harshly by the time he’s sitting back on his throne, panting.
“Sentiment.”
—————————————————————
Odin
“You called me father.”
“You’ve grown old.”
“Loki.”
He doesn’t remember when it happens, but suddenly he’s standing in front of his father. He cuts an imposing figure with his horns and the threads that hum and weave around him, that cling to his wrists and his cape. Loki doesn’t mean to, but the entire place pulses and thrums with his power, with his connection to all the timelines. Even in his citadel of threads and branches, branches and threads, even in his sanctuary, his lonely prison of timelines and lives—infinite lives—infinite realities—even with all this… he still feels small.
He feels as though he’s a child at his father’s knee again, looking up at him and begging to be seen.
He feels as if he’s hanging off the edge of the broken bridge again, willing Odin to /acknowledge/ him.
Loki doesn’t care that this is the same Odin that had snarled and snapped at him a millennia before. He doesn’t care that this isn’t his original one. So when the old bastard raises a hand to cup his cheek, Loki feels no shame when his eyes fill with tears.
“My son,” the weary king says, lone eye filled with something Loki can’t name. “A game?”
They play.
Again and again and again and again—over and over, and Loki has not won once—again and again and again and—
“Well played, God of Stories.”
Loki looks up and finds, for the first time, he’s seeing his father’s weathered smile directed at him. The lone eye that shines with something familiar in it, this time, Loki knows what it is. The All-father doesn’t need to say it.
Odin loses the game, and excuses himself.
“Ah,” the old man says before leaving, giving Loki a box. When he opens it, he finds a beautiful book bound in the finest of leathers, inscribed with runes and blessings that nearly sends Loki to his knees when he feels the aura coming from it. “A gift from your mother.”
“Thank you, All-father.”
“I came simply as your father today.”
“Today?” Loki lets out a huff of a breath. “There are no days. Time eludes us here.”
Still, when Odin leaves, Loki opens up the journal and writes at the top-right corner:
First of Many.
————————————————————
Frigga
“If I did not know any better, I would call you cruel for making me watch you suffer and not letting me do anything to fix it.”
“It is a mercy.”
“It is a dagger,” Frigga answers, brushing through his hair, pressing a kiss to his brow. Her face is youthful, her hair worn down and curling in golden tresses that far outshine those in the rich halls of Asgard. “My sweet boy. /Love/ is a dagger. It is beautiful until it makes you bleed, and even then, you can see yourself in it. The love of your mother is even more potent than that.”
Loki leans into her touch.
Her words an almost perfect rendition of what he’d told Sylvie once upon a time.
Trust that she’d find her way here when his mind was fraying and his soul, his resolve was crumbling. All the death and the destruction he bears witness to—has borne witness to—will witness still… he was wondering whether it was worth it anymore. He’s been here for… he doesn’t know. He runs out of pages faster than he can get a new treat from his father, and the old man’s last visit had been a decade ago. It was getting to him, the loneliness.
And then came Frigga.
“Won’t you eat at least, my love?”
He doesn’t know hunger.
Hasn’t known it for a while now.
But Loki /is/ starved.
He relishes the taste of Idunn’s apples on his tongue, the sensation the fresh crunch of it brings. He basks in the fragrance of his mother’s perfume and the feel of her hands as she untangles the knots in his hair, braiding them neatly while chiding him about how he can keep infinite realities together but can’t keep his own hair. He lets the gentle tones of her voice lull him to a state of semi-sleep… he hasn’t had a moment to close his eyes for years and years and years.
“Have we failed you, Loki?” Frigga asks right before she takes her leave, her voice and her face pinched. “Was there no other way? Is there no other way?”
He laughs.
It’s that simple for her.
Perhaps it really is—his mother is no fool.
“There are an infinite number of realities where you could have done better,” Loki admits, “but you have not failed. Never.”
She smiles even though there are tears in her eyes and presses another kiss to his forehead, then his cheeks.
He knows she’ll be back, but he still wishes she’d stay with him forever.
————————————————————————
Jane Foster
“You’re not supposed to be here.”
The mortal goes into an even deeper panic when she meets his eyes, and Loki truly feels bad for her. He’d hated her, once, for changing his brother the way Loki himself never could—never had. He hated that Thor had listened to her council, heeded her words after spending mere days with her even when Loki could not get his brother to listen after spending millennia together.
He actively tries not to look at Jane Foster across the timelines.
He actively tries not to look for Thor either.
“—sure, I’m not supposed to be here. But you listen up, buddy, you got beaten once, you’ll get beaten again, so—so—you’d /better/ let me go! You’re—“
“Destined to lose. I know.”
“Well, I was gonna say you’re going to regret this later, but that works too!”
He can feel the Aether humming inside her, getting into her cells, her DNA, her very essence and changing it. Loki wonders if she knows that the thing is still going to kill her, even if it takes a couple of years more to finish the job. Such frail mortal bodies were never meant to be occupied by an infinity stone.
“I can send you back no problem, but why rush?” He walks towards one of his bookcases, filled to the brim with his journals and tomes courtesy of various versions of his mother. Now that she’s here, Loki could try to see what Thor saw in Jane Foster that had moved him so. “The convergence can wait.”
“No, it can’t. And you—you /tricked/ me, and you /died/. I can’t /believe/ you made Thor go through that again!”
Loki winces, takes out a volume he’d written about the Bifrost.
“I assure you, I truly didn’t think I would survive it, at the time.”
“Yeah, sure.”
He turns towards her and raises an eyebrow at the look she’s throwing his way. Scrutinizing him like one of her star graphs.
“You’re serious.”
“I’ve spent a lot of time here. I’d like to think I’ve grown a bit more mature.”
“You aren’t Loki, are you?”
He gives her a lopsided smile. She’s astute, he’ll give her that, even if she’s /wrong/.
“I am, and I’m not.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m a Loki from a different timeline. I’m surprised your branch hasn’t encountered any other breaches or one of my variants yet.”
He’s seen the versions of himself running around and wreaking havoc across the branches. Harmless, the lot of them. For the most part, anyways. And he trusts his brother and his brother’s friends to deal with whatever mischief other Lokis get themselves into. He tries not to be too self-obsessed and watch his every move across every reality.
“So I was right!”
“About?”
“I told them, I knew it! My theory was right! The convergence, the disappearances, people popping up not /remembering/—it’s all connected. Eric said it was just thinning out the spaces between worlds, but the barrier between /realities/ is getting weaker too. There /is/ a multiverse!”
Loki hums.
Perhaps she’s smarter than he gives her credit for—a mere mortal so easy to accept the idea of a multiverse.
“How’d you figure?”
“I found a very broken mew-mew that was all too eager to talk to me.”
“Mew-mew?”
“Thor’s hammer?”
Loki grins, and for the first time in a long time, he feels like making a bit of mischief himself, even if he can’t witness it unfold firsthand.
“Tell me more.”
When he sends her back, he gives her a parting gift. He’ll have so much fun keeping tabs on Jane Foster, the goddess of thunder, on what he has made sure will be a very long life.
He’s sure one more Jane Foster across the multiverse isn’t such a bad thing.
—————————————————————
Sylvie
Loki knows he’s grown when, the moment Sylvie slips through, all he feels is an eager giddiness to talk with her once more.
“Well, I never thought I’d see the day.”
“Not really day here though, is it?” Sylvie says with a shrug, then clears her throat. “I was trying to eat a clock. It was very time consuming.”
Loki stares.
She stares back.
“Too soon?”
“Not soon enough,” Loki chuckles, reaching forward and giving her a hug. “You’ve had quite the week.”
“Are you /spying/ on me?”
“I’m spying on everyone,” he winks. “It’s kind of my thing now.”
Sylvie inspects what he’s built for himself here at the end of time. It’s less a citadel now and more a ruins, but it is much more beautiful, in Loki’s opinion. Wild growth interspersed throughout the remains of the building, sprawling vines and rare plants. He’s got books and cauldrons lying around, knives and other knickknacks brought to him by his magpie of a mother. A hearth with a fire that burns brightly but casts no shadows.
“You’ve made yourself cozy.”
“Did you expect anything less?”
“Not really. But to be honest, I was worried.”
“Is that why you’re here?” Loki hums, then goes for a light tease. “Afraid I’ve gone off the rails and decided to play god?”
“We are gods,” she deadpans. “And no, I wasn’t afraid of that.”
“Really?”
“I was afraid you were sulking.”
Loki snorts.
He doesn’t sulk.
“I do not sulk.”
“Is that why you haven’t left this place in centuries?”
“You could have visited any time.”
“So could you.”
Loki takes a deep breath.
His patience is boundless, but she manages to get under his skin, still. He doesn’t know how, she just does. Is it because she’s a Loki through and through? Is this what it’s like for everyone else around him?
“You know why I couldn’t.”
Sylvie turns to look at him, her hair—much longer now, done in braids not dissimilar to his own but more haphazard, less neat—whipping over her shoulder. The look she levels him makes his stomach clench just the slightest bit.
“We’re managing him. We’ve /been/ managing him for a while now,” the look softens slightly, but only just. “If you’ve truly been looking in on us, you’d know that.”
Well.
She’s got him there.
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want it to fall apart.”
No matter how lonely it gets, no matter how much heartache Loki has had to endure sitting here in isolation, /it’s worth it/.
“Look around you, Loki,” Sylvie sighs. “You’ve managed to build this place and made it into… god, I don’t even know how you did this. You aren’t even looking in on the timelines as we speak. You aren’t trying to keep the whole mess untangled. It’s doing it /on its own/.”
“Something could go wrong.”
“Did you know that Mobius went to see his reality?” She persists, walking right up to him. She’s a foot shorter, made smaller still by his crown, but she manages to pin him on the spot regardless. “He retired and lived in it. He wasn’t afraid anymore. He faced it. But you know that.”
“Something could go wrong.”
“Never stopped you before, did it?” She gives his cheek a small pat. “Someone once told me hope is hard. It is. But it’s worth diving into headfirst anyways.”
Loki sighs.
“I wouldn’t know where to go.”
“Anywhere!” She groans, then shakes her head. “Please tell me you at least recognize the braid?”
He does.
By the gods and all things beyond, he /does/.
“Maybe start with keeping a promise, huh?”
—————————————————————
Home
“Well fuck.”
“You don’t sound very pleased to see me, Brunnhilde.”
“I just lost ten barrels of Elven wine because of you. We had a bet going, me and Sylvie.”
“Your name is /Brunnhilde/?”
Loki grins at the child, who has paused in polishing her ginormous axe as though she’s getting ready to lead the charge of Valhalla itself. It makes him laugh when her eyes widen as she realizes who he is.
“I hate you,” the Valkyrie grumbles, but she places a fist over her heart and bows to him regardless. “Welcome back, Lackey.”
“I’m afraid we haven’t been properly introduced.”
“I think you know way too much about my life to still need introductions. This is Love, by the way.”
“He always was really terrible at naming things.”
The girl bounces to her feet, circling him like a lioness taunting her prey. It’s adorable, and more than a little awkward.
“Should I call you Uncle Lackey?”
The Valkyrie guffaws. Loki is sure he’s making a face. The girl, /Love/, shrugs and bounds away, the novelty of his appearance already worn off. Loki waits until Brunnhilde composes herself, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet.
He’s been gone for two minutes and twenty-seven seconds now.
The universe hasn’t imploded.
Nothing is turning into spaghetti.
“Where is he?”
“Where he always is when he comes home.“
—————————————————————
Loki finds his brother sitting under a tree by the cliffside. The resemblance is uncanny to what he has in his lonely sanctuary—almost as if Thor had plucked the image right from the cosmos and planted it here. There’s a stoop to his brother’s frame that has Loki’s nerves going into rapid-fire. All the old doubts and reservations coming back to life.
This isn’t his Thor—his Thor had been pruned, his Thor no longer exists—but this is still his brother.
All of them are.
Each and every iteration.
This Thor, though, has been through the wringer… the ‘Sacred Timeline’ Thor. The version of his brother that’s lost nearly everything and everyone.
“It astounds me,” Loki finds himself saying, mouth moving faster than his mind can catch up. The stoop disappears, the spine snaps ramrod straight. “It really does, that she looks more like you than you did when we were in our youth.”
Thor gets to his feet slowly.
Loki can see that his hands are shaking.
When his brother turns to look at him, Loki braces himself. For what, he isn’t sure, but he knows he’ll never be ready for it.
“Loki?”
“Thor.”
His tongue finds delight in the shape of his brother’s name.
A second later, and his entire frame is treated to the bone-crushing embrace that he’s missed for millennia. Loki’s own arms wrap around Thor’s broad shoulders, tightens the hold even more. He can feel dampness on his shoulder, and his own cheeks are slick with tears.
“Brother,” Thor gasps, his hand coming up to wrap itself around the base of Loki’s neck. His mismatched eyes are darting between both of Loki’s own when he pulls away, searching—searching. They fill with tears again as he leans their foreheads together. “Brother. /Loki/.”
“Yes, don’t wear it out on the first day.”
Thor pulls away again and laughs, cuffs the side of Loki’s head, then swipes a hand down over his own face.
“Loki—I—I was—I was trying to… I’m /still/ trying to—“ Thor takes a deep breath, runs both hands through his hair. “I’m going to free you. I’m going to—“
“I promised you, didn’t I?”
“What?”
“The sun will shine on us again,” Loki offers, stepping forward and taking Thor’s face into both hands. “I keep my promises, Thor. Always have. You don’t need to do anything.”
“But I—“
“But nothing.”
“You’re trapped.”
“I am?” Loki raises an eyebrow, “I’m trapped, am I? Well, I don’t see any chains besides the ones you have on your conscience.”
Thor’s teeth grind together.
Loki feels the weight of his brother’s guilt.
“None of this was your fault, you know. Besides, you showed up. You made your choices. You made up for it.”
“So did you… at much greater cost.”
“Because that’s what heroes do,” he gives his brother an impish grin, poke’s Thor’s chest roughly. “I learned from the best, you know.”
Thor takes a step back.
His brother takes him in, no doubt noting all of the different things about him, and Loki takes Thor in. He sees the tired slump of Thor’s shoulders, the exhausted, haunted look in his eyes. It cements the decision.
“What now?”
It’s such an easy choice to make.
“Well, brother mine,” Loki gives Thor a mischievous grin. “You’ve heard of the TVA, haven’t you? Ever been? Because me, I’ve been cooped up for much, much too long, and I think I’d like to go stretch my legs.”
Thor’s eyes narrow, but a familiar spark has just been ignited in them.
“What are you thinking?”
“Everything. Everywhere. All at once.”
Thor grins.
“When do we start?”