Sylvie tore through the thin skin of black plastic. She figured it was a bad sign even that felt like a momentous effort. Her vision spotted with black, as the garbage bag spilled its contents onto the pavement. A whimper raised from her throat as she scanned the innards. Empty soda cans, crumpled pieces of paper, a few discarded coffee cups. Nothing edible. Sinking to her knees she dug through the items again, desperate to find anything she could have missed. Her eyes snagged on a crushed pink box with cartoon donuts printed on top of it. She let herself hope for just a moment. Picking it up she immediately wished she hadn’t. Of course, it was empty. Opened it anyway there was at least a little bit of glaze dried stuck on the cardboard. Ripping it off she began licking at the residue. her whole body aching with the taste of pure sugar.
She knew she was being cruel. Allowing it to taste something but get no actual fulfillment from it but she couldn't make herself stop. Once she was sure she had lapped up every bit of sugar, leaving the cardboard damp and soft, she leaned back on her palms.
Her head spun and her stomach spased with another sharp ache.
She longed for her days in Asgard, where her concept of “hunger” was defined by missing an afternoon snack. Now, she couldn’t even remember the last time she ate. She didn't know where to even look for food. She couldn’t even ask. The TVA was able to find her faster whenever she interacted with anyone, and right now, she knew she couldn’t outrun them if they came for her.
Letting her eyes drift shut, she didn’t even think she could walk right now.
She was going to die here.
The idea formed in her brain, heavy and slow. Sinking through her thoughts with a mix of acceptance and inevitability.
Sylvie felt tears run across her cheeks, but couldn’t find the energy to wipe them away. In that moment she hated herself. She hated the spoiled little princess she was on Asgard who would complain about what she was served for dinner if it wasn’t to her preference. Her mother always took care to remind her that a lot of people would be grateful for her dinner plate. She hadn’t paid it much mind then. Now she wondered if this was some form of cosmic punishment for all those plates she had sneered at, or left untouched.
She’d give anything for a bite of even the worst meal she’d been offered then.
A rustling sound sent Sylvie’s eyes flying back open.
This was it. The TVA was here. They were going to prune her.
She didn’t even know why she was bothering to panic. It wasn’t like she could do anything at this point. But scanning the parking lot, she saw no orange glowing doors. No hunters rushed towards her. She was alone.
The rusting came again, this time she realized it was coming from in front of her. Crawling forward, she found a small candy box rattling. Looking closer, she saw a long tail sticking out from it. A grey rat suddenly peaked its head out, staring at Sylvie inquisitively before apparently deciding she wasn’t a threat and sticking its head back in. Her body lunged before she realized what it was doing, her fists landing on the box with a crack.
Catching her breath, she realized with horror what she had done. Looking down at the small pool of blood leaking out of the purple cardboard of the confirmed it.
Her mind felt pulled in two. One side was racked with horror and guilt over what she had just done. The other centred on a singular thought. Food.
Pulling the limp corpse of the rodent out of the box, Sylvie’s body rolled with nausea as her stomach lurched. If she had anything in her to throw up she was sure she would have. Trying to not look at the animal’s mangled form, she gathered as much energy in her hands as she could and shot it through in a burst of heat.
She didn’t know if it was cooked. She didn’t even know how to check. But at this point, she decided it really didn’t matter.
Tearing her teeth into the critter's body she started scarfing down meat. Her mind rushed with euphoria as her mouth tasted something akin to food. Her body seemed to shake with anticipation of protein as she swallowed back her first mouthful, diving in for a second just as quickly.
She was halfway through the animal before it all really hit her. What she had done. What she was doing.
All the lessons her mother taught her about the importance of minding your manners as a princess coursed through her mind. The look of disappointment in her eyes every time she forgot to say thank you or held her fork incorrectly. What would she think if she could see her now?
Her mind conjured a look of horror. Seeing her daughter, Asgard’s princess, reduced to sitting among the trash, tearing through a rat, mouth stained with blood ike a rabid animal.
Sylvie felt more tears run as white-hot shame coursed through her. It only burned hotter when she realized it wasn’t enough to make her stop and ripped in for another bite.
Sylvie’s boots crunched beneath the thin layer of crisp snow coating the forest floor. For the last two weeks she had been residing on Artemis-3, a largely uninhabited moon in the Solanious system. She’d gotten lucky here so far. Two weeks was unusually long for her to go without managing to cause a large enough branch to have the TVA track her down. The lack of people helped, but still, she took care to mind her steps and keep her senses sharp for the sound of a timedoor.
Lifting the large pack of essentials she had taken to holding onto that was beginning to slip down her back, she debated her next move. Most of her thoughts nowadays were defined by trying to think of what was to come, it made it easier to forget what had come before.
She could stay here until she caused a bigger branch, use the space for all it had as long as she could. But the seasons were beginning to change. Already, food was scarce and heat was precious. And she would rather stay a step ahead of the TVA instead of sitting around and waiting for them to show up. Her nightmares through the short moments of sleep she forced herself into were constantly stained with visions of them finding her if she stopped for a moment. Trapping her and pruning her like they had the rest of her family. She supposed it was for the best; her nightmares were preventing her from sleeping very long of late.
Checking her first two traps, they were unsurprisingly empty. Most things were in hibernation at this point of the year on the moon. Still, her stomach ached and hunger clawed. If she didn’t catch something soon, her hunger would make the decision for her.
As she approached the third trap her eyes focused in on a twitch of movement.
Racing to the trap, her instincts were confirmed. Inside the net she had weaved was a small white rabbit, tangled in threads and fighting against its hold. Whipping out her pocket knife, Sylvie’s mind shot through calculations. It was big enough to be one good meal, and leftovers she could dry into jerky, which would provide at least two more. Her mouth salivated with just the promise of food, but it went suddenly dry when the animal flipped over, its wild eyes catching Sylvie’s.
At one point not long ago she would have found the creature cute. It was snow white with a small pink twitching nose and long floppy pointed ears. On Asgard, she would have seen it as a potential pet, not a source of sustenance.
As it froze with fear, recognition crashed through Sylvie. The look of terror the small animal had in its dark eyes as it looked up at its captor. It was the same one she felt in her dreams. At the sudden crack of a branch behind her. In her memories of standing in front of the judge stand, his cold eyes staring down at her.
Clawing frantically, the rabbit tried to get away, but its efforts were pitiless against the constraints. Sylvie wanted to comfort it for a delusional moment. To drop the knife and back away, to show she didn’t mean it harm. To gather it in gentler hands and stroke it until it calmed down. To hold it tight and promise it was going to be okay, that she wasn’t going to hurt it. But of course she was. And pretending otherwise wouldn't save either of them.
Her grip on her knife tightened until her knuckles went white. She knew the best thing she could do was to put the thing out of its misery. To make it quick and as painless as possible. Lifting the blade, she was surprised to find her hand trembling as it slashed downward. It had been a long time since they had done that.
Next to her small fire that night, Sylvie made quick work of breaking down the animal. The leg of it was roasting, while the rest of the meat had been broken into long stips, currently smoking into jerky. Picking off the leg from her roasting stick, she pressed her thumb into it. It was firm enough to confirm it was cooked all the way through. She had made that mistake once and was sick for weeks because of it, unable to keep anything down.
The experience was bad enough to teach her to be careful.
She often wished all of her wisdom didn’t need to be preceded by pain, but she supposed that was the only way to learn alone.
Biting into the soft flesh, the wide-eyed terror in the rabbit formed in her mind. Her mouth felt like it was filled with sawdust. She choked on the meet before forcing herself to swallow the mouthful back. The rest of the meat went down the same, landing heavy and cold in her stomach.
Gathering the cleaned bones of the animal, Sylvie tore at the ground. Her fingers needed to fight against the frosted soil to disrupt it, until she managed a hole just deep enough to cover the bones. Refilling the hole and patting down the soil, she picked a small white flower growing nearby and placed it on the mound. It felt silly, to mourn what she had killed, but she hoped somehow it would help the rabbit forgive her.
Once the remainder of the rabbit meat was dried, she gathered into her pack and left Artemis-3 the same night. She never returned.
One thing people often didn’t talk about in apocalypses was the quality of the food. For most of them, food was an afterthought. No one wanted to be cooking when the sky was going to crash down on them at any moment. Those where people were still driven by delusional hope, food could be a source of conflict, as desperate hands gripped for anything they thought could save them. Accordingly, good food was hard to come by in most.
However, in a stray few, typically when they knew it was coming, people would choose to go out with a feast. Sylvie didn’t visit those ones often. She preferred the anonymity of panic over people trying to connect to her in their final moments. It was easier to not get attached that way. But sometimes the cravings won out, and she would end up on a planet like Hestiafor.
All of Hestifor was going to be wiped out in a volcanic eruption in only a few hours. The people knew it. They had for years. But the eruption was coming on one of their harvest days, so the common belief that had emerged was that this was the work of their benevolent deity and after they were burned away, a new better world would rise from the ashes. So they accepted their fate and held a feast in their deity's honour for their final moments.
Endless tables were lined with plates of food, wafting into the air with the smell of spice and butter. Sylvie surveyed the many offerings, filling her plate with some sort of meat she was unfamiliar with, scoops of roasted jewel-coloured fruits and vegetables, and a yellow sauce that smelled heavenly before finding a private spot under a shady tree. She felt a little bad for stealing from these people in their final moments, but figured they'd be dead anyway if a a few hours so wouldn't really mind.
Scarfing down the food, Sylvie knew she ought to slow down, or she would make herself sick. But she never liked eating for long. It forced her to drop her defences, even for just a little while. As sure as she was the TVA couldn't find her here, she could never be too careful. She wanted to get out of here as fast as possible, keep moving, so she could only hold herself back so much as she shovelled in another mouthful.
Listening to music in the distance and hearing laughter from the crowds, she felt the tug of a distant memory of the feasts of Asgard. They were a blurry image in her mind by now. More of a vague glow than any specifics. But in her mind’s impression, she was happy. She remembered there was some pastry her mother used to make for them. At the time, she thought it was the most delicious thing in the world.
Something in Sylvie cracked as she realized she had no memory of how it actually tasted.
She shoved the crack full with another bite of food. She didn’t have time to mourn, and there were more important things to be concerning herself with than lost memories and pastries. She had to keep going, holding on to the past would only slow her down. Looking forward into the rumbling mountain ahead, she wolfed down another bite of food and pushed the memory of Asgard out of her mind.
Sylvie’s whole body ached. Everything felt too tight, too sore, too cold, it was like her skin had frozen around her body. She pushed her head deeper into the pillow and shuddered. Something in her wanted to force herself up and keep going. Once upon a time, she knew she would have had to. The idea that she didn’t have to now, that someone else was looking out for her, was one her instincts were still catching up on.
In the distance, she heard a door open, and footsteps approach. Not a time door and boot steps, she still had to remind herself, but Loki’s gentle hand pushing the door softly to not disturb her and coming towards her. She felt the bed dip next to her and a hand lift to her forehead, gently brushing out strays of hair stuck with sweat from her eyes.
“How are you feeling?” he whispered.
Sylvie let out a groan that wasn’t really words, let alone an answer, but she could hear managed to make Loki laugh.
“That bad?”
She attempted a nod.
“Do you think you could sit up?”
Despite the protests of her body Sylvie moved herself onto her elbows before shiting her weight enough to be sitting against the headrest. Cracking her eyes open, she finally saw Loki, watching her with concern in his eyes.
“I brought you this…” he said, nodding down to the bowl in his hand.
Sylvie felt her gaze soften as he reached it out for her.
“My mother used to make it for me when I got sick. Always helped.”
His hands wrapped around hers, covering the bowl. It was warm and heavy in her grasp. She ran her spoon through the thick orange substance filled with root vegetables and chunks of pheasant. It smelled heavenly.
Lifting the spoon to her mouth, she gave it a tentative blow before bringing it into her mouth.
Nostalgia washed over Sylvie with the taste. It tasted like her mother’s hugs and rainy days in the palace. It tasted like her brother’s laughter and her father’s smile. It tasted like her favourite cloak’s embrace and the smell of Asgard’s gardens. It tasted like home.
Looking into the bowl, the taste of blood and saw dust coated her throat, chasing out the brief warmth with a much harsher memory. She felt tears gather in her eyes and tried to blink them back as she quickly scarfed down another bite of it, figuring the faster she got this over with the better.
“That bad?” Loki whispered to her, reminding her he was still here, “I followed the recipe exactly.”
Sylvie shook her head frantically, cursing herself for being so ungrateful. Giving up on the spoon she lifted the bowl to her mouth and began to drank deeply, determined to down every drop of it before she could even process the taste.
“Whoa, whoa whoa, slow down,” Loki said, guiding the bowl back down and lifting it from her hands.
She suddenly realized how bizarre she must appear to him, especially as a prince. Studying her lap with shame, Loki put the bowl down on her bedside table.
“If you don’t want it, then you don’t need to finish it,” he reminded her softly, “I won’t be offended.”
“It’s not that,” Sylvie choked.
“What do you mean?”
“My mom used to make me that soup,” she attempted, “before-”
Loki nodded, his movements heavy with understanding.
“She made it for her daughter. If she saw all the things I did, everything I became. She wouldn’t want me to have it.”
“Sylvie, that’s ridiculous,” Loki said, his face lining with concern.
“If I’m going to act like an animal, might as well eat like one,” she spat.
Lifting a hand to her face, he guided her eyes to his.
“You’re not an animal. You’re a survivor. You deserve good food, Food that you didn’t need to catch or steal.”
Sylvie shook her head again.
“It’s been so long, I don’t even think I could enjoy it properly even if I wanted to.”
“Well,” Loki smirked, “that I can help with.”
Grabbing the bowl from her bedside table, he mixed the liquid together before lifting out a spoonful.
“Close your eyes and open your mouth,” he instructed.
“I’m not a child,” Sylvie bit defensively, “I can feed myself.”
“Indulge me,” Loki asked with a tilt of his head.
Sighing, Sylvie did what he asked. Feeling the spoon lifted into her mouth, she swallowed it back.
“What do you taste?”
“Soup,” she said once her mouth was empty.
She heard Loki scoff, which made her cheeks flush.
“What does the soup taste like?” he attempted again, lifting another mouthful into her mouth.
This time, Sylvie forced herself to think about it.
“Kinda Earthy,” she attempted.
“Good,” Loki praised, “anything else?”
Sylvie took care to keep this spoonful in her mouth a bit longer, letting it linger on her tongue.
“A bit sweet, but also rich. It’s good.”
Resting a hand over hers, Sylvie opened her eyes to find Loki smiling at her.
“See, you can enjoy it just fine. You just haven’t had a chance to.”
Sylvie sniffled and wiped the base of her palm against her cheek.
“It just feels like,” she breathed, “something’s going to happen if I don’t finish it all right now. And if I can’t find more then…”
Loki hushed her, his face lining with understanding.
“It’s going to take some time to retrain your mind to not think that way. Until it does, then we can just take it slow together.”
Looking down at Loki’s hand covering hers, Sylvie let out a small smile.
“Together.”