Prologue
Long ago, in a far-off kingdom, there lived a young prince.
This prince was lonely. An outcast of his own kingdom. Unlike the others, the prince didn’t rely on muscle to show his strength, he relied on his own wit and intellect. Even going as far as to use magic, much to the dismissal of others.
The prince had a brother. An older brother who was the pinnacle of strength, beloved by all and the future of the kingdom. The young prince loved his older brother. Even though the shadow he cast was dark and wide. Sometimes the young prince felt as though he would be swallowed by this shadow, forgotten about, and left to the darkness. But not all hope was lost.
Even in the darkest of situations, there can be a little glimmer of light.
It was in this darkness that the young prince met a princess.
Well, she wasn’t a princess, but he considered her his equal, so, he dubbed her a princess.
This princess was mysterious. Unlike anything, the prince had encountered before. For she too knew magic, but she didn’t hide it. It wasn’t shameful in her eyes. It was powerful. She spoke with eloquence and authority; she trusted in her magic and trusted its power.
The young prince finally had a friend, someone that he could trust, someone to talk to. The shadow didn’t seem so large with the princess beside him.
Life continued on. The prince and princess relying on each other. Teaching each other. There was nothing that could separate them. Some, however, looked down upon the princess more than they looked down upon the prince. They saw her confidence as arrogance. It was what they feared, and the princess knew it. As the two grew, they grew more into their magic, the princess became more powerful and her lust for knowledge grew.
The kingdom could not allow her to continue her pursuit of knowledge. It made them suspect the worst.
The princess brushed it off. She didn’t care what they said or thought about her, she knew her worth.
One day, the prince went looking for the princess. He searched the castle. First in the usual places. Then in the unusual places. Then finally in every nook and cranny that could possibly hide her.
She was gone.
Just like that.
The princess, so gifted in magic, so confident and powerful, his only friend and trusted ally…was gone.
The prince, now grown, was left where he began. Alone. An outcast. And in the deepening shadow of his brother.
The years went on and he missed her every day of those passing years. There wasn’t a moment that went by that he didn’t think about her. Wish that she were there to share her views with him. To help him. To teach him as she once had, and he in return teach her.
However, her presence lived on through him. The prince learned from her confidence, earning himself a place among his kingdom as more than just the outcast. The princess’s playful and rather mysterious approach to things was now his.
The kingdom called him a trickster.
He didn’t care.
They thought tricks were weak and cowardly. If only they knew how opposite they are.
But just as the princess had fallen, the prince eventually fell as well.
The darkness had become too much and had swallowed him whole.
People he trusted had lied to him. Those who he viewed as colleagues, betrayed him. It was clear that the only person whom he could trust was himself.
That darkness lingered and festered and even when the prince saw a way out, he was caught again.
And yet, this time, there seemed to be a tiny glimmer of light hiding among the darkness.
It was up to him to find it.
*********
Loki stared into the dull blue glow of the tesseract, even an infinity stone was useless in this Norns forsaken place. No matter how hard he tried to use his magic, it seemed as though he was stuck. Nothing worked, and if the god were being honest with himself (something he rarely did), nothing was going to work. The TVA seemed to have some sort of magic nullifier powerful enough to stop not only his magic but to render Infinity Stones useless paperweights.
The door to the Time Theater opened, looking up with hopelessness in his eyes, Loki saw Mobius approaching him.
“Loki?” He was cautious, holding the pruning rod out in front of him. “Nowhere left to run”
“I can’t go back, can I,” Loki asked. “To my own timeline.”
Mobius pressed his lips together, still holding tight to the pruning rod.
“You tried to use it?” He asked, nodding at the tesseract.
“Oh yes.” Loki sighed, turning the cube around in his hands. “Several times. Even an Infinity Stone is useless”
Loki paused, setting the tesseract down beside him.
“I don’t enjoy hurting people,” Loki said. “Never intentionally. It’s an elaborate trick. An illusion. A way for the weak” he motioned to himself. “To inspire fear. I’m their villain”
“That’s not how I see it”
Loki took a deep breath and put his head back in his hands.
“Look,” Mobius said. “I can’t offer you salvation, but maybe I can offer you something better”
Loki looked up at him, pulling himself up from the floor.
“A fugitive has been rewriting the timeline and evading our capture, even going too far as to kill our minutemen”
“And why does this concern me?”
Mobius paused, turning off the pruning rod and setting it to the side.
“Because the fugitive we’re after…is Amora”