For all time. Always!

Loki’s face quickly went from curiosity to an instance of realization before going into expressionless and cocky.

“I don’t know who that is”

“Oh, but you do!” Mobius made his way back over to the monitor in the Time Theatre and skipped farther back than he had gone before. Back to a time when Loki appeared as nothing but a child on Asgard. Pressing play, Mobius sat down and let the timeline play out.

*********

The bright sun filtered through the arches that lined one side of the wall of the royal palace walkway. Greenery and flowers hung down from the columns and a soft breeze carried their sweet smell. On one of the ledges of these arches was a young boy in a short sleeve green tunic with black pants and green boots. In his hands was a book of spells that he was trying to master, but based on the twisted expression on his face, it wasn’t going well.
A small rustling noise caught his attention, pulling his eyes from the book and to his surroundings. The noise stopped for a short while before starting up again not even a minute later.

“Thor this isn’t funny I’m trying to study” He called out.

The rustling stopped and silence once again filtered around him. The boy however didn’t take notice of the young girl (Around his age) slowly floating up from below the arch and rest her elbows and head on the ledge.

“Hey there Trickster” Her voice was light and melodic, but its pitch and sudden appearance caused the young boy to become startled.

The girl watched as the boy tumbled over the side of the ledge and onto the walkway floor. She laughed, not a polite giggle or chuckle as her mother had taught her, but a completely unladylike cackle. The boy’s book slid across the walkway tiles as he hit the floor, landing among some strategically placed plants to hide Thor’s fist-sized hole in the marble.

“Amora!” The boy cried out, picking himself up and rubbing the soreness that was growing from him falling.

The boy took quick notice of Amora’s person, not on the walkway as he was, but over the other side which was a steep drop into the gardens below.

“How are you on the other side?”

“Oh, this?” Amora gently floated higher and perched herself delicately on the ledge where the boy was previously sitting. “Just a little flight spell I taught myself, wish you could do this too, huh Loki?”

Amora’s smirk was confident, and her green eyes caught the sunlight just right that they seemed to glitter. The soft afternoon breeze billowed around her green peasant dress that was cinched at the waist and fell just above her ankles. The stray strands of her ash blonde hair seemed to fall just right around her face, even given the fact most of it was styled up in a traditional Asgardian style.  

“A flight spell? I can’t even summon a pencil back from my pocket dimension properly yet…they always get broken”

Amora hopped down from the ledge, landing on the balls of her feet the best she could in her green sandals.  There seemed to be a sadness in her eyes that many wouldn’t give a second glance at. Loki wasn’t one of those people.
Carefully approaching his friend, Loki hesitantly placed a hand on her shoulder, noticing Amora’s wince but instant calm at his touch.

“I take it you won’t be coming with us on the diplomatic assignment?”

Amora shook her head and sat down with her back against the wall of the ledge, pulling her knees to her chest. Loki quickly made his way next to her,

“She says that I’m not to leave under any circumstances”

“Did you explain that Thor and I will be going to Alfhiem as well?”

“It’s not just the realm, Loki. It’s the palace. I can’t leave.”

“She’s keeping you here?”

Amora nodded once more, tears slowly rolling down her cheeks to which she quickly wiped away.

“How does she expect you to be the next royal sorceress if you never leave the palace?”

Amora looked at her friend, there was an unspoken exchange between them before she rested her head on Loki’s shoulder.

“Right. Karnilla would sooner die than relinquish her title” he mumbled.

“The palace isn’t so bad” Amora sniffled.

“Really?”

“Yeah. I get to hang out with you all the time” She smiled, looking off down the corridor. “It’s nice to have a friend at least”

The clip ended and the film faded back to nothing, showing the plain wall behind it. Loki was standing in the same spot he had been in, mouth agape but tears in his eyes.

“She didn’t deserve what that woman did to her” he mumbled.

“I thought you said you didn’t know her.” Mobius attempted to reason with him. “Listen Loki. Amora has been using time manipulation magic and it’s been messing with the timeline, and so far, she has evaded our efforts of capture.”

Loki chuckled to himself, “You’ll never catch her.”

“I know. That’s why I brought you in.”

“Amora isn’t stupid. She is one of the most skillful sorceresses to come out of Asgard, she’s horrifically intelligent in that regard as well. If she’s mastered time manipulation magic then you’ve already lost.”

Mobius took a quick sip of his drink before resuming the conversation with Loki, “That is unless she slips up, and she did, which is how I managed to figure out her pattern, the only problem is, we don’t know where she’s hiding. So will you help us?”

“Why would I help you?”

“Because you know her better than anyone else. I’ve seen her timeline as well and you two were close, if we don’t catch her she will be hunted for the rest of her life”

“I don’t care, it doesn’t concern me”

“You don’t care about her?”

“No.”

“Loki.”

Mobius searched the god’s eyes and knew that he was lying. He didn’t need tapes to know how connected Amora and Loki were, he could see it in Loki’s expressions with the mere talk of her. Loki missed Amora. Especially since he had long thought her dead.

“I know how much you want to see her again.” He said. “I can reunite you with your friend, and possibly bargain your freedom, but I have to know if you’re willing to help us”

Loki was still silent as if he were remembering everything and taking things into account. Would Amora even want to see him after all these years? She had trusted him, and he betrayed her as he did with so many others. The one friend Loki ever had.
Finally, after deep thought, Loki agreed.
Amora and he had some unfinished business.

The Minutemen and hunter stepped out of the orange portal and into the Ironwood of Jotunhiem. The thick forest surrounded them on all sides and mist slowly rolled in from the unknown places.

“Spread out and search, something tripped the timeline” The hunter ordered.

One by one the minutemen stepped through the trees and were consumed by the darkness of the Ironwood. Almost as if sensing them, a figure moved silently through the trees, approaching the minutemen from behind, one by one, and sliding their dagger across their throats. As the figure emerged from the thick forest, shrouded in the mists, the hunter seemed to sense them and quickly turned in their direction.

“Hey! Minutemen! I found them!” He shouted, reaching for his pruning rod.

“I think that you’ll find yourself very alone” A feminine voice emerged from beneath the dark green cloak that was melodic and mature.

“You’re coming with me for crimes against the sacred timeline and-“

Before the hunter could finish his sentence, the figure was behind him as well as in front of him, but she slowly pulled their knife across the hunter’s throat. As the hunter dropped to the ground, the form of the figure that was previously standing in front vanished.

“Pathetic puppets” She mumbled whilst wiping the blood off the knife using her cloak and vanishing back into the Ironwood.