Burden of Betrayal
Asgardians had a thing for sayings.
Loki, on the other hand, always found them redundant. And pointless.
For example, in this particular moment, an Asgardian would say that Loki was as still as the center of a cyclone. Or perhaps they would say he was as shocked as a salmon on a spear.
It pretty much all went to say that as Loki stood and stared at his mirror self, who happened to be a little girl with brown hair and a band of golden horns, no taller than a table and no older than ten, he was completely and utterly speechless.
Beside him, Natasha leaned closer. “So that’s…Thor.”
Heart in his throat, he found himself incapable of speech. So he nodded instead.
“And that’s…” she trailed off with a wary glance at him.
Me.
No. No, that would be impossible. Loki was singular. Unique. His power and potential unparalleled. This girl, this…child, must have been an imposter. Some part of an evil, wicked trick being played on him.
“How?” Natasha whispered, slowly inching toward the children. Loki caught her around the wrist and pulled her back, just in time for the boy to stomp his foot on the lowest step of the staircase.
“Princess Loki, surrender to Surtur, the bringer of the apocalypse-“
The girl thrust her dagger forward. “Surter shall bow to Loki, the Goddess of Power-“
Little Thor scoffed. “Of Mischief, you mean.”
The little girl shot him a surprisingly lethal glare. “Of beauty-“
“Of chaos!”
The girl leveled the dagger with the boy’s neck. “Doesn’t matter what I am the Goddess of, Surtur. I will protect my people and save Asgard!”
Loki didn’t know how, but that ache, that abyss, grew with every passing word.
The boy threw his head back, laughing at the sky. Then he grabbed his sister’s dagger and yanked it from her hand. “And I will destroy it!”
“No!” The girl screeched and giggled, flinging her arms out. “I summon thee, Valkyrie, to vanquish the beast!”
Loki couldn’t help it. Perhaps it was his curiosity, or maybe his rage, or a combination of the two, that forced his feet forward towards the children. He heard Natasha hiss his name behind him, but brushed her off.
The little girl with a band of lopsided golden horns on her head beamed at her brother with pride, with victory, before her gaze flicked behind him and sharply met Loki’s. The girl’s smile immediately fell.
“Thor…” she said warily.
“I know not this Thor you speak of. I am Surtur, destroyer of-“
The girl picked up a stone near her boot and threw it at her brother’s head. When that shut him up, she pointed behind him. The boy spun around.
The children stared at Loki expectantly, and gaped long enough for the little girl to steal the wooden dagger from her brother’s fist and brandish it as if it were real.
“Who are you?” she asked. The blonde boy sunk behind his sister.
Loki cleared his throat. “I’m a friend.”
The girl looked between Loki and Natasha. “A friend?”
Natasha took a step forward, her palms raised in surrender. “We’re not going to hurt you.”
The little blonde boy clutched the cloth of his sister’s cape, his eyes peering over her head. Despite being almost a foot taller than the girl, he cowered behind her. With a shaky step forward, Princess Loki of Asgard raised the toy weapon until the tip was inches away from Loki’s neck.
“Liars,” she said.
Loki scoffed. Amused. “Strong words for a girl with a wooden dagger.” He leaned over to meet her eyes with his. “What are you going to do, huh? Fight me with a fake sword?”
Much to Loki’s surprise, she didn’t back down. Instead, she narrowed her eyes and puffed her chest. “If I have to.”
Loki glanced at the boy, still cowering behind his sister in fear, before straightening.
“Interesting.”
“Thor!” A melodic voice rang throughout the stone. One that was painfully familiar. “Loki! That’s enough playing for the day! Come inside for dinner.”
The little blonde boy’s eyes rounded in a mixture of fear and realization before he shoved his sister forward and ran away, all the while screaming “mother!” as he fled. The little girl, on the other hand, merely spared her brother a glance before facing Loki and Natasha, gripping the handle of her wooden weapon with both tiny fists.
“Leave,” she said, her voice so small but so strong.
“We can’t,” Loki replied. Natasha whirled to face him.
“We can’t?”
“These exact coordinates were programmed into the tempad.” Loki kept a keen eye on the girl. Some instinct told him it’d be dangerous if he didn’t. “Which means the TVA isn’t far behind.”
Natasha’s brows dipped. “Then we have to get out of here.”
There it was again. We. Did it feel as foreign to her as it did to him?
“Loki,” she said when he didn’t reply. “There’s nothing we can do for them.”
“I know that,” he snapped, perhaps a bit too harsh. Did she think he felt sentiment? Sadness? Didn’t she know who he was?
The girl watched their exchange with a wary interest. Her blue eyes flicked between them, before settling on something in the distance. Before Loki could even think to question what exactly had caught her attention, a peculiar sound rang out from behind him. The girl’s eyes widened. With more than a hunch of what it could be, Loki watched Natasha spin around to investigate. She sighed, then she groaned and swore under her breath.
“Shit.”
The orange rectangle had appeared once again. This time, however, it was accompanied by a very pissed off team of TVA agents. Loki, still observing the girl, watched as she swung the sword from Loki, to the orange portal, and back to Loki, each time more fearful and brave than the last. It almost made his lips twitch into a smile.
Loki flipped open the tempad and whirled around with a flare of drama that rivaled Odin himself.
“As much as I’d love to tango again, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, backing away in step with Natasha. Behind B-15, Mobius emerged from the portal. Loki met his eyes as he spoke. “I’m afraid we have more important things to do.”
His finger pressed down on the next set of coordinates. He reached out, grabbed on to Natasha’s bicep and waited. Waited. Waited for the door to appear.
“Loki,” Natasha muttered.
“Give it a minute.”
Mobius quirked an eyebrow.
Loki glanced at Natasha and cleared his throat. “Must be…must be some sort of error.”
“You done?” Mobius asked with a lilt to his tone that Loki would almost call sassy. At Mobius’ gesture, the agents fanned out around them in a semicircle. Loki saw Natasha’s eyes dart around the terrace, clenching her empty fists.
One of the soldiers, a tall, freckled man with orange hair, grabbed the little girl from behind and clamped down on her shoulders. She fought back instantly, jabbing him in the leg with her elbow.
The soldier tsk’d before slapping the back of her head. The girl concealed most of her whimper, but Loki caught the glimmer of tears in her eyes.
“Loki Laufeydottir, you are under arrest for crimes against the Sacred Timeline.”
The girl’s eyes widened, and Loki knew that look. Fear. Panic.
“Thor!” she screamed.
Ah, and loneliness. How could he forget that?
“Grab her and bag her, Mitch. Secure all three variants. And B-15,” Mobius turned to the female soldier. “No pruning. Clear?”
“Crystal,” she said in a blank, unconvincing tone.
“Wait,” Natasha called. Every head in the vicinity swiveled to face her. Including Loki, who had already began conjuring a dagger beneath his coat. “I’m not,” she said.
Loki glanced at Mobius to affirm that he was just as confused as everyone else. That seemed to be the case. Scanning the blank faces around him, it seemed that her words left much to be desired “You asked if we were done. I never answered,” she finally said, lifting her chin. Mobius exchanged a look with B-15. With a ‘what could go wrong’ shrug followed by a glare from the agent in response, he gestured for Natasha to continue.
“I have a question,” she said.
“I know you do.”
Natasha’s foot froze mid-step, and Loki could do nothing but hope that this was part of some plan to get them far away from this sad, doomed mimic of everything he’d ever held dear. If anything, it made a great distraction; suspending the unknown in the air like a carrot, dangling near the noses of a dozen famished rabbits.
“Well?” Mobius placed his hands on his hips. “Are you going to ask it or make me guess?”
Her eyes narrowed. “What made me a variant?”
Oh.
Interesting.
Loki assumed it had been him, crashing into that purple planet and disturbing her restless afterlife. It would make sense, after all. He tended to ruin things.
“You want to know your nexus event?” Mobius asked. To Loki’s shock, Mobius didn’t seem to be mocking her. This must have surprised Natasha, too. Loki saw that in her eyes.
“Why don’t you come back with us, then?” B-15 said, approaching Natasha. “We can sit you down and tell you a nice, long story.”
“Cool it, B-15-“
“Cool it?” She turned to Mobius with a scoff. “You’re sitting here and entertaining these variants while our mission is to capture them!”
“Just give me a minute-“
B-15 pushed past Mobius with a shove. “You’ve had your minute.” Engaging the glowing stick, B-15 narrowed her eyes at Loki. “It’s my turn.”
“Wait-“
“Grab them.”
A dozen black sticks came alive with a yellow glow.
Loki cleared his throat, leaning down to whisper in Natasha’s ear, “about your plan?”
Natasha blinked, but didn’t reply.
“I’m starting to think it’s equally as terrible as mine.”
The woman’s eyes tracked the advancing agents.
“Do you really think that’s a helpful thing to say right now?” she hissed between gritted teeth.
“No,” Loki replied with a shrug. “But as we’re about to get captured once again, I figured I’d appreciate an acknowledgement that I was right and you were wrong.”
Finally, the agents stopped circling. There was a beat, a momentary silence, where the agents waited their next command.
Then B-15 made a gesture Loki didn’t quite understand, and the slow approach transformed into an all-out attack.
Natasha ducked beneath a black stick that swung in her direction.
“Your plan was terrible, too!” she shouted to Loki, who was eyeing his own approaching glowing stick of incineration.
“Maybe, maybe not,” he said, dropping to the ground to swipe the agent’s legs from beneath him. The man came tumbling down. Loki stood, flipping the hair from his face. “Guess we’ll never know.”
Natasha incapacitated her attacker with a jab to the neck before facing Loki.
“We need a new tempad,” he said. There was a high pitch screech, and their attention was pulled to the little girl, her face contorted in rage as she hit her attacker over and over again with the wooden dagger. She delivered her blows so fast and intense that even the agent couldn’t find time to recover enough to straighten and strike back.
“And we need to get her out of here,” Natasha said.
Loki scoffed. “Excuse me?”
A punch landed on Loki’s stomach. Loki kicked the agent in kind, who doubled over with a groan.
“She’s just a child, Loki,” Natasha said after securing a TVA agent in a chokehold.
“Yes,” Loki replied, swiping the tempad off of the agent in Natasha’s grasp and poking him with the glowing stick. The man disintegrated. Natasha grimaced, grabbing the tempad from Loki. “What strategic advantage could there possibly be in saving her?” he asked, mostly rhetorically.
Natasha sighed. “You know, you should learn to admire things beyond their usefulness, Loki.” Another agent approached, and Natasha delivered another jab with the glowing stick. “Maybe then you’ll finally find something real.”
Loki ducked, overwhelmed by the ongoing assault by two female agents. Despite the blows raining down on him, he found the time to look at her incredulously. “Real?”
“Yes,” she said. “A purpose. A dream. A person. A lover. Anything other than planetary domination.” Natasha pruned another incoming soldier before turning to face Loki. “Real.”
Loki opened his mouth to speak but stammered instead. Finally, he spoke with a huff, “I have things that are real.”
Natasha was prepared for this. “Name something. Anything.”
Something. Anything.
He had a purpose, right? There was nothing wrong with planetary domination. In fact, Loki would even call it ambitious.
He stammered again, but Hunter B-15 arrived, saving him from his empty reply. Loki contemplated dodging her assault, but decided to project an image of himself instead. Loki detached himself from his illusion, slipping behind a large stone pillar. In the corner of his eye, he watched as Natasha’s weapon was torn from her hands. Behind her, arms swarmed her body, securing her arms, legs, waist, and finally, another collar around her neck. With a grunt, she kicked out, striking Mobius in the face.
Loki watched as a proud B-15 escorted the fake Loki into the orange portal. In between the chaos, Natasha managed to scan the stone terrace until she locked eyes with Loki. The real Loki. She opened her mouth to speak, but was silenced by a contraption placed over her mouth. Natasha managed to free one arm by elbowing an agent to her right and head-butting the one to the left in a swift, quick motion. She drew her arm back and launched something in the air just seconds before the mob overwhelmed her once more.
The tempad landed in Loki’s hands before he even processed it flying towards him. With only a slight second of hesitation, Loki flipped it open and selected a random set of coordinates. He looked up to find Natasha completely swarmed by agents. The one thing he could still see, however, were her eyes. They flicked to something across the room before glaring back at Loki. It was the last thing she did before she was dragged back through the portal.
Loki followed the path her eyes had taken, and found himself staring at the girl.
She was faring well for a child so young. Her heels dug into the stone as the red haired soldier yanked her closer and closer to the orange door. Despite its flimsy appearance and overall uselessness, she swung that little toy sword as if it were made of steel; and even though Loki loathed to admit it, it wasn’t not affective. She was still here, after all. It was more than Natasha could say for herself.
And she had the gall to plead for Loki to save the girl.
Ridiculous.
Shame, Loki thought. But Natasha was gone, and there was no reason for him to sacrifice this one good escape plan for one that was irrevocably worse. Much, much worse. The child would be a nuisance. An inconvenience at best. At worst, a disaster.
She was a Loki, after all. Loki’s weren’t meant to be saved.
Loki let his gaze linger on the two remaining agents still vying for control over the little spitfire girl before he turned his back on them. He reached out, finger hovering above the coordinates. And he hesitated.
Why was he hesitating?
“Set the charge,” a breathless voice said. Loki glanced over his shoulder and past the pillar. The girl dangled from the redhead’s arms, tucked securely against his chest. The other soldier made the mistake of coming in kicking range of the girl, and was rewarded with a bloody nose caused by a boot to the face.
“Damn it!” The blonde agent hissed, pulling a cylinder from his bag. “We should just leave her here.” He placed it on the ground next to his boot. “Incinerate her just like everyone else in this fucked up branch.”
“You heard what Mobius said,” the ginger replied in an amused tone. “No pruning. Not yet.”
“I didn’t say we should prune her.” He pressed down on the charge, which began to radiate a glowing purple light. Then he straightened and approached the girl in the soldier’s arms. “I said we should just leave her. This place will all be erased anyway. Who’s to say she didn’t slip away, huh?”
The ginger looked down at the girl in his arms. Considering.
“One less Loki to deal with,” the blonde one said.
“Less paperwork, too,” the ginger added.
“Precisely. She’s a Loki, after all. Nobody will even notice that she’s gone.”
The soldier reached out to take a lock of the girl’s brown hair between his fingers. She snapped at him, baring her teeth with a growl. The soldier sneered, grabbing a fistful of her hair and yanking her head to the side. The girl yelped.
“Or maybe we kill her and let the charge erase the evidence,” he hissed. “Stupid girl. Your death could’ve been painless.”
“Let me go!” she screamed.
The man scoffed. “Too late for that, sweetheart.”
He tightened his grip on her hair, pulling her from the ginger’s grasp and throwing her to the ground.
“D-3,” the ginger warned.
The soldier drew his weapon, twirling the black stick so the pointy edge faced the little girl.
“You like mischief, little one?” the soldier, D-3, asked with a sneer. His steel-toed boots inched closer and closer as the girl scrambled away. She crawled away on her hands and knees, stumbling until she caught herself on the railing. Her fingers gripped the stone as she hauled her body until her chest slumped over the edge.
Loki assumed she was pondering the consequence of jumping. The drop from the terrace to the sea below surely wasn’t deadly, especially for an Asgardian. Perhaps it would hurt, but something told Loki that it wasn’t her safety she was contemplating.
Still, her eyes scanned the water, her breaths heavy and quick until suddenly, she grew quiet.
She sat there for a moment, panting, shaking, head dangling over the terrace, until she planted her feet on the ground and stood fully.
The two soldiers exchanged a confused glance as she righted herself, her little fingers trembling at her sides as she turned to face them. D-3 scoffed, his lips curled in a smile but his eyes wary. Confused.
“Oh, she’s brave now, is she?” He took a step in her direction. The girl mirrored his step with one of her own, but it was not in retreat. Then she took another step, and another, until she was close enough to touch him.
Her hand shot out, latching around his wrist.
“I was always brave,” she hissed as a green flash glowed between her fingers. The man grew rigid, his back snapping straight before the girl pushed him away. D-3 stumbled back, teetering on his boots with a blank stare. When he regained his balance, he took a moment to scan his surroundings. Then he looked down at her. And he did the strangest thing.
He curtseyed.
The little girl smiled, her eyes alight with amusement.
“Lower,” she ordered between giggles. D-3 did as she demanded, dipping his chin towards his chest as he deepened the curtsey.
“Who am I, peasant?” the little girl spat, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Princess Loki, your highness,” the man sputtered.
“And who do you obey beyond all else?”
He inhaled shakily. “You, Princess Loki.”
The ginger stared open mouthed at the sight. Loki swore the man was half way to pissing himself when the girl set her sights on him.
Whatever she planned to do, she never got the chance. The ginger reached down towards the peculiar cylinder, the ‘charge’, and pressed a glowing button situated right on top. The glow grew brighter and brighter before it tapered off, spilling from the cylinder and spreading across the stone in all directions.
The girl backed away slowly. Everything the glow touched seemed to completely disintegrate. The floor beneath them began to crumble, the weight of the ceiling buckling, crumbling, sending rocks falling like rain from the skies above.
“Tell me what’s happening,” the girl demanded of the man under her spell.
His tone, much like his face, was blank. “Your existence is being erased.”
She panted amidst her retreat. “That’s impossible.”
“Your timeline will cease to exist. As will your world and everything in it.”
“No!” She screeched. Then she sped up, running alongside the growing glow that stood between herself and the entrance to her castle. She stretched onto her toes, peering into the dark hallway. “Thor!” she called. “Mother!”
There was no reply. A sob tore through her chest. She doubled over as if wanting to collapse, as if the weight of it was too much. But ultimately, she didn’t. Perhaps she figured she would die anyway, and like Loki, always feared a coward’s death. Or perhaps she was overpowered by the need to retreat. To survive; her feet still carrying her away from the charge.
“How do I stop this?” She pleaded as she slowly backed away. “How do I save them?”
The soldier’s eyes flashed green as he opened his mouth, and with the stone archway collapsing behind him, said, “you can’t,” before he was overtaken by the charge, disintegrating in the blink of an eye.
Loki’s lips parted in shock as he watched the walls give way, the floor sinking beneath them. His eyes scanned the pristine wreckage until they landed on the girl, who rocked back and forth until she collapsed onto her knees. She wasn’t crying. All Loki could hear was her breathing, heavy and panicked, as she watched the desolation approach.
Loki looked down at the tempad in his hand, and back up at the girl.
“Damn,” he hissed under his breath. He braced his hand against the pillar. And he ran.
Loki felt a strange sensation in his chest as he sped towards the girl. It was so distant, like a thin tether that pulled him in the opposite direction. Something that told him this was not what he was meant to do.
Loki reached down and hooked his hand around her elbow. He didn’t realize how limp she was until he pulled her up, and her feet could barely manage to find their rightful place beneath her. In his hand, the tempad beeped.
Loki raced towards the intact section of the stone terrace, dragging the girl behind him.
“Wait!” she screeched. She yanked her arm from his grasp and darted across, just barely sweeping the wooden dagger into her hand before the section of stone it accompanied was overtaken by the glow. Loki didn’t stop, slowing down only to press the correct button on the tempad.
The girl sprinted towards Loki, who snatched her once she was close enough to grab. “You idiot!”
The door popped up merely a foot in front of their faces. Loki didn’t hesitate, racing towards the portal. He was caught off guard when his hand didn’t go with him.
Loki turned around, and stared incredulously at the girl who refused to move.
“I can’t leave them!” she shouted above the roar of destruction.
Loki had to fight to not roll his eyes.
“You have to!” he called back, tugging on her arm.
“I won’t let my family die! Not without at least trying to save them-“
“They’re already gone!” Loki shouted. Behind her, the sky began to disappear, but the girl barely seemed to notice. Her face fell.
“No,” she said, though Loki couldn’t hear her breathless words below the roar of destruction. “No, you’re lying,” she repeated, louder this time. “You’re lying!” she yelled, a rogue tear leaking from her eye. “You’re lying!” she clenched her fist and punched Loki in the stomach. “Let me go! I need to-I have to-“ one punch after another, she pounded her weak fists against his gut, tears spilling down her face, leaving tracks of porcelain skin through the dirt and ash that covered her cheeks. “I have to save them!”
Loki snuck a fearful glance at the crumbling world around them. The destruction was closer now, and it left Loki no choice. He released the girl’s wrist just long enough to wrap his arms around her legs and chest before scooping her into his arms. She screeched, kicking every part of him that she could, begging for her family. For Thor.
She screamed and screamed until Loki stepped through the portal, only able to manage a few steps before he emerged on the other side. He could tell by the eerie silence that they were no longer on that ill-fated version of Asgard, even though their new terrain was not much different. The girl managed one well-aimed kick that finally made Loki drop her. She tumbled in a heap to the ground, rolling down the narrow grassy hill they had emerged on. With a huff, she scrambled onto two legs and raced for the orange portal door.
“Hey!” Loki screamed. The girl charged forward. “Stop it!” It was as if she couldn’t even hear him. He released a frustrated grunt before shouting, “Loki!”
The girl scrambled up the hill, paying her mirror self no mind. She was close now. So close that even if Loki tried to chase her down, he would never catch her in time. The girl reached forward, her finger grazing the warped world beyond the orange haze.
Then the portal disappeared, and with it, her entire world.