Work Text:
Sylvie sits quietly at the end of time. Tears well in her eyes. The castle looms over, as dark and claustrophobic as her mind. He Who Remains is still slumped in his chair, dripping blood painting the white streaked marble. An apple lies in the pool, rotting like his corpse, ghostly flesh stained the crimson of its skin. To an Asgardian, this apple should symbolize immortality. To Sylvie, it is nothing more than forbidden fruit.
Loki’s desperate words ring in her ears. “I don’t want a throne. I just want you to be okay.”
“Well I’m not,” Sylvie’s thoughts go . “I’m not okay. I thought I would be but I’m not. I thought this would solve everything but it didn’t.” The voice in her head breaks. “ And now I just want everything back the way it was. I want none of this to ever have happened; I want all this pain to go away...” She pulls her knees into her chest. “I want - I want...” A three letter word she won’t permit herself to say. Sylvie closes her eyes and lets the tears and memories flood. She is back on a dying moon. Her destiny is singing. “ I eplehagen står møyen den vene,” the lyrics echo. “ A maiden in an apple orchard... ” She sways to the music. “When she sings she sings come home,” Sylvie hums.
“I want to come home”
Sylvie glares at the apple, blurry through her tears. She blasts it into pieces with her magic. She doesn’t have a home. For her, home isn’t a place. She is her own person as she is her own home, and she has strayed from both. Home is far away.
;
Loki sits quietly in a brand new world. Tears run down their cheeks. The bleak beige walls of the TVA encroach upon their privacy; the heavy air suffocates them. “And so Eve chose an apple over Eden,” they whisper.
“Come home.”