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One would think that the Being powering all time would be more aware of how much of it had passed. Had any passed? He felt like he’d just begun, and contrarily, like he’d already been there for eons.
He had no idea how long he had been sitting on the hunk of rock outside of time and space. It was another void, not quite the same, but close enough. He had hoped to never be in this position again.
But he couldn’t bring himself to regret the decision.
He wasn’t a failure, a disappointment.
He’d entered this particular void not because he’d lost all hope but because he had something to hope for. And he could hear it, could feel it as his magic flowed through him, empowering an infinite number of timelines. Like vibrations traveling to a spider in its web, he felt the life in all those timelines. Indistinct unless he focused on a specific branch, but once he did he could see.
He’d done it.
He’d DONE it.
Everyone.
All of them.
And infinite more, growing indefinitely.
The magic flowed around him, vibrant green and vibrating with life.
Good vibrations.
There’s a Midgardian song about that. Loki thought absently, and then, No, that’s not what it’s about, those are the words not the meaning.
And then his mind drifted for a bit.
This wasn’t so bad.
It was almost pleasant.
With the ambient noise from each timeline, it was nowhere near the oppressive silence of the Void, and leagues better than the horrors that had awaited him at the end.
He smiled a little at the irony and then sobered.
Ohhh
The cost of allowing everyone their freedom.
How many timelines was Thanos tormenting? Or whoever replaced him?
He hadn’t dared to look.
The Avengers exist, he reminded himself. They existed in my timeline; surely they exist in the others, or people like them.
This isn’t torture. This is a good thing; you can’t control what people do with their freedom. This is the best outcome you could hope for.
That’s right, I chose the option where everyone lives, everyone gets a chance to live.
He could hear massacres happening on the branches.
The humans slaughter themselves in droves while you idly fret.
Oh, this is torture.
And his mind drifted again, pulled in several different directions by numerous catastrophes. They were happening, and had happened, and would happen all at once.
Everyone was born and living and dying and dead.
They all exist, they can fight and make their own choices.
Focus on the good being done.
His mind went to Thor and then quickly recoiled.
He didn’t want to know.
He couldn’t.
His new friends were doing fine, he’d focus on that.
He allowed himself to glimpse a few moments in time. Moments he already knew were safely happy.
And then forced his mind to drift again.
Ambient noise.
Energy.
Life.
Hope.
He didn’t know how long he could take this.
He thought he’d only be alone.
Observing.
Like Heimdall.
Observing and leaving it to others to interfere.
Never participating, just watching as people went about their lives, for better or worse. Knowing things.
If Heimdall could do it, he could.
I don’t want to be like Heimdall, he thought bitterly.
It felt like thousands of years ago to him, and yet the hurt was still fresh because it was also still happening and would happen - on his timeline and its branches and the branches of those branches too, most likely.
If he allowed himself to look, which was something he must not do.
He wished he was truly alone. He didn’t want to be alone. He’d long since felt alone. He’d experienced what it was like to be completely alone in both a literal and figurative sense. He always seemed to discover new, worse ways to do things. New ways to suffer, new ways to die. New ways to turn even his proudest achievement into a struggle.
Everyone lives! I found a way!
Loki let out a groan.
Mundane human existence, quaint houses, golden arches, happy lives - presumably. He was happy for them. He wasn’t jealous or wishing he had selfishly decided to just let the rest of the branches be pruned and only govern one.
No. It was tempting - now, after being forced to see how much he still couldn’t change - but he knew he couldn’t have lived with that choice. It would’ve been less of a torment, but it wouldn’t have been a triumph.
They always called their deals a mercy and it never was.
He knew better.
This way he wasn’t a villain.
This way he wasn’t a monster.
You did a good thing.
People are dying anyway.
He was aware of too much. So much more than he ever wanted to be aware of.
Why can you never be content?
The energy flowing through the branches felt so pleasant… and it was a lovely color.
Symbolic.
He wished he was in the Void.
“Loki.”
Someone’s calling….
Breathe.
Who’s calling me?
Don’t look.
His own timeline had been bad enough. A waste.
He didn’t want to know all the many ways countless versions of himself had ruined things. All the wrong choices they’d made that had only lead to misery for themselves and others.
If only I’d done better, tried harder.
Tried harder?
Too late, he was here now.
Forever.
For all…
“Loki?”
Loki frowned.
Why was it so loud?
“Can you hear me?”
That wasn’t coming from a branch!
Loki exhaled a gasp and looked around him.
A figure off to his right, dark against the glowing green, slowly weaving their way through the vine-like timelines.
Loki’s heart raced, instant relief at seeing another person, instant fear that it was a variant of He Who Remains or someone equally as dangerous.
“Loki, can you-“
A woman’s voice.
That told him nothing.
“Who are you?”
The figure neared, still dark against the glow, but he could see her face now.
She looked at him expectantly. “You don’t recognize me?”
Why would he?
“No,” Loki said warily, and watched her expression fall. It was the sort of disappointment that he didn’t think could come from someone with malicious intentions.
She shook her head a little as if to rally herself. “Well, I couldn’t expect you to, I suppose…” she trailed off and stared for a moment before dipping into the vaguest approximation of a bow, somehow managing to appear more deferential than anyone else who had bowed to him in recent years.
Not recent.
It’s been centuries hasn’t it?
Perhaps longer.
He could remember though, on Midgard…
Yelling for everyone to kneel. So angry and entitled. Why had he cared so much? He may as well have been begging. It doesn’t mean anything if you have to beg for it.
Embarrassing.
As if he hadn’t grown used to it.
On Asgard…
They had managed to make the most respectful bows look like a mockery.
It had hurt, but what a thing to care about.
It doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things.
The girl in front of him raised her head, smiling as though she were remembering something amusing. “My name is Sigyn.”
Oh
Oh, he didn’t know what to think about that.
He frowned at her, rather alarmed.
She was either lying in an attempt to gain his trust, or she was telling the truth, which presented numerous difficulties.
For some strange reason the girl let out a little laugh, as though she’d expected his reaction. “My notorious reputation precedes me, then,” she said, and proceeded to smile at him with a mixture of amusement and admiration that, if anything, made Loki even less inclined to believe her.
Had anyone ever looked at him like that?
No, never.
If they had, it was so long ago it had slipped from his memory.
Clever. She’d thrown him off almost immediately.
“I’ve heard of you,” Loki admitted. He did read, after all. Who wouldn’t be curious what the mortals had written about them? They had gotten so much wrong, and fortunately so.
“Only heard?” The girl who claimed to be Sigyn looked dismayed. “You haven’t looked?”
“I’ve no interest in looking into the lives of countless versions of myself,” he lied.
“What? At all? Not even to see Thor?”
Especially not to see Thor. Loki thought forlornly.
His mouth pulled into a thin line. “Is there a reason why you came here?”
Surprise flashed across the girl’s face, “To see you.” She said it in a tone like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Loki frowned at her incredulously. “Not for any other reason?”
The girl looked around her at the glowing vines, twisting and shimmering, warm, and vibrant with life.
There was nothing else to see besides that. Infinite universes, infinite lives, infinitely more important than anything Loki had ever done in his own pathetic attempt at a life.
“What other reason could I have for coming here?”
Well if she didn’t know, he wasn’t about to tell her. If she had enough knowledge to find this place, and enough skill to reach it, she likely already knew, and was playing at naivety for her own reasons. She didn’t seem malicious in the slightest, and no one was ever what they seemed.
Loki shifted in his seat. “How did you get here?”
“I walked,” she said simply.
Loki’s mouth curled up into a wry expression.
Then she reached a hand into the folds of her dress and pulled out what appeared to be a basket, rather larger than could fit in a normal pocket, and began ascending the steps toward him.
“Stop,” Loki said warningly.
Remarkably, the girl actually listened to him.
“You came to see me? You can see me just fine from there.”
The girl blinked at him and then scowled.
Loki narrowed his eyes at her.
Her scowl deepened and she set the basket down a couple steps above her. “Ah yes, you’ve caught me, I did have another reason for coming here.”
Loki stilled, preparing himself.
What was it then? Did she mean to kill him? That would destroy countless lives. Unless she thought she could take over. Who would want that? He Who Remains hadn’t even wanted to remain managing his own faulty horrific system, he’d wanted Loki to do it. Perhaps this girl wanted to choose her favorite from the ever growing bunch and leave the rest to wither away. Or she meant to target one.
Or maybe it wasn’t so vindictive as that, maybe she was looking for something, or someone. Maybe she wanted something changed.
I can’t do that, can I?
He didn’t think he could. Any change would only mean a new branch.
Any change she could request had probably caused a branch already.
So then maybe she would only want him to find that branch for her?
“I came to bring you food,” Sigyn - the girl who claimed to be her- said. She waved toward the basket she’d set down, appearing somewhat annoyed.
Loki blinked at her.
“I expect,” she continued, “you haven’t eaten in a very long time.” She eyed him speculatively, “You look well enough, but that hardly means anything with you.”
Loki raised an eyebrow at that. “You came to bring me food?”
“Yes. Well…” she looked down and began fiddling with the weave of the basket, “I had intended to try to talk you down, but then it occurred to me, if you were still here, you must have your reasons for staying, and you… or at least the you I know- well, I thought I should…”
“Rather a long way to walk to bring a stranger a picnic basket,” Loki said drily.
The look she gave him was hard to interpret. Exasperated? Doleful?
“I’m here as a friend, Loki, nothing more.”
“A friend…” Loki said incredulously, “Whichever Loki you know, they’re not me. We,” he nodded at her, “don’t know each other.”
“I know. You’ve no reason to trust me,” she admitted casually and bent a little to open the basket. “Would you feel better if I said I came here to make a request?”
“I see no reason to waste either of our time pretending otherwise,” Loki said, watching as the girl pulled out a bottle and a chalice.
She glanced up at him, “Is that even possible here?”
“Is what possible?”
“Wasting time.”
Ahhh…
Probably not. Not as far as he could tell. Time simultaneously felt like it was passing and like it wasn’t passing at all. They couldn’t waste time while they were outside it.
“Figure of speech.”
She nodded and looked nervously down at the chalice and bottle in her hands. “I do have something to request of you. It’s very important to me, and if I have any hope of succeeding I’ll need your help.”
Here we go.
What would it be?
Loki hummed at her, “I’m listening.”
She held up the chalice, “Do you see this?”
The chalice gleamed under the green glow of the branches, it appeared to be made of gold, a fairly simple design, but with intricate carvings.
Loki nodded.
“Can you read it from where you are?” She asked, and took a step closer.
“Ah ah ah.” Loki tutted, voice echoing.
The girl startled as a duplicate appeared in front of her, and then gave a little huff of frustration at having been stopped.
That’s right. I may not be able to move, but I’m far from helpless.
The Loki duplicate smiled at her and peered down at the chalice.
She held it aloft, rotating it in the green light for the duplicate to see.
“A protection sigil,” Loki realized, eyeing the carvings around the base of the chalice.
The girl smiled, first at Loki in his seat and then up at the duplicate. “You see it’s intact? Just a protection sigil, perfectly safe.” She offered it to the duplicate Loki who took it, running his fingers over the markings.
It had a familiar feel about it. Vanir magic. Nothing looked out of order.
“Fine then. What has this to do with the help you require?” Loki asked.
Unstopping the bottle the girl stepped forward and poured something into the chalice the duplicate held. It was difficult to tell what sort of drink it was in that lighting, but it smelled like cider.
“I need your expertise,” the girl said, eyes wide with almost exaggerated sincerity.
“Expertise,” Loki repeated, bemused.
“Yes,” she nodded, “There’s someone I love very much-“
Ughhh, I am the last person qualified for such a thing.
“-and I need you to make him realize that he needs to take care of himself!” Her voice rose a bit at the end and she gestured at the basket indignantly.
Loki scoffed.
The girl put her hands on her hips. “You saw the sigil, and the food isn’t poisoned either, I promise. I’ll even eat it myself, if you’d like.”
Loki stared at her. Was she truly serious? The mythological long-suffering beleaguered wife of the terrible trickster who couldn’t keep his mouth shut, showing up outside of time to offer comfort?
His own loved ones wouldn’t even do such a thing.
They don’t know how.
He ignored the thought that clung to his mind like some sort of malevolent sentient goo, that none of them cared enough to make the attempt. Not when he was in the Void, and certainly not now.
In future, when you trap yourself somewhere, do so in a more accessible place. He told himself - a bit of dark humor.
Loki let out a cynical chuckle. “I’m fine, thanks. Not hungry, but by all means help yourself.” His duplicate handed the chalice back and faded away.
The wide-eyed wounded expression she leveled at him was truly, truly heartbreaking, almost surpassing those of Thor and Frigga. “You don’t believe me.”
“I can believe the food you want me to eat has no chance of killing me. Aside from that no. I don’t believe any of it. Even if you were who you claim to be, I’ve no reason to believe what the mortals said about you was any more accurate than what they said about the rest of us, and yet here you are playing the dutiful wife to someone you’ve never met when you presumably have a Loki of your very own.” Loki huffed out another laugh, “I may have been here a bit longer than I would’ve liked, but my mind isn’t quite that far gone yet. A valiant effort nonetheless.”
The girl stared at him, eyes searching his face. Finally, she nodded as though she accepted what he’d said, and took a step down the stairs.
There you go, she’s giving up. Back to your noisy solitude, Loki thought, and a shiver of dread went through him.
The girl took another step, then, to Loki’s surprise, turned back towards him, holding his gaze with a determined expression, and sank slowly and deliberately to sit gracefully on the step.