Loki wasn't ready to directly address Thor's revelation about his visit to Sojourns Remembered with Lyn, though he felt quite angry with her. He knew she took him there, he wouldn't have gone by himself. Loki also knew Thor must have met Sophia. Of all the rotten luck! Between the object in the drawer and Sophia Thor was bound to be suspicious something was going on. He would demand an answer. As tempting as it was to make an exit and move on to somewhere else, he couldn't do that either. After what he'd seen in the disks, there was no place TO go. If he wanted to change what he saw, he'd need to stay here, figure it out, AND be nice to Thor to ensure his assistance.
Truth be told he didn't want to move on. I like the way she looks at me. No one looks at me that way. He didn't want to admit that part either. He didn't want to even entertain the notion he'd come to enjoy the company of the mortal woman. That old, strange part of him whispered to end her now, quickly, and then escape. Consult the disks, see where it was safe and…
No place to go. None. All roads led to the end if he remained inert. Some alternatives took longer, some were shorter, but the result was the same. Running right now was akin to inertia as it would only prolong the inevitable. He had to get Thor to go with him into another reality. Visit another world very far away where there was someone that could help in this one. Convincing Thor to do this, and then convincing that other person to leave her world and come to this one would be impossible. Impossible for anyone, that is, except for…
"LOKI!"
Lyn's voice broke him out of his reverie and he looked over at her. "Goodness. What are you yelling about? You've been around Thor too long." He grumbled.
"You were a million miles away! I asked if you'd mind if I put on an Audrey Hepburn flick? I feel like something comforting tonight."
"No, not at all. I have to agree. Comforting is good." He agreed. He volunteered to pop a bag of popcorn and went into the kitchen to try to pull his thoughts together. First, he had to figure out what he was going to tell Thor at their 'talk' the day after tomorrow.
Thor got to Jane's apartment, sat down on the couch, and immediately called her.
"Hey! What's up!" She answered. There were a lot of voices around her. It sounded like she might be out somewhere.
"Can you talk a moment? It's serious." He said.
"Hang on." She answered. The voices muffled and he heard her say something, and then the background noise lessened. "OK. I ducked into an empty room. What's happening." Her voice had become all business with a tinge of fear. He hated making Jane feel this way too, but needed her help.
"I need you to look up someone for me. Loki's employer, a Mrs. Sophia Ellison."
"Thor, I think Lyn already did a full background check on the woman…" Jane began, her voice dropping into an amused yet relieved tone.
"She may have, and I have spoken to her as much as I dare. I need your help. I need this to stay between you and I until I can determine what is happening."
"Okay." Jane said. "Is it Loki? Has he done something?"
"I have that suspicion." Thor said.
Jane hesitated a moment before admitting, "Lyn mentioned something to me before he left. She said she felt something strange from him, but we chalked it up to her just being worried about him leaving."
"I wish you'd told me that, Jane." Thor sighed.
"I didn't think it was anything TO tell you about!" Jane said. "What is it? What do you think is going on?"
"Just look up whatever you can find on Sophia Ellison. You'll understand some of my concern when you see her picture. I'm interested in what Mr. Ellison looked like as well."
Jane shook her head in annoyance as she hung up the phone. The symposium was over, this was simply a social event. She got up to go back out and rejoin it, but then headed towards the elevators and back up to her room instead. Thor had sounded much too intense for it to be nothing. She was also annoyed at herself for not telling him about the conversation she'd had with Lyn. Loki might seem 'different' or 'better' since he'd come to Midgard to stay with Lyn. But he was still ultimately Loki.
She pulled up a search on her laptop, put in Sophia's name, and was rewarded with a picture from a charity event a couple years ago. She sat in shock looking at a carbon copy of Thor's mother, Frigga. When she found an older picture of Mr. Ellison, she scrabbled for her phone and hit the speed dial for Thor with a shaky finger.
"Thor…I found a picture of Sophia's husband…it's…it's…Odin." She stammered. She couldn't look away from the picture of Lloyd Ellison, which seemed to stare accusingly back at her.
Jane returned from the symposium the next afternoon, almost dreading it. She already felt past bad for Lyn. She also felt like a betrayer. This may result in Loki's being taken back to Asgard…or worse, depending. Lyn would blame her, hate her, and never trust her again. Trust her? Fuck that, Lyn would most likely knock her flat on her ass if that happened and THEN never speak to her again.
"What a mess!" Jane grumbled as she scrabbled at her keys in the bottom of her purse. The door opened, and Thor almost pulled her inside.
"Let me see all that you'd found." Thor said. He hadn't wanted Jane to send him anything, he wanted them to be together when they went over everything.
In short order, they were looking over everything Jane had found on the Ellisons. They had been a very wealthy couple that started an antique shop early on in their marriage. Their small antique shop had grown into what it was now: a fine art and antiquities dealer. They were both active in the local fine arts scene. After Lloyd passed away, Sophia had become more interested in art-centered charities and programs that brought art scholarships and education to local young people. She had done a lot of travel during her time, she was the 'buyer' for their business and had visited many countries.
"She even met the Queen of England!" Jane marveled.
"So Lyn also said. What about her husband?" Thor said.
"There's less on him. Looks like he kept the homefront running, and did all the in-house stuff while she traveled and found stock for their store. They were married over 40 years." She scrolled along a little more, clicked on a few articles and then commented, "It's strange, they never had any children."
"I'm not sure what makes me uneasy about that, but…there's something to it. I'm not sure what it is. Loki is there because Sophia looks just like our mother. Now her husband looking just like our father?" He shook his head slowly. "This does not bode well."
Jane stopped and looked at Thor. "Lyn mentioned something was off with Loki…do you think he may have found a way to somehow…swap Sophia for Frigga? To bring your mother back? I know that's a long shot, but after seeing some of the things I've seen…"
"Nothing's a long shot with Loki. He is a highly skilled sorcerer." Thor frowned at the thought of the dagger. This would probably be his best opening to take it back to Asgard. "Perhaps I should visit Asgard and look into this with a few others that are skilled in magic. I can go after I talk to Loki tomorrow at dinner."
"Okay. Maybe none of this will be necessary though. Maybe talking to him will get everything out in the open." Jane said. "You know, just talking is also a perfectly acceptable way of dealing with family situations." She continued gently.
"You're starting to sound like Lyn now." Thor smiled at Jane. He knew she didn't want to see Loki backslide into anything terrible either. "All we really want is some normalcy. We need to heal. Father also needs to heal, though he'd be the last to admit it."
Loki lay awake that night, looking up at the ceiling, waiting for Lyn to go into a very deep sleep so he could go downstairs and consult with the disks again. He'd helped her along by putting a sleep-spell over her wine. He tried to weave a good dreams spell in too, but Lyn's mortal sleep was different than the sleep of longer-lived beings like himself. He heard her stir even though he sensed her fall into the deepest part of sleep.
Lyn rarely talked in her sleep past a few unintelligible syllables. She snored, certainly! She never spoke full sentences though, so Loki was startled to hear what she said and the way she said it.
In a loud, clear voice that sounded as if she were wide awake, she affirmed, "If you do, I'll peel the MOTHERFUCKING skin from your MOTHERFUCKING children and make you WATCH before I gut you alive, you pile of DOGSHIT!" Then she went silent, save for very erratic breathing.
Loki got up on one elbow and stared down at her with wide, surprised eyes. His friend's face suddenly contorted into a snarl, she actually growled deep in her throat and then rasped, "I am The Eternal." in a deep voice, unlike anything he'd ever heard from her before. This was an interesting, if not disturbing, development.
So much for good dreams! He thought. He listened and watched a while longer wondering if she'd say anything else. Her breathing eventually went back to the normal deep respiration of mortal sleep. She murmured something that sounded like his name mixed with "cookies". She smiled. Maybe this was the good dream part? He hoped so.
Silently, he moved from the bed, and opened the drawer of his nightstand, picking the disks from the top where he'd put them earlier for easy, quiet access. He padded noiselessly downstairs, heading for the living room. Even if Lyn did wake, she'd make enough noise coming downstairs to alert him to her presence. She hadn't mastered the art of silent sneaking the way he had.
Ah finally! Time to consult the disks! His spell wove along the surface of the strange object until it opened once again, and began it's strange spinning. The disks spun and paused, then spun more. A dance of time and probability and reality. Loki looked for the reality he'd seen before. He concentrated on it and asked the entity to show him. The disks swirled around, and he beheld what he'd been waiting for.
"How do I get to this passage?" He asked.
The disks showed him a vision of another world where things dropped from portals in the skies constantly. An endless stream of celestial detritus rained down on the surface of this place. His view shifted from a ground perspective to moving up towards the sky, then centered on one of the portals. It eventually blasted up and through this portal. Colors and bits of magic and energy flew past his view. He beheld a version of Asgard where darkness reigned. The citadels and spires were gray and colorless, there were no lights or movement.
"The Dark Elves? This is how it would have been had we not prevailed?"
The vision returned to the planet with the falling debris. It again showed him the portal and ran through it, as it had before. This time, it came upon a much younger version of Asgard. There was a war going on but this was not surprising to Loki. Asgard had been the scene of many a war. At one time, it seemed to be Odin's favorite hobby. Lyn's U.S.A. had the NFL, and Asgard had War. The Official Pastime of the Realm Eternal. Loki sighed. "So which particular one would this be?" He muttered.
He saw a person the disks had showed him before. She was fighting against someone he knew about through his travels and investigations into Asgard's…and Odin's…past. He'd never met the woman clad in green and black, but he knew her by description. This was Hela, the Goddess of Death. Odin had fought and banished her from Asgard long ago. Hela was very powerful indeed, but she had her own realm to rule over. Hela's realm was not one Loki had visited yet, but it was on his to do list. He'd find some reason to drop in and explore eventually. Maybe soon.
"What is happening here? Why is Hela attacking Asgard?" Loki whispered.
The disk-entity then led him along corridors and stairs until they came to the weapons vault. Loki knew this place well. He knew all the artifacts kept there by heart, probably even better than Odin himself. It blew past everything there until it came to the Eternal Flame. Hela was after that? To steal it? Or to extinguish it? Align with Surtur? That was a plan in the back of Loki's mind for awhile now. One of his 'plan B's'. More like a 'plan C' or further on down the line. It was always there if he needed to call on it. If that was also Hela's desire, she had been thwarted that day.
Most of the blame for her defeat could actually be laid at the feet of the woman she was fighting now. This woman fought fiercely, despite her fellows falling in death around her. Loki couldn't see her clearly, yet he knew her from his prior conversations with the entity in the disks. Between this woman and Odin, Hela was brought under control, at least long enough for Odin to banish her back to Hel where she belonged. His visionary guide now brought him to a point after this war, in which this woman left Asgard hooded, alone and seemingly in shame. This was the very last Valkyrie. All of them had laid down their lives for Asgard, and only one had survived…and this one was now leaving in a state of shame.
"How could you, father?" Loki growled. "What did she do to offend your delicate sensibilities after saving your ass?" He once again sensed extreme anger followed by sadness, as he had before when seeing this woman. "Where!" he demanded impatiently.
The view followed the woman as she dropped away from Asgard. He went back through the portal into the land of raining debris. So this was where he'd find the last Valkyrie. The one he needed to help him achieve what he needed to achieve to keep even worse things from happening. Or so he thought. His intuition was pretty good, and with that and what the disks were showing him, he felt confident that was what he needed to put things in motion. Now, to just get Thor to go along. He needed Thor. He'd seen some other things through these disks that definitely would require Thor's specific skill set to deal with.
He lingered awhile longer to see what else might come across, but the entity was finished for the night. It had nothing else to tell him right now, until he created a shift in the balance of realities. A shift needed to happen too. The current outcomes where not acceptable whatsoever.
Trudging back upstairs, he slipped in next to Lyn, who very deeply slept, snoring just a little. Sometimes her snoring could probably shift reality Loki thought. Stupid human creature. And so in love with you… He rolled his eyes at that thought.
"Do you love me? Why would you love me?" Loki whispered.
"I just do." Lyn breathed. She followed that up with, "Fuck off." smiled and shifted in her sleep.
Incorrigible! Loki still felt angry at her. By snooping through his nightstand drawer and bringing Thor up to his work she'd made things much harder on him. Harder, but not impossible. He'd faced greater adversity. As far as his upcoming conversation with Thor, he'd need to phrase things much more lightly than he'd planned. He was having this conversation earlier than he'd like thanks to Lyn's interference.
He still wanted to know who the pile of dogshit was she was dreaming about earlier though. Whatever type of dream that was, she had sounded very serious. She was about to go to war with whoever she had been addressing. Knowing his friend's tenacity and her lack of fear and awe on her visit to Asgard, he had no doubt whatever it was had affronted her in the most dire of ways, and was about to pay the price! Whatever she meant in her 'The Eternal' comment was a mystery as well. Eternally a pain in his ass, certainly. He smiled down at her, his utterly stupid human, and patted her shoulder lightly. "I forgive you this time." He intoned, and then rolled over to sleep.