Loki stepped from the in-between into a hallway and nearly stumbled over a parcel left before Lynn's door. He scowled at the box and its gaudy STARK INDUSTRIES logo scrawled across the top, and wondered if Lynn would ever realize it had gone missing should it vanish. He reached down and took up the package, his scowl unchanged, and knocked three times on the door. He prepared himself to berate her for leaving such a large thing outside to block entry to her home, and puffed his chest when the door swung wide, breathing deeply.
He paused at the scent of saline and narrowed his eyes at her. She looked blearily up at him, a small carton of thin papers gripped from oval top opening in two of her fingers. One such paper was wadded into her other hand, pressed between the knob and her palm. Her eyes were red.
He raised his eyebrows and tilted his head. Without a word, he offered the package to her, and she leaned forward to read the inscription. She sighed and stepped aside to give him room to enter, nodding the tip of her chin toward the fortified coffee table in the center of what mortals called a living room. Loki didn't know how mortals in general used this sort of space, but Lynn herself did quite a bit of living in this very room.
He set the package down as she closed the door. When he turned, she still stood at the door, her forehead leaned against the cold metal. Not wood, no – Stark had insisted on fortified walls and doors after the break-in, and Lynn was now encased in Asgardian steel. Stark and Steve Rogers had both worked together to redesign the architecture surrounding her to brace the new-found weight, and Stark had given in when she insisted that she was not the only resident of this building who deserved better protections.
Not one break-in since reconstruction. Stark had realized the potential inherent in the design, and now worked with Steve to sell their brand with Asgardian backing, as part of the newly established trade agreements with the Golden Realm.
Loki often found the remnants of Asgard nestled within the mortal realm tedious. Lynn seemed ambivalent to many of them, but her connection to Tony Stark was well-known now, and she had become something of a supplier for her local friends. Loki, ignoring the water staining her face, motioned to the box.
"Another trinket for your hungry hordes of loyal opportunists?"
Lynn laughed quietly and sat at the couch. She set the box and thin paper to the side and tried tearing the tape open with her bare hands, rather than seek out a sharp tool to cut the sturdy plastic. Loki sat next to the parcel and tore it open for her. She leaned forward and creased her brow. It was Loki who perked upon seeing the contents.
"What is it?" she asked him, as he reached in and withdrew the long rectangular object. Three strings with tuning nails hovered above the wooden frame. He plucked at one and smiled at the disjointed note.
"It is a fidla, an instrument used in the great halls while spinning a yarn for the common folk," he said. He plucked the other two strings to find them well in tune, and played several notes in quick succession with the bow. Lynn's eyes grew wide as she listened.
"You call that music?" she asked, her tone strangled as she attempted to sound less than horrified. Loki laughed.
"You are imaging it incorrectly, I think. You must remember to hear the voices of dozens upon dozens of battle-weary Æsir, their wits dulled from far too much mead." As he spoke those same voices rose, and she leaned back in her oddly shaped chair, eyes shining with intrigue. She enjoyed his illusions when he bothered to share him, and he used his abilities sparingly in her presence. He thought she had seen quite enough of them to last her several lifetimes, and yet each time he allowed his seiðr to flow, she lit up with the same enthusiasm.
He realized this meant the limitations were entirely his, and refused to ponder further on the possible meaning of such a truth.
"Tell me a story," she asked of him, and so he did, the fidla providing a discordant background to a simple tale of a prince and princess working together to outwit a foolish giant with no heart.
"It makes everything so ominous," she said when he finished. He offered her the instrument, certain of her care for such a thing and that her mortal hands could not harm Asgardian wood besides.
"Especially if you are drunk while listening to the tale," Loki said. "You can imagine their faces, mouths agape with shock and horror as the giant's body falling to the earth rumbles through the floor beneath them."
"You can do that?" she asked him, setting the fidla back inside of the box.
"Certainly not," he said haughtily, and she laughed.
"Not that they know of," she said with a vague smile.
Loki folded his hands and leaned forward ever so slightly. The movement was enough to make her eye him with unease.
"If you ask, I'll tell you," she said quietly. "But you won't like it."
"Tell me, Amma Lynn, and let me decide what I think of it," Loki said. Lynn sighed. Her fingers picked at the thin paper from the box.
"Tony's not in danger, and the rest of them are fine too, aren't they?" she said. "Would you take me to that island again?"
He leaned back, his fingers twitching. She wasn't looking at him.
"You don't have to if you don't want to," she said, and he stood and offered her a hand.
"Remember to hold your breath," he said, and she laughed as he reached for Yggdrasil's child and pulled them into the nothing. They emerged moments later on a dimly lit shore, far away from Midgard and its assorted problems. She released his hand and buried her toes inside of the silt beneath them. He hadn't realized she was barefoot.
He conjured her a pair of boots, but she waved them away and walked to the water, standing just outside of range of the waves. She'd brought the box of thin papers with her, and set it at her feet as she stared off into a distance. She looked down when a crab-like creature crawled over her foot, and smiled fondly at the sight. Loki stepped up next to her and watched the sun-like star sink ever lower in the sky.
"Are you hungry?" he asked after a time, and she nodded once. He settled them both together, and lit a fire with a green flash of power. The food he had would not need the heat, but the temperature in the realm dropped dramatically the moment the heat source was gone. Already he could see his breath, and the wet sand nearby gleamed in icy patches. Lynn cleaned her feet by the fire and slipped on the boots. He provided her a cloak, which she wore as a large blanket, and offered a meat-filled pastry next. They ate together, in silence, while the fire crackled between them.
"Mrs. Turner is dying," she said when she was finished. "She was high risk; the Ridley caused her to relapse, and she…"
Lynn's voice trailed off. She was staring directly at him, over the fire, and the flames lit her eyes.
"She's got three to six months," she said. "Not long at all. Their youngest is still in middle school."
"Tell me about them," Loki said, and Lynn told him of the scant years she shared with the Turners, of their warm, welcoming home and their continued calls long after Lynn was no longer part of their lives. She spoke fondly of the children, twice slipping in her language and calling them "sisters" rather than "foster sisters." She told him of the mother's struggle with a disease he had never heard of, and when he asked for further information, she spoke freely of metastasizing cells and chemotherapy.
"Mortals are a fragile lot," he said when she was finished, and she picked at the tips of her boots.
"Most of us," she said, and he tensed.
"Will you request to go with her, when the time comes?" he asked her, and she jolted at the direct reference to his future role in her life.
"No," she said firmly, "that would be terrible. Mr. Turner will need help with the girls, and I -"
"You are not one of them, are you?" Loki asked.
"They're the family I've got," she said, and he sighed and leaned away.
"That is hardly true," he said. "I believe Stark has claimed responsibility for you in every way."
"Tony's not my father," she said. "He's more like an eccentric uncle."
"Ah," Loki said with a smile. "Those are never in short supply."
"You're doing better with this than I thought you would," Lynn said. Loki considered this, and tilted his head back to look at the myriad of stars on display.
"Yes," he said, "I think I have come to accept what I cannot change."
"You sound like Thor," she said, and he peered at her.
"Come over here," he said, "I can hardly see you." The waves lapped at the shore, flecks of ice now joining the constant spray of seawater. Their fire evaporated those which came too close. She stood and walked around the circle to join him, and sat next to him.
"It's strange," he said after a moment. "I do not know what it would be like, to be surrounded by death so regularly."
"I thought you fought wars," Lynn said. He chuckled.
"That is not the same," he said. "My family and…friends were never in constant danger, as yours are. To be cut down by something within – it's an insult, isn't it?"
"It feels like it," she said. Her fingers clenched the cloak tight around her shoulders. She had left the box of papers near the shore.
"I am truly sorry, Amma Lynn," Loki said. "That must be very difficult for you."
"I want you to meet her," she said. Loki looked down at her. "I want her to see you in person. She's heard about you enough."
"Are you certain?" he asked. "I cannot promise to behave."
"You can be charming when you want to," Lynn said with a sniff. "Pretend it's a diplomatic meeting. Or an enemy."
"Ah," he said, "that is easy enough."
"Mr. Turner doesn't hate you," she said.
"He merely disapproves of your association with a man who 'can't bother to be named something normal,'" he said.
"You should've heard what he said about working with Bruce," Lynn said. She sounded amused. "That conversation was awful."
"I can understand his concerns," Loki said. "I may have shared a few."
"I'm a grown adult, you know," she said wearily.
"So it would seem," Loki said. He kept his arms firmly grounded at his sides, unwilling to break the easy camaraderie of the moment. It was Lynn who leaned into him and settled her head on his shoulder, and it was she who tilted his head down and met his lips with her own.
"You are under no obligations, Amma Lynn," he said when she broke away from him. "We are alone here."
"One of those isn't related to the other," she said. She was stroking his arm, and his mind was swimming.
"That is your doing," he said. She pushed at his shoulders, and he moved as she guided him.
"I'm grieving," she said. "Shut up."
And so he kept his silence, and allowed her to grieve as she wished.
When they found the box in the morning, the crab-like creature had claimed it for his own, and they left it to the will of the distant realm, where secrets could never be found.