Second-to-last chapter, everyone! Content warning for a great deal of physical pain, because apparently breaking magical bonds FREAKING HURTS.
15: It's Like Untangling Christmas Lights (if Said Lights Were Made of Pure Energy, Could Phase Through Other Objects, and Were Held by Powerful Magical Locks): Easy
Aaravos leans in. "And I would be more than happy to fulfill that wish," he breathes, a moment before pressing his lips to Loki's, pulling him as close as he can.
He breaks the kiss once, just long enough to murmur, "I love you so, so much, my starlight," only a breath away from Loki's mouth before diving back in.
Aaravos's lips are warm and sweet and his embrace is safe and secure. For a blissful moment, the escape can wait. The entire multiverse can wait because nothing is more important than Aaravos, right here, right now. When Aaravos pulls back to whisper his love, the breath tickles Loki's lips. He smiles into the kiss before breaking away. "I need a new nickname for you, then, Sparkles. I need something that rivals yours in poetry." He kisses Aaravos again, a lingering kiss on the lips, then a peck on each of the diamonds on Aaravos's cheeks, and finishing with a kiss on his nose. "And I love you too." Loki pulls Aaravos in for another kiss, sighing heavily before he pulls away. "We can do all the kissing we like once we are free, and we do not have much time."
Aaravos nods, deciding not to even try fighting his smile. The stars across his face sparkle more brightly than usual as he says, "Very well, then, I can wait." And he does, waiting until they have three satchels of horns, books, and clothing stored in Loki's pocket dimension before asking, "What must we do now?"
Loki grabs a sheet of paper and begins drawing a diagram of what he learned. "Each one of your powers are bound by spells of another arcanum." He draws six circles, each with an arrow pointing to the next one clockwise. "Your connection to the stars are bound with sun runes, the sun bound by the sky, the sky bound by the earth, and so on.
"I made a bargain with the prison, and my powers have been freed. I can create a portal at any moment and leave, but you cannot come with me until your powers are freed as well, or you will be pulled back here against your will. I have forty-eight hours to leave this place, or the prison will… destroy me somehow… I'm guessing incineration.
"Since my powers have been freed, I can use my moon arcanum to free your ocean arcanum. From there, you will free each of your arcana in turn." Loki indicates on the paper, moving counterclockwise.
"It had better not," Aaravos growls, shooting a glare at the walls. He does not like this, not the prison's threat to Loki, not the idea of his magic being bound like that. It is too much like when he was cut off from it the night Fial… the night he was imprisoned.
He studies Loki's paper. "This is like nothing I have ever done before. I will move as quickly as I can, but…" He takes Loki's hand, looking him in the eyes. "No matter how close I am to freedom, I want you out a good few hours before your time limit runs out. I do not–" he cannot finish saying that, he does care. "I would rather you leave me behind for another century than–" and that is too horrible a thought to voice.
"I have to stay and help you. It will not be so simple as freeing one of your arcana and leaving you to the rest, I have to stay with you, to hopefully hold the powers of the prison at bay while you work. Not to mention taking you to the source of where your power is trapped in the first place. You will have to move quickly, because if you do not free them all fast enough, they are liable to be bound again, drawn in like metal to magnets."
Loki takes Aaravos's hand. "I cannot stand the idea of leaving you behind. Now that I will not have my magic leading me back as a link, who knows when I would find you again, if ever?"
Aaravos looks down, mumbling, "If you teleported to Xadia, it would be as simple as finding a large mirror that looks into my library when the lights go out. It would be in the human kingdom of Katolis, somewhere in the castle."
He looks up again, and shakes his head, smiling. "Well. No time to waste, we have only forty-eight hours, and you have yet to tell me how to free my arcana. Or is this something that can only be learned by doing?"
Loki shrugs. "It is not as if I have done this before. The prison released my powers, and I had no hand in it. I expect you will have to channel the power of your arcanum into the locking mechanism. Or perhaps you will recognize the runes that are used there. I could not say what they were."
Loki fiddles with the pen thoughtfully. "We could scope out the area before attempting it, see if you are struck with any inspiration when you see how it works."
Do we have time? "That sounds like a good idea. How…" Aaravos puzzles over how to word his question for a moment, finally settling on, "In all my years here, I have not found any kind of door or lock save the literal kind. Nothing that might possibly be an exit, or bar an exit. How do you intend to reach these locking mechanisms?"
"The locks are not physical in the strictest sense. They can appear as such to our minds because we try to make sense of their metaphysical nature, but these are woven into the very fabric of this tiny universe." Loki takes Aaravos's hand, holding it up and tracing his fingers along the tendons. "Just as you are more than your skin and bone, every physical world is more than anything we can interact with on this level." Loki places his hand on Aaravos's heart, the tips of his fingers reaching the top of the star symbol on Aaravos's chest. "But just as we can have a connection between souls, there are ways we can see and touch, in a way, the magicks that construct this place. I can guide you."
Aaravos's skin tingles at Loki's touch, his heart beating faster when Loki touches his star marking. "Ah, I understand now. Thank you."
And he does understand, though he cannot say how, and if he tries to put it into words it no longer makes sense.
He shakes off the strangeness, focusing on Loki again. They have a time limit, and their time is not getting any greater. "Please do. Forty-eight hours is not so much time as it seems." Forty-eight hours ago, he was still bound by the caterpillar spell. He had not reached Xadia, the mage had not disregarded his explicit instruction to leave the dragonling alone, Loki had not gotten angry at him or had that panic attack.
Forty-eight hours ago, his whole world was different, because forty-eight hours ago he did not know Loki loved him.
Loki sits on the floor, legs crossed, and guides Aaravos to sit in front of him, intertwining their fingers. "No time like the present, yes? Are you ready? It may be disorienting at first, but hopefully not too different from using your astral form."
Aaravos squeezes Loki's hands lightly, the pressure calming him and hopefully Loki as well. "I am ready."
Loki closes his eyes, extending his seidr to Aaravos to bring them both in touch with what he discovered. When he opens his eyes, a ghostly form of Aaravos hovers in front of him in the inky blackness, six colorful strands of energy extending from him. Aaravos's eyes are squeezed shut, and Loki stifles a laugh. "You can open your eyes now, Sparkles."
Aaravos blinks, eyes adjusting to the darkness. "Where are– oh!"
All around them is darkness, but directly in front of him, Loki shines like the moon. His eyes glow the brightest, richest green Aaravos has ever seen, hair glowing black in a way that somehow stands out from the darkness as much as if it were stark white. Even his skin seems to glow, and ever-shifting colors form a luminescent halo around him. Aaravos manages to pick out a few momentarily– bright summertime green, snowy white, blue the color of a cloudless sky, flawless shimmering gold– before they shift again, blending in to each other and separating in an endless rhythm.
"You are gorgeous," he murmurs. "As flawless as the stars themselves."
Loki cannot really blush in this form, so instead he can feel his fingertips spark with excess energy from his bashfulness. He looks down, inspecting each of the magical threads extending from Aaravos, a smile spreading across his face as he does so. The brightest and strongest he can surmise leads to Aaravos's star arcanum. Eventually he comes to one that seems to have an almost faltering connection. "You touch this one, Aaravos, I may lose track of it if I try to. Which one is it?"
Aaravos reaches out, almost surprised that he actually can touch the glowing turquoise thread. He gives it an experimental tug, and instead of a vibration when it pulls taut, he feels a memory of waves crashing over him, of nearly empty lungs, and the taste of salt.
"My ocean arcanum," he says. "The last one I connected to."
Loki rolls his eyes. "Figures that the first one we have to free first would be the one you have the weakest connection to." He nods to the thread which extends into the tangled web. "These do not work like normal threads, they can pass through each other, yet still get tangled. Keep focused on this one, on your connection, and follow it. I will be right beside you."
Aaravos nods, and starts to reach for Loki's hand before realizing he needs both hands to manage the thread. He can hold it with one hand, but to follow it he needs to pull himself along it hand over hand.
It is surprisingly easy, and he reaches the tangle quickly. Perhaps this will not be so hard as he believed…
...and therein lies the problem. The threads are constantly moving, shifting around and through each other. He can pick out the Ocean thread easily enough, but it does not stay in place any more than a few seconds.
He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and opens them again. Without looking away from the thread, he asks, "The lock is somewhere in there, correct? That mass of threads, we need to get through that in order to unlock my magic from this prison?"
Loki sighs. "Yes… yes and then we need to do it five more times. The good news is that it should get easier with each one we unlock, and I may be able to help you more with the arcana you have a stronger connection to, but this one is the most fragile, and if we lose the ability to see that connection, we will have nowhere to start."
"Fair enough." Aaravos says. Looking again at the tangled threads, he asks, "Do we need to get that completely untangled? Or will it suffice if we can only follow the thread to the lock?"
"That is the good news I suppose, we need only find the lock. It will untangle on its own once it is no longer held in place." Loki reaches into himself to draw forward his telekinesis, unraveling it like a spool and holding it up to one of the many threads in the tangle. "See? It passes right through."
Aaravos glances at the bright orange thread Loki holds, and how it goes directly through the silver thread. "I see." He turns back to his Ocean arcanum, and begins pulling again, heading into the tangle of threads. He need only follow it through the tangle, he will reach the lock soon enough.
...he really does need to stop thinking things will be easy.
The Ocean thread shifts and twists in his hands, almost as if it is trying to escape, and Aaravos fights to even retain hold of it.
Loki sees that Aaravos is struggling to maintain his grasp, so he comes up behind Aaravos and wraps his arms around the elf's ghostly form. He puts his hands overtop Aaravos's, stabilizing his grip and avoiding touching the thread directly. "I've got you, Aaravos. You can do this."
Aaravos nods, still focused on the thread. "Thank you, starlight."
With the added pressure of Loki's hands on his, the thread is somewhat stiller and easier to control. Much like Aaravos himself, it seems to be calmed by Loki's presence.
He ducks through the other threads instinctively, following the Ocean thread through the tangle. There are a few moments when he has trouble, when the knots become tighter and the ocean thread itself barely fits through, but each time, Loki is there next to him, helping him, and soon enough Aaravos's hands stop.
He looks up to see that the thread has stopped, the end held in place by nothingness. "What by all the stars?" Aaravos murmurs, reaching up.
The darkness is solid for at least an arm's length around where the Ocean thread connects to it. It seems smooth for a moment, then Aaravos's fingers run into a ridge. Exploring further, he recognizes the shape as the moon rune for prison. Specifically, excipio, which could mean "capture" or "welcome." How Moonshadow.
"They are moon runes, yes?" Loki asks. "I can use my arcanum, but do I need a specific spell?"
"Yes," Aaravos says, one hand moving over the wall, "they are moon runes." Holding his power back so he does not begin casting any spell that will make them need to start over, he draws and names each rune as he finds it. "Excipio, praeligo, resolvo."
He reaches further, but here, there seem to only be those three runes. They seem familiar, somehow… and in more ways than one.
"Do you suppose I should do them in that order?"
"Yes," Aaravos says. "Capture, bind, dissolve." He adjusts his grip on the Ocean thread. "I have seen this type of bind before. You cannot cast all three runes at once the way you might some spells, such as the one for mage wings. You must let each one take full effect before you cast the next." Remembering something, he winces. "It may be difficult. The first rune is meant to pull the magic away from the mage, the second to restrain it there, and the third to return it. I have cast and removed some of these binds, and they affect every mage differently. Some are barely affected by the release spell, but one I saw collapsed at the first rune. I do not know how I will react, but you must concentrate on the spells, not me."
Loki sucks in a sharp breath. "I- I hope you will not be affected. If you are in pain, we can…" they do not have time to search for other options. "I will respect your choice, and it will be over soon."
He loathes the idea of hurting Aaravos, but Loki knows he has to stay strong if he is to help him. He must think of it as a necessary pain, like emergency medicine on the battlefield: very often painful, but required to save the life of a wounded warrior.
Tracing the rune in the space before him, Loki begins. "Excipio."
Aaravos's teeth press into his lower lip as the spell begins. He needs to stay silent, not distract Loki, but he can feel as the magic he still has is torn from him. It feels like someone reached into his chest to rip out his heart, and it is all he can do to focus on clinging to the Ocean thread so it does not escape. It cannot escape, he will not let it.
Aaravos is in pain and trying not to show it; Loki can tell, even as preoccupied as he is with the spell. As the first spell takes effect, he can feel the shift in power, draining from the source. It disturbs him. Have to keep moving. The faster I move, the faster he is freed from the pain.
Loki traces the next rune with an aching heart. "Praeligo."
The pain fades, and Aaravos manages a few breaths before the second spell takes effect.
This time, it feels like his entire body is being compressed, only in such a detached way he realizes it is his magic. He sinks to his knees, shaking, gripping the Ocean thread so tightly his knuckles are nearly white and his nails dig into it.
Make it stop, he almost begs, clamping his teeth down on his lip before any sound escapes.
I need to stop, he's clearly in pain!
No, he can't stop. He's almost done. He feels the second spell take effect, locking into place. "It's almost over Aaravos. You're doing great."
When Loki speaks the final word, it comes out as more of a sigh of relief that this is the last one. "Resolvo."
Aaravos gasps at the suddenness, like a wave crashing over him when he did not even know he was in the water. It does not hurt this time, at least, leaving him breathless only out of surprise.
He blinks twice, then looks down. The Ocean thread is gone.
Reaching inside himself experimentally, he senses his ocean magic. It feels lighter compared to the other magics inside him, lighter, yet stronger. That makes sense; his other magics are still bound away, weakened.
He stands, turning to Loki with a triumphant smile. "We did it, starlight!" He reaches out to cup Loki's face. "You did it."
"I barely did anything, you should take more of the credit. I just spoke some words and drew some runes, you… you should not have to endure any of this."
"You did more than you think, starlight. You–" He realizes what the second familiarity in the runes was. Fial's magic, used to bind him to the prison. He should have realized sooner.
"You freed me from Fial," slips out before his mind can catch up fully to his tongue.
Loki tilts his head, not quite understanding the last statement. "I did what now?"
"His magic," Aaravos says. "Every mage has a unique touch, and while I do not know who the second moon mage was that imprisoned me, one was Fial." He swallows hard. "I should know by now what his magic feels like. I… I suppose I had forgotten, after so long."
Loki seethes with rage at the clarification. As if drugging Aaravos and betraying him in the first place was not enough! He had to have even more of a hand in his torture. Aaravos deserved better than that. He deserves better. Loki sighs, releasing his tension so his tone is softer when he speaks to Aaravos. "I am sorry you had to be reminded of him."
Aaravos closes his eyes. "No, it was… necessary, perhaps. I… knew, on some level, what he did, knew that he played a role in my imprisonment. But it was never so, so clear as it is now just what he did. And now…" His shoulders sag in relief. "I am freed of him. He is not only– dead, but truly gone as well. A part of me regrets that my freedom means he is gone forever, as this is likely his only surviving spell. But… but he cannot keep me here anymore, cannot keep me imprisoned."
He laughs, and calls to the darkness, "Do you hear that, Fial? I am free of you now, you cannot hold me back any longer!"
Loki is so overwhelmed by a wave of joy and love for Aaravos that he is sure his astral form shows the effects of it. He feels like he is shining brighter just looking at a sliver of how much more liberated Aaravos is.
"You'll no doubt conquer the multiverse once you are back to full power," Loki muses with a chuckle.
"What need have I of conquering any multiverse when my own universe stands beside me?" Aaravos asks. He slips one arm around Loki's waist, brushing an errant lock of hair from his face. "Do you have any objections to a celebratory kiss?"
Loki smirks, then tilts his head as if considering it. "Hm… no, I cannot seem to find any objections."
"Excellent." Aaravos leans down, stroking his thumb along his cheekbone before gently pressing his lips to Loki's.
Loki smiles into the kiss, weaving his fingers into Aaravos's hair to pull his head closer. After a few happy moments, he pulls away and presses his forehead to Aaravos's. "I wish we could continue to celebrate, but we still have five more to go, and no time to waste."
Aaravos nods, pulling back reluctantly. "True. Will… will you stay with me?" The words come out more softly than he meant them to, making him sound vulnerable, weak. With anyone else, he might worry that they would see the weakness and try to use it against him, but with Loki, he only worries he will take too long and Loki will refuse to leave him.
Loki leans up to peck Aaravos on the forehead. "Of course I will. Always."
"Thank you," Aaravos whispers, barely audible. Clearing his throat, he says, "Ocean frees Earth, yes?"
"That's right, earth is next. Which of these is it?" Loki asks, indicating the five remaining threads extending from Aaraovs, "The green one? That seems rather straightforward."
Aaravos reaches out to touch the green thread, and when he pulls on it he remembers weeks of sitting, waiting, quite literally watching grass grow. Steady and calm, most of the time. "Yes, this one is Earth."
"Excellent, then…" Loki makes a sweeping gesture to a fresh tangle of energy threads. "Onward we go. I will help you hold on this time, and you should check in on your Ocean magic every few moments, make sure it stays with you and is not pulled back."
Aaravos's eyes widen momentarily, and he looks inward as Loki finishes. Already, the thread of magic is attempting to escape. He coils it up, wrapping it around itself, and turns his attention back to the Earth.
Silently, he reaches hand over hand, pulling himself and Loki towards a different door. As before, the thread stays calm so long as Loki is with him, but the one time one of Loki's hands is pulled momentarily off Aaravos's, the thread shifts abruptly and he nearly loses hold.
The knots in the tangle are slightly looser this time, easier to get through. It does not hurt that there is one less thread mixed in.
They soon reach the wall, and Aaravos again reaches up for the runes.
"Traho, religo, solvo," he reads. He glances at Loki. "May I hold your hand while I cast the spells?"
Loki takes Aaravos's hand by way of answer. This elf needs to learn that I'm never leaving him. Ever. I hope I can make up for the mistake I made in leaving before. "What do those mean? Will it cause pain like the last time?"
"Capture, bind, and free, as last time," Aaravos says. "They are slightly different than before, more… more suited to the Earth arcanum, if you will."
He raises his hand to draw the first rune. "I do not know. Most likely, yes, but I have only seen these binds on a mage with a second arcanum once. It may affect me differently, or exactly the same. There is only one way to know. Traho."
It does feel different this time. Still painful, still as though his magic is being taken from him again, but this time it is more of a dull ache than a sharp, ripping pain.
Loki squeezes Aaravos's hand, lending him all his strength in spirit. Now that he has set the process in motion, there is nothing more he can do other than stay by Aaravos's side. He will do just that, even though it kills him to see the one he loves in pain. He will be strong for Aaravos just as Aaravos is strong to do this.
"Al– alright," Aaravos manages when the pain starts to fade. "That was different from before, certainly." He takes a deep breath. "Religo."
This one is much less painful, tying Aaravos's stomach into knots instead of compressing his magic. It seems to not last as long as the others, though that is most likely because it is easier to think.
Loki presses a kiss to the back of Aaravos's hand, still holding it tight in his own. "I love you. You're almost done."
Aaravos lifts Loki's hand, returning the kiss. "I love you too, starlight. Solvo."
Instead of a wave crashing into him, the return of his magic is steadier, more like the growth of a tree compressed into a few seconds. It seeps back to him steadily, and he can feel his power growing.
He runs a hand through Loki's hair. "Two down, four to go. Do you know how long it has been?"
Loki shakes his head. "Time is too hard to tell here, and we were never very precise with it in the prison to begin with."
"I doubt it has been even twelve hours yet, but soon, you should return. If worse comes to worst, I should be able to manage unbinding my magic on my own; what I would not be able to bear is if you were… destroyed… trying to help me." Aaravos looks around, finding a soft gray-white thread which reminds him of summer storms. The Sky thread.
He looks over at Loki and reaches out his hand, pulling Loki's hand to the thread. It instantly stabilizes to a slow breeze, and he begins pulling them along it.
"Honestly, I doubt they could kill me. Nothing I nor any other creature have found anything that could kill me successfully. Believe me, there have been plenty of creative methods." Loki kisses Aaravos's cheek. "Like I said, you shan't get rid of me that easily."
"Yes, this is true," Aaravos agrees with a small smile. He cannot help the thought that he could never be held captive for long before this prison, but forces it out of his mind to say, "Never again, starlight. If anyone wishes to harm you in any way, they will go through me first." Without pausing, he leans over to brush kisses onto Loki's cheeks and forehead. "I hope to never be rid of you, as I intend to stay by your side through anything."
"And I you," Loki agrees.
Yet again, when the time comes to free the sky arcanum, Loki's heart aches that he cannot bear the pain in Aaravos's stead. He admires Aaravos's strength, but feels a certain guilt that the freeing process was so painless for him while it must be an ordeal for Aaravos.
"You never cease to amaze me," Loki says.
As soon as Aaravos's sky magic is freed, they find the Sun thread. It does not take long to reach the lock, and although the price of freedom is an intense fiery heat, it is over soon.
From there, they find the Star arcanum, a sparkling nearly-black thread, and follow it back to its lock. This one, Aaravos thinks, will either hurt the least… or the most.
"This thread is definitely the strongest," Loki says with a smile. "Are you keeping an eye on the rest of your powers?" he reminds him. "Don't want to have to do this over again. I can probably keep following this one while you focus on that."
Aaravos takes a moment to check on his magic. With four threads to manage now, it is somewhat more difficult, yet all remain untangled. "Thank you for the reminder, starlight. My magic is behaving so far." He smiles, but it fades as he studies the lock. "Captivitas, restringo, libero. They were taking no risks with my birth arcanum, were they." The strongest sun spells for this.
Loki is not sure how he will get used to Aaravos calling him "starlight" now that he knows the significance of the moniker. He has never felt so important. Even sitting on the throne of Asgard could not have given him such a feeling.
"And what do those mean?" He asks in response to Aaravos's mumbled words at the lock. "Is this stronger magic than the rest?"
"Unfortunately," Aaravos sighs. "It may simply take longer than the rest, that is more likely. The stars are my strongest connection, I do not imagine they could strip it from me so easily."
Slowly, he lifts his hand, draws the first rune, speaks the spell– and collapses with a scream.
All the air leaves Loki's lungs for a moment as he sees Aaravos collapse. He flies to the elf's side, hands hovering awkwardly as he tries to think of something to do. Their bodies are not tangible, so healing magic will not work. This is a deeper pain than that. "Aaravos," Loki speaks softly to Aaravos's quivering form, "You have to keep going. The pain will stop faster if you keep moving. I'm here; you can do this."
It feels as though liquid fire is burning through his veins. He cannot move, cannot think, cannot breathe, only aware of the pain that will not end.
"You have to keep going," he hears, and tries to say that he cannot, how is he supposed to continue the spell when he is burning from the inside out, but the words never even form.
Aaravos manages to force his eyes open, and sees Loki, his starlight, so close and yet impossibly distant. He lifts a hand that feels disconnected from his body, reaching out to Loki.
Where his hand brushes Loki's cheek, it instantly feels cooler, ice spreading from the touch to cool the flames in his blood, and he can breathe again.
"Th- thank you, starlight," he manages, eyes drifting closed momentarily before he shakes his head and starts to stand, keeping in contact with Loki all the while. Two more. Only two more. Yet his hand resists drawing the rune, shaking so the lines will not even form properly.
Loki reaches out, taking Aaravos's hand in his to stabilize the trembling. He places a soft kiss to the back of it before moving behind Aaravos to wrap him in an embrace, still holding his hand. "You can do this."
Can I? Aaravos almost asks. He is not sure he is strong enough to do that again– but if he does not, he knows Loki will still stay, and his prison will– and he is certainly not strong enough for that. He must be strong enough for this.
Taking several deep breaths to steady himself, Aaravos squeezes Loki's hand and, with his free hand, draws the second rune. "Restringo."
Loki's arms are all that keep him standing now. It is as if he is being torn apart, scattered across the sky like a constellation, and he cannot keep track of his body. This one does not hurt in quite the same way as the other, but perhaps it is worse. Perhaps it is so bad his mind cannot stay with his body, and that is why he feels it as if it is distant, barely even happening to him.
Loki knows the pain must be too much, even more so than the last time, because Aaravos's form begins to fade, shaking and glitching like a bad connection. His connection is weakening because it is so difficult to keep coherent, but this, Loki is happy to realize, is something he can help with.
It also means forcing him to stay in a moment that is causing him pain, but Loki knows that Aaravos would be devastated not to have his connection to the stars. Channeling his magic, Loki pours it into Aaravos, his hands glowing gold and the light spreading through Aaravos's veins. For a moment, he can feel himself slipping, the void sucking him in, but he grounds himself in the points of contact. He is here, with Aaravos, and Aaravos is here with him and he has to stay if he wants to have the stars back. "Please stay, Aaravos, you're almost there."
Slowly, Aaravos comes back to his body. Every part of him aches, but it is not too bad now. "I– I am here," he says softly. He squeezes Loki's hand as tightly as he can manage. "With you. Only one more rune here, then the Moon arcanum. We are almost…" He trails off before saying the last word, as if speaking it aloud might keep it from coming to pass. "Libero."
This one is easier, so much easier, and Aaravos cries out in joy as his connection to the stars comes back. It settles around him like a second skin, so ethereal and perfect and right, and he nearly cries because he did not realize just how much of his first connection was gone, how much they had kept from him.
Loki has never known a more beautiful sight than Aaravos smiling so wide, so brightly that the sun would be jealous. By the Norns he loves him so much.
He hates to leave him now.
"I need to begin work on the portal; it will take a lot out of me and will require more time to make than before. Hopefully if the prison has any higher sentience than anticipated, it will be focused on making sure I'm holding up my end of the bargain. Will you be alright finishing this on your own now?"
Aaravos smiles at Loki, leaning in to kiss his cheek. "I can manage. I have no special history with the moon arcanum that I can recall; it was my third and my connection with it is not particularly strong or weak. Go begin your portal, I shall join you soon."
With a quick check to be sure his threads are not tangling, Aaravos reaches for his Moon thread and begins pulling himself toward the last lock.
Loki cups his face where Aaravos kissed. It will still take some getting used to, this level of affection, but Loki is not sure he wants to get used to it, not if it gives him the flutters in his chest he feels now.
Returning to his physical form, Loki opens his eyes to Aaravos sitting in front of him, and brushes a kiss to his forehead. With that, Loki begins the laborious task of breaking through the walls of this world.
We're almost free, and then we will have the multiverse to explore together.