Summary:
"Are you ready.." she placed the kitten on the cat tree that stood next to the sofa, "..to see him again?"
Sylvie looked at the other woman with sparkling eyes that could probably lighten up the entire multiverse.
"I've never been more ready in my life."
~~~
Something was forming out there in the distance, the colors were changing, brightening and then immediately darkening again.
Full of excitement, he fixed his gaze on the horizon, where a massive amount of energy seemed to be released.
What was happening here?
~~~
Fully focused, a massive wave of green energy flowed from her hands into the ether, as much as she could muster.
Wave after wave..
But it simply flowed ineffectually into the void, fizzling out into nothingness like a sound without an echo.
A call without an answer..
"Come on.."
~~~
A/N:
Hey guys,
welcome to chapter 21 ;)
The first cursive part takes place right after the last chapter, the following parts in cursive are Lokis POV.
Large, green eyes were looking at her from the side.
A look she knew all too well.
"What could you possibly want now, you little troublemaker?" she asked the cat, which was sitting in her usual spot next to her while Syvie unsuccessfully tried to follow the movie.
"Meow," she got in reply and lifted the kitten up so that she could make eye contact with her.
"You had your favourite food, you drank, I gave you very extensive cuddles.."
"Meow," Nélya repeated, obviously unhappy with the overall situation, whereupon Sylvie sat her fluffy roommate on her lap and continued to pet her.
While purring comfortably, her tail whipped back and forth nervously at the same time.
"You can feel it, can't you?" the goddess asked, scratching the kitten behind the ears, "you can feel that I'm nervous.."
It was more of a statement than a question, as she knew by now how sensitive cats were to human emotions.
After adopting the half-starved kitten abandoned by its mother in New Asgard, she had acquired all the knowledge she could find about cats.
Without warning, the little ball of fur had taken a heart by storm that was actually perfectly shielded against storms and quick takings.
And she wasn't the only one.
"This is all your fault, Laufeyson," the enchantress remarked, looking up, "you better get ready for me to kick your ass for making me so vulnerable!"
She thought back to the miniature version of Yggdrasil she had seen on O.B's computer. That image, the lights, the bundling of energy...it had magically attracted her.
And then, of course, there was this huge revelation that the bridge to the Loom had not been completely destroyed.
That there could be another possibility..
O.B and Casey led the group to the control room and there they saw it with their own eyes.
It was no longer comparable to the temporal chaos that had prevailed here a year ago. There was no longer a Loom or a control panel with a launcher and, of course, all the branches of time had disappeared.
"This is what remains of the bridge."
The gangway was indeed still intact, but the steel seemed brittle, overgrown. Like an old building that no one had checked on for a very long time.
"What's this, on the sides?" Mobius asked, pointing to thin, lifeless structures that had wrapped themselves around the railing like dried rose tendrils around an archway.
"These are the branches that could not be reanimated during Loki's destruction of the Loom," O.B explained, "we assume that their universes were too weak to survive."
Mobius nodded, "There's always casualties.."
A brief but sharp pain ran through Sylvie at the sight of the perished timelines, but even though there had been some losses, it was nothing compared to the atrocities that had happened before.
The bridge was still there.
But it stopped in the middle of nowhere.
Exactly at the point where Loki had stopped..before the gate to the End of Time had opened.
As she stood here again, for the very first time since that day, Sylvie was overcome by a feeling of melancholy and remembrance.
The lift of his head after the explosion and the portal of light which had opened in front of their eyes..
His last look back..
"Doesn't exactly seem like it's..stable," Mobius broke through her thoughts and said out loud what they were all thinking, rubbing his non-existent goatee.
"It may not look like it, but it's walkable," Casey replied with all the conviction he could muster, earning a suspicious sideways glance from Mobius.
"From your lips to God's ears!"
"How do we know it's safe?" Verity asked, equally unimpressed with the overgrown construction, "and that one can even get to the other side?"
O.B. took out a device and showed it to them as naturally as if they could all keep up with his technical understanding, "The temporal radiation in this area is virtually non-existent," he showed them a graph that was moving, but in the lowest range, "if our measurements are correct, it is also significantly lower on the other side than before due to Loki's bundling of the timelines."
"And according to everything we know so far, there is only one person besides He who Remains who can open the gate to the End of Time - Loki," Casey added.
Mobius nodded, "And since Sylvie is a Loki.." he noticed the scowl on the chaos goddess's face at his statement and added with a smile, "even if you don't want to be called that.."
"..it's within the realm of possibility that Sylvie's magic and temporal aura will allow you to cross the bridge and, if we're lucky, get to Loki."
Sylvie felt her excitement rise to the tips of her hair at Casey's last sentence and she leaned against the railing so that no one could see her hands trembling with tension.
Her glance in Mobius' direction showed that he felt the same way.
"We still have a few final measurements to take, but I think we can start the experiment in a day or two."
Just as Sylvie laid down on the sofa, covering herself and the sleeping cat up, the yellow time door opened before her eyes.
She was wide awake again in an instant and so was Nélya, who had already jumped down to greet Verity by sneaking around her legs.
"Do you want me to have a heart attack in the middle of the night, Ver?!"
The Hunter took the meowing kitten in her arms and smiled at the sleepy goddess.
"Be glad I was able to convince Mobius to come here in his place. He was actually planning to get revenge for the other day."
The two women hugged each other while the time door remained open.
"Is it time?" Sylvie asked with a huge amount of nervousness in her voice.
"The measurements are complete," Verity nodded. She had a smile on her face, but still couldn't hide the hint of worry in her eyes, "unless of course you want to wait until tomorrow."
With a single, simple shake of her body, the enchantress had transformed her comfy hoodie-and-sweatpants-look into an ensemble of dark green leather pants, black T-shirt and simple but elegant black boots.
Her blonde hair fell naturally wavy over her shoulders and formed the perfect frame for her face.
"Very pretty, Sylvie," the Hunter commented on her friend's outfit and for a brief moment the worry in her eyes disappeared.
"Are you ready.." she placed the kitten on the cat tree that stood next to the sofa, "..to see him again?"
Sylvie looked at the other woman with sparkling eyes that could probably lighten up the entire multiverse.
"I've never been more ready in my life."
The two looked at each other for a moment before Sylvie grabbed the phone, "Let me just clarify something," she dialed a number and went to the kitchen to look for something.
"Hey Jack, could you do me a huge favor? I have to go somewhere spontaneously. Could you maybe look after Nélya tonight? ..Yes? Great, thank you very much! I'll put something out for you to eat."
Jack had made this offer to her when she told him about Nélyas adoption. He was a cat owner himself and knew all about little kitten.
Verity gave the blonde woman a slight, sympathetic shake of her head after she had hung up the phone again, "You know at some point you have to tell that boy not to get his hopes up.."
Meanwhile, Sylvie rummaged around for some potato chips and soda and put everything on the living room table.
"..since your heart is already taken."
In response, she got an annoyed eye roll back from the goddess, which was undermined by the blissful smile that played upon her lips at the same time.
"Let's go!"
Sylvie looked around her apartment one last time, kissing Nélya goodbye between her ears, "I'll be back soon, I promise. Jack will look after you while I'm gone. I better not hear any complaints later!"
Then they walked through the time door together.
"...wore a green cloak and a mask..."
"...out of this world..."
"...strange object in the sky..."
"...I'm afraid..."
The voices echoed through the branches to him and back again. There was always turbulence on the timelines, some sort of battle constantly going on, which was perfectly normal in infinite universes.
Loki watched all these events with a relaxed expression most of the time.
He wasn't here to change the flow of time.
His job was to guard it, protect it.
To preserve what he had promised..a chance for a multiverse that wanted to be free.
"The universe wants to break free, so it manifests chaos, like me being born, the goddess of mischief..."
He smiled as the voices of faceless strangers were replaced by this one particular voice and the face that belonged to it now appeared crystal clear before his inner eye.
And yet something changed in the accumulation, the intensity, the frequency of the struggles and fears and insecurities on the branches, and increasingly he found it harder to imagine sitting here forever, unable to intervene.
But maybe he didn't have to.
Staying here forever...
He looked at the branches in his hand and he couldn't ignore the feeling that something else was bothering them.
Something that he sensed had never been there before.
They stood together at the air lock just as a year ago, except that she was about to be the one to step out.
"I've checked everything again. The bridge should be stable. Worst case scenario - your path ends where the gangway ends," Casey explained to her and Sylvie did her best to follow his words.
"Best case scenario - the portal opens."
The enchantress nodded and looked over to Mobius, who had been told a few minutes ago that it was safer for Sylvie to go alone for now.
She knew he was happy for her, but he still found it hard to hide his disappointment completely.
"Say Hi to him when you get to the other side," the analyst encouraged her, placing a hand on her shoulder, "we're here all the time, Sylvie."
When their eyes met and Sylvie saw the emotions in her friend's eyes, joy and excitement and caring as well as the slight sadness, she just couldn't help herself.
In a burst of her own emotions, she pulled the analyst close and hugged him tightly.
"Wow.." he laughed in surprise, "I'll definitely mark that on my calendar."
The goddess punched him in the side and released herself from the embrace.
"Take care of yourself.." he instructed her and placed his hands on her shoulders, "and don't fall off the gangway!"
"I'll do my best."
Her friends went upstairs to the control room and while Sylvie tried to regulate her nervousness with all the breathing techniques she knew, a mechanism was started from above that slowly opened the air lock and revealed the bridge before her eyes.
So now the time had come.
She took one last deep breath and made the first step.
The timelines in his hands could hardly be calmed.
They twined wildly around him, almost as if they were desperate to tell him something and it drove him crazy that he couldn't grasp what it was.
"What are you trying to tell me?" he asked, turning inwards and trying to make sense of their reaction. But instead of getting an answer to his question, they continued their intense dance undeterred.
Although he learned to appreciate their mannerisms and sensitivities better and better over time, he began to understand that there was a part of them, a part that he would probably never fully grasp and this fact filled him with growing concern.
Then, very slowly, they began to clear before his eyes and allow him to see quite a bit ahead.
"What are you up to?"
At that moment, he was struck by the fear that the ominous being might pay him another visit, and that was something he was absolutely not in the mood for.
Something was forming out there in the distance, the colors were changing, brightening and then immediately darkening again.
Full of excitement, he fixed his gaze on the horizon, where a massive amount of energy seemed to be released.
What was happening here?
To call walking along the bridge lined with dead timelines bizarre would definitely be an understatement. With every cautious step forward, she was afraid of collapsing and falling into an endless void.
But the two tinkerers seemed to be right, despite all skepticism, the bridge was stable.
If she listened carefully, she could still hear the soft whispering of the broken branches. It painfully reminded her of the version of the End of Time where they had landed with Thor and America Chavez.
The afterglow of past lives..
Then, finally, she arrived at the end of the gangway.
O.B had explained to her in scientifically accurate, mechanized language what she had to do now to open the gate.
If it was even possible to open it..
No one could give her a guarantee that it would work. It was nothing more than pure speculation, fantasy, trial and error.
However, everything about the multiverse, the Loom and Loki's sacrifice had been speculation, trial and error.
Along with a large portion of hope.
As Sylvie turned around, partly in homage to her male counterpart and partly because of an urge for reassurance, she saw them all standing in the window of the control room, gathered together like back then. Judging by Mobius' expression and smile, he also remembered vividly what had happened in this very spot a year ago.
And she could see herself standing there, too..
Her hand pressed to her mouth, her expression a mixture of shock and the realization what this horned idiot who had just risked everything for all of them, actually meant to her.
"I have to get out there!"
Sylvie looked her former self in the face and sighed.
"Why didn't you do it.."
Her wistful whisper faded away, as did the image of her younger self.
Perhaps this was exactly how it all had to happen, and after all, she was here right now.
The goddess nodded to her friends one last time and then turned back towards the endless nothingness.
"Well then, let's see if I'm worthy.."
Closing her eyes, she tried to gather all her strength and stretched her arms forward. Fully focused, a massive wave of green energy flowed from her hands into the ether, as much as she could muster.
Wave after wave..
But it simply flowed ineffectually into the void, fizzling out into nothingness like a sound without an echo.
A call without an answer..
"Come on.."
Once again, she focused everything she had, held her hands into the empty space and surge after surge of her Seiðr flowed through her body, filling the atmosphere around her.
"It's not working.." she whispered in disappointment and resignation, "I just can't do it.."
Then suddenly, in the distance, her magic seemed to bounce off something right and left.
A resistance.
The colors changed and some kind of mist emerged..green energy bundling, a bright glow in the middle.
And then it began to open.
That couldn't be.
It simply wasn't possible.
Incredulous, with eyes widened in shock, Loki stared at the rift of light that formed in the distance and began to open bit by bit.
It was the same panorama as a year ago, only then he had been standing on the other side.
And now the gate opened before his eyes.
The branches danced uninterruptedly around him in unbridled euphoria, while the god's eyes were completely focused on what was happening in the distance.
At first, he could see nothing but the bright portal..
..then something moved out there.
Shadowy outlines formed into an increasingly clear image and finally complete clarity.
The moment he recognized her, it felt as if someone had lit the most gigantic fireworks that had ever been inside him.
The staircase to the End of Time was being climbed again.
And the person walking up those stairs..
..was Sylvie.