Chapter Text
Leaning against the sunny side of an oak trunk, Loki pondered fire and fate and sipped leftover wine at a glacial pace. His gaze was on Sylvie, who lay on the driest, flattest rock in the courtyard with her injured paw submerged in a dented bowl full of wine as golden as her coat, and with a touch of hope in her eyes. The scents of woodsmoke and salmon still were wafting in the air. A leaf fluttered down past his face, and he caught it, wondering how many gobletfuls of wine he’d just quaffed, and cleared his throat. “Sylvie.”
Sylvie’s ears perked up, and she looked up at him. “What?”
Loki folded the leaf in half, as crisply as he could without it facturing. “Do you recall Bor’s words, when he changed your shape?”
Sylvie’s eyes narrowed. She shifted position, almost spilling her bowl of medicinal wine. “I didn’t even hear him speak. Why? Do you want to turn someone else into a cat?”
“Brilliant idea, but no.” He threw the leaf upward, and for a second it ascended rather than falling, contradicting gravity and the season. “I want to break his spell.”
The wine-bowl tipped as Sylvie started. “You want to break my curse,” she said incredulously. “What for?”
Loki clenched the leaf into his fist before it could dive to the ground. “I can see memories,” he said. “So it matters not if you’ve forgotten his words. I’ll read your memory of them—”
Sylvie huffed and squeezed her eyes shut. “No. I didn’t hear him at all. There’s no memory of it. And even if you did undo that spell and the spell that keeps me in this bloody castle, it’s useless unless I have my TemPad back. That your grandfather stole .”
“He’s not my grandfather.” Loki dropped the leaf into a pile and himself onto the moss near Sylvie’s rock. “What exactly is a ‘TemPad’?”
“It’s a, uh, rectangular machine. With things to press and a square area that words appear on—”
“Like a smartphone? Or perhaps more like a scientific calculator.” He gave her a smirk. “I’m fairly certain it’s in the vault, a few pedestals left of the spurious Gauntlet.” He paused; Sylvie stared at him, bemused. “But why is this item essential to your escape?” Surely stealing an air ship—much easier to access—and flying to a planet Odin did not rule would achieve her goal of freedom.
Sylvie stood up, dripping wine as she lifted her foot out of the bowl. “I have to get off this planet. It’s going to—” Her words cut off. She cleared her throat. “Anyway, I have some people I need to kill, and they’re not in this timeline.”
Loki shifted his position. To aid her, then, he’d need to learn the details of two ancient spells she couldn’t remember and break into the vault. It wasn’t impossible...but it was daunting, to state it mildly. And she was hiding something grave about Asgard’s future. “What is this realm going to do?” he demanded, staring hard at her.
“I’m going to go hunting,” she said, pretending she hadn’t heard him, not looking up at him. She stretched her paws and turned to dart away into the most overgrown area of the courtyard.
With a lurch of his heart, Loki sprang to his feet and in front of her, blocking her path. “Do not conceal Asgard’s fate from me!”
“Don’t get in my way!” Sylvie shouted up at him, louder than he’d spoken. She grimaced. “Fine. You want to know, I‘ll let you know. Ragnarok is going to happen here. About four years from now, so I’m running out of time to get off this planet. ...Now get out of my way.” She slipped past his legs, bristling with annoyance and compunction.
Four years. Not thousands of years from now, when his family would be safely in Valhalla and every warrior and servant and weaver and potter and bard and farmer he knew would have left this life. Four years. It would happen in Odin’s reign, or in the beginning of Thor’s. Mother would be among those who faced it—
“You lie!” Loki turned on his heel and ran after Sylvie. “You know nothing of the future.”
Sylvie scoffed, stopping and looking back over her shoulder. “That TemPad I told you about has every apocalypse in the history of the Multiverse listed in it. I’ve never gone to any Ragnarok. But I’ve read its details enough to know when it’s happening here.”
Her face and voice were sincere. Loki drew in his breath, off balance for an instant, a few illusory stars shooting between him and the lynx-woman. If she was not mistaken, Asgard would have merely four more harvests, merely four more springs. If a baby was born today, it would scarcely be more than a toddler when its life and realm ended. “We must stop it,” he heard himself declare.
Sylvie shook her head, walking back towards him. “This isn’t my realm.” Her tone was close to gentle. “And even if I wanted to help you stop it, we couldn’t. Not until I kill the Timekeepers. Which I will do, as soon as your father frees me to get you back. I’m going to ask for the Tempad, too. I’ll find them, I’ll kill them, and then you can stop your apocalypse however you please.” She gave him as much of a grin as a cat face could make. “And I wish you very good luck.”
Loki rubbed his temple, hoping the smoke he smelled emanated from the ashes of their breakfast fire. “Who are the Timekeepers, and why are their deaths a prerequisite for Asgard’s salvation?”
Sylvie sat down, wrapping her bushy tail around her feet. “It’s a long story,” she said, her round eyes fixed on an owl pellet. A gust of wind blustered leaves down around them, and she shivered.
Loki folded his arms and made his voice calm. He should not be startled that Ragnarok was soon, or nonplussed that stopping Ragnarok required a preliminary quest. He’d read the chronicles of nine realms, and all had been as full of disasters and complications as this garden was of weeds. “Apropos for a pair of prisoners, then. Shall we go inside?”