“These are disgusting.” Sylvie commented as she chewed on the sweet that Mobius had offered her. She really had to resist the urge to spit it straight back out. She’d tried a lot of foods in her time on lots of different planets and universes, lots of cereals from roxxmart. But this absolutely topped the chart in disgusting. “Don’t tell me you actually like these. If so, I might need to rethink this potential friendship.” 

               a god’s mind functions differently than the average person.   a higher function, greater capabilities, and a nifty ‘ sixth sense ’ that allows them to see magic, simply put.   but even worse   ——   a perfect memory.   the ability to recall with perfect detail.   crisp.   haunting.   at least, loki’s mind has tortured him as such.   ( even more disturbing, then, the blanks in his memory from the past year or so. he tries not to think about it. )   but the memory repeating itself in his brilliant mind is torture.   a horror allowed to creep its way into his eyes when left idle, and it seems there is far too much idle time in the maddening halls of the time variance authority.

               so distracting, in fact, his guard is low and does not sense the approach of another until it’s too late.   the cast of a shadow gives him away and loki’s jaw tenses, fists tightening.   he attempts to blink away the image of frigga’s broken body, but it seems to be burned into his eyelids.   of his own form, ruined and limp.   an attempt at vengeance, and an attempt at goodness.   both ending in destruction.

               “ how many of my lives have you studied? ” loki asks quietly, barely above a whisper, not bothering to turn. he has learned the sound of mobius’ footsteps by now. “ have any of them amounted to anything? ”

“  NO  INDEED,   i’m not the sort to  hold  back.     yet here i am … no,  here  we  are :    once again it’s you & i … here at the end of all time.  ”

heavy  is  the  head  that  wears  the  crown,   even if it had been  born  to do it.     the god that confronts mobius m. mobius this time is a king in his own right :    restored to his gilded glory with his beautiful horns on full display.     yet the hues of purple beneath his normally sharp eyes indicate a  bone—deep  weariness  that had never been present during his time with the TVA.

he’s exhausted,  even in lieu of the  kingly  air  that he carries himself with.     because loki  did  search for him ;    over & over again,  through every section of the multiverse,  every crack & crevice that a TVA analyst could get to.     he hadn’t given up,  hadn’t ever stopped his frantic jumps through space,  ever vigilant for signs or whispers … 

he’s exhausted but he’s  here :     they’re  finally  here,   as he’d said,  as this tired god had always hoped they might be.     & it  is  him,  the variant of a variant that never should have existed,  the young god captured in that godforsaken desert by the TVA :    L1130,   oddity among variants & lokis alike.

“  … you look  well,  ”     he says stiffly with a dip of his crowned head,  clearly still reluctant to believe that this is no illusion or trick.     “  did you give my regards to the TVA?     surely your  benevolent  ruler  is aware that you have slipped his gaze & shall be knocking at the proverbial timedoor to find you any moment now.     by  the  norns,   mobius ;    why is it that every time we meet,  i must employ the means of my mischievous nature to wrestle back control of myself?  ”

cagey as he is,  the wily trickster slowly comes  closer,   closer,   closer  in spite of his inane rambling.     there’s only  one  way  to break the illusion & prove that this is no dream :    hesitant fingers reach out,  trembling slightly,  to adjust the analyst’s tie——  & the second he feels the worn material beneath his fingertips  he  knows.

“  MOBIUS,   PLEASE.  ”

is this the same god that had told judge renslayer that  a  god  does  not  plead?     perhaps his time stuck in that damned loop with  SIF  has  softened  him  too much,   for loki does not,  in this moment,  feel like the  WILD,  UNTAMED  GOD  that he’s known by so many to be.

“  i’ll not be denied this.     i’ll not be denied your freedom because you wish to  martyr  yourself  for the sake of the TVA.     you are my  ONE  TRUE  FRIEND,   mobius :    what  will  i  do  without  you?  ”

he tries to make it sound forceful,  commanding,   UNQUESTIONABLE ;    but in the end the power behind his words peters out to something  mournful,   a dirge in honor of  WHATEVER  THIS  IS  that’s aching so much between them.     friendship?     camaraderie?     desire?     TRUST?     regardless of the title,  loki is guilty as charged & he knows it.

HE’S  BEEN  COMPROMISED  BY  SOMEONE.

there’s fondness in that touch to the back of his neck.     so loki returns it with a gesture of his own :    he leans in to rest his forehead against mobius’,  breath stuttering & eyes shuttering to fight ... tears?     WHAT  GOD  CRIES  FOR  ANY  MAN?

To speak of a need for Loki. Who has one more profound than Thor?

’ My brother—- ‘

whose likeness is mocked up in multitudes all around, images still and moving, youth to grown, Æsirlike in all of them but for being half Laufey’s size in some. His crimes are on display. His favoured furs. He in stone, shoulder to shoulder with a carving of Thor himself.

None of these museal depictions come from Thor’s memory, only others’. What is his remains so.

Loki looms above them, pompous and horned in his mural.

’ —-is long dead, nomad. ‘