#Trials of Loki AU

[bugwolfsstuff]

Trials of Loki AU Chapter 1

@parrotxx I did it!

Well atleast the first Chapter. I'm still not sure how i'll get him to earn his place back to godhood. And it was a little rushed near the end. Also havent proof read.

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Hi, I'm Loki Laufeyjarson. I used to be a god—err, Jotun. My 'godly membership' was revoked two thousand and sixteen years ago.

In my many, many years of living (if you can call most of it life), the Aesir have punished me in lots of creative ways. They've forced me to go get new golden hair for Sif. Let my mouth get stitched up. Murdered my sons and defiled their corpses to chain me to a rock. Put a snake over the aforementioned rock to drip venom on my face until Ragnarok.

But never in my immortal existence have they done something like this.

And I'm not even sure how they did it.

The last thing I remember was making an err...tactical retreat after a flyting with Magnus Chase. Being in a walnut that I definitely chose to be in, then sitting on a table surrounded by very angry Aesir, and then falling. Buildings spiralling in and out of my view. I tried to shapeshift into a bird, a dragon, or maybe even a butterfly—something that, as a Jotun, should come naturally to me, but I just kept falling, still humanoid. Which is very...uncomfortable.

Thankfully, I had a soft landing.

I sat up, groaning in a pile of leaves, spitting out a red leaf, and glaring at the park groundskeeper, who was staring at me bewildered. My ribs ached, and I was pretty sure were broken.

"What?" I snapped, "Never seen a guy fall from the sky?"

The groundskeeper's jaw dropped, and he fled, leaving his rake behind. Pretty sure he needed that.

The very annoying voice of Odin rang in my mind: YOU BROUGHT THIS ON YOURSELF, LOKI.

"Very helpful, Odin. Now, how do I fix it? Do I have to watch one of your stupid PowerPoints?" I asked, "Get you a new raven?"

Odin's shrill voice boomed in my head like he was yelling too close into a microphone: FIGURE IT OUT YOURSELF.

I rolled my eyes, massaging my temples. Great. Just great. Not only do I get—

—AND MY POWERPOINTS AREN'T STUPID, Odin bellowed before going completely silent.

Well, they are, old man, I thought before attempting to pick myself up from the leaf pile. My ribs cracked and throbbed in protest, and my stomach clenched. I barely managed to stand up before I wanted to sit back down again.

My vision blurred. I was in some sort of park. Blobs that I assumed were mortal children were playing loudly on a bigger blob—a playground of some sort, maybe?— nearby. Another grey blob stood in front of me—A statue, sadly probably not of me. I could hear running water, a fountain?

I took a deep breath, which was a mistake.

"Owwwweee!" I hissed through my teeth, "Yep. Yep, ribs definetly broken!"

My entire body screamed at me to lie back down. This mortal form was so... fragile. Every movement felt like snake venom dripping on my face, only this time it was my entire body. Everything was so soft and painful — How do you humans live like this? How do you deal with being so, so...weak? So fragile? Broken that easily? I hated it!

I managed to —painfully— drag myself to a bench, which proved to me once again that my ribs were definitely broken.

On the bright side: my vision finally decided to stop pretending it's a funhouse mirror and I could properly take in my surroundings.

I was right about the statue, it was not of me. Very sad. It was of that one guy—Leaf I think his name was. Seriously you mortals should get a statute of me erected (haha) instead of that nobody.

The sound of wolves howling rudely broke me out of my thoughts.

Which meant Fenris' pups were on the prowl.

Now usually I'm fine with wolves, my own son Fenris was born a wolf after all and these were his children—my grandchildren. But, I knew well enough to tell the difference between an 'I'm hungry let's go hunt, guys' howl and an 'Oh my gods guys. I love you all so much' howl.

This howl was the former.

And I'm not sticking around for it. Not because I think they'll attack me. They wouldn't dare try that. But because watching my grandchildren tear apart a mortal or the odd demigod brings back some very um.... unpleasant memories.

With a very painful protest from my squishy, broken, weak mortal body, I got up from the bench and started hobbling out of the park.

As I trudged out of the park and up the street, It started pouring rain because I clearly hadn't been humiliated enough. Thor decided to soak me.

"Really?" I yelled at the sky, slightly regretting it at the sharp sting of my ribs.

YES REALLY, Odin's voice boomed in my head. Though that could have been my imagination or delirium from the broken ribs.

"I'd never do this to you!" I retorted, pointing angrily at my head. Earning some weird looks from passing mortals.

YES YOU WOULD, several Aesir said in unison before going silent once more.

It's true I would. But that was beside the point! 

I am once again asking how you mortals deal with this? THIS IS TORTURE! And I should know! I've been tortured! Many times!

A car driving past decided I wasn't soaked and miserable enough and lovingly gave me a splash of muddy water, soaking my clothes, causing them to cling to my body.

I snarled before shivering.

I have to get out of here fast, I thought bitterly. I couldn't stay in one place for too long, not unarmed and injured anyway; I have too many enemies. All of which want me dead. Can't imagine why, I'm a delight!

But the problem with having as many enemies as I have is that I don't have many allies. There's my wife Sigyn, she's the only person I truly trust to not stab me in the back—mostly cause her hands are full from holding the bowl over my face but I digress.

But that opens up a whole other problem: I don't know where she is. She could be across the country ceramic bowl shopping for all I know!

So that kinda leaves me only one option, and I know neither one of us is going to like it. But I am really starting to feel woozy and I don't have a choice.

I stood outside Randolph Chase's mansion—well more Magnus Chase's mansion. I think Randy died, pretty sure I killed him. Not too sure about that, some of my memories are a bit foggy. Hope that's not a permanent thing.

Despite our rocky history of me trying to kill him and possibly killing his uncle, the son of Frey has proven himself to be somewhat sympathetic to me in the past. So maybe, I could appeal to his sense of compassion.

And if that doesn't work then I'll just convince one of my children to let me in. Because my children just cannot say no to me.

Because if they say no I'll make them say yes because they owe it to me for their powers and creating them.

Yay, parenting! 

The snarling wolf knocker rattled as I knocked on the door. Seriously what was it with Randy and wolves? Like, dude your sister got mauled by wolves have some decency...oh right he worked with me. He doesn't have that.

I yawned and rubbed my eyes. Why did I feel so tired all of a sudden? Why am I even doing this?

The door swung open and I had to dodge to avoid being hit in the face, something my broken ribs enjoyed very much.

It was in fact not Magnus that made an attempt on my life through door. It was the green-headed menace that I called my child.

Alex Fierro.

He—she? I couldn't tell, guess Odin didn't just take my immortality—didn't react to me in her/his usual hateful face. Which was a good sign. What wasn't a good sign was the fact that my vision was starting to swim again.

"Hey, Alex!" I chirped, before promptly passing out.

Oh for fuck sake.

------

Chapter 2: Will be written soon.

[strialternatives]

bonus:

(if atlus won't give akechi's mom a name i'll have to Do It Myself-)

Here's part 2 of the Akechi palace au with a bunch of character concepts :jazzhands: once again having a normal one lads

check out part 1 over here

some additional mechanics and a plot outline continued under the cut

The fifth and final area is the Imperial Box, this is where the Empress and the Treasure reside.

(Acceptance, Akechi must acknowledge that his old ambitions are long dead and buried so to speak. Thus, he must move forward, whatever that looks like for him personally now that all other legal avenues for redemption have been closed to him.)

The ‘treasure’ is with the Empress, a bound Hereward disguised as Mamakechi’s cognition; Goro, the Emperor, is locked within his own palace and must leave the courtroom a free man on his own two feet. Akira an’ Co have to wake him from his restful sleep and steal him from the palace while the Empress rampages. 

Boss fight includes continuously knocking Hereward down while fleeing the palace as it collapses area by area. Robin Hood and Loki help guide the Thieves out, having finally come together to share a stage.

Phase 1: The Empress will not rise from her throne, she reflects fire, physical, bless and curse attacks with a detached, disinterest as though the battle has nothing to do with her.

Phase 2: The Empress surges up in anger, using a hail of hellfire arrows on the party that must be ridden out.

Phase 3: She full heals the party and invites them to join in the palace’s festivities.

Phase 4: Her attacks start to grow lethargic and sloppy the closer the party gets to the palace entrance.

Phase 5: All of her shields are down, she can no longer reflect attacks, her facade shatters like a mirror, revealing the final palace ruler--Hereward.

Goro has a third awakening during this pursuit--Wilhelm Tell. A Swiss folk hero representing individual freedom and rebellion, a skilled hunter and father most known for shooting an apple from his son’s head at the behest of a tyrant who ultimately seeks retribution. A hero that kept to his convictions while taking control of his future, and protecting the person most important to him. 

(AKA Goro deep down craves a decent fraternal figure and alas, his own psyche and the sea of collective human consciousness decided to provide. And no, he is NOT talking about it Joker.)

Misc Palace rules/gen details:

Loki and Robin Hood hate each other which is honestly just Goro’s internal self-loathing running wild, it’s part of why they can’t exist on the same stage.

Hereward pulls Goro into the metaverse as a defense mechanism of sorts aka before Goro did something self-destructive deep down none of them wanted post-Shido’s trial.

Akechi’s palace is hostile to every intruder aside from Akira, his rival, whom he’ll always see as a threat but respects and trusts more than anyone else. This results in every enemy but his own shadows targeting the rest of the party. They also abide by the "Oracle is off limits" rule. Fights in general are easier with a smaller team as teammates in the back lineup will also take damage.

Jazz records instead of grief seeds, every time you get one the music in the area stops.

In the audience stands there’s a cognition of Wakaba in the VIP section, the party learns about Futaba being Goro’s half-sibling. Goro sees himself in Futaba and deep down wishes he hadn’t burned all bridges on that front.

Initial Infiltration Team: Joker, Sumire, Morgana, Futaba. Haru and Makoto are at uni, Yusuke has a patron in Kyoto, Ann is overseas until a month into the palace and Ryuji is also at uni on a track scholarship until around the same time. The other thieves slowly fill in the ranks as the palace progresses, until we have a full house in the Hall of Severance.

First Layer Philosophy Puzzle Quotes: 

“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche

“Genuine tragedies in the world are not conflicts between right and wrong. They are conflicts between two rights.” ― Hegel

“The law is reason, free from passion.” ― Aristotle

“The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile.” ― Plato

“I shall not be present at my trial.” ― Leblanc

This is basically a loose fic outline, broad strokes, etc ;; ty to everyone who left replies and comments, they're all really sweet!

(had to get this au out or the mold would get me ya see :/)

[rainintheevening]

9 people you'd like to know better

Done this one recently, so I'm changing the questions up. Thanks for the tag @authortobenamedlater.

1. Three non-romantic duos: Anakin & Rex, Nancy & Peggy, Christina & Melanie

2. A ship that might surprise others: Ben/Rey. Except not the way it's done in the movies.😅 There's a bunch of AU versions I've seen in fanart that made me start liking them, and now I have my own AU for them.

3. Last song: 'The Force Theme' by Samuel Kim.

4. Last film: Revenge of the Sith last night with my big brother.

5. Currently reading: lots of SW fanfic, Jedi Trial by David Sherman and Dan Cragg

6. Currently watching: Loki w my sister, Book of Boba Fett w a friend

7. Currently consuming: last thing I ate was a bowl of granola for breakfast

8. Currently craving: to turn my phone off and concentrate on writing for a solid hour. I have a fic to finish.

Tagging @dont-do-rice-babes @stargazer-luna @helloalyss @clawedandcute @kraytwriter @musewrangler @thefinaljediknight @sailforvalinor @ablatheringblatherskite

[a-cat-in-toffee]

PJO AU RAMBLES,,,,

So the vibe for Vyncent is I wanted to keep him vaguely an elf and I wanted to keep him with that isekai culture shock which was what led to the whole part dryad thing (also saying I turned anna sol into a tree is very entertaining to me.) and his whole thing of having a versatile set of skills he can go between for his powers just fucking screams hermes !! and also the whole god of travel and roads yknow it just all lined up really nicely

his basic deal is that he was kinda just raised at camp, but only started actually formally like 'going' at around 6, though he hasn't really ? been anywhere else? ever ??? so while on the quest with Dakota and William its super weird and confusing and he's very out of his depth!! he's very competent at the shit he does while at camp but when he's not he's just a fish out of fucking water, just like in PD.

For William I've been getting a lot of "you'd expect Will to be a Hades kid" WHICH WAS SOMETHING I THOUGHT ABOUT and if I had gone down the death route I probably would have been more Thanatos leaning (and, originally I had assigned him Hypnos) but I just!! felt like it wasn't quite right y'know. and since William is THE detective. like THHEEE investigator, Athena felt like a natural choice. I feel like it really fits and is very silly.

he grew up basically the same, lived in Deadwood his whole life, saw things no one else did but this time because of the mist and dealing with monster encounters and shit. until he's like vaguely 15-16 on a hike in the woods and he has a particularly bad run in with a monsters and his dad goes. Okay. Alright. Time to send your ass to summer camp. I do think it would be really funny if he still does have a wisp problem and they just fucking follow him around for NO REASON.

ASSIGNIGN A GOD TO DAKOTA WAS ACTUALLY MUCH HARDER THAN YOU'D THINK. My kneejerk reaction was Ares because. combat focused! primal idiot! but he's not. war-like. y'know. I did look around at other gods for a while before settling on Demeter because. gestures vaguely at Meg. I didn't actually finish Trials of Apollo but her and Dakota have very similar vibes in my brain, and the whole "oh the plant cabin is actually SCARY in combat dude" thing will always be so important to me,,, AND IT FIT HIS WHOLE BEINGINTO NATURE AND ANIMALS LIKING HIM THING.

Like I said before, he is functionally this au's percy (despite the fact he's not a big 3 kids,,, shhh,,,,,) because he's literally just shown up at camp and has no fucking clue what's happening. get's tossed into the Hermes cabin and suddenly he's Vyncent's problem y'know. Also !! the stress of suddenly being in a new place where theres so many more rules that you don't know about and then HOLY SHIT YOU'RE BEING SENT ON A GOD ISSUED QUEST. and my man has to just with it!!

And now you may be asking yourself. Randy. Where's Ashe? and heh. let justr say. Valhalla. (Not actually but Ashe is busy being a Loki kid and wanting nothing to do with this whole vibe)

[insert-witty-user-name-here]

Fic Rec Friday

No rules or theme, just fics you've read recently (or ages ago) that you want to share with the world.

Tagged by the lovely @loki-is-my-kink-awakening. Thank you, bestie. I love this tag game! 💕

Here are some fics I’ve read recently I’ve loved (realized I have way more recs than I thought so more to come next week!)

Under a Green Arch by @loki-is-my-kink-awakening

Mobius and Loki get married in their backyard in front of their friends and family.

Just stunningly beautiful- the future I crave for them 🥹💚

I Won’t Lead and You Won’t Follow by @distracteddream

Mobius M. Mobius, captain of the flagship of the Timely Ventures Association, has been tasked with retrieving the TVA’s treasure. To find it, he recruits the best pirate he knows - the one who has eluded him for years: Captain Loki Laufeyson.

I just finished this fic and I am obsessed! Completely captured the Lokius dynamic in a pirate AU.

A Kind of Magic by @devilbearingtrouuble

Maybe love isn't all too different from a magic show: Tightropes, trap doors, and illusionary mirrors. Love is a kind of magic—and Mobius may know it better than anyone else.

Genuinely pure poetry. Stunning, stunning work.

Please Try (Your Call) Again by @kcscribbler

Mobius returns to the TVA after an unsuccessful attempt to integrate with a life on the timelines, only to find that dismantling the institution is not the only unfinished business waiting for him.

An absolutely beautiful exploration of grief, depression, love, and hope wrapped up in a post S2 Lokius reunion fic.

Bloom by @blackbirdofasgard

When vibrant colors light up the sky across different times and different places, everybody that sees the spectacle is left in awe. If only they knew what had caused such a beautiful phenomenon.

Absolutely beautiful prose and fic- also highly recommend all of their Lokius Fluffuary fics.

We Die with the Dying; We are Born with the Dead by @andthekitchensinkao3

Vampire princeling Loki is on trial for murdering a whole village. Judge Renslayer would rather just kill him right then and there, but her most trusted investigator, Mobius, has a different idea. He thinks he could flip Loki, and get him on their side, protecting their village.

Another incredible AU that captures the Lokius dynamic and the worldbuilding (stunned that this is a one-shot; it felt like reading a novel).

Liquid Courage by @thosegayoldmen

Loki and Mobius take time to enjoy a bottle of Asgardian wine together.

Precious, adorable, beautiful, joyful. I was taken from the first line (let them be giggly).

in a sky full of stars, i think i see you by @silentxsymphony

Five times Mobius wasn’t sure where he stood with Loki, and one time Loki made sure he never had to wonder again.

Another piece of poetry. I’m always weak for a 5+1 and especially love how each segment here is oriented around different musical terms. (#5 being “Solo [adjective. Performing alone; without a companion or partner.]” killed me 😭

Ivy by @lokimobius

Another absolutely precious moment of Loki surprising Mobius for his birthday. The future I crave for them. 💚🤎

More fic recs to come next week- there are a ton of talented writers out there. Tagging anyone tagged here to share their fave fics if you want!

Oh and shameless plug for my previous fic recs

Platonic fics | Multi-Chapter Fics | Post S2 Fics | Post S1 Fics

[galaxysupreme17]

Marvel Master List

I have finally figured out how to make a master list and have added every single marvel/Agatha/Rio fanfic I have written on here! I will continue to update this anytime I post!

Agatha All Along Chapters: AgathaRio x daughter!reader! The Witches' Road? The Witches Road...Reunion Alice Trial Agatha's Trial Y/n's Trial

Coven of Chaos + Reader: Shielded By Chaos Snow Day Shenanigans A Coven Road Trip

AgathaRio + Daughter Reader: Lazy Sunday Morning Baking Chaos Sick Day Comforts Rainy Day The Storm and Revelations Christmas Decorating Kitchen Chaos Birthday Surprise Mother-Daughter Vacation Mother's Instinct Unbreakable Jealousy At The Fair A Candle Spell Movie Marathon Night Family Game Night Learning Spanish Takeout and Truths Video Game Faceoff Candlelit Blanket Fort Night Echoes Of The Past Dreamcatcher Craft Night Lure of the Moonstone An Unexpected Visitor (Part 1 of 2) Spector in the Night (Part 2 of 2) Storm's Fury Cooking Dinner Together Twilight Intruders Finding Home Sunday Pancake Morning Nature Hike with a Surprise Grey's Anatomy Saturday A Simple Evening Grey's Anatomy and Rio's Traumatized Grey's Anatomy Turmoil Mother-Daughter Day

AgathaRio + Daughter Reader AU The Quiet One

Agatha Harkness + Daughter Reader: A Stormy Night The Frist Day of School First Magic Spark First Solo Spell The Birthday Skip

Rio Vidal + Daughter Reader: Dance It Out AU - Fresh Start AU - The Study Session Scheme AU - Parent-Teacher Night AU - Looking Out for Her AU - The Proposal Plan AU - Moving Day AU - The Snow Day AU - Family Dinner

Wagatha + Daughter Reader: The Mistletoe Mishap The Young Avengers Vs Loki

[angelremnants]

A TALES OF... l Twilight and Treachery

OR.. After the harrowing events in the Hollow of Trial’s cave with Loki, you return to the courtroom where Odin Allfather, his wife and the court scrutinize you. You're forced to relive a memory that shakes you, along with the unsettling prophecy that had previously unfolded before your eyes. The gods may want answers, but at what cost?

pairing : Loki Laufeyson x f!reader

warnings : Mature themes (+16), graphic description, disturbing imagery, bit of gore, violence and threats, psychological strain, subtle tension, mild language. Proceed with caution if you're sensitive to such material.

word count : 10.7k

author's notes : And the lore is slowly coming to light! This is a straight-up continuation of Tides and Mishaps (the Jasmins and Prayers side story happens in the middle of this one). I kid you not, I think I gave myself a snake phobia while writing this ficlet—I literally shuddered multiple times at one point.

Also excited to announce that my next big project, which will hopefully come out soon, is my Bridgerton!Asgard AU series! I'm currently building up the storyboard to have planned directions for the chapters.

(ao3 version)

⠀

Returning to the courtroom felt like stepping into a gilded cage—a place where both beauty and suffocating control intersected. The chamber loomed before you, its walls rising with imperial majesty, each corner covered in gold and decorated with gigantic tapestries harboring intricate patterns that talked of royal authority, of destiny and history alike. The palace, so pristine and cold, caused your chest to constrict with misery as the rich aroma of polished metal and incense filled your nostrils.

It promised regal, but you could still feel the bitterness underneath—an odor that frantically attempted to disguise the decay lurking beneath the surface. A subtle reminder that everything here, no matter how lovely, was built with power. You'd learnt that power is seldom genuinely kind.

You despised it. It was a setting where everything appeared excessively neat and impeccable, a reminder of the bridge between you and the authority that dominated the realm. The people who governed here had long forgotten what it meant to struggle. Such things did not belong in this stark beauty. This was no place to rest, no place for anything genuine, and there was certainly little room for complicated emotions and the agony of unresolved issues.

The unfamiliar coolness of the marble floor met the soles of your heeled sandals as you stepped inside, where each footfall uncomfortably echoed off the walls and amplified the hollow emptiness that always seemed to haunt the walls. The ceiling stretched impossibly high, and the flickering torchlight cast long, eerie shadows dancing on the edges like little imps cheering for your demise. Everything about your surroundings was imposing, reminding you of your smallness and your insignificance. It was a place where the gods watched and judged in silence, and where you could never quite shake the feeling that you didn’t belong.

It wasn't simply the location that made you uneasy. No, it was what had transpired in the cave. The unnatural trance-like state you'd fallen into, the way you oddly remembered a feeling of an archaic course of energy soaking into your body, as if it had drawn something out of you that you couldn't stop. The shimmering light, the auroras, and the serpent that slithered out of the pendant—the entire event had been so bizarre and disturbing that you couldn't make sense of it. You could still feel its draw deep within you, that hum of force that had temporarily permeated your body.

For once, you really wished Loki was beside you, regardless of what had happened in the previous occurrences. For the little time you had the misfortune of rubbing shoulders with him, you pegged him as an insufferable, sharp-tongued menace—an overaged godly young adult that was bloated with arrogance, riddled with misplaced charm, and far too pleased with his wit for anyone’s good. However, his sudden shift in demeanor back at the entrance left you rooted in your place, bewildered as you wondered if the troubled look in his eyes and his hasty retreat were perhaps born of shame due to what had transpired in the cave, a consequence of your rather charged exchange.

His presence lasted even long after he'd left, especially after that brief conversation with his mother, where she had so delicately implied the possibility of something greater blooming between you moving forward, ultimately leaving you burdened with questions you dared not ask. You couldn't get over the way he had stared at you, as if you were as much of an intriguing spectacle as you were a terrible bother. It perturbed you. And even though he had departed, withdrawing to whatever corner he sought for reasons beyond your grasp, the nagging sense of something slipping past your notice refused to leave you. Something crucial. Something you should have seen, but failed to do so.

Now standing in the golden space, you realized how much you wanted him to go through this with you and how uncomfortable you felt in the sight of these celestial beings, particularly his imposing father and equally impressive right-hand man. They examined you with enigmatic stares, as if expecting something from you, leaving you feeling exposed and vulnerable. The yet-to-be-spoken inquiries, the penetrating stares—it felt just too much. Loki wasn't here to shelter you, to entertain another match of banter or to provide the odd, comforting warmth you'd become accustomed to.

You breathed in quietly, wishing for something more substantial to grab onto. But all that remained was the weight of their gaze and the feeling that you were under scrutiny, with every action being examined.

The Allmother Frigga, bless her heart, offered your shoulder a soothing squeeze, a nonverbal gesture intended to steady yourself. Her warmth was a slight consolation in the frigid, opulent assembly room, and you couldn't help but lean into it, even for a brief moment. The place became aloof to you once she took her place next to her husband, whose lone eye pinned you in place, as if peeling back your layers piece by piece. His stare was neither cruel nor hearty, and his face was one of keen inspection and silent expectation.

"Well?" Odin’s voice broke the silence with a sonorous dominance that sent ripples of faint jolts traveling down your spine. "Whatever happened in the trial?" 

"I don't know, Your Majesty." The words tumbled out of your mouth, exposing your anxiousness. You looked over to the queen, hoping for some subtle guidance, but she remained silent. "It was... unlike anything I'd ever known. I was drawn to the light, and eventually it became too much. The magic—" You stopped, wondering how to go, unsure if you really had the words to convey the tremendous, unearthly intensity that had encompassed you.

His gaze softened, but it was not particularly soothing. "That is not an answer," he remarked, his tone steady. "You are linked to something beyond the mortal realm, and I need to understand it."

Frigga, ever so gentle, stepped forward in your favor. "Dear," she interjected softly, her gaze shifting between you and her husband, "maybe we shouldn't press too hard so soon. Allow her to gather her thoughts.”

But Odin was unyielding. "And what of Loki?" he questioned, his tone becoming sterner. "He has exhibited more interest in you than I expected. Does he know anything about your capabilities? About what happened in the trial?"

The mere mention of the prince made your heart skip a beat. You had not anticipated him to be involved in this so soon. It had been a tense encounter in the cave, yes, but... was his reaction merely a thirst for knowledge? Or was there more?

“I don’t know.” The words felt weak even as you repeated them, and you could feel the stares of your small audience pressing down on you. “I don’t know what he took from it. He—he asked questions, but I’m unsure as to what he was looking for. I mean, I think it was just mere curiosity, really.” 

The Allfather's eye squinted, and his spouse's expression became troubled in a way that made you aware that you might have made a mistake. "He was not meant to be in that cave, yet you speak of him as if he were by your side. Why?"

You froze as a surge of heat rose to your face. Shit! You completely forgot that he wasn't allowed to join you. You hoped it wouldn't get him into trouble.

"Forgive me, Your Majesty, I misspoke," you attempted, pushing yourself to remain calm. "I simply meant that he was curious when I mentioned it later. I did not mean to imply—"

Odin's unwavering glare pierced into you, cold and heavy as carved granite. "Do not play games with me, child." His voice was calm, yet it conveyed the weight of an implicit threat. "I will not tolerate deception. Speak plainly."

Your mouth felt dry. You casted a short glance toward Frigga, seeking some silent encouragement, any indication that she may intercede once more on your part. She simply sighed gently, her lips squeezing into a thin line as she gave the slightest shake of her head.

Your stomach twisted. There was no getting out of this.

"I—" You breathed shakily and lowered your sight. "Yes, he was there." The words felt heavier than they should have, like a stone dropping into still water. "Loki was in the cave."

The elderly man's visage deepened, and his grip on the stick tightened. "So, he defied my orders," he concluded, his definite tone hinting at a displeasure that simmered bit by bit, tantamount to a hurricane kept at bay. "That reckless, arrogant boy has never known when to keep his place."

You winced, a sense of uneasiness passing through you. "He didn't interfere," you responded hurriedly, still unsure as to why you felt compelled to defend him. Maybe you simply had compassion for him to be under the guardianship of such a steel-willed father. "He only watched."

"Watched," Odin repeated, his stare penetrating right through you. "And what exactly did he witness?"

Your pulse throbbed cruelly against your ribcage. That was the question you dreaded answering the most. Out of unease and a deep-seated distrust of what they might do with you—or to you, for that matter—you hesitated to say more than necessary. How could you describe what had happened without revealing too much? Without divulging the trance-like feeling that had engulfed you or the way Loki had stared at you, which you could still feel winding around your skin with the qualities of traces left from a spell?

"I don't know what he saw," you affirmed, softening your voice in hope of appeasing the king. "But he did not stop me. He did not meddle with the trial or try to influence the outcome.” You paused before continuing, "If he learned anything, it wasn't from me."

Odin examined you with such intensity that your stomach twisted into knots. "And yet," he added, "he left that cave changed."

You blinked. "What do you mean?"

"It was reported to me that he returned and retired to his chambers at once," he revealed with a tinge of contempt. "Not to boast about his defiance. Not to tell his usual lies. He slunk away silently.” His single eye narrowed. "That is unlike him. He is a serpent, shedding one skin to slide into another, ever hunting for an advantage. What did you give him?"

"I—nothing, Your Majesty, I swear."

"Do not play games with me, girl." His words were low growls, a warning encased in hot iron that threatened to strike at any moment. "Loki doesn't do anything without reason. If he was present, it was because he desired something.”

Frigga, who had been silent up until now, finally took a step forward and placed a kind yet firm hand on his arm. "Husband," she said, leveling her voice to a firm tone. "This line of questioning is getting us nowhere to what we truly seek."

Odin's jaw tensed, but he did not instantly respond. His suspicious leer quickly shifted to her before returning to you.

The queen focused her attention on you, her look far gentler than his. "The trial," she recalled, thankfully returning the subject to its initial topic. "That is why we're here. Tell us what you saw.”

You gulped, still reeling from the Allfather’s allegations and the crushing weight of his scrutiny. However, her calm and gentle voice served as a steadfast anchor. The words tangled on your tongue, hesitant, uncertain. You glanced between them before slowly exhaling. “It was unlike anything I’ve ever felt before.”

Odin remained unmoved, but Frigga nodded, encouraging you to proceed.

"When I stepped forward, I felt something," you admitted. "Not only around me, but within me. It seemed like a pull—a force beckoning to me, compelling me to give in to it. I did not think. I barely felt like myself. It seemed as if I were moving through water and viewing myself from the outside."

You noticed her fingers barely twitching and a glimmer of recognition flashing over her face. "And then?" she inquired.

You paused. "And then… nothing." A cramped hush settled over the room as her eyes sharpened, Odin’s fingers on Gungnir tightening ever so slightly.

“I don’t remember anything else, just a bright flash coursing over me,” you continued, your voice quieter now. “The walls, the air—everything got constricted. And for a moment, I swear... it felt like it was looking back at me.”

The elder man sharply puffed air out of his nose, his countenance twisted between disappointment and frustration. "Useless," he grunted, conveying the weight of a man who had yearned for so much yet received nothing. "A wasted effort."

His words struck you like a brutal blade, and for a hot minute, humiliation coiled in your stomach. You knew you weren’t to blame for being overwhelmed by forces beyond understanding, but still, you couldn’t shake off the feeling of being a child who had made a disastrous mistake and now faced the harsh reprimands of her parents. As you struggled to hold your composure, fighting the overwhelming pressure inside, Frigga's voice sliced through the cutthroat silence that had installed itself in the courtroom with tempered steel.

“There must be something,” she insisted, stepping closer, her presence suddenly imposing. “No one enters the Hollow of Trials and leaves untouched. If she sensed agitation, then it disclosed itself to her in some way.”

“If I may, Your Majesties,” A voice you had nearly forgotten rumbled from the far end of the chamber. "The cave's intentions do not reveal themselves easily." Heimdall stated last, his booming voice echoing across the golden walls. He had been watching, faithful to his role and silent as a sentinel, with an opaque expression. 

“The Hollow of Trials is not merely a place underground,” the protector elaborated. “It is a force. An entity woven into the bones of the realm itself. It would make sense that with her Midgardian constitution, she would naturally suffer some aftereffects. After all, it does not test out of curiosity, nor does it give answers freely.”

You swallowed hard, your fingers twitching against the fabric of your still damp clothing. "Then what does it want?"

"It strives to bring out the truth."

A shudder raced down your spine. "What truth?"

"That," Heimdall mused, "is for you to answer."

The auditorium dove back into stillness for a time, save for the faint crackling of the torches. Odin’s scowl deepened, but there was something else lurking behind his hardened expression.

"If she has been marked," the Allmother pressed on in a low voice, "then we cannot ignore it."

The old man breathed through his nose, his patience visibly waning. "What if it meant nothing? If this was just a fluke?"

"The Hollow does not waste its time," Heimdall countered. "Nor does it waste its power."

A tight beat passed. Odin's fingers tapped repeatedly in disquiet against his staff before thoughtfully studying you. His scrutiny was heavier than before, as though he were weighing something yet to be seen.

"Then let us hope," he answered at last, "that whatever it seeks does not bring ruin upon us all."

Frigga pulled her lips together in thinking, her gaze shifting between you and her husband. "There is still a way to know what it revealed," she carefully proposed.

"And how do you propose we do that?"

"By retrieving the memory."

Your breath caught. "What?"

"The mind does not forget so easily," she explained. "Even when events appear lost to us, they are simply buried and waiting to be rediscovered, else they remain stocked beneath the surface of your subconscious. I can help you remember what happened in the cave."

You stiffened instinctively. The mere thought of someone probing into your head and shifting through the panels of your mind, over which you personally had no control made your skin crawl. You'd already been subjected to forces beyond your control today—that was enough of an experience you were not especially fond of repeating.

"I mean…" You hesitated, wondering how to express your reluctance without flatly refusing. "Is that really necessary?"

"I understand your hesitation. However, this will not hurt you. I will not push my way into your thinking or take anything from you. I'll simply direct you to what's already there.”

You swallowed and shifted on your feet. "And if my mind doesn't want to remember?"

She looked at you for a while before saying, "If there is nothing to fear, then what harm is there in knowing?"

Odin sighed, plainly impatient with the discussion. "Enough dithering. If this is the only way forward, let it be done."

Your fingers curled at your sides, your uncertainty still evident. Still sensing your anxiety, Frigga stretched out and placed a calming hand on yours.

"I promise," she pledged in a soft tone, "you'll stay in control. I will not press if you refuse."

You took a deep breath, calming yourself down at the eventuality. To all intents and purposes, you had no choice in the matter—and even if you did want to defy the proposition, you did not have the capacity nor the will to go against such powerful beings. Every gaze in the room was focused on you, waiting for your evident acceptance. Finally, you made a slight, tentative nod.

“Alright,” you quietly agreed. “Let’s do it.”

The summoned servants moved silently, their footfalls barely audible on the marble floor. At the Allmother's command, they produced an assortment of artifacts, each with a function and steeped in a ritual seemingly older than memory itself. A great brass basin was placed at the center of the hall, its surface polished to a mirror’s gleam, catching the flickering torchlight and distorting it into molten gold. Beside it, little earthen jars were carefully arranged, packed with crushed herbs and fine-ground powders, their aromas drifting into the air—sage and myrrh, damp moss, and something slightly fresher, the smell resembling a tang of petrichor.

One of them unfurled a length of dark silk, rich as midnight, and spread it across the floor beneath you. Threads of gold embroidery laced through the fabric in twisting—ancient runes, if you had to guess, catching the light whenever the material shifted. It was a spell woven into cloth, vibrating gently with force, but its meaning was lost on you.

Frigga knelt with practiced grace beside the basin, her hands ghosting over its rim, fingers pressing lightly as if feeling for a pulse. She whispered something under her breath—too soft to catch and far too long in the tooth to understand—while a second servant stepped forward, lifting a vessel carved from onyx. Water streamed out in a silken ribbon, striking the basin with an eerie, unnatural uniformity. The surface did not ripple; it simply absorbed the offering, silent and deep, dark as glass.

The blonde-haired woman then reached for one of the jars, taking a pinch of the dried herbs between her fingers. She crumbled them laboriously, letting the fragments fall into the water. The moment they touched the surface, the liquid shuddered, releasing thin tendrils of silver mist that curled and coiled into the chamber, bearing resemblance to restless spirits in their gyrations.

“You must sit,” she ordered you, her voice a soothing murmur against the mounting tension.

Every instinct in you screamed against this—against the waiting shadows, the cold press of magic hovering just out of reach. But Frigga was watching you, and while you trusted her patience to be as endless as the sea, you didn’t want to mess around and provoke her wrath by delaying her efforts any further.

Reluctantly, you sank to the silk-covered floor, the fabric surprisingly balmy beneath your fingertips and offering a stark contrast to the wintry temperature that had long since settled into the courtroom.

Frigga plunged her digits into the water to draw curving patterns on your temples, and with them, the world seemed to shiver. The coolness of her touch glided across your skin in a liquid whisper, a chill that slid effortlessly down to the core of you. But then came the warmth, sluggish and creeping, sinking deeper until it throbbed within your very marrow.

“Close your eyes,” she instructed.

Your pulse drummed at the base of your throat. “With all due respect, Your Majesty, I don’t think I like this.”

Her fingers brushed lower, resting just above your brow. "You must trust me."

It was then that you gradually felt it. A flicker of magic.

It felt like the softest breath—a whiff so delicate it could have been a trick of the wind, a wisp of waft so subtle that it brushed against your soul and left a fleeting sensation that you might have thought to be a figment of your imagination, if not for the unmistakable weight it left behind. 

A presence, gentle but insistent, pressing into the spaces between your fleeting thoughts in the manner of a shadow stretching long across the floor just before dusk. It did not demand your attention, but it sought it nonetheless. It felt akin to a pulse that echoed of the deep gaps between time, where all matters and beings began.

The air got rendered captive in your throat, caught between uncertainty and an incomprehensible pull that tugged deep within you, an invisible force that made the ground beneath your feet feel less certain. You clutched at the silk, the only thing anchoring you to the present, to yourself. "I'm not sure—"

The world tilted as you slurred the start of your sentence, and the ground began to spin in an abnormal axis.

Glancing at your sides, the torchlight curved, stretching in odd, fluid arcs that resembled reflections on the surface of a pool of water. The flames twisted, and the shadows they produced pulled and stretched against nature. The sounds in the room—the flutter of robes, the faintest shifts in respirations, the distant footsteps marching on the luxurious floor—merged into ghosts of forgotten voices drifting on a breeze. Everything became distant, stretching to the borders in an imitation of the last traces of a dream that refused to stay.

Pressure started to build in your mind. It was almost imperceptible at first, presenting as a faint tug at the edges of your consciousness. It eventually deepened into an insistent, coaxing strain, slithering through the defenses of your thoughts. You fought it, tried to hold onto the edges of yourself, to remain grounded in the altering reality. In the fullness of time, it felt like trying to hold onto smoke—the more you reached for it, the more it slipped from your grasp.

"I can still speak," you managed to say out loud to reassure yourself, but the words felt foreign and heavy, as if they weighed more than your body could support. 

Frigga's voice reached you, distant and almost spectral, analogous to a mother calling from beyond the threshold of slumber. "You are resisting," you could just about hear her say, amplifying the sense of inevitability. "You must not fight it."

Nevertheless, you did. You struggled with all of your stubbornness, desperately clinging to your sense of self and the fragments of the real world that lingered. You battled the pull, frightened and refusing to give up, unwilling to let it all slip away.

Your chest heaved, and each breath became gradually slower as you attempted to force your eyes to remain wide open, latching onto the moving auditorium that was rapidly fading into gloom. However, the palace, and indeed the entire realm, appeared to dissolve in spite of your dolorous efforts. The edges blurred, became liquid, and vanished before you could say anything else.

⠀

⠀

The mist swirled around your feet, its curling and twisting comparable to ethereal serpents looming in the air as you stood poised on what you recognized as the Bifrost's rainbow road. Beneath you, the path shone with vibrancy and the colors danced in iridescent hues that melded into one another in a divine harmony. You could feel the energy of the road humming with each step you took, sending a faint vibration through your legs.

Every sound seemed muted, swallowed up by the vast silence that enveloped the space. There was no wind, no chip, no rustle of fabric—only the steady beat of your heart and the resonant drone of the Bifrost beneath you. Time in this place showed signs of being bent along the very rules of existence and ultimately leaving you in a liminal space between worlds. The one before you, vast and unknown, seemed to stretch on forever, inviting you forward even as the very essence of this place warned against it.

Where had you previously been? Who had you been with? The questions swirled in your head, and the recollection slipped through your fingers like water. You couldn't quite comprehend the boundaries of your predicament and everything in your mind was hazy, yet for reasons you couldn't explain, it conveyed the impression of being precisely where you were supposed to be.

Despite the uneasiness coursing through your veins, you felt an almost gravitational push towards the route ahead, driven by an unwarranted force that enticed you to advance and leave behind the familiar solidity of the bridge you knew after a fashion. You put one foot in front of the other almost in hypnosis, drawn to the continuity of the prismatic platform that elongated before you, its kaleidoscope colors appearing to respond to your steps by lighting up with each one. Your senses became more acute, and it made you wonder how you could breathe so easily in space as you observed the environment changing in your venture.

You reached the end of the line and the mist seemed to have expressly parted for you, granting you the view of vast and old roots coiling out of the ground. They gnarled and twisted, snaking across the ground in sweeping, intentional arcs, each one thicker than the other, all connecting to the tallest tree you'd ever seen that spread out before you. There, towering above you, was the trunk—impossibly immense, stretching far beyond what your eyes could see. There was a quiet solemnity to it, its surface appearing rough and aged and lining with deep ridges and grooves, as though the wood had borne witness to eons of history.

How could this be? Before you stood Yggdrasil, the mythical World Tree. The very heart of existence. Peering up, you spotted enormous, bright spiral structures suspended in the air around its base and branches. The celestial orbs floated in repose, their surfaces glinting with incredibly bright colors of pigmentations beyond description. Some flashed with a delicate, continuous chromaticity, while others seemed to alter and warp their surfaces rippling similarly to water disturbed by a gentle breeze. They reminded you of delicate glass baubles used as Christmas ornaments, hanging from the huge branches of the tree and illuminating the cosmic plane.

The ground added to the scene's surrealism and twinkled like a liquid night sky. It faithfully echoed the bejeweled infinity that appeared to be sewn into the platform on which the tree stood, casting an infinite mirror of the stars scattered across the void. Nebulous swells of stardust ebbed and flowed beneath you, with galaxies twisting and growing in dallying, enthralling rotations.

You stood there, starstruck, astounded by the brilliance of it all. The space around you seemed endless and provoked a sense of amazement and horror fell over you as you realized that you had stumbled upon something so deeply sacred that simply standing in front of it felt like a profoundly significant act of heresy. 

How had you ended up here? Was this the consequence of your trial? Or had the upper forces that governed this universe drawn you here for a reason you had yet to uncover?

The nightskied floor that housed Yggdrasil appeared to be an island floating in space. You could make out its edges lead to an apparent gulf on all sides, a gaping split through which the grounded stars spilled in a cascade of silver threads, spinning in anarchic concord. The borders of the tree's massive roots curled down into the clouded abyss, defying any measure of scale.

Even so, despite the endlessness of this place, your gaze was pulled to a darker part that beckoned you closer. There, in the depths of the World Tree's trunk, you noticed the shadowy mouth of a cave carved into its core. The gateway yawned wide, but it was impeded by a massive throng that appeared to be holding the entrance shut, unwilling to let anyone pass through.

Coincidentally, your pendant suddenly began to produce a sound that seemed to gradually increase in volume, emitting a sizzling current that prickled over your skin and zapped through your nerves. Yet it was not the pendant alone that sang. No, the whirr poured into the space around you, a power shrouded in static that insistently pulled at you toward the rupture like a siren's call woven, attempting to lure you deeper into the unknown.

A muffled squelch then greeted your ears as your foot came into contact with something, followed by the leisurely roll of an object displaced from its resting spot. You looked down and saw an apple—if it could still call it that—at your feet, its once-lustrous skin tarnished by decay. Mottled spots of rich purples, sickening greens, and otherworldly blues spilled together across its surface, creating colors that were quite uncustomary for such a common fruit.

It moved. Not with the haphazard tumble of a fruit displaced by chance, but rather with frightening precision, gliding over the surface as if led by an unseen hand. Your gut constricted as you watched it roll, slowly at first, then with increasing surety, toward an unpredictable destination. You followed it hesitantly, compelled by instinct—or perhaps something less of your own volition. The apple avoided scattered rests of other rotten apples that were each with the same odd hues of degeneration.

Finally, it encountered an impediment in its journey—an enormous bulk blocking the entrance to what appeared to be a cavern dug into the very base of the trunk. The apple gave a final, lifeless roll before resting against it.

It was then that you witnessed it. 

The impediment was not of stone, wood, or anything inanimate. It was meat. A body—somber, motionless.

Your breath halted in your throat as your gaze followed the massive, coiled form, the dull shine of scales barely catching the dim shine of the surrounding spheres. The smell of rot hung thick in the air now, and you understood with bone-deep horror that the other fallen apples were scattered around it, arranged in a way that made you guess that they had previously been offerings.

The massive snake, once a beast of immense stature, now rested dead at your feet. Its huge corpse sprawled across the starlit grass, a scattered and bloated mess of a shell that coiled like an abandoned rope. You took in the sheer magnitude of the body in front of you that you speculated to be a former source of power and life that had been reduced to little more than a husk. The once moving apple now appeared almost mocking in its positioning. Its decay mirrored the serpent's—skin peeling, flesh soft and withered, but nonetheless oddly intact and kept in some abnormal condition of ruin.

You stared in horror at the severed head and particularly its mouth—once a formidable maw of deadly fangs and unquenchable fury, now slack and hollow in death, gaping wide like the dark entrance to an abandoned crypt. The dull and glazed pupils looked blindly into nothing, yet there was something in those eyes that appeared to penetrate through you and reach deep into your very soul as if it still saw and knew you, even in its final moments.

Your throat tightened with a frantic want to yell, but you stayed silent. Making a sound here would mean disturbing the deceased in their ultimate rest. You felt a shudder crawl through your body as you looked down to the scale embedded in your pendant, which communally had the same ridged texture and subdued sheen as the ones on the lifeless body. 

The emergent awareness sank like ice in your veins. The scale you carried belonged to him.

Your fingers curled into shaking fists, but the scene in front of you remained unaffected by your presence or your rising terror. And in the pit of your stomach, a sickening certainty grew.

It was a message. A warning reserved for you alone.

A deep, resonant tremor suddenly rumbled through the silence like a faraway avalanche, the sound felt rather than heard—an uncomfortable vibration that wormed its way into your very bones.

"You finally came."

The voice did not echo. It did not boom across the enormous expanse, nor did it originate from any identifiable location. Instead, it was like it had been spoken into your ear. A fear washed over you, thick as the previous mist, coiling about your ribs with rigid hold. Your breath became shallow as you turned, your gaze scanning the continuum behind you. There was nothing. No movement. No shadow dancing through the clouds, only the vast clearing that extended beyond the base of the big tree. 

An elongated hiss glided across the air, like a dagger emerging from its sheath and made your stomach turn into a knot. Every instinct told you to escape, to flee from your current place in whatever way you came from. But you stood frozen, torn between panic and morbid curiosity for this ongoing calamity.

Slowly and cautiously, you pivoted again. Nothing. 

The sensation of an unseen presence slammed against your back, and your fingers trembled at your sides, gripping as cold sweat prickled at the back of your neck.

You forced yourself to breathe. Calm down. Stay calm. You then looked forward—

And screamed.

The serpent's lifeless eyes, which were before dull and shrouded with death, now blazed with fervor. A mystical and penetrating lazuline luminescence punctured through their empty sockets, searing through the mist like beacons of light. 

You felt the world move around you and the air tremble as a swirling and wild vortex raged around the trunk of the tree. It was a choir of shrieking gales, shards of ice flung like celestial shrapnel, and darkness so dense it seemed to devour the light itself. The wind ripped at your skin, tossing your hair about your face as the swirling energy plummeted, spiraling downward around the trunk in a terrible vehemence. You fell back, hands raised against the dazzling current, but its might surged against you like an invisible flood, pushing and pulling.

Within the hailstorm, an elongated shape began to develop, moving amid the pandemonium of gleaming luster. Scales as black as the abyss itself, with luminous veins of the same gradient as the newly lighted eyes and of varying designs on their surfaces. The patterns etched into its hide appeared to be runes, scars, and relics of ancient magics long forgotten by gods and men alike.

A monstrous head emerged from the swirling maelstrom, its maw packed with fangs the size of blades that gleamed like obsidian.The body stretched well beyond sight, its whole form masked by the raging cyclone, yet you could still focus on the enormous beast's scale humming around your neck, against your feverishly rising chest.

That was him.

Níðhöggr.

The devourer. The one Odin had spoken of.

The one whose very essence now coiled in the air before you, stirring awake from the depths of oblivion. There were no words for this—no parables strong enough to shield you from the enormity of what stood before you.

The pendant gripping the skin of your neck throbbed in symphony with the frantic cadence of your heart. The scale. His scale. It vibrated against your chest like it remembered something you definitely didn’t. 

His presence was a weight, pressing against your lungs, coiling around your ribs like chains woven from shadow and ash. His voice slithered into the space between heartbeats, smooth and venomous, though his mouth did not move.

"Look at you," he rasped, slick and invasive, "so small... and yet—you carry the taste of eternity on your breath."

The words wrapped around your ribs like invisible chains, tightening with every syllable.  From the abyss, he emerged—not all at once, because something that vast could never fit within the confines of a single moment. His body oozed from the darkness like oil spreading over water, thick and slick, shifting between the tangible and the intangible. Solid. Smoke. Shadow. 

His head lowered, the jagged ridges along his spine catching flashes of lightning that did not belong to the storm. His eyes—two slits of frozen blue, burning with intelligence so calculated it felt less like being seen and more like being dissected. They drifted lazily downward, landing on the pendant at your throat.

A grin split his monstrous face—a wound tearing across his maw, revealing rows of blackened, glass-like teeth.

"Wearing my flesh like a trinket. How quaint."

The words slithered through the air as he insisted on rolling the “s” and the “sh” phonemes, tasting them on his forked tongue and curling them into the spaces you couldn’t protect.

"Do you know whose hunger you feed, little seedling?"

You didn’t answer. And to be fair, you couldn’t. Your heart slammed against your ribs and the pendant didn’t help your case, feeling heavier now as though it had always been waiting for this moment—to betray you.

Your heart slammed against your ribs, each beat a frantic drum of disbelief and terror. The pendant felt heavier now, as though it had been waiting for this very moment—to betray you.

"You’re supposed to be dead," you whispered in a brittle and raw voice, straining against the weight of fear. "What do you want from me, serpent?"

A sound rumbled from deep within his chest—not laughter, not in any mortal sense. It was akin to the grinding of stone beneath the earth, the groan of the ancient roots snapping under the pressure of this inevitability.

"Ah, ignorance at its finest," he mused, tilting his head lazily, almost bored. "The sweetest poison. More potent than Idunn’s bitter harvest." His body moved like a current with massive coils folding over themselves, each motion stirring the air—not with wind, but with the oppressive pressure of something that should not exist.

"I am the shadow beneath the roots," he whispered, though his voice struck like thunder against your skull. "The hunger time forgot. The end that always waits, patient as death itself." 

His gaze narrowed, sharp and unrelenting. "She thought her golden fester could tame me. Thought it could slow the gnawing." 

A pause. A breath. A memory, jagged and bitter.

"But roots always wither from within. You, of all things, should know that." The accusation hit like a slap, though you couldn’t understand why. "For now, small one, I do not want. I see."

His pupils shrank into razor-thin slits, gleaming with something dangerously close to curiosity. "You are certainly interesting. Born from what should not be. A mistake wrapped in flesh."

Anger sparked, raw and sudden, trying to drown the fear. Your fists clenched at your sides.

"Even with a curse and a bite... A sliver of me rests against your heart, yet you stand unscathed." His jaw expanded into a wider grin, impossibly so. "Curious."

"What are you talking about?" you snapped with a defiance you didn’t fully feel. His laughter returned, a grinding, hollow sound. 

"Cradled by hands that never meant to hold you. Even the roots didn’t expect you." He tilted his head again, studying you like a puzzle missing its edges. "But here you are... a question with no answer."

His sneer suddenly faltered, and you were under the impression that he was looking through the core of your being rather than at you. "I am the shadow beneath the roots. The hunger time forgot. The end that always waits, patient as death itself." 

His pupils narrowed, pinpricks of molten flame, colder than winter’s grasp, and just as unforgiving. They bored into you, piercing straight through the veil of your reality.

"Even the Allfather couldn’t prune the rot. He just hid it under golden leaves."

His declarations settled over you like a fine layer of ash. There was no escaping them, no wiping them away from your consciousness. It was as though his voice had branded them into your soul.

"The gods simply forgot that rot grows in the dark."

With a movement that was as fluid as it was abrupt, his attention snapped back to you, and the air around you seemed to freeze in his wake. His eyes, now molten shards of cold fire, never left yours.

"Pass this message to your little friends."

The shadows around you began to thicken, creeping like living things across the ground. They twisted and folded inward, wrapping and closing in around you. The air itself grew thick with a smell of lost time and forgotten promises. His voice lowered in a solemn tone that was too heavy to ignore and too filled with prophecy to dismiss.

"When the roots bleed and the branches wither, when the song of the tree grows faint to the ear, be aware that the splinters are scattered far and near—for what was whole is now broken, and what is broken cannot hold back the tide."

His grin stretched, a cruel mockery of amusement that split his face wide. His jagged teeth gleamed like shards of obsidian, glinting in the flickering light. With agonizing deliberation, he lowered his head, bringing his serpentine snout inches from your face. The rancid air that escaped his maw wrapped around you, spreading the scent of decay even more and mingling with something older than death itself.

"You tremble, little seedling," he hissed, the words curling into your mind like cold fingers prying at the edges of your thoughts, seeking to unearth your deepest fears. "But there’s something buried under all that fear, isn’t there?"

Your breath came in ragged gasps, the pendant at your neck searing against your skin. The hum grew louder until the sensation burrowed beneath your ribs and through your entire bone structure.

Until it snapped.

A radiant burst erupted from you—not fire, not lightning, but something wilder and far more spectacular. Light poured from your epidermis in rapids of greens, violets, pinks and blues, painting the storm with colors stolen from the northern sky. The glittering ground beneath you cracked, veins of frost-like markings spidering outward, glowing like the roots of Yggdrasil itself.

The serpent recoiled with a hiss, his vast body jerking back as if scorched by the light. His eyes narrowed, slits of icy blue burning with fresh intensity. "Ah, there it is."

The aurora wrapped around you, wild and uncontained, reflecting in the abyss of his gaze. His scales shimmered under its glow, revealing dark veins pulsing beneath, fractal threads of corrupted power.

"I see your purpose now, you wear the sky itself," he spat, coils writhing with irritation. "A trick of the tree... but light doesn’t scare the dark, little one. It only shows where the shadows are hiding."

His maw opened wide, a cavern of a cavernous void ready to consume you whole. His fangs, sharp as the very edge of oblivion, hung poised to strike. Níðhöggr lunged, and the light felt so bright it seared your vision, the darkness so deep it threatened to swallow you whole. The world collapsed into that singular moment, and then—

Nothing.

You jerked awake with a sharp gasp, your body soaked in cold sweat and the echo of his hiss lingering in your mind like a poison you couldn't shake. The phantom glow slowly receded from your vision, but the image of that monstrous presence remained, etched into your thoughts like a scar of frost that would never thaw.

⠀

⠀

You considered the guest room to which you were led to far too extravagant for your tastes, bathed in the soft glow of flickering candles, their warm light dancing across the polished stone flooring and beautiful yet complicated carvings on the walls. The ceiling above arched high, with imitations of ancient constellations and mythical creatures engraved into the minarets. The aroma of jasmine and old wood wafted through the air, a gentle reminder of the monarchial magnificence all around you.

You perched on the edge of the bed, letting out a gentle sigh as you looked around, your fingers nervously holding the thin fabric of the nightgown they'd given you. The Asgardian furniture was exotic in its luxury but pleasant in a disconnected sense. The bed, huge and fluffy with yet again, gold embroidery that shimmered slightly in the dim light, felt like a gilded cage. If it wasn't evident to you before, the feeling of being trapped in a realm where time functioned differently and events larger than you unfolded at an unfathomable rate was now deeply inscribed in your head.

Your attention shifted to the desk across the room, where a variety of goods lay jumbled. A gilded quill with an ink well sat next to an exquisitely wrought tome with its contents open. The symbols on those pages were elusive, as if they were intended to be deciphered by a select few. A little crystal vial containing what appeared to be sparkling dust rested next to it. Something warned you it wasn't supposed to be touched. However, your curiosity prickled at the edge of your consciousness, tempting you to take it up and investigate.

You had been unable to sleep since the happenings in the courtroom. Your thoughts perpetually returned to Níðhöggr's words—those cryptic riddles and the sinister implications of his presence. You could still feel the harshness of his voice and the dread that permeated your innards.

You failed to get rid of Frigga's disturbed expression either, as well as the way Odin had stared at you like you were a problem he hadn't worked out yet and was fearful of. The royal scholars were summoned in a flurry, scribbling furiously on their scrolls, their gaze flitting between you and the ancient books they preserved. The court reporters had done no better, their pens speeding across their parchment as if they were afraid of missing something important.

The Einherjar had quickly led you out of the courtroom. The guards were polite, even friendly, but the urgency in their eyes was clear. "Stay in your room and don't leave," they had said, hinting at no possibility of arguing.

You brought your knees to your chest, pushing your forehead against them as the weight of everything pressed down on you. The silence was infuriating, and the calm of the room only exacerbated the commotion that raged in your mind. What did all of this mean? Why had the monster singled you out? Why had Heimdall’s stare conveyed such recognition? He knew something, he had to. And the peculiar manner in which the damned amulet you wore showed itself back in the trial made you feel as if the answers were just out of reach.

Your fingers brushed against the hem of your nightgown, the soft fabric smoothing between them while your mind raced. There were no explanations, only a sequence of mysterious images and a thorny warning. You looked to the window, where the light from Asgard's twin moons trickled in, putting a pale glow on the stone walls. How long will you be kept here? And what happens next? You only prayed you’d live long enough to figure it out.

"I didn’t peg you for the type to gawk at everything like a lost fool."

Your heart leapt in your throat, and before your mind could catch up, you jumped out of your position and whirled around, fists flying instinctively toward the unexpected sound. Only your punch sailed straight through the air like there was nothing more than a mirage. 

Loki stood before you, grinning, the playful glint in his eyes masking the unreadable depth of his gaze. He leaned back, hands casually resting at his sides and his smile curled into a smug arc. “I believe the expression is third time's the charm, but you might want to work harder on properly getting me,” he quipped with unrepentant amusement.

You blinked, taken aback for a moment, but the irritation rose in you quickly enough. "You do know that what you’re doing is a breach of my privacy, right? What if I was changing or something?"

The prince didn’t flinch. Instead, he granted you a stare far more serious than the one you were accustomed to, and if you were quick enough, you would have been able to pick up the flash of a curtain of darkened thoughts passing his pupils at your reprimand. The subtle shift in his posture spoke volumes of his underlying intents—he wasn’t here to taunt but to stand on business. There was a strange sense of gravity about him as he slowly stepped forward, like a pressure building up in the space between you.

"I need to speak with you," he declared, stripped of any pretense of mockery. "And you better listen intently as this concerns you."

"Oh, so now you want to talk?" you spat, crossing your arms. "After scurrying away like a little mouse to go hide in the shadows?" You couldn’t help but let the sarcasm taint your words. You were still salty about the fact that he let you face all of your previous ordeals alone, leaving you to fend for yourself. "Fine," you snapped without waiting for his response. "What’s so important?"

Loki didn’t respond to your taunt. Alternativerly, he reached behind him and conjured with a flick of his wrist a few parchments with what looked like to be fresh ink spilled on them. He held them out and you noticed the edges curling slightly, as though they had been hastily pulled from somewhere else.

“Before they figured out what I was doing, I managed to borrow these. It’s about what’s happening.”

 "Why do I need to know anything about this?" You frowned in a mix of confusion and suspicion. "I’m just a—"

"A human, yes, I know," Loki interjected, his eyes narrowing as he regarded you. “But a human with quite a promising role in their play.” He gave a disbelieving shake of his head, as though something deeper was at play here that you still hadn’t grasped. “Which is exactly why you need to hear this.”

He glanced down at the papers, his fingers gripping them tightly as he continued. "Afortime your arrival here and our discovery of your existence, there had been a disturbance in Asgard. A tremor, violent enough to be considered as a precursor to an attack. When everyone got confined in their homes and they sent out sentinels to investigate on the possible cause of the perturbance, they found nothing and came back empty-handed. A short time after, bits of our mockup of Yggdrasil were found laying around the Hall of Science."

"Okay," you acknowledged his tale, unable to fully grasp what he was saying. "And how does that concern me?"

Loki’s gaze darkened, his face hardening at your ignorance of the gravity of the situation. "Because, you dull-witted creature, you are a part of this," he harshly rebutted with exasperation. "They think your vision served as a prophecy, and the fragments of the mock-up are echoes of real ones scattered across the realms by Níðhöggr in order to bring about Ragnarok. And his interest in you as well as your little ability might be implicated in his scheme."

Your stomach twisted as you processed his words. "Wait, wait," you stammered. "So you’re saying that not only are we all in danger, but that they want to use me as a weapon? But I don’t even know what’s happening half the time! All I did back there in the trial was shoot around these ridiculous rainbow lights!" You gestured vaguely in frustration toward the weak glowing aura originating from your trachea. "How is that supposed to help?"

"Unfortunately, you might not be as useless as we think of yourself." His eyes bored into you while he countered your arguments with a clipped tone. "Odin plans to sequester you away until he figures out how to separate you from that pendant." His voice softened but didn’t lose its edge. "He doesn’t care what happens to you. He cares about what he can take from you, and your way of thinking only serves as a benefice to him." 

He leaned in closer conspiratorily, gazing into your eyes with urgency. "You’re a piece of something far larger than you realize. And if you let them do what they plan…" His voice trailed off, but the implication was clear. You were in deeper than you knew, and the consequences of waiting around and trusting the gods would only end in endangering yourself.

A gnawing itch that had been growing ever since you’d been dragged into this mess threatened to take you over along with the fatigue that had long since settled in your bones, blurring the line between what was real and what you wanted to believe. You took a step back and crossed your arms over your chest, attempting to shield you from him. From everything.

"Why are you telling me this?" The question left your lips faster than intended, slicing through the tense silence between you. "What do you even gain from this?"

Loki’s expression didn’t falter, but an emotion passed through his eyes, too quick to catch and gone before you could name it. Still, you pressed on, fueled by exhaustion and justified distrust.

"Wasn’t I supposed to be a simple task for you?" you sourly recalled. "You successfully found me and dragged me back to Asgard. So why the sudden change of heart?"

He continued to let your accusations unanswered and satisfy himself by staring at you with those infuriating and enticing eyes, a behavior that only served to agitate you all the more. His silence stretched thin between you, taut like a wire about to snap.

You took a shaky breath, feeling the tremor of doubt in your chest. "Why should I trust you, Loki?" His name tasted like cutting glass on your tongue. "You’re the god of lies, remember? Deception is kind of your thing."

"If I wanted to lie to you, I wouldn’t take this many risks and I’d make it much easier for you to believe."

His voice had resonated in the room, but his mouth didn’t move accordingly with it. Without delay, his image dissolved into nothingness, leaving only the faintest ripple in the space where he’d stood. Your breath hitched, heart lurching with the sudden absence. You spun around, fists instinctively clenched, frantically searching in the dim room.

That’s when you saw him—perched lazily on the narrow ledge of your open window, one leg dangling over the edge, the other propped up as if he were lounging in a throne rather than flirting with a deadly fall. The night air stirred the loose strands of his dark hair, moonlight casting silver streaks across his sharp features. His silhouette was framed by the incredible skyline—golden spires reaching into the vast, star-strewn dark, indifferent to the chaos brewing within you.

"I am supposed to be confined to my chambers, retained by a rather irksome little spell, courtesy of the Allfather,” he said, picking at his nails with his dagger in a theatrical nonchalance. “And if I were to somehow escape—which I haven’t, obviously—I’d be granted the pleasure of even greater punishment.”

You arched a brow, swallowing down the remnants of your racing heartbeat. "Then how did you get out?"

Loki’s grin curled arrogantly as he slid gracefully off the window ledge, landing with the effortless poise and started toward you. Each step made you further and further aware of his presence filling the room, stalking in it like he owned everything.

"Oh, please," he drawled, voice dropping into that annoyingly smug lilt. "Don’t insult me by assuming mere spells could keep me in. It’s terribly unsophisticated of you."

You stood your ground, even as he closed the distance, the space between you shrinking with every step until the air itself felt too thin. His eyes—those impossibly enchanting green eyes—locked onto yours, daring you to flinch first due to his nearness. A flicker of doubt whispered at the back of your mind. After everything he'd done with illusions and vanishing tricks... was he even present right now?

Without thinking, you lifted your hand and gave him a small, tentative punch to the chest—not hard, moreso of a test than an attack. Your knuckles met solid leather and the faint resistance of muscle beneath the fine Asgardian fabric.

You hated how aware you were of him. How his presence seemed to pull at the edges of your thoughts, tangling with the fear, the exhaustion, the doubt. And yet, you didn’t step back.

Definitely real.

The raven-haired man glanced down at the spot where your fist had landed, then back up at you, a grin spreading across his face like a slow sunrise. "Ah, see," he mused, "you’ve finally managed to land one on me. Took you long enough."

You rolled your eyes, fighting the twitch of a reluctant smile threatening the corners of your mouth. "I wasn’t even trying," you muttered, pulling your hand back, though the warmth of the brief contact lingered longer than it should’ve.

"Sure you weren’t." Loki didn’t need to smile this time. The look in his eyes said enough.

He wasn’t moving and neither were you. It felt as though time itself had slowed, its cloak contracting around you both. There was something unsettling about the way he looked at you, like he was trying to see through you, or perhaps trying to see you for what you truly were. You felt the sting of his gaze burn into you, and despite yourself, you couldn’t bring yourself to look away. 

Finally, the god broke the silence after what seemed like an eternity. 

"I’m not here to coddle your feelings or win your trust," he circled back to the initial subject of your conversation, cutting off the temporary light mood that had settled between you. "Whether you like it or not, you’re at the center of the situation. And regardless of how they choose to dress it up with prophecies or destiny, my survival is still on the line." He hesitated, just for a fraction of a second. "As much as yours."

His explanation, albeit selfish in essence, somehow managed to land heavier on you. Because deep down, buried beneath the exhaustion and the fear, you knew he wasn’t lying.

And that terrified you more than anything.

"What am I even supposed to do?" you whispered, your throat tight. “I’m powerless against most of you.”

The prince stepped back, his expression softening for the briefest of moments at your resignation, but there was a steeliness in his eyes that refused to soften. "You have a choice," he quietly replied. "You have more power than they’re letting on. Untapped, certainly, but if you let them take it from you—if you let them control you... then it will be too late."

Just as he concluded his sentence, a loud, jarring sound ripped through the quiet of the room, followed by another, and another. The unmistakable pounding of fists against the door. 

"By order of the Allfather, you must open the door!" Your heart skipped a beat, the realization sinking in. Loki’s escape had been discovered, and the alarm had been raised. 

The door didn’t hide a single guard, but multiple—their boots pounding against the stone floor, the sound of frantic voices rising. Your breath caught in your throat as the noise intensified and became louder, mirroring the banging of drums that signaled the arrival of impending doom. 

Loki’s eyes flicked toward the door instantly, his body going tense, the air around him crackling with the energy of impending action. His face, usually a mask of sardonic detachment, was now etched with ultimate alertness. He stepped toward the window while you stood frozen in your place, your indecisive gaze flicking between the door, the noise growing louder, and him.

Should you open the door? Should you let them in? 

Or should you flee?

Panic clawed at your insides as you shifted between looking at the door, still shaking from the guards' pounding, and at the Asgardian, who gave his back to you as he prepared to make his next move. Each thought collided with the next, crashing against each other and leaving you paralyzed. The guards would break in soon, and the consequences of standing idle were becoming more and more real.

The god of mischief precipitously pivoted without turning to face you fully and extended his hand. "I’ve placed a spell on the door," he claimed with urgency. "It’ll hold them off just for a little while longer. But if we’re going to get out of here, we need to move quickly."

You hesitated, fingers twitching at your sides, your mind racing with a thousand questions. Leave with him? The choice felt impossible, like choosing between the lesser of two evils. "What if I end up dead?" you nervously whispered, more to yourself than to him. "What if I end up imprisoned? I don’t know—"

"If I managed to cheat them and death all this time, would I be standing here asking this of you if I didn’t think you had a chance?" Loki cut you off with a sureness that made your chest tighten. "You’ll be in just as much danger if you stay here. Don’t fool yourself into thinking there’s safety in doing nothing."

The door rattled again, a shuddering thud reverberating through the room as the guards slammed against it with all their weight. You flinched, your pulse spiking, and before you knew it, your thoughts evaporated into instinct. Panic settled over you like a cold sweat.

His impatient gaze flicked toward the door before redirecting it toward you, his eyes narrowing with a flicker of annoyance. "Now."

It was as if time had been brought back into focus, the brunt of your uncertainty crumbling as your naked feet advanced with a mind of their own. In a final peek at the door—and the guards attempting to force it open—you reached out, your fingers quivering as they met his. Everything around you seemed to fade away the moment you held his hand, all evaporating in the pull of his grip.

Loki drew you toward him in a one smooth movement, snaking his arm around your waist with such suddenness that it took your breath away. You didn't have time to think or question. The window sill was in front of you, and you both leapt out into the chilly night air.

At the same instant, the sound of the door breaking open became a distant echo, drowned by the deafening rush of wind and the helpless sensation of falling. You didn't think and didn't process. The air blasted around you sd you descended, and the world spun at terrible speed while your stomach threatened to spill out du to the absence of a ground.

The wind buried your shriek as you both fell, your arms instinctively tightening around his neck and your pulse hammering in your chest. You couldn't see anything below, and you felt like falling into the unknown, into whatever awaited you both at the end of this perilous descent.

A terrifying notion crossed your mind. Would you even survive this?

The unfortunate truth was that there was no turning back. You were no longer a passive participant in this story. You were caught in the clutches of the universe, unable to break free. And as you plunged into the boundless sky, you were forcibly compelled to reflect on the harsh susurrations within the back of your mind.

Particularly, the prospect that no matter what you selected, your fate would have no enjoyable finale.

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[lexiecon-mp4]

A Loki (S1-S2) Retrospective

Day 7: Free/AU Day

Prompt: what might have been

Something I had always been curious about when watching seasons 1-2 was wondering what the events of the series looked like to the average analyst at the TVA. Considering the entire culture and purpose of the organization changes after Lokius's shenanigans, it would be a wack experience to someone outside of the loop.

But instead of writing a meta or analysis, I decided to go with a more creative route in the hopes of capturing that first-person perspective. Imagine this:

You've worked at the TVA for your entire life; it's all you've ever known and is the entire purpose of your existence. Led by the valiant Timekeepers, the organization worked to preserve the order of all things. Nothing could come in between you and your mission. Every individual quirk or unique trait of yours has either been hidden or steamrolled completely. They're just small defects in the greater role you were designed for, so you ignore any pull of interest towards any life outside of the TVA.

As such, the most interesting things that end up happening in the TVA's halls are whispers of hunter missions gone wrong or a particular unruly variant, but nothing of real interest. At least, not since the rumored incident involving a child variant and former hunter Judge Renslayer. You don't expect anything of the sort to happen again, considering her iron hold on tracking the missing variant down.

And then, witnesses of a particular trial report of something involving a captured Loki variant straight off the sacred timeline. It wasn't supposed to be anything special, just a routine verdict and pruning, but one agent's interruption threw everything into a tailspin.

Renslayer's associate and former partner disrupted her verdict to propose keeping this variant in a time theater in the hopes of finding that elusive variant. No one knows how he got in there, let alone how he knew the trial was happening considering only a few analysts are called to attend them. But most surprising of all, the judge agreed.

The time theaters were rarely used, only for the rare occasions of determining the causes of nexus events by questioning variants. Or, as containment rooms for offsite incidents involving hunters. So despite being a smaller development, the news spread as quick as wildfire. You didn't pay much mind, thinking that soon enough the variant would be pruned as usual once his use was fulfilled.

Suddenly, the captured Loki variant was being spotted all over the TVA. Not trying to escape, but working alongside the agent who saved him.

Almost comical descriptions of the pair being spotted in the halls, the archives, the cafeteria, and all over would be brought up briefly during breaks. The imagery of a variant (specifically, one that was quite deceitful and murderous) following a TVA agent around like some lost puppy seemed too ridiculous to believe. Yet as the pair became more commonplace, more of the TVA's workers began to voice their desires to work with variants, even in jest.

Much of the TVA's policy strictly prohibited fraternization with variants and even with other workers. But this newfound alliance flew directly in the face of all those protocols, so much so that it began to influence the thinking of those from all levels of the TVA's hierarchy. What if analysts, hunters and agents could work with variants to protect the Sacred Timeline? Could it be possible to trust them with the most well-guarded secret in all existence? So while everyone kept their heads and voices down, the hypothetical seemed more and more possible.

At least, until the news broke that the captured Loki variant had, in fact, escaped with the other rogue variant as soon as the hold on him loosened on a timeline. All the talk of brushing shoulders with variants immediately ceased, and the entire TVA went into panic mode trying to find them and repair the destruction they caused.

The disappointment, even on your end, was widespread and astonishingly unexpected. You had anticipated this at first, yet still held hope that it could work out. But it was clear to everyone that something like this would never happen again. Not under Renslayer at least, who likely felt responsible for the breach.

So after the pair were captured again, things were quiet for a while. Both variants would be pruned, the agents and hunters involved properly reprimanded, and that would be it. Everyone would begin to quietly move on from this lapse in the norm as if nothing happened.

You weren't sure how the news broke at first. Just that suddenly, the truth was everywhere and the carefully crafted reality of your existence was blown to smithereens.

Everyone was a variant. Their previous lives had been pruned just as they had done to billions for eons. The Timekeepers didn't exist. All of this had been built as a facade to keep everyone in line. To not ever question the inklings of a past life that still lingered after being turned into servants of a purpose that might not even be true.

There was barely time to digest it before the sacred timeline went haywire as dozens of new branches turned into hundreds. Mass confusion spread as many wondered whether they should listen to the hasty order that prohibited timeline pruning, or continue the job they had been tasked with since their inception. But when a group of rogue hunters managed to eliminate dozens of timelines in one fell swoop, you didn't feel relief. The weight of what you all had been complicit to settled.

And then, when you finally had the chance, you started to wonder; what life was taken from you? What experiences did you have that formed the unique nature of your personality, your dreams, your interests? All of these things that you once considered to be flaws in your design were in fact who you really were. Yet that life was something you could never know of for sure.

The rest of the time before the Event was a blur. Somehow the pruning of the two Loki variants had led them to the man supposedly responsible for the TVA's existence. While the male variant returned to the TVA, the female variant disappeared, and everyone was now searching for her yet again. The rogue hunters and dissenting judge were captured. It was later revealed that a furious Renslayer had killed the entire group for refusing to aid her in restoring order.

Reports of the residing Loki variant and the agent running around started again, and a strange but anchoring sense of deja vu surfaced. But it was clear things were very different now. Not just in the people, but the TVA as a whole. An impending feeling of doom, with every shake and malfunction in the structure, settled like a heavy fog.

Before anyone was the wiser, the shaking escalated with great intensity and blaring evacuation alarms sounded. Panic ensued as no one was really prepared for the idea of leaving the TVA behind entirely; it was everything any of them had ever known. There was barely time to put pens back in desk drawers as hundreds of thousands of workers decended to lower levels to escape onto designated timelines, some of which now looked incredibly different due to the excessive branching. You'd never seen so many of your fellow workers in one place before, and every single one of them was just as afraid as you were.

Now, it was just to wait until it was clear there was no coming back from the destruction. The buildings shook even harder like everything was going to cave in, the lights suddenly going out—

And then, silence.

No one moved in fear of disrupting the sudden quiet that permeated the entire complex.

Eventually, as the lights came back on, it was apparent that the threat was somehow... gone. Things were more still, more peaceful than they had ever been in your entire life here.

When you came back to your desk, with everyone still dead-silent, the files laid open and the terminal blinked like a still life. Remaining just the same as you had left it, but with the feeling that everything had changed.

It took several work cycles before the full story emerged. The Loki variant—which now everyone referred to as just Loki—had used his magic to somehow destroy the technology that had been keeping the Sacred Timeline in order. This "loom" was designed to self-destruct if the timelines grew too severely, and take absolutely everything with it. But in a seemingly calculated endeavor, Loki had exited the TVA and pulled the loom apart, collecting the strands and pulling them together. He then stepped into a hidden dimension and closed the exit behind him, likely as an effort to prevent any future risk to the timelines. It was a heroic and astounding sacrifice. One that secured a new future for all life, especially the variants that made up the TVA.

The group of people that aided him in this journey were now helping to rebuild a system that had caused so much destruction in the name of preservation. Little by little, the TVA expanded in ways never thought possible. Freedoms were granted amongst the people that never would have been possible before. These individuals almost became celebrities amongst the population as they shared the truth about everything going on behind the scenes. The only missing links appeared to be the female variant, and the agent who had started it all. Rumor had it he had left the TVA some time after the Event with a peculiarly heavy heart.

Now, with a lot of continuous reintegration and retraining of hunters, agents and analysts, a new sense of freedom pulses through the organization's walls. Some have chosen to leave and start new lives on a timeline, on their own terms. Some have switched occupations, desiring a role more suited to their personal aspirations. And some, like yourself, have decided to take a peek into a life that was once yours.

A file with your designation sits on your desk. The contents inside could be anything; a terrifying reality which holds the key to unlocking a whole new part of your identity. But unlike before, one thing is for certain. The future now rests in your hands, not with any masked tyrant or man behind the curtain. Your life was now, finally, truly your own. And hopefully, no matter what revelations were made, you'd be able to live knowing the whole truth.

Your own glorious purpose.

---

Thank you to everyone who has been reading my posts over the past week! Your comments have been greatly appreciated and really helped motivate me to keep writing. While I couldn't make a post every day, I really enjoyed this opportunity to write about a show (and a pairing) that is very dear to me.

Thanks for reading, and I hope to see y'all around!

[cha-melodius]

I have too many questions I like from the fic rec ask game, so 1, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, and/or 13- take your pick! Take your pick for whether the recs are Loki or RWRB too, I'm going through your first Loki series at the moment, and it's AMAZING!

LOL I love this list, please don't apologize! I got 11 & 12 a few other times in later asks so I'm skipping those, but I'll do the rest. I've tried to include Loki and/or RWRB fics, but actually a lot of the fics that live in my head and such are actually not in fandoms I'm active in. I don't know what that says about me. 😅

Recommend a fic that lives in your brain rent free.

The time of my life by @mirilyawrites (Loki) This fic made such an impression on me because it SOUNDS like it should be an AU (dirty dancing-inspired) but mirilya seamlessly threaded it into canon and it just WORKS.

The Perils of Midsomer Residency by @clottedcreamfudge (RWRB) Murder Mystery AU. I just recc'd this fic to someone else the other day (because of the Hot Fuzz references) so it's on my mind. Just such a perfect encapsulation of firstprince and also all of those British murder mystery shows (why are there so many of them???).

6. Recommend a fic that does something cool with format or structure (epistolary, social media, 5 things, non-linear, etc.)

A couple of new ones, still anonymous from the AWY collection: Rather Inevitable by anonymous (RWRB) Hockey AU. Mostly told through an article Henry writes about his relationship with hockey and Alex.

king & lionheart by anonymous (RWRB) Fantasy/medieval AU. Told as a character telling a story interspersed with 'in situ' scenes of the action of that story. I'm explaining it poorly. Just go read it!

7. Recommend a fic that uses a trope you love.

the stolen hearts of things by @ninzied (RWRB) Heist AU. I love that this is a heist fic, so I'm counting that, although the real trope that's in here is not one I can list for spoiler reasons.

8. Recommend a fic with an interesting premise/concept.

Low-Key Coffee by sirnotappearinginthisarchive (Loki) Not-quite-a-coffee-shop-AU. Loki is trapped in an alternate universe where he works at a coffee shop, and no one knows it but him. Also, there's a murder. The way the mystery unfolds in this is soooo good.

13. Recommend a fic you've re-read multiple times. (Is this where I admit I don't have a lot of fics I reread? Oh well, here's my most-reads)

Slow Show by mia_ugly (Good Omens) Actor AU. This set the platonic ideal of an actor AU for me and it remains my favorite. The nonlinear storytelling, the use of other media like interviews, the arc of their story... it's so good.

muddle through somehow by curtaincall (Good Omens) Christmas in Connecticut-inspired AU. Fake marriage and lots of comfort food. I read this every Christmas.

time to wonder, do I dare? by NoRationalThoughtRequired (Witcher) Bookstore/musician AU. Geralt owns a bookstore and Jaskier is a street musician. Just a lovely slow burn.

Cold Frost and Sunshine by @somedrunkpirate (TMFU) Hockey AU. How this fic deals with the trials and tribulations of an NHL athlete coming out is still one of the best I've ever read.

[november-rayne]

A Gift for Loki - Summary

Young Prince Loki of Asgard is the God of Mischief and Chaos, the wild and unscrupulous little brother of Thor, and the son of the King of the Æsir.

Being second in the line of succession, Loki meticulously performs his palace duties by day, but by night he can be found living up to his reputation as a hard-core partying playboy.

Alas, a prince of Asgard cannot remain a fun-loving bachelor forever. Loki's world is turned upside down when duty calls for him to take a wife. His parents have betrothed him to the daughter of the most prominent Lord in the kingdom.

Loki would rather be dragged to Hel than to the altar, that is, until he finally lays eyes on his bride-to-be. Meeting Sigyn cracks the foundation on which he built his hedonistic reputation.

Can Loki give up his philandering lifestyle and become the husband Sigyn deserves? The Nornir have brought the two of them together; will outside forces tear them apart?

*This story is for mature audiences only.* 18+

*Minors DNI*

Warnings: Explicit descriptions of sexual acts, alcohol intoxication, and drug use. Specific trigger warnings will be attached before each chapter when applicable.

This story is NON-CANON. This is an MCU/Norse mythology hybrid AU: Thor and Loki are biological brothers, and Odin isn't the worst father. Comparably, in human years, Loki is in his mid-twenties, and Thor is late twenties. Set in Asgard, the realm is described as a large kingdom with territories and hierarchies among Odin's Lords and Ladies.

Genre: Fluff and Smut. An all-round feel-good fic.

Pairings: AU Loki x Sigyn

Chapters Index 👇🏼

*Contains SMUT

1. Prologue*

2. When Opportunity Knocks*

3. The Message*

4. Denial*

5. The Lost Prince

6. Ill-prepared

7. Meeting Sigyn

8. Doubt*

9. Family Dinner

10. Paths Not Taken

11. The Betrothal Feast

12. Discoveries

13. The Chase

14. Heart to Heart

15. A Token*

16. The Best Man

17. A Kingly Visit

18. Home*

19. Seeing

20. Oh, Brother

21. Fond Farewells- Part One*

22. Fond Farewells- Part Two*

23. The Bachelor Party

24. Brother Mine

25. Reunion

26. Unexpected

27. Sigyn's Virtue

28. Sera's Trials

29. Bed Rest*

30. Purpose

31. The Wedding

32. The Reception

33. His Goddess*

34. Epilogue*

A Gift for Loki One-Shots

The Gift of the Sun* The Gift of Distraction* The Gift of Distraction - Part Two*

*Contains SMUT

[in-my-loki-feels]

📆, 💞, ✨, and 😭 for the fic rec asks!

📆 A fic you’d re-read 10 years from now

a white demon love song by officecowboyyy

I love vampire AUs, I've always loved vampire AUs, and it stands to reason that I'll still love them in 10 years. Especially when it's vampire + hunter. *chef's kiss* The author described this as a "speedrun of enemies to lovers" and I think it accomplishes that without making it feel rushed at all.

💞 A fic that led to you making friends with the author

Oh no! I played my hand too early with my other answers.😆 I think spirit box is what led me to making friends with @punch-love.

I can't remember exactly the timeline of when I became friends with @devilbearingtrouble but it might have been because of Brought Lipstick to a Knife Fight.

First of all, Loki gets to wear make-up, which we love to see! Second, Mobius in Loki's lap, hellooooo??? It's sweet, sexy and fun. What more do you need?

✨ A fic you wish you could read again for the first time

The Hardest Cut - @cha-melodius

Bodyguard AU, another flavor I adore. Mobius is the key witness in a huge trial and Loki is tasked with keeping him alive. This is a great fic for rereading because you pick up more on sequential reads, but there's also a scene (that I won't spoil) that was a huge "!!!!" moment the first time I read it. It's a great moment no matter how many times I read it, but it won't ever land the same way as the first time I read it, which is why I chose it.

😭 A fic that ripped your heart out (but it hurt so good)

This fandom has a lot that could fit this bill but this was the first to come to mind:

Like a shining angel at my cabin door - @lamardeuse

I don't know why this doesn't have more kudos. Maybe because it has few tags? I don't know. This is one of my favorite post-finale fics dealing with Mobius trying to move on (and not really succeeding). There are several really good moments in this, but that one in the fish and chips shop felt like a hand punched through my chest (in a good way!). I also really love the ending. <3

[bugwolfsstuff]

for the tol au would loki be able to use magic? he's god of magic on the rrverse wiki and i think he's gone through enough suffering to be able to use magic.

it'd be interesting if he didn't get a weapon of any kind from odin so he tries to steal some runestones from hearth or something because he knows he can use them

Oooh i genuinly hadnt thought about that. I was planning to give him a sword of anguish ;) at some point but not from Odin

(He's not getting his actual myth sword because we aint even sure that shit is a sword it might be a fucking projectile)

The moment he realizes he can use the runes will be hell for everyone else lmao

He'd be a menace and Hearth will learn to hide his fucking runestones

[gerec]

Hello! Do you have a list of fics where the X-Men crossover with the Avengers? Thank you!

Here's a list of x-men/avengers crossover fics that was posted on the xmen fcff blog for you to review.

And here are some additional fics that you might enjoy! (Note that there are a mix of canon, powers and no powers aus on both lists).

Happy reading!

Runs In The Family by Anonysquirrel (chibirisuchan)

Alex knew his own reputation. Hell, he'd started some of his own reputation, because it kept some of the smarter thugs off his back. Everyone knew Alex's reputation. There was no way Hank didn't know his reputation, but he'd brought Alex into a house with some really expensive things and a lot of innocent little kids and his too-friendly, too-harmless dad.

But clearly Hank hadn't told his family anything about Alex, just like he hadn't told Alex anything about his family. At least, not about the brain-breaking parts of his family.

"I didn't know where to start," Hank said, for the dozenth time.

Featuring mpreg!Charles in a Kiss The Cook apron, overprotective!Erik in wet black leather, and baked goods. Lots and lots of baked goods.

I wanna hold your hand by sirona

No one understands what it's like growing up rich and yet more alone than anyone should be able to stand - except for people who grew up just like you, that is. In which Tony Stark goes to Oxford University and meets people and makes enemies and makes friends and changes people's minds and falls in love - amongst other tales of mishap and adventure.

Space Oddity by maimo, MonstrousRegiment, Pangea, Yaegaki (series)

Prince Charles Xavier is Deputy Commander of the TEF Heartsteel and the newest mission they've been assigned starts out less than desirable and quickly goes downhill from there. It's alright, though, he'll cope.

It doesn't help, though, that he's in unrequited love with his best friend and Commander of the Heartsteel, War-Prince Erik Lehnsherr.

The Consultant (aka A Westchester Telepath in the Avengers Tower) by lachatblanche

Prompt: "- not my field, but Tony says you've made great advances in our ability to detect and perhaps one day use wormholes, Ms. Foster," says the genetics expert SHIELD imported from London to examine re-captured Loki - Charles, maybe - but the approaching figure of Captain America is eclipsed by the towering, gorgeous mass of Jane's Asgardian on-again-off-again boyfriend; the only thing she hears is a sudden, "Oh! Oh, my," and she turns to see competition.

In which Thor and Jane Foster meet Professor Charles Xavier, telepath, SHIELD consultant and compulsive flirt, for the very first time.

It goes exactly as one might expect.

Under The Suit (We Have To Work Together) by helens78

In which Charles and Erik's X-Men team up with the Avengers, but Erik's distracted by the guy in the metal suit.

Neighbors by sav2014 (series)

The Xavier Household and the Rogers-Stark Household are neighbors.

Life of an Engineer by ximeria

The main story "Building Bridges", is the boy-meets-boy and falls in love (eventually), but it's also Erik's trials and tribulations working at Stark Enterprises, his slightly insane boss, his love life (Erik's, not Tony's), and life in general.

How to Get a Midgardian Boyfriend: a Guide by Charles Odinson by cachinnation

The king of all Asgard had three sons, and of the three Odinsons, one was golden and tempestuous and kingly, and the other two were right headaches. After Charles, Odin stopped bringing children home.

Mutant School AU by ximeria (series)

As teachers and role models for the rest of the school, Charles and Erik fail pretty spectacularly. However, in their own, slightly dysfunctional way, they work.

Modern day setting with a school run jointly by Brotherhood and X-men members, with Charles' father as the leader of one side, Logan the leader of the other, and Charles and Erik, who should be old enough to act maturely, just tend to... not.

Invictus by MonstrousRegiment

Charles, in the aftermath of an assault, and the psychological repercussions of lack of solace and support in those who are closest to him.

What's In The Cake? by Gerec

It's Tony's birthday and the team is having a party at the new Avengers Tower. Tony's best friend Emma Frost is there too, and along with Pepper have a special birthday present for their favorite genius millionaire playboy philanthropist - a giant birthday cake, complete with an absolutely gorgeous looking stripper.

Steve Rogers finds himself just a little bit in love.

[presidentdisastraofgallifrey]

My Fanfiction

Gallifrey One-Shots

Dreams of the Future - Romana has nightmares about things that haven’t happened yet

I am President of Gallifrey - Romana's experiences on Etra Prime

Torture of the Daleks - more Etra Prime

Sleep That Never Comes - Romana and Leela sharing their trauma

The Worst Timeline - Romana is traumatized (on the axis)

The Worst Timeline (Is Relative) - Brax is tortured (on the axis)

It's Midnight Somewhere - Romana is disabled (on the axis)

Easy Way Out - Romana dies (on the axis)

What's Left of Me - Leela is lonely (on alt!Gallifrey)

Touch Telepathy - Romana is disabled (psychically)

Not Like Before - Romana adjusts to life back at home post-series 6

Gallifrey Multi-Chapter

Halfway to Anywhere - AU where the Doctor rescues Romana from Etra Prime (5/?? chapters)

Inhuman Nature - AU where Romana fobwatches herself on Earth post-Etra Prime and misses the whole Time War (1/?? chapters)

Brittle - Romana and Narvin are both disabled (on alt!Gallifrey) (2/?? chapters)

After Gallifrey - Romana traps Leela on Earth to save her from the war and she runs into Sarah Jane Smith (there will be sex in this one) (1/?? chapters)

Doctor Who

Doctor Who? - The show but if Romana left Gallifrey on her own and then lived her version of the Doctor’s life (5/39 chapters)

Child of the Daleks - The horrifying life of that girl who got possessed in Remembrance of the Daleks

500-Year Diary - A series that is just various Doctors' diary entries

The Mechanisms

Can You Be Real - pre-tbi Sigyn leads a mission to stop the completion of the train and discovers Loki, broken and incoherent, in need of rescuing (2/?? chapters)

Xena

The Long and Winding Journey - sort of a fix-it that lets them have a family, and sort of just playing with the timeline because I'm autistic like that (2/?? chapters)

Liveblogs

One: The Time Meddler, The Ark, The War Machines

Two: The Curse of the Cybermen, The Enemy of the World

Three (and Liz): The Ambassadors.........of DEATH

Three (and Jo): The Daemons, Day of the Daleks, The Sea Devils, The Mutants, The Green Death

Three (and Sarah Jane): The Time Warrior, Invasion of the Dinosaurs

Four (and Sarah Jane): The Sontaran Experiment, Genesis of the Daleks, Pyramids of Mars, The Deadly Assassin

Four (and Leela): The Invisible Enemy, Image of the Fendahl, The Underworld, The Invasion of Time

Four (and Romana I): The Ribos Operation

Four (and Romana II): Destiny of the Daleks, City of Death, The Horns of Nimon, Full Circle

Five: Four to Doomsday, Black Orchid, Earthshock, Arc of Infinity, Terminus, The Five Doctors, Resurrection of the Daleks

Six: The Twin Dilemma, The Mark of the Rani, The Two Doctors, Trial of a Time Lord 1, Trial of a Time Lord 4

Seven: Time and the Rani, Dragonfire, Battlefield (in progress)

Gallifrey (Series 1): Weapon of Choice, Square One, The Inquiry, A Blind Eye (in progress)

Gallifrey (Series 6): Renaissance, Ascension

Gallifrey (Standalones): Intervention Earth, Enemy Linees

Gallifrey (Echoes Through Eternity): Damned If You Do

Lists

Wild things that happen in Gallifrey: series 1, series 2, series 3, series 4, series 5, series 6, standalones

[juliaswickcrs]

ROLE SWAP AU :: SOPHIE WARNER & PIETRO MAXIMOFF ↳ ( oc halloween challenge, day six )

in April 2013, a bomb went off in NOVI GRAD, SOKOVIA. HYDRA got there first in hopes of destabilizing the country. Instead, they found a wealth of potential experimental subjects. Over two years HYDRA saw varied results, with some dead and others driven mad. But eventually they saw results. An American had survived the trials. An American had been brought back to life. Two of the teenagers hit in the blast were found to have unlocked genetic potential, making them targets for General Dreykov's Red Room. Two years in captivity made them hardened killers, bred to be a new kind of weapon the world was not ready for. In May of 2015, Pietro and Wanda Maximoff are assigned a mission to infiltrate a HYDRA base near their former home and destroy it. They would never return to the Red Room. In May of 2015, Sophie Warner is brought back to life with the power of the Mind Stone within Loki’s Scepter. When she wakes, a boy with white hair stares down at her with his hand positioned over her heart. It would be many years before she saw Death again.

taglist: @bisexualterror @foxesandmagic @iron-parkr @camiemendess @a-song-of-quill-and-feather

@arrthurpendragon @starcrossedjedis @drbobbimorse @kingsmakers @noratilney

@stanshollaand @astarionbae @darth-caillic @mystic-scripture @aliverse

@misshiraethsworld @asirensrage @eddiemunscns

@princessmadelines @impales @waterloou @thatmagickjuju

MARVEL TAGLIST: @notxjustxstories @themaradwrites

[insert-witty-user-name-here]

Seven Sentence Sunday

Thank you for the tags @loki-is-my-kink-awakening @blackbirdofasgard @thosegayoldmen. I actually have something to share this time 🎉💖

Eternally grateful to @lgwilt for letting me be the devil on her shoulder saying no you have to write this, when she said “I have an idea- a Lokius Severance AU.” And further grateful when she let me partner with her to write it! Lgwilt, has been a blast writing this with you.

So, here are seven (okay 7+1) sentences from what is currently titled “Severance AU*, Chapter Two” (*canon divergent AU, what if the TVA were more like Lumon Industries?)

Mobius paused when he noticed Loki was no longer walking in step beside him. He’d stopped a few paces behind and was staring at him expectantly, apparently refusing to take another step until he had his answer. Mobius sighed. He knew he shouldn’t reply. Loki would hear his name for the first time from Ravonna, as dictated in the carefully constructed onboarding schedule. And yet… there was something about the guilelessness of Loki’s expression that seemed to loosen all concern of Mobius’ for the TVA’s protocols.

“It’s Loki,” Mobius answered, pulling out Loki’s name badge and handing it to him. “Your name is Loki.”

While I have you, HIGHLY RECOMMEND THE SHOW SEVERANCE. Season 2 is starting soon and Apple TV gives a free trial so if you haven’t watched it…. Season one is worth it, I swear. It’s so so good.

No pressure tagging @kcscribbler @mirilyawrites @andthekitchensinkao3 @wolfpup026 for an upcoming WIP Wednesday or Seven Sentence/Sketch Sunday if you’ve already participated today.