pennysheets | A long lost sister

Entry tags:

A long lost sister

After Loki disappears with the tesseract, Thor spends two years trapped on Midgard before Odin and Heimdall can get him home again. It's not a bad two years, given he spends it helping his friends in that realm smash some heads and rescue some shieldmates, but it is a stressful two years, because surely Loki has gone far in that time. And Thor wants very badly to find him again.

He spends the next two years hunting down Loki, crossing galaxies and realms and talking to all manner of people both good and terrible. Finally, the bifrost repaired, Heimdall points him to a small planet on the brink of collapse. "Loki is here," he says.

Thor spends a whole day searching. He's not finding much sign of Loki, just panicked people he cannot help. Even if he summoned help from Asgard, they couldn't evacuate even a fraction of these people. It's awful.

He sits himself down at a table in a nearly-empty city and watches a moon slowly approach the planet. Heimdall will collect him as soon as he asks, of course, but he needs to sit down for a minute and indulge in a moment of near-despair for his missing brother and the doomed planet.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Heimdall is not, strictly speaking, wrong. Loki, the one Thor is searching for, is on this planet, fighting to escape before the moon obliterates it. It's just that he's on the wrong version of this planet, a half-step out of temporal sync from where his brother stands, at the center of a churning maelstrom of magic that diverts that building there, crumbling as the ground heaves, as the world begins to shudder apart.

The woman who is here now, who has been dogging his shadow for the past hour, has not gone by Loki in centuries. The sound of shattering concrete and distant screams swallows her footsteps as she stalks towards him, hands clenching and unclenching with a fury that is the only thing holding her together.

Sylvie has not seen her brother since long before she gave up her name. She has hoarded scraps from a dozen apocalypses, Earths where the Avengers have triumphed, or fallen, or faded to legend, knowing all the while that the man who belonged to those stories has never known her. She recognized him the instant she spotted him.

"You aren't supposed to be here." It comes out in a near hiss, familiar tones in the wrong voice, from a hooded figure that has the right posture, but the wrong height and build.

The Loki Thor knows is, indeed, male most of the time-- though he also experimented in his younger centuries with different forms and genders, it wasn't recently enough for Thor to recognize this form all grown up. He looks up from his contemplation of the planet's fate, and frowns at the hooded figure.

"No," he agrees after a moment, deciding not to bother denying it. He doesn't look like he belongs here, and he's never been very good at pretending to be anything other than who and what he is. "I do not. I came in search of someone else who does not belong."

There's no need to guess at who he's looking for, and she laughs, a harsh, bitter bark of sound, and turns her head away. The hood is deep enough to hide her features, but the cant of her head suggests she's surveying the destroyed buildings.

"There's nothing here for the son of Odin. Go home, while you still can."

"There is still some time yet." Thor eyes her, because that sure was his father's name she just used, there. He knows he's relatively famous, but on this backwater planet? Surely not that famous. No one else here has recognized him.

Of course, no one else here has cared, because mostly they're panicking or are miserably accepting their fate.

Either way, it is unusual for her to recognize him. So he asks: "How do you know me?"

"That doesn't matter," she says, and there's something pained beneath the bitter weariness in her voice. "You don't know me. You never will. Just know that the brother you're searching for isn't here. He knows when to desert a sinking ship."

Thor stands up, somewhere between hopeful, angry, and alarmed. Sorry, Sylvie, he's not letting this go that easily. Surely you remember enough of your brother to know how stubborn he can be.

"How do you know Loki?" Thor demands. "Was he here?" A horrible thought occurs, and he adds: "Did he harm you?"

She does remember just how stubborn he had been. She'd hoped that the centuries might have brought him wisdom; instead, she suspects they might have actually honed that stubbornness to a keener point.

That is, perhaps, one of the things they have in common.

"No," she says, too sharply, the desire to defend her other self momentarily outpacing her desire to see her brother gone to safety. "No, he didn't harm me. We traveled together for a time. We parted ways days ago. He was bound offworld."

Thor's expression lightens a little with relief. Perhaps there's hope for Loki, after all. He traveled together with someone, didn't turn her away, and didn't even make her hate him.

"Please, madam. Come with me," he says, holding out a hand hopefully. "Tell me everything. Maybe you know something I can use to find him. To talk to him." He can't save everyone on this moon, but he can maybe save this one woman, and maybe she can help him... or help Loki.

She laughs, sharp and jagged, and despite the difference in pitch, it sounds very much like Loki's laugh. In this moment, she's glad for the depth of her hood - it hides the spasm of pain and longing that passes across her face.

"You wouldn't believe the half of it," she says, but after a long moment's deliberation, she takes his hand.

She still has her tempad. She can escape from Asgard before...

Before what? There's no one to track her down now; his presence alone proves that much.

It is an odd laugh, and Thor can't quite place where he's heard it before. He takes her hand, but he's looking at her shadowed face. "Have we met, madam?"

"You've never met me," she says, voice tight, but after a moment, she sighs and pushes the hood back. She is reasonably certain hers is not a form her counterpart has ever taken, in all of his illusions - he'd been too surprised upon seeing her for that.

He'd had no reason to take bits and pieces of the people he'd loved, to model the face he wears after family that no longer existed, not in the shape he knew, not anywhere.

There are still similarities. There would be more, were the majority of her armour not still concealed beneath her cloak.

Thor pauses and frowns at her. He's not dumb, but "alternate version of your brother" is not a thing that immediately comes to mind, so it takes him a second to put together. What he sees mostly, though, is as much Frigga and himself as it is Loki.

"You're family," is what he says, sounding somewhere between horrified and amazed. "You're a child of Odin, like us. How is this possible-- how did you--?" He breaks off as a chunk of moon hits the ground not far from them. "We should go. Please. Heimdall will collect us and we can speak in Asgard, where there is time."

"I was conceived in the usual way," she says dryly. Deflection is one thing they all have in common, every Loki down the line, even the reptilian ones.

"Call him quickly - we may have five minutes left of breathable atmosphere, ten before this world rips apart."

He holds tight to her hand, giving her one more baffled, worried, almost desperate look, thoughts bouncing around in his head about long lost siblings and parental lies and impossibilities. Then he holds Mjolnir up. "Heimdall!"

The bifrost comes immediately, sweeping them both away and into a rebuilt bifrost chamber at the end of the rainbow bridge.

Sylvie had been young enough when her world ended that she'd only traveled along the Bifrost a handful of times - short jaunts, a way for Odin to show his children the worlds that lay within Asgard's influence. The ride is rougher than she recalls, and she shuts her eyes tight against the kaleidoscope of light that threatens to rob her of her senses, staggering when she once again finds solid ground beneath her feet.

The sharp click of the bifrost closing jolts her back to herself, and she opens her eyes, shuddering slightly as she takes in rounded walls of gleaming gold - not scorched and broken, as they had been the last time she'd seen them - and the scowling, golden-eyed, very much alive guardian whose hands clench tight on the hilt of his sword.

"I expected you to return with your brother in shackles," Heimdall says.

"My brother was not on that world," Thor answers shortly, in part because he's not happy Heimdall messed up, and in part because he's still kind of frantic about this long-lost sibling. He still has Sylvie's hand, and he uses it to help steady her, letting Mjolnir fall so he can touch her shoulder as well. His eyes are on her face. "But this maiden knows of him."

He doesn't immediately say she's family. He wants to know what Heimdall will say, first. Heimdall who knows so many things.

She twitches a little, like a startled fox, and only doesn't jerk away because she's not certain her legs will hold her. Asgard, whole. Heimdall, alive. Her brother, alive.

But this is not the Heimdall she'd pestered with endless questions, begged to allow her to slip down to see the Realm of her birth. This is not the brother she'd shadowed and sparred with, played at being Valkyries with when they stole away from their lessons.

"I see that now," Heimdall says gravely. "But this...maiden--" There is a faint, wry twitch of his lips, and in spite of herself, Sylvie appreciates it, this acknowledgment that whatever she may be, she is far from an innocent. "--more than knows of him. I can see the difference now that their trail has split, but she is almost indistinguishable from your brother."

Hey, now, Thor's just being polite, here! He's not about to make assumptions about a stranger's virtue or lack thereof, here. Especially when that stranger might be his sister-- or cousin, at least. But given what Heimdall says... he's thinking she must be a sister. A long-lost daughter of Odin.

"She's family. Look at her, Heimdall." Thor's hand tightens a little on her shoulder and hand, bracing but warm, trying to show her his support, while he looks between Sylvie and Heimdall. Surely this must be difficult for her! Though he can't possibly know how difficult. "How did we not know of this?"

"That is something I'd dearly like to know," Heimdall says, and while his expression is not hostile as he regards Sylvie, it is certainly guarded, even beyond his usual aspect.

"Oh," she says, with a ragged laugh that she chokes off as she hears just how close it comes to a sob. "That's easy enough to explain. Even the All-Seeing can't see something that doesn't exist. I'm no dirty secret kept from all of Asgard - I'm what might have been if the child the All-Father found abandoned had been a daughter, not a son."

Thor looks perplexed. He looks between Sylvie and Heimdall with his brows drawn tight. Odin has finally shared that story with him, so at least he knows what she's talking about, but it still makes no sense. "But Loki was not a daughter."

He has not yet been acquainted with the idea of the multiverse. That's still several years in his future, if it even happens the same way now that Loki has disappeared into the universe with the space stone. It's not enough to make him drop her elbow, or back away, but... he's clearly confused.

Edited 2022-10-05 07:04 (UTC)

"Oh, I'm wildly aware." It comes out harsh with old hurt that's never healed, only scarred, and is rendered that much more raw by the fact that she's standing on the edges of a home that, for her, has not existed for centuries.

"But I was. Same parents, same circumstances, just one little divergence that split off an entirely new timeline."

She glances at Heimdall, seeking backup in spite of herself. Frigga would be better, but she can't--

It's hard enough to hold on to the shreds of her composure with just her brother at her side. Add either of their parents to the mix, and she would be abruptly and utterly useless.

"It's a possibility spoken of in some circles," Heimdall allows warily. "A reason for prophecy gone awry. None have been able to reach across the veil and bring back proof."

"Oh, they have," Sylvie says. "A thousand times. It just isn't allowed to stick."

Thor looks between Sylvie and Heimdall, his expression slowly growing from confused to alarmed to, finally, determined. "It's stuck now. Since you're here. And surely you must stay," he adds. "Please, if you are my sister, you must belong here as well. At least for a while." He won't cage her, he won't dismiss her, he won't be an ass like he was to Loki.

Maybe he can't ever make it up to his brother, but he's not going to fail his sister, if it's within his power.

She swallows hard, not sure if she's about to be sick or about to start sobbing, and entirely sure that she'd rather strip off her own skin than do either. "For a while," she agrees. No TVA hunters will follow her this time. Maybe, in time, she can stop bracing for them.

"Your father will want to speak with her," Heimdall warns, and it is a warning.

"Later," Thor says firmly, giving Heimdall a look that says make me, I dare you. "When there has been time to rest and recover." And time for him to speak with her, first. He refuses to let his father punish his sister for his brother's crimes, so they have to-- as much as he hates to admit it-- get their stories straight before presenting her to the Allfather.

"What are you called by?" he asks Sylvie, more kindly than what he just said to Heimdall.

Heimdall meets that look squarely, eyebrows lifted - then inclines his head a fraction of an inch. "My report is made at sundown," he says, and that, too, is a warning. He will give them time; he will not forsake his oath or his duty.

"Sylvie," she says. "For the last several centuries. No need to change what works."

It's not what he'd hoped for, but he'll deal with it. Sitting and fighting with Heimdall is a waste of time, and he'd probably lose, anyway.

So Thor focuses full on his surprise sister. "Sylvie it is, then." Easier than trying to keep two separate Lokis straight in his head. He offers his arm again, and says, "I don't know how much you remember of the palace, or if yours was-- different. But I know some good places to sit and talk. Or to wash up, if you want."

"Very little," she says. "And the parts I do recall will probably seem much smaller now."

She gestures with one hand along the length of her, and then, after a moment's pause, takes his arm again. "Unless that was your way of telling me I smell like the inside of a bilgesnipe, we should talk now, while we have the chance."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A long lost sister

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject