Two Blades, One Dagger

Love's An Imaginary Dagger

Loki was falling, falling, falling into an endless black abyss.

For a solid five seconds he screamed, until he finally regained his composure. He had been here before. He thought back to New York, how he had been abruptly removed from his less-than-pleasant conversation with his brother, Thor. A buzzing circle of orange sparks had surrounded his feet, and the ground had disappeared from under him. He had fallen into a black, empty abyss and had continued to fall for at least half an hour until he was dropped face-first back into the real world on a hardwood floor. At the time, it was some Earthly "wizard" of sorts who had sent him to the bottomless pit. Loki did not recall much about the man other than that he had a sentient cape, seemed to be allied with his brother's boy band, and went by the name Strange (which, indeed, he was). 

"Ah, Strange," Loki grumbled. "I see you're playing at your little tricks again. While I cannot get myself out of this bottomless pit, when the time comes that you choose to let me out and face me like a man, I, Loki of Asgard, will make you wish that you had never been born!" 

There was no reply. Either Strange couldn't hear him, or else he was just choosing to ignore the perpetually falling God of Mischief. Loki had the sensation that he would be falling for a very long time, so he put his hands behind his head 1) in and attempt to look relaxed and 2) to keep his long Asgardian hair from flapping around in his face. "Ah, what to do in an infinite prison of falling?" Under his breathe, he began to sing an upbeat Asgardian folk song that his mother used to sing to him as a child. He nodded his head slightly to the imaginary tune- this was the part where he would pretend to play the drums on the polished wood of his bedframe, and Mother would laugh as he tried his best to belt out the high notes. A sudden wave of sadness washed over him, and he stopped singing. Ah, how he missed his mother. In all her sovereignty and despite all the times he had betrayed her, she loved him unconditionally. She had taught him magic, loved him in a way Odin never had, and made him feel like she loved him just as much as Thor. Despite the monster he was, she treated him like he was her child. A tear slipped from Loki's eye and into the void. 

"Stop it!" he hissed to himself. Falling into an endless abyss was no place to mourn. As nothing around him had changed, he decided to try his luck with the wizard again. "Strange!" he shouted. No response. "I will have you know that I am feeling quite unwell. When you take the liberty to open up the ridiculous portal you have put me in, I will be take my liberty of puking all over you and that pathetic cape of yours!" Loki waited a moment. As he expected, there was silence. Finally, he accepted the fact that he was going to be falling for a very long time, and that there was no threatening his way out. He resumed his laid-back position in the air and closed his eyes. With the wind rushing past him and his stomach feeling like it had been left a couple miles above him, Loki figure that he might as well get comfortable.

Thud!

He landed on a bed this time. It was quite an improvement from the hard wood floor in New York. Loki's eyes took a couple moments to adjust to the light around him, but when they did, he realized that he had landed in his chambers in the Asgardian palace. In front of his bed, there was a grand balcony that oversaw the entirety of Asgard and the Bifrost in the distance. Why the hell would the wizard bring him here, and how did he do it? Asgard had been destroyed years ago by Ragnarok! Loki scanned the room, but there was no sign of anybody but him. "Strange!" he bellowed. "I am sick and tired of your games! Where are you hiding, you second-rate sorcerer?" There was a moment of silence, then a voice spoke out from behind him.

"Strange?" It was a female voice that cut through Loki like a knife. "I've been called that one before, but I'd say that between the two of us, it's you that's second-rate." Loki whipped around. His breathe caught in his throat at the sight before him. He mouthed one word, but it was barely more than a whisper. "Sylvie?"

Everything about her seemed completely surreal, yet she looked the same as when she had cast him away. Her hair still spiraled to her shoulders in soft, blonde curls. She was poised, yet relaxed all at the same time, and the edges of her mouth curled upward into her signature smirk that made Loki's heart flutter. Normally, he was able to mentally prepare himself for her presence, but at her sudden appearance, he felt like a giddy, lovestruck little boy. "What- how are you here?" he gasped. "How are we- all this, Asgard, it was destroyed- how are we here right now?" 

Sylvie strode over to the bed and sat down beside him, lacing her fingers in between his. Loki's breath shuddered, and he could feel himself shaking. Later on, he would curse himself for acting like such a desperate child. "It's a long story," she said, "but first, I just wanted to say sorry."

There was a sincerity in her voice that Loki had not expected. "Sylvie, what reason would you ever have-" he began, but when he looked her in the face, he saw that there were tears streaming down her cheeks. He gently wiped them aside and let his hand linger by her cheek. She brushed it away. 

"I betrayed you," she said softly. "You stuck with me until the end. You were the only person who had ever truly been there for me, and I betrayed you." 

Loki, who was never short of a clever response in any situation, was speechless. He continued to stare into her eyes as they welled up with tears. While he was typically confident with words, he decided to do something that felt entirely unnatural to him and pulled her into a hug. She leaned into him and put her head on his shoulder. Loki was overwhelmed with a foreign warm, fuzzy feeling, like he wanted to protect her at all costs. No matter how desperate he was, he knew that he could never betray her. "Sylvie," he said in a hushed voice, "I love you." 

She pulled away from him, and he was instantly terrified that he had gone too far. You idiot! A small voice in his head screamed. However, when she looked him in the face, her expression was warm and vulnerable. She looked him in the eyes, then looked away, and her cheeks blossomed like roses. "I love you too," she whispered. Sylvie reached up and delicately cupped the side of his face. "Shall we try this again?" she laughed.

Loki grinned. "I would be honored." 

Her lips met his, and this time, Loki took control of the kiss. He slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her close again him. She melted against him like butter, and he breathed in her scent. It was everything Loki had imagined it would be, but better. She smelled like wildflowers and fresh cut cedar- like Asgard on a bright Spring day. He pulled her even tighter against him, and she bit down hard on his lower lip. Loki jerked away in pain as Sylvie snickered. He recovered quickly and rested his forehead against hers so that he could feel her warm breathe against the side of his face. "I see how it is, God of Mischief," he chuckled. 

"Try to keep up," she replied.

The two made out for gods only know how long. By the time they were done, the sun had all but set on the horizon, casting a warm purple glow over the kingdom. Various colored stars spackled the sky. As night fell, Loki turned to Sylvie, who was curled up against him underneath his arm. "What now?" he asked. 

"Well," she replied. "Tomorrow, we get caught up on each other's stories, but tonight, we stay here, together." She laid back on the bed, and Loki joined her. While everything had seemed so chaotic earlier in the day, and he still had many questions, for one of the few times in his life, he felt at peace. He didn't know what was happening at the end of the timeline, but Sylvie was safe in his arms. While there were many things they needed to get caught up on, there was one thing they both agreed on, and that was that they would spend the night there, on Asgard, together.