Journeys

Chapter 4: Forgiveness

Loki doesn't like taking advantage of people to survive, not anymore. He hates the idea of turning back to the skills he cultivated out of anger and spite and hurt, but if he is to live, he has to learn enchantment, and to do this, he needs to find people to enchant, and it will be against their will. He starts with little suggestions to people he touches as he walks through crowds. It's not an easy skill to master and he feels an incredible glee when he is able to make a woman say hello to a stranger in her path. When he has gained a little confidence, he moves on to influencing larger actions, to taking time to have coffee with people and touching their arm when he does, allowing him a greater chance of changing their actions. When he finally accesses someone's memories and draws them forward, he almost feels sick. This manipulation is too familiar in more ways than one. He leaves them lost in the memory and flees to a nearby alley. The person he connected with comes out of their thoughts with no memory of the man who enchanted their mind. Loki is trembling when he returns to the abandoned house in which he's been staying. He sinks to the floor and stretches out to cry, wondering if he really can take over these people in the way Sylvie did. She hadn't held in her hand a sceptre that amplified her worst nature, dragged up her own harshest thoughts. Enchantment is too familiar to something that scares him. He wonders if he will fall back into being someone driven by spite, the worst parts of himself twisted for the use of another. He knows he is manipulating these people the same way he manipulated the soldier whose name he never bothered to learn and the scientist he enlightened (and has since discovered he drove mad). There is nothing he likes about what he has done or what he is doing.

He knows, however, that learning this skill will be the only hope he has of surviving the Void and finding his way back to Sylvie. There is only one way to get past Alioth and back to the Citadel where he hopes she is still alive. He will either be eaten by guilt or loneliness and he isn't sure which is worse.

After a day's rest, he returns to his mission. He realizes he is, in another way, becoming like Sylvie. He is driven to get to the heart of the TVA. He hopes he won't be as embittered as she was when he once again reaches there. He hopes this effort won't draw back out his worst nature.

*

Wandering through time, Loki once again regains his sense of day and night, sun and stars. The first time he allows himself to stretch out under the sky, he is stunned that he forgot just how incredible it is to see so many worlds stretching above him. He knows so little about the stars from other planets, but they are beautiful regardless as to whether or not he knows their names. In this reality, in this place, that peaceful night sky will be pierced by flame in a few hours, a nearby volcano erupting, the pyroclastic cloud spewing toxins into the air that will kill everyone within several miles. He hates that he has to make himself not care in order to survive. There is a part of him that screams in agony knowing that everyone he sees around him will die. He wonders why this has to be the way of the Sacred Timeline.

He also finds it incredibly ironic that only moments after he had been dragged to the TVA, he was told that wherever he went, death and destruction would follow, the hallmarks of his life on the Sacred Timeline. And yet here he is, standing in the midst of death and destruction, following it instead of it following him. He wonders what Mobius would think of what he has determined is the only decision he can make to survive. He hopes he would be forgiving and understanding.

"Of course he would be," Loki tells himself, "It's in the nature of a Mobius to seek to understand others, is it not? I mean, the one I knew first did, and the one I just left seemed to have some semblance of empathy for the Variants he pursued, even if he still enforced the hell that the TVA creates whenever it sends someone to the Void."