Another Chance

Laufeydottir

Loki wanted to follow the girl towards the grass, but he ended up leading the way. He didn't like having her out of sight. His palms itched with the need to pull his dagger and rip hers out of hers, but he stopped himself. He needed her to trust him, and she wouldn't if he showed her that he didn't trust her. So he walked in front of her to an area away from other students, but sunny and with soft grass. If it wasn't for her, and for the circumstances, it wouldn't even cross his mind to do that. But he sat up, suppressing a grimace at the thought of the stains the grass might be leaving on his suit. She imitated him a second later.

Her dagger was gone from her sight, and without it the young woman looked almost normal.

Almost, if one avoided the calculating look and the permanently suspicious grimace.

"Ladies first," he invited her with a wave of his hand. "With an introduction, if it's not too much trouble."

The young woman scoffed and rolled her eyes.

"I'm Sylvie."

"Sylvie... What else?"

"Sylvie Lushton. In this world."

"And in the other?" he asked with a touch of unhealthy curiosity and a strange feeling in his stomach.

A bad omen.

"Laufeydottir."

Loki took a second to register the last name. In understanding the implications. In understanding why they looked so much alike, why he carried her dagger. But that didn't explain how they could meet. It didn't even explain why they were both there. Reality spun around for a second. But he soon contained her emotions and forced them back to the back of his mind. He would have time to feel the queasiness in his stomach another time. When he was alone.

"You are... Who are you? What are you?" he asked, and managed to make his voice sound calm.

"I'm a variant of Loki. Or you guys are variants of me... I'm not sure there's an original." Sylvia waved her hand, dismissing the concept. "Anyway. My origin does not matter. What matters is that I was about to destroy the bastard who had my reality, our realities, destroyed, and you took advantage of a moment of weakness to create a space-time portal and take me away from what had taken centuries to achieve."

"It wasn't me," he assured, throwing up his hands at the anger flashing in her eyes again.

Sylvie rolled her eyes again and shook her head.

"Anyway, he threw me through the portal. I guess I should have come to the TVA, or the Void, with the other Lokis..."

"Wait, wait. Are there more Lokis?"

"A lots of. Too many, even..." Sylvie stopped and shook her head. "It doesn't matter right now. Thing is, it doesn't get anywhere. Maybe it was a mistake of the tempad, the device that opens the portals, or... Or Loki did it on purpose, but I ended up in the void."

Loki felt himself pale.

"If that Loki has been through at least part of what I've been through, he didn't do it on purpose," he murmured, leaning forward. "And then, when you felt like you were about to freak out there, did you hear a voice?"

Sylvie swallowed hard and nodded.

"And you?"

"I had a fight with my father, with my brother, and I destroyed the Bifrost before I fell over its edge," she said with much more simplicity than the swirling emotions inside her should allow. "Then the void and everything else. And then, I woke up in a Midgardian mansion. Which leads me to wonder, if we are variants, and in essence, the same person... Where have you come to this world?"