The drinks blur together after a while.

The precise number stops mattering somewhere between the third glass and the fifth. The champagne becomes a soft, sparkling river that carries Loki and Oridia from the booth in the dining car to a faded blue couch in the corner near the bar, tucked beneath a low hanging lamp.

Sylvie is still at the table, curled around her folded arms, cheek pressed to her sleeve, sword hand loose but never entirely relaxed. The train rocks; she doesn't stir.

Loki and Oridia, on the other hand, are very awake.

They've migrated with their glasses, then with a bottle, then with someone else's bottle. Now, half-finished flutes crowd the low table in front of the couch, catching and warping the purple light from outside as Lamentis-1 continues to die just beyond the metal walls.

Oridia sits close to him.

Not quite touching, but close enough that their knees bump when the train jostles, close enough that his shoulder is a line of warmth at her side. Her posture has relaxed from TVA-straight to something looser, softer, one leg tucked under her, one elbow hooked over the back of the couch.

She giggles more now. Talks more. The careful restraint she always keeps in the TVA has slipped, the champagne cracking it open from the inside.

"...and then he walked straight into the reset field," She's saying, laughing so hard she has to press a hand to her stomach, "Didn't read the sign, just-- whoosh," She makes a little exploding gesture with her fingers, "Timeline gone. Coffee and all."

Loki half-doubles over with her, "You watched him do it?"

"I told him not to," She says, wiping at one eye with the back of her hand, "He asked if I was exaggerating. I wasn't."

"Well, if you say anything with that face," Loki says, gesturing vaguely at all of her, "I'd assume you were trying to lure me into something."

"You do assume that," She points out.

"True," He tips his head, studying her, "But you're not. That's the problem, isn't it? You can't lie. You're just... dangerous in other ways."

"Oh?" She says, amused, "And how's that?"

"Because I know you mean it when you say I'm infuriating," He answers.

She laughs again, leaning into him for a second. His arm automatically comes up behind her, not quite around her, but braced there like he's ready to catch her if she tips too far.

The weave hums inside her in response. Every time she leans closer, it swells; every time he smiles at her, it brightens. The boundary she's spent her whole existence guarding, Observer, never participant, thins with each sip.

"You're staring at my mouth," He says suddenly, eyes glittering.

"I am not," She says, indignant.

Technically, she's staring at his lips.

"You are," He insists, "You've been doing it all night."

"Well, it moves when you talk," She argues, "And you don't stop talking."

He laughs low, "Are you blaming me for your distraction?"

"Yes."

"Good," He shifts closer, his thigh pressed firmly against hers now, "I like it."

Her breath catches, but she doesn't move away. The train rattles; their shoulders bump. Neither of them corrects the distance.

Around them, the bar patrons murmur and drink and pretend not to watch the apocalypse outside. A woman with a cello sits in one corner, plucking idly at the strings, testing tone. The air is warm, thick with sweat and spilled drinks and impending doom.

Oridia's fingers toy with the stem of her glass. Her palms glow faintly now, not bright enough for anyone to notice but Loki. He watches the way the light flickers between her fingers, the way she keeps trying (and failing) to still it.

"You're different like this," He says quietly.

"Like what?" She asks.

"Not... official," His lips curve, "Less Observer, more Oridia."

She considers that, and for once doesn't try to deflect it.

"I spend a lot of time watching other people live," She says, words a little loose around the edges now, "It's... distracting being one of them."

"You're not one of them," He says. There's no arrogance in it, just recognition, "You're like me."

"How so?" She asks.

"Wrong place, wrong story, too powerful to be left alone," He says, "And tragically handsome."

She snorts, "You're incorrigible."

"And you're drunk," He says, "Which, I must say, is a very good look on you."

"Thank you," She says primly. Then, with a smaller smile: "You're not so bad yourself."

He freezes at that for half a beat, like he wasn't expecting her to give anything back. Then he grins slowly.

"Oho," He says, "Is that an actual compliment from the living personification of truth?"

"Don't make it weird," She says, but she's laughing again.

"I'm absolutely making it weird," he replies.

They're close enough now that every time he leans in, the faint scent of his cologne, smoke and something sharp and cold like ozone, mixes with the champagne on his breath. Close enough that if either of them turned their head just slightly, the weave swells, washing through her chest in a tidal rush.

Jeg saler min ganger. Jeg saler min ganger. Jeg saler min ganger.

The sensation isn't just emotional, it's literal. Like the thread that ties her to the cosmos is brimming with something, pressure building, ready to overflow.

Oridia swallows, fingers flexing.

"Jeg saler min ganger," She whispers, almost to herself.

Loki's brows pinch together.

"You know that song?" He asks, voice softer now.

She looks at him.

Something old and far away moves behind her eyes. The floating, the emptiness, the stars. A melody she can almost remember, half lullaby, half prayer.

She doesn't break eye contact.

"Sing it for me," She says.

It comes out like a command and a plea all at once.

He could refuse. Make a joke. But he doesn't.

He sets his glass down, straightens, and glances around the car. With a few lilting words and a bit of showy charm, he coaxes attention toward himself. He asks the woman with the cello, in a language only half the room understands, if she'll give him a line.

Curiosity wins over fear. She lifts her bow.

The first notes slip into the air, low, resonant, like the start of a storm.

Loki begins to sing in Asgardian.

Soft at first, almost under his breath:

"Men trærne de danser..."

The foreign words roll off his tongue easily, rich and sure. Trees dance. Waterfalls freeze. When she sings, come home. He doesn't translate it, but the emotion in his voice is enough.

He lifts it on the repeat, a little louder. The rhythm is simple, circular. The kind of refrain a crowd can learn quickly.

"Og fossene stanser..."

Around them, the bar patrons start clapping along, hesitant at first, then more confidently. Someone says, "What's he saying?" and someone else replies, "Does it matter?" and then they're humming the melody even if they don't know the meaning.

Every time he returns to the refrain, more voices try to echo the sounds.
When she sings... she sings... come home.
The English slips in like a bridge, something everyone can reach.

Oridia can't breathe.

Her heart pounds in time with the cello. With his voice. With the rhythm of the clapping hands. The weave lights up around him, golden threads spiraling out of his chest, reaching for something. For someone.

For her.

He moves his gaze back to her as the song shifts into another verse, something older and more intimate. The words are different now, about walking alone through storm-dark mountains, crossing ice and shadow, but he sings them to her like they're just between them.

His eyes don't leave hers.

The train, the passengers, the apocalypse, all of it falls away in the tunnel of that look and that song.

Across the car, Sylvie stirs.

The first thing she registers is the music, cello and clapping and an Asgardian song she hasn't heard since she was small, curled up in stone corridors, listening through cracks as other people celebrated things she never got.

Then she sees her.

Oridia. On the couch. Drunk and glowing and laughing quietly, eyes shining up at Loki like he's the only star left in the sky.

Not her Oridia. She knows that. The age is wrong, the clothes are wrong, the timelines are wrong. Hers is gone, burned away with her childhood, erased with her timeline.

But the face. The voice. The way she leans into the music, into him. It guts her just the same.

Sylvie's hands curl on the table.

Loki finishes the verse, returns to the refrain one more time. The whole car is singing now, stumbling through the Asgardian, more confident on the simple English phrases. It's ridiculous and beautiful and tragic, a chorus on a doomed world.

When he finally ends, there's a beat of silence, then applause. People laugh, cheer. Someone whistles.

Oridia claps the loudest.

She pushes to her feet, almost forgetting how many drinks she's had. The room tilts. The train lurches. She wobbles.

Loki's there before gravity can decide, his hands closing around her arms, catching her with a laugh.

"Careful," He murmurs, "Gravity's much worse after the seventh drink."

"How many have we had?" She asks.

"I stopped counting after far too many," He says.

He half-guides, half-carries her back toward the booth where Sylvie is now very much awake and very much watching.

They slide in. Oridia almost lands on Loki's lap before correcting at the last second and landing beside him instead, shoulder pressed firmly to his. She's still smiling, cheeks flushed, eyes bright. Her knee rests against his. He doesn't move away.

"You're drunk," Sylvie says flatly, looking between them.

"No, I'm just full," Loki says grandly, "But bear in mind, I'm very full."

The phrase makes Oridia's heart stutter. The weave hums in agreement, echoing the words.

"Now," Loki continues, reaching for another plate from the cluttered table, "I need you to try this. It pairs very nicely with the Figgy Port. Who's got the Figgy Port? You have to take my word on the Figgy Port."

Sylvie stares, "Where's your uniform? We're meant to be laying low."

"Nobody cares," Loki says, gesturing broadly at the car, "It's the end of the world."

"I think something's happening," Sylvie says, eyes narrowing.

"Yes," Loki says brightly, "Uh, that planet is about to crash into us."

"Don't be an ass," She snaps, "I saw some people looking at you weirdly."

"When did you get so paranoid?" Loki asks.

"It must have started when I spent my entire life running from the omniscient fascists you work for," She bites back.

"Hey!" Loki protests, then waves a hand, "Change of subject. I thought of an answer."

He straightens, attempting seriousness, "Love is a dagger."

Oridia blinks. Sylvie just stares.

"It's a weapon to be wielded far away or up close," Loki continues, warming to the metaphor, "You can see yourself in it. It's beautiful. Until it makes you bleed," He lifts a blade, turns it in the air between his fingers, "But ultimately, when you reach for it..."

"It isn't real," Sylvie finishes, grabbing for the dagger as it disappears,"Love is an imaginary dagger."

They sit there for a beat.

"Doesn't make sense, does it?" Loki says.

"No," Sylvie says, "Terrible metaphor."

"Damn," Loki sighs, slumping slightly, "I thought I had something there."

Oridia watches them, the way their banter ricochets back and forth, shaped by shared pain, shared loneliness, parallel losses. Double meanings hidden in every word.

Love is mischief. Love is a wound. Love is a weapon. Love is her. It's him. It's both. It's none.

She looks down at her own hands resting on the table.

They're glowing again, just faintly. Little halos around her knuckles. The weave is louder than ever, singing three notes now instead of two, all tangled together.

She curls her fingers into fists, forcing the light to dim.

Oridia is blinking very slowly, trying to keep her hands from glowing again. Loki is humming the last line of the Asgardian song under his breath, foot tapping out-of-time. Sylvie is pretending she's not watching them with tight-jawed irritation.

That's when the guards enter.

Three of them. Helmets polished. Weapons drawn.

One points directly at Loki and says, "That's him."

Sylvie doesn't even look at him, she mutters, "Stay cool."

Loki grins, far too relaxed, "It's gonna be fine."

Then he leans in toward Oridia, breath warm against her ear, and whispers,"Observer, please remain quiet."

The guard approaches their booth, "Sir, can I see your tickets?"

Loki's grin widens, absolutely unhinged.

"You again! Hello," He lifts a hand, "Um, tickets. Yes, of course. Here they are."

His palm flashes.

But instead of glamoured tickets, tiny fireworks burst from his hand, sparkling violently.

"Oops," He wiggles his fingers, "Still lovely though, isn't it? Look, is this really necessary? There's a perfectly simple expl--"

And the fight begins.

Chairs topple. Champagne glasses shatter. Someone screams.

Sylvie launches upward, blade already drawn, sober as stone and furious. She cracks the nearest guard across the jaw with her elbow, then kicks his legs out from under him.

Loki tries to help. Truly, he does.

But he's drunk.

Very drunk.

He misses a punch by half a meter, spins too widely, and collides with a metal pole, muttering, "Ow," before attempting a backflip that ends in a graceless sprawl.

Oridia?
Oridia is wasted.

She tries to summon a solar shield, her palms glow, then the glow sputters out like a dying candle and she just winces at the brightness of her own magic.

A guard grabs her by the arm,  Sylvie whips around, grabs the guard by the collar, and hurls him into a table.

She never looks at Oridia. Never says a word.

But she doesn't let anyone touch her.

More guards pile in. The train sways violently. Loki stumbles, curses, and swings wildly. A guard grabs him and, with a grunt, throws him clean off the train.

His shout echoes outside.

Sylvie freezes.

"Tempad," She snaps.

She grabs Oridia's wrist, warm, glowing, trembling, and leaps.

They slam into the dirt outside the train as it screeches past, metal screaming against metal. Sylvie wraps her arms around Oridia mid-fall, twisting her body to take the brunt of the impact.

They hit the ground hard. Dust plumes.

Oridia's breath is knocked out of her. She wheezes.

"Thank you," She whispers.

Sylvie doesn't answer. She gets up immediately.

Loki stands several feet away, brushing purple dust off his jacket.

"Well," He sighs, staring after the train, "that's not ideal."

Sylvie marches toward him and presses her blade to his throat.

"Give me the TemPad."

"All right, all right, okay," Loki says, hands lifting. His palms glow faintly green, the TemPad materializes.

And falls apart the moment it solidifies.

"Well, I did take quite the tumble," He offers weakly.

Sylvie's voice is ice, "You asshole. You killed us."

"Maybe we can fix it," Loki says quickly, "Okay? Um--"

The TemPad crumbles in his hands.

Sylvie's nostrils flare, "You're not a serious man."

"You're right," He says, "I'm a god."

"You're a clown," She spits, "You got drunk on the train!"

"I'm hedonistic, that's what I do!"

Sylvie jabs a finger into his chest, "I'm hedonistic. A lot more than you, I assure you. But never at the expense of the mission."

"Oh, the mission? The mission?" Loki mocks, "What, your glorious purpose? Give me a break. You can't beat them."

Sylvie screams. A raw sound. A wounded animal sound. Green magic erupts from her palms, a small explosion tears a crater in the dirt. She turns away from him, shoulders heaving. Loki lets out a slow breath and looks toward Oridia.

She's on her knees, fingers digging into the dirt as she tries to ground herself, glittering dust clinging to her curls. She's trembling, still drunk, still overwhelmed, still humming with the weave's impossible noise.

Loki steps toward her, and the moment he touches her shoulder, she gasps.

Warmth floods her chest. A pull. A recognition.

She looks into his eyes, and sees versions of him flickering behind his pupils like reflections of starlight on broken glass.

She sees love, fierce, devastating love.

A love she doesn't understand.

Her breath shakes.

"I'm... I'm going to talk to her," Oridia says.

Loki frowns, "She might kill you."

"She won't."

He tilts his head. She can't lie.

So why is she sure?

Oridia stands, smoothing her trembling hands over her trousers. She walks toward Sylvie slowly, feeling the dust crunch under her boots. Sylvie sits on a rock, staring at the cracked horizon, jaw tight, magic still flickering faintly around her fingers. She doesn't look up. Oridia lowers herself beside her, legs folding neatly beneath her. They sit in silence for a full minute.

"You saved me," Oridia says softly, "You didn't have to."

Sylvie doesn't move. Her eyes are hard. Her mouth a line.

Oridia tries again, "You're angry."

"You don't say," Sylvie mutters.

"You're hurting."

Sylvie's throat bobs, "Drop it."

Oridia studies her. The fine tremor in her hands. The way she keeps her gaze locked on the ground. The slight flare in her nostrils every time Loki breathes too loudly behind them.

"A long time ago," Oridia says gently, "someone must have hurt you deeply."

Sylvie's jaw clenches, "Don't analyze me."

"I'm not," Oridia says, "I'm listening."

Sylvie laughs, a bitter, sharp sound, "You remind me of someone."

Oridia stays silent, letting her speak.

"Someone I knew... when I was young," Sylvie swallows, the movement stiff, "Before everything fell apart. Before the TVA took my life."

Oridia's breath catches.

"She was... good," Sylvie continues, staring at the violet sky instead of Oridia,  "Not fragile-good. Not naive-good. Just... genuinely good. In the way a star is good. Because it burns, and still gives light."

The weave pulses through Oridia's chest.

"She would tell me truths," Sylvie says, blinking rapidly, "Even when they hurt. Especially then. She'd look at me like she knew me better than I knew myself. And I--"

Her voice falters.

Oridia's fingers itch to reach for her. But she doesn't. Not yet.

"I was going to ask her to run away with me," Sylvie says, "To leave it all behind. I thought we had time. I thought... maybe that kind of love was real."

Sylvie's eyes shine under the approaching moonlight.

"Then the TVA came," She whispers, "And they took her. And they took everything."

Oridia's heart stutters.

She feels the truth of Sylvie's words, but also the truth beneath them. A truth Sylvie cannot bear to say and a truth Oridia does not hear.

You were the woman I loved.
You were the life I lost.
You are my deepest wound.

Sylvie inhales sharply, tears threatening. She forces them back with pure rage.

"She died," Sylvie says, "Or she's gone. Or maybe she never existed. I don't know. I just know she's not here."

Oridia's voice is barely a whisper, "And I remind you of her."

Sylvie finally turns to look at Oridia. The pain in her eyes is enough to level empires.

"Yes," Sylvie says, "You do."

The weave sings.
Soft.
Sad.
Full.

Oridia says nothing. But she leans in, just enough for their shoulders to touch.

Sylvie closes her eyes.

And for the first time since she was a terrified child on a stolen timeline, she allows herself one silent heartbeat of comfort.

Just one.

Oridia genuinely tries, to offer comfort, to extend the strange, fragile lifeline that exists between truths and wounds.

But the moment Sylvie finally looks at her...

Oridia SEES.

Not with eyes.
Not with memory.
With the weave.

The astral threads unfurl inside her mind, catching on fragments of Sylvie's heart like burrs on fabric.

She sees a temple lit by rain-soft golden lanterns.
She sees a girl with tangled brown hair sitting on a cracked stone step.
She sees a woman kneeling to take the child's hands in hers.
She feels the warmth between them, the tenderness, the promise that the world may be cruel, but truth never would be.

She feels Sylvie's love.
Pure. Fierce. Quiet.
A first love, a secret love, the kind that roots itself into the soul and never leaves.

She feels the day the TVA arrived.
The fear.
The screaming.
The reach.
The reach Sylvie made toward that woman...

And the empty air her fingers grasped instead, as the timeline was ripped apart and her love vanished.

And then...
A name.

A name the other woman whispered into Sylvie's hair when she held her.
A name carved into the child's heart like a blessing.

The weave sings it to Oridia now.

"Starling."

Sylvie flinches, actually flinches, as if burned.

Her eyes widen, her breath stutters, and she turns her head sharply away. But the wound is open now, and Oridia sees it all. Before either woman can speak, Loki clears his throat sharply behind them.

"Did the, uh... scream make you feel better?"

Sylvie barks back without turning, "Yes, it did. You should try it sometime."

Loki sighs. He's still dust-covered, still drunk, still somehow smug and concerned at once.

"Well, what now?" He asks, brushing debris off his jacket.

Sylvie stands abruptly, "I don't know. You broke the TemPad. Well--" she gestures broadly at the sky, "-- and that planet is about to crash into us."

"Yes, but--"

"Yes but what?"

"Well, the entire moon is destroyed, right?"

"Yes," Sylvie snaps, "And everyone on it is killed."

"Including us."

"Yes, including us."

Loki lifts a finger, "What about the ark?"

Sylvie stares like he's an idiot, "The ark never leaves because it's destroyed."

Loki steps forward, "Never had us on it."

Sylvie scoffs, eyes narrowing, "So what? We hijack the ark and make sure it gets off this moon?"

"I mean," Loki says, shrugging, "sounds like a good idea to me."

Sylvie glares.

"Okay."

Loki blinks. "...Really?"

She marches off. Loki scrambles after her. Oridia follows, still shaken by what she saw, by the echo of that name pulsing in her bones.

—

"You know," Loki grumbles as they trudge toward the distant city shape, "I don't think I've ever walked this much in my life."

"That's a pretty good life," Sylvie retorts.

"Well, you're lucky you missed it."

He grimaces, then perks up, "Here's an idea. What if you enchanted me and walked for both of us? Or I take a nap inside my subconscious and you wake me when we arrive?"

"That's not how enchantment works."

"All right, how does it work?"

"Doesn't matter."

"It does to me," Loki says with pointed exasperation, "I've told you so much about myself. I don't know the first thing about you."

"Thanks for the tactical advantage."

"Ah. So you can use it to kill me when the TVA shows up."

"Worried, are you?"

"I just need to know if I can trust you."

Sylvie sighs sharply, "Fine. You want to know how enchantment works? I have to make physical contact and then grab hold of their mind."

"How?"

"It depends on the mind. Most are easy, I can overtake them instantly. Others... it gets tricky. I'm in control, but they're there too. In order to preserve the connection, I have to create a fantasy from their memories."

"And I'm the magician," Loki mutters.

"That young soldier from the TVA?" Sylvie continues, "Her mind was messed up. Everything clouded. I had to pull a memory from hundreds of years prior, before she even fought for them."

Loki stops walking.

"What did you just say? Before she joined the TVA?"

"Yeah. She was just a regular person on Earth."

"A regular... person?"

"Loved margaritas."

Loki turns slowly to Oridia, who is frozen mid-step, pupils wide.

"I was told everyone who works for the TVA was created by the Time-Keepers," Loki says.

Sylvie snorts, "That's ridiculous. They're all Variants, just like us."

Loki faces Oridia fully now.

"Is that true?"

Oridia's voice cracks, "Yes."

She didn't know.
She didn't know the others weren't created.
She didn't know the Time Keepers lied.

And if they lied about that... what else could be hiding?

Before any of them can unravel that revelation, a siren blares through the ruined city.

The ark is boarding.

Sylvie asks, "Do we trust each other?"

Loki meets her gaze, "We do. And you can."

"Good," Sylvie says, rolling her shoulders, "Because this is gonna suck."

The city is chaos.

People shove past them in a frenzy. Buildings groan. Flames lick the edges of collapsing structures. The sky cracks open, purple and blue and streaked with falling fire.

The ground rumbles violently.

They sprint, dodging falling stone, weaving through panicked crowds. Oridia's senses are overwhelmed, the weave hums, the astral reflections spark at the edges of her vision, everything is too loud, too bright, too full.

A massive asteroid slams into the street before them.

The shockwave sends all three flying.

Oridia hits the ground on her palms. Instinct overrides exhaustion, solar disks bloom from her hands, glowing shields that crackle under the debris that rains down.

She gasps, pushing upward, and the disks shatter into dust.

She rises first. She grabs Loki under the arm. Sylvie pulls herself upright, teeth gritted.

They run again.

A tower collapses, straight toward them. Loki turns, raises both hands, and stops it with his mind.

The entire massive structure hangs suspended, dust falling like sand, groaning under invisible force. His eyes blaze.

Then he flicks his fingers, and the building topples the other way.

Oridia stops running for one second.
To stare.
To feel something inside her chest twist painfully.

He looks back at her. Breathing hard. Smirking like the mad god he is. And she feels her heart try to remember something ancient. They keep running. The ark finally comes into view, massive, bright, promising salvation. People scream, pushing through the barricades. The guards try to hold the crowds back. The engines roar.

They sprint.

Ten yards.
Five.

And then, the sky splits with a sound like the universe tearing.

A massive asteroid slams into the ark.

The explosion is blinding. The ship erupts in fire. The shockwave levels half the port.

All three of them stop dead in their tracks.

Oridia's breath leaves her in a soft, broken sound.
Loki's face drains of color.
Sylvie staggers a step forward, then a step back, swallowing a scream and a sob at once.

The ark is gone.
Their only hope is gone.
Every timeline they cherished, every desperate plan...
Ash.

Around them, the crowd panics, collapses, wails.

The sky grows darker as the planet falls closer.

Oridia's eyes reflect the burning wreckage, her breath trembling, hands glowing weakly in hopeless instinct.

Sylvie closes her eyes.
And for the first time since her childhood, a sound leaves her that is neither anger nor defiance, but devastation.

Oridia steps closer to both of them, the weave screaming inside her, the truth settling heavy:

They are doomed.
Together.
And there is no lie in the universe strong enough to change that.

Oridia does not scream.
Does not cry.
Does not speak.

She simply turns.

And walks.

One step after another, down the ruined thoroughfare, out past the half-demolished buildings, past the crowds collapsing into despair. Her boots crunch over shattered glass and violet dirt. She walks until the city's glow fades behind her, until the crumbled ruins give way to open rock, jagged and barren under the dying sky.

She walks until her legs tremble. Until her breaths come too sharp. Until she finds a lone boulder large enough to sit on.

And she sits.

Back straight. Hands trembling in her lap. Eyes fixed on the split horizon where the planet looms impossibly close, devouring the sky.

Loki and Sylvie trail behind her at a distance of perhaps fifty paces, far enough to give her silence, close enough to track the girl glowing faintly gold even in despair.

Loki steps forward first.

Sylvie catches his wrist, tight, sharp, "Leave her be."

He yanks his arm free, jaw tightening with something raw, "I'm sorry I'm not as heartless as you are... but I actually care."

Sylvie's head snaps toward him, "I am NOT heartless!"

The sky flashes purple. The ground shakes. A fissure breaks open several feet away.

Loki stares at her, really stares, and something slots together.

"Why do you look at her like that?"

Sylvie's shoulders stiffen, "Like what?"

"Like she's the last star in the universe."

Sylvie freezes.

She doesn't breathe. Doesn't blink. For a second, everything in her expression fractures.

She doesn't answer him.

Instead, she turns toward the rock where Oridia sits alone and says, "Come on."

They walk together, three doomed souls crossing a dying moon, until they reach Oridia's silent vigil.

Sylvie sits on her right.
Loki sits on her left.
None of them speak at first.

The sky cracks again, raining down shimmering debris in the distance.

Sylvie inhales, long, deep, like drawing breath from a wound.

"I remember Asgard," She says quietly, "Not much. But enough."

Oridia doesn't turn. But she listens.

"My home. My people. My life." Sylvie's hands clench in her lap, "The universe wants to break free, you know? So it manifests chaos. Like me being born the Goddess of Mischief."

Loki tenses at the shared title, glancing at her.

"As soon as that created a big enough detour from the Sacred Timeline, the TVA showed up," Her voice is steady, but only barely, "Erased my reality. Took the only person I ever loved away from me. And took me prisoner."

Oridia's breath stops in her throat.

"I was just a child," Sylvie whispers, "I escaped. Stole a TemPad. Ran for a long, long time."

Her voice cracks.

"Everywhere and every-when I went, I caused a nexus event. I was a beacon. A mistake. A warning flare. Because I was never supposed to exist."

She scrapes a shaking hand across her cheek.

"Eventually, I figured out where to hide. So I grew up at the ends of a thousand worlds," Sylvie looks up at the looming planet, "And now... that's where I'll die."

No one speaks.

Loki breathes out, a soft, pained sound.

Then Sylvie says, voice small, "Do you think that what makes a Loki... a Loki... is the fact that we're destined to lose?"

A meteor rips across the sky. The moon groans.

Loki shakes his head slowly, "No. We may lose. Sometimes painfully," His gaze softens, "But we don't die. We survive."

Sylvie looks at him, surprised.

"You did," Loki continues, "You were just a child when the TVA came for you. But you nearly took down the organization that claims to govern the order of time," His chest rises with a breath, his voice amazingly sincere, "You ran rings around them. You're amazing."

Sylvie drops her gaze, overwhelmed.

Oridia sits between them, the truth of their words crashing into her like thunder.

The Time Keepers lied.
Her entire purpose was a lie.
Her truth was built from lies she never knew she was telling.

And now...

Now she is surrounded by two people who make her feel...

Too much.

Her palms tremble.
Light flickers between her fingers.
The weave screams inside her:
full full full, too full, too much, destiny destiny destiny

Her breaths come thin and quick.
Her eyes blur with starlight she cannot control.

"Oridia?" Loki asks gently.

"Hey," Sylvie whispers, leaning in.

They reach for her at the same moment, two hands pressing lightly onto her thighs.

She nearly breaks.

The moment their skin touches hers, warmth rushes through her body like molten sunlight. Her eyes fly open.

She looks right at Sylvie.

Threads of the weave shimmer around the woman's face, threads Oridia can suddenly see: grief, love, longing.

Oridia turns her head.

Loki is watching her with eyes soft enough to cut her open.

The weave ripples violently between them.

Oridia gasps.Because looking at him, she feels as though she has loved him a thousand times in a thousand broken worlds.

She doesn't understand it.
Doesn't know the truth yet.

All she knows is that her trembling fingers lift, and slip between Loki's hand and Sylvie's at the same time.

Both of them still.

Both of them turn toward her.

Both of them lean in, and rest their heads against her shoulders.

One on the left.
One on the right.

Three bodies pressed together on a rock in a dying world.
Three breaths syncing.
Three souls humming in resonance neither understands.

Oridia closes her eyes.

And for the first time in her existence...

She feels home.

The planet screams louder,
the sky tearing open,
the final wave of destruction rolling toward them--

But they do not move.

Loki's fingers tighten around hers.
Sylvie's grip trembles but holds on.

The light from Oridia's palms brightens, golden disks of solar warmth blooming helplessly around their hands, around their bodies, around their hearts.

Just before the shockwave reaches them...

A Time Door shimmers open before them.

Bright.
Gold.
Impossible.

All three stare at it.
None dares to breathe.

"Is that..." Loki begins.

"Real?" Sylvie whispers.

Oridia doesn't say a word.

Because the truth sings inside her, clear and sharp:
Yes.

The three spring to their feet, still holding hands.

Together, still joined, they run toward the door.

And the moment their feet cross its golden threshold--

The world behind them ends.

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