Chapter Text
Impulse.
A sudden strong and unreflective urge or desire to act.
A driving or motivating force; an impetus.
Sylvie was no stranger to moving based on instinct. Life on the run had made her reliant to act quickly. The familiar glow of the time doors was always a sign to start moving, its orange radiance made Sylvie slowly despise the color during her life on the run. Every time the orange glow of their gate would pop into existence, Sylvie was long gone before the first minute-man had stepped out. Now, as she stands around the debris of the broken-down Asgardian ship, orange flames licking the sides of the once-mighty vessel, it only makes her hate the color all the same.
She watches from the sidelines as the green abomination attacked the mad titan, but Sylvie does not pay attention to them for long. Her eyes trail the familiar figure, tackling down the person with an eyepatch as the beast charges through. She keeps her hood up, crouching down carefully behind the debris she’s hiding. The smell of death and smoke does not bother her anymore. She’s seen far worse apocalypses than this.
Despite the fact that she’s surrounded by dead Asgardians, she does not feel any sort of attachment to them. It’s as if she’s lost any sort of connection to her people. Asgard, her home, felt nothing more than a distant dream. Her feeling’s only connection happens to be the person who was currently begging for his brother to not charge back at the mad titan.
‘That’s not him. What are you even doing here…’
Sylvie bites her lip in frustration, bending down and eyeing the orange glow of He-Who-Remains’ tempad.
‘I should go. Things would get ugly if…’
Her thoughts drifted back to the citadel.
There was no satisfaction when she plunges her blade into the man’s chest. Maybe a fraction of a second, where she finally triumphed at getting her revenge, but the man had only smiled in return. His eyes twinkled with delight and mischief.
‘See you soon.' He’d told her. Not even a minute passes and Sylvie slumps in defeat.
That was the plan, right? To kill the man in charge?
And yet, she was not content. She was all alone in the citadel, the fireplace illuminating the rotting flesh of the man who had stolen her life away. Sylvie began to sob.
Loki was gone. She had pushed him away in a part of her decision to not hurt him. With trembling fingers, she touches her lips, thinking back to the longing he had in his eyes as she felt his arms encircling her waist, no doubt wanting to kiss her again. She wipes away her tears, sliding the glowing orange disk to the back of her hand as she tries to navigate which timeline she’d pushed him in.
He was not in the TVA. When she could not find Mobius and Hunter B-15 either, Sylvie suspected that there were now alternate TVAs in the now-branching timelines. She was not sure what predicament she created, but only one thing was clear. She has to find Loki, and whether he wants her back or not, she has to live with his decisions entirely. She owes him that, after pushing him through the time door.
The workers from the alternate TVA that she visited were beginning to suspect that she was an outsider, so Sylvie scavenged all the files she could find about his role in the Sacred Timeline and immediately left. The new tempad she had acquired was rather tricky. There were no numbers or set of coordinates she could punch in to visit a timeline. Yet, every time she travels she’s relying on his temporal aura to find him. There was something with He-Who-Remains’ tempad that allowed her to feel that connection.
She ultimately settled back on Lamentis-1, studying Loki’s files and the newly acquired tempad. A part of her was hoping that Loki was here. Was he looking for her as well? Even after what she’d done to him?
‘If it was him who pushed you through that timedoor, would you look for him yourself?’
Tears were threatening to spill from her eyes.
‘Focus. You have to make this right. What if he’s in danger because of me…’
The smile that He-Who-Remains gave her was chilling. What did he mean by ‘See you soon'? She had to act now. If a variant of him pops up and captures her, she will never find Loki again.
Sylvie was finishing the Ragnarok section in his files when she realized there was only one page left. She pauses, a moment of dread creeping in.
‘One more page after Ragnarok, this can’t be good,’
She took a deep breath before turning the last page, eyes skimming over the tragic event and widening in shock. She hadn’t even realized her fingers were touching the disk by impulse. It is only when the familiar orange glow of the time door, she gets a sense of reality back, which is apparently not enough. Before she can fully comprehend what she’s doing, she already found herself on the other side.
Now, she is hunching behind a piece of debris, merely seconds away before Loki dies.
‘He’s not your Loki.’
Sylvie shuts her eye and grits her teeth. Her Loki was a variant and is supposedly safe from Thanos since the TVA took him away before he could meet his fate.
‘Is he? Maybe Thanos is not the one to kill him…’
A variant of the man with purple robes could. You are responsible for that.
Sylvie is startled by the desperate scream of an Asgardian. The Mad Titan had now plunged his blade into the former bridge keeper. She hears a gasp not far from her and she is speechless to find him there, so close to where she’s hiding.
This Loki is different from hers, in a way. His hair is longer, and she finds it a bit peculiar to see him in an outfit aside from the crumpled shirt he’s gotten from the TVA. Even from behind the shadows he’s hiding, there was something about this Loki that felt tired and worn. Everything about him is tense and restricted. She is briefly reminded of her own Loki, who began to consider the true timekeeper’s offer and begged her to think things through.
“Maybe he’s lying! Maybe he’s not!” Her Loki shouts in desperation, his hand gripping her wrist that held the blade too close to his neck. “The cost of getting this wrong is too great!”
Sylvie wonders if it’s really the throne he wants.
His tearful eyes were silently pleading for her to stop. She’s well aware that her blade made a tiny cut to his neck, yet despite this, she tightens her grip on her sword.
Or at least she tries to.
“I just want you to be okay,” Her Loki confesses.
Sylvie eyes this particular Loki as he treads closer to the Mad Titan. There was a conflict in his face and hesitancy in his steps, an orange luminescence from the flames surrounding them cast a glow on his trembling figure.
‘He’s afraid.’ She evaluates. It’s only after the shattering of an infinity stone that she remembers that he’s so close to dying. She watches Loki’s expression shifting from fear to resignation as the Mad Titan fuses the stone to his gauntlet. His movement carries a sense of surrender, a glow of green magic behind him as he conceals a dagger. He began to move out of the shadows when-
“Stop!”
Loki stops, almost stumbling in his step. He turns around to follow her voice and they both immediately lock eyes. Sylvie doesn’t move, too surprised by what she did.
“What was that?” Proxima Midnight, a daughter of Thanos, asked aloud. Beside her, Ebony Maw cocks his head to the side.
“Come out, it would do you no good to hide. I can sense you.” Sylvie watches Loki take a step back, breathing heavily before composing himself. He sneaks a glare at her, the side of his lip curling into a frown.
‘Why is he annoyed?’ Sylvie thinks to herself, and for a second, she forgets the life and death situation they were in. There was no recognition in his eyes that he knew her. Of course, there wasn’t. This wasn’t her Loki. He didn't even know she existed until she yelled at him to stop like a fool.
She watches him steal back a glance to the children of Thanos, who by now, was looking in their direction, but both she and Loki are not within their view just yet.
“He’ll kill you,” Sylvie found herself saying to him. Loki’s eyes dart back to her.
“I beg your pardon?” He snaps back in a whisper, eyes now studying her in the dark.
“The mad titan,” Sylvie continues, tiptoeing her way to him slowly. She flexes her hand attached to the disk, getting ready to jump away in case the Black Order attacks. Loki lets out a breathy and nervous laugh, eyes dancing across hers and to Thanos’ children. He turns his back to them and faces her. She sees the familiar glow of his magic once again as a dagger materializes in the palm of his hand.
“I don’t know who you are, but I suggest you stay back.” He points the dagger at her in a warning.
Now, it’s Sylvie’s turn to laugh. “Why does it matter? He’s here to kill us anyway.”
Loki squares his jaw in response, eyes narrowing in suspicion.
“Are you Asgardian or are you from Sakaar? I don’t remember you boarding our ship…” Before Sylvie could say anything, the piece of debris they were hiding behind was swept aside. Both of them turn to look at the Mad Titan, along with his children, sizing them up a few feet away.
“As I’ve said, hiding would do you no good.” Ebony Maw gives them a smirk, his allies beside him raising their weapons in preparation.
“I don’t suppose you’d want a guide back to earth?” Loki starts, his lips forming a nervous smile as he faces his former master. “...Do you have a bit of experience in that arena?”
Thanos merely stares back at him, unimpressed.
“Do you consider failure an experience?”
Sylvie watches him go tense for a second before he composes himself.
“I consider experience an experience.” Thor makes a garbled sound behind the metal covering his mouth. She notices Loki’s expression faltering for a second before putting up a mask of confidence. He takes one step forward-
“Almighty, Thanos. I, Loki of-”
“Shut up!” All eyes immediately turn to her. Sylvie’s body became rigid. Silence hung upon them for a moment, with only the occasional groan of the ship and the distant crackle of the flames mocking them. Even from where Thor is being restrained, she can feel his one eye darting to her as if she just appeared from out of thin air. She finds that she doesn’t really care about the sudden attention she brought on herself.
“And who might you be?” Thanos was now focusing on her, his children pointing their weapons in her direction in hostility.
“It doesn’t matter,” She replied curtly, her hand secretly working the disk. She stares back at Loki, who is also staring back at her as if she’s lost her mind.
“Sacrificing yourself won’t change anything. He’ll still win,” She tells him this as his eyes grow wide in panic.
Sylvie has to wonder what it is that occupies his thoughts at this very moment.
‘Maybe he thinks that you're plain mad,’ She curses in her head. It’s probably the latter-
“Interesting,” She stares back at Thanos, who is now looking at her with morbid curiosity. “Where are you from, child?”
Sylvie answers by stepping back. The titan loomed over her like a shadow as he stepped forward, his movements seemingly planned with purpose.
“My grandeur asked you a question! it is only fitting for you to answer back!” The telepath snarled as Sylvie remained quiet. She felt the mad titan’s eyes follow her hand attached to the disk.
‘Oh no…’
Before she could think of blasting him with her magic, Thanos had closed the distance and was now holding her up by the wrist. Sylvie dangled from his hold, struggling and kicking him as he inspected the orange glow of her newly acquired tempad.
“Tell me what this is,” He demands.
“Let go of me!” Sylvie screams at him. The moment her other hand reached for her sword, the titan immediately dropped her with a grunt. She looked up in time behind Loki’s green cape, his dagger sank deep into Thanos' skin.
“You should’ve taken my offer as your guide back to Midgard!” The God of Mischief sneered, covering Sylvie from the titan’s view entirely. There was a growl, one of Thanos' children was twirling and leveling their blade, preparing for an attack. Thanos only glared at them and raised his gauntlet, the power and space stone glowing from his command.
Sylvie was no fool. Loki is in front of her acting like a shield while Thor is still struggling with his restraints, desperate to help.
A wild impulse seizes her as she immediately scrambles back to her feet. The hum of the stones grew louder, but whatever it was, Sylvie is only left to wonder as she plunges both her and Loki through the familiar orange glow of a time door, disappearing quicker than whatever the infinity stones were summoning.