Chapter Text
The Cloak of Levitation is a fickle thing, as many a would be claimant has had reason to attest.
After one particular incident which involved Mordo being dumped in the Atlantic (and ruining the carpets when he sling ringed back with a salt water wave in tow), the Ancient One has restricted any aspirant from trying to win the favor of the picky relic.
Nothing unusual in that. Relics are choosy. Any relic worth the trouble, anyway. After all, if you have power beyond what any sorcerer can call in on their own, why wouldn't you want to mess with them occasionally?
Though, the Cloak has to admit, most relics do not choose the most inconvenient or hilarious location to desert their would be user. Well, a cloth has to have some fun, right?
But maybe dumping Mordo in the ocean was taking things a bit too far... After all, that is what got it locked up in the glass case (Boooring...)
Maybe. But then again, if there's one thing the Cloak - a relic built, after all, for flying free - can't abide, it is a mind that will break before it bends.
To its credit, it had tried to tolerate the sorcerer, hoping to get a good flight at the very least, but in the end, it had been too much to take.
Besides, the look on Wong's face when Mordo and the ton of ocean water he brought along poured out of a portal into the library was more than worth a sojourn in the case (Yes, the Cloak had been hiding in the library while the frantic search for the deserted claimant was going on).
And then Stephen Strange turned up.
The Cloak's reaction on sensing the mind of the (then) rookie sorcerer can best be summed up as 'This one! Mom, I want this one!'
Relics claim the sorcerer rather than the other way round, despite the best efforts of the latter class to reverse (or at least pretend to have reversed) the order. And the Cloak had staked its claim on Stephen Strange the moment he walked into the reliquary, utterly baffled by what was going on around him.
The Cloak does not have eyes, but it can see. In fact, it can see further and deeper than any sorcerer can. One can mask one's face, change one's voice, play with words.
But masking one's aura – one’s essence - is an entirely different matter. Especially from the eyes of a relic such as the Cloak of Levitation.
It has seen so many different auras while it waited to make its choice. Mordo's aura had been among the most interesting (which was why it had allowed him to try it on in the first place - the one before him had been instantly thrown off the balcony).
Bright, pulsing with power, a clear silver white light. Fascinating.
Only, a few moments contact had been enough to find out just how devoid of warmth, of shades, that light was.
You needed shades. Perhaps there were dimensions where you could do away with them, but this is not one of them. There are so many worlds here, so many shades. Mordo would never be able to see that. Which was why, halfway through the flight, he had found himself unceremoniously deserted by the Cloak.
The Ancient One... Well, if she had ever shown any real interest in claiming it, the Cloak had to admit it would have been tempted.
Hers was an aura that guided, beckoned, warmed. Pulsing, golden bright. There were traces of the Dark Dimension, tainted parts that were carefully kept locked away from the whole. But that didn't matter so much. As said before, the Cloak had no objection to shades.
Besides, a lady whose idea of encouraging her students to open portals involved stranding them in the Himalayas…well, you can be sure that whatever life with her might turn out to be like, it would not be boring, and boredom was anathema to the Cloak.
But the Ancient One had never made any real effort to claim it, and the Cloak had not been quite so fond of her as to make the first move.
That, for relics, just wasn't done. After all, centuries old artifact or not, there were some etiquettes you had to observe.
The etiquette sort of went straight out of the window when Stephen Strange walked in.
It was his aura that caught its eye (figuratively speaking, of course) - bright, yes, but more than bright, a kaleidoscope whirl of so many shades. The kind of aura even a centuries old relic rarely gets to see.
Okay. This is the one. I want this one. Alright, so how exactly do I get this one?
The Ancient One wouldn't let someone this inexperienced try on the Cloak - not after the whole Mordo in the Ocean incident (for the first time, the Cloak kind of regretted that move). It could wait, of course, it had waited a long while, but still...
It was less than five minutes later that the Cloak's chosen ended up smashing right into the glass case, courtesy of one crazed zealot by the (weird) name of Kaecillus.
Okay, the entry could have had a bit more finesse and a bit less of glass shards, but no matter. The glass case was open. That was the main thing.
It would have been difficult to tell whether Kaecillus or Stephen was more surprised when the Cloak blocked the blows aimed at its chosen.
Kaecillus. Now this one the Cloak sort of remembered - the Ancient One had been fond of this guy (didn't say much for her judgment, but what is a Cloak to know, huh?), brought him along to try it on...
He had refused, and the Cloak had been grateful for that - it didn't really want to resort to strangling aspirants (that step sort of lacked dignity and ruined reputations), but it just might have given that process a good try had it been forced to come in contact with the man's sickening aura.
There had been such a cloud of scarlet piercing through the murky shades - hate, rage, festering pain. Kaecillus had been hurt – hurt very badly indeed. And he had been unable to let go of it, or at least build around it.
Whatever had happened to him – and even with the limited information at its disposal, the Cloak knew that any physical damage had been the least of it – had become the basis of who he was, what he was. And what he wanted to do.
But bad as the aura had been then, years ago, now it has gone far far worse. It is literally rotting. Turning necrotic, like the purple patches of flesh under his sunken eyes. Whatever Kaecillus had been up to through the years since that first meeting, it has done nothing good for his sanity.
The fight is a mess, to say the least, especially since Stephen - the Cloak has already started to think of the sorcerer by his first name - has absolutely no clue how to handle himself against someone trained and determined to kill him.
The Cloak does most of the work, guiding – well, to be honest, dragging – him to the very few weapons in the room that would help the rookie against someone as experienced (not to mention as insane) as Kaecillus. It doesn't mind much. Stephen will learn. He is sort of adorable, really.
Besides, unlike practically everyone the Cloak has tried to pick, he doesn't have even a moment of panic when it arrests his fall and soars back upwards. Even if he has absolutely no clue what the Cloak is or what it can do.
Apparently, his time in Kamar Taj has actually taught him to expect anything and everything and roll with it. It is surprising just how many sorcerers manage to not learn that – you’d think it would be sort of obvious after training with talking trees and minotaurs…
It comes as a shock when Stephen is stabbed. The Cloak has been without human companionship for too long, it has almost forgotten how fragile they can be, even the Masters of the Mystic Arts.
No matter how much power they can wield, their form is human, and victim to human ills. It takes the Cloak a bit too long to realize just how badly Stephen is hurt.
The moment the realization strikes, there's only one course of action. The Cloak charges the zealot who dared hurt its sorcerer. Stephen hasn't commanded it - in fact, there's the disturbing possibility that Stephen, in his current dazed condition, literally didn't realize it was gone.
No matter - there will be time to meet later on. For now, the Cloak intends to make very sure that this creature at least will never touch its sorcerer again. Basically, Cloak incapacitates idiot zealot, fights him to a standstill.
For a short while there, the Cloak had had to consider the possibility that it may well have lost its chosen. He had disappeared through the portal, presumably to somewhere where he could seek aid, but he was still new to this business. And badly hurt.
He may have made a mistake. Or whatever help he sought may not prove good enough. There was no way to tell.
Over a longer period of bonding, a relic – especially one as sentient as the Cloak – would grow capable of maintaining a connection between itself and its wielder, capable of sensing the latter’s condition even if separated physically.
But not yet. Chosen or not, Stephen has worn it for too short a while for the connection to form. The Cloak can only wait, hoping that it would not lose its sorcerer.
Of course, it passes the time by continuing to beat up the idiot who made the very bad error in judgment of hurting someone an ancient relic had gone protective over.
In time, Stephen returns. The Cloak senses his horror – not at his own near death, but at the realization that he has inadvertently killed someone.
The Cloak doesn’t truly understand the intensity of the reaction, the clear guilt. After all, it was not like the sorcerer had had much choice in the matter. All the same, he grieves.
And later, when it comes to the final confrontation, when it comes to Dormammu himself, Stephen makes sure that the only life taken is his own – again, and again, and again. So many times, so many deaths, that the Cloak itself lost count. But he holds on.
No matter how many times the loop is reset, no matter how many different ways Dormammu uses to rid himself of this baffling intruder. He resists every temptation to let the loop lapse, to give in to the mercy of death. Resists far beyond the capability of most human minds.
Then, when it was over, after years, decades, he returned with a smile to his friends. Knowing that most people would never know, and those who did know would never truly understand, the price he paid. If the Cloak had needed further confirmation that it chose right, it was received.
It had turned out to be a very long day (not even counting the time loops – fortunately, the Cloak doesn’t feel pain, but it can sense the wearer’s pain, every time he dies). In some ways an alarming one as well. Especially once it became clear that its sorcerer definitely had some serious handicaps when it comes to self preservation instincts.
But the Cloak had already made its choice. Fickle it might be, till it gives its loyalty. Till it finds one worthy of its loyalty. Someone on whose side it can fight and know it is fighting for the right thing. Someone worth defending.
Now it has chosen its sorcerer. And for him, as later one very annoying friend of its sorcerer would term it, it will remain a very loyal piece of outerwear/armor/sidekick. No matter what happens. No matter where they go.