the_variant | (no subject)

Entry tags:

loki,
pyre fest

(no subject)

Sylvie hates that they're here.

Nothing about the festival itself is interesting to her, not the music, not the camping, none of it really. But the possibility of an island having simply appeared, now that is absolutely fascinating. So she goes, she demands Loki goes with her, to see what they might be able to discover about the island, about Darrow, about the impossibility of it all. Their intentions are good, even if she doesn't know what they would have possibly used any of the answers for.

All this time, all these months, and she still doesn't know if she wants to leave or make sure they stay.

Things begin to go wrong almost immediately. The festival itself is a joke, with little food being supplied, and almost nothing Sylvie might call music, even within the loose definition Darrow uses for the subject. The tents are barely more than tarps and she's intent on getting back to Darrow properly at the first chance they have.

Except they miss the ferry. And they miss the ferry because, for longer than she'd like to admit, Sylvie had been floating following a bloody bee sting. By the time she finally figures out how to get down -- a second sting, which is really more luck than anything -- the first ferry is gone.

And the second ferry is on fire.

The first time Sylvie sees someone in a cloak, they're preparing to swing a bat toward Loki's head, and while she's certain he can protect himself, she still grabs his arm and yanks him back, shouting, "Down!"

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Most people, she knows, would hear those words and, understanding them for what they are, would be relieved. Grateful. A stereotypical romantic moment that would end with them wound around one another, kissing, promising these things won't happen.

But they aren't normal people. These things may happen, no matter what they want or try to accomplish. Loki may betray her, the TVA may take him, Sylvie may break his heart somehow. A coldness seizes her chest at his words, his touch, but there's a warmth trying to break through she's never felt until him. Something burns despite the frost and she looks up at him, her gaze nakedly afraid.

"We aren't regular people," she almost whispers, hands gripping his shirt at his waist, bunched in the material. "Something regular will stifle us." But she wants it still. Or some version of it. She wants to come home to him at the end of whatever else.

"How could what we have ever be called regular?" The knife in his hand disappeared in a sputtering flash, and he had a momentary flash of regret in not knowing whether he'd be able to retrieve it, though he had no time to dwell on it. He gripped her arms, squeezing gently, before moving to frame her face in his hands.

"And we're better for it."

He's right. When Sylvie thinks of him, when she's with him, some part of her she's never known before lights up, comes alive. Sometimes it's alive in anger, though even that feels new, and she presses her lips together to hold back a laugh. It isn't regular. It's the furthest thing from it.

Blood trickles into her eye and rather than stop touching him, she simply turns her head and wipes it against her shoulder.

"So... I love you, but?" she asks. Those words feel less strange in her mouth than she might have thought. "I love you, but... we're different?"

"I love you. That's all," Loki said, realizing how true the words were only after they'd left his mouth. "We're different, yes, but I'd say that's a given."

He conjured a rag, after only two failed attempts, and pressed it to her bloodied scalp.

"Is it soft enough?" He asked, hiding a smile.

"I love you. That's all."

Such a simple pair of statements and yet they feel enormous. Despite that, Sylvie feels freer somehow, as if acknowledging this allows her -- or both of them -- space to be in exactly the sort of arrangement they need. One that works for them and gives them both what they need. Admitting she loves him is just the first step in that.

"Better than the tablecloth you masqueraded as a blanket," she answers, her smile not quite as hidden as his, but tremulous.

"We were on the eve of battle, I can't believe you were being so particular," Loki said, his smile breaking loose of his tentative control.

Dabbing gently at her scalp, he continued, "I don't seek to possess you, and I couldn't possibly control you. Your life is your own, but whatever happens, I plan to be by your side, all the rest of it be damned."

"Once a princess, always a princess," she answers, clearly teasing.

For a moment, even in the midst of all this foolishness on this island, she closes her eyes. The way he smiles makes something in her ache and she wants to keep that, memorize it.

What he says, it helps to loosen something inside her, and Sylvie opens her eyes again to study him. It eases the fear she feels at the possibility of ruining what they have.

"I like how that sounds," she tells him. "Very much."

"Good. I haven't just humiliated myself. What a relief," he said, eyes smiling as he put an arm around her, holding her close.

Nearby, a woman had begun shouting about her tattered tent, not because she was frightened and wanted rescue, but because she wanted a refund for her VIP ticket.

"This really is the worst holiday I've ever taken," he observed after a moment, his shoulders trembling with mirth.

Sylvie can feel his laughter more than she can hear it and she closes her eyes against his chest, her lips pressed together to hide her own smile.

"It's the only holiday I've ever taken," she admits. "Rather sad, isn't it?"

No possession, no control, just being by his side. Having him by hers. That may mean something different for them than it does for most others, but Sylvie thinks that in itself says everything it needs to.

"Pathetic," he agreed, kissing the top of her head, his hand rubbing soothingly along her spine without giving it much thought.

He wanted very much to be alone with her, in that moment, but the universe always seemed to have other plans.

"I love you," he said again. Before, he'd been making a point. Now, he said it simply because he could. Had he ever said the words before, and meant them? He couldn't recall. It stung to realize that perhaps he hadn't, not even to his mother, whom he did love, quite keenly.

It had been fear holding him back, and even now, the old terror was back. He'd always thought it was about fear of weakness, but that wasn't entirely the truth.

What plagued him, and would continue to plague him, despite the peace that had settled over him when it came to his feelings for her, was this:

What if my love isn't enough.

While Sylvie is aware she and Loki are much more different than they are similar, a vein of fear runs through all of this she suspects he can feel, too. Loving someone is to be vulnerable, to offer them a way to destroy you, it's dangerous, the way she exposes her heart for him.

There is every chance he might change his mind one day. Every chance he might want more, something else. She's afraid and so he is, she has to believe he is, but something else is warmer and bigger and more important than that fear.

"Perhaps next time we need to say something big to one another, we can do it without the blood," she teases as she pulls back to look at him. "I don't think I've ever loved anyone before you."

"We are making a habit of it," Loki murmured, pulling back to meet her eyes, his hands once again framing her face.

"It's not so bad, is it?"

Up close, it was still real, and while it still had the risk of cutting them both, it seemed well worth the risk.

Even just a month ago, she might have made some joke in an attempt not to be too honest, too vulnerable. But now, standing here on this stupid island, the cut on her temple sticky with drying blood, every annoying festival goer and cultist around them saying something stupid and more ridiculous than the last, all she does is shake her head.

"It's bloody terrifying," she tells him, but the corners of her mouth curve into a smile. Her hands lift to rest against his chest, feeling his heart beat beneath her palm. "But no, it isn't so bad. In fact, I think I might kind of like it."

"What a revelation," Loki teased, bending to kiss the upturned corner of her mouth.

Something inside of him seemed to unfurl. He'd kept his distance for so long, had denied even the possibility of allowing someone past the walls he'd carefully constructed around himself, but despite the terror, there was also extraordinary relief.

Blotting at her bloodied scalp, he said, "The bleeding seems to have stopped. Not a mortal wound, after all."

Sylvie snorts and says, "This place should be so lucky."

Even without their magic, they're both formidable opponents, especially when it comes to the robes fools trying to do whatever it is they're doing. She honestly doesn't care. The rest of it, the cult, the festival, the disappointing holiday, it all fades into the background when she considers the rest. Him.

"Think we can swim back?" she asks. "Or at least find somewhere we won't be bothered for a little while?"

"I wouldn't risk it. Without our magic, the current is too strong," Loki observed, stepping back and offering her his hand.

"Come with me," he said, with a touch of mischief as he urged her to follow him along the beach.

It doesn't make her wary, following him, although she does narrow her eyes more out of habit than anything. Still, she takes his offered hand, fingers threaded through his, and she follows him.

"Where are we going?" she asks. "Don't tell me you've had a luxury tent all this time and we've been out here fighting culty idiots."

"If I had a place like that hidden away, do you really think I would've left it?" He asked, brow arched. "Or let you leave it," he added, with a barely stifled smile.

"I thought walking away from all the noise would be the best place to start."

"God of mischief," she reminds him. "You might do any number of things that seem utterly senseless."

And she's just as likely to do some of them herself. But for now, she's perfectly content to follow Loki away from the noise, as he's said, and allow him to lead her wherever it is they're going.

Away. Alone. Just somewhere she can pretend, just for a moment, it hasn't been the worst holiday in the world.

"Yes, I'm utterly ridiculous. You need to get another line, darling," Loki said, his smile widening.

While they walked away from camp, he found himself listening for the sound of further screams, just in case he heard anyone in true distress. He never would've bothered before, but now, he actually cared.

At least a little.

"I wonder if Luther had any luck protecting his chickens."

"That idiot," she says, her voice undeniably fond. "I imagine he's just fine, probably with an entire flock of chickens under his metaphorical wing, as well as a small child or two."

Sylvie doesn't believe she'll ever be as good a person as that. She can't even say it, admit to someone that they might be good, that they might deserve better than the shit they've been through.

The best she's managed to do is threatening to kill people for him.

"It's a pity you missed the look on his face when I suggested we have a feast with them all," Loki said, barely hiding a self-satisfied little grin.

"We do seem to have somehow entangled ourselves with an alarming number of do-gooders, haven't we?"

"They're all so kind," she agrees, stepping over a log to follow Loki. "And yet none of them seem to think so."

Luther and Bucky were especially bad for it, but Sylvie sees it in Jyn, too. A desire to do good, despite her prickly exterior and fierce denial that she's capable of anything good. Someone else might point out some similarities there, but Sylvie ignores them entirely.

"Can you imagine how smug Mobius would be?" she asks thoughtfully. "About this? You and I?"

"Oh, good Heavens, we'd never hear the end of it," Loki said, his smile soften as he thought of his friend, whom he missed more than he would've thought possible.

"He didn't remember me, last I saw him. Or, a version of him, I suppose."

That's her fault, she knows. She killed He Who Remains, she destroyed the Sacred Timeline, and wherever she sent Loki, it was to a Mobius who no longer knew him, perhaps no longer knew either of them.

She squeezes his hand and says, "I'm sorry."

Those words aren't always easy for her, but she is truly sorry. Sylvie can't often allow herself to consider what she's done, how it's possibly broken the world, and she can't begin to apologize for it all, but she can apologize for this, to him.