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A loud bang stirs Odin from his thoughts and tells him that Thor has returned. It also announces that the lead of a Jotun in the Nova Core did not pan out. With a withered sigh, Odin buries his head in his hand before returning his gaze to the game board set in front of him, wishing to wake up from the Odin Sleep with his youngest by his side so he could apologize for his harsh words.
Loki had been about to move his white knight to take the black rook next, Odin is sure. And that would have allowed Odin to checkmate him in three. He had been too distracted for his usual tricks. It was why Odin paused the game before its completion. He had even joked about it in the moment, "It is hardly a victory if the opponent is not playing." Loki had denied his distraction, but Odin knew better and suggested that Loki take any of the thousands of books Odin had collected in the study to occupy his mind.
Loki and him have always been too alike for him not to see the distraction in his son. Both are so good with words for everything but what they need to say. Both are standing in the false peace of the eye of a hurricane of thought at every waking moment. Both are so desperately afraid to be alone.
It is why he abandoned the plan to return Loki to the lonely throne of Jotunheim. Odin has had to make too many choices that tore at his mind. The idea of watching his son do the same from the forced distance of different realms had been too painful. But, Odin thought sorrowfully, I would never do well without purpose.
And Loki is every bit his son.
Thor enters the study without the ceremony of even a knock. The failure of the mission passes wordlessly between them. Odin frowns as he notices the bags under his eyes, "Sit. Rest."
Thor looks at his father, but his eyes land on the board game. “Your opponent?” He asks.
“The move belongs to Loki. It seemed in poor taste to put the game away,” Odin sighs as Thor straightens. “When will you leave again?”
“As soon as I figure out a new lead,” Thor says as he sits across from Odin, steady and controlled despite his exhaustion.
Much to the surprise of the entire court, it has never been boisterous and adventurous Thor who had trouble sitting still and proper of the two Odinsons. Odin is half convinced that Loki learned his illusionary magic to weave through a room while everyone thought he was sitting calmly with his family. His heart squeezes for the billionth time that day.
“Maybe before then.” Thor lets himself sink deeper into his seat before leaning forward. “Father… if you wished to hide, where would you go?”
“Your father has already had Heimdal turn his gaze towards a few, sent you others,” Frigg says, stepping in from the balcony, “and snuck off himself to the remaining.”
“You caught that, my dear?” Odin straightens, giving her a weak smile.
Frigga gives him an unimpressed look but squeezes his shoulder. “And covered with the council for you.”
Thor levels them a steady gaze, “Heimdal… said there is nothing in the void. There is nothing to see. There is nothing for anyone to see. But surely that is not the case. He can’t be…” Thor lets his words drift, unable to finish. However, from the grip tightening on his shoulder, Odin knows they both understand what Thor is implying.
His mind, however, refuses to process that possibility. No, Loki is much too wily for him to die to a fall, no matter how great. His mind traces over the words, willing them to reveal something, "There is nothing for anyone to see…"
His mind supplies him with a thought and then a memory. At times, a different vantage point is all that is needed to see something entirely different.
“My King?” Frigga asks as she watches him pass the histories, sciences, magic, maps, or thousands of other books they have torn through. Her face matches the confusion on Thor's face as Odin settles in front of a bookshelf that seldom saw much use until Loki and Thor were of age to ask for stories incessantly and then promptly abandoned when they realized stories their father could tell were more interesting. But a book, given to Odin instead of sought, sits among the shelves.
His eyes scanned the beautifully colored and bejeweled spines until they land on a slim book adorned with a vibrantly garish yellow color. He pulled it and a handful of dust out. "TVA Handbook, Second Edition" stares at him in a loud orange as if to say, "Pay Attention!"
The book he had thought to be utterly insane and had only kept for the novelty of a book that never seemed to run out of pages is now his greatest hope. And he opens it with the gentle reverence that hope provides. “When I was a young and foolish man, well younger and more foolish, I met an older gentleman who gave me parenting advice that I ignored to both yours detriment and insisted we start making something called ‘candy.' And pie, whatever that is.”
“Midgard desert. I found apple to be rather good during my banishment,” Thor admits, “but how does this get us closer to finding Loki?”
“He gave me this book.” Odin continues. “It tells of many unimaginable things, some I have managed to witness, many more I thought impossible. One of which is a guardian of sorts, who took the timelines from a being called He-Who-Remains. He became the God of Stories in the process.” Odin flips to the page near the front that displays a tree with an unfeatured man seated at its base. “From his throne where time ends and begins once more, he guards each timeline, cultivating them into a great tree.”
“How does this—“ Thor cuts himself off. “They call him the God of Stories, not the God of Time. He knows the stories he guards, then. Ours.”
“Loki’s, where his story goes after he falls.” Frigga nods, hope in her voice.
Thor frowns, determination filling his frame, “I will go find this guardian at once.”
“No.” Odin snaps the book shut, tucking it against his heart. “I have lost one son. I will not lose another. I will make this journey myself and seek a boon.”
Frigg frowns, worry etched on her brow, “For such a thing… It risks going against the natural order. He will surely want something great in return…”
Odin the King argues with Odin the Father, but Odin the Father wins without more than a half second of hesitation. “What good are the treasures lying in the vault compared to a Prince of Asgard?”
Even then, a voice whispers in his ear, sounding too much like his mischievous son, "What good are trinkets to someone outside of time?"
He ignores it.
He needs to know where his son is, no matter where that is.
And so he gathers his most practical armor and most suitable walking boots and, using the book, constructs something to take himself out of time. The moment he finishes, he tucks the device and the book into his armor next to his heart and bids farewell to his wife and son in the empty throne room.
Frigga kisses him, “Return swiftly. A mother can only take so much separation from her child.”
“A father as well.” Odin nods in agreement, squeezing her hand for the last time in he does not know how long.
Thor still does not look pleased about the plan. “Are you sure I cannot accompany you, Father? It would present a stronger front.”
Odin shakes his head. “We do not know how long this will take. We cannot leave Asgard without its King and heir. I will return as soon as I can.” Odin activated the device and stepped through the orange doorway.
Moments pass in eons. Ignoring the faltering pain in his legs and how the Odin Sleep tries to come, he pushes forward. Each wake and sleep cycle seems to leave him no closer to the tree. He presses on, unable to give up. His dreams often leave him longing for a time when he, Frigga, and his sons were happy.
There are dreams he finds more difficult to wake up from, though. Ones where Hela is unbound from the monster his mistakes made her into, Thor is free of his reckless pride without an exile that nearly killed him, and Loki is comfortable with who he is, knowing he is loved.
But, it is not real. The mistakes he has made remain. And even on the roots of time, he cannot undo them. All he can do is be better and push forward.
Finally, when he has long since lost his sense of time and feeling in his toes, he nears where the roots meet the trunk. He picks up his pace in a sense of euphoria. The exhilaration does not leave him as he weaves through the timelines that make up the bark of the tree and goes deeper into the core. Soon, he tells himself, I will know where Loki is. I—
Odin freezes in his tracks, “Loki…” Loki barely moves. That seems viscerally wrong to Odin. He should be running around planning his next prank—
Odin sucks in a breath as he sees his son tied to a throne in the mocking shape of his own. Anguishing loneliness echos on his face, hidden but painfully easy to spot for a parent—
Timelines grow from his arms like slow-growing bamboo shoots, leaching away his magic— his life force—
Odin recoils in horror. His mind refuses the image before him. His son is free. His arms are not being flayed open by growing branches. He is okay.
Intellectually, he knows there is the possibility that wherever he is, Loki is hurt. His heart, however, has refused to consider it. It is like Fenrir had settled into his gut at the mere thought.
No, this cannot be him, Odin decides. The being before him is the guardian. This being has been here since before time. His mind still reels at the thought. “Why do you wear his face?”
The guardian seems amused by his question, “Whose face?”
“You know whose!” Odin snaps, furious at this being for plucking his son's face from his mind to toy with him. “Why do you wear his face?!”
“Is that what you wish to ask?” The guardian smirks. Damn him, Odin thinks as the guardian uses the exact smirk Loki did when he was playing a prank or knew something no one else did.
Odin takes a deep breath. I will not waste this chance, Odin thinks. “No… I wanted… I thought you would… I hoped you would grant me a boon.” All those hours of practiced speeches on his journey, wasted.
“A boon? And what would you give me in exchange for this boon?” The guardian asks with a different smirk that causes Odin to shift under it. The last time he had seen it had been during a game of chess, a different one from the one left in his study. Odin had walked right into a fork between his queen and rook, pleasing Loki greatly.
Must this being torture me so? Odin takes a steadying breath, “I can give you the riches of Asgard, each more priceless and extraordinary than the other.”
The guardian dismisses it, uninterested, “What use are the riches of Asgard to me?”
Startled, Odin falls back to his default bargaining tool, “I can offer you knowledge—“ But what knowledge could I give to this being? What knowledge would this being not already have? Odin realizes his mistake.
And the guardian knows it, barely holding back a laugh like Loki did when one of the advisors suggested something stupid during a council session. “What use is knowledge to me?”
“My life! I can give you my life!” He says, in desperation but with no doubt. There is nothing I would not do to find his son.
The guardian's eyes narrow, a century of calculations passed within a second within them, “What use is your life to me?”
The pain shooting through Odin's chest is so intense that it is like the guardian has struck him. His mind whorls desperately, What else can I offer? What else does I have to offer? What can I offer this being whose existence is? “What do you desire most?” It is a fair trade, a greatest desire for a greatest desire. A grim determination settles into Odin. “What will you have me give you?” It is more a demand than an ask. He will get this boon. He will find his son.
The guardian seems to falter, surprised and contemplative.
Odin is then able to breathe for the first time in the conversation. Yes, that is a bargain anyone would take, Odin thinks. Whatever impossible task, even one given to make me leave, I will do it and then make him hold his end of the bargain.
The guardian leans back, struggling against the branches, and frowns. It is the same troubled look as when Loki knows a prank went too far. Why must the guardian torture me like this?! Odin curses in his mind. Loki hates being alone, though his pride would never let him admit it. And the concept of him being trapped out here, alone, slowly being ripped apart by the timelines—
Odin’s mind refuses to go there.
“What I want… what I want most…” the guardian's voice is quiet and gentle but full of sorrow, “Is something not in your power to grant if you need to ask this question.”
…
…
…
…What…
Odin stares up at the being, wanting to scream and shout and beg for even the most crazy of tasks. He finds himself unable to do so, however. The word mocks him nightly, "It was your birthright to die!" He may as well have killed Loki himself. How could he yell at Loki after that? This being hides behind Loki's face.
The being looks at him with a face so, so similar to Loki in that moment, reaching out desperately for reassurance of his place in the family and, blinded by his own pain, Odin had denied him that. How could he yell at the guardian while he wears this face?
It is not Loki, Odin reminds himself. It is not him. “Then answer me this, please,” Odin says barely above a whisper. It is not him. So why...
“Why him?”
Why Loki?
Why Loki?
Odin’s question thunders in his ears.
The guardian leans down as if to share a secret, “Whose face should I wear, but my own?”
Odin does not understand. The guardian said words that did not make sense. But as his brain pieces it together, forces them together, horror flies onto his face.
The innocent child he had held in Jotunhiem, abandoned and alone, is here, alone for longer than time will exist.
The mischievous little gremlin who was always running around and pulling pranks is here strapped to a version of his throne, unable to leave.
The young man who still sought his consul or to discuss a book over a game of go is here with his magic and life force leaching from him at a rate unknown to Odin.
His baby was here, hurting and alone.
Loki lets out a resigned sigh, "Go home, Father."
The timelines reach out and pull him away, eons in seconds. But Odin feels trapped in just one moment all over again, the moment when Loki lets go of a destroyed bridge. It feels like that moment all over again. Odin tries to keep his eyes on his son, only to lose sight far too soon.
Blinking, he is in his throne room. “Are you sure I cannot accompany you, Father? It would present a stronger front.” Thor asks from his side, echoing those words he said so long and not even a moment ago. Not even a second had passed since he left, less than zero would seem, but Odin felt his knees shake and give out. He had lost his son again.