Chapter Text
Falling out of the sky into yet another desert hadn’t exactly been a part of his plan. Then again, Loki hadn’t had more than a few seconds to formulate a plan beyond ‘escape the alternate universe versions of the TVA Minutemen trying to arrest me.’
Sylvie would probably call grabbing a TemPad, punching in some random numbers, and launching himself through a portal into gods-knew-where ‘doing a thing’ rather than enacting a plan. Plans, she had once told him, have multiple steps. The thought of Sylvie—alone in the Citadel at the End of Time—made his gut twist again, even as it panicked during the plummet into the sands below.
Thankfully the impact didn’t hurt too much. Certainly it didn’t register as a beating compared with being pummeled by an angry Hulk.
Loki spat out a mouthful of dust and grit before sitting up and tossing his hair out of his eyes. It was unnaturally bright. After blinking and squinting for a moment he saw an older woman with some weird kind of camel approaching him.
“Who are you?” she asked, peering at him with disapproving nosiness.
At least she isn’t another idiot in a suit, he thought wryly.
“I am Loki of Asgard.”
“Loki who?”
“What?” he asked. Had he not been perfectly clear the first time?
“Oh, leave him alone,” came a higher, feminine voice from behind his shoulder. “He looks like he just fell out of hyperspace without a ship.”
Loki twisted around to see a young woman in strange white clothes. She regarded him with a curious expression. As the deformed camel’s owner began dragging the beast away, the young woman’s piercing hazel gaze moved over the torn and bloodied remnants of his TVA suit. He rolled his shoulders, self-conscious of his attire. He was a long way from the intimidating figure in Asgardian leathers he normally presented to the world.
“Where am I?” Loki asked, his voice loud and authoritative. Ragged he may be, but he could still sound like the Prince he was. “Is this…Midgard?”
“Midgard? No. Never heard of it.”
“You might call it Earth? You certainly look Terran.”
“Is that in the Unknown Regions? This is Tatooine,” she said.
The creases in his brow ached as they deepened, but her answer made more sense when he glanced at the sky. Two suns. Damn it. Not Midgard then. Where the Hel am I?
“How did you survive that fall?” she asked. “You don’t seem like a Force-sensitive. But your signature is…familiar. It reminds me of someone.”
At least she seemed just as confused as he was.
“I’m a god. We’re a little harder to kill than most mortals.”
Her smirk was quickly suppressed, as if she were trying to avoid offending him.
“A god? Really? Hmm. You seem a bit dusty, for a god.” The smirk was definitely back now, like she was giving up on fighting it.
“Look,” Loki said, standing at last and brushing sand from his clothes. “I’ve had quite a long day. I need to know where I am and what timeline this is. I think—,” but his demands were cut off by a series of beeps near his feet.
He glanced down to see a small, orange-and-white robot looking up at him. It was round with a little head perched on top, like a mechanical snowman.
“What are you?”
The answering beeps were shrill and clearly offended. It rolled closer and extended a little arm from its midriff to poke at him.
“Hey!” He kicked it with a metallic clang.
“Oi! Stop that!” the woman said. “This is my friend, BB-8. And I don’t look kindly on people kicking my friends. Even if they are gods.”
“Right,” Loki said, looking between the short robot and her. “And what’s your name?”
“I’m Rey. Rey of Jakku. But if you want to go by our titles, god, you can call me Master Rey.”
“Master, eh? And what are you a Master of, exactly?”
“I’m a Jedi Knight. The last of them, now.” Her voice was sad, but Loki was still processing that this sounded depressingly like what idiots in suits would call themselves.
“You’re not an Avenger are you? You look like a hero-type.”
“No. I’m not…whatever that is. What do you have against heroes? Are you a Dark-side Force user?” Her tone became stern. She pulled a short metal scepter from her belt and thumbed a switch on the side. A yellow, glowing beam extended from its end.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Loki said in alarm, extending his hands in front of him to get her to calm down.
“I asked you a question! Are you a Dark-sider? Your Force signature is confusing. It blends Light and Dark, but it feels wrong. I don’t think you belong here.”
“Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about! Do you work for the TVA? That looks sort of like one of their nightsticks. The last thing I need right now is to get pruned from the timeline. I don’t want to get stuck in the Void again.”
His thoughts spun out across the possibilities. Maybe that would be a way back to Sylvie. He needed to find her. He knew she hadn’t meant to push him so far away. Her kiss had been all too sincere, but her mind had been fixed on her mission and he was in the way. No. He doubted he’d be able to enchant Alioth without her. There would be no getting past the monstrous guard protecting the Citadel.
The woman—Rey—searched his face carefully before deactivating her yellow nightstick.
“It seems we have a lot to talk about. Would you like to come back to my ship? It’s just a few clicks beyond that ridge,” she said, gesturing over her shoulder toward the peak of a dune.
Loki summoned the TemPad back into existence. It flashed with his signature green light as it materialized, making the woman gasp. He tapped it with a depressed frown.
“You’re outta juice!” it informed him cheerfully. He sighed. Not again.
The little robot cocked its half-domed head to the side and beeped inquisitively.
“Yes. It seems I have no better options for how to get where I’m going. So, a chat would be lovely,” Loki answered her at last, plastering on a wide grin he hoped was winning.
Her answering frown told him his social charms might be a bit rusty.
***
Ben groaned as he sat up. Most of his serious injuries—including the broken ankle from when Palpatine shoved him into the pit—seemed to have healed themselves. But his joints were still stiff and his muscles felt shaky.
The jungle around him was dark. Illumination came only from the multicolored glow of a strange celestial phenomena. It spanned the sky like a heavenly tree, branching and growing as he watched.
The soil beneath his hands was moist and rich. Strange, lush plants with broad leaves reached for the dancing lights. They glowed faintly as they reflected the colors above them. Everything was silent, however. No hum from insects or rustle of animals disturbed the jungle. Accustomed as he was to the hum of spaceship engines, the lack of sound unnerved him. That was, until a light seemed to fall from the sky and crash into the trees beyond his view.
“Shit!” came a loud and frustrated woman’s voice.
Uncertain, Ben rose and reached out with his senses through the Force. It felt different here. Like the familiar taste of cool water laced with something new. Metallic and old. But the person in the trees was definitely there. He could sense her moving in a frustrated huff, as well as hear the snap of vegetation under heavy boots.
There was something very familiar about her Force signature. It made his heart beat faster and his throat ache.
“Rey?” he ventured, voice soft yet carrying across the unnaturally silent jungle.
The rustling stopped.
“Hello?” came the woman’s voice again. “Is someone there?”
It definitely wasn’t Rey’s voice, and the signature was different. But for a heartbeat he’d been sure…no. No, it wasn’t her.
How strange, Ben thought. He hadn’t confused signatures like that since the earliest days of his training.
“Yes. I’m here,” Ben answered. There was no point in trying to hide. He didn’t know where he was, and anyone who might have answers would be worth speaking with.
Rustling began again as the woman made her way over to him. His first glimpse of her face confirmed what he already knew. She was petite and fierce looking, like Rey. But she was slightly older and her blonde hair was cropped at her jawline. The blue, green, and purple lights in the sky cast a warm glow on her pale features.
“Do you know where we are?” Ben asked as her eyes caught on him.
“Yes. Unfortunately. How are you here? Who are you?”
Ben hesitated. The answer that came to his lips first, out of habit, was wrong. He wasn’t Kylo Ren anymore. He’d given up the name he used when he served Snoke and tried to rule the Galaxy as its Supreme Leader. He wasn’t a Dark side Force user anymore either. He was something like his old self again, though it would take time to figure out exactly what that meant. Erasing the past was impossible. He knew that now. No matter how far he ran or fought it, he would always carry knowledge of it with him.
“I’m Ben Solo,” he said softly, the name feeling unusual in his own mouth. “And…I have no idea how I’m here. Or where this is.”
She studied him with interest before speaking again.
“Well. This is a place beyond the Void at the End of Time. Up there—,” she pointed to a small, rocky asteroid floating above, “is the Citadel at the End of Time. And that—,” another gesture at the branching lights, “is the Sacred Timeline. Well…maybe it’s the Multiverse of Timelines now. I’m not sure.”
Ben blinked at her in confusion. “That’s…the timeline?”
“Timelines. Yes. Probably. I…might have gotten it pretty messed up. You know, branched and broken it.”
“Who are you exactly?” Ben asked.
She hesitated as she studied him again. “I’m Sylvie. What…universe are you from?”
A different universe, Ben thought. That would explain why the Force feels so strange here.
“I’m not sure how to answer that. Your Force signature is different but…familiar.” Ben reached out again with his senses. Probed the surface of her mind lightly, seeking answers.
“Hey! Stop that! I don’t know what signature you’re talking about but I can sense an enchanter a mile off. Don’t ever try to touch my mind again, and I’ll leave yours alone, too. Deal?”
Ben blinked back from this sharp command. Normally people wouldn’t sense when he did that. Perhaps she could access some of the mental powers Force sensitivity granted?
“Agreed,” he answered her, wary this time, before glancing up at the floating rock in the sky.
“How did you get down here? That looks hundreds of miles up.”
She snorted. “I’m pretty hard to kill. The TemPad I had—,” she paused at Ben’s confused frown before continuing.
“The thing I used to make a portal for my…friend…seems to have run out of power. I was trying to figure out how to get back to a Timeline. So I launched off into whatever this place outside the timeline is. I hoped I’d collide with a branch and could continue on from there. But apparently there’s a whole world floating in this nothingness.”
“A world outside of space and time?” Ben asked, looking around in wonder.
“Yes. It would seem so.”
“I might know what this is called. I trained for a while in…some archaic beliefs. I think this might be the World Between Worlds.”
“Seems an apt description. So, how did you get here?” she asked, voice neutral as she crossed her arms across her chest.
“I think I died.”
She seemed unworried about talking with someone who was possibly dead.
“Huh. Weird place to go when you die. There doesn’t seem to be anyone else around.”
But Ben was now regarding the jungle with renewed interest. If this was the World Between Worlds, then legend said there would be spirits of past Jedi Masters here, residing outside of time. Observing it from afar. He had some choice things to say to a few of them if they crossed his path.
“So, what universe are you from anyway? And…how do you know what this place is?” Ben asked. There didn’t seem to be much else to do other than learn what he could.
“A different universe than yours, clearly. I don’t know how to talk about all this either. I’m from a place called Asgard, originally. But I was…taken. By an organization that calls itself the Time Variance Authority. They went around killing off whole timelines that didn’t follow the path they set for the universe.”
“And you just…broke the timelines?”
“Something like that. I don’t think I made a mistake exactly, when I did it. But…I pushed someone away, in the process. Someone I shouldn’t have. I need to find him. And I have no idea how.”
Her voice was unexpectedly forlorn. Broken and small. It was a sharp contrast to the commanding tone she’d used before. Something in it resonated with Ben’s own sense of loss.
“I’m also looking for someone,” he said past the painful lump in his throat.
He’d barely had time to kiss Rey after healing her back to life, in the wake of the fight with Palpatine. To look into her eyes and smile at her as himself, unburdened, before weakness from his lost energy stole through him. He’d gone cold, and fallen. The falling felt like it lasted for ages, but then he woke here.
“What’s her name?” Sylvie asked.
“I didn’t say it was a she.”
“No. You didn’t have to. I can sense it in your thoughts, even from a distance. That normally doesn’t happen but…you’re kind of loud.” She rubbed her fingertips along her temple as if soothing a headache.
Ben’s brow furrowed. He hadn’t thought to shield his thoughts. How strange. Normally that was second nature to him, but here…in this strange place…he’d forgotten. Perhaps it was something about Sylvie. She was painfully familiar. Like an echo of Rey. It was throwing him off his guard, and that could be dangerous. He brought the shields up now.
“Her name is Rey. She’s…important to me.”
“Hmm. Well then, what do you say we find a way off this weird planet and back to our timelines, yeah?”
Ben looked around again. There wasn’t much here. Surviving would be rough. And if this was the World Between Worlds, then he doubted they’d find anything in the way of technology. The Force, on the other hand, might be stronger and easier to use than in other places.
“You said you have some kind of portal maker?” he asked.
Sylvie looked at him curiously, but pulled it from where it was clipped to the back of her belt. It resembled a round black stone disk with gold streaks.
“They don’t normally look like this. The ones used by the TVA don’t, at any rate. This one belonged to…the man at the Citadel.”
“Belonged to him? Did you steal it or something?” Ben asked, reaching for the device to examine it carefully.
“No. I killed him.”
Ben glanced up at her firm expression briefly, but he could hardly judge her. He’d killed more people than he cared to think of now. Including his own father. Pain radiated through his chest at the thought. It wasn’t as intense as what he had been living with for over a year now. Somehow, wherever he was, Ben knew his father forgave him and was pleased with his progress back toward the Light.
“You said it’s powered down? Or…dead?”
“Yes,” she said. “The lines were glowing before. But now…I think it was a massive jump to go from here to the Timeline. It used it up. It would take an enormous power source to recharge it. And I don’t see any technology around here.”
“Maybe not,” Ben said. The device felt empty, somehow. Like the lifeless body of something that once lived. The Force had once moved through it.
“How does it work, exactly?” he asked.
“It makes Time Portals. Well, portals in space too, I guess. The TVA used something like this one to jump around and prune the timeline. It’s supposed to open a door you can walk through.”
“I think this one was once living. A part of the living timeline maybe,” he said thoughtfully, allowing his instincts and senses to guide his reasoning.
“Okay. What does that mean?”
Damn it. I really don’t want to have to do this again.
“It means I can try something. But…the last time I did this, it sort of killed me. That’s why I’m here, I think.”
Her eyes were alarmed. At the possibility of being left alone on this planet? Ben wasn’t sure, but he couldn’t think of an alternative.
Kneeling, he held the little disk on his palm and placed his other hand over it. His eyes drifted closed as he focused. He drew a breath and reached out. Sensing. Feeling. Joining his life’s energy—or whatever he had now—up with the living Force around him. It surged eagerly in this place, and spun out and through the device.
It took long moments of channeling, but eventually it began to hum and warm to the touch.
“I think it’s reviving…,” Sylvie said softly.
When Ben opened his eyes, she was kneeling in front of him, her eyes fixed eagerly on the device.
“Yes! It’s lines are moving again. I think you did it. Are you a magician, then?”
“A Force user,” he said, stumbling over whether to call himself a Jedi. No. No, I don’t deserve that title. I turned my back on it. And I don’t want to rejoin. I’ll just…be myself.
“You keep saying that. What’s the Force?”
Long-buried memories of his uncle’s lectures hovered at the fringes of his awareness. He suppressed the recollections.
“It’s an energy field, created by all living things. Including this device, apparently. Some of us can sense it, and tap into it. Use it to guide us. Inform us. Accomplish tasks.”
“Sounds like magic. But sure. Call it what you like,” Sylvie said with a shrug, standing now and brushing dirt from her trousers. “Okay, so we should be able to use it to make a portal. But to where?”
She tapped her index finger to her lips in thought.
“Back to my universe. I need to find Rey soon.”
“Well, I need to find Loki. My…friend. I think I sent him right to the TVA. He could be in trouble.” She sighed and looked up at the timeline. “Unfortunately, I don’t know which TVA I sent him to. There will be loads of them now. And it’s a long way to the timeline. This TemPad got drained after a single use, so it’s a fair bet we’ll only get one shot at this.”
“Okay. So we go to one of these TVAs and recharge it again. Or find a fresh device. Then we can jump around until we’re both back home.”
“The last time I infiltrated the TVA it took years of planning. I had to bomb the timeline to cause a big enough distraction. Empty the place out. I don’t think we’d have an easy time of it.”
“I’m an experienced fighter. The Force is good for more than charging portal devices,” Ben said.
“Hmm. Unfortunately for us, Mister Magician, magic doesn’t work at the TVA. I can’t use my powers there, and I doubt you’d be able to use yours. So we’d be at a serious disadvantage. No. We need to get to a timeline. Somewhere we can recharge this or find other means of transport across the multiverse.”
Her eyes returned to him, and she looked him up and down. He was uncomfortably aware that he was still wearing the ragged clothes from the battle with Palpatine. His sweater had holes in it. He wouldn’t look his usual, intimidating self even if he did loom over her.
“How do people get around your galaxy, anyway?” she asked.
“The usual way? Spaceships?”
“Hmm,” she murmured, sounding distinctly unimpressed. “No. That won’t do at all. We’d only be able to fly around space. So, no versions of your galaxy. We need to get somewhere I’d be more familiar with. Ah! I know.”
A look of joy spread across her features.
“What?” Ben asked.
“We can go somewhere I haven’t been in a long, long time. I never thought I’d get to go back, actually.”
“Where’s that?”
“Home.”
