Mastering Illusions

2

I stand on the ledge for a while after Nebula leaves, eventually descending down to the lake shore to sit and watch the water. The wind has picked up strength and I feel droplets of water gently misting my face, the iciness of the water welcome on my skin.

Shortly after arriving back in Asgard, I had come up here, looking for solace and hoping for Gamora. I sat here for a while, watching the water, remembering the last time I had been up here with her, when she had asked me to run and I had told her no.

In that moment, I wished violently I had run with her, left Asgard behind for a new life that didn't involve Odin, Thanos, or the Contest of Champions. Then I wouldn't feel this dull ache, the emptiness that comes from losing your best friend. Desperately, I thought back to that moment before I left Asgard for Titan, when Gamora had come to say goodbye and I had held her. But where that memory had given me strength during the Contest, now it only brought me pain.

"Hey."

Her voice startled me and I turned swiftly, glancing at her standing behind me. Gamora just looked at me with her dark eyes, tilting her head slightly so her red tinged black wavy hair fell to the side. The silver implants set in her green skin glittered in the light.

She wore black leggings and a dark scoop neck shirt layered over a thin white one. Her combat boots wrapped around her legs up to her knees, her sword on her belt next to her gun. She didn't used to carry a gun before.

"Gamora," I said softly, not sure what else to say. There was so much I wanted to tell her but there were no words and no time. So I just looked at her.

"Loki," she said back, taking a step toward me, scattering a few pebbles with her boots as she moved. My eyes dropped at the sound of the slight scraping of rocks, focusing on their movement instead of on her. I saw the toes of her boots stop, several feet in front of me, and I dragged my eyes up to meet hers. But still, I had no words. Not even my presumed silvertongue could save me now.

Everything lay between us, blockading me from her. The Contest, Veers, my victory, and yes, even that shattered moment we shared before I departed. Even if I had won, the timeline didn't exist yet that would accept our broken embrace and never would. Even cold space, crystallizing across our skin, would reject the pieces of that moment. It wasn't a puzzle to be put together again, it was a puzzle to be discarded and the pieces lost in oblivion. But still, I had a faint hope the pieces would be found again, the naïve hope of emotion and feeling, the hope that later is what bleeds you dry because you fostered it in your heart, nurturing it in your attempt to grow a rose when all you're really growing is thorns.

"I am glad you won."

"Funny, I didn't get that impression when I returned," I said, the words coming out harsher than I had intended them to be. Her eyes hardened slightly.

"That doesn't mean I wish you dead."

I wasn't sure what to say next, so I looked down, waiting for her to leave. Then I felt her fingers on my cheek, cool and soft, and then they shifted under my chin, lifting my gaze to meet hers again. I internally braced myself for some sort of attack, knowing that Gamora could show her anger at me now, we were outside and out of the view of anyone who would judge her outburst.

But the attack didn't come.

"Why are you here?" I asked, reaching up and removing her hand from my face. I wanted to twine my fingers with hers but I didn't, I just released her hand and she crossed her arms over her chest.

"I needed to talk to you."

"You made it very clear on the bridge we had nothing to talk about," I said. "Or have you forgotten?"