Sorry bitchessss, snooze you lose! I waited and no one has stolen this so I'mma do that now, haiiiii
Loki had been reading for hours. Darcy was asleep, soft breaths the only sound in the room, and Loki glances over, watches her for a moment. Her sleep had been restless - dreams. He knew, because the few moments of sleep he was able to allow himself, he suffered from them, as well. The entire displaced population seemed to be forced to endure them, at present, and it was almost certain that Lucifer was behind them - he could tell, could feel it, and he knew the only way it would end would be the end of everything else. If nightmares were the worst they had to face now, it would not be so bad - they could handle nightmares in return for continued survival - but Lucifer was not that kind. Things would only be worse from here.
Sighing, Loki dropped the paper in his hands onto the table. These demon contracts were nothing if not thorough, every minute detail accounted for. Even for Loki, it was... well, exhausting. He should very likely sleep, at least for an hour or two. He stood, stretching and rolling his neck - and froze, frowning in concentration as a flicker of something familiar touched at the back of his mind, something... something that he should not have been able to sense. Something that could not possibly be real.
A glance towards Darcy’s still form, he hesitated. She was no longer shifting restlessly - his magic was not permanent, would only last a few hours at a time to help relieve her from her terrors... but he would not be long. He would return. Decided, he allowed his magic to whisk his form into the space between spaces, towards the glimmer of familiar power he had sensed. When he reappeared, he was standing in the middle of a street swept into disarray by the storm that had passed through here. There were soggy and torn papers scattered about, broken buildings, rubble and overturned cars. Loki wondered if perhaps he had imagined the presence he had felt, for a moment - there was nothing here, simply the destruction Lucifer had wrought.
Was this a trap, then?
Stepping slowly, cautiously, over the chunks of brick and wood, Loki moved through the street. There was little else he could do - if he was not certain, he could not return, could he? He could not simply leave without being certain he hadn’t truly sensed -
As he stepped around an overturned vehicle, the familiar figure came into view, and Loki’s feet froze in place. Frigga stood there, looking around her at the destroyed street, and Loki could not even attempt to hide his surprise. He had never actually thought she would come here. He had hoped, sometimes, selfishly, that she would - that she would be here. He missed her, had missed her far more than any of the rest of those he had considered family his entire life - the only parent he still thought of as parent rather than by name. He had hoped to see her again even while he hoped never to return home, and this... this had been what he’d wanted.
Now that she was here, however, he was terrified. Things were quickly becoming horrible, winding up and pulling tighter and eventually it was all going to break apart. Things would get worse. They could still lose this war. She could still be hurt, killed. Loki remained still and quiet, his breath tight in his chest. There was a part of him that had seemingly reverted back to his childhood, part of him that wanted to run to her and wrap his arms around her - but he stayed as he was.
“Mother?” Quiet, confused - wary. He knew it was foolish to trust - it was foolish to hope - that this was real. This could still be a trap, no matter how much he wanted to believe it was not.