The Skies We’re Under
laerkeodinsdottir:
vondoomstadt
Every long exploratory journey needed a truly relaxing final stop. Laerke had crossed Yggdrasil and back in her quest to map the cosmos. All she wanted to to was rest and recover from all she had learned. All around her was darkness and light, nothingness and everything. The space between realities was indescribable in its beauty and wonder. But it was nothing like home.
Despite the dangers in her journey Laerke had made it through the trip with little trouble. With a few days to spare before she was expected in Asgard, Laerke turned her path toward Midgard.
The young seeming woman emerged on the outskirts of a small town she knew well. Risør had grown in size and beauty since her first visit all those years ago. Stardust still clung to her hair and the magic required for her chosen method of travel wore down her bones but still she smiled. Though a few years had passed since her last visit to Norway her cabin in the hills still stood, well protected by her magic. She stepped inside just long enough to change into more appropriate garments.
The walk into town was a good hour stretch of the legs. The length gave Laerke time to acclimate to being on a world again. Everything was so bright and loud. As she walked Laerke picked flowers from the side of the cobble path and weaved them effortlessly into her braids. It was a calming, familiar action. The smell of the sea got stronger with each step and soon she’d arrived in town.
The blue dress with white floral print still seemed to fit the acceptable fashion (mortals changed their tastes so quickly, it was difficult to keep track). Her favorite cafe was on the east edge of town. The abundant outdoor seating gave a fantastic view to a small public park. She ordered her coffee with a near perfect accent and took the pretty mug outside. Laerke claimed a table in the far corner and sunk into the seat. Alternating between sipping her drink and sketching her surroundings, the princess finally began to relax.
Nothing would ruin a day as beautiful as this.
The end of a universe was meant for no man to witness. Victor von Doom felt the cold, dying tendrils of magic binding him to that old world desiccating against his soul and etching itself into his bones. When the end of everything came, all stories-- all myth-- all history and legend unraveled and tied itself to its one surviving vessel.
There had been no rancor in those last days. The two men had grown apart in the years following the university, and their alliances came occasionally and without great enthusiasm. They were too alike in all the ways that made them great men, and too different in the ways that would make them good men, and Victor pitied the beautiful woman that married Reed Richards, but seldom spoke on the matter while she lived.
Whereas Doom drew the majority of his strength from the magics, Richards had focused on the sciences. Both had dabbled in the other’s art, and even became truly inspired in it, but each man had special ties to the opposing field.
Victor von Doom knew this was the end of the world.
So did Reed Richards.
They told no one.
It was the end of the world and another world hung red in the sky. Incoming telemetry calculated an impact time of approximately seven hours, and it had been predicted they would continue to lose time as the incursions progressively devoured the multiverse.
Richards announced what was happening to his friends and family via satellite transmission, on board the flight to the Latverian space station. Doom apologized to old ghosts in deep places only he remembered, and felt required to explain himself to no one.
They had built this for the world together, a thing protected and sealed in magic that whirred on the wheels of science–a merging of the best of the greatest minds on the planet. To those below, millions of years would continue to pass, the sky would eventually fill up with the incoming Earth above them, and this place and all things would die. Richards never pretended he didn’t know the futility of life; he accepted it with the resignation of a man who had seen hell, and no longer had the will to live, yet he drew a strength from the fact that it would live far beyond him. Von Doom had seen hell, and from it he drew a will to not be determined by the hither and statute laws of the universe. Both men refused to allow that such an end here and now.
Doom would not be bound to this universe’s determined demise-- regardless if it was by cosmic laws he himself forced into being. He had felt there were other places for him to be, and that he could choose not to perish with his world, and so he abandoned Richards, perhaps much like Richards had abandoned his own family. He was merely needed elsewhere, and it just wouldn’t do for the multiverse to lose him. What made Doom were Doom’s own choices.
So it was here, on this Earth, that he found himself. That it would die in an incursion could only be expected. That it will die in an incursion... that he did not know. Perhaps the multiverse would contract and then cease the extinction of all universes. Perhaps it would annihilate everything eventually. Not knowing was distasteful, and Victor von Doom felt he now had time to work in.
He loaded his car with a single travel bag. Everything had to be started from scratch. From his connections to higher powers to scarce resources to build the technology he was accustomed to. Victor von Doom, however, was nothing if not willful and resourceful. He had started from a gypsy nothing to become lord... and god.
Risør was nothing to him, but now a signal from which a familiar magic dwelt. A Nine Realmer had arrived, rather suddenly, and part of him hoped it was Loki merely for a taste of old battles. Loki had been a creature uniquely attuned to how legend worked and bound the deities.
Asgardians in particular, however, were never to be taken lightly even to one such as Doom, and he clicked his armour gauntlets and several artifacts into padded cases and set them in the vehicle. The Realmer was a necessary piece of magical artifact to acquire on the path to greater cosmic forces. A hostage-- not really. More of a barter item. That was how magic most oft worked and Doom knew how to weave tempting deals.
He paused before sliding on his sunglasses and studied his face in the mirror momentarily, So many of the other Dooms he’d encountered throughout his life and travels had been faceless, damaged beings, laughable parodies. He disliked the thought of ever having to fight a version of himself. Doom versus Doom was a test of the will of Doom, and it was not always the case that the Doom that he wasn’t lost. He tightened his jaw as he pulled out of the drive and started on the Norwegian road.
The creature in question was located hours later, innocuous and simple among the humans milling in ignorance around it. Like him, it had adopted a guise that was alien to it and perched quietly to view the realm surrounding. She drew (or wrote, Doom knew exactly what power could be etched into the written sign) without alarm or haste.
He watched for a few minutes from his car, then unpacked his gauntlets and slid the various components into place on his hands, preparing a few spells beforehand that he could use to capture the entity. He pulled his sleeves over the gold and silver-scarred metal for the most part, then strode over to the café with express and powerful purpose.
Victor von Doom crossed the park view seating in moments and cast a spell of silence to her, choosing to bypass the entirely needless question of introductions and possible teleportations or attacks. “I am Doom, and I request-- a request properly unrefused-- that you accompany me.”