Kindred Spirits

Weariness overcame her. A long day of travelling, all around the timeline, and this was all Sylvie had to show for it; underwear, and a face almost as red as it.

At least the TVA hadn’t shown up yet. Some consolation that was. Probably, the amount of time Ava seemed to spend in that glass box, it would be a while before any variance caused her started to build up.

Sylvie took a step sideways, doing her best to keep one of the metal strips that held the machine together between her and Ava. Tired, Sylvie sat down on the floor, her long, bare legs pulled up to her chest to try and hide herself behind them. She’d never thought she’d be annoyed to have a slender figure.

“So, any reason you’re running around in your underwear?” Ava said.

“Not my underwear,” Sylvie said. “I wouldn’t choose this.”

“You know that makes it weirder.”

Sylvie sighed. “You’re being very chatty for someone who has a stranger in their house.”

“My life is boring,” Ava said. “Among other things. Besides, if all you’re after is a wardrobe, there’s nothing for you here.”

“There’s what you’re wearing,” Sylvie said.

“Wouldn’t recommend it,” Ava said. “It’s designed to help with my… condition. There’d be side effects if anyone else wore it.”

Sylvie looked at her again, trying to work out if she was lying. There was clearly something wrong with Ava, otherwise Sylvie doubted she wouldn’t be spending so much time in a glass box wired to all manner of devices.

Hm. Those generators went to there, those emitted that… It was so hard to piece together the simplistic technology of Midgard.

“Guessing you stole that lingerie,” Ava said.

Sylvie didn’t answer. She shuffled as Ava tried to peer around the metal to her.

“Well if you’re looking to steal an outfit,” Ava said. “Though this place is out of the way. Normally you stand a better shot heading for an actual neighbourhood than traipsing through the woods and hoping.”

“Have much experience running around naked, do you?” Sylvie said.

There was a moment’s silence. Despite herself, Sylvie peered sideways, seeing Ava retreat, suddenly flustered. Her eyebrows rose.

“Surely that’d make you want to have clothes in reserve,” Sylvie said.

“Not like I can wear anything except this,” Ava said. She tapped her silvery suit; Sylvie regarded her, curiously.

“Your ‘condition,’” Sylvie said.

Ava waved an arm. It seemed to blur slightly; Sylvie was a little surprised by that, though she couldn’t help reacting more when she passed her hand through her pillow.

Intangibility. Maybe uncontrolled. Yeah, that’d do it; Sylvie shuddered, imagining simply phasing through any hard=won outfit.

“Don’t envy you,” Sylvie said.

“What’s your story?” Ava said. Sylvie looked at her: “What? It gets boring in here.”

Sylvie sighed. Great, she was actually talking to a human. Not like she had anything better to do, though.

“I’m on the run from an organisation that cuts people out of time and space if they make any decision they don’t approve of,” Sylvie said, matter-of-factly. “The clothes I started this out in don’t fit any more, the clothes I’d taken dissolved from age, and I haven’t been able to steal anything else with much success, no matter where I jump in the timeline. Not that I know much of where I end up, anyway. Hence, here, and some redhead’s lingerie.”

She narrowly avoided throwing her hands up in the air. Instead, she shifted, lowering her legs a little for comfort. She kept one over the other, bent at the knee, to hide her panties; now, for her breasts, she resorted again to crossing her arms.

Ava was watching her. Great, they could bond over public nudity. Just what Ava had always wanted.

“You’ve go problems,” Ava said, eventually.

“You believe me?” Sylvie said.

“I can walk through walls,” Ava said. She shrugged. “You tell me time travel’s a thing, why not?”

Sylvie couldn’t help herself but laugh.

“And now I’m in underwear talking to some stranger locked in a Chamber of Binding who doesn’t even own clothes. Great,” Sylvie said.

“A what?” Ava said.

“Chamber of Binding,” Sylvie said. “This thing.”

She jerked with her head, not willing to gesture with anything else. Ava frowned.

“Quantum energy chamber,” Ava said.

“Chamber of Binding,” Sylvie said again. “Primitive, sure, but that’s what we called it. Fixes side-effects from travelling through a malfunctioning Bifrost, and messing up size-changing spells.”

Ava was staring at her again. Sylvie felt her cheeks heat a little, and moved further to the side, unwittingly putting herself almost fully in view around the other side of the metal strip.

“Wait, where are you from?” Sylvie said. “Or when?”

“Relatively? A few centuries ago,” Sylvie said. “Asgard. We’re more advanced than you.”

Ava turned, to look past the metal at Sylvie. Emitting a very much unwitting squeak, Sylvie ducked sideways again, only for Ava to again peer around at her, eyes wide.

“Stop it!” Sylvie said.

“Your Chamber,” Ava said. “Could it help me?”

“What?” Sylvie said.

“You said this was primitive,” Ava said, more intently at looking at the almost-bare Sylvie. “This only keeps me stable, and barely that. Could a more advanced one fix me?”

Sylvie shrugged. “Probably, if whatever you’ve got is caused by something affected by this.”

“You have to take me there,” Ava said.

Sylvie was almost too surprised to move back to the side. No matter where she stood, Ava just wanted to meet her eyes now. Not that it was her eyes she was shy about.

“Excuse me?” Sylvie said.

“I can’t stay like this forever,” Ava said. “If you have a cure, please, you need to let me use your Chamber of Whatever. Can you get me there?”

Sylvie stared back.

“One,” Sylvie said. “That would mean going back to Asgard. My home. In this.”

“You must know where the spare clothes are there,” Ava said. “Or at least places to hide.”

Maybe. Sylvie hesitated. She’d been more put off by the prospect of going nude or near-nude through a familiar setting.

“Wait, no,” Sylvie said. “One, why would I help some random human?”

“Why not?” Ava said. She hesitated. “Do you need a second pair of hands with anything? Or company? A distraction to help you get clothes off a washing line somewhere?”

Sylvie hesitated.

No, no. No. She was not going to feel sympathetic for a denizen of Midgard just because. Just because she hadn’t talked to anyone in a while, or they had a few things in common, or this Sacred Timeline had screwed them both.

Sylvie hesitated again. Though a second pair of hands could be useful – and it would piss off the TVA.

Her voice softened.

“Two,” Sylvie said. “You won’t be able to come back. As soon as you’re off your path, the TVA will come by and reset everything. Some other you in the cage, one who never left. You might not even look like them. When you’re gone, you’re gone.”

Ava barely needed to think about it.

“Worth it to not live like this,” Ava said. “Hardly have much of a life to go back to anyway. So? Can you help me?”

Go to Asgard just to help a human? For a moment, Sylvie didn’t know what she was doing.

Though, she reflected, maybe this would have its uses.