Life on the run

It was a while before the thought of hiding in apocalypses occurred to her. She had been at the TVA for so little time, the details in how they operated were beyond her. All the knowledge she had when she started out was that a group of strangers had walked into her life and insisted that she needed to be plucked away and erased.

But Asgardians had long lives. She had plenty of time to learn.

To begin with, desolate worlds offered her the best sanctuary. Later, she'd better understand why - while at some point in time, all inhabitable worlds had some visitors, and their decisions would be impacted by the presence of a stranger or anything a stranger had left behind, the actual variance caused simply by being on a world was small.

It wasn't totally reliable, though. A footprint in the wrong place, or waiting too long and a ship passing by her orbit and picking up life-signs, and she'd have to flee again.

Planning took time. Working out what to do, having the resolve to do it, and gathering all the pieces she needed, it could take years.

Right now, she was mostly just concerned with clothes.

Sylvie paced the dead rock of Glamorg-IV, a world of brown rock and too-cold air, far enough out from the centers of civilisation that it was abandoned in this time period. She'd stolen a few things - portable wind-power generator, fridge, food, sleeping bag - but that had been a long time ago. What she'd been wearing when the TVA first picked her up didn't exactly fit her any more. She'd re-purposed the material for a few years, and stolen a curtain of all things during one of her raids on an inhabited point in time, but there was never time for more than that with the TVA on her tail.

That day, she'd gotten up, reached for the long-tattered towel, and the material had torn at the slightest tug. Most fabrics lacked that much durability, it seemed.

It had been falling apart for a while. Okay, she was alone on this world by necessity, but she still didn't want to spend every waking hour stark naked. Wrapping a curtain around herself like some kind of toga had been pushing it, but she'd made do. She was technically royalty after all. She wasn't just going to stay like this.

She let out a long sigh. Not that she seemed to have much choice - with how she was in danger the moment she started interacting with people and causing variances, the opportunities to get clothing from some point on the timeline were very limited.

It was a fine paradox. She was only safe, comparatively, on deserted rocks, and the only place she could get actual clothes, or even inadequate replacements like sheets or curtains, were on inhabited worlds.

She cycled through her TemPad, looking at the possibilities. She was sat on an outcropping, bare legs kicking the air over a long drop. It wasn't dangerous though, for her - a combination of the lower gravity and her own durability meant even if she fell, she'd be more likely to bruise her ego than her body.

She supposed this place technically was beautiful. The air was clear, the stars above distinct and with their own unique colours all visible, with the faint haze of the larger galaxy behind them. It was perpetually night, though the faint haze near the horizon sent a gentle spectrum across the land and sky. All in all, though, Sylvia found it very hard to focus on any of that.

No, her attention was on herself. Specifically, the uncomfortable cold of the stone seat against her butt, and the chill that saw her nipples harden, pressing into the underside of her forearm where some part of her still sought some semblance of modesty. She lifted one leg, crossing it over the other, trying to avoid the awareness that would be brought on by the world's insistent, gentle breeze against every intimate part of herself.

Life would be so much easier if she could just forget that she was naked. If she could just forget the fact that for the past decades, she'd worn nothing more than a bikini made from long-discarded tattered remains of her clothes, or a curtain with ever-growing holes in. And now she was left without any of that.

Long lives had some advantages. More time to prepare, more time to plan - she had centuries to go before she'd even show much in the way of physical aging. It also meant the chance that she could be naked for a very long time.

Sylvie kept scrolling through her TemPad, before standing with new resolve.

No, she wasn't going to let that happen. Step one, get clothes. Step two, start finding a way to strike back against the TVA and Timekeepers. She had a few ideas, it was just hard to set anything up with the constant risk of the TVA appearing out of the sky because they'd detected something she hadn't even realized would be significant.

At least she'd learnt to enchant, now - she could implant suggestions in the weak-minded, or scenarios adapted from the memories of the stronger-minded. If nothing else, it ought to make it easier for her to find clothes she could wear.

Taking a last look around at the deserted world she'd made her home for a couple of months, Sylvie typed in co-ordinates into the TemPad, opened a portal, took a deep breath to psyche herself up, and ran through - she held the TemPad over her crotch, and kept her other arm crossed over her breasts as she did, flushing and so very thankful she couldn't actually see the situation she was about to run naked into.

She wasn't sure she'd have the confidence to go through if she could.