"Stop," Loki said.
Chronus stopped.
"You told Satou," Loki said quietly, "that watching Morgana understand she was part of the mechanism was the part you didn't find satisfying. That you had expected to feel something you didn't feel."
He crouched again.
All the way down. Elbows on knees. Close enough that the distance between them was the distance between a verdict and the person receiving it.
"I'm going to tell you something," Loki said.
His voice was very quiet and completely without theater and completely without mercy.
"Three centuries ago, I found a young vampire in a burning village. He was the only one left. He was sitting in the ash where his house had been and looking at the sky and hadn't decided what to do with the rest of his existence."
He paused.
"I sat with him for an hour. Then he looked at me and said: you're the theatrical one. Do you have anything that needs doing."
