The Palace of Castus
'You said what?' Loki asked the dragon standing in front of him in shock. He had heard of the prideful dragon of time for ages, since the time he had been chosen to rule Castus, and had done everything possible not to come into contact with the age-old being. Imagine his shock when he woke up from his pleasurable sleep to be informed that the god of time was awaiting his presence in the throne room.
Since he couldn't disrespect the dragon presence by not meeting him, he had regretfully dismissed his Leon courtesans from his bed chambers and rose to meet the god of time. The news that met his ears was enough, though, to drive out the lingering memories of his late-night pleasure from his mind as dread enveloped his entire being. 'How, why, when?' he asked rapidly. Aerion sighed at the questions fired at him in succession; just this morning he had been moaning his ever-present frustration at his monotonous cycle of time. 'Even I don't know; I'm still in shock,' he answered truthfully. Loki hissed in disgust, 'Who asked of your well-being? I'm inquiring as to the cause of this catastrophic message you just landed on me,' he returned. Aerion grimaced. 'A roar I had let out crashed into Mari's orb and caused mana leakage into Earth; that's what opened the time portal,' he answered. Loki blinked, stood up, walked around, deep in thought, and suddenly stopped as a thought occured to him. He turned to regard Aerion once again and asked, 'So you wrecked Aster and the ruler's planets?'
Aerion grimaced again in pain. 'Yes,' he answered. Loki's countenance suddenly changed to one of mockery. 'You're so dead when they find out,' he mocked. Aerion's nostrils breathed out fire at Loki's mockery. Loki shouted out in caution, 'Hey, hey, watch the carpets!' he said. Aerion transformed into his human form once again, as he did with Maro, he ignored the look of interest Loki gave his body. 'If I don't fix this, not only will I end up in trouble,' he informed Loki, snapping his attention from his spectacular naked body, 'but every one of us will have to answer to Andromil.' Loki sat down on the throne and sighed. 'So what do you want me to do?' he asked him. 'Remember, I'm not in charge of time and the souls of the earthlings; that's obviously you and the ruler's department,' he added. Aerion nodded in acknowledgement at what Loki said. 'Yes, but you're the one everyone runs to during this kind of event.'
'What kind of event?' he asked back, clueless as to what the dragon was referring to. 'Chaos, disasters, catastrophes,' he listed out. 'Yeah, and so what? Don't forget I'm also the god of everlasting prosperity and can also fix the things I destroy,' he retorted back without shame.
'Exactly,' Aerion agreed. 'That's why I need you.'
Loki sat up at Aerion words. 'You need me to do what exactly?' he asked again confused, his mind not following.
'Fix my problem,' he blurted out and continued at Loki's look of confusion. 'I don't want the ruler to know I blundered and wrecked his precious Earth, so I've decided to use one of the souls departing from Earth to resolve this difficulty. I've slowed the time portal and temporarily stopped it from sucking souls from Heaven's part so the ruler wouldn't know. I've also chosen the dimension to put the chosen soul into, but that's where the difficulty begins,' he said. Loki leaned forward on his seat to hear the remaining words. 'What difficulty?'
'The soul selected would need a new body, but Stari, the goddess of birth, hates me and would obviously refuse to give me a new body to put the chosen soul into this dimension,' he explained, aggrieved. Loki burst out in laughter, tears coming out of his eyes. He tried unsuccessfully to stop his merriment but couldn't at the aggrieved tone in Aerion's voice.
'Once you're done, I'll be here waiting,' Aerion said. Loki tried again to stop laughing and was successful this time around; he stared at Aerion and wiped the gleeful look from his handsome face. 'That's not surprising; you impregnated her with one of your dragon spawns and abandoned her for centuries to deal with the aftermath,' he answered.
'That was a mistake,' he answered back. 'Yeah, a baby dragon mistake,' Loki replied wryly.
Aerion growled and transformed back into a dragon. Loki raised his hands in surrender, a smile on his face, and said, 'Calm down, you snarling beast of a dragon. If you truly want my help, you need to stop growling at me like one of Earth's mindless beasts,' he admonished him. Aerion bent his head in shame and bowed his head in a gesture of apology towards Loki.
Loki smiled in understanding. 'But really, how do I factor in any of this? Last time I checked, Stari hated every living male in the universe because of your mistake,' he recounted. Aerion nodded. 'But as the goddess of birth, she can't ignore the request to create a new body for reincarnated souls,' he reminded him. Loki frowned. 'But souls can only be reincarnated into a new world if Andromil approves it,' he countered. 'Yes, Andromil already approved it,' he replied. 'Really, when was that?' Loki asked in astonishment.
'When he was signing the new world for my baby mistake,' he answered back. Loki's blank look was all he got in reply to his statement. Aerion knew that Loki had every reason to be astonished; apart from the nine worlds of Euira, the ruler of the worlds had declared that he would no longer create a new world, but after Stari had pleaded for a new world for Aerion bastard offspring, Andromil, unable to go back on his word, had instead created doors to connect the world of books and novels, thereby making them into alternate worlds of Euira. Aerion had been shocked to discover that the ruler, after one of his visits to Earth, had given inspiration to a popular Korean novelist to create a book that had gone viral on the internet and hit the top shelves of the libraries and stores after three days. The book was the world the ruler created for his son, an alternate dimension with a few similar characteristics to Earth. This and more Aerion-related to the bewildered Loki. 'So you're saying the ruler approved this soul into your son's world?' he asked disbelievingly. 'Yes,' Aerion answered in the affirmative. 'Wow, what an unlucky soul,' he replied. Aerion grimaced; everyone knew that his son from Stari was an unhinged maniac that delighted in chaos and wars, even more than Loki, and was nicknamed the god of war by the beings residing in the eight worlds of Euira. Loki sighed, his mind made up, and stood up once again from the throne. He walked towards Aerion and smiled up at his Draconian head. 'I'll help you if you do just one little favor for me.' Aerion felt discomfort at the manic look present in Loki's eyes, but he had come prepared, as he knew that Loki would never help anyone for free without requesting something that would forever haunt them. He stretched out his right paw towards Loki, and a bright light shot out of his finger, sealing the agreement. 'Thank you,' he said. Loki's smile grew bigger. 'You're welcome, my lord,' he added.