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Water bubbles and falls back into the basin at the Trickster's command. Pinched peaks form when shoved to sort through the multiverse in search of a single haystack. Loki's depth of knowledge is sufficient to know he needs to provide a connection, the more intimate the better. A lock of hair or blood is best. Beloved, sentimental objects pregnant with significance to Kai are better. He, himself, is not enough. It has to be personal, a link for the spell to latch onto.
Shaping the focus after offering that connection takes time: an hour of unbroken concentration. In that time, nothing can pass but staring into the bowl at a sight visible only to him. Magic starts to fray around the corners. The enchantment leaks. The scrying device effectively boils off its power in the hunt, its aura fading and cracking, losing colour to his eyes.
First glimmerings appear about 45 minutes in, muted and pale. Hints of fog bubble across the diminishing water. Loki's rheumy gaze picks up almost no colour except the greyscale spectrum, uniformly dark. Nightfall or subterranean. More time passes.
Mist spills harshly over the sight, a noxious, thick cloak obscuring vision past a few yards. What shapes he can see are distinctive, sharp curves and black metal filigree, stone spiralling in a high, thin spire punctuated by many decorative windows inlaid by obsidian glass. That alone immediately gives a sense of location for the ornamentation is unique to three realms: Nidavellir, Svartalfheim, Alfheim. The architecture of a manor or a tower or a fortress bears the hallmarks of those with profound artistic talent.
Where Kai is, in all this, he might not be clear. Every attempt to scrutinize deeper meets with profound resistance, the wards banning scrying preventing much of a shift. Under Loki's will the magic screams and tears, coming unravelled in places. He cannot see so well as he can smell the oddly woodsy scent, wet stone and that primordial earth blended together. Nidavellir is not known for its trees.
Veils of fog slip past, and then he catches it, the sight of a balcony. Figures slip in and out, easily mistaken for shades. And indeed, they look like it, wearing black, head to toe, faces shrouded in masks without delineation or feature but for dark eye sockets and sensual mouths. Two accompany him, the quarry: Kai.
One point apart, the pale form of the ljosalf facing away, and from neck to waist he is branded by the stylized artistry of a deciduous tree in full leaf — dark, almost black ink imposed on pale flesh. An ash, by the looks of it, painstakingly rendered in bold, accomplished detail. Around him weave silver lines, an adornment to accentuate the mark or tattoo, whatever it is. He doesn't look forward. And he drinks water deeply, sensually, like a glutton, swallowing it down, before releasing the cup onto some dark table.
Shadows quiver. Then the spell rips fully apart, the artifact crackling with a black spectrum of energy that shudders through it to destroy the connection entirely. Divining energies recoil back on the source - Amora's: their anchor torn free, stamped on, and returned to sender in the nastiest way possible.
Loki alone hears the soft voice, the whisper of a lover, behind his ear. "Oh, very good. I cannot wait to see you again in the flesh. Ever the best of guests and best of entertainment!" A low ripple of amusement, in that masculine tone skirting midnight shades. "But not them. They aren't invited. Bring them and the wonderful savage we've been hosting suffers a fate worse than death. Won't Hela be delighted!" The spell slices away with the building wave of laughter, a touch too delighted with itself to be wise or welcome or safe. A voice stirring memory, surely, if the Norn Pool worked at all.
Malekith.