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He could recognize the same piercing eyes by the 250th photograph he scanned through. It didn't matter if the photo was black and white or a colored photo, it was always the same man with long blonde hair and green eyes. His appearance never changed, only his clothing kept changing to remain appropriate for the various eras.

The memoirs of various leaders kept mentioning a man with the blonde hair, and it seemed too coincidental that every memoir which noted his appearance also had a corresponding photo where he stood in the courts of those kings, queens and conquerors.

But no matter how far he dug back into history, there was absolutely no mention of this man's name, or in fact, any information beyond his appearance.

BEEEEP...BEEEPP....

Howard's thoughts were disrupted by his alarm. He hurriedly packed his bags and rushed to his office.

"Professor Howard? May I please have a moment of your time?"

Howard turned to the source of the voice to spot the mysterious blonde man who featured in all those memoirs and photographs. Centuries must have passed from the man's first historical appearance, yet he looked exactly the as he did from those years ago, every bit the fresh-faced young man. He immediately ushered the blonde into his room.

"Would you like to introduce yourself? You know my name but I don't know yours," said Howard.

"I'm sorry but I would prefer to play safe and not divulge any details about myself. Please let me get straight to the point. As crazy as it sounds, I'm from the year 2150. I bought a tour package to travel to the past and witness great historical events, and my agent advised me to only observe and avoid interaction as much as possible to avoid distorting history too much."

Howard gave the young man an incredulous look. Ordinarily, he would shake his head at the ludicrous story, but there was just no logical way to explain how a man remained unchanged from the 13th century all the way to the present.

"You know who I am, where I work, and came to me on your own initiative. What do you need from me?"

"I'm here to clean up loose ends, you're the last person with the biggest collection of these photos and memoirs. I need them destroyed to ensure history plays out exactly as it was meant to be. All I might have done was to observe, but all these records of my appearances, I don't know what ripple-effect they could have."

Howard immediately refused. All of these historical collections had valuable information and knowledge in them beyond this man's appearances. His last thoughts were of patting out the flames engulfing his office as the young man stood up with glowing eyes.

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"If you weren't so adamant on giving every famous person a fucking wedgie and snap selfies, we wouldn't be doing this! Whatever happened to just staying invisible and staying out of trouble, you dipshit!" the muscled-bound man with the flowing red mane barked, carrying the unconscious Professor Howard in one hand.

"Relax, it's all good, nobody knows who I am, and we got rid of all the evidence. The masquerade is still on. Did you enjoy our travels? Or the wonderfully tall tales I shared to all the puny humans along the way? I think the time travelling tourist story was my favourite," the young man shrugged.

Thor frowned. "Get that stupid blonde wig off and head back to Asgard with me, Loki. Don't make Father chuck you in that god-forsaken cave and drip snake venom all over your face again!"

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Submitted by Tregonial on Sat, Mar 04, 2023 to /r/WritingPrompts/

The prompt

You're a historian going through memoirs of famous leaders, you notice a pattern of a man with long blonde hair, who appears in the courts of men and women such as Queen Victoria, Genghis Khan, and many more. entering your office you see a man with long blonde hair sitting on a bench outside.