Asgard, 1,000 C.E.

Confusion filled the air as people cried and called for loved ones, ensuring no one was left behind. When the Icelandic council of the Grey Goose had met, it was not expected that they should decide in favour of the new religion of the Continent. And when the army had come against the Æsir, the hastiest of evacuations had been in order.

Odin pulled Heimdall's sword from the machine, and the Bifröst closed with a gasp and a shudder. A lone spear flew past him and splintered against the shining wall of the Observatory. He handed the sword to Heimdall. "No one comes or goes without my permission."

"Odin!"

Heimdall bowed his head. "As you wish, All-Father."

Odin turned to Loki, once friend and blood-brother, now the greatest of enemies, pushing through the crowds.

Loki stumbled over the hobble still about his ankles. He looked old, and his once blond hair had faded greatly. His hands were bound, and he had only barely slipped the muzzle from his mouth. "All-Father, my wife! My sons! They are nowhere to be found! You must reopen the Bifröst. Please, I beg of you."

"To open it again would be death," said Odin hoarsely. "You saw the army coming. It was at great risk to our safety that we released you from your bonds beneath the Serpent. You have Thor and Frigg to thank for such mercies."

He pushed past Heimdall, but Loki caught the hem of his cloak. Odin straightened. "Loki, no one leaves. We cannot afford to send the army for a woman and two children. We know the chaos that comes of your offspring."

"Then let me go. Alone." Loki fell to his knees and held up his hands. "Please."

Odin refused to look to him. "Your crimes against those of the realms would cause yet one more death: yours. And I cannot afford that."

The All-Father, the Lord of the Slain, worked his way through the many people, helping the lost return to their families.

Loki turned to Heimdall, but the great man shook his head. The son of Laufey let loose a great cry and vanished from his bonds and from the room.

Heimdall said, "All-Father."

Odin turned to where Loki had been. "He will not wander far, and we have more pressing concerns. His chaos will be confined to one factor now."

Loki re-emerged in the dark and cool passage outside the chambers he had shared long ago with Sigyn and their sons, Narvi and Vali. He sank against the wall and clutched his head, roaring with rage.

The door flew open. He stepped on a wooden block with his bare foot and shouted a curse at it. It burned and curled, until it was a pile of ash. He marched through it and surveyed the scene.

A blanket hung nearly finished on Sigyn's loom. It was to have been a blanket for Vali, riddled and charmed to frighten away the monsters of the night. The boys' tomes filled with ancient stories were neatly stacked in a corner, as were their toys. They had left out the fortress built with their blocks. Cousins to the one he had just destroyed in his anger lay scattered about the room. Sigyn had scolded them terribly for it, only for him to make them promise to clean it up as soon as they returned. Only, everything changed before they could return. The Midgard was an evil place for those who did not belong there. Even now, the air was filled with tension as the items waited for the return of their mistress and young masters.

The tidiness was more than he could handle, and he let loose a great wave of rage which threw the room into chaos. "Let me never be remembered as anything but the Sly One," he shouted, tearing at the weaving on the wall.

The charms dissipated into the air and up into his nostrils, calming him, just as his fair wife's touch once simultaneously calmed and excited him. He held the blanket to his nose, breathing deeply, and imagining her scent still lingered.

A handful of words echoed throughout the room. A curse, a blessing, whichever it was, he caught it and held tightly. He bolted the door, and lit the fire. Once it was hot and bright, he threw the words into a pot.

In his scrying bowl, he could see Odin meeting with Heimdall and Thor.

"I hope you are proud of yourself, All-Father, you who are Ygg, the Destroyer." Loki gnashed his teeth, and waved his hand over the pot. The liquid came to a bubble. A tightening in his belly gnawed at him. One of Sigyn's requirements in their marriage contract had been his renunciation of his magic. But this once, this desperation, it consumed him. And it was for a good deed, an act that could not be resented.

He looked through the window. The last of the Bifröst's path to the Midgard was fading quickly. If such a spell was to be effective, then it needed to be done before the essence faded completely for the last time.

He went into the bedrooms. There, he found hairs on the pillows: Sigyn, Narvi, Vali. He dropped the hairs into the mixture: Vali, Narvi. He hesitated before throwing in Sigyn's, a band tightening about his chest.

"I love you," he whispered. "I always will."

The long, golden hair disappeared, eaten by the mixture.

"Since I cannot succeed in physically saving you, let this one last deed be sufficient." He closed his eyes, and chanted, "Volupsa ond Voland,...Volupsa ond Voland,...Seeress and Smith, hear me, those who have gone before...Let their flesh never age, let their spirits never falter. Let neither the heat of summer, nor the cold of winter destroy them. Let their youth exist independent of Idunn's apples, let the youth protect them, and keep them strong. Let this power given to me protect them even from such a great distance—Let my youth be exchanged for theirs!"

He plunged his hands into the boiling mixture and screamed. The curse burned his body, changing it to a strange blue. His heart felt as if it would break. He could feel the strength draining from his body, through his fingertips and into the darkness.

Ever so faintly, the sounds of screams and laboured breathing broke through the bonds of space and time. And he saw a glimmer of hope, quickly overthrown by the cackling form of Angrboda.

Someone was shaking him. It broke the darkness, and Loki coughed violently, rolling onto his side. He looked up.

Thor knelt beside him, his eyes large with rage. "What have you done?"

Shaking violently, Loki pulled himself onto his hands and knees. He felt old. Then he looked to his hands and gasped. They were ancient. He felt his face and realized the wrinkles there. "Did it work?"

Thor's mighty hands clenched. "You would return to your sorceries so soon? What will they do?"

Loki attempted to stand. "I was protecting my family! Is there anything you would not do for Sif? Magni? Modi?"

Thor dropped into a stance. "Are you seeking good or merely attention? If Father learns of this, he will return you to the dungeons."

"Then let him. Let me finish this, and I will never again do any deed worthy of mention."

Thor flared his nostrils. "Finish this quickly ere Father learns of it. I will not aid you in your sorceries."

"Perhaps you would like to lose one of your sons to experience my pain?"

Mjolnir was in Thor's hand quickly. "Do not punish me. You killed Baldr by Hod's hand, and refused to mourn for him that your hateful daughter Hela would return him from her black halls. In your hatred, you sent three to Hel with the murder of one. You have left them with no choice."

"Should my wife and sons suffer for my sins?" Loki snarled.

"You should have thought about such before you began this journey into darkness and chaos," said Thor. His eyes softened. "They will be properly mourned."

The door closed behind Thor with a heavy thud.

Loki looked about the ruins of the room. The pot had shattered, and any last bit of the curse had trickled into the fire to be burned. The room stank, and there was ash everywhere.

He looked down at his hands. They were returning to a youthful pink. "Let all laws be agreed, Loki Laufeyson is no more. Let this universe begin again."

When he looked at himself in the mirror, it was to see a young man. His hair was dark as night, and his features were sharply pointed. His eyes were both green and blue, and his skin pale, so very pale.

He chuckled under his breath. "Let this new age be a chance for all to begin again. The gods of the Norse will return and overthrow this new Saviour of the Continent."

Boston, Sometime in the relative present...

The air conditioning kicked on yet again, attempting to combat the humidity of the mid-September day in Boston, Massachusetts. The lecture hall was nearly half-full, students more interested in the content of their smart phones than the lecture about to begin.

The Head of the Folklore Department tapped on the microphone. "Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for braving the heat to join us today. We have a very special guest..."

A classroom's worth of students hurried in and found seats. It was one of the special freshman seminars. Their cheeks were red, from heat, embarrassment, or both.

"...As well as having consulted on several of the History Channel's Viking and medieval documentaries. Please join me in welcoming Professor Sarah Thorson."

A striking woman in her mid- thirties stepped up to the microphone, her blonde hair pinned up in a chignon. Her cheeks were very pink, and she wore a dark green cotton dress and black pumps. "Good afternoon, everyone," she said with a slight Scandinavian accent. "Thank you for attending my lecture today. I'm sure you'd prefer to skip through the introduction and progress immediately to the interesting parts concerning the 'hot Scandinavian gods'—"

A couple of girls giggled in the front.

"—But I'm afraid I have to fill you in on some basic information concerning the history of the Æsir and their contemporaries before we begin."

The screen turned to an engraving of a medieval scribe, hunched over his work.

"First things first," said the Professor. A wedding band sparkled on her left hand. "By show of hands, how many of you had heard of the Norse gods before the Battle of New York where the Avengers debuted? Thank you. How many of you are here hoping the government has leaked pictures of the Avengers and I have them on my slides?" She laughed. "Thank you for your honesty.

"But we're going a bit further back to a time when the Norse gods lived amongst humanity. It is arguable that the Norse gods were aliens with superior technology. But that's a lecture for a science fiction course, which I will be teaching next winter, if anyone should be so interested.

"Speaking of time, for anything involved with the Norse gods, attempting to create a perfectly linear timeline would be near impossible. It would make Doctor Who have perfect linear sense. As John Lindow argues, we have the 'distant past', the 'near past', and 'the mythological present'."

Professor Thorson walked about the stage, motioning with her hands. "Respectively, these are creation, what has happened and will not be revisited, and what is happening. There is no linear order. Any attempt to create linear order will send you straight to Bedlam hospital, which probably still exists in some parallel universe. As Lindow states, 'Such inconsistencies are the nature of mythology' because the works come from a living, breathing culture where we lacked the universal access to knowledge," she grabbed the Head's smart phone from his hands, "so readily available now."

She handed the phone back to the Head with a smile. "So just because something appears to coincide directly with something else, does not mean it is. There is only three true points we may reference: Creation, Baldr's death, and the Ragnarok. Everything else floats about in a free nature."

The screen changed again to an artist's depiction of the Norse gods.

"So, the Norse pantheon. It is headed by Odin, or Oðin, who has twelve official names, and dozens more scattered throughout the texts. Odin is an extremely complicated character, and it is hotly debated whether he was actually head of the pantheon originally. Many scholars debate whether it was actually this one, Tyr, the one handed god and purveyor of justice, who headed the pantheon."

The slide changed and several people cheered.

"I see everyone recognizes Thor. He is the thunderer, although it is also believed that he was also a priest. He is the son of Odin and Jorð, the Earth, and it was argued for a while that he was a mountain. He is certainly a chthonic or earthly deity.

"Next is Loki, who—" She plugged her ears while several people screamed. "I'm sure he appreciates your enthusiasm, ladies and gentlemen. Trust me. Now, Loki, according to Snorri Sturluson, is 'pleasing, even beautiful to look at, but his nature is evil and his actions are undependable'. His wives are Sigyn, who mothers Narvi and Vali, and Angrboda, who mothers Fenruswulf Odinsbane, Jormungundr the Midgard Serpent, and Hela, Queen of the Underworld. Loki's purpose throughout the tales changes as often as the tales themselves do. In the Poetic Eddda, he is the blood-brother of Odin, meaning they are sworn to be loyal and true to each other until the end of time. He ultimately betrays Odin at the Ragnarok, the Twilight of the Gods, leading the forces of evil against the Æsir. Loki's children Fenruswulf and Jormungundr kill and are killed by Odin and Thor respectively, and Loki kills and is killed by Heimdall."

It was very quiet in the lecture hall.

Professor Thorson stood up straighter. "In the Prose Edda, Loki takes a less malicious role, and is the travelling companion of Thor. In the majority of texts, however, Loki's role is consistently that of a broker. He makes the deals for the Æsir, and when they want to break a deal in order to avoid paying up, he is typically threatened with death unless he finds a way to break the deal. Hence the conception of Sleipnir."

A fan art drawing of Loki looking a center-fold for horses popped up. The slide changed to a chart of the Æsir. "I will do a quick introduction for the rest of the gods and goddesses before moving on to the bulk of my lecture. We have Frigg, the wife of Odin who also was used by his brothers at one point when they thought him dead. We have Gerd, a giantess, and the wife of Frey. She's very spunky, and I enjoy her poem. We have Nanna, the wife of Tyr and mother of Forseti, who is a judge. We also have Idunn, the wife of Bragi, the first poet. She is the keeper of the apples of youth for the Æsir, just as her husband is the keeper of poetry.

"Then we have Frey and his sister Freyja, the children of Njord. All three are Vanir hostages exchanged for peace between the two groups. Now the strange thing in theory happens here. Without the Vanir, there are no fertility deities. Anyone who has taken mythology knows the importance of fertility deities. The fact that these deities are outsiders..."