SLEEP

Thor's dreams are split between Donald Blake's and those of the thunder god; in his nightmares, he is operating on a patient, putting an eye back into a socket, and then his tools become two ravens and the operating table becomes two wolves, and his scalpel becomes Mjolnir and the patient becomes Odin.

Sif dreams of hunting deer in cold snow, and is disgusted by the Oklahoma heat when she wakes up. As always, her hand flies to her head, instinctively checking that all her hair is still there.

Balder dreams in black and white, although he remembers dreaming in colour, many, many lifetimes ago. Balder's dreams are painfully mundane, the same scene repeated over and over. The mistletoe arrow flying, the world weeping, the arms of Hela. Always, his death, and always the same, always the catalogue for the end-of-the-world to come. He tries to change it, tries to dodge the arrow, but it follows him wherever he runs.

Kelda dreams of Bill. Bill has replaced all her previous memories, the golden memories of her youth, of Odin strong and Asgard gleaming and she a high goddess. Not a weeping, wailing woman with a broken heart. She does not regret the loss of these shining memories one bit. Bill's scent is with her when she sleeps, Bill's arms are around her when she wakes.

Vostagg dreams of his wife, and his children. Fandral dreams of beautiful elf maidens. Hogun the Grim does not dream; there isn't anything he wants other than what he has, and, secretly, he is often deeply worried that he may be the only truly happy man in Asgard.

Who can say what Hela dreams of? She does dream, though, and her dead- her poor, beloved dead, rejected by Valhalla but welcome in her domain- stroke her brow and fan her with feathers and palm fronds while she rests.

Loki dreams of Ragnarok, of bloody skies and broken ground. He wakes up sweat-soaked, shaking, and goes outside to look down upon Asgard from his balcony. Hate coils in his belly, and he conjures up his dreams again. Behind his closed eyelids, Asgard crumbles, Asgard burns, Asgard dies, and it is so beautiful it makes him weep.

Heimdall never dreams for Heimdall the watchman never sleeps, but his almighty eyes see the dreams of others, and he never forgets anything.

Amora dreams of her youth, and the many names she has carried- Freya, Idunn, Enchantress. They fall off her, dead, like snakeskin. They make her miss what she had, miss Asgard in all its multitudinous cycles. Golden, gleaming Asgard. (Filthy, wretched Asgard where all men were slaves to fate, where she had no allies left, where Thor was blind and Odin had called her a whore.) She sleeps with the door to her small, human apartment locked. She is terrified that one day she might sleepwalk back.