To the inattentive eye, there is a kind of order and uniformity to trees-even cosmic ones.
The branches consistently flower, grow foliage, and then end from time to time; the form is, on average, recognizably similar to others of its kind. It takes a simple wisdom to recognize that trees are the epitome of chaos. A tangled mess of gnarled roots and starting places and ending places, each tree unlike the others and reliable only in its pursuit of the sun.
For Loki, ever the lover of chaos, the disorder of Yggdrasil is familiar.
He is swept along the starlit wastes of the cosmos in the embrace of something as impervious to definition as himself. It is inconceivable; it is beautiful. It is Yggdrasil, the great tree connecting the realms, the living, the dead...
He is the latter. This is all part of the plan.
Two thoughts occur to a usually eloquent mind as he speeds towards an uncertain fate:
The first, That hurt.
The second,This is not like the last time.
When Heimdall arrives at the gates of Valhalla, the pain and grief of the slaughter of Asgard just moments before dissolve. He finds he can stand; he is in the deeps of a dark, motionless night, at the edge of a great shaft of light pouring from the gates themselves. Furthermore, he finds he still has his sword, and his Sight has dimmed.
Try as he might, he cannot quite see Thor.
This thought passes, and Heimdall heaves a deep sigh. The gate before him are made of woven strands of gold-swathes of growing, living gold, interlocked with ancient hilts and sheathes bearing the names of the Allfathers. He reaches out a steady hand and gives the gate a gentle nudge. It opens.
Someone arrives behind him with a thud, and then a sound of surprise.
"Loki," Heimdall says, without turning, still peering onward into the white light.
Muffled swearing.
Loki finds his feet, and then he is beside Heimdall, perhaps establishing a record as the most disgruntled Valhalla acceptee. "Alright," he says, gazing wide-eyed at the gates. "Suffice it to say this comes as a surprise to everyone."
"How are they?" Heimdall asks softly.
"The living? I'm afraid I'm only a little behind you. Give them time, they'll be joining us soon."
"And Thor?"
Heimdall looks at Loki for the first time; he watches the marrs of death fade from the prince's face and neck, wondering absently how Loki made his last stand—what way he, the deathless, managed to sacrifice himself, and if he felt it worth it.
"Alive," says Loki. "I made sure of that."
The gates open in full, and the deep thrum of Heimdall's unquenched heart quickens a little. His vision at last adjusts to the brilliant green and blue beyond. A figure stands beyond the threshold, and with her, the spires of a city, of great shields, engilded by some dawn beyond the doorway, the Asgard of old—
"Come," Heimdall says, his hair stirred by a welcome breeze. "Let's rest."
But Loki lingers at that threshold, even now unable to exonerate himself. For a moment that same breeze flutters his veil of calm and Heimdall discerns the keen longing beneath—the relief, the confusion, the wry cynicism—but then it is gone. Heimdall is reminded of Frigga.
"She waits for you."
"And if I go in," Loki says, in a low rush of words, "I may never leave. I did not—anticipate—Valhalla, I thought—"
"Hel?"
"Valhalla has few Ways back, and Hel, understandably, far more. After a brief excursion in the latter I think I have a better chances there. Willing aid, people who will prove themselves and fight, even unto a second death."
"Back," Heimdall echoes. A small smile, and Loki seems a little ruffled at what he interprets from Heimdall as pride. "You think you stand a chance against Thanos?"
"Perhaps not," Loki admits. "But what more can we lose?"
It is strange to see the man in the shaft of blinding sunlight; Heimdall cannot think of the last time Loki had not been half in the gloom of ships and twilight palace halls. The figure beyond the doorway stands still, perhaps time itself does as well.
"If you're certain, then my duty remains to Asgard. I'll come with you."
"I'd be understating if I said you've fulfilled your duty, Heimdall." A pause, and a gleaming shift of eyes. "I doubt you will find warriors willing, but if you want to help, the best in Valhalla could put a few dents in his gauntlet."
"And if I do?"
Loki is already moving, quickly reclaimed by the starstrewn void beyond; the darkness ebbs and flows into his hair and smothers the light of his eyes.
"Then Thor is in for one hell of a surprise."
The eyes of Valhalla gaze into the heart of night, and see its heir—son of Asgard—turn away. Frigga is moved. She who had long watched her sons in their wayfaring, and who waits twice at the opening of the glade, first for Odin and then Loki.
A young man—a Midgardian—whose company and conversation she has valued of late, a man with a voice like bold and lilting music, joins her at the threshold. "Was that him?"
Her answer is in a wry smile. "It seems he has no intention of remaining dead after all."
"And the war? Is that still going to happen?"
"It will do more than happen, Pietro," Frigga raises her head in recognition as the curtains of shadow part to admit Heimdall, the sentry of eld. "It will come here."
"To Valhalla? How?"
Heimdall bows deeply to the Queen. The three stand at the nexus of a new age; the age of Thanos, and a terror of a million souls, and the opening gates of the worlds beyond. Perhaps the very shattering of Yggdrasil.
"Your son is on his way to Hel," Heimdall says, rising.
"Yes," Frigga says. "So I've oft been told."