.

Your eyes, they shine so bright,

I wanna save their light.

– Imagine Dragons –

Raine…

Raine… Elska…

Raine Fording frowned in her sleep, unable to place the voice sighing on the edge of her conscious in a velvet whisper, like soft white fog in a twilight setting of onyx-black and violet-purple. Tossing lightly, she turned onto her left side. The images flashed vividly in her mind for a fleeting instant, and she felt as if she had slipped off a cliff or dropped from the branch of a tree a long way up from the ground.

Raine opened her eyes, a quiet cry escaping her. For a second, she felt her heart racing, then it slowed. She threw her hands up on either side of her head, lying evenly on her back, sheets tangled around her loosely.

Raine began to close her eyes again when the ceiling moved.

Startled, she blinked, sleep fading away and leaving only the hazy after-affect.

The ceiling glittered… as if… Raine lifted her head off her pillow, silver brows furrowing as she looked carefully at the ceiling above her head.

It looked as if someone had put a blanket over her bed and poked holes in it with pins of different sizes, trying to imitate—

An audible gasp came out of her mouth.

The sky...

It looked as if someone had tried to copy the night sky. And the longer she looked, the more it began to become the heavens, and she saw nebulae and distantly burning stars of every color, and brighter lights that surely couldn't be anything other than planets.

"Raine?" A silken voice, unsure, very soft, pierced through her awe.

Raine jerked upright, looking first to Rory's bed across from hers in the gloom—why all of a sudden did it seem so dark in here?—but her friend was sleeping soundly, her breathing deep and even.

Sitting up in her bed now, Raine's cautious gaze swept the room, only to land a dark space that seemed to pull into it all the light in the room. Someone stood in that shadowy place near the door, and she would have missed their presence if they hadn't moved, footsteps shuffling on the floor. She couldn't make the person out, and her heartbeat pounded—no one should be able to get into the dormitories, not unless they lived or worked here at the boarding school.

She stiffened her spine, tugging on her blankets—should she scream, she couldn't decide. "Who are you? How did you get in this room?" Her voice, though she wanted it to be strong, came out only a little louder than the stranger's had, and it wavered near the end.

It felt as if the whole room hesitated, faltering. Then, the stranger spoke, even softer, "Nothing, just a Trickster… I followed... stars... to come here."

Raine frowned, unable to par down the murmured words. Without thinking, she swept her blankets aside and set her bare feet on the floor. She stared hard at the shadows, but then they seemed as if they shrank, became less black, and the room seemed a little brighter—as it should be.

Someone very tall stood in the corner by the door, and wore something long, like a robe, perhaps? It enveloped the wraith-like figure, stealing it's form. Then it breathed, loudly, rasping, like someone who just ran a hard race, or someone very tired, and came toward her, steps shuffling, then paused when she moved two steps toward it.

Raine stared into the gloom. "None of what you said makes any sense to me."

"I know… Nor to me."

Then, the figure shifted, and suddenly, a square little blue light—the color of a lake on a cloudless day, with the barest trace of the white crispness of ice, with all the hues of frozen wintry mornings—flickered to life, and in its light she made out someone's torso, bound up in dark leather with gold ridges, like the teeth on a zipper, catching sometimes in that pale, cold light. Long fingers held the undulating cube, casting claw-like shadows on the floor where the light seeped around them. Raine watched, and the arm lifted that light, held it up as if it were a lantern, and Raine stared into dark eyes set in a pale, angular face.

He looked like a boy—not many years older than her—but then his face changed, and somehow he became older; as if he'd seen a thousand lifetimes, each one less beautiful than the one that had come before. Ink-black hair framed his face, and raven brows arced above his dark, gleaming eyes. Two short strands fell across his brow, and from the set of his mouth he seemed to be in some sort of pain.

Unsure, Raine took another step forward, feeling a nameless curiosity drawing her closer. "What are you?" She tilted her head to the side, silver hair sliding across her left shoulder.

The figure, boy—apparition?—looked down at himself, lifted his free hand, put it to his chest, as if equally uncertain of what he was as she was. Slowly, his head came back up. He swallowed, throat dry, and opened his mouth. "I—I think I'm…" awe crept in around his words, awe and awful fear, "I'm… my soul."

Raine shook her head. "I don't under—"

"Then you mustn't… must not… try." He took a step toward her, free hand stretching out imploringly, and stumbled. Raine hurried toward him, grabbing his free hand—the blue light dropped, tumbling away and going dark. But the room was no longer so vortex-black, and when Raine glanced at the ceiling, the stars and galaxies and nebulae pulsed and shone as if they actually stood beneath the open sky. She looked at the stranger, and his pale face seemed to have turned ashen.

His eyes caught hers, and slowly he straightened, breathing through his mouth, like someone terribly ill. For a moment, he looked at a point beyond her, then his eyes slanted back to her face again. His eyes were bright, and wet, as if he held back tears. Each time he breathed, it rasped dryly, but he stood strong, and she backed away when she realized he didn't need her help, but not far.

"I had..." His tongue darted out, wetting his lips, and his gaze flickered off her and returned. "I had to see you… because… I…." He flinched, pressed his eyes tight closed for an instant and opened them. "It doesn't matter why." He looked at her, and there was a soft, grave sorrow written on his face. "I had to see you."

Raine smiled kindly, despite the odd way he seemed to be familiar with her even though she didn't know his name. "That's very sweet, but..."

"I'm Loki." He smiled as he spoke; it was crooked, and endearing. "Now… you know my name." The little smile broadened faintly, as if he felt pleased with himself. Then he coughed, fingers shaking, lifting toward his collar, but the motion wavered, and he dropped his hand.

"What's wrong, are you sick?" Raine reached out, touched his hand, fingers sliding to his wrist, which was almost covered with cold, hard metal and thick, supple leather; but she managed to feel his pulse, and it beat erratically. She looked at his face, concerned.

Loki panted, lips parted, unshed tears shining on the edges of his lashes. He managed to swallow, and then he looked at her. He smiled wanly, but his eyes were terrified. "I'm… all right… merely… dying."

Raine pulled away a step farther, and there was hurt in his gaze, but shock filled her. "Wh–what?" She curled her hands against her chest, uncertain, studying him warily.

Loki's face turned into a grimace, then his chin jerked upward, and he moaned softly, until he was left panting in the still room. "I'm not… from this universe… but I…" his eyes found and held hers intently, "I know who you are, despite the gap between, and... my soul somehow… is aligned to yours, though now…" His tears began to fall, and he smiled at her, very winsome, very sad. "the threads of my life have been cut and woven in, but yours continue on… and I cannot see... an end where—" He broke off; a thin, whistling breath leaving him. Loki pitched forward and toward the left, and Raine reached out, guided him to the foot of her bed, upon which he sank down on almost gratefully.

Raine eased down beside him, her leg brushing his, his shoulder—covered with bits of golden metal and thick leather—touching hers. Her hands lay in her lap, and she fiddled her thumbs together awkwardly. "What can't you see?" she whispered, somehow feeling terribly sad, though she didn't understand why.

"An end where we… Where our souls converge. I will not… see you again." Loki swallowed, and as Raine looked at him he set his jaw.

A soft clap startled her in the ensuing silence. The blue light sprang up to life between his hands. He gazed into it, grimly. "With this… I could cut my spirit from myself, find a sort of… freedom… I do not want to die." He looked over at her, and something like yearning lay in his bright eyes.

Compassion overwhelmed her, she almost felt like sobbing; instead, Raine reached out, pressed her hand over one of his, the one that hovered above the pulsating blue light. "Nobody wants to die, I think—but there's no reason to be so afraid, it's only a moment of pain," she whispered, almost inaudibly, and looked at him, smiling in an attempt at bravery, for his sake, though she felt tears begin to sting her eyes, and her throat tighten.

Loki stared at her, afraid, uncertain, unwilling. "I do not wish… You are..." His voice broke hoarsely. "You are… so good. I do not wish to let go of this, nor of you." His hand turned beneath hers, his long fingers slipping around her smaller ones. "But… my fate is woven in… I have to let… I must try..." He held tightly to her hand, and more tears fell.

Raine breathed in, and it shook. "It's all right... it's all right." She reached out, removing her hand from his, and hugged him, like she did for Rory after a nightmare. Loki trembled just as badly as if he'd woken from some awful dream.

"How… How can I… possibly let you go?" His arms encircled her, his forehead pressing down against her shoulder blade.

Raine looked up to the ceiling, and the cosmos still lingered there. She felt tears begin to dampen her face, her hand against Loki's hair, stroking it in hopes that doing so could offer any sort of small comfort. Slowly, she drew back, and smiled through the salty droplets glistening on her face, in mirror image of his. "You'll see it isn't so hard when the time comes; everyone learns how to let go when that happens… But until then, you followed stars to get here; lie back and look at them with me as you go out again."

Loki stared at her with those haunted dark eyes—eyes that she felt somehow had seen terrible things, and housed behind them a soul that knew things a hundred times worse than what had passed before his sight. And then, slowly, he eased back, and she lay out next to him, as if they were on a quilt spread over soft grass, stargazing, not waiting for a moment to come where he didn't exist. Raine took Loki's hand in hers, to comfort him, and maybe ease his fearful heart.

The galaxies whirled and shone with breathtaking beauty, and Raine listened to Loki's shallow, whispering breaths as they lay there looking up. Then, for just a moment, she closed her eyes, wanting to hear him in the dark lying beside her, to count her own breaths and ease the ache stretching out acutely behind her breastbone.

|…|

Raine leapt upright in bed, her heart beating painfully, tears dampening her lashes. Her right hand curled into the sheets, but she could have sworn she had held someone's hand… She looked around the dark room, lit by the glow of a small light Rory kept lit to offer comfort when she woke from a nightmare.

It was so quiet, but then, like a whisper at the edges of the room then curling inward and soothing her from head to toe in comforting warmth, came a voice, softly, softly.

"Elska… goodbye."

Raine put her head against her knees, and for a moment, she cried—why she couldn't exactly be sure—but then, she smiled softly, and peace washed over her.

She looked up, and, for a moment, thought of stars, and eyes so deep they gleamed with black light. "Goodbye," Raine swallowed, "Loki."

A/N:

This is what happens when Loki dies for good but you still ship Lokaine so you have to have a multiverse farewell one-shot. Basically Loki's spirit/soul used the Tesseract to go to a universe in the multiverse where Raine exists, because he wanted to say goodbye (let's say for the sake of believability he only knows of her because the Tesseract told him when he invaded earth in Avengers: Assemble). This interaction would take place during the events of the beginning of Avengers: Infinity War.

WH