Author's Note: Written for aurvandil for Yuletide.
FYI, this is almost entirely in prose-the poetry's just for flavor!
EDIT: I don't know what's with the formatting here. It won't let me space the verse properly, so I'll just have to add periods after every verse...
When the world was young and wild,
And magic reigned supreme,
And myth and chaos ruled the land
And all was like a dream
.
Then two young gods there met and matched
Their wit on field of war.
Though at that time they never guessed
What fate might have in store.
.
None now recall that meeting first
Now lost by winds of time
Nor has who won that epic match
Been taken down in rhyme.
.
But both those gods their worth did prove,
And showed themselves worthwhile—
The one by wisdom past reproach,
The other by his guile.
.
An odder pair you never saw
Unlike in every way
In order, chaos, mischief, law
The other held at bay.
.
And yet the closer you might look
The more it might be said
That Loki's wisdom, Odin's lies
Could share a common thread.
.
Inseparable the two became
As they traversed their land
And fought its dangers side by side
And took its mead to hand.
.
So here it is our story starts
On field of battle won—
When both would choose that geas to take
When brothers they'd become.
Thought and Memory wheeled their way through the cold air, over what might have been a frozen tableau of a battlefield.
The ravens' master stood there, a young Odin, not yet grown to the heights of wisdom, holding a stained sword (for his great spear had not yet been forged), and looking with both eyes at the body of the giant that had so nearly slain him.
Nearby, a great wolf (twin to the one that lay dead beneath its giant master) padded through layer of frost on the ground and made its way to Odin's side. It arched its neck and shook its head, sending rippling motions through its fur, and its whole form rippled in response. It stretched its neck impossibly upward, and its whole body rippled into the form of a young man.
Loki—for that was who it was—smiled a smile every bit as predatory as the wolf's form he had just shed, and wiped the blood from his cut face.
"Clearly, he overestimated himself. He should have thought twice before attacking us."
Odin stepped back and wiped his sword on the ground.
"Perhaps, but don't be too hasty to dismiss him."
Loki scoffed.
"Please. If he was fooled by the form of his wolf, while riding said steed, I think I'm every bit justified in thinking him a fool."
"A fool, perhaps, but a strong fool," said Odin. "How long has it been since a foe has spilled both our blood in battle?" He held up his own injured arm to demonstrate.
Loki only grinned.
"What does it matter? We won, and now we shall have but another triumph to drink to. Just think of it—Odin and Loki, most powerful pair in the world, whose blood may be mixed on the battlefield, but never in defeat!"
For a moment, Odin looked like he was about to object, but the pulse of victory was still pounding too strongly in his veins.
"True enough! They will drink to our names for ages to come, and today's victory will be forgotten, overshadowed by the greatness of victories to come."
"Indeed," said Loki, picking up the tale, "one giant is nothing. One day, the two of us will have victories to really sing about."
Odin smiled, and his eyes glinted like sword-steel.
"And wherever we go, they shall offer us ale and mead simply for our presence, while other tell our stories!"
Loki's eyes darkened.
"They shall offer you ale, perhaps, but we both know there are few halls where I would be welcomed."
"And why should that be so?" exploded Odin, filled with the righteous heat of battle-loyalty. "Why, when we have fought so long side by side? Why should you not be welcome wherever I am?"
"You and I both know why. Who in this land would willingly welcome one in whose veins runs the blood of Jotunheim?"
"Then it will run in my veins as well!"
Loki looked up sharply, and there was that instant of silence that exists between one heartbeat and the next.
"Let in run in my veins as well," continued Odin, "and then none who would have me could refuse you. And wherever I am offered drink, I will not accept it unless it is offered to you as well."
Loki's silver tongue was, for once, silent.
Odin pulled a dagger from his belt and held it out.
"You said it yourself—the battlefield has already mixed our blood as comrades. Let us mix it again in truth—this time as brothers, as kin for all to see."
Loki's eyes flashed green, and his smile slowly grew.
"Brothers," he said slowly. "Brothers, sons of different mothers, brothers by blood and battle." He pulled out his own knife, with its straight blade and unexpectedly curved hilt. "And neither of us shall have a cup but the other shall taste its contents."
Loki drew the blade across his palm, and a thin line of blood leapt up in its wake.
Odin smiled, and pulled the dagger across his own hand.
"Brothers to the end."
He held out his hand, and Loki met it.
Overhead, Thought and Memory wheeled on the very edge of sight.
Many ages passed for the ageless gods, and time turned through many harvests of Idunn's apples. But though the gods remained much the same in body, even they could not escape the changes wrought by an age's worth of memory.
Perhaps it was Odin who changed the most, sacrificing much, but gaining wisdom beyond any god of man before or since. He drank from Mimir's well, and hung himself on the World Tree to learn the Eighteen Runes, and grew to fill his role as foremost of the gods, All-Father and Bringer of Wisdom.
Or perhaps it was Loki who changed the more, growing into his role as the trickster of the gods—or perhaps his everchangingness remained exactly the same, and it was the world itself that changed around him.
For his basic nature remained the same, ever leaping from one thing to the next like fire to wood, silver tongue getting him both into and out of trouble, and ever delighting in coming out on top in a game of wits.
In the wild world of his youth, all this was nothing but an assurance of sure footing on an ever-changing ground.
But both Midgard and Asgard had since settled into the sort of order that could not abide mischief, and slowly but surely, Loki's honor among the gods began to ebb.
Loki saw this, and remembered.
As time went on, Loki's heart darkened, and his anger grew.
His harmless pranks grew more daring, and the enmity between the Aesir and the lone Jotun grew.
But Loki was no more blind to the future than Odin, and as their fate grew nearer, his bitterness grew as well.
Odin, for his part, did everything in his power to delay their fate, and looked as little as possible towards Loki's part in it, turning his good eye away from his brother's future.
For all his wisdom, he had still accepted a blind spot in payment.
So things between them grew more and more precarious, but still Odin overlooked Loki's acts of spite—until he did something that none could ignore.
Odin slammed Loki against the wall.
"How could you?"
Any clearer questions were lost in silent rage as he held his brother by the shirtfront.
The Jotun laughed bitterly.
"Oh, didn't I make myself clear? There was this mistletoe…"
He was cut off by Odin throwing him to the floor.
"He was my son! My kin and heir!"
Loki's lips twisted in bitterness, but the laugher was gone.
"Your son, was he? And now you'll never see him again? Tell me, Odin All-Seeing," he spat, "what do you see when you look to the desolate corners of the world, or to the depths of the sea, or deeper still, to the realm of Niflheim?"
Odin clenched his fists. "That is no—"
"My children!" cried Loki, springing to his feet. "My sons you banished and bound, and my daughter you sent to the depths of the underworld—I'm sure she and Baldur will get along splendidly, aren't you?" His eyes glinted the deep red of a dangerous sky.
"They would have destroyed the world! You cannot compare—"
"No, they will destroy the world! That is what you saw, is it not?"
Odin's lips tightened.
"It is. And yet I did not spill their blood—for your sake!"
"For my sake? For my sake, you would foreswear killing my children—in favor of a fate worse yet!"
"What would you have had me do?" Odin's fist clenched as though wrapped around the shaft of Gungnir, though his spear was not with him.
"What would I have you do? What do you think? Release them!" Loki's eyes shifted to a murky green. "Release them, and I will weep for Baldur."
Odin slammed his fist against the wall.
The silence stretched out like a great rift.
Loki folded his arms.
"Well?"
Odin looked up, his grey eye cold as death, and stood tensely in front of him.
"You know I cannot."
Loki's lips twisted into a bitter mockery of a smile.
"Then nor can I."
Odin stepped forward, rage simmering in every line of his body.
"Why would you do such a purposeless thing?"
"None of my actions have ever been purposeless," hissed Loki. "Even acts done out of nothing but spite have a purpose."
"You killed my son out of spite?" shouted Odin. "Balder was my kin—and therefore yours as well. And yet you killed him—no! You were not content merely to kill him. You killed him with the hand of his own brother, and then made a mockery of his mother's efforts to retrieve him from the underworld!"
"Fitting, isn't it, that the hand of one brother should cause the downfall of the other?" spat Loki. "But that is not all I did, if only you had the eyes to see it." His own glinted red.
"What is there to see? You killed my son, and for that you cannot be forgiven."
"Have a care, Odin All-Wise," hissed Loki. "Your wisdom may be matchless, but it is not limitless. Beware, also, what you fill my cup with—for remember, you will also have to drink from it."
Odin closed his eye for a long moment, and then stepped back and raised his hand.
"It matters not. Your fate has already been set—Kinslayer!"
Though wily Loki attempted to flee, even the master of a thousand forms could not escape Odin's nets forever.
Odin's wrath was terrible, but even then, he could not kill Loki—for to do so would make him, too, a kinslayer.
Nevertheless, Odin All-Father also became Odin Oath-Breaker, and the wheels of fate began to turn.
All was as he had so long foreseen and dreaded, and thus the fate of the world, so long delayed by his hand, came speeding up upon them all, and the world raced towards Ragnarok.
Stormclouds raced to fill the empty sky, and the first swirls of wind shifted the hair over Odin's empty eye.
He knew what was coming, had known it for an age, but only now was he ready to face it.
The sky darkened, the icy wind bit Odin's face, and the dark mass of the edge of the horizon sharpened into the shape of an enormous ship, bearing the armies of Jotunheim, led by their traitor-king.
Odin's steady eye met Loki's quicksilver ones, and for just an instant, they were once again in the world of their youth.
Then Thought and Memory ceased their wheeling and returned to their master's shoulders, and Odin raised his arm and summoned the army of Asgard.
The great host of Valhalla, long-gathered for the occasion, swept forward, led by the remaining gods of Asgard—even gentle, swordless Frey—and the last battle of the Fates was joined.
Now songs are sung of that dread day
And tales are told of how
Both gods and monsters met their fate
As price of broken vow.
.
Thor stood tall and met the foe
He'd faced but once before—
And now no cat that serpent large
And bit its tail no more.
.
He slew the snake with massive strike
And did its threat dispel
Then raised his arm in triumph great
Took nine steps back and fell.
.
And even yet are stories told
Of Odin's final fall
Alone he faced the unbound wolf
That once he'd held in thrall.
.
Then Loki's son did open wide
His jaws unto the sky
And thus did Odin, king of gods,
Fulfill his fate and die.
.
And so the tale is ever told
Of doom of gods of yore
Whose mortal fate, so long delayed
Was met in darkest war.
.
Still, though death takes both strong and weak
And all will final-fall.
Yet even then, the truest end
May not prove past recall.
All was blackness in the great wide plane, if a plane it was.
Odin floated—was he floating?—for what might have been an endless age, and might also have been no time at all.
In that endless darkness Odin floated, or fell, and nothing was.
A breath of air shifted the hair on his face.
With a dimness like a distant spark, Odin knew that air was.
Air was, and Odin was.
The distant dimness in his mind lightened a shade, and he wondered vaguely why that should matter.
The darkness was warm and gentle, like a pleasant dream just past the edge of memory. Part of him wanted to stay in that dream forever, just floating in that pleasant emptiness.
But another part of him was already stirring, seeking the sharpness it knew must be beyond the muted depths of the dream.
Resisting the gentle heaviness around him, Odin slowly blinked his eyes open.
He was rewarded by an endless expanse of greyness to replace the endless black. However little it might be, there was light here in this vast emptiness.
"Decided to rejoin the waking world, have we?"
The voice cut through another layer of Odin's mental haze, and he sat up—or perhaps the world simply wheeled around him.
In either case, he found himself on his feet, surrounded by a world that, while still grey, held more of the grey of early dawn than of the emptiness of before.
As the world took shape around him, so did the form of the speaker, standing, arms crossed, in front of him.
"Loki…" he said faintly, for he could think of nothing else to say.
"I'd say 'The Land of the Living'," continued Loki, contemplatively, "but…well."
Memories filled the void, and Odin knew again what had happened.
But he did nothing.
He simply stared at Loki, aware that he should still be angry, but the greyness seemed to have sapped everything from him but a mild curiosity.
"What is this place?"
Loki smiled. "Finally willing to admit that even your wisdom has its limits, brother?"
Odin merely tilted his head.
Loki looked up contemplatively. "I suppose that's the difference between us. You wanted to know what would happen in the end, and were willing to sacrifice anything to reach that goal." He spread his arms languidly. "I, of course, wasn't willing to sacrifice anything at all, except perhaps what didn't belong to me in the first place." He smiled again. "But more than that, we weren't asking the same questions. You were interested in the great stories, the final fate of Asgard…and then did your best to avoid them. I was under no such illusions of being able to fight fate."
"You worked actively to cause Ragnarok." In another time, or place, that might have been an accusation, but here in the dawn-twilight, it was hardly more than an expression of mild interest.
Loki laughed. "After all this time, do you still know me so little? I told you—I do nothing without cause."
"You also said your only reason might be spite."
"True. I had no greater purpose for stealing Sif's hair, for instance. But for other things, I had my reasons."
Odin merely raised his eyebrows, and Loki inclined his head.
"Why should I have worked to prevent the inevitable, when I could instead work to turn it to my advantage?" His eyes glinted fox-gold.
Odin raised his eyebrows. "Hastening the end of the world was to your advantage?"
Loki's smile showed teeth.
"Precisely."
Odin sighed. "Very well, I'm listening. Pray tell: how could the end of the world be to your advantage?"
At that, Loki laughed, long and loud.
"My dear brother, for all your alleged wisdom, you really are blind sometimes. How could the end of the world be to my advantage? You think too small, and never did learn the art of considering the unthinkable. And besides, the answer is all around you."
Odin looked around, following Loki's leading gesture. It seemed lighter now, and the grey sky—for a sky it was—was filled with streaks of pale blues and purples.
The odd, drifting complacency seemed to be waning as well, and Odin's thoughts worked their way back toward their normal paths.
It was then that he saw what Loki meant, and the growing clarity of the world around them shifted into his mind.
Odin stared at the world around him in wonderment as the pale light grew. On the edge of the horizon—for there was a horizon—the faint streaks of purple had lightened through pink towards the thinnest line of gold.
"How did you know?"
"I told you—I ask different questions. I think the unthinkable. I wonder things that others might deem pointless. You might try it some time." He smiled again, and his eyes shifted to a soft blue. "You ask 'What can I do to delay the end of the world?'" He closed his eyes and opened his hand. "I ask…what happens afterward?"
The line of gold burst into a brilliant light pouring over the horizon as the young sun rose for the first time over a newborn world.
Odin gazed at the sunrise.
"But what of the others? What of Asgard?"
"The others? Oh, I imagine they're around here somewhere." He made a vague gesture off toward the horizon. "They'll wake up eventually. As for Asgard…well, see for yourself."
Loki gestured downward, and the ground below them rippled and froze into what might have been either perfect glass or solid air.
Below them, spread out like a tapestry, lay the crumbled ruins of Asgard.
Odin reached toward it, a half-formed thought of stepping through the glass gateway flitting through his mind, but Loki caught his hand.
"No," he said simply.
Odin looked at him, and he shrugged.
"There is no place in Asgard for us anymore. We are dead to that world, and dead in truth. We may see it, but we can't go back."
Odin looked down, impassive.
"This is the fate you wished for it?"
Loki chuckled. "I'm honored if you think my mere wishes could influence the Fates. But really, brother, did you think you were indispensable to the universe? The Nine Worlds—if such they still are—will be fine without you. Look."
He gestured again, and Odin looked closer, past the crumbled outer wall that Loki's cunning had bought them, past the fallen roof of Valhalla, through the broken walls of the throne room, and finally to his own high seat at the head of the hall.
On the chair sat a familiar figure…one which Odin had thought never to lay eyes on again.
"Baldur," he whispered.
"Indeed," said Loki, toying with a knife he'd pulled from a sheath. "Do switch to a slightly older form, will you? As amusing as it is to be the one with the answers, it's also getting rather tiring."
Odin tore his eyes away from the vision of his son ruling over fallen Asgard and turned back to Loki, questions crowding through his mind to the point where none of them made it to his voice.
Loki laughed again. "Don't tell me you've yet to notice your eyes, at the very least."
Odin stared for a moment, and then realized that he was staring with both eyes.
He put his hands to his face, not quite sure how to believe it.
"I suppose," pondered Loki , looking up at nothing in particular, "that you're never really lost the image you had of yourself as a youth, no matter how much wisdom you gained. I suppose I should be honored—you look exactly as you did when we first became brothers. Which is, incidentally, probably half the reason you didn't try to kill me on sight."He met Odin's eyes again, and his lips twitched. "I, of course, never changed."
Odin looked down. His hands were less worn than he remembered, and on sudden impulse, he reached to his side and pulled out the dagger that hung by his side—a dagger he'd lost years ago.
"Ah, excellent choice," nodded Loki, "but really, you should get to a point where you've gained some of that renowned wisdom."
"What do you mean?" asked Odin, remembering clearly the first taste of Mimir's well.
"That," said Loki, nodding towards him.
Odin looked back at him, and abruptly realized that he was seeing him with only one eye.
He reached up and touched his face once more, and then brushed a lock of hair into its usual place over his empty eye.
"I see," he said slowly. "This place…has no time."
Loki nodded. "Not as we would tend to call it."
Odin closed his eye and considered that for a long moment before carefully setting it aside and looking down again.
"What of Baldur?"
Loki followed his gaze. "Someone needed to oversee the rebuilding of Asgard."
Odin was silent for a long moment.
"If he had been in the living world for the final battle…"
Loki shrugged. "He would have been killed with the rest of us, of course."
Odin looked at Loki. "You killed him that he might live?"
Loki shrugged again. "I told you: I think the unthinkable."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
Loki laughed again. He seemed to be doing that quite a lot—it was much like the old days, before the terrible bitterness had touched so heavily upon him.
"My dear brother, you seem to think I had such noble motives! Truly, you overestimate me. I knew a little of what form the consequences of my actions would be, but I also spoke truly when I said I acted out of spite. I knew it was my destiny to bring our world to its close, just as it was yours to delay its ending…but I still longed to be right, one more time."
Odin fell silent for a time, watching quietly as others of the few remaining Aesir came into view—Hod, Baldur's blind brother whose hand had slain him, the young sons of Thor, playing with their father's hammer under the watchful eyes of their mother Sif, Frigg, still as lovely as when Odin had first wed her. Freja of the Vanir still dwelt there as well, though her brother and father had been slain, counted among the fallen Aesir.
"The humans will be all right, too, eventually," said Loki, looking down with him. "I think Yggdrasil must like them, for some reason."
All was quiet for a very long time. The new sun rose over the edge of whatever realm this was, revealing soft colors, the new green of springtime after frost.
"You still haven't told me," said Odin at length, "why you did all this."
"But I did," said Loki. "Several times. Spite, fatalism, wishing to take advantage of the inevitable..."
"Indeed. And every time I ask, the answer is different."
Loki grinned. "And you sought a straight answer this time?"
"I sought a different answer." Odin looked at him and narrowed his eye. "But I think you've given me enough."
Loki shrugged. "Then what, pray tell, were my reasons?" He sounded genuinely interested.
Odin smiled, and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes seemed to fade. "What I should have realized long ago. Your goals, your reasons for the last age: a new beginning. There was far too much for either of us to forgive, but perhaps we could simply…try again."
Loki nodded contemplatively. "That could be," he said. "But don't discount pure spite. After all, I spoke truly when I said that you would have to taste whatever draught you filled my cup with."
Odin was silent for a moment, remembering Sigyn's loyalty during Loki's banishment.
"Poison," he said quietly.
"And bitterness, and agony, and regret. So tell me, did you also drink of it?"
Odin smiled faintly. "Such is the fate of the oath-breaker."
Loki met his gaze for a moment before letting it fall. "Who can say anymore which of us became oath-breaker first?" He smiled again. "But what does it matter now? Oaths and oath-breaking were all swept away in the end of the old world. Every fate and prophecy and oath has already been fulfilled." He spread his arm toward the new ground around them. "Everything is a blank slate, now."
Odin looked around and smiled a little. "Tell me, how did you know what form the beginning after the end would take?"
"Oh, I had no idea," said Loki. "Let's just say I found it easy to adjust to. After all, I've had a lifetime of changing myself and the world around me to suit my purposes. Why should I have trouble in a world where forms are purely based on your idea of yourself? After all, mine always has been."
Odin smiled. "Time runs how we wish it, age is what we make of it, all past sins and victories are naught."
"Indeed. You could consider it a chance to undo all the mistakes you made in life."
Odin inclined his head. "Perhaps. But I could also consider it a chance to make them again all over again."
Loki raised his eyebrows. "You could, but why would you?"
"A question I often asked of your own unthinkable actions."
"Fair enough."
Odin looked for a long moment toward the still-visible remains of Asgard, and then turned back to Loki.
"You said all oaths had been washed away here, yet you still call me 'brother'."
Loki raised his hands. "How silly of me. Odin, then, though I trust you don't expect me to use any of the kennings you earned in life."
Odin stepped forward, and his form slipped backwards in time. His hair lost the edge of grey that even Idunn's apples hadn't been able to keep completely at bay, and once again he looked at the Jotun with both his eyes.
"What good is the wisdom built for a different world?"
Loki raised his eyebrows, and it took him an instant longer to reply than it strictly should have. "Would the great Odin really leave behind everything he's ever learned?"
Odin shrugged. "A wise man once told me to think the unthinkable. Perhaps I should heed his advice."
The world rippled around them, recreating the frost-touched early spring day of so long ago.
"Are you quite sure? Disregarding the thinkable might not be quite as simple as you think—or as harmless."
Odin shook his head. "I've never thought anything you did was ever easy—except, perhaps, your skill in flyting."
Loki looked at him for a moment mask-faced. Then he cracked a wolflike grin and pulled out his knife with the straight blade, its unexpectedly curved handle hidden in the palm of his hand.
"Brothers, then?"
Odin pulled out his own dagger, and as one, they drew blood on their palms and clasped hands on the plain of the young and wild world.
"Brothers forever."