Loki woke, as if startled from a terrible dream, in the dirt. He lay squarely on his back, staring up into a sky that couldn't possibly belong to Midgard. That one was blue even in the darkest of times. Even when he'd ripped a galactic hole in the middle of it. If it had been turned to this sorry shade of green and black… No, that couldn't possibly be, he thought. This wasn't Earth.
All his pains of the battle on Xandar were gone. London's aches had melted away. As the winds carried black clouds across the sky above him, Loki had the unfortunate instinct to start breathing again.
Agony ripped through his chest, blinding him with white-hot pain.
Kurse.
It was a while before the torture ebbed enough to allow him sight, but when it did, he found himself on hands and knees, retching the contents of his stomach onto the black sands of Svartalfheim.
Too early… His arms trembled underneath his own weight. Gracelessly, he felt flat on the ground and curled into his own pain.
"I didn't do it for him."
The words were still ripe on his lips. Death still loomed over him, shrouding him in the cold. Each breath was as if he were inhaling blades. He remembered this – the pain, the confusion, the absolute agony of a Dark Elf's curse rolling through him. Consuming him. Eating away at his sanity, at the very veins of seidhr that made him Loki.
But he remembered something else, too, which was far more important than any of his struggles.
There was no Thanos. No Black Order. No dying Sorcerer Supreme, no alliances, no Xandar, no Guardians, Wakandans, Revengers or Avengers estranged. There was Midgard, now, and Asgard. Even Sakaar. The Avengers were whole and righteous; the Guardians remained a mystery, unknown in this quadrant of the galaxy; the Grandmaster, Valkyrie, and that chaotic trash heap of a planet was yet to come. Sif, Fandral, Volstagg, and Hogun - all alive, untouched by Hela's wrath. Thor still had Mjolnir at his side—
Thor. Loki thought abruptly. Red struck through every thought he had. Thor. Thor. THOR.
Malekith lived. Odin lived. Thor struggled and Frigga…
Greif hitched anew in his chest. How he had hoped to see her.
But this was no time for old grief. Frigga was dead, long dead to him, but Odin was not.
Loki struggled into a seated position with slow, damning movements. An exploratory assessment of himself confirmed that the wound from Kurse's blade had closed, but it offered no explanation as to how. It still burned. Blood and pus weeped beneath his cut clothing, but he was alive.
Just like before, Loki could not remember the moments between dying and living. That would have to remain.
It was impossible to know how long it took him to gather the strength to stand, but when he did, he found his salvation half-buried in the black sand.
The Time Stone gleamed when he picked it up, gingerly rolling it between his fingers.
"Thank you, Stephen," he said quietly, "May we both find better lives in sacrifice."
In the guise of the Einherjar, Loki approached his father. Odin stood alone and burdened on Asgard's throne.
Despite all he remembered – "I love you, my sons," – some things couldn't be forgiven. A lifetime of half-hearted parenting and secrets hadn't been forgotten. From Jotunheim to Heimdall, to Hela and beyond, there would be no forgiveness for the All-Father from him. Loki's distain couldn't be erased – it could only cool, calmed with time.
"There was no sign of the weapon," said Loki-Einherjar, as he remembered saying it so long ago, "But we found a body."
Odin stared. In the past, Loki had used this moment to scheme his pathway to the throne. To strengthen his resolve to usurp his Father and rightly rule. How was he to have known that the old man would fall into Odinsleep shortly thereafter? After hearing of Loki's death? Surely for Thor, but for him?
"Loki." Odin whispered, and this time he heard the grief hidden beneath the King's front.
Loki-Einherjar smiled, Odin's eye grew wider in offense, and then the glamour fell.
"Aye, Father." He held his arms out wide, no longer chained by the court. "I did die. As I tend to do."
Odin straightened at the back. "I…" His hand twisted warily on Gungnir's shaft. His voice edged towards anger, slowly. "Loki– "
"So tell me."
He didn't have time for a teary-eyed reunion. Perhaps that was relief in the All-Father's anxious gaze, or perhaps not. So long as he didn't collapse into an inconvenient coma, Loki frankly didn't care.
"Tell you what?" Odin said, affronted. He turned towards his son. "Where is–"
"No. Don't ask me about Thor." Loki snapped, louder than intended. "Don't you dare ask me about Thor. I've just died, and you fret over him? No. If it's ancient weapons you wish to speak of, if it's elder siblings you want to discuss, I have something else in mind."
The color drained from Odin's face. His knuckles whitened around his spear.
"Loki, what've you done?"
"What've I done?" He laughed, taking several strides backwards to stand underneath the grand decorations of the throne room. Above him was his own painted face, his parents', and Thor's, looking down kindly on the subjects of the court. But there was something more beneath. Thor had once told him as much. "No, Father. What have you done?"
The façade cracked and crumbled under a thunderous wave of green magic, torn asunder by his rage alone. Thor would've been proud.
"Tell me about her," Loki demanded. Plaster and stone bounced off a thin, green barrier as they rained down on him, revealing Asgard's oldest crimes in streaks of red and black. "Tell me about Hela."