It was an unspoken agreement that we would continue onward together.

Most of it was the spell I put on him. Normally, that sort of magic was semi-permanent, but here, it just wouldn't stick. I suspected that it was because time was moving strangely. In some of the worlds we passed through, people would walk right through or past us, unaware of our presence, or even the existence of another dimension. In others, things moved at high speeds, like a movie on fast forward. Still others had what I thought at first were statues—beings moving so slowly that their motion was barely noticeable.

In the first two days trekking together, I hardly bothered to check on the spell, relying on my own strength to hold us over, unconcerned with the oddness of it all. It seemed, however, that I'd forgotten how cruel fate could really be. Everything was quiet, until—

"Eve?" It made me pause.

I was forging my way ahead, notebook in hand, puzzling my way through the latest landscape, an abandoned city, no people in sight, just sideways buildings that shifted in and out of view along the path.

"Hmmm?" I asked, not particularly worried, as he sounded more bemused than alarmed.

"Sorry to bother, but I believe your spell is losing its hold."

Stopping to turn and look at him with extreme doubt, I nearly laughed. Then stopped. He was dead serious.

"Eve."

Meeting his eyes, I found the icy blue a shade wider than they ought to be, his jaw clenched just a bit too tightly. I took his wrist into one hand and hovered the other over his forearm. The runes and marks of my spell there glowed a faint blue. A very, very faint blue.

"That spell should've lasted months. Years, even," I told him, taken aback.

"This place... Things aren't as they should be, here."

There was an edge to his words now, jaw tight as a bow, wincing at the strain of the words.

His skin was unnaturally cold to the touch, and it only grew icier as I lowered my free hand and restored the spell. His eyelids fluttered for a moment, jaw unclenching enough to loose a sigh to the empty heavens, magic sated, back into his control.

"Thank you," he said quietly.

"Don't mention it," I returned.

And he didn't. Not until maybe two days later, when it happened again. Two days wasn't nearly enough to make it back out of this hellhole, and since he would revert back to a psychopath who wanted to kill me any time the spell wore off, we were stuck together.

Which wasn't exactly a bad thing. Our relationship was always pressed for time, folded into the seconds before battles, woven along the edges of each of our worlds. It was always stolen moments and secret kisses and darkened smiles and bad timing. Now, though, we had nothing but free time, the slow forging of both the path and a real friendship.

He asked me about my favorite things on Midgard and beyond. He laughed at my description of Pokémon, (and even more at my choice to bring along an old Gameboy on my intergalactic mission—and even more at my choice of a water type starter). He listened dutifully to my description of my favorite horror novels (Was the child orgy really necessary? No. Was it enjoyable? No. Honestly, I'm not sure how it made it into the final draft). I told him about my favorite parts of childhood, the massive libraries in the university, and the throne room's many secret entrances and exits, the trouble my siblings and I made for our parents.

I was rewarded with similar sentiments in turn. His favorite shows in Asgardian theater (of which there were many), his favorite foods (surprisingly not ice cream), and his childhood with Thor (and the related cast of characters).

It was like the floodgates had opened on that front. Now that there were no thoughts of the bedroom at hand, the god of thunder was his brother's favorite topic. Thor's exploits, the adventures Loki had been (not at all reluctantly) dragged on. The pranks were usually my favorite.

"Thor went through a phase where he was absolutely obsessed with reptiles and amphibians. His bedchambers were full of terrariums overflowing with the creatures, and I'm certain that the only book I've ever seen him read cover to cover was an anthology of the damn things. Mostly pictures, in all honesty. So naturally, one day, I stole the book. "

"The only book your brother's read all the way through, and you stole it?" I asked, somewhere between amused and exasperated.

"Yes. I believe I also failed to mention that it was a library book. But do let me finish. I gave it back in a few hours' time."

"All right, why did you steal the book, then?"

"Well, at the time, he'd just recently spoiled a play that I'd been reading. And Thor, well, he hadn't even known the name of the damn thing, but asked one of mother's handmaidens what happened just so I would stop reading it and join him on his quest for snakes. Honestly, it was a death that I should've seen coming, but I didn't, and it ruined the whole book. So I decided that, in order to get back for it, I'd find the best, prettiest, most desirable snake in the book, which I did, and then, when he dragged me through the gardens to hunt for the things—"

"You did not," I groaned, laughing.

"Oh, I most certainly did. I transfigured myself into a snake, and waited in the sun for him to pick me up. And when he did, I transformed back into myself, and stabbed him in the chest."

He pantomimed the act, and I fell into a fit of giggles, unable to help myself.

Raising his eyebrows at me, I caught him smiling over the recollection of the memory. Quite honestly, from the number of times they'd stabbed each other, the sons of Odin brought a whole new meaning to the phrase "boys will be boys".

"And that was only the beginning of what the mortals now call a 'prank war'. Of course, my own skills were far superior, but Thor managed to get half of Asgard on his side, so I had to watch every move I made. I remember a time when Lady Sif and I were walking back from a visit with Heimdall, and I only just managed to get out of the way in time to avoid being tarred and feathered. I've never seen her angrier than she was on that eve. I believe Fandral still has the scars from it. That, along with his attempts to convince the Midgardians that my father's eight legged horse was really my bastard son were the worst of what he had to offer. I of course, retaliated by poisoning their dinners with sleeping draught and transporting them into the wilderness, dressed in nothing but women's clothing, of course."

"Sounds a shade cruel," I commented, not quite daring to say that on Earth, they were convinced that he'd had a child with a horse. We were nearing the end of the travel for the day, and I stopped in what seemed a suitable place, an empty prairie whose blue grasses were swaying in a wind we couldn't feel, a thunderstorm I couldn't taste beginning to brew on the horizon.

"'Twas no worse than Thor's retaliation. He convinced most of the palace to act as though I didn't exist. It was quite maddening. And a bit too far."

He conjured a soft silken bedroll out of nowhere and laid it down across from mine. These days, we slept head to head, the path too thin for us to sleep in each other's arms, too dangerous to risk not paying attention for too long. Or, at least, not for long enough to have any fun.

"You're right for once. That's definitely worse."

"Ah, and that brings us to the epic conclusion to the tale. You see, Thor still hadn't forgotten his love for small and slimy creatures. I swore to make him understand what it felt like to be made as significant as one."

"You didn't."

"I did. Readily. Without any hesitation. Just looked him in the eye, long enough that he had to pay me attention, and then transformed him into a frog. It was easily the best decision I've ever made."

I was roaring with laughter now, picturing the Asgardian as a frog.

"That was, until he hopped out a nearby window and into oncoming traffic."

"What did you do?"

"Well, seeing as Thor knew that I would be the first to blame if he was missing, I immediately went out and searched for him. I tried redirecting the spell so if he was nearby, he would turn back. I tried location spells. Hel, I even tried putting up posters with his description. I was rather frantic with it. If he went missing, or died, there would be hell to pay."

"Did you find him?"

"In a way. He tends to make friends wherever he goes. Your Avengers. Lady Sif and the Warriors Three. Doctor Foster and her companions. I wouldn't be surprised if he made friends with a tree and its pet racoon, or a pile of rocks. As it turned out, he was in his room all along, conspiring to rebel with the other animals. Except, by rebel, he meant 'raid the banquet hall in the middle of mother and father's anniversary with every blasted creature from the tanks'. It was an eventful night. More chaos than I'd imagined possible in one room, especially when I found Thor in the middle of it. I turned him back. And there he stood, clad in only his undergarments, on top of the banquet table. And do you know what his first words upon being turned back were?"

"I can only imagine," I replied, as he nearly began laughing again.

"'Ribbit'. It was easily the funniest thing I've seen in my entire lifetime." This time, he was smiling not at the story, but at me, laughing at the description of the scene.

"So what happened-to-to the-" I could barely speak between laughs,

"The pranks? My mother put a stop to them, as they were rather out of hand. But what I had planned next… It would've been better still."

"What did you have planned?" I demanded.

"I'll never tell," he teased, playing with a stray strand of my hair.

"Not even me?" I pouted. He smiled.

"Not without a reward."

I pouted some more.

"Is it really too much to ask that you do something out of the kindness of your heart?"

"Yes, quite frankly."

I barked another laugh, and watched the shimmering sky around us. The prairie was interspersed with a marsh, two separate realities combining before us. Oddly enough, rain was falling in both, the soft patter coming between us as we stilled, and just faint enough to hear at he very stretch of imagination…Thunder.

"Do you…. Do you miss him?" I asked softly.

For a moment, I thought I wouldn't get a response, that he would deem the question below his sensibilities.

"Yes. But that's not all that I miss."

I reached a hand up, slowly, and he took it in his.

"I miss when things were simpler. Between the pair of us. Back before we realized that someday, only one of us could rule. The worst part of it is…"

He trailed off, thinking.

"The worst part of it is that he trusted me. To rule at his side. As his brother. As his friend. And I… Destroyed that. Destroyed whatever chance at happiness we could've had. All because I wanted, what, a throne? A crown? It was foolish of me to lose that."

The silence as the rain idled was deafening, the realization laid bare, practically echoing in the landscape around us.

"You still have hope of redemption, Loki," I told him quietly. "Your brother still loves you. He supports you. Maybe not your bid for a throne, or for some power somewhere. But he still cares for you. Just… Give him another chance, won't you?"

He pressed my hand to his lips, a cool kiss gracing my skin.

"As it please you," he replied easily, his relief distinct in his sigh.

"If only that was how you replied to all of my requests," I joked.

"If only you were always so polite in making them," he returned.

I rolled my eyes, but was satisfied.

Without terribly much more banter, we fell asleep.

XXXXXX

It was another few days until we stopped again, and to more alarm than usual, as it had only been a few hours since resetting the spell.

"Eve?"

"Ye gods, already?" I asked.

"No. It's just that, right here, we're rather closer to our home dimension, I believe, and I think I may be able to assist you for once."

I eyed him warily, noting for the first time in a while the clever glint in his eye returning.

"And how exactly will this assistance reveal itself?"

"Have you ever heard of a magician's closet?"

Oh. That could be helpful.

A magician's closet, dear reader, is a small pocket dimension that magicians use to store their more valuable magical items. They are the only ones who can access it, and often use it to store supplies that would otherwise be difficult to come by. Supplies that could be used to, say, lengthen the life of a spell. Why don't I have a magician's closet, you ask? Well, I simply never learned of one until I was strong enough to conjure anything short of an infinity stone, so storage of things like the eleven KFC secret herbs and spices wasn't really a huge issue until I was in a place where conjuring anything was impossible. And in that case, a magician's closet would be impossible to access, too.

"Of course I've heard of them, I'm not a heathen."

"I fail to see how the two are related, but, considering how near we are to our normal dimension, I believe that I can reach mine right now," he explained.

"You have a magician's closet?" I asked.

"Naturally. All the best magicians do," he told me.

"So now you're just a simple magician? Vanishing rabbits and conjuring scarves?" I joked.

"Watch your tongue, Caster, or I'll be vanishing you next."

Loki simply stood still for a moment, then threw his hands out in a wide arc. Slowly, a door faded into existence, black wood embellished with green inlay, patterned with snakes and horns.

Very him, I supposed.

He pulled a key from thin air and unlocked the door, taking my hand and pulling me through.

The lighting was dim inside, the air heavy with the scent of stone and magic. Shelves lined every wall, and jars covered the shelves, all labeled meticulously with a dark, elegant handwriting. Inside of the jars… Everything you could possibly imagine, from every world I'd ever seen or heard tell of. Some even beyond. Aside from the jars were tanks, some with creatures, others…

"Are those—"

"Oscavarian tentacles? Yes. I bought them off a morgue in deep space. No need to worry that they'll be malevolent. They were organically harvested."

I didn't disbelieve him, but I didn't quite trust the waving tentacles sitting upright in their tank of slime.

"And these… Scarab beetles from Midgard?"

"Yes. I hear they're excellent for cursework."

Something moved out of the corner of my eye, and I noticed a cell built into the side of a wall. Two large eyes that were a little too intelligent for my liking stared back at me.

"What kind of snake is that?"

"I believe it's called 'The Incredibly Deadly Viper", but I'll admit, he's a recent addition. I haven't quite had the time to catalogue him properly."

There were two heavy work tables, scored by burn marks from spells gone awry, peppered with open spell books and scrolls of paper covered in that dark handwriting. There were cabinets, again neatly catalogued with smaller containers of ingredients, a cauldron made of what looked like emeralds simmering over a green fire in the corner, and a bookshelf with more books on the wall beside the door. A weapons rack hung on the wall, mostly knives, but also a few longstaffs, including one that I thought was supposed to belong to Odin.

The entire thing was interlaced with spells. They were minute and extremely difficult to notice, but touched everything, like spiderwebs. Most of them were alerts on how much of something was left, or who'd accessed them, or how much was used previously, or even warnings about the danger to be found within them. Some things were cloaked in misdirection spells, and some of the more valuable supplies were laced with tracking spells, so if someone used them, or I supposed, Loki used them on someone, they would give a location until the ingredient wore away. Some things I recognized, and others I didn't but I found descriptions of all of them waiting in my head via the spells if I needed them, his voice direct and informative in a sort of recording about the properties of the materials.

There was a small daybed near the bookshelf, and Loki opened a small cabinet nearby and drew out a bottle of ice clear liquid.

"I believe I'm going to need this," he told me, pointedly placing it at a table, which cleared at the wave of his hand.

Across the room, he went into another drawer, and pulled out a sort of needle, carved in bone, the tip sharp and thin.

"What you've been doing," he directed, gesturing to the already-fading marks on his arms, "Is meant to be a temporary fix. A 'band-aid', if you will."

I rolled my eyes at his attempt to use Midgardian slang.

"This," he began, handing me the needle, "Is the permanent solution. Of course, you'll have to modify the spell you've been using so I can handle my full power, but I believe that you'll be able to keep other versions of me out of my head with this."

"So, what's that for?" I asked, pointing to the bottle waiting on the table.

"That, my dearest," he told me. "Is for us to have a drink."

XXXXXX

Oh saints, there are more easter eggs in this chapter than there were at the Derry Ironworks back on that fateful Easter morning. Yikes. Anyway, thanks for reading and reviewing! I have no memory of writing most of these chapters, they must've just appeared out of nowhere.