You will never be a god...

The hand around his neck tightens, metal digging painfully into his skin and he can't breathe, can't free himself from the merciless grip no matter how desperately he trashes about. Red spots are dancing in front of his eyes; his lungs are burning with the lack of oxygen as he silently begs for his consciousness to fade so he won't have to feel the moment when his throat is crushed –

"Loki? Loki!"

Someone is shouting his name, shrill and panicked; there are hands on his shoulders as he struggles and gasps for air, and he almost lashes out, but the hands are gentle, their touch familiar in a way he didn't think he'd ever get to feel again.

"Loki, my darling, come back to me, you're safe – slow down, deep breaths, you're fine, you're safe..."

The words barely register over the staccato of his own racing pulse, but the voice is as heartbreakingly familiar as the touch of those hands, and Loki leans into the comforting presence and greedily sucks in air, again and again, until his vision starts to clear a little and Frigga's pale, frightened face swims into focus amidst the semi-darkness that surrounds them.

"Mother?" His voice is rough and hoarse, barely recognizable as his own, and he knows this isn't real, can't possibly be real, but he clings to her nevertheless, lets himself sink into her embrace because it can't last, it will fade before he knows it, and he wants to hold on to every moment of the sweet illusion while he still can.

"Shhh, my boy, I'm here, it's all right, everything is all right..." Frigga's voice has lost the panicked edge; she sounds like the mother who calmed a frightened little boy when he was afraid of blue giants waiting for him in the darkness, whose mere presence chased the monsters and the darkness away so he wouldn't have to be afraid any more, but that mother is gone, has been gone for so long that he has sometimes trouble remembering her face –

Or maybe...

Loki draws another, slower breath, reveling in the sensation of air filling his lungs. His throat doesn't hurt any more – nothing hurts, he feels warm and safe and comfortable, and the relief is so overwhelming that it brings tears to his eyes.

Is it finally over, Amma? Am I finally done?

"There you are, my sweet boy." Frigga's eyes are swimming with tears as well, but she's smiling at him, and Loki drinks in the sight of her, the warmth of her smile and of her arms around him.

"I didn't –" His voice still won't obey him, and he has to start again, "I didn't think they'd let me in here with you."

Her smile fades, and Loki wants to bite his tongue, wants to take the words back because they've caused her pain, and he has done enough of that while they were both alive, it's supposed to be over now that he –

"What do you mean, darling?" Her tone is cautious, almost fearful, and he hates it; he wants that gentle serenity to come back, so he needs to explain, to make her understand –

"I just – Frost Giants don't belong in Valhalla, do they? But you're here, so this must be..."

He falls silent when Frigga's eyes widen. Her stricken expression makes his insides go cold, because something must be terribly wrong for her to look at him like that, and... is that why she's here? To bid him farewell because Frost Giants don't belong in the golden halls of Valhalla, because a creature like him could never be allowed to dwell among Asgard's glorious dead?

"Norns, Loki." Her voice is trembling, but her arms around him tighten instead of dissolving into golden mist. "This isn't Valhalla – it will hopefully still be a long time until either of us has to travel there, and for now, we are both very much alive."

"But I..." Loki frowns, trying to make sense of what she's saying. "They told me you were dead – I wasn't there, I didn't know, they didn't even let me go to your funeral..." Yet as he speaks the words, he realizes that there's no memory to accompany them, that he has no recollection of the events he's hearing himself describe other than the phantom pain they appear to have left behind.

"Loki, my son." Frigga's eyes are intent on his as if she were trying to tell him something of great importance. "Listen to me – I am not dead, and neither are you."

"But –" Loki's thoughts are racing, the images in his mind twisting themselves into strange, blurred patterns that don't make sense any more. He remembers being choked to death with terrifying clarity, but if it wasn't real, if nothing about it was real, how can he still recall his brother's anguished voice crying out before he... his brother's voice – Thor's voice...

"But Thor is, isn't he?" He sounds like a frightened child, but he doesn't care, not when he sees the tears spilling over Frigga's cheeks because Thor is –

Loki can't bring himself to look at her any more. He lowers his head and tries to draw back, but Frigga pulls him closer until he can hide his face in the crook of her neck, her arms warm and safe around him even if they are trembling, and he wants to tell her that he's sorry, that he never wished for things to turn out this way even though he is destined to ruin everything he touches. "It should have been me." His throat is closing up, and he barely manages more than a whisper. "I wanted it to be me –"

"No, my boy, no..." Frigga's fingers dig into his shoulders, and he can tell from the way her voice breaks that he has hurt her again without meaning to, but it doesn't matter, nothing matters because Thor is gone, because Loki will never see that stupid sunny smile again, will never again hear his brother's booming laughter echo through the halls of Asgard –

He has been so careful about maintaining the dam around those memories, but now Loki feels it splinter, feels their tarnished, poisonous sweetness seep through the cracks until he's drowning in them as they try in vain to fill the gaping hole in his life that is all that's left of the place which, for better or worse, always used to be Thor's. He has been skirting its edges ever since he first saw the body on the bier, and even though he's still acutely aware how dangerous it would be to give in to grief, to let himself truly feel his brother's loss, he can't help it that his shoulders shake with suppressed sobs in Frigga's embrace.

He doesn't weep, though – can't let himself weep because he knows too well what will happen if he lets his guard down, what he will do if he sees Loki give in to such a pathetic kind of weakness... what Thanos will do –

Thanos.

Loki jerks upright at the memory of those eyes, stone-cold and utterly unfeeling, staring at him as he desperately struggled for breath, and he belatedly becomes aware of his surroundings as if he were only now waking from a deep, troubled slumber. He's crouched on his own bed, still dressed in the breeches and tunic he was wearing when Frigga took him back to his chambers after he'd gone to Xandar to –

The Power Stone.

The sudden recollection hits him like a bucket of cold water. The Gem's energy signature feels like it's burning a hole in his dimensional pocket because he couldn't possibly hope to hide that amount of cosmic power from the Titan's searching gaze, and if that terrifying nightmare was not just a dream but a sending, a nearly successful attempt to bring Thanos' troublesome pet back to heel –

Loki frantically pulls his consciousness inward to assess the wards around his mind, to check whether the Titan managed to pierce his defenses, or whether...

"Loki?" Frigga's tone is carefully measured; she has let go of his shoulders, but one of her hands is still resting on his arm, and Loki can't bring himself to pull away. "Are you well, my son?"

Loki takes a deep breath and tries to slow down his racing heartbeat. His wards are intact; whatever it was that caused his mind to play such a cruel trick on him, it wasn't Thanos' doing. He still came dangerously close to letting his guard down in a way that would leave him utterly vulnerable to attacks from all sides, and he must remember in future not to make the same mistake again.

He keeps his eyes closed and gathers the terror, the grief, loss, and shame into one sickening pile, then shoves it into the deepest recesses of his mind and mentally slams the trapdoor shut above it. Then, steeling himself, he finally opens his eyes and forces himself to speak. "I'm well enough, Mother."

His voice isn't quite as firm as he'd like, but Frigga mercifully doesn't push; she merely nods and asks, "What you were trying to do yesterday – did you succeed?"

"For the most part." Loki pauses for a moment, deliberating how much he can tell her. "I'm not quite finished, though; I still need to decide..."

He falls silent when he's struck by an unexpected flash of inspiration. He knew from the moment he started planning this mad endeavor that he would need to get rid of the Power Stone's signature as quickly as possible, but so far he hasn't been able to think of a hiding spot that might be safe. Now, though, the harsh reminder of the extent of Thanos' reach makes him realize that he may have been going about the problem all wrong; that given the bait he now has in his possession, he has a far better chance of leading the Titan where he wants him instead of trying in vain to hide from him forever.

"I'm sorry, Mother, I have to go."

Loki is out of bed before Frigga can protest, but she grabs his arm when he summons a thick woolen cloak and a pair of sturdy boots from his wardrobe. "Loki, wait – at least tell me where you're going!"

"I won't be long, I promise." Gently extricating himself from her grip, Loki slides his feet into the boots and then stands to wrap the cloak around his shoulders. "I'm going to Niflheim."

.

The murky twilight that filters through the colorless high fog makes it difficult to walk on the uneven, craggy ground, and Loki has to step carefully as he picks his way between small, jagged rocks and the slightly larger boulders that have been polished smooth by the perpetual wind. He can hear Hugin and Munin cawing angrily overhead, but he doesn't look up; those two seem more ill-tempered than ever these days, and he isn't going to twist his ankle just because the ravens are feeling out of sorts.

The spot he finally decides on is a small patch of dry, pale moss growing underneath a boulder of blackish granite that almost comes up to Loki's waist. He kneels down on the downwind side, presses his hand against the ground and closes his eyes; then he carefully reaches out towards the Reality Stone in his dimensional pocket.

The Aether wakes with a low grumble that turns into something which almost feels like a hiss once it becomes aware of what Loki is trying to do. It would be tempting to pull back, but Loki knows he must not show the slightest sign of hesitation if he is to convince the Stone to follow his lead. Slowly and ever so gently, he works his seiðr between the Aether and its dangerous cargo, the sliver of reality surrounding the Power Stone that he stole from Xandar, and starts working it free from the Aether's hold as gingerly as he would remove a bandage stuck to the drying blood around the edges of a wound. He knows he can't force the Aether to let go; he needs to convince both Infinity Stones in his keeping that he only wants to protect their precious sibling, that it's in their own best interest to allow him to proceed even if they'd rather hold on to it themselves.

At long last, the Aether relents and relinquishes its prize, and it's only now that Loki allows himself to breathe again. He still can't afford to get sloppy, though, so he takes care to firmly center himself before he sends out another tendril of seiðr, this time into the ground underneath his hand. The magic pierces through layers and layers of dirt and rock, deeper and ever deeper, until it finally begins to reverberate with the low pulse of the realm's core. The energy is different enough from Asgard's familiar heartbeat to feel utterly alien, but it doesn't resist when Loki starts to move the stolen slice of reality along the path his seiðr has carved. He pushes it down as far into the core as he can reach, and then seals the passage with another short burst of magic.

As soon as the working is completed, Loki stills and focuses his awareness on the two Gems in his pocket dimension. There's a melancholic note to the Tesseract's gentle hum; the Aether has fallen utterly silent as if it were mourning the sudden loss of its sibling's presence. Loki can feel both of them trying to pull him back towards the treasure he buried, and for a moment, he finds himself going weak with relief. What was only a vague hope on Xandar is actually proving to be true: the Aether is convinced that the Power Stone is now hidden deep in Niflheim's core, and the fact that the Stones cannot work against each other means that the Tesseract defers to the Aether's conviction.

Loki has successfully tricked an Infinity Stone into fooling itself.

He allows himself a few seconds to let it sink in that against all odds, everything worked out exactly as planned, that the Power Stone now firmly appears to be here even though it remains safely hidden in plain sight on Xandar. Its energy signature is already working its way through Niflheim's bedrock, and it will probably take less than an hour until anyone with the slightest bit of magical sensibility will be able to feel it once they're close enough.

It may seem like madness to light such a beacon for the Titan and his children to follow, but it hardly matters at this point since they are already on their way towards the Nine anyway. Loki assumes that Thanos is currently planning to head for Midgard first to retrieve the Mind Stone, but he is convinced that the Titan will reconsider once he is made aware of the apparent presence of the Power Stone on Niflheim. It would be entirely in character for Thanos to value the Power Stone above all others, since its possession would make it a lot easier for him to collect the remaining Gems; he already tried to get his hands on it once, and he'll doubtlessly do it again if the chance presents itself so conveniently. As soon as –

"Digging around in my backyard without even saying hello first? Are those the manners you learned on your mother's knee, Friggjarson?"

Loki lets out a short, sharp breath at the sound of the mocking voice; it won't do to let its owner notice how glad he is to hear it.

Faster than I could have hoped for.

He schools his expression into one of bored indifference before rising and turning around. "Always a pleasure to see you, sister."

Hela is wearing what appears to be her full regalia – hair hidden under a crown of blackish thorns, lithe body clad in a dark green dress made of some flowing, iridescent material that reminds him of a snake's scales, an ornate dagger hanging from a golden belt around her waist and her throat and hands glittering with gemstones. Next to her, Loki looks like a peasant in his plain green travelling cloak, which gives him no small amount of satisfaction – only one of them clearly doesn't feel the need to impress the other.

Hela makes a face. "I'm sure it is. Now that the formalities are out of the way, what were you trying to hide away there?"

Loki smirks. "Look at you, Queen of Niflheim, already so in tune with your miserable realm that you feel its dirt being disturbed. I should be impressed if it weren't quite so... shall we say pathetic?"

Her eyes narrow, but she doesn't otherwise react to the taunt. "I'm still waiting for you to answer my question."

"My sincerest apologies." He gives her an ironic little bow and ignores the glare he gets in return. "There's an object our common enemy is interested in, and I decided that your domain was a good place to keep it safe."

"You mean you want him to come here instead of Asgard in search for it."

Loki lowers his head in acknowledgement. "There's that, too."

"Interesting." Hela pauses for a moment as if listening to something only she can hear. Loki watches her very carefully, trying hard not to feel too hopeful – but she was able to sense his arrival, and travel to his location in a matter of minutes; if she can also feel the Power Stone's signature buried deep in her world's core, there's no way she's going to miss the arrival of Thanos or one of his lieutenants when they come here in search for the Stone.

After a few heartbeats, she crouches down, places the splayed fingers of her right hand on the ground, and closes her eyes. "Norns, how powerful is this thing? It feels like –"

"Fairly powerful," Loki allows in what has to be the understatement of the millennium, "but don't bother, sister dearest, you won't be able to get at it no matter how hard you try."

She opens her eyes again and rises quickly. "You sound awfully sure of that."

Loki just shrugs. "I made certain that the Titan himself can't reach it, so yes, I'm fairly convinced that you can't either."

To his surprise, Hela seems more amused than annoyed by his reply. "You're pretty smug for someone who's hunted by that kind of enemy."

"Would it change anything if I spent my days quaking with fear?" Loki keeps his tone light although there's more truth to the question than he's comfortable with. "You should be glad that I chose to prepare for his arrival instead, considering that your survival is contingent on mine."

Hela's only reaction to the unsubtle reminder is a brief grimace. "I fail to see how luring Thanos towards my doorstep is going to improve the situation for me."

"Do you." Loki's tone makes it clear he's not really asking a question. "And yet I can see how you're coming into your own even in this dismal place, Goddess of Death. I've been watching you and your army of riffraff – your subjects are constantly at each other's throats, and you're not only tolerating the infighting, you're actively encouraging it. Oh, I know," he cuts her off when Hela opens her mouth to reply, "you'll tell me that you're weeding out those who are too weak or too stupid to be of use to you, but that's not the whole truth, is it? You wish for people to die on your world because every drop of blood spilt on your kingdom's soil adds to the power you wield."

Hela cocks her head to the side like a curious cat. "You appear remarkably unconcerned at the prospect."

Loki takes a step closer and isn't surprised at all when she holds her ground. "Do you still not realize that I want you powerful, sister? If I were afraid of you gaining power, I wouldn't have freed you from your prison in the first place. You'll never grow strong enough to break the bindings I put on you, but given the battle we're facing, I welcome anything that adds to your strength within the confines of your realm."

He can tell by her expression that she understands him. "Because you want to engage him here."

"I do." He's entirely sincere now; this isn't the time for obfuscation. "I mean to lead the combined forces of the Nine against him before he can pick us off one by one, and no other realm is better suited to be the battleground where all our fates will be decided."

It's not just that the barren plains of Niflheim will provide neither cover nor retreat for the Titan's troops – no other ruler would willingly invite death and destruction into their own realm, but they both know that's not a concern for Niflheim's queen.

Hela raises her eyebrows. "You expect me to believe that you have ways to transport that kind of army here in time if he actually takes the bait?"

"I do have ways," Loki replies calmly and suppresses a smile when he feels the Tesseract perk up like a sleeping dog at the sound of its master's voice, "and he will come here first; Niflheim may not be his main target when he reaches the Nine, but he will want the... object I've hidden before he attacks, and once the minions he sends for it fail to retrieve it –"

"You mean to spring the trap when he comes for it in person," Hela finishes. "In other words, you need me to inform you as soon as anyone comes for the object, don't you?"

"I'm fairly certain that Asgard's gatekeeper would discover them quickly, but the sooner we know, the better, so yes, I'd appreciate it if you alerted her immediately."

Hela's smile is all teeth. "And you honestly think I'll do that."

"I know you will." As tempting as it is to sneer at her in return, Loki keeps his face blank. "A battle between worlds, sister? The soil of your realm drenched in the blood of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands? The butcher of billions breathing his last at your feet? You're not going to pass up such an opportunity, Goddess of Death."

Hela doesn't take offence at having her bluff called; instead, her smile widens into an expression Loki recognizes from those hidden frescoes of Asgard's bloody past – the fierce, hungry determination of a predator closing in on their prey, eager and filled with a wild, terrifying joy. He has witnessed the battle-frenzy of Asgard's berserkers, but they had nothing on her, on the ruthless, gleeful viciousness of Odin Warfather's first and truest child.

"You're beginning to understand who you're dealing with, little brother."

She sounds downright pleased, and Loki finally allows himself to grin back. "You appear remarkably unconcerned at the prospect."

Especially since you're still underestimating me, Odinsdottir; you think that the death of the Titan will surely grant you enough power to break free from the chains that bind you to your pitiful realm, don't you? Yet they, too, grow stronger with every ounce of strength you manage to draw from Niflheim's soil; the leash I put on you only tightens further the harder you struggle against it.

Hela's reply is cut off by the sound of a raven cawing overhead; Hugin and Munin are still circling above them, and she looks up to watch them for a moment. "They seem a little agitated to me."

Loki shrugs; he has been wondering about the ravens' increasingly strange behavior, but he definitely isn't going to share his thoughts with Hela. "These aren't exactly restful times."

"True enough." Hela takes a step back and crouches down to place her hand on the ground again; he can tell from the way her expression shifts from concentration to frustration that she's trying to reach for the power she's feeling, but that it keeps slipping through her fingers whenever she means to grasp it. "You're not going to tell me what this thing is, are you?"

"There's nothing you could do with the knowledge even if I did." Neither Thanos nor you will be able to steal what isn't there, but I'll let you work that out for yourself... if you can.

"So, no." She straightens and, turning away from him, starts to pace without caring that the hem of her dress catches on the sharp-edged gravel. "It is a strange thing, this realm," she begins in an almost conversational tone. "It felt... unreal, in a way, at first, as if I'd merely dreamed up a place outside my prison where I could be queen." She barks a short laugh. "Although I'd like to think I'd grant myself a less pitiful domain if this was actually my dream. Still – something is changing, as if this place is slowly becoming less... wrong around me the longer I rule it." She finally turns to face him again. "Are you doing this to me, brother?"

Loki is momentarily taken aback. "I don't even know what you're talking about."

He can only stare in utter disbelief, his thoughts swirling in a frantic loop of 'This is wrong, this can't be, this isn't what's supposed to happen' as the Einherjar sink to their knees all around him and echo Sif hailing him as Asgard's king –

Hela looks at him with narrowed eyes, and for a second, he's hit by the strange sensation of being in two places at once, of facing two slightly different versions of her as if he were seeing her through cracked glass.

Then he blinks, and the impression is gone.

With considerable effort, Loki manages to keep his composure; he can't allow himself even a moment of weakness in front of her. "It's hardly surprising that you would have trouble adapting to the changes in your life after a millennium of solitary confinement, but I fail to see how that's supposed to be my fault."

Now her eyes are flashing murder. "Don't you dare condescend to me, you pompous little upstart!"

Loki relaxes inwardly; this, at last, is familiar ground again. "Name-calling, sister? I thought we were past that."

For a moment, he half expects her to go for his throat, but then she visibly pulls herself together and shakes her head. "You're right, this is pointless."

He merely nods; there's no need to say out loud what he's thinking because she can probably guess at it anyway. Postponing the fight until you believe yourself to be in a position to win it, are you? I know you won't forget a single insult I ever dealt you – you and I are far too alike in that regard.

"Then I assume our business here is concluded."

"Just one more thing." Hela steps closer, every movement reminiscent of a panther on the prowl. "Tell me, brother – for all your scheming, do you truly think that we actually stand a chance against Thanos?"

Loki tenses, the barriers around his mind slamming shut; now that he's wide awake, the images that slipped through his defenses last night will not overwhelm him a second time. The Norns have shown him a surprising amount of favor lately, but he knows better than to expect that to last, and he's well aware that his recent endeavors were children's games compared to the real, decisive trial that is looming on the horizon.

There will be no realm, no barren moon –

Hela's expression is impossible to read; he couldn't say whether she's trying to unsettle him or asking an honest question – or whether, as unlikely as it seems, she might even be looking for reassurance. It doesn't matter anyway, because whatever her reason for asking, there's just one answer he can give her.

"I suppose we're going to find out."