Hela smiled wide with her pale, green eyes full of wonder as she and Valkyrie strolled through the construction-sight that would soon become the new Asgard. Valkyrie on the other hand, was less than thrilled to be stuck with Hela for the day. She still could not believe that she had allowed Loki to bait her into babysitting her fully grown, yet mentally impaired enemy for the day. She soon found herself pondering over just where Loki had run off to that day.

"Daddy? Can we walk through the woods?" Hela excitedly asked, breaking Valkyrie's original train of thought.

"No, the woods are too dangerous..." Valkyrie replied sternly. As much as she wanted to see Hela's downfall, she promised her husband that she would at least try to bond with Hela. Besides, she knew it would make Loki sad if anything had happened to Hela and she did not want to be responsible for her beloved husband's sadness again.

"Why?" Hela questioned innocently with an adorable tilt of her head.

"Because they just are: They're full of terrible beasts that want nothing more than to devour you whole..." Valkyrie explained with that same, cold, uncaring tone she had always carried around Hela.

"How do you know?" Hela asked curiously.

"Because when I was younger, I was chased through the woods by a gigantic beast..." Valkyrie admitted with a sigh as the feeling of trauma began to return to her from the mere memory.

"How did you get away?" Hela encouraged Valkyrie to continue with a mixture of both wonder and amazement sparkling in her pale, green eyes.

"I threw a large rock at its head and killed it...That was my first kill..." Valkyrie replied.

"Wow...I wanna be just like Daddy!" Hela then cheered before breaking into a sprint toward the forest.

"Hela!" Valkyrie gasped as she watched Hela disappear into the thick forest that was near their new town.

"Where is she going?" Valkyrie grunted to herself beneath her breath before breaking into a sprint of her own to chase after Hela.

"Hela!" Valkyrie called out as she chased after her mentally, challenged enemy.

"Hela, get back here!" Valkyrie demanded with a shout as she profusely shoved the debris out of the way of her face in order to not lose sight of Hela.

"Hela!" Valkyrie finally caught up to Hela when she had stopped to stare at something that was just ahead of her.

"What do you think you're doing?!" Valkyrie hissed between gritted teeth as she roughly grabbed Hela by both of her shoulders. When Hela failed to reply, Valkyrie glanced up to follow Hela's gaze and see what she was staring at so intently. That's when she took notice to Loki standing at the edge of the cliff that was just ahead of them.

"What the...?" Valkyrie began as she released Hela from her grasp to begin approaching her husband with caution. Since Loki had his back turned to her to gaze at the sun-kissed horizon, Valkyrie could not see his face very well.

"Loki?" She questioned. Her suspicions were confirmed when she saw his shoulders tense up.

"Is this where you've been all day while I've been babysitting your sister?!" Valkyrie angrily demanded. Loki only responded with what sounded to be quiet snickering as his shoulders began to shake from the vibration of his increased breathing.

"Don't you dare laugh! Do you think this is funny?! Look at me when I'm talking to you!" Valkyrie shouted as she roughly grabbed Loki by the shoulder and forcefully turned him around to face her. She then gasped in both surprise and concern at the glistening tears that were spilling from Loki's red, puffy, sad eyes.

"Loki...What's wrong?" Valkyrie asked in a much, more, gentle tone.

"I-I miss Father..." Loki sniffled as he reached up in a vane attempt to wipe away his endless downpour of tears. He had been trying to pull himself together all day but he just could not stop crying no matter how hard he tried.

"Oh..." Valkyrie frowned, now feeling horrible for yelling at her impregnated husband. She had heard about the death of Odin from Thor but she never once thought to consider how Loki had been taking it. This realization made her feel even worse than she had initially felt for merely yelling at him.

"Me and my brother were standing right here when we lost him..." Loki somberly explained as he turned to look back out at the horizon.

"An entire lifetime...reduced to nothing but ashes...I still remember Thor's exact words to me after it happened...This is your doing..." Loki's voice cracked as he explained this before he buried his face in his hands and began to cry softly.

"Loki..." Valkyrie frowned in sympathy as she placed her hands on her sobbing husband's shaking shoulders in a futile attempt to comfort him.

"S-Sometimes I have these vivid dreams about him...I always feel as if he's in the room with me even after I've woken up...He died disappointed in me..." Loki whimpered between sobs as he cried a little harder.

"Loki, that wasn't your fault...You said it yourself, he was old...It was bound to happen eventually...I promise you...he wasn't disappointed..." Valkyrie reassured as she pulled her crying husband into a gentle hug. Loki tightly returned the hug and buried his face in Valkyrie's shoulder as his sobs began to grow a bit louder.

"I-I should have been a better son...I-I shouldn't have just left him here..." Loki sobbed. Valkyrie began to feel tears burning at the brims of her eyes as well as she listened to her husband's heartbreaking sobs grow louder and louder.

"H-He'll never get to see our wedding...Our child will never meet him..." Loki sniffled as he pulled away from the hug. Valkyrie then let out a gasp when Loki had suddenly dropped to his knees.

"Oh Father, why did you have to die on me?! Why did you have to die on me, Father?!" He wailed desperately at the horizon before burying his face into the dirt to cry bitterly.

"Loki..." Valkyrie gently attempted to pull Loki up from the ground.

"No! No! I'm not leaving my Father again!" Loki shouted as he dug his nails into the grass to keep Valkyrie from removing him from the ground.

"Loki, please...Get out of the dirt..." Valkyrie remained gentle as she finally succeeded in removing her hysterical husband from the ground. Loki of course took two, large, handfuls of dirt and grass with him in the process.

"Let's go back to the ship; you need some rest..." Valkyrie gently placed an arm around Loki's shoulders as he finally released the powdery clumps of dirt from his grasp. Without a word, Loki nodded in response and allowed Valkyrie to lead him back to the ship. Valkyrie was unsure of how she was going to pull it off but she was going to make sure that Loki no longer felt at fault for the death of his father, somehow.