And Thor wept.
"Well? Would you know more?" Uatu said.
"Is there more?" Thor asked in a broken voice.
"There is—though not much. Would you know more?"
"I would." Thor swallowed heavily. Even loved, it seemed that Loki lost everything. How was it that this was the happiest of endings for him?
Uatu shrugged with a faintly philosophical air. "The next morning, as all of Asgard weeps for the lost princess and curses the name of Loki, Odin is found dead at the foot of Yggdrasill with a knife and pruning twine in his hands. It is strange indeed, that he had only just awakened from the Odinsleep and been spending time with the great tree to trim two almost dead twigs of branches and graft them into another place on the tree. The two twigs are twined at the top—wrapped around and around and all but knotted—but at their base, they are green and will yet bloom again where they are grafted. Again, Asgard wails as Odin is lost to them."
"His heart would be broken at losing Sigyn—no matter what she had done." Thor admitted sadly. "And for the children she carried."
"In that timeline, you would have found his final words—to watch over your brother as he lives out his exile-"
"Exile?"
"On Earth..." Uatu smiled. He waved his hand at the immense book containing the story and the page turned.
A young man with short black hair, fair skin and green eyes went to see a young woman singing at a bar near his college. She was an up-and-coming indie rocker with wild green hair and tatoos of Celtic knots up and down her arms. He went to speak to her, perhaps to get to know her. She snarled at him and went off with her girlfriend—who would soon be her wife—and he bumped into another student.
"Pardon me," he said, looking at the woman he had barreled over.
"No problem—it happens all the time. It's like I'm invisible sometimes or something." She smiled up at him. She was almost beautiful—mahogany curly hair in a haphazard braid and her eyes are the loveliest shade of deep brown he has ever seen.
"You have...brown eyes," he sighed in amazement.
She smiled, glancing down as her skin flushed dark red. "Err...yes."
"I feel like..." The man smiled at her but glanced down with an embarrassed flush. "I feel like I've waited a lifetime to see them." He smiled at her, delicately putting his finger under her chin to get her to look up at him again. It felt like getting punched in the gut—in a good way. "I...that is, would you like to get some coffee?"
She smiled. "I can't stay out late—I have an ag class and then botany lab tomorrow." The young man looked so crestfallen she touched his hand. "But I can do one coffee."
At the coffee shop, they sat on a comfortable sofa—suddenly drifting together as though they had been always like that. She has a mint and chamomile tea and he sips a dark hot chocolate. "My...name is Laurence Olivier Knightsbridge Ingles."
She smiled. "That's a mouthful."
"It is," he shrugged. "Just call me Lo. What's your name?"
"I'm Victory," she whispered back.
"Victory?!" he queries playfully.
"Mmm...My dad was in the army and mom...a bit of a nut. So all of us got weird, hippy names." She sipped her tea. "So you are-"
"I'm a theater and poly-sci double major," Lo said.
"Oooo...a politician?"
"Gotta look good for the camera to do that," he said playfully.
"You look fine," Victory protested.
"So you're into?"
"I'm an agricultural and European history double major," she said.
"Farmer?" he grinned. "With an amusing set of trivia?"
Victory stuck her tongue out at him, giggling. But she didn't leave his side as they talked until late in the night.
The years went by and they both graduated. They married quietly, although the media made it a circus when he was discovered to have inherited a trust fund from a Mr. O'dinson. The executor of the trust was a distant relative named Dr. Donald Blake, who was prone to visit at odd times. He dabbled briefly in politics to take advantage of the uproar—and got out when he found it to be largely backbiting and nothing about actually ruling a people. Still, luck favored him and he found a good living performing magic tricks for TV, especially tricks involving fire. He toured briefly, but grew tired of it. Victory had two children—two lively boys—and stayed home to take care of them along with a burgeoning farm with free-range, organic milk goats, a flock of chickens, a rather solitary milk-cow and enough organic produce to feed everyone. As the children grew, one seemed destined to go into wolf conservation and one who wanted to join the navy. They lived pleasant lives in a small farmhouse at the Pennsylvania and Maryland border, retiring to raising horses for the armed forces and for racing.
Thor read on.
He was King of Asgard and his first act was to lay Odin Borson to rest. Restless, he ordered the rebuilding of the Bifrost, but by the time it was finished, Jane had all but given up hope. Nick Fury had spent billions on special projects and research, only to lose much of it when no attacks materialized. Agent Phil Colson died four years after that from a freak accident on a slippery highway. Only Malekith's attack and Jane's finding of the Aether saved Fury as Thor brought the might of Asgard to help Jane and Earth. In the wake of that attack, the governments of Earth continued funding the Avengers Initiative.
But Banner went his own way—he was not interested in playing hero. Black Widow and Hawkeye wandered off as well, eventually retiring and finding somewhere quiet to live. Captain America grew tired of being the lab experiment—the FLAG project—and eventually went to enlist as a special forces volunteer. He died trying to save some girls in Nigeria. And then the Avengers Initiative died.
Jane ultimately died from the Aether and it was only by the rarest of good luck that Asgard was saved. But Frigga died protecting Jane and again Asgard mourned under the rule of a all-but-broken and grief-weary king. Sif tried to become the wife and queen that Asgard needed, but it was oftentimes too little, too late.
And King Thor of Asgard ruled from a battered and grim throne.
"Why do you show me this?!" Thor demanded.
"It is the truth," Uatu replied, nonplussed.
"That Jane dies? That Colson and the others suffer?"
"That is a separate timeline. None of that happens here and now, of course," Uatu said.
"It is a heavy and bitter thing," Thor remarked, closing the book.
"Destinies usually are," Uatu agreed.
"Show no one else this book," Thor commanded, drawing on his cloak. "Nor repeat the words in them."
"Whyever not?" Uatu said in a soft voice. "They cannot happen here and now."
"Because no one needs to know how grievously wrong we were of Loki and his intentions," Thor growled.
"Ahhh," Uatu said sagely. "Well? Would you know more?"
"Is there more?" Thor demanded.
"Of course—how Victory's children went on and then their children and children's children. Each path is a story that does not end simply because we wish it."
"What of the beginning?" Thor grunted.
"The beginning?"
"What was so different that I changed our—Loki's course and destiny."
"Ahh... that is a small detail, but very important." Uatu cleared his throat. "You stopped to-"
"To what?!"
"To swat a fly biting your neck. You turned then tell Loki to be careful," Uatu finished. "He was behind you as you landed and you stopped just long enough for Sigyn to be in the right place to change the course of history.
"Of course, in your timeline, you ignore the biting fly—assuming it to be some jest of Loki's. You do not speak to your brother as you step from your craft—though he hails you and asks for your direction in the battle...
"Well? Would you know more?"