Red – red everywhere: clinging to her skin, dripping down her armor like thick vermillion sweat, coating the knife in her hand and the hand about the knife. All around her, screams rent the air as surely as sabers flesh, the sky was darkened – was that Thor's thunder she heard? Or just the screaming of Yggdrasil drowning in flame? – and the once-golden plain burnt black and red. Flowers and grasses were gone, the floor of the field reinstalled as lumps of burnt and beaten bodies. Corpses of those both recently alive and long dead littered the field, but neither Hela nor the Valkyries stopped to guide their souls. They were otherwise occupied against each other.
Weighing the knife in her hand, she turned and sought its potential target. Thor was just beyond that hill, out of range; Sleipnir had reared, making his underbelly Odin's shield; there was Tyr, and…ah! Heimdall. Of course – she had been waiting for him.
"Heimdall, old friend," she chuckled, "How is Ragnarok treating you?"
The gilded guardian said nothing, merely adjusted his great sword to swing at Loki's head. The trickster ducked, of course, slipping underneath the blade while her own sword dissolved into her grip. This was a battle not meant for knives and well-aimed throws. For once, she'd cede to Asgard's wishes, even as she burnt her to the ground.
Oddly matched, they danced in parries and thrusts and sidesteps with all the grace of inevitability. Granted, it was mostly a one-sided dance, as nothing in all the Nine would ever coerce Loki into saying Heimdall danced. The stately guardian was far too somber for such a term, even in face of Ragnarok. Surely, there was something wrong with one who could maintain such a blank visage in the end of all.
They continued thus for what seemed mere minutes and yet eons at once, until the ground shook and echoed with the heavy thud of Jormugandr's fall, and Thor's silhouette appeared on the hill's crest, gilded in firelight. Loki froze, her heart beating too fast of a sudden; the laughing calm she'd maintained thoughtlessly fell to bits as her lover took the first of his last steps.
"No, Thor," she hissed, counting the steps, "Stop!"
Six left. Why couldn't he ever just listen?
"Thor – oh," Loki breathed in surprise, staring down at the blade suddenly protruding from her midsection. That was unexpected.
She cocked her head curiously at Heimdall before a flick of her wrist sent him up in flames, the sword as well. Absently, she noted that turning the sword already piercing her torso into fire was probably a bad decision. Ah, well. Add it to the list. She wondered, inanely, as she ran to Thor's shaky form, if there was some great record-keeper on high who tallied up each soul's misdeeds and mistakes. If there were, she mused, they'd probably blacked out her column by now and simply written 'No good – eternally damned' up top. It would be easier for them in the long run.
"Thor, stop moving!" she called, her voice hoarse and scratched.
Two left.
The thunderer swayed on his feet, his brilliant shock of hay-gold hair dirtied by blood, sweat and the filth of battle. For a moment, his bronzed face crinkled as if in thought, considering her order. Then, of course, he ignored it and took his last step.
"NO!" she screamed, reaching out for him even as her legs gave way.
"Brother, please," Thor whispered, his voice strangely full for a dead man.
No, that wasn't right. She was most definitely not his brother – despite herself, Loki shuddered at the thought. Loose and lewd as others may dub her, she would never sleep with a blood relation. They weren't even the same race. Tilting her head, she was more than a little startled to find her chest a bit broader and flatter, hair cut just below her ears and her body in general far more muscular. Funny, I don't remember shifting before dying…
Loki woke with the same tired reluctance as always. He had never quite figured out whether he actually relived these memories or if he was merely dreaming; the aching fatigue throughout his body suggested the former, but the fact that he was still sprawled out in his bed made it seem rather unlikely.
"Brother, please, Captain Rogers would have words with us," Thor entreated in his best attempt at a soft tone. It was an undeniable failure.
Cursing softly, Loki curled tighter into his blankets; could he not get one hour of undisturbed rest? Unfortunately, Thor seemed to perk up at the profanity.
"Loki? Have you ris-" Thor cut off as his voice suddenly found itself straining in silence.
As the silence settled, Loki smiled and closed his eyes. It was a simple spell that he'd often used when they were younger, and soon enough, it would wear off. For now, though, he followed the tug on his mind and fell off the plane.
They always met in the same place: a candlelit cave in the middle of nothing with a narrow channel cut into the rock by the lazy, cheerful stream. Each would sit on their respective sides, Loki with his back against the wall and legs crossed at the ankle and Sigyn with her legs tucked neatly to the side with her dress spilling gracefully over them.
As he slid down into his familiar spot, the trickster stifled a small frown. She was distracted – stirring ripples into the water – and that never boded well.
"Love," he purred, affection doing its best to hide the echo in his voice.
Tugging her bottom lip between her teeth, Sigyn forced herself not to slip away to the corporeal plane. She knew that hollow, haunted voice like an old childhood nightmare; Loki's nightmares had often led her to find him sitting on their balcony with eyes of the void and resurrection on his mind. In general, she'd always drag him back to bed and chase away the memories with kisses and touches that left them both exhausted and exhilarated, but none of that could be had here. Much to her occasional dismay, the astral plane was one of fragile states in which any interaction of energy could burn and bend the soul like metal in a too-hot forge.
"What news from Vanaheim?" he prompted when she was silent.
"None from home. In Asgard, negotiations have soured further," she started finally, "The All-father is furious that the jotunns would break the truce – most especially because they doubted his word."
Loki snorted, "Oath-breaker is meant to be a reassuring title?"
Sigyn smiled faintly, though she kept her gaze down. Sighing quietly, Loki leaned back and watched her tiredly. She never bothered much with keeping things from him, and there were only certain times in which she'd be evasive (though, really, she was so terrible at hiding her thoughts that even Thor could tell that something was amiss). Her Sight, namely, was among them.
"What is it, sweet?" he queried, "Is another Odinsson on the way?"
He'd killed Balder enough times; he had no wish for further opportunities.
"No," Sigyn shook her head, auburn locks bouncing slightly with the motion, "but a Lokason is."
As expected, his entire body stiffened and stilled for a long moment (it was one of the curious effects of astral projection that every movement in the body could stop, from the beat of the heart to the firing of synapses. Emotion was impossible to mask.). Sigyn watched, still worrying her bottom lip, before finally offering her one escape.
"I can…get rid of it," she suggested hesitantly, trying to fortify her voice against her own trepidation.
For a brief second, Loki nearly latched onto the idea. It was so simple – one spell would easily do the trick, and then they'd just be careful, and perhaps, this time, it could all be avoided. One glance at her face, bravely stoic, though, reminded him of all the disasters that had occurred whenever he attempted to evade fate. Even the doomed invasion had been little more than the Norns punishing him for trying to end his tale too soon.
"No, no never that," he reassured, "I would never ask that of you."
She offered a wan smile of gratitude. Yes, she was relieved that she would not have to slay the unborn babe within her, but she had seen the conclusion of their tale, and it was hardly a happy one.
"You, better than anyone, know what will become of this, if he is born," she reminded.
Acid, screams and rancid chains flickered briefly through his memory.
"Yes, I do," he agreed, "but perhaps this time will be different. We've never had a daughter."
The lie was a feeble one to both of them. And we never will, Sigyn added silently, but the half-hearted hopefulness in his tone was enough to silence that correction. There was always the chance that, for the first time in a thousand lives, they would have a happy ending. It never hurt to try.
"Perhaps," she agreed softly, starting to fade.
Her hand brushed briefly against his as the room dissolved, and Loki slumped back into his bed as a new fist's rapping sounded on his door. It was lighter than Thor's at least, which was certainly an improvement – though, admittedly, Tony Stark at eight in the morning wasn't much better.
"Hey, Lokesters, I know you're awake. You're the only one who can actually mute people, and while quiet Thor is a whole kind of creepy on his own, we really need you to come out now. Cap's got a pow-wow going down, something about the whole Big, Bad and Blue De-" the man rambled.
Loki's door swung open to reveal a full dressed, eyebrow-quirked Norse god. Tony paused a moment to stare at him, because hello – definitely did not get dressed that quickly, which meant magic. No, not magic. Just really, really advanced science.
"Huh. So you weren't trying to sleep in," he declared.
"I was speaking with Sigyn," Loki answered as they started down the hall.
Tony paused a moment, something nagging in his mind that silenced the immediate 'how?'. He knew he knew, but the answer seemed to be tucked in behind the golden fog of inebriation, and was therefore irretrievable. Somehow, he thought it might have to do with the mostly-dismantled, magic-laced phone he'd found in the lab, but he really couldn't say.
"Anyway, Capsicle wants to talk to us about communication or something. Which is ridiculous – I mean, the whole 'Hulk, smash,' 'Clint, shoot,' 'Tony, save the day,' thing seems to be working just fine. I just don't get how finding out that one member of the team is secretly a big, frosty blue giant is that big a deal. Really…" he continued.
Before the man had gotten halfway through his monologue, Loki had shut him out from all but the most peripheral of hearing; Stark was one of the very few beings in all the Nine Realms who could possibly outtalk the Silvertongue. Nari, he mused, the name as familiar and pain-riddled as ever. There was always the chance that things would end differently. No one had said that Ragnarok's cycle need repeat forever.
As they reached the conference room, the door swung open and Loki pushed the thought of his once and future son from his mind. Eventually, he would have to face his fate again and he would have to return to Asgard, perhaps even Jotunheim.
The door swung open, and he absently lifted the spell on Thor. Almost immediately, he regretted that decision.
"Brother!" the thunderer pouted, "That was most unseemly."
Add it to the record book, he suggested as Thor continued to expound on the rudeness of silencing a cautious wake-up call, Steve struggled to find a semblance of order, and Tony fished out ice cubes to test whether they turned Loki's skin blue. For now, some things would always stay the same.
AN: And there you have it! Cheesy, dorky and cliche - just the way you like it (hopefully). I'll keep uploading my other random scribbles, but this little bit of nonsense has reached its end. Thanks for all the wonderful support throughout this story - it's really meant a lot.