The Thread of Life

"We die with the dying. We are born with the dead"

T.S. Eliot

Everything and everyone were where they should be, including me for the first time in... well, forever.

Here I'd sat, for how long, who knew? It didn't matter here. What mattered was down and above and all around; lives moving forward, lives creating and living their own stories.

I'd visited Thor early on, well, not visited but rather checked in on him. New Asgard was thriving, and every other Asgard more or less on its own branch. I'd figured out not long ago, I could conjure small inconsequential items from any branch. Move things about, a little way to appease the Mischievous Scamp who was still an integral part of my being. Besides, a little harmless mischief never went astray. Just recently I'd played with a Midgardian women's controller to her car, flicking the locks back and forth. Her frustration had turned to amusement. I'd moved on to another branch, plucking an apple from mid-air as it fell from an orchard tree, biting into the crunchy fruit, moving on to another branch, and another, and... wait, this one felt off...

I delved into the branch, untangling each individual strand until I found a fraying thread. A life about to end. I pulled at the thread, a story unfolding.

There was a young woman, easily beautiful in a natural way, almost ethereal really. Hair golden, eyes a deep sapphire blue, although they were too bright, with tears. She was staring down a man, slowly backing away as he advanced with a knife pointed at her. The way it gleamed, the familiar runes I knew like the back of my own hand. It even looked dwarf made... hang on, what branch was this? The original sacred timeline. Interesting.

"Theoric, please don't do this, I thought I could trust you." The woman pleaded. That voice, it was somewhat familiar. Had I seen her before on this branch? I peered again into the story, to hear her muffled scream as the man shoved a hand over her mouth and plunged the knife into her neck. She gasped, and then the man let her limp body fall to the leaf littered ground.

"Is it done?" Another male voice called, and the man, Theoric nudged the woman's head, bringing her face back into view. I froze. I did know her! She was one of the younger Asgardian Goddesses! Why, she had even been a close friend of Sif's! I didn't know her as well as Sif, but we'd certainly crossed paths from time to time, and whether at banquets or the consequences of some prank. She'd been caught up in my little poetry spell, I chuckled. Now, that had been a couple centuries ago. I recalled Odin once saying to Thor, she was wholly good, and her virtue was loyalty, compassion, and insight. I'd scoffed at the time; at Odin's not so subtle try at matchmaking. She'd turned out not only uninterested in my brother, but too intellectual, and instead had become close with Fandral. I'd seen her in my mother's company often too. Shaking my deepening memories away, I focused on the present.

What was she doing outside of New Asgard? I checked again, locating her to be in the Bunyip Ranges, Victoria, Australia. What in Hel? Why was she so far from home? Her thread, her life had darkened in my hand, frays like ash in my palm. I grasped onto it, forcing my magic back into it, going back, searching for the catalyst of her death.

The man, a human, had wooed her and tricked her into loving him. The dwarf wrought blade had been hers. He'd convinced her to give him some of Idun's golden apples. The Asgardian in me writhed and raged in anger. How dare he. He'd coaxed her into leaving with him to Australia with the intention to murder her, after she'd discovered he planned to study and replicate the properties of the apples. The Asgardian blade too. Hydra. The name slipped into my mind, cold and dangerous, and I searched through the branch, then through the past, gritting my teeth. Now there was pure evil.

I returned to the sorry scene in the forest. A new branch was forming, a growing bud, where the young Goddess lay dead, and her murderer and accomplice walked away, towards a black off-road vehicle.

Nope, absolutely not! I eviscerated the newly budding branch. She didn't deserve to die. Not like this. I pushed back into her thread, erasing her story to just before the man, Theoric, came into her life, and shuffled a few things around so they wouldn't meet. There done. Smiling, I let her now healthy and vital thread go, letting it weave back into the others.

Not long after, I visited New Asgard, checking over Thor. I hadn't pranked him for a while, hmm, what could I do? A thorn in his boot? No, I'd done that one already. Salt in his coffee? Bee in his hair?

I found him on a busy street, smiling as none other than a certain young Goddess chatted to him animatedly. Alive and well, good. She tossed a golden apple to him, and bid him good day, a bounce in her step as she disappeared down the street.

Curiosity got the better of me and I searched out her thread.

I found her in a spacious Asgardian styled house with Idun. Ah, that was right, Idun was her mother, and I was certain Tyr had fathered her. The apple connection made sense now. No wonder the girl was as pure, as bright as she was. Idun was far too good and giving; the best of the Goddesses after my mother. I'd tried tricking her once, a little prank involving those very apples. It hadn't gone down overly well with Odin. Or my mother, now I recalled. It had been hilarious though, watching the vainer gods fret they'd age and wither away.

"I met a man today, mother." The young Goddess exclaimed brightly.

"Oh?" Idun asked with a smile.

"Oh no, she didn't..." I muttered, as the young Goddess recalled the very man who had murdered her and snuffed out her thread.

"He asked me on a date to a Midgardian theatre." I groaned and pressed my palm into my forehead, a fray beginning to form upon her thread. Here we go again...

Eight times, EIGHT times I'd reset the young Goddess's life, had stopped this man, Theoric, and pruned the emerging timeline. Eight times he had stabbed the young Goddess over those damn apples!

This was ridiculous. Why couldn't I change her fate? Why couldn't I re-write this story? This thread? I was beyond perplexed as I watched for the ninth time as he advanced with her dwarf made blade. A weapon which could kill an Asgardian. Should I just let it run its course? She tried to fight him this time, something she had not done before. Something this time had changed. I watched on, heart in my throat. She was not a fighter, it was obvious, but she was Asgardian, stronger, than him. Why was she pulling her punches? He was going to kill her if she kept this up. "Hit him, kill him! Do something for Gods' sake!" I yelled. "He's going to kill you, AGAIN!" She did, and I held my breath, watching them tussle to the ground, the knife flashed, and she gasped, the sound turning into a painful cry.

"Bloody bitch!" Theoric panted, leaping to his feet, swiping at his face where flesh had been ripped open, from clawing fingernails. Blood dripped down his chin.

"Is it done?" The other man called, as he always did.

Theoric spat out a tooth and nodded grimly. "No one will find her body out here. She can bleed to death." With one last glance, they began walking towards their car leaving the broken and bloodied Goddess to her fate. Oh no, not this time!

"Why won't you stop dying!" I closed my eyes, shutting everything out, shutting her out, but in my hand, I felt the life ebbing from her thread. I had felt her die over, and over again. I entangled it between my fingers and pulled.

There was a gasping for air before me, and I opened my eyes, blinking through the threaded branches looming around to the obsidian stone at my feet.

"Sigyn, are you alright?" I called to her, watching anxiously as she rolled onto her back with a pained groan.

"Where am I?"

"Safe. Can you stand?"

"I..." She cried out, pulling herself upright, essentially kneeling at my feet, swaying. She was drenched in her own blood, and I winced, seeing the blade was struck to the hilt into her chest. How it had missed her heart was sheer luck. Her breaths came in shallow gasps, and pain was written across her too pale face. Pain and shock.

"Loki? Am I dead?" She mused, voice wavering and faint. Not good, not good at all.

"You're dying, but I can save you. Can you get closer, I'm kind of tied up here, but if I can touch you, I can heal you."

"You're dead. Is this Helheim?"

"Sigyn, listen, I need you to get closer." She would bleed out if she didn't move. Using her hands, she pulled herself closer, and blood trickled onto my knee, my thigh, my shirt. "Grab onto my shoulders." I urged, and with my right hand, transferred branches to my left, wrapping them about my wrist to be safe. Hand free, I latched onto the dagger before me, and ripped it from her chest. Her scream of agony caused the branches around me to ripple. "Sorry!" Quickly I slammed my palm against the gushing wound, her body collapsing against me.

Magic flowed into her, accelerating and aiding her own body's attempts to heal against dwarven steel. Lung tissue, muscle, an artery, and skin and bone re-knitted. There would be a scar, but she would survive. Exhaling pure relief, I used a little more magic to gently lower her to the stone floor, realising I could have simply pulled her towards me the same way. Having one's hands literally tied up made one rethink their abilities. I was still adjusting in a sense, exploring what I could do while still keeping a safe grasp of the timelines.

Now, to wait for Sigyn to awaken. Unfortunately, a flash of neon orange appeared instead.

"You." I bit out, heart once again in my throat. I made to stand but the branches reminded me I couldn't, their weight tightening.

"Me." The annoying orange clock replied solemnly. She didn't seem so happy to see me either.

"What do you want?" I kept the branches secure in my left hand, in case I needed to fight with my right. To let them go... it was out of the question.

"Mobius sent me, the TVA saw a change in the timelines."

"Mobius?" I uttered, hope swelling in my chest. "No, you're lying."

"See for yourself." Frowning, I sought his thread out. He was pacing, Sylvie with him, and Casey was with them, staring with furrowed brows at a computer screen in the TVA.

"Has she found him?" Mobius asked, clearly stressed. "Are you sure she's trustworthy? Actually trustworthy?" He added.

"We can trust her, I reset her myself. I'm the master command now." OB's voice came from a tempad.

"I've found him." The orange clock declared in her annoying smug voice.

"Is he okay? Loki, are you okay?" Mobius's voice, his questioning caused tears to prick in his eyes.

"What's the problem?" I demanded from the clock.

"You tell us." She said softly to me. "There's blood on him, a lot of it, and a blonde woman here too..." The clock reported back to the TVA.

"Blood?" I heard Sylvie's shocked voice through the thread.

"Miss Minutes, get back here now, we need his location now!" The clock vanished, leaving me alone save for Sigyn, who had begun to stir. She groaned, sitting upright to look about her and I watched as her entire body froze.

"Sorry, I haven't gotten around to redecorating yet." I said, seeing what she saw, empty time and space reaching out as far as the eye could see, well, where the threads weren't woven. I really did need to figure out how to fix the place up, it was a tad chilly what with no walls or roof anymore.

"Where am I?" She whispered, although it seemed more to herself.

"Outside of time, but you are safe here." I reassured. She turned then, getting cautiously to her feet, not failing to grasp the blade which had nearly killed her again.

"What are you?" She demanded, and to my surprise, A golden orb of magic flared in her empty palm, the blade poised in the other.

"Where was the magic when Theoric was trying to murder you?" I asked with a touch of annoyance. His name gave her pause, a flash of grief there and gone, before sapphire eyes narrowed at me.

"You can't be Loki, even though you wear his face and mimic his voice. Who are you?"

"I am Loki." I tried pacifying her with one hand semi raised. "Why don't you take a seat and I'll explain everything, including why I brought you here, and then-" The familiar sound of a time door opening cut me off, and Sigyn whirled, the gold magic at her palm flaring, only to gasp as Sylvie launched herself at the young Goddess, slamming her into the onyx stone floor which remained of my new home.

"Sylvie, don't harm her!" I yelled out and froze them both in time.

"Loki!" Mobius appeared, ducking under branches to reach me. "Are you hurt? Wow, we've finally found you!"

"Mobius, it's so good to see you, but how?" I shook my head, overwhelmed with joy at seeing my old friend.

"When the timelines started, well they seemed to be vibrating, Casey called me in. They've stabilized and no harm done that we can tell, but we needed to know you were okay?"

"I'm okay." I breathed out and unfroze Sylvie and Sigyn. "Nobody kill one another!" I commanded and to my relief, they both moved away from one another. Sigyn stepping away from all of us, clearly in fear, and Sylvie towards me.

"Hey." I said, smiling at her, yearning to, I wasn't sure, drag her into an embrace? She'd hate that. She looked about, taking in what remained of He Who Remains' home at the end of time. My home now.

"Can really see the personal touch of chaos you've added to the place." She commented dryly and I felt tears prick at my eyes, warmth swell in my chest.

"I've missed you too, Sylvie."

"Hey there, I'm Mobius." I shifted my gaze to where Mobius had hedged towards Sigyn. "How did you end up here?"

"Ask him." She said, pointing her knife at me. Mobius and Sylvie looked at me too, and Mobius sighed.

"Loki, what did you do?"

"I can explain." Sylvie raised a brow, and so too did Sigyn. "No really, I can explain.

"Little things, Loki, little things. Conjuring an actual human, I mean Goddess here, is not little. "Mobius groaned after my hurried retelling of saving Sigyn's life. He then dropped his brows with a look I was too familiar with. "By the way, I know it was you who hid my car key's this morning." I smirked at that.

"And kept jumping my record player last week. There's only so many times I can tolerate you hijacking my music, Loki"

"What?" I turned to Sylvie, failing to hide a grin. "You love Fleetwood Mac."

"I don't love The Chain on repeat for an hour straight." She retorted. Ah yes, I had done that. "You'll burn a hole in the damn vinyl."

"Enough of that, what are you going to do about her?" Mobius interrupted, gesturing to Sigyn. "She needs to return to her timeline."

I tried." I retorted. "Over and over, but each time, she's still murdered in the end.

"I'm right here." Sigyn said with a frown. So far, she had listened, seeming to accept I was who I was. But she was clearly bewildered by the entire situation.

"Sorry." I gave her a sheepish smile and turned back to Mobius. "Nothing I altered changed the trajectory of her timeline."

"What about killing him?" Sylvie interjected bluntly.

"I pruned his branching timeline afterwards, but I never thought of killing him before he killed her..."

"Do you hear yourself?" Sylvie scoffed. "You're not meant to be pruning new branching timelines, you're meant to leave them alone. She shouldn't even be here. This is going against everything." She raised her hands in exasperation.

"This is the only one I have pruned, and for good reason." I countered.

"But what about next time, when you decide it's a good reason to, and the next, and the next? When does it stop?"

I shook my head, exasperated. "Are we really going to argue, right now?"

"It is kind of what you do." Mobius muttered in the background.

"Can I interrupt?" Sigyn hedged.

"No!" Sylvie snapped.

"Go ahead, Sigyn." I sighed.

"I'm still quite confused, but I think you mean you killed Theoric and his right hand man, Holt." There was still anguish in her voice, and I remembered she had blindly loved this man. He'd not only nearly murdered her, he'd effectively broken her heart.

"Essentially they are dead and the future they had planned has been destroyed." Mobius explained.

"It was the right thing to do." Sigyn bit back tears. "He was a bad man. If the Golden Apples slipped further into the wrong hands... He had plans to use them for warfare, there's this organisation, Hydra."

"I know." I said softly and turned back to Sylvie.

"I'll admit I took this branch personally. I know Sigyn, and Idun's apples are not something to be taken lightly. They are the difference between what makes a human a human and an Asgardian an immortal. Those apples in the wrong hands..." I blew out a breath. "If I were anyone else, my old self, on the timeline, I still would have eliminated those two men, and prevented her death."

Sylvie clearly didn't like it, but she nodded. "So, what happens with her?" Sylvie gestured to Sigyn. Do we drop her back into her original branch?" Sigyn turned to me, unsure.

"Am I meant to be dead?" I caught her full questioning gaze.

"Yes."

"Then why did you choose to keep me alive, to bring me here?"

"Because I knew you of Asgard, and your death seemed such a loss when it is clear there is so much good in you. You didn't deserve to be fooled into loving someone who would leave you to die in every scenario." She didn't say anything, only nodded.

"I guess we could take her back to the TVA, she'd have a place there." Mobius started. Sigyn looked between him and me, then to Sylvie, and back at me.

"Are you here on your own?" She took in the empty space, the infinite number of branches threaded about us, glanced at my hands, both of which held the branches equally once more.

"I err, yes." I replied, a deep sadness washing over me.

"It would be so lonely, watching over infinite worlds, never able to participate." A lump formed in my throat at her painful perception.

"Well, now we have you in the tempad, and OB has fixed the crazy clock we can drop in and visit." Sylvie said, sounding both relieved they could, and saddened by Sigyn's observation.

"I'd like that. I'm a bit tied up these days." I gave a self-deprecating laugh."

"Although, conversation will be hard, you already know what we've been doing."

"But I don't know what you'll say next." I countered. "Free will and all."

"True." She shrugged. "Although you'll really need to get onto renovations if you'll be entertaining guests.

"Sylvie, we need to go and let the others know all is well." Mobius spoke up, frowning worriedly at me. "We'll be back, I promise. I'll even bring you back some crackerjacks."

"Crackerjacks? I don't even like them, you know I don't like them."

"Sure, you do. I'll get you a whole pack."

"No, I hate them, they taste like ash."

"Yeah, yeah, I guess I could find us some pies." Mobius decided while Sigyn glanced between us, confused. Mobius beckoned to her.

"Let's go, Sigyn, you're going to love the pies."

"I..." She stared at Mobius, then turned back to me. Her eyes, they burned with confusion, with the sudden loss of her entire life. I remembered the same moment. The moment I'd seen my death played out before me. But to experience it? A small mercy I had not. "I can't go back, can I?"

"It would be unwise." I admitted. "The TVA, where Mobius will take you, it is a good place full of good people. You can build a life there. Friends, a family." That all too familiar lump began filling my throat.

"You had a life there?" I smiled, swallowing the lump down. "I did, yes. It was the first time I felt I belonged, and I was seen." I admitted, glancing at Mobius.

"And, you can't go back, because you're here, watching over the universe." She confirmed.

"It's complicated, but that's correct. At least, for now." Sigyn nodded and turned back to Mobius.

"I'll stay here, at least, until you return."

"Well, okay then. But I warn you, this guy," he pointed a thumb at me as Sylvie activated her tempad, "He loves to talk." I merely rolled my eyes.

Sylvie caught my eye, her lips twitching, clearly trying to fight a smile. "The horns are a bit much." She turned away, vanishing before I could reply.

"Personally, love the horns, what a flex." Mobius said, walking after Sylvie.

"Flex?"

"Something my boys say." He chuckled, disappearing too.

Silence fell heavily around me, and my gaze landed on the contemplative figure who remained. Sigyn.

"The horns are impressive." She murmured.

"I personally haven't seen them." I admitted, feeling unexpectedly awkward now I had someone here to actually talk to. It had been a while, and I missed the easy banter between Sylvie, Mobius and myself.

"Well, they're massive." She gave a low laugh.

"What do they look like? I mean, I can feel their presence, and see them in my periphery, but that's it."

"They're like marbled black onyx and gold, not as smooth as what you used to wear, these are more... ancient? They remind me of runes. She mused. "Not entirely perfect, borne of wisdom and sacrifice." I stared at her, heart hammering by how correct she was.

"Why did you choose to stay?" I asked. She gave a small sad smile, taking in the expanse around us, and although I could see all worlds, she saw something more the way she gazed back at me.

"Because no one should be alone."