'The dove descending breaks the air With flame.
The only hope, or else despair Lies in the choice of pyre of pyre—
To be redeemed from fire by fire.'
~ T.S Eliot
Sylvie was physically shaking when we pulled back out of the thread, and my good mood vanished at what I'd witnessed, but I need not have worried, she was only laughing. I let out a nervous chuckle of my own.
"I can't believe you impersonated Odin!" She burst out on another laugh. "How long did it last?"
"A couple years I believe, going off that memory and what the TVA has on record. More importantly though, Sigyn is my cousin. First cousin." I added smugly. I had truly forgotten the connection.
"Technically you are her adopted cousin, so..." she shrugged. "It doesn't really count."
"It counts." I lied and Sylvie snorted, seeing right through it.
"Well, I don't think there was anything there." I decided.
"Maybe." Sylvie replied, seeming more convinced than earlier. It was a relief, and I felt lighter for it. "Who is the Midgardian?"
"Sorry?"
"Sigyn said there was a Midgardian, a she. A friend of yours. Who is she?"
"No idea, I've never had any friends from Midgard. I tried ruling their realm remember, so didn't exactly make any friends or win any fans."
"The original you must have then." She deduced and I let out a dark chuckle.
"I highly doubt it. The old me, the one who I was before coming to the TVA thought humans weak, and beneath me. I certainly would not have deigned to befriend one."
"Perhaps he also grew up." She said.
"Perhaps." I murmured, deciding to find out more about this Midgardian 'friend', later. "Now it is obvious there is nothing between the other me and Sigyn, can we put it all behind us?"
"Hmm..." Sylvie pondered a moment before shaking her head. "Let's see this to the end." I blew out a long, dramatic sigh, and we dove back into my thread.
Asgard 616
Ragnarok
Me! They were all genuinely happy and relieved to see me! Yes, I'd announced myself with flair, arriving on the absolutely largest ship I could steal from the Grandmaster, the least I could do to exact my revenge on the sick, twisted bastard.
"Loki!" I heard my name called in cheer even as I leapt down onto the rainbow bridge.
"Did you miss me?" I grinned, striding among my people, and gestured to the gangway. "Everyone, on that ship, now!" I'd seen the destruction in the city, it's emptiness, seen the enemy army, the fighting, and the overgrown wolf pup as I and my motley crew had descended.
They followed me now, towards where Heimdall and not nearly enough Asgardian fighters held off an army of the dead. What had Hela done?
"Loki." I turned to see Sigyn, a small sword in hand, looking a little worse for wear. Relief ran through me at seeing the face of a friend still safe.
"Quickly, get on the ship." I instructed her, with a quick touch to her arm. It was then I realised she was standing among other wielders of Seiðir, holding a protective barrier. "Never mind, carry on, but if it becomes too risky, all of you make for the ship." A quick smile and nod from both Sigyn and my mother's old friend, Eir, and I continued through their barrier to Heimdall's side.
"Welcome home." He said, a knowingness to his golden eyes. "I saw you coming."
"Of course you did." I scoffed, and conjured my knives, mentally readying myself for the monstrous creatures charging towards us.
"They just keep coming!" I panted, between dispatching two more of the dead. "Your left!" Tyr shouted, and I spun, the knife in my right hand slashing through a sinewy throat. Whipping my horns off I caught a wide blade mid-swing, grateful to a burst of yellow-gold magic which shot past me and into the chest of the corpse warrior. He fell and I rammed another off the side of the bridge, who had dodged past Heimdall and ran towards the Seiðir wielders, including Sigyn. The sky cracked and I glanced towards the city. A great bolt of lightning struck the palace, the energy so intense, the hairs raised on the back of my neck. Thor had found his power. Finally. Smirking, I turned back to the fray. Hopefully he gave our dear sister a decent thrashing.
"You're late." Thor gasped out, even as I drew in a quick breath of my own. He was...
"You're missing an eye?" I uttered, shocked. He'd known I would come. Perhaps my brother did believe in me?
"This isn't over." The Valkyrie pushed past us towards the threat. Steeling myself, I turned with Thor to face the absolute evil, which was our sister. Well, his sister, I certainly wasn't related to this utter psychopath. Her taste in helmets? It was ridiculous for a start.
Each step took us closer to her, and she stared us down, menacing. Thor stopped and glanced at the Valkyrie. I'd find out her name once this was over. "I think we should disband the Revengers." He muttered, still breathing hard as we all were. An army of the dead gave little time for respite. I glanced at Hela and swallowed.
"Hit her with a lightning blast."
"I just hit her with the biggest lightning blast in the history of lightning!" He pointed at her approaching form. "It did nothing."
"We just need to hold her off until everyone is on-board." The Valkyrie said, but I doubted it would be so easy.
"It won't end there." Thor said with regret in his low words. "The longer Hela's on Asgard, the more powerful she grows." He sighed. "She'll hunt us down. We need to stop her here and now."
"So what do we do?" The Valkyrie turned to Thor, and so did I, the sheer gravity of the situation making me uncomfortable.
"I'm not doing, Get Help." I'd be killed like a fish for certain. The Valkyrie raised a disbelieving brow. "What?" I mouthed at her. I had no intention of dying here and letting Hela take Asgard, my Asgard, but what in the Nine Realms could we do? Her army was unstoppable. She was unstoppable...
"Asgard's not a place." Thor murmured, and I looked to him, confused. "It's a people." I frowned, I'd heard that phrase before, or similar. Odin... he'd said it at the retirement village, the last time I had visited him with-
"Loki!" Thor exclaimed, cutting of my thoughts. "This was never about stopping, Ragnarok. This was about causing Ragnarok." I gaped at him, but his reasoning made sense, as had Odin's words. I remembered her smile, her laughter. "Asgard's not a place, it's a people. And a home, my boy, is where your heart finds peace and your soul, meaning." Those had been Odin's words. So much had happened since I'd last seen her smile. I wanted to go home. I wanted to go home to her, where I could forget the taint of the Grandmaster and sakaar, and now this reign of terror before us.
"Sometimes, it's okay to let something burn." Her words drifted to me as if on the breeze, from the day we'd walked through a forest decimated by fire. "Life can then be started anew." She'd been referring to me, not the fire, but the tender green shoot rising from the ashes, she had pointed out with a smile, it had given me hope. Perhaps, Thor was right. Perhaps...
Understanding passed between us when Thor voiced his plan. "Surtur's crown, the vault..." Even then, I couldn't bring myself to agree. "It's the only way." He added, with soft defeat and yet there was hope. If we could destroy Hela's source of power, we could destroy Hela. I looked to the palace, to the city, to the only home I had known. Well until...
Drawing in a shaky breath, I nodded. "Bold move, brother. Even, for me." Thor inclined his head, and turning, I sprinted for the ship Thor and the others had escaped Sakaar on; a ship I wasn't particularly excited to board, having been coerced onto it once before, but at least I knew how to get back safely and quickly to the palace. The only problem was, there was an army of the dead blocking my way, battling what remained of the Asgardian fighters.
With a sigh, I spun my twin knives, my aim, the Grandmaster's party ship.
With Thor's latest lightning attack, the going was moderately easier, and I found myself on the ship and closing the hatch, ensuring my safety. Rushing to the controls, which of course I'd memorized how to use the last two times I'd been in the infernal aircraft, I was suddenly blown off my feet, and sent crashing to the floor. Knives out, I leapt up in time to hear a gasp.
"Oh, Loki! Sorry, I thought you were one of the dead."
"Do I look dead to you?" I stalked towards a battle worn Sigyn who stood looking panicked at the helm. "What are you doing?"
"Can you fly this thing? I can't figure it out."
"What?" I frowned, taken aback by her question.
"Fly it, I need to get to the palace gardens, my mother's tree, I need to get it before..." She trailed off, eye's bright with fear and determination. I didn't have time to argue, and well, we needed that tree.
"Move across." I ordered, and pressed a couple buttons, and felt the rumble of the ship engines. Lights flicked on, and I pulled a lever, levitating the ship into the air. "Hold on." I warned Sigyn, who gripped the headrest of the command seat staggering a little as I sent the ship accelerating towards the city, the palace.
"Wait, why did you need the ship?" I rolled my eyes at the suspicious tone to her question.
"Once you pick up your mother's tree, I'm going to free Surtur." I replied, manoeuvring the ship through the empty city, and over the giant-proof walls of the palace.
"Free Surtur! Are you insane!" Sigyn lunged, and the ship lurched sideways, barely missing well, the statue of me.
"You'll crash us!" I wrestled control back, cursing when her elbow connected with my chin, smacking my teeth together.
"You can't release Surtur, you'll start Ragnarok!"
"That's the point!" I fought to hold the ship steady while Sigyn battered at my arm. "It's Thor's idea, his orders to stop Hela." I added.
"Well he's insane too." She scoffed but let me lower the ship into the open field where outdoor games were played in the royal gardens. "Help me grab the tree." I raced after her down the exit ramp and towards the golden wrought glass house the tree was securely housed in. No guards barred our access, and the tree stood alone, golden apples gleaming amidst silver-green leaves.
"What are we going to do? Drag it out here?" I eyed the large solid gold pot the tree grew in. Wait, it was shimmering and shaking.
"Help me lift it." Sigyn gasped, and I realised with a jolt she was using her Seiðer to try and levitate it.
"I can't, I'm not good at-"
"Yes you can!" She grit out, and her hand grasped mine tight; a ripple of power surging up to my elbow from the contact. She was right, I knew how to do this. My mother had taught me, just as she had taught Sigyn. I sought out the magic which ran in my veins, calling it forth, directing it to the pot towards us. Green intermingled with gold light, and the tree rose a foot off the ground.
"Quickly, back to the ship." Walking backwards, hands still joined, Idun's Apple Tree followed, surrounded by our magic.
Once the tree was securely in the cockpit, I made to leave. "Stay here, I won't be long. But if I don't return and you see flames, take the ship." I quickly set it to auto-pilot so it would re-trace our last flight path and return to the other ship, the Statesman. Before I decided to forgo Thor's mad plan, I leapt down the exit. Sigyn was on my heels.
"I'm coming with you."
"Absolutely not."
"We're safer together."
"We very well might die together, get back on the ship."
"If something happens, the tree will still make it out. But if something happens to you, you'll have a better chance of survival with me."
"And why is that?"
"Because I'm the Goddess of Victory." I stared at her and shrugged.
"Fair point."
"Loki, what are you waiting for?" Sigyn called from the entrance to the vault which was fast filling with wildfire.
"Hang on..." I replied, gaze solely on the beckoning glow of the Tesseract. I knew the power it held, what it could harness. A formidable weapon against a formidable Goddess of Death or any other threats to my people. And perhaps something useful to keep up my sleeve.
"Loki!"
Heat touched my skin, and I grabbed the Tesseract, hiding it safely on my person, and then I raced the flames, towards a frantic Sigyn.
"Run, run!" She cried as a crackling roar boomed behind us, Surtur rising up, up, up, towering over the palace, heat searing the air.
We dodged erupting flames, running through buildings and along alcoves, until the garden was back in sight. Surtur bellowed, and tree's caught fire, and flowers and leaves wilted in our wake. Ahead of us, the ship's autopilot had activated. "The ship, quickly!" I urged, sprinting across the field, grabbing Sigyn's hand to drag her along.
"We won't make it!" She gasped.
"Yes we will!" I reached out my own Seiðir, pulling against the upward force of the ship as it tried to hover. Engines groaned under the stress and my heart slammed hard in my chest from the strain. The hatch was still open, and with a leap, I landed in the entrance, and hauled myself in, reaching back to drag Sigyn up after me. Flames raced towards the ship and I released my hold on it, letting the autopilots send us soaring up into the air while we lay on a heap on the floor, gasping for air.
Slowly I sat, pulling Sigyn up with me. "We made it." She sighed, staring down through the still open hatch to the burning palace, and the flames now stretching out into the city.
"We made it." I echoed, and when she pulled me into a tight embrace, I returned it with my own shaky sigh.
We reached the main ship well after is had ascended from the crumbling rainbow bridge, parking the smaller vessel securely in a chamber beside other smaller life-vessels. We left the golden apple tree safely in the party ship.
The rear of the ship was quiet as we hurried down walkways, searching for life on the huge Statesman.
"Loki." I turned to Sigyn, but she'd halted, staring out a wide window in a chamber. Below us Asgard was engulfed in flames.
"Once it's safe to, we'll all return." I consoled but no sooner had I uttered the words, there was a distant boom and within a flare of white light and fire, Asgard blinked from existence. "No..." I uttered, all other thought knocked from me. I'd known Surtur would destroy, but this? To completely wipe out the very existence of Asgard, like it was never there? An entire world, an entire home, gone. Sigyn let out a sob, and tears were streaming down her cheeks.
"What happens now?" She whispered.
"I... I don't know."
We parted ways once we found Idun and Tyr, the former embracing me and thanking me profusely for helping Sigyn retrieve the tree. Unused to such affection from my own people, I'd escaped to find Thor, leaving Sigyn with her family.
My brother was in a room which looked to have been set up as a private quarters, staring into a mirror. A neat black patch covered where his eye had once been. He reminded me of old paintings of a younger Odin. The resemblance now was otherworldly. And yet, he was still my brother. Still very much his own person.
"It suits you." I said in way of greeting, although he'd already seen me in the mirror's reflection.
"You know, maybe you're not so bad after all, brother." He mused, moving to a table of bottled liquor and picking up a large gaming dice.
"Maybe not." A smirk twitched at my mouth.
"Thank you." He added, more solemn. "If you were here, I might even give you a hug." Thor threw the dice at me. I caught it, before it could smack me in the face and smiled.
"I'm here." Thor smiled then too, a weary smile, but the relief, the relief for me being on the ship surely mirrored my relief of finding him on the ship; safe and well. There were only two living people I truly cared for, three, including Sigyn now, and they were all safe, and now I was safe too. Although, was I? The universe was an infinite place, and I was confident I'd never be found or captured by the Grandmaster again, never forced to bargain my life in such a way again, something I still needed to reconcile now there was time and quiet. But, would I remain hidden from others? I could only lay low and hope.
"Come on, lets head back out there, your people are awaiting you." I said, beckoning him to follow.
"Our people, Loki." He said in return. "We do this together. Brothers. Side by side."
All which remained of Asgard stood in the grand hall of a stolen space ship, awaiting with baited breath and uncertain hearts, for a destination. There was only one place I wished to go, and it filled me with both relief and dread when Thor announced we were bound for Earth. Midgard. The journey would be some days without the convenience of the Bifrost, and each day I grew both more eager to reach Midgard and more apprehensive.
"What ails you, Loki? You are as jittery as a disturbed nest of ants." Thor said, joining me at the window in the quarters we had taken up sharing on the third day.
"Do you really think its a good idea to go back to Earth?" Thor turned his head to me as if I was mad.
"Yes, of course." He said as if it were obvious. "The people of Earth love me. I'm very popular." I rolled my eyes at his lack of modesty.
"Let me re-phrase that." I let out a breath. "Do you really think its a good idea to bring me back to Earth?"
"Probably not, to be honest. But its not as if you haven't already been secretly going back and forth from Earth to visit your-"
"Yes, yes, but that was in secret, not arriving at my popular and loved brother's side in a giant space craft." I deadpanned.
"Hmm, I wouldn't worry, brother. I feel like everything's going to work out fine."
I nodded, gazing out at the galaxies, wondering if someone else too gazed at the stars, wondering about me as I did about... the stars, they were going out, a darkness enveloping them.
Something was moving, looming, casting a shadow over our ship, over us. And then, over my soul. Fear gripped me, a fiery dread spurned on by memories, by pain, by countless witnessed deaths.
"Thanos." My voice came out as a hoarse whisper, for I stared my doom in the face.
Thank you to all who have been following this story etc while I've had a bit of a hiatus.
A
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