Loketrätan - Chapter 1 - Willshebemina (2024)

Chapter Text

The wind howled around him, as it often did on the coast. It ran across the vast waters of Östersjön towards his favoured rocky shore, where he stood to watch the waves flood his favoured shore’s favoured spot. It brought equal amounts of joy and irritation, to see the waters roar and crash and hurl stones at the land like an angry child throwing rocks just to throw something. He loved the sound of it, how it dominated everything else, and he loved the little pools of water it would leave behind in the hollows of the stone beach. Once sunset came, it would reflect on the pools like a landscape of a thousand small lakes, all reflecting the colours of the endless sky and horizon. He was irritated though, because it meant his favourite reading spot was flooded. And there was bound to be the carcasses of little fish washed up on the shore, too, and sitting down on one of those on accident was sure to ruin his day. Then again, it might wash up some treasure. Driftwood from the witch-isle Blåkulla which was visible from the shore, perhaps. He was still banned from the place by the island’s witches, and so had to be grateful for every bit of its magic that he got his hands on. Blåkulla’s driftwood made the best kindling for his alchemy.

The roar of the waves and the serenity of his spot which was both secluded and open to the air and ocean made it so that he did not notice the disturbance in the air at first. Once he did, it was all he could hear — the air itself whining, roaring, in a spot not far from his side. It wobbled like a mirage despite the frigid air before. Between one moment and the next, an old friend appeared by his side. He stood there as simply as if he had been there all along, and were it not for his entrance and tell-tale eyepatch he might not have recognised him at first. He had grown old, well and truly: white hair like whispers in the wind, in the few places it still grew from his age-spotted skull, deep groves in his face and paper-thin skin clinging to his worn knuckles. His clothes were simple, as was his eyepatch, light-coloured and unassuming. He looked like any old man, moving to this place to spend his final years surrounded by beautiful summer sights, and away from his pestering grown children.

But his thin, dry lips smiled upon seeing him, and his remaining, watery blue eye was far too cunning to have belonged to anyone but him.

“Hello, old friend.” Even his voice bore indisputable signs of his age. It was as gnarly as Yggdrasil’s bark and branches.

“Are we still that, Oden?” he smiled, “Or has it been so long that nostalgia smothers your memories of our last meeting?”

“Nostalgia it may well be, but I would like to call it forgiveness. Or weariness. Whatever the name, it had worked its magic once I realised you had escaped your bonds — about a century after the fact. I decided I would not break the silence unless you did.”

“And yet, here you are. What changed?”

His sigh was world-weary and heavy. “Far too much in too little time, I fear. I come bearing grave news, and you are the first to hear them: Ragnarök approaches.”

He reeled back in chock. “It can’t,” he spat, “I have heard nothing. Jörmungand swims on, Fenris sleeps. Hel tends to her dead, and they’ve made no moves. All is silent, Oden. I’m quite happy to keep it that way.”

“That may change,” said Oden. He heaved another weary, rattling sigh. “I am dying, brother.”

He could not claim to be surprised, as aged as Oden appeared. It still hurt to hear, felt unreal. “You shouldn’t be able to,” said he, “It’s too soon.”

“Things have been moving more quickly, as of late. It is what it is, is it not?”

“You have never been and now, I guess, never will be funny. Why are you dying? Is it a curse?”

“In a way, yes. Though it is of my own doing. Do you recall Hela?”

“She’s hard to forget,” he said. “I remember Hel mentioning you cast her out, over a thousand years ago. Why?”

“Cast out in a sense, yes. I imprisoned her, at great cost to myself. She’s been eating away at my life force ever since. It won’t be long now, and my death means her freedom. Imprisonment hasn’t tempered her as it did you, I fear.”

“Shouldn’t have left out the snake,” he clucked his tongue, “Important detail, that. The torture wears on you more than the jail.”

“My apologies mean little to you, I know,” said Oden, “And I am not quite sorry enough to mean it, either. Still, your screams… they haunted me. Haunt me, still. I couldn’t do that to her, no matter what she had done, or intended to do.”

“And you couldn’t kill her, of course.” He said it sarcastically, but Oden nodded.

“Not while Asgard stands, no. Too much of her is part of it, and vice versa. Hence —”

“Your belief that Ragnarök is imminent,” he finished for him. Oden’s smile was grim.

“Yes. Either she recovers her strengths and turns on the Nine, or Asgard is destroyed.”

“Ah,” he laughed, “I can believe that. The latter, more likely. I don’t expect you to have no plan at all. But that’s not Ragnarök, and you know it.”

“It is how it will be seen, by Asgard’s people.”

“Up until the real deal shows up to knock them down. Which is, again, quite a way off, I remind you. There have been no omens. Or, there are omens of a great horrible battle here on Midgård, but that’s likely unrelated, and certainly nothing as dire as the end of all things. I would’ve heard about it if it was.” Oden looked at him, saying nothing. Which, of course, meant a great deal.

“Åh, fan. They are related. You need me to do something, don’t you? You wouldn’t show up here just for a tender farewell, your sentimentality does know limits.”

“This is not the last time that we meet, so it is not farewell at all. But yes, I do have a favour to ask.”

He has never had as fiery a temper as the other gods. Age and stillness had whittled down what little there was of rage to a thimble. But now, he felt its fires lick at his temple. “Gubbfan, if you come here expecting favours then you’ve truly gone senile. I don’t want to fight you right now, but that’s as far as my old bond can stretch.”

“You once implored me to honour that same bond, in service of nothing but your ego. I ask that you listen to me now because I ask not for myself, but for my sons, and our people.”

“Your people, Oden. They would not want you to claim I am one of them.”

“You cannot blame them, surely.”

He pursed his lips. “No,” He could hate it, but he’d had almost two thousand years to ponder his own faults, “But I’ve little desire to help them, or your… sons, did you say? I know of Tor, who’s the other one?”

Oden’s smile turned fond, a sickeningly parental and proud glimmer to his eye. “My youngest. We named him Loki.”

A laugh burst out from between his lips, the kind that shot out spittle like projectiles. None of them hit Oden, unfortunately, and the rest of his laughter was full-bellied, as loud as canon fire across the empty beach. “No, no you did not. Frigg would never agree to that.”

“She had her reservations, true. But she agreed, and she named him. It was a way to paint over our most painful memories of you, and judge me for that as you will, I understand. It was a selfish desire, but he ended up being… strikingly similar to you, in a number of ways.”

“For his sake, I hope not.”

Oden chuckled. “He is much more like his mother and I, where it counts. You would like him, though.”

“Not enough to meddle in your family crisis.”

“I don’t ask you to interfere with the matter of Hela,” Oden said to his surprise, “My sons will stand against her; I don’t doubt them. But afterwards… Afterwards, they will need all the help that they can get, and I can give them none but yours.”

“You cannot give them that, either.”

Oden was quiet for a spell, “Do you recall the name Thanos?”

“Vaguely,” he said, “He was before even our time. Might have been a saga, for all I know.”

“If only,” said Oden, “I have seen glimpses of what’s to come: Asgard in ruins, Thanos slaughtering many of the people who remain and casting my sons out into space, before making his way here, to Midgard.”

He rubbed at his eyes in an attempt to stifle his burgeoning headache. He knew to criticise Oden’s plans, aims and opinions in general, but not what his sejd showed him, or what he shared of the knowledge gleaned from Mimer. “Nåväl, I’ll bite. What does he want?”

“To use the infinity stones to kill half of all life in the universe.”

The waves roared as they had before. The wind still wailed. Oden stayed silent. And he, having the ability to turn into a fish, knew very well that he was gaping like one. “Åh. So, not the end of all things, but a horrible, sh*t time for at least centuries to come. I see.”

He thought of the place where he had lived now — this island, which was once home to a great many vikingar, and other järnålder warriors before them — for a mortal lifetime. The fishermen who still struggled to find some life in the bloated and algae infested Östersjön; the old snobs who bought the biggest plot of land they could find to construct plain but pretentious houses to live out their retirements in; he thought of the farmers and their yellow rapsfields and the gold they gave every harvest. He remembered each of the tourists he’d stumbled upon in the forests, believing himself to be alone, and those who came to gawk at every runestone and old tomb they could find. He thought of all the people he would entertain during festivals and long bonfirelit nights, telling stories of their myths, his memories, to their and his delight. He thought of the people on the mainland, to the south and far, far, far north, to the east and to the west, far beyond the reaches most expected of the people on Midgård he’d first come to know.

It wasn’t anything like the way it used to be, and he always felt like a stranger when in the company of anybody but nature itself. But it was vibrant, and varied, and exciting, and changing faster than he could comprehend.

If half of all that died, the rest would be so f*cking miserable for generations to come that he might as well pack up and move to Svalbard or go to live with the penguins down south. He’d lose his few remaining marbles. Worst of all, he couldn’t even kill himself to be spared any of the misery. The times he had tried, he could hear Nornorna laugh at him as they dangled his string of fate out of his reach.

“That sounds wretched,” he admitted to Oden, “I simply don’t know what you expect me to do about it.”

“Aid my sons, once Asgard is fallen. You can still leap in the air further than anyone, I expect. Find their ship and aid them in their fight against Thanos. I wish I could tell you how, but you’ve always thought best on your feet, quick as they are.”

“That’s it? Are you trying to joke again? Improvising is a different thing from going in both blind, deaf, and stupid.”

“There is yet time for you to plan. I have a few days left before Hela breaks free; after that, it shall take some time before Asgard falls, and more time after that before catastrophe truly strikes.”

“Ah, a few weeks for me to prevent a calamity of hitherto unseen proportions. Your generosity warms me, Oden. I remember now what kindled our brotherly bond.”

Oden crossed the distance between them, placing a hand on his shoulder. In the span of a single breath, he was transformed into himself as he was more than two thousand years ago, before either of them had done something the other could not forgive. “I ask this of you, because I know you to be capable of it. I ask this of you, as a last favour between sworn brothers. After that, you may consider yourself to be the stronger of the two of us, and the covenant between us severed.”

He mirrored Oden’s gesture, placing a hand on his shoulder. “And I can look forward to meeting you as a foe once true Ragnarök arrives?”

Oden nodded, mirth dancing in his eye. “Aye, Loke. If that is your wish.”

Loke bit his tongue, then cursed and stepped away. “Fine. I will do my best to keep them alive, and to avenge them should I fail. And I expect you to be in much better shape next time we meet — I want a worthy foe, and right now you look to me like an easy win.”

“You know better than anyone that looks can be deceiving, Loke.” Oden turned his hand towards the gentle swell of Blåkulla out in the strait. “I spoke to trollkonorna before coming here. They will allow you to land on their shores today, to trade for whatever you may need for the coming war.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Why you waste your time arguing when you already know you’ve won, I’ll never understand.”

“For the fun of it, of course,” said Oden, “Good luck.”

He was gone before he could get another word in, as swiftly as if he had never been there at all. Strange how much they had both changed yet remained the same since last they met. He couldn’t ignore how visibly changed Oden was, but he wondered how much of that went beneath the surface — how far beneath the surface did that weariness reach, and had it been there already when he’d held a newborn in his arms and decided to name it after him? Someone he believed was, at that moment, tied to a rock far beneath the surface of Midgård beneath a serpent’s perpetually dripping venom, by his command and his hands? He pictured Oden holding a smaller version of himself by the hand and standing by a cave on Midgård saying, “Do you hear that, my boy? That is the tortured wail of your namesake, trapped until he brings about the end of all things. He is a murderer, liar, and a cheat, and I miss him every day. You remind me of him, my boy. Let’s have some sweets.”

He took a great leap to the skies, crossing the sea by air in swift leaps, and laughed all the way.

It only took a couple of hours for Loke to grow furious with Oden after he had disappeared. Firstly, because he’d failed to instruct Blåkulla’s witches not to try and literally skin him while trading. He managed to haggle down to them taking a couple fingernails. a plait of his hair, some blood and some spunk, and even after all of that they still wouldn’t invite him to the orgy. It was a humiliating experience and burst the fun he’d first had with how angry they were at having to trade with him at all.

For the rest of his potion, he went after clear, homebrewed spirits, which provided more trouble than he had expected because the latest rage among his usual suppliers of EPA-heads was to flavour mäsk, which was of no help at all and also not to his tastes. It was while taking an offered shot of this that he realised that the oh-so helpful Oden had not mentioned where his sons were now which would surely have been of some help for him to figure out where they were going to be later. One might presume they were both in Asgård, but knowing their father’s youthful wanderlust he would not be surprised if they were far afield. Still, Oden had mentioned nothing of this. This implied, to him, that Oden did not want him to so much as meet the princes before Oden decided they had need of him.

Naturally, this only made him curious. Oden should have expected that.

Loke took his leave of the mäsk-man, deciding to postpone his search for clear brännvin. He appeared by his hearth, where the waiting logs lit up at a flick of his wrist and sat down before it to think of Oden. His dear brother had made no mention of whether anyone else was aware of his flight from his imprisonment, he thought. Loke guessed he would have told none, secretive bastard that he was, save perhaps…

“Heimdall.” He rose to his feet and let his usual cover fall from him, feeling suddenly naked and cold as exposed as he now was to scryers and other eyes. Wishing to be seen might draw unwelcome eyes to him, though he considered it a risk worth taking in this case. His greatest gain would be entry to Asgård — the greatest loss that he had to be quick-footed earlier than planned.

Loke felt it the moment Heimdall turned his gaze to him, the shock was great enough to spill over in the instant connection formed between them. A blink, and he saw Heimdall standing before him.

It was some comfort to know that Asgård’s guardian was unchanged, despite Oden’s drastic ageing. His falcon bright eyes were as piercing as they had always been, and his face as ageless as Loke’s own. What changes he noted were minor — this might be the first time Loke saw his hair fall free, unobstructed by a helmet or any other armour.

“Loke,” was his sole greeting. He sounded cautious.

“Oden didn’t tell you about me, I see,” Loke grinned, “I’m so glad to not be the only one left out of the loop. He does love his secrets, doesn’t he?”

“I take it you have spoken with him recently,” said Heimdall, “Or else you would not dare to call for me.”

“I really wouldn’t, no. He didn’t ask me to keep our little meeting a secret, so I might as well tell you. He’s given me the task of looking after his sons, a few weeks from now.”

Heimdall raised his brows. “A few weeks. That’s specific.”

He sighed. “Not nearly enough, unfortunately. You know him. He didn’t tell me where to find them, where they’ll be—” not exactly “—or how I can help them. I figure the best way to start might be to meet them, or at least spy a little. Get to know them. Would you help me, Heimdall?”

Heimdall’s face was as expressive as the rock holding up the Bifrost when he wanted it to be. “I suppose you want me to tell you where they are.”

Loke held a hand up to his heart. “If you’d be so kind.”

He didn’t like Heimdall’s way of smiling. They came rarely and, when Loke saw them, never reached his eyes. “Of course. Thor is imprisoned on Muspelheim, while Loki is on Asgard, playing at being king.”

There was a joke there, somewhere. He had to figure out where. “I should start with Loki, then. Would you kindly open the way for me, Heimdall?”

“I cannot,” said Heimdall. A muscle jumped in Loke’s jaw. “I cannot operate the Bifrost at all. You’d best wait for them to come to Midgard to see Odin,” he smiled again, “Did Odin tell you anything else?”

“He did,” said Loke, before severing their connection and casting the shroud over himself again.

Gaining Heimdall’s help had been a longshot, but thankfully the talk wasn’t fruitless. If Oden’s sons were coming to Midgård, he might have a chance of finding out where they were likeliest to appear. He was aware that Toor had made some appearances on Midgård in recent years, one had living under a rock to escape that fact — he wished now that he had paid more attention. Thankfully, Loke thought as he left his home, his closest neighbour had a computer.

New York. New York. That was too far to leap in one go, even for him. He’d have to — f*ck. Loke put his heads in his hands. He’d have to charter a flight. Buy a ticket and everything too; it used to be that he could cling to the back of the plane, but nowadays they had… instruments and what not, which made this a much bigger hassle than he had expected it to be. Thank you, Oden. He should have told his sons that just because most Scandies hade made for the states, didn’t mean they had to emigrate there too.

“Bosse!” he called over to his neighbour, who was brewing coffee in the kitchen, “How do I book a flight?”

“You going somewhere?”

Obviously. “Yeah. I’ve got a nephew in the States who’s been nagging on me to visit.”

“I didn’t know you had a nephew.” Bosse appeared to hand him a mug of coffee, choosing to hover by the side of the desk chair Loke was borrowing while he sipped on his own. “They got a name?”

“Tor.”

Bosse laughed, “What a theme. Where in America does he live? L.A.?”

“New York.”

Bosse huffed, “Not bad. You don’t strike me like the Hollywood type, either. Hope they’re covering your flight though, I looked through America-trips on Momondo once for a laugh and ended up in tears.”

Loke was starting to feel the same, from looking through the options — none of them were ones where he could reasonably get there in time for Oden to keel over, but he had no other place to start looking. He could at least reasonably assume they’d be in New York, and nothing beyond that. But New York required a passport, which required a legal identity, and a well-stacked bank account, which required a mobile phone to use when booking sh*t.

It used to be easy, jumping from one life to another. It used to be that he could move from one town and appear in a new one on the other side of the country with a newly invented past and nobody batted an eye. Then, he had to start breaking into places and placing forged documents in whatever archive that needed them. It had been fun, for a while — until computers took over and he had to break into those instead. That had taken a few hard years of trial and error and tears of frustration. He preferred to live as “off the grid” as possible, without electricity and the hassle all modern comforts provided a man who was thousands of years older than the very concept of the nation he lived in.

Loke doubted any travel agency would accept cash and sighed. He had to commit some kind of fraud again. Faking a passport would be easy, in comparison.

“How long does it take to get a visa, anyway?” Bosse asked him, “I’ve never gone anyplace that needed them. Isn’t there some little form you have to fill out where you promise you’re not a terrorist, too? I think one of my grandkids told me about that, once.”

Loke felt despair creeping in. “What’s a visa?”

Hours later, Loke conceded defeat against the migraine that was the firewalls of the United States of Amerikat, and got to work on a good old fashioned broom. It was a bit conspicuous, risked the chance of being spotted by radar, wasted some of the supplies he’d gotten from the witches, and required him to plan a route with stops in Norge, Island, Grönland, and Kanada. He looked forward to killing Heimdall when the real Ragnarök arrived more and more. He would have to hope that Oden managed to cling to life long enough for him to reach New York. The worst thing that could happen was that he died midway through Loke’s trip across the Atlantic, his sons went home, and Loke would have to turn the broom back around. If that happened, he decided, Oden’s sons would have to deal with Thanos the madman on their own.

If he did make it to New York, he hoped the boys would be the first people he had to speak to. His neighbour Bosse had kindly informed him, upon request, that his English accent sounded funny. Like an opposite of Tony Irving, he said, and Loke imagined he had to be relieved not to know what that meant.

It wasn’t his fault really, that his English was out of practice — he didn’t have the Allspeak, and the last time he’d been outside of Scandinavia, German had been the lingua franca, and before that the lingua franca had actually been French.

He left his keys with Bosse, and his spare set of keys with his other neighbour Agneta, along with instructions on how to care for his herb garden should he be gone for longer than a week. If he was gone for longer than a month, she was free to take one of his artworks he knew she’d been eyeing as payment for the continued care of his garden. If he was gone longer than two months, they should assume he was dead. This garnered a lot of nervous laughter and a plea for him to please be polite to the Americans because she’d hate for him to get shot. Loke could agree with that readily enough; he’d been shot with a musket when those had first reached Denmark and he didn’t know what it was, and he wasn’t too keen on giving it another go.

“I never knew you had more family,” she said once he was getting ready to leave, “You only talk about your daughter. Who is this nephew of yours?”

Loke laughed. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. I’ll send you a selfie when I get there.” He remembered that he didn’t have Messenger. Or a phone. He did have an old digital camera though. “I mean, I’ll show it when I get back.”

Two days after Oden showed up, Loke fastened his bag around his torso, put on a pair of MC-goggles, and set out for Amerika.

Almost half a day after that, he was cold, bored, stiff, and eager for any and all distractions as he flew over the ocean. His stay in Norway had been pleasant, seeing as it had been far too long since he ventured that far west, and also because he had forgotten how much travelling by broom took it out of you. Being exposed to the elements was never fun, no matter how well you dressed for it, and he had forgotten how very badly parts of your body ached from sitting on what was essentially a gnarly stick for hours on end. He had made himself an improvised seat by taking a scarf and wrapping it around the broom, which helped a little bit and not nearly enough considering it got as wet from the rain and ocean spray as the rest of him did, heating spells sewn into his cloak aside. Halfway to Island, he was daydreaming about hot springs when an angry looking orange hole opened in the air and swallowed him.

Before he could do more than say “åh nej”, he’d crashed his broom into a lovely oak panelled wall and fell to the similarly lovely floor, knocking over a Georgian (?) side table and breaking a porcelain (Qing? Yongcheng?) vase on his way down. Lying on the floor in a heap, broom tangled between his legs, he let out a long, miserable groan. The impact was mostly felt by his shoulder and the bruising would disappear in a minute or so, but the sheer confusion surrounding his rapidly changed circ*mstance and location made his vision swim. He waited for something to provide some kind of answer as to what had happened and why, without getting any kind of reply, for what felt like a small eternity.

Eventually, he grabbed his broom and pushed himself up to his feet, hearing the tinkle of porcelain shards and rainwater from his clothes rain down around him, pushed his googles up to his forehead, and tried to take in his surroundings. The first thing he noticed was that he seemed to be in some kind of fancy vestibule, complete with a frighteningly broad staircase. The second thing was the strange, cloaked, floating man slowly coming towards him.

“Welcome,” said the strange man, with a voice that echoed beyond what was natural. “Identify yourself.”

The voice sounded vaguely American to Loke, which was surprisingly nice to hear — he hoped it meant he was on the east coast of the states, in which case he’d consider this strange abduction to be a short cut. Loke pushed the goggles up on his forehead and curtsied, “Hello. I’m confused.”

The strange floating man came to a stop about a few metres away from him and gently landed on the floor. He had to tilt his head slightly to meet Loke’s eyes even from that distance, which Loke guessed put him at about two decimetres shorter than himself. The cloak ceased its strange anti-gravitational behaviour the moment the strange man touched the ground, which made the most-eye catching thing about him after that his horrible, hideous goatee. Not that the rest of his get-up was stellar, either: he looked like one of the weirdos who took Medeltidsveckan both too seriously and not seriously enough, combining some good-looking craftmanship with a hodgepodge of anachronistic stuff. In short, each piece looked like it was picked because “this looks cool”, and then no thought was given towards the greater whole. A very normal thing to do for someone who looked like they wanted to dress up as a fantasy wizard. Though, he did seem to have some genuine skills with sorcery, so who was Loke to criticise him for his work-uniform? Maybe this was what Americans wanted their wizards to look like.

“So am I,” said the strange man, “See, I watch out for — threats, you could say, to Earth, and that means keeping a close eye on anything that looks unusual. Like, say, a man flying over the Atlantic ocean on a broom like something straight out of a fairy tale. I’ve never heard of that before, and I like to think that I have a pretty decent understanding of the magical arts, and their practicians. You, whoever you are, don’t look like anyone I’ve ever heard of.” He gave a little blasé rise of an eyebrow, “I don’t want to be rude, but let’s just say it’s in your interest to prove you’re not a threat. So, again, who are you? Why the broom?”

That was a lot of quick English in short order. Loke struggled to get his brain on the right track towards understanding it all. Also, what he did understand didn’t make sense. “Magic practiser?” he asked, “Like… a wizard? Or a person using magic?”

The strange man looked unimpressed. “Most would say that sorcerers use magic.”

Condescending little bastard. “I’m not a wizard and I use magic,” he said, lifting the broom, “There is not a monopoly on using spells.”

“No,” the strange man conceded, “But I’ve never heard of anyone but sorcerers using spells before.”

“Then your world is smaller than mine,” said Loke with a shrug, “I have no magic; I make it, then put it on or in something.”

The weirdo narrowed his eyes at him, and Loke felt like the air in the room had gone down a couple of degrees. “Let’s put a pin in that, for now. What’s your name?”

“I don’t want to say,” said Loke, “You kidnapped me.”

“Abducted,” the man corrected, “You’re not a kid. And as I said, my job is to determine whether or not you’re a threat.”

“To what?”

“To Earth.” He spread out his hands, still looking at Loke with narrowed eyes. The overall impression of that demeanour was that he thought Loke was some kind of idiot — which was sort of fair, since Loke was developing a similar opinion about him. “To the people that inhabit it.”

“Americans? You did not kidnap me before you saw I was flying in this direction.”

“Not just Americans,” said the man, “Though we do tend to be at the centre of whatever’s the current interplanetary- or dimensional crisis. We’ve had some incidents in recent years, as I’m sure you’re aware, of hostile extra-terrestrial forces trying to invade us. Us as in New York, in particular.”

Loke almost laughed. New York! What luck, that had spared him about a day more of travel, all with a portal that took less than a minute to cross through. He wondered if he might persuade this strange man to open a portal to Asgård. Feeling a sudden inclination towards being helpful, he said: “Okay. I am Loptr, and I am a jätte by birth, but ase by life. Do you know Oden? I have a mission from him.”

The man’s eyes had turned as round as saucers. “I— yes, we have spoken. Somewhat recently.”

Well done, Oden. That was uncharacteristically helpful. “Me too. He asked that I help his sons, I said yes, and put fast to go to New York. They seem to like it there.”

“You mean you’re Asgardian? With a personal relationship to their king?”

He was a bit thick, this man. “Ase, yes.”

He huffed, “Pardon me for asking but you don’t sound like an Asgardian. They’re a — well. British. You sound as if you’re about to start singing Mamma Mia.”

“There’s more than one band in Sw– nevermind. You can understand Oden and his sons because of a spell,” Loke explained, “I don’t have that. I have to learn languages.”

The man seemed to flounder a bit, before frowning. “You said ‘sons’. Oden’s sons,” He stressed the S.

“Yes.”

“Thor,” said the man.

“Yes.”

“And… Loki.”

Were all American wizards this slow? “Yes.”

“Loki, who brought a hostile alien army down on New York in an attempt to conquer Earth. Odin wants you to help him. Is that right?”

“Yes.” f*ck. How had that not come up when he Googled Tor? He had seen something about an invasion, sure. Though, perhaps it made sense that they wouldn’t know or want to advertise the name of their main villain. Loke could easily see that leading to people characterising the whole ordeal as a family affair gone out of hand using Midgård as a playground — which, he guessed, wouldn’t be too far off the mark. “Family is family.” Which was inescapable, no matter what sort of blood the ties were made of. The blood oath keeping him and Oden tethered had always been stronger than the blood shared between Loke and his other two brothers.

The wizard’s look of sceptical contempt remained. “Right. See, Loki is exactly the sort of being that’s considered a threat. If you desire to help him, I don’t exactly feel inclined to let you loose.”

“I will help him and Tor to not die,” said Loke, “That’s all.”

“And you can’t do this on Asgard?”

“If you have met Tor and Oden, you are in the habit of royalty,” said Loke, “A king and a prince who can come and go as they like. The rest of us have to ask them, and Tor is away.” A small lie — most could not presume to ask Heimdall for access to the Bifrost, and those who could had gained the privilege on account of their status. Loke had access once upon a time, before… well, before.

“Away?”

Loke fought the urge to stomp his foot. “I have given you my name. Please, be kind and tell me yours.”

“Ah.” He had the decency to appear embarrassed. He stretched out one hand, dressed in a very ugly glove. “Doctor Strange.”

It was said with complete sincerity, though it sounded like a joke. “Strange, meaning odd?” He took the offered hand and was disappointed to find that shaking this Doctor’s hand felt similar to shaking a fish trying to escape from your grip — one little flop and then an attempt to fly away.

“Funny, I know,” said the strange man Strange. He didn’t look like he thought it was funny. “Are you Borson, then?”

“No.” Thank Nornorna for that. He tugged at his collar. “I’m becoming hot. It was nice to meet you, but I need to go. Could you show me the door?”

He must have blinked. Where before they had been in a wide vestibule, they now stood in what appeared to be a large wardrobe. “Feel free to leave your things here,” said Doctor Strange, unruffled to suddenly be standing in a completely different room to where they had been a second ago.

Loke suppressed his growing sense of alarm. Different wizards had different talents, fair enough. This aptitude for teleportation, though? He had never seen anything like it before. He felt a timeless envy stir at the thought of someone having access to powers of that kind without any apparent effort. What he would not do with powers like that! To think of what he could have accomplished; and here this man was, bothering strangers out of nothing more than paranoia, espousing vague ideas of protection without feeling any need whatsoever to explain why he should be a worthy guardian. Loke despised extreme humility and welcomed some audacity in a person, but this man was galling in a way that only inspired a bitter distaste. “No thank you. I need to go to New York, as I said.”

“You did it, you’re here. Welcome to New York,” said Strange. “Also, you’re welcome. Tell you what, I’ll tell you the second I sense that your nephews have landed and until then, you’re free to stay here.”

Oh, joy. Loke had been politely held prisoner before, and there wasn’t much about it that he preferred to the honest, impolite kind of imprisonment (as long as the latter didn’t include torture). “I don’t want to be rude,” he said slowly, clutching the broom tightly against his body. “But I don’t know you. I have lived in Sweden for a hundred years, and they don’t trust strangers.”

“I understand,” said Strange, his condescending smile back in place. Same as before, their surroundings changed between one moment to the next —Strange was sitting comfortably in an armchair as if he’d been sitting there the whole time, while Loke felt like he was knocked over to sprawl in a chair opposite his. The bag fastened against his back made the fall awkward and he ended up perched on the very edge of the seat like a school child waiting for class to end.

“Still, I am eager to hear more about your spellcasting. Spellweaving? However it is that you use magic.”

“Why.”

He spread his hands out, a perfect picture of insincere benevolence. “Indulge me. I have a great fascination with different magical traditions. I like to gather different ideas, see what different sorcerers can learn from each other, and so on. This is purely out of curiosity, I assure you.”

“I am not as sure,” said Loke, “Also, English is making my head hurt.”

“Right, there’s a spell for that, I should’ve told you. I’ll just —”

“Do not use any magic on me,” Loke protested. This wizard was a hooligan of the worst kind, that much was obvious. He had to be new to his powers too, he had all the impatience and disembarrassment of a fresh show pony.

“Ah, sure. I’ll just go ahead and do the reverse, then,” he made some more orange, fizzy magic, “and now I can understand you.”

Loke knew perfectly well that his English wasn’t perfect, but this pricked his pride. “No thank you. I will practice my English.”

Strange pursed his lips but did not otherwise protest. “If you insist,” he steepled his fingers together, “You said you’ve been living in Sweden for a hundred years. How long have you been on Midgard?”

He considered doing as the locals in his village usually advised (“mind yourself, f*ck the rest”) then decided to give him information which would mess with him, at least a little. Why not inform this child with an ugly goatee that the world was bigger than he knew?

“I was born here.” Not on Midgård, technically, but on this planet. He was born in Jotunheim, home of the giants — unlike the planet Jotunheim, home of the frost giants. Or Muspelheim, home of the fire giants. Those two races each got their own planet, lucky bastards. Loke was of the kind of giant most closely related to Ymer the creator of cosmos, and their Jotunheim and the city Utgård was carved out of the rocks of northernmost North, right where the polar sea began in earnest. North of Svalbard, it was hidden from the view of all who did not already know about it, and the place had been ancient even by the time Loke was born. He grew up hearing tales of former splendour, when ice had covered large swaths of the northern hemisphere and his people’s kingdom stretched out on top of it, milking like mortals later milked cows. But he was born after it had crawled back, and they landed on an island where no trees grew. The craggily foundation fell into the sea bit by bit each year, and most giants had already left by the time for Loke’s imprisonment, gone to he knew not where. He had not seen the place for two thousand years — it might be naught but pebbles by now.

“You’re from Earth?” Strange doctor did not sound like he believed him.

“Your mind is small,” said Loke, “and this world was once larger, with more peoples in it. Especially more larger people: giants.”

“You don’t look all that giant to me.”

“You look small,” Loke smiled, “and people used to be even smaller than you, mostly.” He was an admittedly small giant —he was travel sized. Two metres wasn’t nothing, but it wasn’t much — the mäsk-man he went to for illegal alcohol was two metres one centimetre, for comparison.

“That’s actually a common misconception,” said Strange, “nutrition has always played a large role in determining people’s heights. Hunter-gatherers were generally tall, while the first agrarian — you’re sure you don’t need a wardrobe?”

While Strange was talking, Loke had stood up and taken off his bag to start rummaging through it. “No. I’m changing jackets.”

He put his broom down in the bag, then took off his practical travelling coat and put that away too. He reached down into the bag until he could find his — ah, there.

“You fit your entire arm in there,” said Strange, voice filled with disbelief, “And your broom. What? Is that a pocket dimension?”

“It is spelled.” He straightened out his hawk-feathered cloak, smoothing some errant feathers down with his hand.

“Enchanted,” said Strange, “enchanted with spells or with something else, what kind of magic do you use?”

“Me? Any kind. This bag? I got it from the witches.”

“That definite article, is it stressed?”

Loke did not understand what that meant, nor did he care to. He put on the feather coat and fastened the bag again.

“By which I mean,” Strange continued, “is it a non-specific group of witches, or are you talking about the witches, a collective of witches more relevant than any other witches?”

“There was this book that came out in the 1550s,” said Loke, “that made the witches really angry because the bishop who wrote it revealed their address to everybody. I mean those witches.”

Loke went to sit down in the armchair again; he fell to the floor ass first when the room shifted again, this time to a library. He let out an involuntary f*ck me on impact.

Once he had his bearings he saw Strange flipping through book after book, dropping them after slamming them shut — instead of hitting the ground, they floated back to their original places while Strange carried on treating the delicate looking old tomes like they were made of rubber.

“What is wrong with you?” asked Loke, more curious than anything else.

“Very little,” said Strange. He held up a book: “Is this the one; Archbishop Oh-laws Mack-noss’ History the yentibuss? Published in 1555?”

The name told him nothing. Loke walked up closer, peering at the name on the side: Olaus Magnus, Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus, History of the Northen Peoples. “Yes, that’s the one.”

Strange flipped it open to the index. He raised his brow again. “There’s a whole chapter on giants,” he said, “and… gigantic sea beasts. Such as — ‘evil whales’”.

“He didn’t understand everything,” said Loke, “but all things come from truth.” They didn’t. The whole book was a game of telephone, of folklore and mythology passed down across centuries, bundled together and mixed up with different stories, presented by a man with a Catholic sentiment, overt political agendas, an at the time fashionable amount of xenophobia, and a whole lot of greed condensed in one tiny unemployed body.

Loke clarified, “He is your best source on my kind of magic, trust me.” Loke trusted it would distract an arrogant American sorcerer, at least.

“Hmm.”

Maybe not; it was worth a try. “I will go now,” said Loke, “to look for my nephews.”

“No need for that,” said Strange, “a portal — I’m guessing the Bifrost — opened in Central Park a minute ago.”

Loke didn’t waste time being angry, he’d put a curse on Strange later, if he had any time left over. He grinned, waved bye, then used his cloak to between one breath and the next transform himself into a hawk. He didn’t stay to hear Strange’s exclamation in detail. He flew into another room with a window, turned back to his normal form long enough to throw something heavy (Ming vase?) through the glass pane, turned into a hawk and escaped. He flew to the top of the nearest freakishly tall building, then standing on the roof transformed again. Now, to find two gods.

A hawk was circling above them. A hawk, in New York. Thor set his jaw. He admittedly knew little of Midgardian fauna, beyond what he had learned many centuries ago. A hawk, though, in a densely populated area — that drew his notice. What’s more, it was circling him and Loki overhead, before landing on a building close by. Close by enough to keep watch. Thor exchanged a significant look with his brother, but made no other notice of it…

Until his brother disappeared through the ground, leaving only a note with an address behind, and the hawk began to circle him again. This time, he let it know that he was watching and held out his arm as a perch, the way he would when out hunting.

The bird landed and watched him with golden, fiendishly intelligent eyes. At first, he thought it might be Heimdall, or a messenger of his, but it would the first time the watchman sent a liaison rather than a direct message.

It was no Raven, either. Though…

“Did Odin send you?”

The bird inclined its head. Relief of a kind he had not felt since he knew not when swept over him, and a childish kind of comfort. His father was alive, knew in some manner where he was, and was even now looking after him. Him and Loki both, despite it all. Thor held his fingers out towards the bird’s beak and ran his fingers over the silken head with its permission.

“For what purpose?” he asked. With a shake of its feathers, the hawk took off into the air once more, then began to fly off with purpose.

It kept its speed and trail steady, and Thor followed.

When it became obvious that the hawk had led Thor to the address specified on the note, he wondered for a moment if the hawk had been duplicitous. It could, very well, be a trap. Though, he had yet to find a prison Mjolnir could not break him out of — and in any case, he would be amiss to potentially leave Loki behind. Loki being good at the reverse did not mean Thor had to take after him. After all, they worked so well because they didn’t share all skills.

That Earth had wizards was a surprise, but a welcome one. Good for them. The few wise old women he’d met once upon a time had been pretty limited in their abilities. It was nice to see them progress.

Once the most awkward parts of their introduction were out of the way, Strange was feeling more similar to Stark by the minute. Sitting in some type of library, Strange pointed towards the hawk perched above him. “I see you’ve met Loptr.”

Loptr! Thor laughed. “I have, though I was unaware of his name. Sky-treader, like the trickster in our nurse’s old fairy tales, that’s clever. How did you come by his name?”

Strange frowned, looking up at Loptr. “He told me. He came by looking for you and your brother – it’s how I was made aware you would come to Earth in the first place.”

Unsurprising that the wizard would have the ability to communicate with familiars. Thor was a little envious – he had dearly wished for the ability to speak with animals as a child, believing that something by the name All-speak would encompass all living things.

“I am not surprised; my father always had a way with birds. He could tell from a flock which one was the smartest.”

Strange smiled tightly. “You do know he’s not a normal bird, I hope?”

With the unflattering beard and tendency to state the obvious, Thor was again reminded of Tony Stark and pondered if Midgardian men of New York had a very strict mode of manner for their aristocracy.

“Of course,” he said, “We use birds very often in Asgard, they take to spellcraft like ducks to water. Is this truly so strange to you — you use pigeons to carry messengers, do you not?”

“We don’t anymore, actually, no. Are you telling me you do?”

“No, of course not. We use ravens, they’re louder,” he looked to where Loptr the hawk was sitting, watching them. Probably waiting for some well-earned treats, “Hawks make for fine hunting companions, though. Some hawks of exceptional skill are given lifespans longer than a human by their master, you know. Excellent birds, hawks.” Maybe that could soothe the fellow until Thor could get his hands on some dried meat or something. He did seem to perk up a bit.

Strange looked sort of constipated. “Fascinating, I love the passion you have for birds. Didn’t see that coming. Anyway—”

“My brother Loki kept magpies,” Thor said, remembering the reason he had come. He felt a bit foolish to have let it go unmentioned for so long. “If you brought him back here, he could tell you more. About birds and magic, both.”

“Great, lovely, every man needs a hobby,” Strange said quickly, “But I must decline. I am not bringing him here without knowing Earth is safe from him. I’m sure you understand.”

Like Thor would let Loki out of his sight to as much as try and put Earth in danger. He could only cause trouble when Thor wasn’t watching him, which made the fact that he was out of sight nerve-wracking. “I promise you, as soon as we’ve spoken to our father, we will leave for Asgard. We are here to bring him home, nothing more.”

“You mean then, that if I took you to Odin, all concerned parties would leave for Asgard? Immediately?”

“Right away.”

Strange looked at Loptr the hawk. “Would you go with them?”

A cool stare was the sole reply. Thor did not doubt the hawk would join them. They both were there on behalf of Odin, after all.

Thor didn’t try to keep track of the tinkering and whatever the wizard occupied himself with for a few dizzying seconds of constant teleportation throughout his house. He prided himself on staying upright for nearly most of it. Loptr the hawk looked as ruffled as he, poor thing.

Thor took a little bit of skadeglädje out of summoning Mjolnir back to his hand through the entirety of the house, and a lot of it out of seeing Loki fall to the floor face first when Strange let him out of his hole.

A second later, they were teleported again, and Thor’s senses were overrun. The air of Norway was damp and cold, like the mountains of Asgard in springtime. He smelled the brine of the sea, felt the grass’ dew against the hems of his jeans, wind rustling his hair. He heard Loki fall over. None of these things mattered once he felt, knew, that their father was nearby.

He seemed to have aged decades in the years since Thor had last seen him. He was grey and worn, near translucent in the landscape, back bent beneath his mortal clothes, and his one eye aimless and empty. His voice was equally frail, dim where it used to rival Thor’s thunder. He wished this had been Loki’s work, for his fear and anger to have some clear direction. Of course, it couldn’t be so simple.

But Odin came to life, what little force of it he had, when Thor suggested it was Loki’s trick. Some light entered his eye once more, when he spoke to them. Then it was directed to his own knee, where the hawk landed to perch. Thor had forgotten about him entirely but was nevertheless surprised to see the bird be so bold.

His father only chuckled. “It is good to see you, old friend.” It was difficult to see him act so senile, that he would be distracted by a hawk Thor had not known him to have before. “Will you not let me look in your true eyes, one last time?”

The bird co*cked its head. It opened its beak, and spoke with a melodious, very human voice. It was a far cry from the hoarse croaking Thor was accustomed to hearing from a bespelled bird, and more like it was no bird at all. “It is not the last time,” said Loptr the hawk, “And it is your children you should focus on, broder. Do you forget? If not for them I wouldn’t be here at all.”

Their father hummed, and sadness came over him again. “As you say. My children —” he paused. “My sons, Hela is coming.” And that is how Thor and his brother learned they had a sister.

He lost sight of the bird after that. Out of everything that had happened that day, it was a stray petal in a hurricane. He might have seen Loptr the talking hawk behind them in the Bifrost before his brother and then he were cast out into the infinite void of space; he couldn’t say for certain. He didn’t think of it again during everything that happened on Sakaar. And then: Ragnarok.

Loke hadn’t seen enough of Loki to form a strong opinion of the boy. Tor? It didn’t take long to see the pattern plaguing the house of Oden. First, there was golden and glorious Balder, who looked like Bor. Then, there was Hela. And then, glorious golden Tor who looked like Bor. And then, Loki. Thankfully, this second generation of heirs seemed more well-rounded, more reasonable than the first — they certainly got along better, from what he had seen. Perhaps if Oden had had the time to create a third set of children, they wouldn’t even need a Ragnarök.

As it was, he crashed out into the Bifrost hall with an involuntary squawk and noticed three things: there was no Heimdall, only a temp; Tor and Loki were lost on the way; Hela, unfortunately, made it. And she had spotted him.

He didn’t think she recognised him in hawk form but didn’t want to take the chance of staying to find out. He burst out of the hall and out into open air as soon as he could, narrowly avoiding the daggers thrown at him. Since there were only two and no further attempts beyond that, he figured himself to be in the clear, or that Hela was sufficiently distracted.

Loke looked out over the bridge, over the horizon, and recognised nothing. He looked towards the mountains and the sea and found them changed, but he didn’t know if it was because it had been two thousand years since he had last seen them, or because they were as changed as the gaudy, glittering city that sprawled itself out before him. The palace, too, looked changed. Gilded, where he’d once found it golden.

Loke wasn’t a sentimental man. He made for the palace, and made his plans, and spared no thought to the past — except to be glad that the palace guards were as inefficient against aerial invasion as they had always been.

Once inside, Loke quickly made a list from highest to lowest priority of thingumajigs he should steal before Hela made it back. It required some quick changes back and forth between Ase and hawk form, since his wee claws couldn’t grab everything, but he’d deal with the inevitable migraine of that later.

First: he went to the orchard, expecting heavy security, but was able to pretty much pick the place clean before he even saw a guard. Never before had it been so easy to pick Idun’s apples. Were things seriously so peaceful that nobody wanted to steal them? It boggled the mind.

Secondly: Gugner, taken from the throne room.

Thirdly: since he was already in the throne room, he went and got the giant Mimer’s decapitated talking head, taken from its usual perch behind the throne — because the ability to tell the future was always a bonus and Loke had never been very good at sejd anyway.

Fourthly: he wanted his old shoes back. The ones he had were useful for travelling through the air at his own speed, which was fine enough when staying solely in Scandinavia, but not nearly as good as his old shoes, which let their wearer leap across vast distances in seconds and run across the branches of Yggdrasil itself. He guessed that would come in handy. He didn’t know where Oden would have kept them, but.

“Mimer?” he asked the giant head; he held it by the hair, carrying it a bit like a purse, “Where are my shoes?”

The reply was monotone and strangely echoey, “On your feet.”

“Hilarious,” said Loke, “I mean, where are the shoes that gave me the name Loptr?”

The giant’s grizzled, bloodless face grumbled and frowned, “Odin’s vault.”

Oden’s vault? That sounded strangely specific. “And where’s that?”

More grumbling, “The royal apartments. Hidden.”

A lightbulb came on in his head. Oden had maintained a private study in their youth — Loke remembered being offended that Oden wouldn’t let him in. That was when he was the crown prince, so what would today be Tor’s rooms. “Are you being cheeky, Mimer?”

“You are a very small giant,” said the giant.

Loke shook his head at the rudeness. “Being a zombie has changed you.”

“Soon, the dead shall walk the streets of Asgard, and they shall outnumber the living, and the living will be felled, and those who are not felled shall be cast out into the void.”

Ah, yes. Hela’s doing no doubt. “Anything else?”

Mimer’s eyes started to glow. “Their barge shall be a barge of death, for danger shall find them in the void. Death will follow them, wherever they may land.”

Thanos, most likely. Loke patted Mimer’s head. “Oden has told me. Don’t you worry, Mimer, we’ll make a new throne for you to loom over wherever we build a new Asgård.”

The grumbling sounded more pleased. Loke made his way to Tor’s rooms, Mimer clutched to his chest with both arms. “I hope he left some kind of bag there. A satchel maybe. It’s going to be difficult to carry you like this for long.”

Also, the guards would likely take issue with him walking around with the head. Getting in as a bird has been easy, but getting out? “Sorry Mimer, I’m putting you down for a bit. Got to change clothes.”

A few minutes later, she walked out wearing a dress sure to be out of fashion, but which marked her as servant-class, carrying Mimer on an embroidered pillow. She walked out of the throne room and past the guards with ease, until one of them cried, “Wait, you!”

She turned around. “Me?”

There were two guards standing right by the entrance, both of equal height (though shorter than her) and otherwise near identical in their armour. One of them had brown eyes, and the other grey, that was all. Grey-eyes spoke again. “Yes, you. What are you doing with that…”

Said Browneyes, “The Allfather’s Seer.”

“The Allfather’s Seer, what are you doing with it?”

“Taking it away for maintenance,” she said like it was the most natural thing in the world, “It is done once every thirteen years and has been done every thirteen years for the last three thousand years, meaning this has been done two hundred and thirty times, making this the two hundred thirty first. Are you new?”

“No,” they chorused. Grey-eyes continued, “I have been here for half a century and never heard about this before.”

“I am sure there are many tasks which are regularly performed by guards of which I know nothing,” she smiled, “And of which I would presume to know nothing.”

“Right,” said Browneyes, “But would you inform us then, what does maintenance mean? In this case specifically.”

“An examination of the spells which keeps the head from decomposing. As well as grooming. The hair grows. Too slowly for one to notice, unless only looking upon it once every thirteen years.”

Grey-eyes’ gaze narrowed. “I— this doesn’t sound right to me.”

Browneyes butted in before Loke could, “Let’s ask the Seer. That’s not forbidden, technically, right? We just can’t approach the throne.”

Loke was stunned into silence from the apparent mischief. A man after her own heart. “If it will spare me any more of your questions, fine.”

Brown and grey eyes met. Grey-eyes sighed, “Sure.”

Browneyes visibly tried to suppress his glee, “Oh, Almighty Seer, do Karl and I get in trouble for helping her?”

“Tonight,” Mimer’s voice boomed, “you shall both dine with Odin Allfather.”

Loke’s throat spasmed — she had very nearly laughed. The guardsmen’s eyes began to glitter as they looked between each other. And then, the ground shook.

The guards at the city gates were blowing the horn and all of Asgård shook. To those who had never known war or invasion, it would have sounded like the horn of Ragnarök itself. It could only be Hela.

“We must go,” said Grey-eyes, “Get yourself to safety, madame!”

“Do what you must.” She didn’t stay to watch them go to their deaths — they seemed the sort of men who dreamed of Valhall.

She walked with quick strides as the palace made itself battle-ready around her. People ran to and fro, with the guards all in the opposite direction from her, while any servants she saw were too busy panicking to stop her in her tracks. When the horns blew again and the first of the screams reached her ears, she started to run.

Once she reached Tor’s rooms, she could hear fighting from below the windows. Hela would be done in short order, assuming exile hadn’t slowed her down too much. “Right,” she said to herself. “If I was Oden, where would I put my super-secret room?” For starters, in which room of the apartments?

“Can you help me, Mimer?”

“Yes.”

Bugger all. Though… he was foremost a seer. Maybe if she asked for explicit prophecies? “Will I find what I seek hidden in Tor’s office?”

“No.”

Right, because it would be in another room which technically wasn’t the office. She started for the office anyway — she could only hope Oden would have sprung for a cliché like hiding a secret lever in a book or such like. “You know, you’d like being with Hela much less,” she said while going through the bookshelves. Few things stuck out to her — the books were a mix of adventure novels, lexicons, old and new instructional tomes, or history books, together with epic poetry. Everything a king to be ought to read, and everything a prince would use to while away the hours. The few books on spellcraft were a surprise, though.

The desk yielded equal amounts of nothing, as did trying to tug at all the sconces. She made for the bedroom next and found nothing there either. Except a well-loved stuffed brown bear, missing one eye and leaking some stuffing through the worn seams. She took it without a second thought. Asgård may be rebuilt, but… well.

Perhaps, if she had seconds to spare, she could go look through the younger prince Loki’s room. It was improbable, but she could at least consider making the effort, get in their good graces and all of that.

The screaming outside was getting louder. Now biting her nails, her eyes caught on one of the paintings decorating the golden bedroom walls: it was of Midgård. Specifically, the northernmost places where her parents’ people made their home, in their Utgård. She saw giants in the painting, walking about the village nestled in between rocks and streams from the nearby polar sea. It would likely seem a human fishing village to most, but she knew the colour of that moss intimately, the unique feel given by the wind-chafed houses, made from trees taken from faraway lands since none grew there naturally. She knew it well enough to recognise that one of the houses weren’t right — there was a window where there should be a door.

“Classic,” she smirked, pressing that part of the painting. True enough, it was pushed into the wall with a click, then a hiss followed as the part of the wall where the door was swung inwards. What would Oden have done if Tor didn’t like that painting, hm? She imagined him shaking his head and saying son, do you truly think giants unworthy of decorating your walls? How can you be king if and so on and so forth.

Once inside, she squinted her eyes against the sparse light in the chamber, hardly registering any of the things in there, eyes roving and hungry for — there.

On a shelf at the back of the little room, a pair of wingèd shoes. She let out a gleeful laugh as she bound towards them. She kicked her (subpar) shoes off and put her old shoes on and immediately felt lighter. What travels they had enjoyed together, these boots and her! Loptr, skywalker she had been named because of them — they were strong enough in their enchantments to let her bound across vast distances in seconds. No broom necessary, with these she could have run across the Atlantic in an hour or less!

“A girl and her shoes,” she giggled, flexing her toes, “we’re going to kick Thanos’ face in with these, yes we are my darlings.”

The sounding of a horn broke her out of her reverie. Right — she could caress the shoes once she’d gotten out of there. On the way out, she spotted a portrait hanging on the wall next to the entrance. On it she saw a piece of a time long gone by, captured in paint and humbly framed with wood: Oden, young and beardless with both blue eyes gleaming, with Loke right beside him, his moustache on its way but not fully grown, though in height he was a whole head taller than Oden. They both had their arms around each other while holding up a gangly little body between them: Sleipner, eight knobbly legs dangling in the air.

She took the portrait with her. If anybody saw it and survived long enough to ask, she could rightfully claim that it was her only portrait of her son.

She didn’t think she had enough time to visit prince Loki’s chambers at that point and was a bit relieved (it would probably have felt weird). Instead, she grabbed one of the magic-looking tomes from the secret chamber, closed it behind her, and thought of a good escape route.

She didn’t know where in the palace Hela was, who was coming for the apartments, or how long she had. Speed was probably of the essence and by that point she had wasted more than enough; she took hold of Gugner and threw it at the window.

For less than a moment, there was a beautiful hole in the middle of the glass — and then a rain of shards falling to the ground. She felt some of the pieces catch at her hair and snagging at her dress when she leapt out through the opening. In a few great leaps, she caught up with Gugner and caught it as it cut through the air.

A quick glance down at the streets before the palace showed that her speedy theatrics had not gone unnoticed. The streets were paved with bodies, not stone, with blood running down into the gutters. It caught the sun, glittering like a treasure of rubies.

In the middle of it all was a big bald mountain of a man, and next to him stood Hela. She raised her hand towards Loke, sending forth swords that cut through the air.

The feathers of her cloak shimmered as she transformed back into a hawk, instinct and experience telling her that making herself a smaller target was her surest path to survival.

It was not a moment too soon: the second he took the first flap of his wings, one of the swords glanced by his chest, drops of yet more blood raining down to join the streams below. He cried out, voice piercing as fiercely as Hela’s blade. Had he been a second too slow to transform, he knew, the sword would have pierced him clean through.

He flew more quickly and as drastically than he had ever flown before, rolling, and zigzagging across the sky with his sole thought being to get away, away, away. Another volley clipped one of the feathers on his wing. A third volley grazed his leg. A fourth might have killed him, but at that point he had reached the forest outside the walls and escaped into the obscuring sea of thick green canopies.

He finally collapsed into a great oak’s crown-like branches and landed in its middle, where all the branches met to form something like a bowl. The trunk was thick enough that he could shift back to his own body.

He curled up on his side, shallow wounds stinging, trying desperately to get his breathing back to normal. Gugner materialised clutched in his hand and his two bags slung over his back pulled at his skin with their weight, his hair and dress were torn and tangled, and he could taste some blood dripping down his cheek and to his lips through his moustache.

His heart refused to slow down. It had been millennia since terror of this kind, since such immediate danger, had come upon him. He couldn’t tell how much of the metal in his mouth was from blood and how much war adrenaline. From between his pressed lips came a long, wheezing groan.

“Well done,” came a voice from below his oaken sanctuary. “Better than I expected. I thought your exile might have made you a bit more predictable. For once, I am glad to be wrong.”

He groaned. “Hi, Heimdall.” He opened his eyes, squinting against the light. “How did you find me?”

“I watched Odin,” said the guardian from where he stood by the tree, looking up at Loke. “As I did, I noticed a hawk, which spoke with your voice. I have followed you since.”

“Ah.” Heimdall had never been a fool, and it would have taken a fool who knew him not to recognise his voice. “I see. Come to gloat, are you?”

“I was sincere when I said ‘well done’,” said Heimdall, “I thought your pride would be the most wounded, but perhaps your head is worse off than I imagined.”

His wounds were all but healed, though his body still ached. It was enough for him to push himself up on his elbows and glare down at the guardsman. “I don’t have much pride, I never saw the use,” he lied. “And I don’t have any patience left, either. I can see that you want something.”

“Such keen eyes you have, Loke,” smiled Heimdall. “Perhaps you should have been the watchman in my stead.”

“Then you’d have plenty of time leftover to practice your comedy. Alas.”

Heimdall laughed. “A true shame. Very well, if you must know, I am about to go on a heist of my own. If I die trying, I hope you might see it through for me.”

A grin split Loke’s face in two. “Well, well. I never thought I’d see the day. I still don’t believe it, but alright — what’s your plan?”

“Shall I fail, I’ll try to tell you in my last moments. I am not revealing it to you now.”

Loke’s face fell. “That is much more in character for you, sadly. Good luck to you, or whatever. I’ll go… as far away from Hela as I can, I think. Take a break, have some fika. My work here is done, I’d say.”

“Mend your dress, perhaps,” said Heimdall. “You resemble a ravaged maiden from one of your own tall tales.”

“How would you know? Polishing that sword of yours day in and day out? I doubt you’ve ever seen a maiden.”

Heimdall stepped back from the tree. “That’s enough, I will take my leave. Be well, Loke. I dare say it will be difficult for you.”

Loke stuck his tongue out at his retreating back. He rolled over to stare up at the canopy once Heimdall had gone from his sight, sighing. Part one of the done, he thought to himself. He didn’t know how long it would take until the prodigal sons both returned, which left him with… not much else to do. Hela on the loose, this version of Asgård he’d spent his youth in about to be destroyed — if it hadn’t been for the mentioned megalomaniac, he would have gone for a stroll down the city streets, seen the old sights.

At least he could explore the woods, he reckoned. Surely they wouldn’t be of much interest to Hela.

His thoughts were interrupted by the growling of his stomach and he realised that, right. He hadn’t eaten since he was in Norge. His next step ought to involve food.

Judging by the screams then coming from the city, the forest was probably his best bet. Before he did, he opened his satchel to take a look at Mimer. The giant frowned at him, his big brushy brows all but merging with his grey eyelashes.

“Hi, Mimer,” said Loke. “How long until the princes get back here?”

“They are held in a place beyond and within time,” said the giant, “Years are seconds, seconds are years.”

What the hell. Loke tried again, “That’s not what I asked, Mimer. When, according to Asgårds tideräkning, will they arrive here?”

Mimer grumbled, “In seven days.”

Saying ‘a week’ would have been too plebeian, of course. “Thank you. Bye bye.” He closed the bag, then let himself to spend a minute cursing. A whole week! A whole week of what? Hiding from Hela and all the asar? The screaming was contained to the city for the moment, but he held no doubt that they would eventually flee the city and make for the mountains. Heimdall had the key to the ostentatious bunker Bor had built once upon a time, he was sure.

He set out to the north, hoping that the cloudberries he loved still grew in the same spot.

Close to evening, about a dozen ordinary asar (two different families, judging by the number of adults and children respectively) stumbled across him where he was dressing a freshly-felled deer.

Their faces were drawn and anxious, but the nerves transformed into shock when they caught sight of him. He imagined that he must’ve made for a strange sight, dressing a deer in the middle of the forest in a torn old dress, hair and moustache all askew and with Mimer’s head sitting on an old tree stump right next to the site. He let his hand holding a knife fall to his side. He did a little wave.

“Hi there,” he said, “What are you fine folk up to on this lovely afternoon?”

One of the mothers (?) was the first to shake off her shocked expression and took a step closer. “Forgive us for asking, but we find ourselves in a position where we must be wary of strangers. Who are you and what are you doing out in the middle of the woods?”

These polite people, Loke reasoned, could never have left the city before. If he had bad intentions, he surely wouldn’t tell them, now, would he? “I suppose your being here has something to do with all the screaming I’ve been hearing, then,” he said, “Don’t mind me, I’m just making stew. Would you care for some?”

They must have seen him as less of an immediate threat than Hela and whatever she had cooked up in the city. He gave them the name “Loptr”, and when asked about the head he said it was an old friend of his who’d run into trouble with witches and this was the result; they didn’t look like they believed him, but were too polite or tired to press the point. They sat down to an improvised dinner, whispering among themselves about the circ*mstances in which they had quitted the city. Loke did not join in, preferring to listen to what they were saying. There were skeletons all over the palace now, apparently. Warriors risen from the dead, green and sickly looking but horribly fast and vicious. As if Hela couldn’t get any nastier. His daughter, he reasoned, would never be so gauche. When she arrived on Nagelfar, everybody would tremble both with fear and awe.

They hadn’t finished their dinner before another group of people found them. They had the looks of startled deer, with the white of their eyes shining where their clothes and hair had been mussed by their hurried hike through the forest.

“Thank the Norns we found you!” said a man with a heavy black and excellent beard, “We were beginning to fear no one else made it out. Are you well?”

His original set of guests responded amicably and soon the two groups were talking animatedly between one another, with the man with the excellent beard seemingly taking charge. Their lack of awareness of the woods, now that they’d found each other, was frankly alarming. You could tell they were sheltered.

“We should get moving,” said Loke, resigned to the fact that they were now a “we”. Heimdall would most likely kill him if he found out that Loke had ran away from a group of asar and, frankly, his headache was bad enough as it was. He might as well be helpful, if he was going to help himself.

Black-excellent-beard narrowed his eyes at him. It had taken him surprisingly long to notice the stranger in their midst; asar were usually so good at spotting “outsiders”.

“Who are you?” His look up and down Loke, from the messy hair to the dress, nearly made Loke reconsider and leave them all to their fates.

“Loptr,” said Loke, “We’ve never met. Charmed. I’m going to the mountains now to find a cave for shelter before we’re overrun by Hela’s ghastly forces. I suggest you all tag along.”

The man with the excellent beard looked suspicious. “I am not inclined towards trusting strangers, especially not in an hour so dire as this one, when Asgard is invaded by outside forces, led by treacherous knaves. Who’s to say they did not already have spies planted within?”

He heaved a sigh. “Or don’t! I don’t care.” He started gathering his things. To his satisfaction, his original guests started defending their honour to the newcomers — he didn’t listen to get the details, because he honestly did not care overly much, but it was a nice gesture, nevertheless. Whatever the exact nature of the discussion, they won. Hurrah.

Five minutes later, they were marching towards the mountains to look for a nice cave. This, he would credit Asgård for: they had a lot of nice caves. He supposed it was a design feature, put in to make lots of comfortable nooks for all the hunters and adventurers. Unlike Midgård, where the caves wanted to eat you. The water filled tunnels where he’d hid from witch-hunters were especially sphincter-tightening.

They managed to pick up a third party of people on the way. Loke was beginning to think he was cursed. You agree to one old pal asking for help and suddenly the needy were crawling all over you.

When Heimdall found him a day later, holed up in a cave, Loke had amassed a small village.

“Look at you, helping people of your own volition,” he said, leaning on his massive sword (had that been missing, earlier?), “Never thought I would see the day.”

“I live to spite you.” Loke grinned, “When the ending is preordained, why not mix things up with the middle?”

“I dare say your escape did that nicely,” said Heimdall. Some of the asar started to look at them both askance. “While this shelter is better than none, you should come with me. I know of a refuge in another part of the mountains, created to withstand sieges. It is less exposed than this one; I have already led a great number there.”

Loke could make the case that putting all their chickens in one coop wasn’t the best strategy when any shelter, no matter how solid, would crumble after Hela would throw a ridiculous number of undead at it. Nevertheless, if it had a door, it was better than this cave.

“Does it have a door?”

“A great gate, protected by Odin’s old magics.”

“So, Hela knows about it,” Loke raised a brow.

“No. She will find it soon enough, I readily admit, but all we need is to slow her down.”

“For exactly six days,” said Loke, feeling charitable. He patted Mimer’s head, which appeared to be softly snoring. Heimdall looked unimpressed, which was really his standard mode of being. It was still rude — Loke bet Heimdall never would have thought to grab Mimer.

They left shortly after that. The walk from their side of Asgård to the other was largely uneventful. Loke got to see some of Hela’s nasty skeletons up close before Heimdall and the other warriors made short work of them using their swords, axes, et cetera. Loke could’ve helped out but… nah. He liked to keep a low profile among the townsfolk. If they saw him do something genuinely impressive or use any of his tricks, they would surely have questions, and that was an additional headache he’d prefer to avoid.

During one skeleton attack though, Heimdall destroyed one that was so close to Loke that he ended up splattered with skeleton goo. The scream he let out was not one he cared to describe.

He thrust an accusing finger towards the bridgekeeper, “You ruined my dress!”

Heimdall did not apologise; he only frowned. “Do you not have a change of clothes?” Heimdall asked.

“Of course I do,” Loke sniffed, “But I want to wear this.”

“Why? It was torn and dirtied before now.”

“I simply think these people should learn to widen their minds a little.” The amount of judging looks he’d gotten due to the dress was honestly staggering. Clearly, Asgård had become much more golden and much less vibrant after his time.

“I agree,” said Heimdall, “But you should know that you smell… putrid. Consider washing it, at least.”

Loke stuck his tongue out at him. “You should be the one to wash it,” then he said, “I had considered taking on hawk-form and flying ahead, but I get the sense that people would freak out. Are things so dire here, now?”

“Shapeshifters in general are largely distrusted, yes,” said Heimdall, “Direct your blame to your reflection, Loptr. While not many now live who remember you by sight or name, your deeds had an impact on the way shapeshifters and tricksters are regarded.”

“Bullsh*t. One man can’t change that much.”

Heimdall’s smile was humourless, “Gods can. You were punished, imprisoned; Hela soon followed suit. Odin stopped using his own magic, for what reasons I cannot tell you. Freyr and Freya largely removed themselves to Vanaheim. When all who were most known for their magics and tricks are either gone or do not use them, what conclusions will the people inevitably draw? Also, the Skrulls have not been helpful regarding the general consensus on shapeshifters.”

“The who?”

“What rock did you live under before Odin found you?”

Loke considered spinning a yarn; he decided not to bother. “Your mother.”

Neither he nor Heimdall said much after that. The frightened townsfolk had stopped looking quite so frightened and were instead whispering among themselves, exchanging curious looks towards their fierce leader Heimdall — and Loke, who must’ve looked like a weird stray pet he’d taken pity on, to them.

“The minute we reach our destination,” Loke said to Heimdall, “I will leave.”

“Gracious of you to reveal your plans beforehand, for once.”

“I would just like you to tell people my prepared backstory. For the inevitable questions you’ll receive once I’ve gone, of course.”

“Which is?”

“I am a wizard from Blåkulla on Midgård who lives in the woods and has done so for four hundred years. I only wanted to help people because I wanted them to get out of my woods.”

Heimdall smirked, “The best lies do contain grains of truth. Provided you keep sending refugees my way, we have a deal.”

Never before had Loke and Heimdall agreed with one another so readily. It was beautiful, in a way: what could unite them better than a violent invasion by a shared enemy they had no hope of stopping without royal assistance?

Once they were close to the hideout… you could really tell they were close to the hideout. Loke stared at the monumental double doors in dismay as soon as he saw them in the distance. “Heimdall,” he said, “sure you’re not leading us to a party venue? I think those doors have ‘Hi, Hela, here we are!’ written on them.”

“Odin did not want his people to get lost while trying to find it.”

“Right. Better make sure enemies can find it, too.”

“I do not disagree,” sighed Heimdall.

“Change of plans, I’m leaving now,” said Loke, turning to head towards the woods. Heimdall’s hand on his shoulder stopped him — it also nearly made him fall over. “What?”

“Should you change your mind, you are welcome in the sanctuary,” said Heimdall, “should Hela and her forces become too much of a challenge.” It was his attempt at charity towards an old enemy, of course.

Loke slapped his hand away. “I can handle myself just fine, thank you.” He quitted the band with a scowl and walked into the trees. He’d make camp in an old oak somewhere, and ignore any and everybody who passed him below, whether they were running and screaming or not.

When he was out of sight, he bound upwards in the air, leaping to a high up cave he’d seen in the side of the mountain as they passed below. There, he made a fire, stripped down to nothing but his boots and with a heartfelt “Farewell” threw his dress on the fire. Feather coat slung around his shoulders (and providing some barrier between his naked ass and the cave floor) sat down crisscross and decided to do an inventory.

The possessions he carried either on his person or in his witchy bag were the following:

• Mimer’s scrying head
• Golden apples, a baker’s dozen
• Oden’s spectre/spear Gugner
• HIS SHOES ♡
• Umbrella
• The following coats which would allow him to shape shift: hawk, horse (mare), herring, wolf, and stoat. All the classics which would let him hunt, run, swim, fly, and weasel his way into places he wasn’t supposed to be.
• Stink bombs, lots
• Magical grenades, loads and lots
• Knives, many
• Two pencils
• Bow and thirty arrows
• Enchanted leather armour
• Winter coat
• Motorcycle goggles
• Enchanted broom
• Camera, digital
• Basic first aid kit
• Fresh underwear and socks
• A change of clothes
• Protein bars
• Box of raisins
• Stormkök (to cook in the wild)
• Tinderbox
• Water bottle, one
• Liquor, two bottles
• The Brothers Lionheart, by Astrid Lindgren, paperback 1974 edition, which he’d been meaning to read since 1975.
• Truth potion, three bottles
• Opium, two bottles
• Strong snus, three canisters
• Extremely lethal poison, one bottle
• Antidote, one bottle
• Homemade grenades, about a dozen
• Aphrodisiac, two bottles
• Aphrodisiac grenades, two bottles
• Lube, four bottles
• Condoms which he only now noticed had expired in 2014. (He tossed these on the fire and decided that another Sleipner situation wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to him in the coming days).
• Comb
• Sewing kit and scissors
• Harmonica with a dick painted on it
• A sentimental old portrait
• A sentimental old teddy bear
• A spell-book picked at random
• Sleeping bag

Satisfied, Loke rolled out his sleeping bag, took out the harmonica, and played himself to sleep. Two days down, five to go.

The next day, Loke got dressed in both clothes, armour and wolf coat, and started reading the spell book.

It turned out to be a book on necromancy — incredibly ironic, given the current situation, but it would definitely be useful later on. Also, it was a real page-turner.

That night, skeletons found his little cave and he had to move.

The next day, he was halfway through The Brothers Lionheart.

The day after that, he finished reading the cursed paperback and did not cry, no he did not. It hit far too close to home to make him cry.

He made himself some fire arrows out of boredom and used the spell book to resurrect a squirrel he had shot. He had to kill it again because necromancy made it aggressive; though it couldn’t be discounted that the squirrel’s aggression might stem from a desire for revenge.

The creepy crawlies of Hela’s army found his hideout in the middle of the night and nearly managed to get a lucky hit in.

He conceded defeat.

Loke went to join Heimdall’s enclave with two days to go to the royal arrival. Body changed to her feminine form, bow slung around over her back under the wolf coat, and Mimer stuffed inside her bag, she hoped to look more like a random huntress and less like the dirty and bloody hermit she had appeared to the people of Asgård as.

Heimdall had seen her coming. Naturally. He met her outside the gates.

“I hope your pride doesn’t smart, Loke,” he said, “By what name should I call you now?”

“Hi Heimdall,” she said, “Just Lou. Do you have any news?” she asked as he led her in. His arm around her shoulders kept her somewhat out of view from the curious faces trying to catch a glimpse of the newcomer, even if she was of a height with him.

“Thor and I have spoken,” Heimdall told her in a low voice, “He is on his way, or will be soon. Also, Hela approaches and will find us by tomorrow.”

Good thing the princes would be dropping by around that time. “You have a plan, I’m guessing.”

“I do,” said Heimdall, and nothing else. He clapped her shoulder, “Go mingle. I am on watch.”

Mingle. As if. She resolutely did not look at anyone as she shouldered her way through the crowd towards the first somewhat secluded spot she could find. Once there, she plopped herself down and started playing on her harmonica.

She got a bit lost in it — after she had played Snusmumriken’s song seven times, a little girl showed up in front of her, arms crossed and glaring.

This was not her child, Loke thought, which meant she could say what she liked. “f*ck off.”

“Play something else and I will,” said the girl.

“What?”

“You’ve been playing the same song over and over. Stop that. It’s annoying.”

“You’re annoying.” Loke looked over and around her, trying to see if some adult was looming nearby. “Where are your parents?”

“Skeletons got them. And my brother,” said the little girl, “Play something else!”

Joy of joys, an angry little orphan. That made it harder to get rid of her. “I’ll play what I like. Go away.”

She stomped her little foot, “Play something else!”

Her anger was very genuine, it carried all the petulance Loke herself recognised from his youth, only she would likely had come up with a different solution by now. This was a little ase, through and through, trying to bash her head against a problem until it went away. Loke had not missed Asgård, no sir. Though, she could admire this kind of obstinacy in a tiny little girl with a voice like a mouse.

“Alright, Lionheart, tell you what. I’ll play you a new song for every bit of gossip you can give me that I think is interesting. Is that a deal?”

“You want gossip?” She looked very judging.

“Information, little Lionheart, is worth its weight in gold. You’d do well to remember that.”

She wrinkled her nose, “You sound dishonourable.”

“It’s not honour that’s kept me alive this long, girl. Keep in mind that you’re too young to make it to Valhall if you got in a fight.”

“I am not!”

“Gossip, girl, or I’ll start playing that song again.”

“Fine! I’ve heard… that Arvar and Gunhilld have gotten back together.”

“What? I don’t know them, I don’t care. Tell me something else. Do you know anything about the royal family?”

“Uh… Did you know prince Thor was dating a Midgardian woman for a while?”

That was interesting, actually. “I didn’t, no.”

“She dumped him.”

She gasped, “No! Okay, you’ve earned yourself a song.”

“Can I buy a second one right now?” Loke nodded and she went ahead, “Did you hear prince Loki isn’t really dead?”

She hadn’t known he’d been considered dead at all. Her shocked laugh was genuine, if not for the reason little Lionheart believed.

“No, I didn’t; what happened?”

“If I tell you, is that a third song?”

“Depends on what it is.”

“Prince Loki pretended to be king Odin.”

She barked out a laugh that made her sound like a seal, and several heads turned to look in their direction. Oden had been on Midgård while his youngest son played at being him? Precious, wonderful, absolutely amazing. Was that the spell Tor had referenced on that meadow in Norway? She would have to ask the little princes to tell her all about it. “Bullsh*t! How could no one notice? Wouldn’t Heimdall know?”

“That’s a fourth story,” said the girl. “Prince Loki, acting as the Allfather, had him fired.”

Little sister Lionheart had earned herself a jukebox for the night who played at her leisure, and a friend for life should she want it. Loke played some blues riffs on the harmonica for the girl, which she liked, and in her head, she was formulating jokes about Heimdall’s unemployment to ambush him with.

The next morning, Hela found nothing more than an empty, big old cave and Loke carried the little girl Lionheart on her shoulders as they trekked through Asgård’s forest. Heimdall was at the front of the line, of course. He had tried to make her watch the rear, but she refused, stating him being recently fired as a reason not to listen to him. She walked alongside Heimdall instead, which made it easier for her to question his plans.

“I was not present for the last Asgård census and am unfamiliar with recent general statistics regarding the population, but I would confidently say there are at least a thousand people you’ve taken charge of here, Heimdall,” she said, “and I fail to see how you would be able to get them all through the Bifrost without Hela eliminating at least half once she catches up with us. Which, need I remind you, could be any minute now.”

“If you have any better suggestions, I am all ears,” said Heimdall.

“Clearly, you need a ship. Or several.”

“Oh, I agree. Do you have a spare in your purse?”

Atop Loke’s shoulders, Lionheart giggled. Loke pinched her leg, hissing traitor.

In an uncharacteristically generous manner, Heimdall decided to share some information with Loke, “I believe the princes will bring a ship of some kind with them. Still, I think it best to let as many people as possible pass through the Bifrost beforehand. I will not sit on my hands as Hela cuts down our people.”

“Your people,” Loke was quick to say.

“Aren’t you Asgardian, Lou?” asked little Lionheart.

“No, girl. I am a giantess.”

“Can’t be! You aren’t blue. Or big.”

“There are other types of giants than just frost giants, little Lion. I’m the same kind of giant Oden’s mother was.”

Lionheart hummed and hawed. “That’s boring,” she said at last, “that’s just like a normal Asgardian. Frost giants can make ice. Like prince Loki.”

Like prince Loki. Loke would wring Oden’s neck next time fate made their paths cross. “Oh, I have adopted a baby”, Loke imagined him saying to himself, “a beautiful innocent baby, who just so happens to be a frost giant, and I named him Loki, and it is totally not an attempt on my part to erase my memories of my giant friend whom I had imprisoned and also whose sons I murdered”. Similar to how little blond baby Tor had definitely not been an attempt to erase the painful memory of Balder, to be sure.

“Oden does love rewriting history, doesn’t he Heimdall?”

“At the very least, our king can realise and attempt to remedy his faults,” said Heimdall, “It is unfortunate that it is not a skill everybody has mastered.”

“You are of course referencing the mad witch Hela, and I wholeheartedly agree,” Loke smiled.

“Hela isn’t a witch, is she?” asked little Lionheart, “She’s the dead queen.”

“If you are referring to the queen of the dead, no she is not,” Loke told her, “Hel is queen of Hel, the underworld. Hela is just horribly good at killing people. She makes people dead, she doesn’t rule the dead.”

Little Lionheart twisted her fingers in Loke’s hair out of sudden fright, “You mean there’s two of them?”

Loke rolled her eyes, “No. Hel stays in the underworld and minds her own business. There is no need for her to leave; nearly all must meet her, eventually.”

“Unless I die fighting.”

Loke could elaborate on Hel and how all, even warriors, would one day face her at the twilight of creation, during true Ragnarök — she decided not to. Today, at least. “Exactly.”

“But you have many more years to practice before that day comes, Ruth,” Heimdall told Lionheart, “So stay your sword for today and watch your elders fight. Perhaps one of them might take you as an apprentice.”

Heimdall gave Loke a heavy, meaningful look that with one single eyebrow perfectly conveyed the message that it better not be Loke that offered her this. No need to worry about that whatsoever —Loke would help against Thanos and then leave immediately. She couldn’t fit any war-lessons into that tight schedule. Besides, Asgård had no need for another Loke; two was pushing it, a third would devalue the currency.

They somehow, somehow, managed to sneak into Asgård proper and made their way onto the rainbow bridge.

“I bet it’s a trap,” Loke told Heimdall.

He replied, “Of course it is, Fenris is guarding the gatehouse.”

“What! Fenris is here? Wasn’t he in the dungeons?” This was the first time it occurred to Loke that perhaps she should have considered whether she could free her son from the dungeons before Asgård was destroyed by Hela’s dramatics.

“He was killed in an escape attempt and his corpse sealed away. Hela resurrected him; I expect her will is his, now,” said Heimdall, with little sympathy. Nobody on Asgård had ever held Fenris in particularly high regard — it didn’t sting so much, because he had been very happy to bite, maim, and kill people.

Loke lifted Lionheart from her shoulders and held the protesting little girl out to Heimdall, “Hold this.” At his questioning look, “I’m gonna go and talk to Fenris. He’ll listen to me.”

Heimdall looked sceptical but took Lionheart and nodded, “I will not stop you.”

She adjusted the wolf coat around her shoulders and entered a sprint — he landed on all fours, running forwards on his paws and barking at the wind rushing to meet every step. He ignored the confused and frightened cries of the little people behind him and bound forwards. In the distance, he saw the gigantic and glorious form of his son running to meet him, and when Loke barked in greeting, Fenris’ bark made the bridge shudder. Loke heard the whining sound of engines overhead and observed a ship that looked like no other ship he’d ever seen before (was it a flying saucer? it looked round) fly down and hover above the bridge, right above Fenris. Soon, gunfire erupted from the ship and sent a spray of bullets at him. Loke barked furiously, but his beautiful, strong boy Fenris continued to run — until a man (?) dropped down on the Bifrost in front of him, face first.

What a spectacular and strange way to commit suicide, Loke thought.

Only now did Loke also see that there was a horde of Hela’s warriors behind Fenris but, thankfully, they were more susceptible to bullets than Fenris was. He had come far enough, and Fenris was close enough, he decided. He switched back to her previous form and started yelling. “FENRIS! IT’S YOUR DAD! STOP SNIFFING THAT CORPSE!”

Fenris perked up. His ears twitched, along with his nostrils; he started wagging his tail. He bound forwards, now trotting on his giant paws. Loke threw her arms around his muzzle and pressed a thousand kisses to it and laughed as she heard his tail thump the bridge, each thump sending vibrations through the glistening surface. The skeletons parted around them like Fenris was a cliff out in the sea and they the waves. Fenris whined with joy.

“My son, my son,” she cooed into his fur, “What stupid trouble has mean old Hela gotten you into, hm?”

If he had a reply, it was interrupted by something huge, angry, green creature that landed on his head with a roar. Loke and Fenris both cried out.

Was that a… troll? An alien? Some kind of Shrek-like creature? Whatever the case: “You son of a bitch, that’s my son!”

The troll pound its meaty fists into her son’s head repeatedly, yelling all the while, as Fenris tried to get his paws back under him. With a banshee’s cry, Loke launched herself at the monster

Loke wrapped her legs around the troll’s tree trunk thick throat and started furiously hacking at whatever bit of its skin she could reach. She wasn’t cognisant of the world around her. All she heard was Fenris’ yips, barks and whines, the monster’s roars, and her own shrieking. A shot whistling past her ear made her whip her hair around.

There, not far away, stood a woman with white, ancient armour, her long locks flowing with the wind from the force of her big “f*ck you” gun perched on one shoulder, and the stature and fury of a goddess.

“You’re a Valkyrie,” said Loke, breathless. Perhaps one old enough to be of her age, or at least her era. Something like joy bubbled up inside her.

The Valkyrie’s smile was grim, “The one and only. Get off my friend, bitch!”

“Tell your creature to get off first and I will!” She pointed her knife towards the hordes of undead swarming the townsfolk, “I’m here for them!”

The Valkyrie’s eyes flickered between her and the undead, then the troll. “Hulk,” she ordered, “stop smashing!”

The monster grunted. “Evil girl!” he declared, in what startled Loke to realise was English.

“Stop smashing and she’ll stop stabbing,” the Valkyrie said, with a pointed look to Loke.

Loke jumped off the troll, “Hulk”, and rushed to Fenris’ side, cooing and petting the side of his face as he stood back up. The Hulk huffed and sulked, but obediently stalked off towards the skeleton army at the Valkyrie’s command. Useful beast, in that way.

“My little boy,” she kissed his face, “No need to fight unless you desire it, Dad’s here, I’ll take care of it.”

But Fenris, though ruffled by the recent abuse, whined and tilted his big head to look in her eyes, and she knew because he showed it that he desired nothing more than to run and to play, now that he once more walked among the living, and had before that been confined for so long.

“You are entitled your revenge, Fenris,” she assured him, “but will you wait until the day that your son will join you, and all of us shall fight side by side?”

He barked a yes, tail wagging, and then ran towards the horde — who did not see his betrayal coming and were soon largely overwhelmed.

“You some kind of wolf-whisperer?” The Valkyrie came up to ask her, “what’s that all about?”

“We’re here to kill Hela, right?” Loke grinned. “Let’s get to know each other afterwards, yeah?”

“I’ll keep an eye on you,” said the Valkyrie, but she did laugh — and looked Loke up and down with a crooked smile. Lovely. Loke sincerely hoped she had no idea who she was, or things were bound to be awkward later.

They joined the fighting together, the Valkyrie with her sword and Loke with her knives, and everything became a frenzy of slashing cuts, stabs, screeching monsters and the wind tugging at them from all directions. Had the ship that soon arrived been smaller or the arrival itself less than ostentatious, she likely wouldn’t have noticed. As it was, it was difficult to ignore a big freighter announced by a horned jester announcing himself to the entire population of Asgård as their saviour.

He was a bit embarrassing; Loke couldn’t help but recognise herself in it. She saw Heimdall across the bridge and was gladdened by the fact that he looked both unimpressed and somewhat annoyed. Lionheart was alive, though, good for her. She sat on his shoulders still.

Little prince Loki looked like she could handle himself in a fight well enough, so she ignored him in lieu of destroying Hela’s goons. He (and everybody else) looked confused that Fenris was on their side now, though thankfully (for them) none saw the gift wolf in the mouth.

And then, thunder arrived. Prince Tor was, in an overused but no less accurate word, awesome to behold. He came down from the sky with no weapon other than his own two hands, raised and crack king with energy, and landed among the enemy with a deafening and blinding lightning storm contained to him. The sky and space beyond it flashed from the lightning he caused, and the thunder rolled over them with more severity than Fenris’ heavy running steps. The undead were naught but flies swatted and destroyed beneath his fists. Had she been his enemy, she would’ve shat herself.

He'd also lost an eye. The resemblance to his father in Oden’s and her youth was absolutely uncanny, enough to make her uncomfortable to look at him.

With the skeletons all obliterated Tor turned, chest heaving with what Loke believed was a sign of energy and anger more than any kind of exertion, and he looked — at her. Loke realised she was now standing completely still in what had before been a battlefield and she had been doing nothing but watch him. Of course he would notice that.

“Who are you?”

“An old friend of your dad’s,” said Loke. Then, something sailing through the air high above them caught her notice, “And an enemy of Hela’s.” That was stretching the truth a little bit; she had never been enemies with Hela, she just couldn’t stand her.

Tor had questions, that much was clear by the look in his eye, but he was also a clever enough boy to decide that they could wait. He raised a hand to someone behind her instead, and Loke turned to see the Valkyrie and prince Loki. She saw Loki exchange a look with Tor, something she… couldn’t read really, except to say that it was at once very awkward and very earnest.

“Valkyrie,” said Loke with a little bow, and she grinned. To Loke, “Hi. I’m new.”

He looked her slowly up and down, gaze haughty and drawn, to the degree that she got a strong urge to tear his knobs off. Confusion uttered itself as disgust in him, based on that reaction.

“I can tell,” Loki told Loke. Bastard. Adopted or no, that haughtiness had “Oden” written all over it. To Valkyrie, “When did you pick up a new Revenger?”

“I don’t know what a revenger is,” said Loke, at the same time that the Valkyrie said, “I don’t know, she came out of nowhere and started fighting Hulk. She seems okay,” and Tor said, “She says she’s an old friend of our father, though I have not heard of anyone fitting her description before.”

Tor was the last one to finish, since his sentence took longer. Everybody present looked between each other and her. In the background, skeletons approached. Wordlessly, though with a lot of yelling, all parties involved focused on the immediate threat of the undead. It was a relief to Loke, who really wasn’t looking forward to any kind of deeper conversation with the princes. Or with the Valkyrie; who knew what she’d remember of old “Loke”? Slander, most likely.

Time passed in a blur, Loke got to use her knives a lot, et cetera. Then, of course, the fun had to come to an end. Far up on the bridge, from the direction of the palace, Hela approached. Knowledge of this didn’t need to be stated, it spread throughout the ranks and throughout the… “Revengers” with shared glances and constipated looks.

Hela first approached with a graceful sway to her steps, arms outstretched. A queen in a long gown descending the staircase to join the ball, except she was here to kill absolutely everybody. One by one the Valkyrie, Loki and Tor came together to witness and prepare for her inevitable attack, but last to join them was Loke because it took her a while to decide whether she should or not. Once Loke appeared by their side, however, Hela’s face twisted into a wide-eyed look of confusion visible from afar and her approach quickened so that she soon stood before them — them, though her focus was only on Loke.

“You,” said Hela, first with disbelief — then, fury. “You! I saw you locked away, snared in Odin’s chains — yet you stand with them?”

“Oh, definitely not,” said Loke, ignoring the side-eyed glances exchanged between the princes and the Valkyrie, “I just hate you more. Sorry. It’s nothing personal, it’s just that… I’ve never liked you.”

“You’re my least favourite aunt,” sneered Hela. Loke, as far as she knew, was her only aunt (though, her third or fourth uncle. She couldn’t remember).

Behind her, the dynamic trio had made some kind of plan which involved Loki junior running off. That left her, Tor, the Valkyrie, and the just now arriving at full speed Hulk smashing into Hela headfirst. He was quickly slapped into the sea.

Next, she saw Fenris gearing up to sprint and yelled, “No!” Fenris skidded to a halt with a questioning yip. “Take the undead, she’s mine!” Fenris, though appearing hesitant, obeyed, “Good boy!”

Hela had, of course, also heard that. “Yours, am I?”

Though it had been centuries since Loke was last in a fight like this, muscle memory aided her —she heard the whistle of knives cutting through the air and dropped down on her stomach. Rolling over on her back, she launched a flask at Hela that she slashed open with one of her swords without so much as a glance, and then she doubled over coughing, gagging, dropping one of her swords to cover her nose and mouth with a hand.

“What the hell was that?” that was Valkyrie asking.

“Stink bomb.”

Tor sent lightning bolts at Hela without blinking (good man) and the Valkyrie too did her best to shoot at Hela while she was distracted. She batted their efforts away well enough, though some of the lightning did strike her — and it did little to slow her down. Tor and the Valkyrie were doing their best to try and corner Hela between them, and in the distance Loke saw that troll Hulk marching through the sea towards the bridge and thought, great. Let’s get at Hela from a different angle. With a great big jump, she took to the skies.

The Valkyrie and prince Tor wasted a few precious seconds staring at her with jaws agape and were consequently thrown far back on the bridge, though that meant there was enough space between them and Hela for Loke to throw down another stink bomb. She followed that one up with one of her precious grenades. Hela, Nornorna have mercy, fell on one knee.

Like some sort of dread beast out of scripture or terrible tales told around a campfire, the Hulk leapt out of the water with the grace of a blue whale and threw himself at her — they both went down and were lost beneath the black waves of Asgård’s sea. Whatever happened there, Loke couldn’t see. The sea rolled and broiled as if a volcano at its bottom was about to erupt. She hoped Hela stayed down long enough for whatever prince Loki was doing to come into effect. Loke glanced towards the ship and the skeleton hoard and saw that Fenris, the Valkyrie and Tor were doing a splendid job of holding them back. The ship itself was taking off…

And then Hela emerged from the water, riding one of her massive swords like some kind of scary surfer goth, and pierced the bottom of it. Hulk was quick to knock her off, and off they went again. The ship shuddered and the groaning of its metal hull made the air around them all vibrate. Loke nearly lost her footing as a sound wave rocked her. It managed to get loose though… this time. If it happened again, she wasn’t sure it would last.

She ran down to the side of the open gangway to where she would no doubt find — ah, there: Heimdall. She waved, “Hi, Heimdall! Hanging on?”

He shook his head, “For now, but we cannot take another hit.”

From her place safely tucked behind Heimdall’s legs, little Lionheart gasped. “Lou, you’re flying!”

“No, I’m walking on air. It’s different.” She gestured with the thumb at the chaos below her. “Loki’s off doing something, I don’t know. I’ll keep Hela off you.”

No need for either of them to say anything else; she leapt away and saw Fenris, the Valkyrie, and prince Tor all standing on the Bifrost, passively watching as Hulk and Hela went at each other in the sea. Fenris looked like he wanted to join in, poor boy. He must be so bored.

She stopped mid-air before all three of them, looking down on them with her hands on her hips. “Fenris is behaving exemplary considering I told him not to battle Hela,” said Loke, “but you? Valkyrie, Tor? Why aren’t you doing anything?”

“Well, aunt,” the prince looked at her with narrow eyes and a stiff smile, “I would shoot lightning at the sea but unfortunately, Hulk won’t jump out.”

Indeed, the Hulk looked like he thought fighting Hela in the ocean was the most fun he’d ever had. The battle roars likely doubled as raucous laughter for the beast. “Okay. And Valkyrie?”

“Oh, I’m just enjoying the show,” she said. “Also, I think Surtur’s gonna spawn any minute now.”

“Uh?”

To Loke’s right, a couple of kilometres away, the golden organ-looking travesty that was the palace of Asgård exploded with a deafening boom. The sky turned red as the ocean and clouds reflected the fiery light of a fire demon as big as a f*cking mountain emerging from the wreckage, yelling. Shooting through the sky towards them, the flying saucer that had carried prince Loki there and now carried him back, avoiding being hit by the fire giant Sutur’s volcanic sword — that, in itself, was about as big as the palace had been.

Swords shot from the sea, many more than there had been before, larger than they had been before, all aimed at the much more immediate threat to Asgård’s existence than either Hela or the people on the bridge had been. Hela, lo and behold, was panicking.

“Fenris, get on the ship,” Loke said; she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the spectacle of doom before her to look at him, “Now!”

As always, Fenris obeyed, wonderful son that he was. Loke went with Fenris, naturally. In her mind, her children would always come first… even if she had sworn to Oden to protect the princes. She forgot about that until she landed on the ship’s open gangway which had, thank mercies, been cleared of people so Fenris could fit, which he very nearly didn’t. Or, more likely, they’d seen Fenris jumping straight at them and ran as far inside the ship as they could. Not Heimdall, though: he stood at the very edge, eyes fixed on the calamity centred at the heart of Asgård, wide and unblinking.

“I forgot the princes,” said Loke, “I’ll be right back. Fenris, go on, go further in —”

“They’re joining us now,” said Heimdall.

Loke had enough time to say “V-” before something huge knocked her over and sent her rolling to crash into the wall and land on the floor where Fenris had been but a moment earlier. Her involuntary keen echoed between the four walls, meaning that the entrance way was now shut. A chuckle like crackling thunder overpowered her noise; the Hulk.

“Flying girl!” crowed the beast, and the Valkyrie laughed along with him. They both stopped when Fenris started growling, though Hulk only growled back.

“Stay down, Fenris,” said Loke, face pressed to the floor. She stood up and dusted herself off and turned to look at the merry heroes: prince Tor, the Valkyrie, the Hulk, and…

“Where’s prince Loki?”

“Gone, who knows,” said Thor. His voice was cold, cavalier, and he gave a blasé shrug as he strode past Loke, headed for the interior of the ship, “I’m going to spend Asgård’s final moments with her people.”

Loke met the Valkyrie’s eyes. Lowering her voice, she pointed a thumb towards Tor, “Is this normal?”

The Valkyrie shrugged, “I don’t know. I met him like, two days ago. You wanna go watch the fireworks?”

Loke made a mental note to ask Mimer if prince Loki would even be there for the Thanos show down.

Loke watched Asgård explode, light flashing out across the stars like a supernova. Loke… couldn’t decide how she felt about it. To her, Asgård was already lost. The place where she had been the past few days was not the place she remembered from her life before the imprisonment and all of that. It wasn’t her home and hadn’t been for more than a thousand years. Yet, the idea of Asgård had lived with her for a long time, and it was difficult not to be affected by the smothering sense of dread and sadness in the people around her, whose home it genuinely had been. But a mere idea it had been to Loke, and an idea Asgård would now be, and remain until it was rebuilt. Loke let out a long, long breath. She could only hope that she’d nicked the best bits from the palace before Surtur exploded it.

From her pocket, she pulled out her harmonica. Loke didn’t know any grandiose melodies about loss, nationalism, or any suchlike, so instead played Astrid Lindgren’s Wolfsong. Nobody minded, at least not out loud.

After that, prince (now king) Tor decided that the barge of Asgård’s people would be heading to Midgård, which was good news to her. Interplanetary travel was a headache and she’d be headed home for Öland after the big showdown anyway.

King Tor headed off somewhere — she had no idea. She’d like to put off the inevitable interrogation for as long as possible, even if she really ought to tell Tor about Thanos sooner rather than later. He could have a minute to grieve, though. Maybe two.

In the meantime, she talked with Fenris for a bit, and they discussed the issue with rations; specifically, how there likely wasn’t any. Or, at least not enough to feed a wolf of his size. He agreed to shapeshift to his dire-wolf size, which meant he was about as tall as Loke in his male form. The next person Loke spoke to (or, well… the next thing, really) was Mimer’s head. She asked him if prince Loki would return to the ship (yes) and if so, would he be returning soon (yes) and if Thanos was soon to be upon them (“the Mad Titan shall soon force the prince to return that which he stole”). All in all, Loke wouldn’t have a fun conversation with Tor and Loki; but, it would be a conversation with both of them present, which made things a bit easier.

Until Loke was summoned, she’d be talking a nap curled up against Fenris wherever there was space. Heimdall found her before she’d fallen asleep fully, a little Lionheart in tow. The little girl was pale faced and mute though she did not cry, and Loke introduced her to Fenris, who let her fall asleep curled up by his side, little fists twisted in his king fur. Heimdall sent more children their way, and soon Fenris and Loke were covered with kids in need of distraction, sleep-aid, or company in general.

Fight one time by their King’s side and they’ll give you their children, she thought to herself. As if the first guaranteed she was suited for the second. The parents might not be giving too much of a damn by then, though. Why not let their kids sleep on a huge wolf so as to give them a moment to sob alone?

Fenris, bless him, laid still and quiet, respectful of the children’s clear need for rest. Their exhaustion was plain on their faces, despite their features being smoothed out by sleep. They matched their parents’ and the other adult’s furrowed browns and upturned mouths, noses and eyes swollen and red.

All these people around her, mourning and crying and clutching their loved ones in their arms and to their chests, and she had stood behind King Tor as the sole other member (though estranged) of his family present for the occasion of watching Asgård be blown to pieces. As Loke looked around her though, wishing sleep would come take the weariness from her bones too, she noticed that in all of this… one person was missing. Loke kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“Heimdall,” she asked after he had delivered yet another sleeping child to join the Fenris pile, “Where’s Frigg? I haven’t seen her since I got to Asgård.”

A shadow fell over Heimdall’s eyes. “Our Queen died, some years ago. Malekith, the elf Bor once defeated in the war with the dark elves, returned and murdered her.”

Loke tried, very much, not let out a sigh of relief, so as to not get beaten up. Thank f*ck though, honestly. He couldn’t really think of a person who’d want to see him less than Frigg. Also, he made a mental reminder not to mention the name “Balder” to anyone, lest the Odensons found out the connection between him and Loke.

“I can’t see her getting murdered,” mused Loke, “She didn’t seem the type. But I suspect she is in Valhall, then? Or, maybe with Freja in Folkvång?”

“Valhalla, no doubt,” said Heimdall, “Frigg would not have accepted residency in Folkvang, knowing that Odin would not be permitted to join her there.”

“There’s a story there, I gather.”

“There is,” said Heimdall — and nothing more.

“Okay. Well, the princes — sorry, my nephews must be grieving threefold, then.” Might as well, Loke thought. If you had to suffer multiple disasters, why not all at the same time? There was a limit to how much you could grieve and if the worst thing that could ever happen to you happened all at once, it all became mixed together in your mind and heart. It became a kind of… soup, or stew, that was son spicy you couldn’t feel the burn, your tongue becomes numb on impact. Loke, based on having experienced both singular calamity and a blend of catastrophic events, preferred the latter.

“They are,” said Heimdall, “Out of respect for their grief, I will not tell them all I know about you without being asked. Should they ask, however, I will conceal nothing.”

Fair enough, that.

Later, the Valkyrie found Loke when she was again lingering between sleep and wakefulness. She approached the puppy pile with a grimace and a bottle clutched in one hand. By the slight sway to her steps, Loke judged that she’d already drunk most of it.

“Hey.”

Loke raised a hand, “Hey.”

She took a swig, wiped her mouth on her vambrace, “Wanted to ask if you wanna make some cheers to revenge but, looks like you’ve got company.”

Loke waved her hand, “Sit down, they’re all tucked out. Sleeping or comatose, I don’t know.”

“The latter, probably.” The Valkyrie

“What’s your name? I’ve been calling you ‘the Valkyrie’ in my head,” said Loke.

“Might as well keep doing that, since I’m the last one,” said the Valkyrie, taking a long drink from the bottle, “Or ‘Val’ for short, I guess. The person who used my old name is as good as dead, anyway.”

Had anyone else said such a thing Loke would have made a tactical retreat to avoid the inevitable pity party. As it was, the Valkyrie Val’s demeanour was matter of fact enough to discourage any pity. It was depressing, she was depressing, but not in a way that Loke felt would make her feel worse. Val seemed to balance self-destruction and regular destruction pretty well, which was sort of admirable. Having a balanced lifestyle is the goal to a happy and fulfilling life.

“You keep saying the Valkyries are dead,” said Loke, aiming for a delicate tone of voice (not that Val would notice or care, probably), “When and how did that happen?”

Val looked at her like she had grown three heads. “Where’ve you been for the past millennia?”

“On Midgård, where I live,” said Loke.

“Okay, that checks out. Except no, why do you live there? I heard that hag say something about prison, or something.”

“Yeah, I was in jail for murder,” said Loke. Might as well admit that, rather than be caught in a lie, “Broke out, eventually. But I didn’t wanna make any more trouble after that, so I kept a low profile. A self-imposed exile, if you will.”

“I’d judge but…” Val shrugged, took another swig, “I’ve been a slave hunter for the last couple of centuries, so what do I care. You probably shouldn’t mention the murder thing to their highnesses, though. Thor’s got a big thing for doing the right thing.”

“Duly noted, thank you.”

Val’s smile was lopsided. She generously offered Loke a swig from her bottle, which she took, and nearly spat out. She was used to Midgård’s idea of alcohol, she’d have to work to get her tolerance up. Val snorted.

“What’s Midgård like, then? What should I prepare for, since we’re going there and all?”

“Their liquor’s like juice to you, for starters,” Loke coughed, “When were you last there?”

Val sucked at the inside of her cheek, tilting her head as she thought. “Well… I was in the north; I’d heard there were a lot of these big empires around the world, but they worshipped different gods, so I mostly met northern warriors. They’d just started using iron instead of bronze for their weapons, I think. Or maybe they had been for a little while? I don’t know. But thank f*ck, because bronze arms are worse than useless. Iron is… I mean, it’s not steel. But it shows that maybe they were gonna make steel, sooner or later. They lived in huts, mostly,” she shook her head fondly, “It was cool. Real, you know.”

“Sure. I bet you’d still love their Midsommar parties.”

Val snorted a laugh. “Yes! Know any new drinking songs?”

An hour later, Heimdall came upon the two of them in a completely different part of the ship, lying in a tangled heap. Val was sort of buzzed, while Loke was feeling like she was going to throw up any second but was still laughing too much to care about the room spinning. She was laughing at Val especially; she’d given her a strong snus and Val was trying very hard not to throw up.

“Loptr,” said Heimdall, “our King has asked for you.”

The request nearly sobered her up entirely.

“Tell him to join us!” said Val, “I bet he needs it.”

“No, no, let’s — another time, alright?” Loke was pushing herself up to stand, adjusting the coat around her shoulders, “I’ll be back… at some point.”

Whatever Val said, Loke didn’t hear. She nearly fell over taking her first few steps and, to her complete and utter humiliation, had to clasp Heimdall’s shoulder to steady herself. “Where is he?”

Her nephew, king Tor’s, room/office was, in a word, weird looking. The entire ship was weird, like nothing Loke had really seen before — she’d never been much for travelling beyond Yggradsil, but it all looked less like an alien culture she’d never encountered before, and more like something out of an old comic book mixed with a retro 80’s second hand store. Tor was standing behind a heavy-looking dark blue desk, looking sort of tired but not nearly as despairing as he by all rights should he, considering the events of the last week. How he had not collapsed, Loke couldn’t say, only that it alone was a good sign of him being better at carrying the crown than she could ever have been.

“My king,” said Loke, remembering a second later that you were supposed to bow before the king. The bow was haphazard, but Tor did not seem to mind, “You wanted to talk?”

“Aunt,” said Tor — the word sounded unnatural as it came from him, and Loke was sure they both grimaced at the pronunciation, “If… that’s who you really are. I want to ask you some questions. I’m guessing you are not surprised to hear it.”

“Not really, no.”

“Great,” Tor clapped his hands together, then gestured to a chair, “Would you like to sit?”

“No, thanks — no thank you, I mean. Would you like to sit? Would you like me to sit?”

Tor’s laugh was short and awkward, “No, I don’t and yes, I do actually.”

“Okay, then.” Loke pulled the chair out; it was heavier than it looked and made a screeching sound as the legs dragged on the metal floor. They both winced. Once Loke sat, Tor started talking again.

“So, first of all: are you really my aunt? On which side? You see, I have not heard about an aunt before, and I feel as though I would have been told about it if an aunt did indeed exist.”

Ah. Loke bit and sucked at the inside of her cheek. Skitfan. It was better to rip the band-aid clean off (mostly): Loke had a warning about the Mad Titan to deliver, and it was best to have all the important cards on the table for that whole story to be believed and adequately prepared for.

“Well, ‘aunt’ is a bit of a stretch,” he said, twirling the end of his recently re-acquired moustache, “I think ‘uncle’ is what I should go by, technically. It’s on your dad’s side, I should mention, but not biologically. Oden and I are blood-sworn brothers in arms; we adopted each other, you could say.”

Tor looked at Loke’s sudden shift and heard the lowered notes of his voice, deepened by his now-existing Adam’s apple, with a flat stare. Tor, bless him, did not look shocked; he looked tired. “A blood-sworn uncle and occasional aunt via my father’s side,” said Tor, “But Hela said something about my father imprisoning you. Not that I am inclined to believe Hela’s every word, but I feel it should be mentioned.”

“Your dad and I fell out, it’s true,” Loke nodded his head, “I was jailed, but broke out — decided to live in exile. I didn’t think Oden knew I’d escaped, and I’d taken measures to make sure Heimdall couldn’t see me. Then, a little more than a week ago, who should show up at my favourite beach other than my estranged friend… asking me to look after his sons for him.”

Tor did sit down then. His sole eye glistened. “Sons. Did he tell you about her, then — about Hela?”

“She’s older than you, so I’d known her before. But he didn’t ask me to fight her. He knew you’d figure it out, the two of you.”

Tor rested an elbow on his desk, pressing his chin against his knuckles. “I guess,” he said slowly, his words dragged out with grief, “That means you have bad news for us.”

Loke nodded, “The worst.”