Chapter Text
When Death came for Thor, it brought no pain, no suffering, no teary goodbyes or whispered confessions. After the life he’d led, his death was as noteworthy as stepping into a puddle. A brief moment of oh, is that… well, that was unexpected.
He woke to the warmth of the sun on his cheeks, splayed on his back in a field of wildflowers. Their heads, heavy with pollen and seed, swayed and bobbed in the breeze. The air hummed with the buzzing of fat bumblebees. He ran his hands over his face. His beard was close-cropped, and his eye was restored. The scar that had twisted through his eyebrow was gone. He wore the face of his younger self.
He sat up and took in his surroundings. He was in a small valley surrounded by gentle hills on all sides, like a giant had pressed his thumb into a soft, warm expanse of lush green dotted with the nodding heads of purple, yellow, pink, and white flowers. At the top of the highest hill stood a longhouse, and while he was trying to understand how it could be both the size of Asgard’s palace and the size of his favorite tavern, its doors banged open.
“Thor!” roared Volstagg, running down the hill to him. He was quickly overtaken by Fandral. A host of joyful Asgardian warriors followed in their wake, storming down the hill to where Thor stood.
Fandral reached him first, nearly knocking him over with the force of his embrace, then they were both actually knocked over by Volstagg, who had tears in his eyes. “You’re here! You’re here!” he cried, good-naturedly shoving Fandral to the side to clutch him to his gigantic chest. “Oh we’ve missed you Thor, like you wouldn’t believe.”
His friends helped him to his feet as the crowd converged on them. The men and women all wanted to touch him, and a few of the more impudent brazenly pressed kisses to his mouth. He gladly accepted this outpouring of love from his fallen brothers and sisters.
A hush fell over the crowd, and Thor didn’t need to look up to know who had joined them.
Frigga was both the beautiful, mischievous witch she had been long before Thor had been born and the mother he had always known. Like the longhouse, both things at once. She was young and barefoot, with her hair streaming down her back and her hands crackling with magic, and she was dressed in royal finery, her hair in the ornate, complex braids of a queen. Odin was the same; the virile warrior of his prime and the wise sage of Thor’s memory, both at the same time. When Frigga spoke, her voice trembled.
“My son.”
The crowd parted before Thor and he ran to them, wrapping his arms around his Mother, and feeling his Father’s arms encircling them both.
Their tears were happy ones, and the crowd bore them back up the hill, breaking out in songs that Thor hadn’t heard sung since he’d stood under an Asgardian sun and breathed the air of his homeland.
—--
He hadn’t expected him to run out to greet him; Loki would have considered such a display of sentiment ridiculous. He’d find him lurking in some corner, pretending he hadn’t noticed the bedlam that had broken out with Thor’s entrance. He’d remark about the tankards being pressed into his hands and the bodies being pressed into his chest, something snide that would make Thor laugh at himself. He’d bite his tongue and not lob an insult back, for once not taking the bait that Loki threw out to him. He’d smile and share that laugh with Loki rather than try to best him with some barb that would invariably hurt his feelings and sour the evening. Then Thor would tell him that he loved him, he’d hold him and make him meet his eyes and he would tell him that he loved him, and that those few precious days on the Statesman before Thanos’ attack had been the best of his life.
The feasting went on for what seemed like days. He’d look up to the sun streaming in through stained glass in the ceiling that soared a hundred feet over his head, then look up again to a thatched roof strung with the horns of beasts and stars twinkling through rough-hewn windows. The musicians never tired, the barrels and plates overflowed, and the crowd was in a state of perpetual giddy, bawdy inebriation. Hands roved inside his clothing and through his hair. His cock had been caressed by half of the dozens who’d joined his table, with promises of more to come if he said the word. Thor didn’t know if he’d ever felt a surer sense of rightness. This was the life that he was meant for, surrounded by his beautiful, fierce, exuberant people, eating and drinking and celebrating…
Celebrating…
Where was Loki?
He turned to the pretty thing on his right knee. “Where is my brother?”
“Your brother?” She looked puzzled for a moment before being distracted by a trio of young men who’d started dancing on the table. She sank back against Thor’s chest, clapping her hands in delight.
He turned to the pretty thing on his left knee. “Where is Loki?”
“Oh I…” he shook his head. “Who?”
“Loki. Where is he?”
“We can try to find your friend later-”
“He’s not my friend, he’s my brother. Prince Loki of Asgard.”
The man shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know this prince. But I’ve only just got here, I may not have met him yet.” He pressed in close to Thor and nipped his earlobe. “Does he look like you, my beautiful warrior?”
“No, he, no.” The man’s breath was hot on his neck, and his other companion joined in too, pressing kisses to his other ear. He gently pushed them both away. “He looks nothing like me. How do you both know me and not Loki?”
The woman smiled and ground her rear into the crotch of his pants, laughing. “I’d love to meet him, would you like us to help you search for him?”
“No, I mean, that’s very nice, but let me up. I’ll come back, I promise.”
They both pulled exaggerated sad faces and slid off Thor’s knees, right into the waiting laps of the people pressed to his sides. Thor rose from the creaking wooden bench that was also a jeweled golden chair and stalked off. There wasn’t a space in the hall that wasn’t occupied with laughing Aesir, and they all raised their tankards that were crystal goblets to him as he passed. He walked toward the door, accepting hugs and kisses, seeing teary-eyed joy in the faces of the crowd. He assured everyone that he’d return, he just needed a moment to himself. After all, it was his first day, or night, or week in eternity.
When he stepped through the entrance of the longhouse, the noise faded to a dull roar, much too quiet for the thousands of people carousing inside, and after ten steps away from the building, he couldn’t hear anything other than the chirping of crickets and the breeze rustling the tall grass. He walked a bit further, trailing his hands through the grass and the flowers, gazing up at constellations that he did not know.
“Thor.”
He cried out, “Loki!”
“Toward the birch.” Thor realized he was hearing the voice from all directions and smiled at the familiarity of it. This had been a childhood trick of Loki’s, throwing his voice directly into his mind. He set off toward a patch of birch trees, almost shaking with excitement. Loki was here, and nothing could take him away now. Not Odin, not his own mistakes, not even death. They could be together, forever-
A figure stepped out from the white trees, cloaked in shadow. Slender, horned.
“Loki? Is that you?”
He’d barely dipped his head in a nod before Thor tackled him into the ground. He crushed their bodies together and was pleasantly surprised to feel that his brother was practically nude. He searched for Loki’s mouth, only to find his lips drawn in a thin, hard line.
He pulled back, bracing himself on one arm over the prone figure on the ground. Like his parents, there were two Lokis staring back at him at once. One, the brother who’d haunted his dreams since he’d heard the bones of his neck snap. The other, a Jotunn. He’d never seen Loki’s Jotunn form and couldn’t fathom why his brother would choose to spend a minute in a body he’d despised as long as he’d known of its existence.
“Loki?”
“You’re here. Took long enough.” He was smiling, but there was such sadness in it. “Was it painful?”
“When I died? No, I hardly felt anything… Loki, is something wrong? I’ve been here for, Norns, I don’t even know how long, and you’ve been skulking around out here, like this?” He ran a hand down Loki’s cheek.
“I knew the moment you arrived. I tried to see you, but you’d already been whisked away.” He waved a hand that was pale and delicate and blue and clawed in the direction of the longhouse.
“Why didn’t you join us? Why didn’t you join me?” Thor sat back, and Loki eased his body out from under him and sat as well.
“A Jotunn cannot enter the Great Hall. I learned that soon after I arrived.”
“But-”
Loki waved his hand dismissively. “I am not Aes, Thor. You know that. Tell me what’s happened to you, I’ve only heard bits and pieces of the lands of the living, though I try to listen for mentions of you.”
“What do you mean, a Jotunn?”
Loki gestured at his face. “This place knows what I am as well. I am unable to cross the threshold of the Great Hall. Valhalla is not for me.”
“You’re as much an Asgardian as I.”
“That’s not how it works.” There was sadness in his voice.
“But you are here. You died the noble death of an Asgardian warrior.”
“Perhaps.” Loki was staring at the grass poking through his fingers, each version of his skin solidifying and dissipating as he looked, white fading to blue fading to white. “When I arrived, I believed for a few wonderful moments that I had been judged worthy of this place, that rescuing my people and dying for you had cleared the debts from my ledger. But that’s not why I’m here.
“Loki, there is no ‘why.’” He leaned forward to grasp Loki’s disquieting, transforming hand. It felt solid in his grasp. “You’re here, we’re reunited, finally. And I’ve learned, I’ve grown. No more sneaking around, no more hiding, we can be together-”
Loki shook his head ruefully. “Thor, what do the Aes do in Valhalla?”
Thor sat back, perplexed. “We feast, we fight.”
Loki’s sadness was twisting into familiar, painful bitterness. “Yes, I’ve become very familiar with one of those. Who, praytell, do the Aes fight in Valhalla?”
“We fight each other. And when we fall, we’re resurrected to fight again.”
Loki smirked. “Sounds a little boring, doesn’t it? No finality, no consequences. For a people whose highest calling is to be soaked in the blood of their enemies, an endless training session sounds like a rather pathetic way to spend eternity.”
Thor had never considered that before, but Loki was making sense. “I guess.”
“Your grandfather thought so too. Generations of warriors who were all supposed to be preparing for Ragnarok had gotten so complacent and lazy that they barely remembered to take up arms at all. Why bother, when every battle has the stakes of a children’s game? So Bor changed the rules to make things interesting again.” Loki swallowed. “He let the Jotunn in.”
“What would be the difference between fighting Jotunn and fighting each other?”
“Bor feared that the Jotunn would become as indolent as the Aes of Valhalla, so unlike you and your kind, when the Jotunn fall, they do not rise. They fight for their lives, because their death is final. The battles mean something again.” Loki brought his knees to his chest and hugged them close. “I’m here to be hunted and slain for sport by the Aesir dead.”
“No, if any of that was true you’d already be gone.” He dipped his head toward the longhouse-palace. “There are thousands of warriors in there, all in their fighting prime. As formidable as you are Loki, you could not outlast them for as long as you have. It’s been sixty-five years.”
“Time passes strangely here, but yes, you’re correct. If they wanted me dead, I’d be dead. I’ve been apprehended many times, but my life is spared once someone remembers me. In the beginning, it was usually before the war party had their fun with me. Now, it’s after, sometimes days after, or whatever passes for days here. Each time, it takes them a little longer to remember me.”
“Had their fun with you?”
“Come now Thor, I know you didn’t pay much attention in lessons, but I’m sure you remember the kennel master’s tales of the more sordid parts of Asgard’s history. I don’t know if that sad old pervert ever saw a battlefield, but he told us all about Jotunn war prizes.”
Thor’s face went white. “You’re saying that they’re… doing that… here. To you.”
“The tradition is alive and well here. Every Aes warrior who’s ever fallen in battle is here, and once the Jotunn were introduced, your ancestors immediately wanted to relive all aspects of their glory days.” Loki dropped his eyes to his knees. “Being the smallest and the comeliest of the runts guarantees that I will be taken alive. And then taken, and taken, and taken. Eventually I wind up under someone who I can make remember me. Everyone has a good laugh about it and I’m sent on my way to be hunted down again a few days later.”
This was sickening Thor. “Well, you’re still here. We can still be together. Father and Mother would never hurt you, and the rest of them are all too drunk to even notice. If you cannot enter the Great Hall, it’s of no matter. Surely the Aes do not live in that hall, the feast has to end sometime. Just change back into yourself and they’ll stop hunting you, we can find somewhere to settle together-”
“I cannot.”
“Loki, you’re a shape-shifter. I’ve seen you change into a fox, a horse, a snake-”
“I am locked in this body. This place shows you as you truly are. When you look upon your Mother and Father, what do you see?”
Thor had almost forgotten about the strange things he’d been seeing since he’d arrived. He hadn’t even thought to ask Loki about them, even as he was looking through his pale Aes visage at the Jotunn underneath. “I see our parents as I knew them, and I see them as they once were. I see both at the same time.”
“Yes, you’re seeing them in their Aes prime, and you’re seeing your memory of them. It’s a trick of this place, meant to help comfort the newly dead with the familiar. Eventually, the memory will fade and you will only see them as their younger selves. Those I knew in life once saw my shade, like you do now. Now, they only see me as I would have appeared in the prime of my Jotunn life. It will happen to you as well. You’ll look upon me and see nothing but a pretty Jolunn runt, begging you for its life.”
“I will not.”
“You will. It's happening to your Father. He’s come quite close to… taking part.” When he saw the look of horror on Thor’s face, Loki quietly added. “He hasn’t, yet. This place… endless pleasure is not what Aes warriors are built for. Valhalla had a point, once – to prepare for Ragnarok. Well, Ragnarok happened and was over before any of them sobered up enough to give a damn. They might’ve felt bad about it for a bit, but then Thanos sent half of Asgard here and that was forgotten, they had more celebrations and hunted more Jotunn and forgot about everything. There’s nothing left for them to do.”