Destiny's garden was not a garden.
Loki understood this the moment his borrowed feet touched the soil. The paths were not paths. The stones were not stones. The lanterns were not lanterns. Everything here was a metaphor—a visual translation of concepts too vast for mortal senses to process. The paths were choices. The stones were consequences. The lanterns were moments of clarity, flickering in the darkness of the unknown.
He hated it immediately.
Not because it was unpleasant. It was, in fact, quite beautiful, in a solemn and eternal sort of way. He hated it because it reminded him of his throne. Of Yggdrasil. Of the way his own existence had become less a life and more a *function*. The garden was not a place. It was a purpose. And Loki had spent enough centuries being a purpose to recognize the weariness that clung to these paths like morning dew.
Delirium released his hand. Her fingers left faint smears of color on his borrowed skin—gold and green and something that might have been the memory of a rainbow.
"We're here!" she announced, spinning in a circle. "This is the garden. Destiny's garden. It's not really a garden. But it looks like one. That's what I said before, isn't it? I think I said that before."
"You did," Loki confirmed.
"Good. I like being consistent. Consistency is important. Dream says so. Dream says a lot of things."
Loki looked around, cataloguing details with the practiced eye of a being who had spent millennia observing stories. The paths stretched in every direction, forking and merging and forking again. Some were straight and narrow. Some wound through shadows. Some ended abruptly at gates that had not been opened in eons. Some continued beyond the horizon, carrying the weight of choices that had not yet been made.
And at the center of the garden—if a place without geography could have a center—stood six figures.
No. Seven. One of them was barely visible, a gray shape huddled at the edge of the lantern light, so still and silent that Loki's eyes had skipped over her entirely.
The Endless.
They were waiting for him.
---
Destiny spoke first.
His voice was the rustle of pages turning in an empty library. It was the sound of ink drying on parchment. It was the weight of every story ever written, pressing against the single moment of now.
"Loki Odinson. Laufeyson. God of Mischief. God of Stories. Anchor of Yggdrasil." He paused. The chain on his wrist rattled, a soft, ancient sound. "Godbrother."
The word hung in the air like a bell that had just stopped ringing.
Loki inclined his head. The motion felt strange in his borrowed body—the neck was thicker, the muscles less accustomed to courtly gestures—but he managed. "You have me at a disadvantage. You know my names. I know only your titles."
"I am Destiny."
He was robed and hooded, his face hidden in shadow, but Loki could see the book. It was chained to his wrist, massive and ancient, its pages flickering with light that was not quite light. The book was alive. The book was *aware*. And the book, Loki realized with a chill that had nothing to do with the garden's temperature, was looking at him.
"You are in my book," Destiny said. "You were not in my book before. The book does not change. The book cannot change. And yet."
"Delirium mentioned that," Loki said. "My existence, it seems, has caused some disruption."
"Disruption." The word came from the second figure—a tall, pale man wrapped in a cloak of midnight, his eyes older than hope and colder than starlight. "That is a delicate word for what you have done."
Loki turned to face him. "And you are Dream."
"I am."
"The Prince of Stories. The Shaper of Forms. The Lord of the Dreaming." Loki's smile was thin. "I've heard of you. Or rather, I've heard the echoes. The dreams that drift across the branches of my tree. You have a distinctive style. Very... operatic."
Dream's expression did not change. "And you have built a domain of stories without my knowledge, without my consent, and without any apparent understanding of what you are doing."
"I understand perfectly what I am doing. I am cultivating narratives. I am tending a garden of free will. I am giving stories the space to grow without a single author dictating their endings." Loki's green eyes, even filtered through the mortal vessel, held Dream's gaze without flinching. "You shape dreams. I shape lives. The distinction seems clear enough."
"They are not separate things."
"No. They are complementary. Which means we are not rivals, Dream of the Endless. We are colleagues."
The silence that followed was sharp.
And then someone laughed.
---
It was a golden sound. Warm and rich and utterly dangerous. It came from a figure who had been lounging against a pillar that had not existed a moment ago—a being of impossible beauty, with golden eyes and golden skin and a smile that had started wars.
"Oh, I like him," Desire said. "He's been here five minutes and he's already found Dream's weakest spot. Colleagues. As if Dream has ever had a colleague. As if Dream has ever wanted one."
"I am not here to antagonize," Loki said. "I am here because I was invited. If this is to be an interrogation, let's proceed. If it is to be a conversation, let's converse. But I would prefer to know which before I waste anyone's time."
"An interrogation would be simpler," rumbled the largest of the figures. He was broad and red-haired, with hands that looked capable of crushing planets and a face that looked like it had forgotten how to be cruel. "But Destiny says we are not to destroy you. So conversation it is."
"Destruction," Loki guessed.
"Formerly. I left my post. Walked away from the family business." He crossed his arms. "But I came back for this. For you. The cycle is changing. Creation and destruction—the rhythm I was made to serve—is shifting. You're the cause."
"I am the Anchor. I sustain the tree. If the tree's growth affects the cycle, that was not my intention."
"Intentions," said a soft voice, "are the seeds of sorrow."
Loki turned.
She was gray. Everything about her was gray—her skin, her hair, her eyes, the hooked ring she clutched to her chest like a wound that would not close. She had not moved from the edge of the lantern light. She looked like a shadow that had learned to breathe.
"Despair," Loki said.
"You know my name." Her voice was the sound of tears drying on a pillow. "That is more than most beings can say. Most beings feel me without knowing me. They think I am a mood. A phase. A chemical imbalance. They do not understand that I am a *person*."
"Delirium mentioned you."
"Delirium mentions many things. Most of them are true. Some of them are colors." Despair's wet eyes fixed on Loki. "You will bring me many new sorrows. I can see them already. The stories you cultivate—they will end in grief, some of them. They will end in loss. They will end in me."
Loki held her gaze. "And you are grateful for that?"
"I am what I am. Gratitude is for beings who can feel something other than me." She paused. "But I am... curious. That is rare. I am rarely curious."
"Then I am honored to be a curiosity."
Despair said nothing. But her hooked ring pressed a little less tightly against her chest.
---
The sixth figure stepped forward.
She was not beautiful—not in the way Desire was beautiful, all sharp edges and dangerous promises. She was beautiful the way a sunset was beautiful. The way a final breath was beautiful. The way an ending, long delayed, was beautiful. Her skin was pale. Her hair was dark. Her ankh gleamed silver against her chest.
And she was smiling.
"Loki," she said.
"Death."
"You know me."
"Everyone knows you. Eventually."
Her smile widened. "That's a good line. Do you rehearse them, or do they just come to you?"
"A bit of both."
"I like you." She said it simply, without pretense. "I wasn't sure I would. Dream doesn't like you. Desire is fascinated, which is dangerous. Despair is curious, which is unprecedented. Destruction is worried, which is rare. And Destiny is confused, which has never happened before. So I wasn't sure what I would think."
"And now?"
"Now I think you're exactly what this family needed." She glanced at her siblings, her dark eyes warm and knowing. "We've been the same for a very long time, Loki. The same seven beings, doing the same seven things, forever and ever. Nothing changes. Nothing grows. Nothing surprises us."
"Until me."
"Until you." She tilted her head. "You smell like our father. Did Delirium tell you that?"
"She mentioned it."
"Does it bother you? Being claimed by something you didn't know existed?"
Loki was silent for a moment. The borrowed heart in his borrowed chest beat with a mortal rhythm, steady and finite. Somewhere far away, his true body sat on a throne of crystallized time, holding the multiverse together.
"I have been claimed before," he said. "By Odin. By Thanos. By the TVA. By He Who Remains. I have been a son, a prisoner, a puppet, and a pawn. I have been defined by other people's purposes for most of my existence." His voice hardened. "If Time has claimed me, then Time will learn what everyone else has learned. I am not a possession. I am not a tool. I am Loki. And I belong to myself."
Death's smile did not waver. "Good answer."
---
Destiny opened his book.
The sound silenced the garden. The paths stopped shifting. The lanterns dimmed. Every Endless turned toward their eldest brother, and Loki turned with them.
"You are not a threat," Destiny said. "That is the conclusion I have reached. You are a variable. A new path in a garden that has not seen new paths since the first page was written. You are connected to our father in ways you do not fully understand and we do not fully accept. But you are not a threat."
"Thank you," Loki said dryly. "I am relieved to have your approval."
"You do not need my approval. That is the point." Destiny closed the book. The chain rattled. "You exist outside our rules. Our taboos do not bind you. Our limitations do not constrain you. You can do what we cannot. You can grow where we cannot. You can change where we cannot."
"Change," Dream said, and his voice was cold, "is not always improvement."
"No," Destiny agreed. "But it is always inevitable. And this change—this tree, this Anchor, this new branch of existence—is not ours to control. It is his."
He turned his blind face toward Loki.
"You are the God of Stories. You are the Anchor of Yggdrasil. You are the godbrother of the Endless. These things are now true. They cannot be undone. They cannot be unmade. They can only be... understood."
"Then understand this," Loki said. "I did not ask for this. Any of it. I did not ask to be baptized by Time. I did not ask to become a singularity. I did not ask to be noticed by beings older than the multiverse itself. I made a choice—one choice, the only choice that mattered—and everything else followed."
He looked at each of them in turn. Destiny. Death. Dream. Destruction. Desire. Despair. Delirium.
"I chose to save the timelines. I chose to give free will a home. I chose to sit on a throne I did not want because the alternative was letting everything die. That choice made me what I am. Your father's baptism, your family's attention—those are consequences I did not anticipate and do not fully understand. But I will not apologize for them. I will not explain them. I will not justify them."
"What will you do?" Death asked.
"I will continue. I will cultivate my garden. I will plant my avatars and harvest my stories and watch the tree grow. I will sit on my throne and hold the multiverse together until something comes along that can do it better." His smile returned, sharp and familiar. "And I will not be bored. That, I think, is the most important part. A bored god is a dangerous god. I should know. I was one."
---
Delirium clapped her hands.
The sound shattered the tension like a stone through glass. The lanterns brightened. The paths resumed their slow, eternal shifting. The Endless blinked, startled out of their solemnity by their youngest sister's irrepressible joy.
"See?" she said, beaming. "I told you! I told all of you! He's wonderful! He's new and shiny and green and gold and he doesn't apologize for existing and he's not afraid of Dream and he made Despair curious and he made Death smile and he made Destiny admit he doesn't know everything!" She spun in a circle, her hair cascading through a dozen colors. "This is the best meeting we've ever had!"
"It is the only meeting we've ever had," Dream said.
"Which makes it the best by default!" Delirium grabbed Loki's hand—his borrowed hand, the shopkeeper's hand, rough and calloused and entirely mortal. "You have to come back. Not now. Now you have to go back to your tree and your throne and your stories. But later. You have to come back later. We have so much to talk about! Colors and stories and dreams and desires and—"
"Delirium," Destiny said.
"—and despair and destruction and death and—"
"Delirium."
She stopped. Her hair settled into a deep, thoughtful purple.
"You are overwhelming him," Destiny said. "He is maintaining a link between two bodies. The strain is significant. Let him go."
Delirium pouted. But she released Loki's hand.
"You will come back," she said. It was not a question.
Loki looked at her. At all of them. At the family he had not known existed, the siblings he had not asked for, the cosmic architecture that had shifted to make room for him whether he wanted it or not.
"I will come back," he said. "I have questions. You have answers. And I suspect," his eyes flicked to Dream, "some of you have questions of your own."
Dream said nothing. But his silence was not a refusal. It was an acknowledgment.
---
Death walked with him to the edge of the garden.
The paths stretched before them, infinite and forking, every choice a story waiting to be lived. The lanterns flickered, casting shadows that danced like memories.
"You're handling this better than I expected," she said.
"I am a god of mischief. Adaptability is my nature."
"No. Adaptability is your *choice*." She stopped walking and turned to face him. "You could have been bitter. You could have been cruel. You could have sat on that throne and let the tree wither and the timelines die, just to spite the universe that put you there. But you didn't. You chose to cultivate instead of destroy. You chose to grow instead of stagnate. You chose to *live*."
"Living is more interesting than dying."
"Yes. It is." Her smile was soft and sad and infinitely kind. "You're going to die someday, Loki. Not soon. Not for a very long time. But someday. Even gods die. Even Anchors fade. Even the Endless will end."
"I know."
"Does it frighten you?"
Loki considered the question. The borrowed heart beat steady in his chest. The distant tree pulsed at the edge of his awareness, green and blue and infinite.
"No," he said. "I have already died once. Several times, actually. It loses its novelty."
Death laughed. It was a warm sound, full and genuine and unexpectedly human.
"I like you," she said again. "Don't tell Dream. He'll be insufferable."
"Your secret is safe."
She held out her hand. Her fingers were cool and smooth and carried the weight of every ending that had ever been.
"Until we meet again, Loki Odinson. Laufeyson. God of Stories. Anchor of Yggdrasil." She paused. "Godbrother."
He took her hand. "Until then, Death of the Endless."
The garden faded.
The paths dissolved.
And Loki opened his eyes on a throne of crystallized time, with the tree blazing around him and the shopkeeper's body released back to its quiet, unremarkable life.
He was alone again.
But not, he realized, entirely.