Loki
Loki stood on the bridge of the refugee ship, staring at the viewing screen with hollow eyes.
Thor was dead.
His... his brother was dead. Hela had killed him. Loki had returned from awakening Surtur and ensuring Ragnarok started just in time to see his brother die. He had been killed by a spiteful attack, a desperate last-ditch attack from their own sister. The giant black-green magically formed spear had shot out of the water that Surtur's blow had sent the Goddess of Death into.
They had been mid-air, the brutish creature called Hulk holding his brother and the Valkyrie in his hand. It was an attack that should have gored the brutish creature, considering its sheer bulk, but his brother, ever the hero, ever the savior, had seen it coming and had pushed the brutish creature and the Valkyrie away. Just in time to save them... but not to save himself.
Thor was dead, and now all that remained of the God of Thunder was ash scattered across the ruins of Asgard. The ruins that now floated before them, a broken monument to their failure and yet to their victory.
Hela was dead, sundered in a single great and devastating blow from Surtur. The same blow that had dug its way into the realm and pierced its core. They had all stood frozen as the planet exploded. Ragnarok was done. The prophecy fulfilled, their people were alive, yet everything left a bitter taste in Loki's mouth because the one person who deserved to see this the most had laid down his life to ensure the rest of them did not have to do the same.
Their Allfather was dead.
"Loki." Heimdall's voice was quiet and careful. His tone was soft in that way one spoke to someone who had just lost everything, someone who was standing on a precipice. "We need you. The people—"
"Need what?" Loki's voice was hollow, brittle. "Need me to smile? To conjure some illusion that everything will be fine?"
"It's what he would've done. They need a King. We need a King. Someone to guide what is left," the Valkyrie said from his other side. The three of them stood alone at the forefront of the viewing glass, the rest of the battered crew of Asgardians, escaped gladiators, and one green giant behind them, ignorant of the words being spoken.
Loki turned slightly and gave the dark-skinned woman with the white face tattoos a sardonic grin. "Thor was the hero, Brunnhilde. He was to be king. I'm just the villain playing at redemption." If he were in the mood for it, he would have celebrated how his mentioning of her true name nearly sent the Valkyrie off balance. He had glimpsed the name when he had peeked into her head and had been waiting for the perfect moment to use it against her. That was his role. He was nothing close to a hero or king. He was simply a trickster. A schemer. A villain.
But he could have been more. After all, for the first time, he had finally been trying. He had plans to clean up his act. He could hardly change his ways, but he could have channeled them better. He could have finally been the brother Thor deserved, and now—
Heimdall moved to speak, then frowned all of a sudden. The dark-skinned man's head snapped to the side so fast Loki could have sworn his neck cracked. Then his golden eyes boggled. They grew wide in a way Loki had never seen, nearly pushing out of their sockets.
"Heimdall, what is wr—"
His question was cut off as the ship lurched. Most of the refugees behind them were thrown to the ground, yelping in shock, but Loki simply braced for the sudden transition as something was displaced in the void. He shifted his attention as he felt the weave change. The tapestry of magic that wove its way through the Nine Realms and beyond.
It was a tapestry he had known for uncounted centuries, where he learned from the lap of Frigga, his adopted mother. He was as familiar with it as he was with the back alleys and corners of the now-destroyed Asgard, which was why he could not comprehend the sudden change. The tapestry he knew was no more, as something twisted it.
Loki watched, his eyes widening to match Heimdall's as he realized the change was happening right in the middle of the ruined Asgard. In the exact spot where the realm had imploded in on itself, killing both Surtur and Hela. Reality rippled like a stone thrown into still water, and Loki was left to watch the aftershock and the birth of something that twisted the very fabric of existence.
"By the Norns..." Heimdall whispered as he stumbled closer to the viewing glass, his all-seeing eyes spreading even wider with shock.
"What? What is it?" Brunnhilde spun, the woman completely sober for the first time Loki had known her. She followed Heimdall's gaze to the viewing screen, yet still she did not understand. She did not have the all-seeing eyes that the ever-watchful guardian had, neither did she have his knowledge and familiarity with the tapestry that was the weave of magic that blanketed the realms.
Yet she was Asgardian, and Asgardians saw with more than their eyes. What her eyes and mundane senses did not understand, some deep-seated and primal part of her understood that something had changed.
Then, as if in slow motion, everything halted. The ever-expanding implosion that broke the realm. The droplets of mystical water that spilled out from the ruined realm froze. The bedrock, the gold-gilded architecture, the shards of the shattered rainbow-colored bridge, the destroyed statues. Every single thing halted for a full five seconds, then, as if time was spun in reverse, everything was pulled back in a blinding flash that forced Loki to close his eyes and Heimdall to scream in shock before the thud of something hitting the ground informed Loki that the older god had fallen.
The flash lasted for a long second, then just as quickly as it appeared, it disappeared, yet Loki was left to deal with the aftermath. The people behind him were screaming, more out of surprise than any real pain, and his vision was blotchy. He had closed his eyes and covered them with a hand fast enough to escape the brunt of the light, yet it had not been enough, not completely. Still, he was a prince of Asgard.
He blinked as his vision returned slowly and his attention shifted first to the man on the ground. Loki went to a knee as he pressed his fingers to Heimdall's neck. There was a pulse, and Loki let out a small sigh of relief, too small for anybody to spot.
He had just lost his father, whom he had feared and respected more than loved. His brother, whom he had loved and cared for even if he was horrible at showing it, and a planet he had spent most of his life protecting and living in. He was not very close to Heimdall, but he had known the man for a long time, known his golden gaze was always upon him until he found a working that let him slip from sight. If he lost him again, so soon, Loki was not sure he would be able to take it.
He caught sight of blood leaking like tears from the man's eyes, and with hurried motion, fearing the worst, he pulled the dark-skinned man's eyelid back and was met with golden yet red-rimmed eyes. He strangled another sigh of relief that the man had not lost his sight. Instead, it seemed like the magical backlash of what he had seen had been enough to render him unconscious.
"Uh, Loki. I—I think you should take a look at this," Brunnhilde called out from behind him, and he rested Heimdall's head against the floor gently enough before turning to see what the Valkyrie was pointing out. Loki looked out of the viewport of the ship and was greeted by a sight he would not have considered in a million years.
The ruins of Asgard were gone.
He blinked, trying to clear his eyes. Perhaps he had not fully recovered his sight. Yet the vision before him told him that he had. There was no change as his green eyes stared wide at where the ruins of Asgard used to be. It was not simply gone. It had been replaced.
Where broken stone, gold, frozen water, rainbow shards, and ash had floated in the void, there was now Asgard, and it was whole. The golden spires gleaming, Hrimthur's Wall standing proud... Hrimthur's Walls?
He blinked again in confusion. Odin had pulled down Hrimthur's Walls centuries ago when he had deemed that Asgard had no true enemies left to threaten it, and in its place he had built Himinbjörg, Heimdall's bastion from which he watched all. Yet now it stood, standing as strong and proud as it ever had, as did Himinbjörg.
The entire architecture of the realm was similar but different. Older, and more primal and the rainbow bridge that spread from Himinbjörg was darker than Loki had ever seen it.
"That's not..." the Valkyrie breathed from beside him, her hand instinctively going to her sword. "That's not our Asgard."
"No," Loki whispered in return as he watched his home, yet not his home. "It seems a mixture of different times. The older and unfamiliar architecture mixed and carefully fused with the more familiar heavily gold-gilded architecture that Odin had favored." Loki took another step forward, his green eyes searching, scanning not just the realm, but the tapestry of magic. "But it is Asgard." He finished as his magical senses confirmed what his eyes could not.
This was Asgard in every sense of the word.
A groan came from his feet, and at once he shifted to a knee as he helped Heimdall up. "How do you fare?"
Heimdall groaned in response, before rubbing at his eyes and replying, "Like I just watched two realities merge in a way that when words were thought of, there was no thought given to such an explanation. What happened?"
Loki stared, confused, as the older man wiped his eyes clean with some effort. "Why don't you see for yourself." He helped him to his feet, only for Heimdall to turn to Asgard and stumble back in surprise, shock, and fear obvious on the usually stoic man's face.
"How could this be? I thought it was an illusion. A magical backlash from watching the destruction of Asgard with my eyes, yet... yet..." Heimdall trailed off, eyes still locked on the reborn realm before them.
"What do you mean, Heimdall? What have you seen?" The Valkyrie grabbed the man by his bicep tightly. She masked her fear and confusion with anger poorly.
"I mean that everything across the Nine Realms is changed. If my eyes see correctly, and for the first time, I'm uncertain of that, then Midgard, Alfheim, Asgard, Vanaheim, Niflheim, Muspelheim, Helheim, Svartalfheim, and Jotunheim. Every single realm conquered by your father and connected and anchored together by Yggdrasil has been changed."
"This is impossible," Loki breathed in response as he stared into Heimdall's golden eyes, yet the man had a faraway look, like he was staring at things farther than they could comprehend. "The realms can't just... change. The prophecy never said anything about Ragnarok affecting the rest of the realms."
"Yet that is what has happened," Heimdall replied, some composure leaking back into his voice as he composed himself.
Loki stared in confusion. Already, the people behind them were beginning to recover, and confusion and muted joy were spreading along their ranks as they pointed to the restored realm. Oblivious to both the changes in the realm and in all of reality as they knew it, yet he could almost feel the way they were bubbling with hope.
"Heimdall," Loki said, his voice sharp now, cutting through his grief and surprise with sudden purpose. "Can you see them? The people on that Asgard?"
Heimdall's eyes blazed brighter, and for a long moment he was silent. When he spoke, his voice trembled. "I see... thousands. Aesir. Vanir. Dwarves. Light elves. They're alive. They're all alive, confused, and tired. And they're searching for someone."
"Who?"
Heimdall turned to look at Loki, and there was something in his expression that made Loki's blood run cold.
"Thor."
The name hit Loki like a physical blow. "That's not funny, Heimdall. Thor is dead. We watched him—"
"Not our Thor," Heimdall's voice was steady and certain. "That is Asgard, but it is not our Asgard and they're searching for their Thor. I can see their lips move; they call him their All-Father." The gatekeeper's eyes swept across the void, scanning and searching. "But he is not there with them."
Loki felt the world tilt beneath him.
Another Thor. Another Asgard. The Nine Realms changed and twisted.
"All-Father," Valkyrie repeated slowly. "You said All-Father."
Heimdall nodded. "Their Odin is dead. I can see his corpse. It seems like this Thor... he rules in his stead."
Silence fell over the bridge. Loki stared at the impossible sight before them, a whole Asgard, alive and gleaming, yet foreign. A cruel cosmic joke. A twist of fate. They had lost everything, and now the universe presented them with a replacement, complete with a replacement Thor.
"Set course for that Asgard," Loki heard himself say, his voice controlled once more. The grief was still there, a gaping wound in his chest, but it was buried beneath purpose now. Beneath a need that he did not have words for. "We need answers. We need to know what happened. And we need to find out where their Thor went."
Because if there was one constant in every universe, Loki suspected, it was that Thor always found a way to be exactly where he was needed most.
Even if he was no longer his Thor.