XXVII.I

In the end, Loki was not sure whether going to Midgard had been a good idea or not.

It did not bring out rages in Thor but something else, and so Loki had made them both unnoticeable as they wandered—as Thor shuffled aimlessly along the concrete pathways, peering here and there as if he were lost, or as if he had lost something.

He drew up short in the mouth of an alleyway, grey and empty, and he stared at a spot on the ground as around them, greasy rain began to fall in little fits, drops mingling together on pavement that smelled of machines and oil and refuse.

Thor stared at a particular spot, and he began to whimper.

Loki beside him jolted as he recognized where they were. The very spot where he’d killed Thor for the first time, and Thor was shuddering as he stood over it, face turned to the ground, then tilting back, up at the tall, quiet buildings around them. Troubled, confused, tears welling up in his eyes catching the yellowish light of the streetlamp.

Loki swallowed back his terror, stole up to Thor’s side, wrapped an arm around him.

“Might we go elsewhere, brother?” Loki murmured. “I dislike these filthy Midgardian cities. I miss the green of the forests.”

Thor did not protest, did not react as Loki flickered them across a distance, a dark curtain falling around them before they reemerged in a forest clearing. At least the forest clearings in that part of Midgard all looked much alike, and there was no way of knowing if it might be the same one, the mountainside where he had first brought Thor back.

In that place it was just after dusk, and even the inevitable weather above could not completely spoil it, the deep violet of the sky, the majesty of the thick clouds moving swift with the wind.

Thor glanced up at it, took a deep breath of the fresh forest air. Or tried to, gasping.

That had been happening often of late. Sometimes he seemed unable to fill his lungs, and when he coughed, it was a painful, popping, liquid sound. He did so now and spat on the rocks.

Loki came to rub at his back, between his shoulder blades, when he caught the sight of blood in what he’d spat, thick and deep red. And then he caught sight of Thor looking at him, silent. Bruised lids low and weary over blind-pale eyes.

“It’s all right, brother,” Loki soothed, trying to smile. “It’s nothing that can’t be fixed. Just wait here a moment and I’ll bring back something to help. You’ll feel better again very soon.”

And that was how he left Thor sitting with his back to the trunk of a tree, wheezing through his breaths, staring at the sky, while he trod through the pathless woods and paced under the dripping leaves, the cold drops sharp and piercing on his skin, heart frantic and mind empty.

He did not know what to do. In a place much like this one, he had come up with the spell, and he had felt sure that he could do it. That he could bring Thor back as if nothing had ever happened, as if he had never—

He squeezed his eyes shut, remembering the battle again. The feeling of victory, what he had thought he wanted.

After only a few minutes he returned. Stepped into the clearing.

"I'm sorry, brother," he said. He hadn't brought back anything, of course. And Thor did not move, just wheezed and gazed up at him as Loki sat beside him.

Thor was still beautiful. Loki didn't think he could ever see anything else in Thor. Heart aching, he touched Thor's hair, the color of rotted straw. Loved his face, even the black bruises upon it, nuzzling his own against Thor's cheek. Kissed him, and Thor's lips parted, and Loki did not mind the cold, the taste of blood, the dark odor.

Thor allowed it for only a moment before flinching back, mouth gasping open, as if such a small thing made it too difficult to breathe.

“I’m sorry,” Loki repeated as he touched Thor, held him, hands gliding over the stains upon his skin. He stroked Thor’s back through his filthy tunic and felt his bones, felt him shivering, felt the tremble of a whine as the touch proved painful. Thor’s body frail and hardened. The organs within him ceasing their function, swelling and shrinking again... yet still he lived, by will, by spell upon spell.

And Thor gazed at him with eyes so hurt, so sad, that Loki could not bear it. And he had been seeing Thor hurt and hurt and hurt for months.

Loki had never wanted to kill his brother. He had never wanted Thor to die. He had not truly believed Thor could die. But Loki had slain him so many times he could not remember, and now he finally understood.

The spell had not worked because what he did could not be undone. He could not go back and save Thor from his own hand, his own anger, his own stupidity. He had killed his brother. And the moment Thor died, any regret was too late.

No spell, no plea, no sacrifice could change that, no matter what he felt. No matter how much Loki loved him.

He pressed his brow against his brother’s, leaned against him, heart aching, eyes squeezed tight.

“I’m sorry.”

Their mother had been right. He needed to let Thor go. Thor was suffering, if he was still truly there at all, and Loki would never be able to bring him back. Would never be able to restore him.

If he did not stop himself, he would keep doing this forever, no matter how hopeless it was. Thor would continue to suffer, and it would be for nothing. For something that Loki would never be able to achieve. He would keep bringing Thor back in an endless cycle until he himself was killed or Thor’s body crumbled to dust.

Loki could not breathe around the sob trapped in his throat.

He had lost his brother.

And he resolved that the next time Thor died would be the last. Loki would mourn him one final time, and the ordeal would be over. The realms ravaged. The future empty and bleak.

But until then, for however long, Loki still had Thor beside him, and he would not give up a single moment.

XXVII.II

Thor struggled.

He struggled between the dreams and the dark fog, and he was not entirely sure which was real anymore.

When he was in the nightmares, he knew they were nightmares. Dreams that held him far too long, dragging him through horror after horror, never ending. They must be nightmares, for in them his brother murdered him, vicious teeth and burning eyes and the cold pain of a knife in his chest, and it could not be anything but a dream for he would wake again moments later, unharmed. It had to be a dream, because he was not dead.

And they must be nightmares, for they mingled his dearest, most secret wishes with fear and confusion and dread, with actions that he knew he could never take.

In the dreams, he asked Loki to come home and he did. Loki agreed to dwell with him, and when he kissed his brother as he had always longed to do, Loki responded as if he had wished it as well, and held him, and Thor wept at something as simple as closeness and his brother’s warmth against him. His brother's touch upon his bare skin.

In the same dreams, he watched like a spectator as his father’s corpse fell from his hands to the floor, the neck snapped, the twitching finally stopped. He lashed out at his friends. He grew hollow, like an empty vessel, and each tangled nerve sparked only to pain, to ache, to agony like an itch.

They must be dreams, for he could make no sense of them.

They had to be nightmares, and Thor struggled to waken.

But sometimes, he felt he had opened his eyes… and found himself somewhere else entirely. A dark place, a place of mists, hollow and lonely. And he might have accepted this as a true waking, except that his entire body was numb.

The sensation was like a sleeping limb, but it was everywhere. Like his body was something distant, vague and unattached to him, and the part of him that he was moving—his arms wrapping around his knees as he sat on the chill ground—was something other than his own form. It was unsettling.

Perhaps that place was a dream as well. Swirling mists that sometimes took on shapes that seemed familiar and moved about him while he looked on in dreadful confusion, unable to understand. Shadows and deeper darkness, pillars of fog that seemed almost solid, approaching him and then dissolving away. They frightened Thor, though he was not entirely sure why. Sometimes he tried to bat them away, watched the mists swirl and reform. Sometimes he fled, glanced back to see if they followed.

He wanted this to be a dream as well, because he wanted to waken from it. He tried to, pinching his own arms, or squeezing his eyes shut for what might have been moments or centuries, opening them with force and hoping to see something else than the formless grey.

The only respite was the other dreams, which he slipped in and out of for reasons he could never fathom.

Thor struggled to waken.

It was like struggling through thick mud, or wading through flood water, with the accompanying feeling of bone-deep chill.

In the other dreams, he sat upon a dark throne, waged an unjust war, severed limbs from bodies with a sharp-bladed axe. Did dreadful, awful things. Gazed down unfeeling at his own blood-smeared hands.

In the dreams of mist, everything was growing darker and harder to see, and he felt a fog of confusion descending to match the cold damp that brushed his skin, and he spent hours (or perhaps more) lost to it, sitting with his mouth slack, his eyes dull and unfocused. It was hard to break free from it, hard to find any reason to resist.  

But he held tight to his belief that he had heard it: his brother calling to him from somewhere far away.

Thor struggled, trying to force his eyes to open, because he knew, deep in his heart, that Loki was calling for him. Pleading. Telling him to waken, to come back.

He swore he had heard it a few times, always far and faint, but Thor struggled toward it, in the peculiar directionless way of that place, of those dreams. It seemed always to be getting farther, yet he did not give up.

His brother needed him. So Thor would not fail.

And then one day the fog seemed to thin.

The light grew a little brighter. He looked around and did not know where he was, did not recognize the patterns of formless shifting shadows but had a peculiar sense that he should, and his breath caught as he gathered himself to try again to wake.

He had heard Loki's voice, very near this time, crying for him, and though it felt like struggling against a strong current he forced his way toward it, toward where the fog thinned—

He woke up to terrible pain and a sudden flood of memory and clarity all around him, a clarity that he had forgotten the world could hold.

XXVII.III

Loki had fallen asleep in that clearing, curled up beside his brother, and he woke to the sound of sobbing, sobbing that continued even after he had shaken off the traces of his dreams.

Thor hunched over his knees, arms wrapped around himself, tears flowing down his face. Head bowed and hair fallen across like a ragged veil. Loki stared, worried. Unsure what he was seeing.

It had been a long time since Thor had wept like that.

Seeming to tremble, Thor wiped at his face, caught sight of the maze of blackened capillaries on his own hands and shuddered, but the tears kept coming so he continued to wipe at his eyes with that ruined hand.

“Loki,” he said at last in voice soft and rough as if he had not spoken for a very long time. “Loki, what has happened to me? What have I done?”

The land all around was in darkness, and Loki could hardly breathe, and Thor continued to weep, the sound issuing from his throat ugly and wretched. Wet sobs and choked gasps that sounded thick in his throat.

Loki felt frozen as Thor spoke his name again and again.

He could not move, could not answer, could not make himself reach out to offer anything, any lies or comfort. But he should. He should. Thor was sobbing, rubbing his hands across his crumpled face and trembling in his broad shoulders, and Loki wanted to scream with every pitiful, hiccupping breath from his brother's mouth. He wanted to take Thor in his arms and hold him, soothe him, somehow take the hurt away. The need to do so rose like a physical ache.

But he was frozen in place by grief and terror, waiting for the change that he knew would come, like a change in the wind. The inevitable turn to rage that had always followed outbursts like this.

Loki fumbled at his side for his knife, to make sure it was near; he didn’t want to use it, but he might not have a choice.

He steeled himself for what was to come. If it was to be the last time...

When he heard Thor’s voice again, it was in a whimper turning feral, stretching thin, and he saw Thor’s fists tightening, his mouth twisting in fury.

“Loki, what have you let me do?”

The anger on Thor’s face was a blaze as he reached for Loki, reaching for his throat with clawed hands outstretched.

In panic, unthinking, Loki struck out with the knife clutched tight in his hand, pushed it deep between Thor’s ribs until the blood rushed back over his knuckles, spurted across his palm, slipped between his fingers.

Thor stopped short with a searing cry, staring down at the blade hilted deep in his chest. And only then did Loki see it.

Thor’s eyes were wide and wet and frightened.

And so very clear and blue, the pale haze gone as if it had never been.

In shock, Loki scrambled forward with his own trembling whimper, to catch Thor as he fell. To lay him down and pull the blade gently back and try, frantically, to heal the wound.

There was so much blood, coming so fast.

Loki’s gaze flickered between the wound and Thor’s face, caught between doing everything he could to stanch the bleeding and needing to tell him everything.

“Brother, I’m sorry,” he choked out as he worked.

Thor’s face was growing pale, the little color there had been draining from it. He was trying to do something with his hands, trying to reach for Loki, perhaps, but they were slow, uncoordinated. Tears blinked from the corners of his eyes, and Loki stared back into the perfect blue.

“Loki, why…” Thor breathed, and the disbelief in his voice made Loki sob.

“I never meant for any of this. I love you. I didn't want…”

He spared one hand to stroke along the side of Thor’s face. More tears rolled from Thor’s eyes, diluting the blood on Loki’s fingertips, making red trails down his temples into his hair. Briefly Loki leaned down to press a kiss to Thor’s soft cheek.

“I’m going to fix this, brother. Just stay with me. Please.”

Thor’s lip was trembling and on his face was dreadful fear and hurt and sorrow, and his groping hand connected with Loki’s wrist and grabbed, held tight, squeezing.

Loki was still trying to heal him when Thor’s grip relaxed. When the spark went out of his eyes. When his breathing shuddered to a halt and his pulse trailed away into stillness beneath the thin flesh of his neck.

Loki gathered up his body and held him close and could not move, could not breathe, could not feel anything but a crushing pain inside. Though he thought he could still hear someone crying. A wail carried on the wind.

A long while later, he finally swallowed the lump in his throat and rubbed the salt from his face. Laid his brother’s body down, heart clenching as he did so.

Thor had been restored after so long. Loki knew he had been. And then Loki had cut his life from him in one frantic motion, killing Thor again nearly the moment he had him back.

It could not have been his one chance, their one reprieve. And it had to mean that Thor was still there, within that ruined body, within reach.

And though Loki had no idea how or why it had happened, if Thor had returned once…

Loki could not stop. He had to try again, and he leaned down to kiss Thor’s brow like a promise, lips soft on cold skin.

And there, in that same dark clearing with wet leaves rustling overhead, he began, whispering again the words of the spell.

When Thor's eyes opened to the first glow of Midgard’s sun, though, they were empty, unfeeling as stone, cold as a corpse. Staring at him, through him.

Loki tried to smile at him, tears dripping down to the upturned corners of his mouth, while something sank inside him.

It could not have been his only chance. It could not.

And it did not matter anyway, for now he knew he could not cease.

He had watched the world end rather than let Thor die. Loki could not let him go. He needed to have his brother back. And he would keep trying forever, whether there was hope or none.

XXVI.I

The only thing that improved after Thor woke was that he seemed done with the tunnels. He picked up his axe and wandered along a little more, but without much intention. He glanced at Loki sometimes, unreadable, making Loki tense, nerves frayed.

“We must continue,” Thor grumbled after a few more hours passed.

“What?”

It took some prodding to get Thor to explain, and when he finally did, Loki shuddered.

He tried to delay, to think of some third path—he did not want to remain there, in the dark tunnels. But what Thor wanted seemed to offer a different sort of horror.

After waiting as long as he could stand it and finding himself unable to come up with any other idea, he obeyed and brought Thor to a passage to another realm.

"This one is nearest," Loki said, brows knitting when he found what he sought. "But it goes to Svartalfheim."

Thor seemed unconcerned by this. Or worse, the edge of his mouth turning down in distaste, unpleasant memories of Dökkálfar surely trickling through his mind. Plenty to revenge himself for, to feed his endless anger.

Then Thor simply nodded, and they went through.

The place they came to seemed empty and dead already, the wind whistling across ashen ground, sheltered against a bare cliff face that extended upward to a dark and sickly sky. But after so long in darkness, even that sight was welcome and had Loki breathing in deep gulps of air, feeling like he had not breathed properly in days.

Thor took no notice, turning in the direction of the faintly lighter glow on the horizon, between the tallest of the jagged mountains, and stumbling toward it.

Somehow, even in that place, Thor’s presence caused storms to gather, and before long tepid water was hissing down from the clouds—Loki wanted to tip his head back and catch the drops on his tongue, but the smell of sulfur that came down with them and filled the air put him off the idea.

He did let it wash some of the grime from his hands, his face, combing fingers through his hair and slicking it back once it was wet enough, feeling just a bit cleaner for it, just a bit refreshed.

The rainwater trickled down Thor’s skin as well, but Loki did not notice at first. Did not notice because the dark streaks remained once the grit had been rinsed away. Intricate networks of capillaries, broken and darkened to black beneath the pale, cold grey of Thor’s skin like veins in marble. They marred his throat, his chest, the fleshy parts of his arms. His cheeks and the thin, fragile tissue around his eyes.

Loki had not been tending to him, had not had the sense or the energy even if Thor had been willing to stay still for it. And now Loki reached out to touch, to try—

Thor shoved him back without a word. Only a growl. A glare. And he continued walking, though Loki had no idea if there was any reason for the direction he had chosen, and in that moment he did not feel inclined to ask.

He followed as the rain trailed off, that brief shower the extent of what that desolate realm could bring forth. The last few sprinkles fell onto barely dampened rills of dust, the ground having already swallowed the rest.

And soon enough, Thor’s choice proved out. The shadows began to creep around them, taking on solid forms, shapes of bending limbs that held bows and spears.

The war came to them. Thor hefted his axe. Loki shuddered and readied his blades and all the magic he could summon.

And in the end, it was no different from Nidavellir.

A realm razed, ruined, blood in pools sinking into the dark ground. A smell of rot on the air. The sparse crumbling brush burning into flakes of ash where Thor's rage had called down storms of dry lightning, his face contorted with hatred. The strike of his axe sparking bright and wild, the most destructive of fires.

City after city. Land after land. The entire realm, and then the next. Thor's anger carried them, Loki trailing along in his wake, and behind them was nothing but death.

XXVI.II

And yet when they came to the end of enemies was the most perilous of times. Loki often had to save himself when Thor found no more bodies to fall beneath the swing of his axe, and he would turn, eyes dark and burning, to look at him, full of accusation.

Loki had to do it often, but it was getting harder.

I seemed Thor was truly growing harder to kill, like something was seeping into his cells and solidifying them, like minerals filtering into wood to turn it into stone. It seemed he had to plunge his knife with greater force, twisting it at the depth of Thor's chest, like he was cutting through something more solid than flesh. Or Loki’s arm was growing weaker, his resolve less solid.

He only knew he hated it more each time.

"Brother, stop," he pleaded, knowing already that he wouldn’t, while Thor advanced on him, furious, weapon raised. “Brother...”

He felt he barely had the strength to shove the knife in, and he hissed at the feel of blood gushing out against his fingers, his knife nearly stuck. He yanked it back, teeth clenched, feeling flesh tear.

It was not just the toughness of his flesh, either, but his hardiness.

Loki had to drive the blade in a third time before Thor at last slumped back and collapsed, gasping, writhing. On his hands and knees on the ground, tilting, still trying to get up again, then slumping sideways and lying curled and trembling, his hands reaching out weakly for nothing, clenching on air. He moaned, a pathetic sound.

And that, that was the moment Loki truly hated. His brow pinched, his own guts twisted as Thor turned from a creature of rage to his dying brother once again, hurting and confused. Loki tried to comfort him, but it was never more than a few moments, never enough time, even when he was right there at his side. He knelt, clasped Thor’s hand, stroked his brow, but his eyes were already going dim.

And then it was over again, and Loki was sprawling back panting, feeling his weariness anew. Blinking up at the sky, the unfamiliar stars, exhaustion making everything seem to spin.

He no longer rushed to bring Thor back. He needed the respite, needed time to recover himself.

When his breath returned, he rolled to his side so that he could lie against Thor's form as it cooled, missing him terribly. Stroking Thor's face and kissing him while he could, feeling ill inside and choking back a sob when his brother’s dead body of course made no response.

Eventually, though he felt no more rested, Loki wiped at his face and steeled himself and sat up to try it all over again. Someday he would get it right and he would have Thor back, as he used to be. As he was supposed to be.

He had to. Loki could not live without Thor, could not go on without his brother. So there had to be a way.

XXVI.III

They were in Muspelheim, its smoking ruin, when the deep silence fell.

They had come to the end of enemies some days before, and Loki had killed and revived his brother again, and since he’d opened his eyes he had been driving them onward, searching for more, more outlets for his anger, more foes to bear the brunt of his retaliation for wrongs done to him.

And they had found no one.

Thor had grown agitated at first, his steps jerky, trembles of thwarted anticipation rolling through him. But now he had turned sluggish, head drooping, shoulders bent.

He slowed, and Loki approached, taking steps nearer to little reaction. A glance. An uncertain frown.

Loki’s own shoulders fell in a sigh.

"Come, brother,” he said, reaching out for Thor’s hand, a deep longing for sleep making itself known now that rest was a possibility.

And Thor simply went along, eyes heavy-lidded, face grey. Ash raining around them.

Loki’s exhaustion was so deep that he barely bothered to make up a bed for them, spreading his cape upon the first likely spot they came to, before coaxing Thor onto it and lying down beside him. His weariness made it impossible to do more than put his head down, murmuring a few slurred words to Thor to wake him at need, and immediately plunged into dreams.

He woke later to find Thor lying beside him, eyes open in the red-hued dark.

Loki rolled onto his side and let his eyes close again, just for a little bit longer, sinking back down into slumber.

When he woke the second time, Thor had not moved. His eyelids were still peeled back, open, staring. Pale and glazed. But Loki knew, somehow, that he had not slept at all. That he would not sleep, no matter how long they lay there.

He was not quite still, though. Shudders, twitches, spasms. Limbs that jerked and then went slack. Eyes that roved wildly as if watching things Loki could not see, things that flashed and flitted right before his face. The occasional rough, wretched, wordless sound rumbling from his throat.

And when Loki spoke his name, he did not respond.  

Cautiously, Loki touched him, nudged him, but the trance did not release him. Thor only twitched and shuddered, and all Loki could do was lie there watching until it passed, until Thor lay merely shivering again and sweat burst on his brow and something like confusion blinked into his eyes, a whimper emerging from the hollow of his chest.

When Loki moved closer, put an arm around him, Thor let him. Loki curled against his brother, protective, breath ghosting upon the skin of a broad, beautiful shoulder that felt like clay, slick and cold against his lips.

Thor began trembling harder at the touch, stiffening with harsh breaths, wheezing sobs.

Loki gritted his teeth and would not let go.

“How about Midgard next?” he asked in a whisper when Thor at last calmed.

He had been thinking of it, pondering whether perhaps things would be different there, in the fragile mortal realm Thor had once so dearly loved. A place he had always tried to protect. At least his rages might not be so all-consuming there.

XXV.I

The battle ended with the enemy's disappearance.

Those Dwarves who survived had fled, retreated into hidden holes, and the army of Asgard was left blinking upon the ruin of the surface, amongst the field of trodden mud and corpses.

Short with exhaustion, Loki snapped orders at those around him.

Thor stood swaying, staring out at the dim horizon, the axe still dangling from his hand.

Loki was in the middle of shouting orders to set up an encampment—they all needed rest, shelter, they needed to set up sentries to keep watch—when Thor turned his head, growling to make ready.

"For what?" Loki spat. But then he saw it in the distance. A haze, a shadow, picked out with a few sparking glimmers of light. Another army. Or several more.

Minutes later, scouts came rushing back with word that it was an alliance. Alfar and Vanir stood beside the remaining Dvergar, a line against the Aesir forces, voices calling for a halt, a parley.

It was the first pause, the first hesitation; Loki cast his glance across the army of Asgard and saw the faces of those with Vanir blood themselves, or who counted Alfar among their friends. The twinge of uncertainty where all had been firm but moments before.

Thor turned, looming before his men, his shadow seeming to grow all around him, creeping across the ground.

"Fight,” he growled, voice low but resounding. “Or I will slay you myself."

The battle was soon begun.

And it went on, the force arrayed against them many times their size. Well armed, rested, prepared. The enemy armies had chosen the moment of their advance, had taken their choice of battlefield.

And still the Aesir struck them like a hammer, destruction swift and hard and unavoidable. Cut through them like a scythe through a stand of grain. Thor leading, all the rest roaring behind, faces like onrushing death.

It went on for days without cease, the enemy shaken, edges of their line turned ragged. The breaking of their ranks invited the Aesir forward to overtake them, overwhelm them, engulf them, and there were no prisoners. There was no mercy. Only Vanir lying dead. Elves maimed and fallen, blood soaking their flowing hair. Dwarves spitting before the cruel blade ran them through.

In the end, the alliance was routed, and into the Dwarven tunnels the battle finally led. Those of the enemy who survived thought to evade them that way. Into the fathomless dark.

But the Aesir knew no fear, and there was grim, vicious laughter as Thor’s order was carried along the lines, to follow. To make sure none escaped the vengeance of Asgard.

Loki looked to his brother, staring off with dark eyes full of a mindless determination, and only felt numb.

XXV.II

The young Dwarf clutched both her hands to her chest as she huddled in the farthest-back reaches of a tunnel arm, a few of her brothers and sisters nearby. They had been waiting for days, and no one had come to get them; she tried not to think what that meant.

There was only the faint blue glow of a few tunnel beetles clinging here and there to walls and roof, but Dvergar needed no light, and there was nothing to see anyway but the uneven shape of the hollow extending away into the distance.

They could hear, though, what was happening above. For days the booming thunder of battle on the surface filtered down into their underground lair, and for a while her parents had worn brave faces, telling them that it would not last long. That they had endured such things before; that they would do so again, and they were safe where they were.

But then it had stopped. Then there had come another sound instead, that of the ground breaking in great swathes, collapsing inward.

Now the girl pressed her face to her knees and tried not to listen to the faint echoes. There was fighting going on in the tunnels only two or three levels above. There was a constant sound of screams, the noise rising and falling, punctuated with roars and the drumming of feet and weapons.

She remembered her father shouting in bitter rage that the Aesir were their allies, that they had no cause—

But now it was days since she had seen her father. Since he and her mother both had left, along with everyone else large enough to swing an axe or hold a pike.

She was almost weeping and did not notice the noise growing until it was upon them, the patter of running feet, the harsh breaths, the scream and the sprawling tumble of a body, but then she could see them silhouetted in the rise of the tunnel.

She had never seen Aesir before, and she had never been more terrified than in that moment, for he was larger than she could have imagined from the tales, and he was soaked in blood and muck so that even his hair was dark with it, the only white his teeth between the sneer of his lips as he pressed his foot down upon the chest of the Dwarf he had pinned to the ground.

The Dwarf cursed him, vowed vengeance, swore that there would never again be peace between Asgard and Nidavellir.

The As did not answer. He merely growled as the Dwarf’s voice cut off with a rapid cracking sound, a dull popping, a wet gurgle, and in the faint light she could see the splutter of blood gushing up from the Dwarf’s mouth as he writhed. It was the only motion, the only sound, and she became all at once aware of the faint noise of her own heartbeat as she held her breath.

He could not see them. She was sure he couldn’t. They were hidden in the shadows, in the darkest part of the tunnel. She stayed completely still, feeling the huddle of her siblings at her back and she willed them to be silent, willed none of them to begin to cry.

It was only then that another As who had before been skulking behind slipped forward, snakelike. This one was slimmer but just as tall, and his eyes were quick and cold as he glanced around the tunnel—she shrank and clutched tighter around her knees—before turning his gaze to the ground.

The girl stared, so full of fear that it was a sour burn in the pit of her stomach, as the tortured Dwarf ceased to squirm at the sharp, contemptuous kick the smaller man delivered to his head—she squeezed her eyes shut and trembled as her heart pounded.

So she only heard the growl and the sound of a fist striking flesh. The little offended cry of pain and the brief struggling scuffle.

When she opened her eyes just a slit, unable to bear it no longer, the smaller man was rubbing at his upper arm, the larger looming over him.

“If you’re wholly done amusing yourself, brother,” the smaller man said in a hiss.

More footsteps as they retreated, and there was a rumble like thunder that faded away to silence, and then they were gone, leaving the dead Dwarf where he lay.

But the girl was still trembling, stiff with horror, from the murder, the brutality she had witnessed too far from the world of her family, her sisters and brothers and parents and all their other kin, for her to comprehend it.

It was a long time before she and her siblings dared to emerge from their hiding place.

XXV.III

They fought their way through the tunnels for days. Loki lost track at some point—harder than usual to know how much time had passed, down in the impenetrable, endless darkness.

He could perhaps have figured out how many times they had rested, though: it wasn’t many.

Thor seemed determined to hunt down the entire population of Nidavellir, his axe scraping along the dry ground as he trod onward, stopping every now and then to listen down the branching pathways. And Loki rushed after him, his vision pulsing grey and red and white with weariness and lingering adrenalin turned sour in his veins.

They had been with an entire company at first, but smaller teams had peeled off into side tunnels, pursuing faint noises or smells of smoke or other tracks and traces.

Of those who remained with them, some had fallen to the enemy as days passed. Others had simply disappeared. And in the end, the two of them were all that was left.

Thor had insisted that they must go on, and Loki had tried to argue only briefly, subsiding at Thor’s glare, the twitch in the arm that held the axe. He had held up his hands then and agreed, trotting along at Thor’s side, guarding his flank when—more rarely as time went on—they came up against any resistance.

And at this point, he had no energy even to summon up a ghost light, so they walked in darkness. Often the darkness was so deep it felt like being blind.

Thor's solid, plodding footsteps ahead of him and his own breathing. His own heartbeat and the scrape of the blade on the ground and no other sound at all.

And it was cold in these deep tunnels, cold in a way that made Loki long for warmth, for comfort that seemed impossibly far from where they were. He knew what warmth he wanted, right beside him and nowhere. In the darkness he found himself nearly hallucinating, memories shimmering before his eyes.

He tried to push those thoughts away, but there was little to distract him in the dark, in the long silence.

Eventually it reached a point where they had come across no other living things in what was surely days of wandering in the dark. No Dvergar, no Aesir. Not even the sorts of creatures that one usually encounters in tunnels and caves.

"Thor," Loki whispered, feeling that it would be impossible to speak any louder.

A grunt in reply. The soft, steady pace continuing.

"Thor, we should go back. There is no one left."

Thor did not answer at once, and when he did it was a grumble that gritted against the walls and faded, muffled, in the darkness.

"... made them break it… know you did it..."

Loki trotted a few paces, trying to catch up, to catch Thor's words before they were lost.

"... trickster…  faithless…” Thor went on, a low and hateful murmur. “... hate me, made deals with them to hurt me... vengeance for... wanted you at my side..."

Loki pieced together the words and his breathing stuttered, heart racing and legs weak. The axe scraped along the ground in the darkness and Thor's mumbles filled the hollow, echoing air.

They were wholly alone, in the dark.

An hour later, Loki sat propped against the side of the tunnel, tears running down his face and his brother lying dead beside him. Loki’s hand pressed against his own bleeding wound, where the axe’s blade had grazed against his arm, days of exhaustion catching up to him, making him unable to move fast enough to get away. He had almost not. Thor had almost killed him, and Loki had fought back wildly, knife plunging into soft flesh that no other enemy ever got close enough to reach.

He'd had no choice this time.

XXIV.I

The armies of Asgard mustered on the field before the bridge, its glow the only light in the dark of the day. Gleaming on shield and helm. Overhead, veins of lightning ran across the dull bruise of the sky, and rain poured down in fits upon the ranks stretched out as far as the eye could see.

The fear that had suffocated the city had turned into something else. As soon as the call for war spread wide, it had turned to a maddened fervor, and the warriors who had come at the king's call were infused with it, infected. There would be no more fear, when the most frightful thing to be seen was the might of Asgard sweeping down upon its enemies.

Every warrior gripped his weapon and felt the bloodlust rise in his belly as Thor stood before them, rallying them with a few words and a call to follow. In his hand, not a hammer but an axe, massive and sharp, its edge glinting.

There were some among that assemblage who welcomed this, showing teeth. A bloodier weapon for their king to wield, a tool of death alone; they approved whole-heartedly. They were led by a fearsome god whose rages brought lightning. A ruler whose anger swirled dark in the skies and rained destruction down, heedless of any thought of death or pain. They knew that their fate would lead into glory in the wake of such a king.

And it was the nature of the Aesir to live up to the example set them by their leaders.

They gnashed their teeth in readiness, for it was Thor who led them, he who called the storms, who stood now lit by a bolt of silver in the midst of darkness, crying aloud, rallying them to follow. Every eye gleamed with ferocious determination.

Above, in the darkness, one could just spot the swirling shadow of hundreds of winged points of black, their screams foretelling carnage, and the warriors smiled at the sight.

They welcomed war, and they had no fear, and the sound of their roar in unison could have deafened the entire sky as they tramped toward the waiting bridge.

XXIV.II

Loki felt a chill as he crossed it, half a pace behind his brother.

It had not worked, and he now did not know what to do except keep going, keep trying.

Perhaps he could find some new fount of knowledge on another realm. Perhaps this would turn out to be Norns' doing, bringing him to where he needed to be to find the answers he sought. Perhaps. Loki tried to believe it was so. At the very least, it would buy him time.

Deep down, though, he felt as if he were sinking into dark, still water, lungs filling, hands reaching above him but finding nothing to grab hold of, continuing to slip as the light faded away.

An hour before, he had put on his armor, gathered his weapons, and his thoughts had been silent in his head. The feeling of breathing as he tightened the straps. The singing sound of a blade sliding in its sheath.

He did not care that they would soon be at war. Did not care how many would be lost. Only that it would complicate matters for him.

Out of the city, he glanced back once at Asgard where it lay shrouded and no longer gleaming, and he felt no loss, no sorrow. Only a faint sickness for which he could determine no cause. He turned away and thought of it no more.

As they trod toward the mouth of the observatory, he stayed a little behind Thor, both because he was determined to guard his brother and because that way he did not have to see Thor's face, the emptiness of it, somehow more frightening than rage.

Thor had barely spoken to him since the last time. When Thor chanced to look at him, his gaze was unreadable, dark. With blind eyes, Thor seemed to stare through him.

Loki had tried to soothe him, touching him, giving him little smiles, but Thor took no notice of that either.

That morning, he had let Loki bathe him, and Loki had manipulated limbs that were limp, moved only when he guided them. Tugged Thor’s arms up to scrub beneath them and had to hold him by the wrist to keep him from growing distracted at once. Thor’s head lolled on his neck while Loki dried his hair after and combed it, the silky strands slipping between his fingers. Thor did not answer when Loki spoke to him; he gave no sign of recognition when Loki said his name, no response when Loki squeezed his hand or kissed the brow of his bowed head, and Loki was unsure whether he was being ignored or if Thor simply was not aware of him.

Only when the messenger came to say that all was in readiness for the assault on Nidavellir did Thor rouse again, a faint, deadly flicker of light coming into his eyes.

The words of command Thor shouted before the assembled ranks were the most Loki had heard him speak in days, and by far the loudest. The words poured out like a spell and Loki wondered if perhaps it was, watching as the jolt of violent fervor spread through the crowd, hearing the answering thump of fist on shield, the stamp of feet, the rhythmic clatter like a heartbeat of a great beast of destruction.

Now Thor was silent again, grim as he stared ahead, and Loki followed as he always had when they were young, sometimes goading Thor onward, sometimes just wanting to be there with him, no matter what he did. Loki followed, except his brother was no longer the same.

Loki’s legs felt almost too weak to carry him.

XXIV.III

Thor brought the storms with him, the strange light of Nidavellir turning stranger as the Aesir army came, clouds gathering swiftly above. The winds stirred, the sky darkened and lowered, and the rain began. Heavy, oily drops that plashed against the ground, turning it to mud. A tremble of electricity filled the air.

The first battle was a slaughter.

Loki stayed fast at Thor's side, driving his blades into any of the enemy who got too close to his flank, thus he was there to watch every moment of it. And he had seen Thor in battle before, of course, more times than he could count. But this was different. It was different now.

Long ago, Thor had laughed in battle, his face tugged into a joyful smile as he felt the lure of victory before him, the exertion of proving his might. Later, older and sobered to the losses of both sides, there was still a light about him when he fought. Necessity and strength and pride.

When Thor had fought him, that light had dimmed, and hesitation had twined with determination, a plea for peace forever waiting on his lips.

The light was gone now, and Loki could not help but think of those battles as he watched Thor fight, dark and fearsome and unstoppable.

Thor slew every Dwarf that chanced into his path, cutting through enemy after enemy, and sometimes Loki got the feeling that Thor was not truly present. That he was perhaps fighting a thousand other battles, seeing other faces before him. He grunted with the effort of swinging the axe, his eyes narrowed against the gory spray, but without a hint of feeling. Shoulders swelling, tensing. A thousand more tireless strikes and the same angry, empty set of his mouth.

The wet ground around them slowly turned red. Loki could not stop thinking of their own battles. All the times he’d forced Thor to fight him, needing to oppose him, needing to prove himself in the struggle, needing to make Thor suffer.

When Thor happened to glance his direction, face streaked with muck and eyes glowing in a nearby flash of lightning like they were lit from within, Loki could not help but flinch, wondering if Thor was remembering the same thing.

He spent the rest of the battle feeling it on the back of his neck, running like a shiver along his shoulders, like the cold rainwater dripping down his back. He tried to stay unnoticed. Tried not to catch Thor’s attention. Tried to keep out of his way as he fought onward, for days without rest, axe cutting through air, through screaming flesh, through bone.

XXIII.I

The Dwarves refused.

A message had been penned, demanding that the best of craftsmen come to fix the broken hammer, to repair the flaws in the work done for Asgard an age ago, and it had been sent off with a wide-eyed courier eager to serve.

A message was received in return, the same courier coming back swiftly, and the message was read out. The Dwarves refused, stating that there had been no such flaws, and that if there was any difficulty now, much of an age later, the issue must lie in the wielder.

Loki had been there when the reply was received, and he had done what he could, but Thor's answer—incomprehension, his brow furrowed, his fists clenching upon the arms of the throne.

And then, like a spark of icy fire, it was rage, feeding upon itself, into a furious blaze. Cold and deadly, pouring off him in dark waves like a shadow.

"If they will not fix it, then they must be made to pay," he said, leaning forward, shoulders hunched, face in shadow. "If they do not respect Asgard's might anymore, we must demonstrate it for them again."

The few nobles and councilors who remained had bowed with shoulders trembling. And the word was sent out all across Asgard, calling for all warriors to come at the command of their king.

That night, Thor sat listless, his eyes dull and his form sagging, as Loki fussed around him.

Ever since Mjolnir had abandoned him, Thor had grown angrier, more difficult to reason with, but Loki still tried, still touched him, soothed him, coaxed him back from the edge of violence.

"Thor, are you sure this is what you want to do?" he asked.

Thor did not turn his face to look at him, only scowled at the floor. "You told me it was their fault."

"And it is. But Dwarves are better bought with gold than fear, and we have hardly yet tried to negotiate with them."

"I don't want to negotiate," Thor spat.

"You know you can leave that part to me—"

Thor's hand shot out, and Loki's arm was caught in an iron grip that dragged him closer, closer to the pale, hollow eyes that stared through him.

"I will not. You are a liar and I do not trust you."

Loki tried to steel himself, tried to ignore the pain of Thor’s hand upon him, wrenching at the bones. “Thor, you cannot possibly think...”

“You had dealings with them. I know not what you would do, what depths you would scrape to harm me.”

Dealings. Dealings in which Loki had always suffered, always lost. Thor knew how much Loki had disliked the Dwarves ever since then. But the way Thor was looking at him, further protest seemed futile.

Loki looked away, no longer tugging back against Thor’s hand, dread and surrender seeping through him.

XXIII.II

Not long after, Thor had him shoved up against the wall of his chambers, grip tight upon his throat, holding him pinned as he struggled. Loki's eyes widened and his heart thumped in his chest as Thor growled.

“If you truly love me, you will do as I say.”

Loki nodded in quick agreement, but he still was not expecting to be dragged toward the bed. Nor the command to shed his garments, to assist Thor with his. He was not expecting the angry, petulant glare as Thor lay down and told him what he wanted.

“You have been promising to make me feel better and you haven't,” Thor said.

It was strange, how it felt, trying to obey and yet feeling his own fear swelling within the inevitable excitement.

This was not the brother he had grown up with, warm and bright and forever above him, unattainable, perfect.

This was Thor in darkness. This was Thor, writhing beneath him and then growing frustrated and overturning them, shoving him down onto his back, climbing atop, sliding down without hesitation. Hips rocking in a haphazard rhythm as he rode, and Loki could not help but gaze at his body. The bruises just visible in the room's dim light. The sickly hollows around his clavicles. The fury in his pale eyes. The sheen of chill sweat darkening the hair beneath his arms, and the scent of him filling Loki’s nostrils, familiar and changed, a sourness to it.

Loki's nerves were alight, his body eager, his mind in a panic. He wanted to reach out, to pull Thor to him and insist that he had been trying to heal him, that he loved Thor, that he would have done anything to make this all better. Yet he couldn’t, heart in his throat.

Thor's groans and sighs slid along his spine, raising gooseflesh, and he did everything Thor told him. Gave Thor everything he asked for, the ferocity of Thor's demands making him shiver. The way Thor huffed at his obedience, clawed at Loki's sides leaving scratches that burned.

“Touch me,” Thor demanded finally, and Loki lowered his hand between their bellies.

Thor’s organ had stiffened only partly, but as Loki thumbed at the wetness at its tip, Thor threw his head back, moaning. Thor came still only half hard, and his spill was viscous on Loki’s hand as he finished within him, the feeling a strange kind of pleasure, a dread-thick shudder all through his limbs.

Thor stared at him afterward and would not kiss him. Pushed him away, relenting only when Loki fetched warm water and cloth and bathed his skin, cleaning up the traces. Relenting only enough for Loki to slip into bed beside him afterward and sneak close, wrapping around him.

He felt scoured, aching in a way beyond the inconsequential injuries Thor had given him, and he hated more than ever the loss of Thor’s warmth. Barely a trace left of what had once been a furnace heat burning forever inside him, enough to make a younger Loki shove him away for blessed air, blessed space.

Now it was nearly gone.

He needed to fix this. He had to make his brother well again. He could not let another day pass.

XXIII.III

And he knew what he had to do.

The one thing he had not yet tried. The solution he had thought of after their mother had told him to give up on Thor, to let him die.

He could not give up. He could not let his brother go. He had to succeed. And this was the one thing he had not tried.

Loki lay there, waiting, as Thor tossed and turned for quite some time.

This time he would make sure there was no pain, no violence to twist Thor’s spirit. He would make sure Thor was not aware of any of it. He would go slowly, take care with every motion.

When Thor finally lay still and peaceful in his slumber, Loki waited just a few minutes longer, breathing slowly to calm his own nerves. He murmured a brief sleeping spell, to ensure that Thor would not wake.

And then he knelt astride Thor's unmoving body and closed his hands around Thor’s throat so that there would be no blood either.

He tightened his fingers. Jaw clenching as he squeezed, staring into the dark cavern of Thor’s slack mouth.

His arms began to cramp before he could make himself let go. He was not aware of his own harsh breathing, the burning in his own eyes. The tingling in his fingers where he had felt Thor's pulse slowing and stuttering to a halt.

When it was done he leaned down, put his ear to Thor's chest, shuddered at the silence within, bereft of the drumskin echo his heartbeat had become. He pressed his lips to the cool, grey skin as well, upon Thor's sternum, leaving wet droplets behind. Up to kiss his beloved face, stroke his hair.

"This time, brother," he murmured. "This time."

He did not delay longer than that but got to work, every muscle in his body tense with concentration, devoting all his care and attention to doing everything precisely right. Afterward he waited for Thor’s eyes to open. Surely this time there would be no haze in them, no darkness.

He fell asleep waiting, and he dreamed of a boy with sun-bright hair and star-blue eyes and a warm golden laugh, who held his hand against his fears when the storms came.