Golden Horns and Red Thorns

Safe

//

LOKI

//

It wasn't painful. I thought it would be. I thought we would all feel our bones shatter, one by one, and feel our hearts flatten out, but we didn't. We felt no pain.

The feeling we did feel though, can only be described in words as relief. Like a gigantic weight was lifted off of us collectively, and we felt complete as our souls left the Soul World, and joined back into the universe - where we belonged.

The deafening sound of the sky caving in on us suddenly stopped, and my ears rang from the silence we were greeted with. My eyes were screwed shut, still seeing the glowing orange behind my eyelids. But as soon as the atmosphere changed around us, the dull orange was replaced with a glowing blue and purple.

I opened my eyes cautiously, terrified of what I would see. I expected Helheim - for me at least. I expected to be greeted with death and darkness that I had accepted as my fate, and to possibly see Hela once more. But I didn't.

There was a large moon that emitted the purple light and reflected off of the surface of the ground we all were huddled on. Off in the distance, there were two large slabs of stone standing tall, creating what looked to be a pathway to the edge of a cliff. I hadn't the slightest clue where we ended up.

I looked down to my hands, watching the blue of my skin tone slowly fade back to my ivory flesh, and finally released my embrace on the group, removing my hands from the shoulders of T'challa and Peter. I let go of the breath I didn't know I was holding in.

"We're safe..." I announced softly, taking another look around us.

Every one came to their feet, breathing heavily and cautiously taking their hands away from their ears - afraid that the sound would come back and destroy them.

"Where are we?" Peter Quill asked, starting to walk a little ways from the group.

Groot held his hand out, trying to stop him. "I am Groot!" Don't wander away.

"He's right," Drax agreed.

Stephen came up to me, a look of knowing concern on his face. 'Why did we end up here?' He thought.

"Loki, do you know where we are?" He questioned, following my gaze to the large stone slabs.

"I... I feel like I should know... But I don't..." I trailed off, looking down to the path that led up to the slabs, and began to walk.

"Are- Are we on Earth?!" Peter yelled. "What happened while we were gone? How long has it been? What if it's been centuries? What if everyone is d-"

"Parker, stop." Bucky butt in, putting a hand on his shoulder. He turned his attention to me. "Where are you going?"

I stopped to look back at him. "Up there," I pointed to the cliff. "I'm going to see where we are from a higher perspective."

"No..." Wanda strolled up to me slowly. "You're not going up there for that." She stated.

"What do you mean?" I snapped.

"You feel drawn to the cliff. Why?" She was right. I felt like I was being pulled towards it - like the planet was humming with pleads for me to walk up the path.

"I- I don't know. I feel like I need to..." I trailed off, looking back up to the stone slabs.

"We are not straying apart, Loki. We are staying together." T'challa chimed in, walking up to face me. "We will follow your lead." He signaled with his hand up the cliff, and with that, we began our trek together up the incline.