The Hel Experience

-near Ragnarok- Asgard-

Layers on top of layers of snow covered the once alive garden of Asgard's palace. Dancing like shattered glass through the sky, it had been a good reason and excuse for many people to stay within the warm walls of their trusty household. There had been a lot of fires lately in the towns, burning down streets and streets of wooden houses and huts, when fireplaces caught flame to the walls. It almost seemed like someone knew of my plans at the time, and was protecting the innocent of wasting their fate in Ragnarok.

Loki and I had been discussing things, but only when Thor had to stay home for may-the-gods-know-why, and only when we thought to have successfully found another spot where we could hide from Heimdall's all-seeing eye. Hanging around a certain area caused suspicion, perhaps even sightings and reports, so we didn't even bother risking it.

There was too much at stake.

Time was ticking. Heartbeats passing. Though there was no deadline, I knew more certain that if I waited too long, I'd watch myself and Balder go crazy. There were steps we still had to take.

"Now that I have an army and I'm meeting Surt to pick up my weapons within the next month," I'd said, sitting at the roots of Anaheim's tallest tree. "What now?"

"We get you in." Loki had seemed so careless at the time, but in the many restless nights that reanalyzing my days was one of the few things left to do, I noticed the fear in his eyes.

Shortly after that, he was headed to the palace. Thor still lived in it's safe walls, together with Sif, and seemed to have found his little home in Asgard in such a sickening place. Clearly it didn't bother him that that was the last place he'd seen me as a citizen of that realm.

His spirit had described it as a cold day, worse than many others. Glass had ice frozen over it, making it hard for Thor to see his brother near in the window. Therefore, the door remained shut when Loki neared it. Ice-cold as it was to touch, his hand only barely hovered over the door handle, before forcing himself to open it.

Could it have felt like the touch of the dead? That swallowing, all-consuming cold, creeping through your veins, freezing your nerves, and slowly... turning... every cell... off.

Inside, there was no warm welcome. Just an empty entrance hall and noise coming from the hallway to the right. Yelling, screaming, crying. An intense buzz of sound echoed through the palace, spreading over it's walls and altering Loki of his bad timing.

When he looked up, sensing eyes watching him, he saw Odin's figure at the top of the stairs. The old man's goggle-eye shifted little pieces of glass for Odin to see through, until Loki became fully visible at the bottom step. "Loki. What are you doing here?"

"I came to talk to my brother," he replied, after having chosen his words carefully. A smile I shared, a mischievous one, showed, but only shortly. "What's going on?"

"Family problems. Thor suspected Sif of cheating with Tyr. Of course, Tyr denied, but Sif didn't." With his hand on the railing, Odin took slow steps towards my father. The light coming from the chandelier reflected off his gray, dying hair. "I didn't know the threat which my son was. Whether or not Sif will survive this fight is the question, but there's nothing we can do."

"Pardon me!?"

"He has Mjolnir. His hammer will kill all of us if we interrupt."

Obviously, Loki didn't actually care about Sif. To be completely honest, Loki didn't really care about anybody, and still doesn't. His spirit is just as narcissistic (and smart) as the real man had been, almost to a sickening degree. But that didn't mean he didn't have to do anything. If Sif were to be killed, Thor would go from being an innocent Asgardian citizen, to being an outcast like me. And then who would Loki use to convince Heimdall into letting me into Asgard? Odin, who would know what his plan was within minutes? Loki's friends, who nobody trusts more than they trust Loki himself? Or perhaps one of the many guards who have had to deal with Loki's dangerous behavior and out-of-control, broken inventions?