Valediction [Fólkvangr End, Book 3][Loki Fanfiction]

Chapter One - Ozymandias

Author's Note: And we're back again! Hello there! A third book. What a joyful surprise for us all, myself quite literally included. I had not planned on a third book, and yet, here we are! I just couldn't let go yet. We're kicking things off back on Earth, having just been banished by Thanos who is now in possession of five of the six Infinity Stones. Yikes. We'll see some familiar faces in this book, I'm sure, and plenty of new faces as well. Lots of adventure and trouble and fun to look forward to, with plenty of Midgardian antics. I'm trying out a new thing with this book where each chapter title will be the name of a poem that I think fits the chapter or the story overall and the beginning of each chapter will include the poem or a passage of the poem, depending on length. It should be fun and yay for poetry for everyone! Read them or don't, I would prefer you do, but I do not own you and cannot control you. This chapter switches POVs back and forth a couple of times, between only two characters and it should be pretty clear when and who! Alright! Aaaand we're back!

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I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

                - Percy Bysshe Shelley

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The feeling of intense heat against my cheek causes me to sit up, my eyes opening to blinding sunlight. 

Oh my god I'm dead. 

And then I feel an intense pain in my chest and I look down to the searing, seething, oozing wound in my middle. Blood and sand coat my hands. Sand? 

Loki? Where is Loki? There is sand everywhere but there is no sign of Loki. Or Thor, or Jane...where is Frey? Gone, no that's right. Thanos. I open my mouth to speak but it is drier than...sand. 

I get to my feet carefully and turn about slowly, taking in the void-like sandy eternity I seem to have found myself in. No, no. Don't be thick. You know this place. There, in the distance, specs on the horizon. Sand. Sand. Sun. Desert. And on the horizon, more sand. Sky meets sand in dizzying heat waves. And those specs. Pyramids. 

I draw in a quick breath. 

"Earth."

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I hate France. I always have and I still find it just as detestable as last I was here. There are, of course, worse places one could end up. Like Germany. A deplorable, obstinate country. America is worse than both France and Germany, not to mention the likely bounty on my head there.