The Most Wretched of Asgard
The next morning the sun peaked through my windows. I stretched, as the light filtered onto my face through my long, floor to ceiling windows and the filmy curtains that I used to shut the light out. Typically, I was up with the sun, mornings being my favorite time, before most of the city woke up. I would grab a quick breakfast, head to my little table that was pushed against the window, and read for a while sipping my coffee and snacking. It was necessary routine to me, something that set the tone for the rest of the day.
I had almost forgotten that I had a houseguest until I head the familiar clatter of the coffee pot against a mug, the smell of toast and butter wafting through the house, and the sight of a table set simply, but set for two.
“I thought you might like something to eat. I am always up with the sun.”
“Yes, so it seems you have me beat. I always assumed that I was a morning person but now I have a new standard.”
“I made you breakfast,” he pointed out. He sat on one side of the table, his plate already touched, the other side perfectly laid out still. I padded over in my pjamas, took a seat, and began to eat. I was not awake enough for conversation yet, and he seemed to instinctively understand that. When I reached for the book I kept by my dining room table he glanced up from beneath his long hair, smiled quickly at me, and simply continued eating.
When I finished my coffee he took the cup to refill it, and when my plate was empty he carried it to the sink and rinsed it off, all the while letting me read. Before the end of the chapter the dishes were done and in the dish rack, and the kitchen showed no sign of the mess that he had made while making our simple breakfast.
When I got up from the table, setting the book back in its place, he looked at me. “This morning, when I got up, I decided how I need to go about getting this fixed.”
“Oh?” I asked.
“Yes, and it can’t involve you. Your hospitality has been most kind. I need to go out and find someone that may know me, may know who I am, and may be able to help me find the way back to my home so I can make amends.”
“What does that entail?” I asked, still unclear what he was thinking he might do.
“Well, I believe if I can find someone who has a fragment of a memory, or maybe a bigger memory of Asgard, as it truly is, they could direct me to someone who has studied the pathways between the realms, and then they could help me find out how to start on my way there.”
“I’m still not following.”
“I need someone who worshiped me as a god.”
“You’re a god?”
“In a sense. It’s very complicated.”
“As it seems everything is with you.”
“But that person who may have worshiped me is very, very old, and has been here for a very long time. They are bound to be a wealth of knowledge, specifically on the subject they brought forward, maybe they could point to someone who studied the likes of me, and maybe knows where I ought to go. I could go to them and ask them. I know there are people on Earth, where you were before, that have studied the likes of us, and surely there must be someone who does that here.”
“It’s going to take you forever, Loki, to find that person, that one person in the entire millions of souls who have died. Do you even know the geography of Hel? Where these people may be?”
“I will have to ask until I have an idea.”
“Loki, you’re a newcomer, you hardly know heads from tales here. You don’t even have an income card, how are you going to travel, look around, find things?”
“You could give me some of your money?”
“I suppose I could, but this place is endless. It could take a millennium for you to find what you need.”
“I don’t have a millennium, Autumn. I have a week, maybe two, before they figure out I’m here, before I have to flee.”
“Couldn’t you just ask them, whoever they are to send you back? Tell them you made a mistake?”
He looked at me, and smiled at my naivety. “Autumn, there are layers to this place that even those who have been here since the dawn of creation do not understand.”
“Yes, I do know that.”
“But you see, I understand the layers. To have been here, interacting with this realm, and the way it is woven, to have come crashing through everything, and ended up here. That’s dangerous to them. Perilous, even, to have someone with my knowledge of the inner workings of Hel, here.”
“But if you tell them that it was a mistake?”
“Autumn, it was no mistake.”
“I don’t understand. you told me that you were Loki, of Asgard, brother of Thor, and whatever else. What part didn’t you tell me?”
His eyes clouded over, his face fell.
“My falling was no accident. I tried to kill my brother, stepped in front of the rightful heir, ruined what my father had built.”
“I still don’t understand.” I mumbled, trying to fathom a realm where gods fought, where a son would put himself in front of his family for power, that these things should exist outside of Hel.
“I’m sorry, Autumn. It was atrocious. I don’t deserve to live, surely those here know that by now. Word travels fast. You are harboring, in this beautiful space,” He swept his hand around the room, “the most wretched of Asgard.”
“But you’re going to make amends, Loki?”
“If I can, I will.”
“Then I can help you.”