The Cemetery
The path to the new cemetery in New Asgard was through a lonely meadow at the edge of town. A fog had started to rise as soon as the sun set and by the time Sylvie, Loki, Thor and Love made their way there, the meadow was covered in a thick fog, almost impossible to fathom. A lonely lantern hung from the last tree at the end of the meadow and Loki took it to lead the way through the fog.
“Spooky,” Love whispered as she tried to contain her excitement, skipping as she walked beside Thor.
“Is it always this foggy in this part?” Sylvie asked skeptically.
“Not usually, no,” Thor answered. “I wonder what’s with tonight's weather in this part of town.”
“It’s because of Halloween!” Love jumped around. “So it’s easy for ghosts to walk around unnoticed.”
“Ghosts, you say?” Loki asked from the front.
“Yes! The spirit of dead people that still roam the earth despite being dead,” the girl explained.
“There’s no such a thing as ghosts,” Loki scoffed. “When people die, they either go to Helheim or Valhalla, but their spirits don’t remain in this world anymore. That’s probably a Midgardian myth or something based on the existence of these… cemeteries.”
“Cemeteries are not just a Midgardian thing,” Sylvie jumped into the conversation. “I’ve been to several alien planets and most of them had places like cemeteries where they bury their dead.”
“That’s actually something that has been bothering me so far. Why a cemetery, Thor? We Asgardians never had one of these,” Loki asked, turning around.
“You never- What did you do with your dead then?” Sylvie asked in shock, Love wearing the same expression next to her.
“We burned them,” Thor answered.
“The proper Asgardian way,” Loki added.
“So… no headstones or burial site?” Sylvie asked as confirmation and the boys shook their heads.
“Apparently, here on Midgard it is not allowed to burn the dead on a boat and let it be carried away by the sea,” Thor explained, resuming their march. “Something related to the environment or pollution I think. So we started a cemetery but…” Thor interrupted his speech when Loki lowered the lantern and stepped aside on the path to let a group of people pass in the opposite direction.
They exchanged greetings as the people passed by and the last person from the group stopped to have a word with them.
“Are you going to the cemetery?” he asked. “I’m the tour guide, I’m afraid there’s no more visits for tonight.”
“Why is that?” Thor asked.
“The fog, of course, is far too thick and cold. So that's the last one for tonight, I recommend you all go back to town.”
The group thanked him for the information and stood silent until the tour guide was out of hearing reach.
“We’re visiting the cemetery anyway, right?” Love asked hesitantly.
“Of course we are,” Loki and Sylvie said with a big smirk on their faces.
The group walked the rest of the path up to the cemetery, with the fog surrounding them and barely able to watch their own feet, all the way led by Loki at the front. They made it to a pair of big iron-barred doors, now locked with a chain and padlock.
“Well, seems it’s the end of the-“ Thor’s speech was interrupted when Sylvie took some strides towards Loki, who was waiting for her, and leaving the lantern aside, he used his hands to receive Sylvie’s foot and boost her up. She grabbed onto the iron doors and climbed up with great skill.
Next was Love, who ran towards Loki and he boosted her jump as well. Sylvie caught Love and helped her reach the top of the doors. Then Sylvie climbed down inside the cemetery and caught Love as she jumped down.
With the girls safe at the other side, Loki teleported himself easily to the other side of the gates, earning a reproachful look from the girls.
“It’s good to see you all working as a team!” Thor exclaimed, alone outside the cemetery.
“Come on, Uncle Thor, we know you can fly,” Love said impatiently. And just as she finished speaking, Thor jumped up, far over the iron bars doors and landed next to them.
They all exchanged pleasant smiles, and dusted themselves off, ready to walk the cemetery. There were few tombstones, really few, but very scattered from each other, so the place looked wide but somehow empty, almost lonely with the fog and silence as their only company.
“Hello there,“ said a sudden voice behind them, and a high pitched scream by the four of them echoed in the cemetery.
“I’m sorry!” said the young man who had spoken, raising his hands to look harmless. He wasn’t as tall as Loki but was as pale as him. His clothes were ungainly and his boots were covered with mud. “I thought there weren’t any other tours for tonight.”
Loki and Sylvie had jumped into each other’s arms after the fright, and Thor had picked up Love in his arms. They all still wore the frightened expression on their faces, except for Love who squirmed in Thor’s arms until he released her.
“Are you a ghost?” she asked eagerly.
“Oh, a ghost?” asked the young lad.
“Oh Love, no, no,” Thor intervened. “This is not a ghost… this is a person… Who are you?”
“I’m Endrik, we fought together in Vanaheim, remember?”
“Ah yes, of course,” Thor lied. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m the caretaker’s assistant,” Endrik explained. “So… all of you came for the tour? I’m afraid the tour guide left already, but if you want to, I can give you all a tour. I know this place very well since I work here.”
The group exchanged looks, now far more relaxed after the fright, they nodded and agreed to go with Endrik.
“I’m glad you decided to come, few people visit the cemetery since there are not many graves,” the lad explained as he led them through the place. “I’m not a tour guide either, but I’ll do my best to give you all a nice tour.” He smiled broadly, walking between the fog, leading them through it.
“The need for this cemetery started when the New Asgard population had to adapt to the Midgardian way of life. And it was a sanitary requirement to have a place to bury our dead and not burn them in boats and cast them away in the sea as Asgardian traditions dictate,” Endrik said when coming to a stop on his walk. “When Thorstein Haraldsson had a domestic accident in his shower resulting in his death, he was the very first buried in this cemetery,” he proudly said, signaling to the ground.
The eyes followed his hand but the fog was so thick that it covered even the view of the ground. Loki took a step forward and lowered the lantern to the ground. There the light revealed a black plate engraved with golden letters detailing the name and dates.
Endrik started walking again, this time talking about how they got the place and how the plates were carved and which material they were made off, but of all of them, Love was not interested anymore.
“This is boring,” she said in a whisper, folding her arms as Sylvie used to do so often. “Are there ghosts in this place?” she asked their improvised guide.
“Who knows? Maybe you can find one wandering around?” Endrik answered with a smirk.
“Can I look around for ghosts? Please Uncle Thor, I’m not scared of them, I just want to see one!” She pleaded.
“Fine, but don’t stray far. Always where I can see you.”
Love nodded eagerly and walked away from them, the fog quickly enveloping her, making the horns and head of her giraffe costume the only thing visible above the fog. The rest of the group followed Endrik as he talked about the maintenance of the cemetery and the grave digging.
“This feels a bit creepy, don’t you think?” Loki whispered to Sylvie. “To have your loved one’s remains buried beneath, slowly rotting and placing a slate to mark the place. Like… what's the idea?”
And then Sylvie looked at him straight in the eyes, an unreadable expression in her face.
“The idea is to be remembered, Loki.”
He stood in his place for a moment, as Sylvie and Thor continued walking, for Sylvie’s words had struck him like a punch in the gut. He had talked without thinking and because of that, he had brought up a sensitive issue for Sylvie. Before they met, she had nobody. Not friends, no family, and no one to remember her if someday she was gone. He felt his heart sink in his chest.
“Hey Loki,” Thor called him, interrupting his thoughts. “You are the one carrying the lantern, come on!”
Loki pushed away those thoughts and rushed to meet them.
“Our next stop is at the only headstone on this cemetery so far. It does not mark a proper burial but it’s a memorial headstone, it was custom made. Here,” Endrik presented it.
And when Loki lowered the lantern to look, he gasped loudly at it. On a black marble headstone, with golden traces the upper part of the headstone had a crown with a pair of horns. Following down, it read in golden letters:
“In Memory of Loki Odinsson,
may he rest in mischief (If he’s really dead).
965 – 2010
2012 - 2013
2017 – 2018
2024 - ????
“This- this is… What is this?” he said, stunned.
“I made it for you, brother,” Thor said next to him, still hesitant about that last word. “Since I never got to give you a proper funeral, I thought it was a nice gesture to have this here. Something to remember you by, I added the last date recently since you returned and- Loki?”
Loki was kneeling in front of the headstone, eyelids and fists clenched, lips pursed and he was shaking from head to toes. He knew he had deceived Thor, Odin, Frigga and everyone the first time he let go of Thor during that fight in the bifrost. But he had done it again? Only to come back and be killed by Thanos. He clenched his teeth, of course Thor had grieved him, and possibly Frigga too. How much pain this universe’s variant caused to those he loved? How much pain was he able to provoke in others? And despite all that, Thor had chosen to honor him with a memorial. The words Sylvie had said to him early drummed in his ears, To be remembered, she had said. And Thor had remembered him.
“What is this?” Sylvie asked suddenly, pulling Loki away from his thoughts.
Sylvie was standing behind the headstone, pointing at a poorly drawn graffiti in green paint of, what it seemed like, the God of mischief himself.
“Is that supposed to be me?” he asked, offended, drying the few tears he had shed. “Who dares to vandalize my memorial?”
“I think they caught your style very well,” Sylvie smirked at him.
“Very funny,” he glared.
“I don’t know who could have been,” Endrik said thoughtfully. “It was clean a few hours ago.”
“There is a trickster on the loose tonight,” Thor commented. “They’ve been wreaking havoc around New Asgard.”
“I’m sure the caretaker has something to clean this, I’ll go check. You can come with me, it’s right there,” Endrik pointed at a small cabin at the edge of the cemetery.
Thor took a look around and spotted the giraffe head of Love’s costume moving around not far from there. He called her to come near and everyone walked together.
“Have you found any ghosts so far?” Thor asked Love.
“Not yet I think, this place is all fog and dampness,” Love complained. “I’m getting bored!”
“The tour is coming to an end soon,” Endrik announced as they made it to the small cabin.
The door was open and a soft noise was coming from the inside. Everyone stood on their spot, looking suspicious at the darkened entrance.
“Don’t be alarmed, please,” Endrik calmed them. “That’s the caretaker, he’s always asleep by this hour,” he said, reaching for the door.
“He lives there?” Thor asked, bewildered.
“He does. You see, that’s actually the next stop on the tour. The caretaker used to live in the town, he had a wife and they were having a baby girl. But there were some complications with the delivery and both mother and child died. He was left alone and started visiting the cemetery every day. Sometimes three or four times a day. Eventually, he lost his job and started drinking. King Valkyrie gave him this job, as caretaker and gravedigger; it was the only thing he wanted after losing his family, to be near them. That’s why I keep an eye on him.” Endrik entered the small cabin and the group stood at the entrance.
Inside, sprawled on a chair, the caretaker slept soundly with an empty bottle of scotch in his hand. As the door was open, the fog and the cold had entered the cabin too, and Endrik took a thick blanket from the floor and covered the caretaker.
“It doesn’t look like he has anything to clean that paint on the headstone…” the lad said, looking around the cabin, at the many tools and materials scattered all around the place. “I’ll let him know tomorrow, let’s not bother him in his sleep.” Eindrik left the cabin and shut the door carefully. “We have a last activity to try on the tour, come with me!”
And so they followed him to the back of the cemetery, from there and because of the fog, they couldn’t see the front iron doors. Yet, they saw the big wall of darkened granite rising above their heads, adorned with many small plates featuring different names.
“This is one of the latest additions to the cemetery, it premiered today!” he announced and walked to a nearby table next to the wall. “Here we have some materials, metal plates, these metal type letters and numbers, small hammers… The idea of this closing activity is to make your own plate and put it on the wall. To honor and remember any loved one you may not have had the opportunity to bury or that you just want to remember here.”
The group walked up to the table, inspecting the material, eyeing some of the plates already pinned to the wall and then back at the tools and materials.
“Anyone?” Loki asked to be sure.
“Yes, anyone! Most of us Asgardians lost family and friends during the events of Ragnarok, and none of us could give them a proper funeral, so we thought of having this, where we can honor their memory,” he explained solemnly. “Take your time to think about someone…”
“I’d like to participate,” Thor began, “but there’s already a statue of Jane in the bay. I think I’ve paid respect to all my dead. What about you, Love?”
The girl stood silent for a moment as she thought, “Can I have one for my dad?” she asked, and Thor knelt in front of her to look her in the eyes. “I know my dad got kinda bad by the end, but he loved me still and he didn’t have a proper funeral.”
“Of course, Love,” Thor said softly. “You want me to help you?”
Love agreed and Thor picked her up and she sat by the edge of the table, collecting the letters to assemble the name.
“I think Gorr the God’s butcher is fine,” she said to Thor, and they bickered for a moment while they worked.
“What about you both?” Eindrik asked Loki and Sylvie, who had been very silent, staring at the wall.
“I don’t think the people I’d like to honor would fit in a plate,” Sylvie said softly, barely a whisper, and Loki got closer to her, almost shadowing her frame to talk in complicity.
“Do you have anyone specific in mind?” he asked carefully.
“Well, there’s my family for a start, everyone wiped out by the TVA. Then there’s that woman who offered me shelter during a snowstorm, along with other twelve orphan children, an apocalypse. That man who gave me clothes, that child that-“
“Sylvie,” he said when she stopped, placing a hand on her shoulder as Sylvie sobbed painfully.
“Everyone I ever knew was wiped out by the TVA or died in an apocalypse,” she cried silently. “I don’t think that many names could fit on that plate. And you know what… despite no one remembering me during all those years, I remember them, Loki. All of them.”
Loki wrapped her in his arms, and Sylvie buried her face in his chest, crying silently in his embrace.
“Maybe…” he suggested. “You could have some general way of addressing them. To all the people no one remembers or… You could have a plate for a lonely life left behind.”
Sylvie withdrew from his embrace, stunned by his words, she looked at him silently.
“What I mean, is that-“ He struggled with his words. “You spent your life running, never having anyone and that’s… That’s lonely. But, that’s not the case anymore, Sylvie.” He said, offering a smile. “Now you have me, and Thor, Love, Valkyrie, all of New Asgard. Even Mobius, B15, Casey and the list goes on!” By this time, Sylvie had heavy tears streaming down her cheeks, but Loki kept talking. “You are not alone anymore, Sylvie. You have all of us to remember you now. You left that lonely life behind. Perhaps you could honor that on a plate and move on to this new life?”
She sobbed again, burying her face into his chest as her whole body shook by her cries.
“Shut up,” she pleaded, her voice muffled by his costume. “That is perfect.”
When Sylvie finally calmed down and Loki helped her dry her tears, Thor and Love had finished their plate. So Thor lifted Love in his arms so she could place the plate very high in the wall, reading “Gorr, the Gods slayer. Father of Love.”
“What about you, Loki?” Thor asked once Love was on the ground again. “Do you want to place a plate?”
“I may place one for my mother. I missed her funeral anyway,” he said with a shrug. Loki had only seen her death play in the time theater, like a cheap movie on an old screen, but that didn’t take away the desolation he felt when watching it and knowing it was real.
“Yes, I’m sorry you missed that,” Thor said sympathetically.
“What happened, was it- I mean, I know it wasn’t me, it was this timeline’s variant but…” Loki fought the words as he fidgeted nervously with his hands and fingers. “What happened to mum… Was it my fault?” and he couldn’t help his voice breaking with those last words.
“No, Loki,” Thor said next to him. “She chose to help. To fight back. To protect. She knew what she was doing and the risks. It was her choice.”
“I didn’t even get to say goodbye,” and he finally broke out crying. With his head down, a hand covering his eyes while the tears slipped through his fingers.
“Loki,” said Thor, placing a hand on his shoulder.
“Was she disappointed in me?” he sobbed, and Sylvie wrapped an arm around his waist, leaning on his shoulder.
“No, Loki,” Thor began. “Mum knew you had lost your way, but she never doubted that you’d find your way back home. And look at you now, brother,” Thor said, hugging him closer, with Sylvie pressing at his other side and now Love that approached and held Loki’s free hand in her small one. “You came home, Loki. Wherever mum is, I’m sure she’ll be proud of who you have become.”
Loki cried himself out for a moment longer, held by Thor, by Sylvie, by Love, and when he finally calmed down, he dried his tears, smiled at them and sighed deeply.
“Shall we now?” He asked to take Sylvie’s hand in his, and all of them walked to the table and gathered the letters to inscribe Sylvie and Loki’s plate. When they were finished, the plates were placed among the many others there and the group smiled pleased at the view.
“Well, this was a bit intense,” Sylvie commented. “We probably should do something a bit lighter now.”
They all agreed and Loki lifted the lantern to head back to town.
“Wait, where’s Eindrik?” Thor asked, looking around in all directions.
“He was right here…” said Loki, raising the lantern.
But around them there was only fog, darkness and silence.
“Hey, Uncle Loki!” Love called him a few steps away. “Can you bring that lantern here?”
Everyone approached Love, she was standing next to a slate they could barely see, and when Loki lowered the lantern over it, Thor read the inscription out loud.
“Eindrik Sigurdsson, left us too young.”
Their eyes opened wide and their blood ran cold. Sylvie and Loki held hands, Thor picked Love in his arms, and they ran as fast as they could from the place. Jumping over the fence in the blink of an eye and making their way at full speed to the town and away from the cemetery.
