Týr
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Loki yelped and stumbled back, grabbed Thor to pull him back too, but he was dodging another way and Loki lost his balance, tumbled forwards.
“No!!” A panicked yell above him but he was no longer standing. He was falling into the pitch black beneath Asgard. If not for the ability to breathe, he would’ve thought it was the Void again. Thank the Norns it wasn’t.
As he fell, more shards of metal came at him, twisting and flung at nearly unbelievable speed. All he could do was defend, arms up to protect his head with the vambraces strapped tightly onto them. By the time he hit the bottom, he hadn’t been impaled yet and that was quite the miracle. Next to him on the floor, the squished remains of his apple.
It was no other than Hela waiting to greet him at the bottom.
“Hello,” She smiled down at him, “I find you quite curious, little brother. We have a similar and shared history. A distant family and-”
“If you’re about to declare how similar we are,” Loki snarled, “We really aren’t.”
“And why is that, pray tell?”
“I got over it.”
“Pull the other one.”
He raised an eyebrow, but took his time to stand and straighten to his full height, “What is this? An offer to join you?”
“Perhaps,” She cocked her head at him. The skeletons were gone. And the giant wolf. Where to? What was her plan? “Our father and brother need not die. Although I’m not averse to killing the old bastard.”
“Neither am I. What do you want?”
She laughed. Cold. No mirth to it, “The throne. What else?”
“Why?” Loki stared at her. Felt a hilt brush the base of his palm as one of the knives he’d stashed in his sleeve slid down, “Because I was King for a small time and all I did was useless time-wasting. It’s actually quite a boring job. Stopped some sexism and increased diversity.”
“What,” Hela blinked. As if that was the oddest thing she had ever heard, “Why would you ever do that.”
“To make Odin turn in his old people’s home,” He really didn’t want to analyse his actions past that.
“You allowed sub-Æsir creatures in?” She hissed, then her eyes flicked to his cheek, where the blue stripe was clearly visible. He hadn’t bothered to bind his face again, “But of course you did. That glamour is good, but your actions betray your natural weakness.”
“I’d usually agree,” Loki smiled. The knife was nearly far enough into his hand that he could grip it properly. Just a little longer, “But I’m still stuck on how inane your argument is. Do you have proof?” He raised an eyebrow, wiggled the knife a bit more, “Because when you study seiðr, you’re taught to cite sources.”
“Everyone knows-”
“Do I really sound that idiotic?” He asked. Both to be annoying, but also a genuine thought. When he’d spat similar words to Hon Dör what felt so long ago, had he sounded like that to her? Like he believed it simply to validate his hate? Being on the receiving end really changed the perspective.
Hela stepped forwards, a snarl in place and, finally, the hilt slid down into his palm.
At the same moment, the thump of boots hitting stone behind him.
Loki flung his blade and Thor charged, another hammer in his grip. Must’ve gotten it after they fled the catacombs, “Took you long enough!” Loki remarked as his brother sped past and received a grin in reply.
Hela reacted, but not in time. The knife buried itself in her arm, just too late to deflect it, the sliver of metal she was going to use only an inch away when it hit her. Then Thor’s hammer slammed into Hela’s side and she stumbled with a snarl, “You traitorous little-!”
“I’m well aware,” Loki smirked, long twin daggers already in hand.
“Same,” Thor added, eloquent as ever, then brought his hammer around for another blow, which was effortlessly blocked and shoved aside as she delivered an elbow to the face in return.
And the fight began in earnest.
Hela spun, ducked under Thor’s next attempt at an attack, sent a fist into his stomach and he was flung across the room, into a pillar. As she did so, Loki ran in, had to sidestep his brother’s flying body and lunged, attempted to stab her in the armpit, where her arm had raised to throw Thor, his other knife came up to block a shard of metal to his stomach. But then it shifted, became liquid and hooked around his blade. Hela whirled and he had to let go, the arm he had originally been about to stab grew a spike from the elbow and slashed at his neck as she spun. Loki backpedalled, only one knife in hand and she pushed on, spraying dark projectiles as she advanced, spinning with a new weapon growing from her arms every few seconds, never letting him settle into combatting a particular style. He’d try to step in close, take the advantage of distance away when she wielded a polearm, but then had to dance away when it became a shortsword.
Nothing but defense. If he tried anything else, it would result in injury, if not death. The gash in his chest and stab wound in his shoulder ached as he blocked yet another strike, using a far-too-short blade with his remaining long knife. If only he had his seiðr!
A grunt from somewhere behind him. A quite familiar grunt, and Loki dropped just in time as a chunk of rock soared overhead and nearly connected, but Hela erected a shield which it shattered against. However, that gave Loki enough time to break away, breathe in deeply to try and calm his thumping heart. Was it this difficult last time? No, but then she had been an illusion, meaning that she’d had to split her concentration between two bodies.
“You finally decided to join me,” Loki snarked between heavy breaths as Thor came up beside him.
Thor snorted, rolled his shoulders and swung the hammer. A little shorter this time, though still far larger than Mjolnir, “Looked too fun to stay out.”
There was definitely a reply to that bouncing around his mind, but Loki found himself rather preoccupied with the furious warlord flinging spears their way. Twisting and batting as many away as he could, one still managed to get past, tore into the skin at his shin. Then a blade - longsword - was attempting to decapitate him. Loki bent back, stepped in and dug at her side with one knife, leaving the other free to block or deflect. Thor, trained in almost the exact same way as he was, did the same and Hela simply shifted back, hands out and she grabbed both brothers’ weapons. Loki immediately dropped his and spun, knife out to slash at the arm on Thor’s side, but Thor was already dealing with it. He tugged on the hammer, twisting so that keeping hold would have broken her wrist then shoved, the flat top slamming into her side.
She barely seemed to notice, rolled with the blow and came around again, arm out, blade growing from it, she slashed at them both in one move. It bounced off Thor’s vambrace and Loki stepped back, returning to flinging knives as he caught his breath. Not exhaustion like last time, but the panting which came from a very well-matched fight. Or a losing one. Better to not think about it.
He watched as Thor and Hela spun, black with flashes of green against gold and red and silver, his knives launching into the mix whenever there was an opening. And then he dove back into the fray, twisting and smacking aside blades as best he could. He and Thor fought shoulder-to-shoulder, barely hanging on against the onslaught of ever-changing weapons and how she shifted impossibly from one place to another in a heartbeat.
Until Loki felt something on his chest. No time to register it or knock it away because as suddenly as it was there, it was gone. Or, more accurately, he was.
Nothing but air beneath him, flagstones blurring together and he smashed into a wall. Blackness for a moment then he managed to blink his eyes open. A familiar yell, but he couldn’t make out the words. Then roaring. Thor, probably. Thor, letting the whole battlefield know his rage. Usually, that sound would give relief, for it meant the fight would soon be over. Usually, they weren’t fighting the Bane of the Nine Realms.
And then the roar cut off.
Loki forced himself upright. That couldn’t be good. Because it meant something had happened. Another something. Something very fucking bad and he couldn’t let Thor get hurt, no, because what if he wasn’t just hurt what if he-
Power surged up through him and his hands were out, guiding it before he could think. A burst of fire and ice sprung from his fingertips, rushed across the room, slammed into Hela, launched her much like she had launched him. Thor dropped from where she had been holding him up, by the neck, doing something to his face.
Was he alright? Was he-
Cold, cloying cold spread through him. Loki looked up and the spike of ice and fire had become black. Black and oily and decaying. As if she - it had to be Hela - was warping his seiðr. It coiled back to him, fast, so fast. If it had been a usual casting, he could have broken the spell off in time, but this wasn’t. It was his very life force rebelling against what was happening and pouring itself into his magic. He couldn’t stop it.
And the darkness reached Loki.
Slithered up his arms and he tried to shake it off, desperate. What would it do?
Then his vision went dark. The Void, again.
But it wasn’t just that. Hela ripped holes in the blackness, little portals to fleeting memories. Turning into a snake to trick Thor, sneaking out of their shared quarters together, being carried wrapped in a red cape. Sitting with his mother in her garden, quietly eating the fruit she grew there.
Loki doubted she was looking for his childhood memories. They played out, layered over the room and he could see both. Hela standing stock-still, arms outstretched and Thor slowly standing, one hand clamped to his face, stumbling.
When she came across the Mind Stone bond, she faltered. Then fell out of his mind completely, a shocked hiss coming from where she stood at the opposite end of the room.
“You serve Thanos?”
“No,” Loki snarled, hiding his flinch.
“Then why is there Mind Stone energy buried deep in your mind? He is the only one to wield such power.”
“It wasn’t consensual, believe me.”
“He… Warped you with the Stone?”
“Why? How do you know of the Titan? How did you recognise the Mind Stone-...?” Oh. He couldn’t think of another, viable answer.
Because a similar thing had happened to her.
When? The Void? If she had a bond similar to his, then her mind had also been warped. Which could explain the illusion’s uncertainty and… Complex emotions regarding Odin from their previous bout. Or perhaps the Titan had gotten to her during the Conquest, shifted her to be more warlike, catalysing her slaughter of the Valkyries on Jötunheimr? Both made sense, but Hela would never tell him and either way, it was useless information. Manipulated or not, she was the enemy.
But she also seemed shaken.
Good.
Loki whirled upright, last daggers in hand. Flung the smallest one her way. Collapsed again, exhaustion dragging him down. Unfortunately, it didn’t connect and she stared down at him, holding the hilt, “Not even sympathy? Empathy? You really are an Odinson.”
Which was when Thor stopped leaning against a pillar and launched himself at her once again, but was slapped aside. He twisted away and back stepped, brought his hammer round but it was caught and yet another weapon fell to rubble at Hela’s feet. He stumbled away, one hand clutched to his face.
“You really don’t learn, do you?” She said with a dry, humourless chuckle.
Hela batted aside a punch and there was a blade shooting out her hand, stabbing into Thor’s stomach. He groaned, the splintered handle of his hammer dropped from his fingers as he clutched at his wound. Blood began to leak out, slow in the beginning but then it was spurting out, past his fingers and dripped onto his clothes.
It was the same colour as his cape, as the fabric tied to Loki’s belt. Again, his magic responded automatically, dragging on reserves he didn’t know he had. But then something seemed to change.
The room itself became lighter and the thumping of running feet. Booted feet, armour clanking along with it. If they were her skeletons, the creaking of bones would have been audible, but it wasn’t.
That meant Einherjar.
Hela froze, genuine surprise flooding her face as a battalion marched into the catacombs, led by Heimdall. He held Hofund aloft, the golden blade glinting in what little light reached them from above and the flickering flames which Einherjar held aloft.
Slowly, she straightened and faced the new threat, eyes firmly on the sword. So she recognised it, since she evidently knew to be wary. Heimdall was too young, as far as Loki knew, to have met Hela… But he wouldn’t be surprised if the Gatekeeper had heard of her.
“Hela,” He said, calmly walking into the catacombs. So he did know something, “Surrender and the trial shall be just.”
A bark of laughter, another slash at Thor but he had scrambled away, far enough that Heimdall would be able to intercept any move she attempted. She had purposefully stayed here to intercept the brothers when they were alone, but didn’t think she could handle Heimdall? Or was it Hofund? He doubted she was this scared of the Einherjar - she could cut through them with ease. Perhaps now that it wasn’t just them… He could practically see her weighing the risks versus rewards of continuing to fight. She had wanted to dispatch them quickly. Or get Loki on her side, with how that little chat had been going earlier. Plus the little trip down memory lane. To manipulate him? Mind control?
Then she was shooting black shards again, quite a few directed at him and Thor, but most buried themselves in the Einherjar, many of whom dropped with gurgles in their throats. And she was running, collided with the front row and sent them sprawling, despite raised swords and shields. Heimdall combated her, but Hela was far too fast, twirling about him with ease, avoiding the sharp longsword until the Einherjar gathered about her, shields keeping her weapons at bay, swords and spears poking out, jabbing at her. And whilst they were certainly not her equal in skill, there was limited space, she was surrounded and had already been fighting for a while.
Soon enough, Hela’s blood was spilt. Not long after, Heimdall landed his first slash and she snarled, conjured a massive, pointed shield and shoved her way through the wall of bodies, barely fending off the crowd and then fled up the stairs, sending a hail of blades down, catching the few who attempted to follow her and they fell.
Loki stared after her, but he was too exhausted to stand up for the moment, let alone give chase. Instead, he glanced over at Thor, relieved to see he didn’t seem mortally wounded. Yes, the stomach was definitely bad, but he’d seen him recover from far more life-threatening injuries. That time he’d gotten his throat slit had been particularly terrifying.
By the stairs, Heimdall glared up, but kept turning to check on Thor every few seconds, before making his mind and striding to his side. Predictable as always; the ever-loyal and steadfast Gatekeeper, “My Prince, are you well?”
“He’s been stabbed,” Loki really couldn’t help himself.
“Your doing?”
He scoffed, “Of course not. Hela.”
And Thor was shoving himself up, refusing the offered help from Heimdall and walking towards the stairs. One hand still clamped over the wound and Loki managed to scramble upright because fuck, walking would only make that worse. And with a serious wound, taking the energy to heal it through Thor’s own bond with Yggdrasil could be dangerous - drain him too much. Burnout attop Loki’s pre-existing exhaustion and Thor’s stomach wound? Not a good idea.
“It’s not serious, Heimdall,” Thor muttered absentmindedly, to which there was a reply Loki didn’t catch.
Leaning on the wall, Loki made his way to the stairway, meeting with Thor when they got there, Einherjar parting with wary looks to the younger brother and awed ones to the elder, “You shouldn’t be walking,” Loki sighed, trying half-heartedly to sound uncaring. From the look Thor sent him, he failed miserably.
“I’ll be fine. We must help father.”
Oh yeah. Odin had been up there. Where Hela had gone. Loki really was tired. But he grumbled and took a deep breath, tried to muster what little energy had returned to him and stood up straight. Swiftly ripped the healing pack from a nearby Einherjar, who was too shocked to react. Probably the blue skin, which was slowly starting to fade. He hadn’t noticed earlier. Loki blinked at his hand for a moment, cursing how instinctual magic took enough energy that his Æsir glamour failed, then focused on crushing a stone, gathering the dust and packing it onto Thor’s wound, until it was little more than pink skin.
It marked how much closer they had grown that Thor didn’t look surprised by the checkup. The Einherjar and Heimdall’s expressions more than made up for his lack of disbelief.
“Done,” Loki said, dropped the rest of the kit and followed his brother up the staircase, back towards the light of Asgard’s bright sky.
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At first they only walked, then cries of pain floated down from above and they shared a glance, broke into a run, Thor stumbling in the dim light and the thunderous stamping of feet behind them as the whole battalion crowded into the small stairway.
Loki was panting when they reached the top, legs trembling and he stared out at the carnage Hela had caused. Was still causing.
She stood in the midst of dead Einherjar, spilt over the ground, being trod on by those who were still alive. Scattered, they scrambled away from her, most bearing shields and with their swords held in a cautious guard, but Hela’s attention was not on them.
Brunnhilde and Týr fought her, Banner a few steps away, holding his knife as if he’d never seen one, let alone used it. Which, Loki supposed after a moment, he likely hadn’t. Mortals.
Twirling, Hela lashed out at the Valkyrie and Týr, they moved as one to deflect it and fought back in sync, attempting to catch her in a pincer movement. Which was dodged, only for one sword to swipe towards her head and another at her knees, the two moving together. But Hela evaded that, blocking one and lashing out with a kick at the other, then twisted away, pausing for a moment as she saw Loki and Thor at the catacombs’ entrance. Then she was parrying Týr’s sword, stepped in and thrust a blade into his stomach, ducking as she backed away, Brunnhilde’s sword soared over her head and Hela was laughing.
Loki stared, eyes wide and then he ran, Thor ahead of him, only to see Týr collapse and Hela grin at them. Confident. As if, apart from the Princes still being alive, everything was going according to plan. It was unnerving.
Instead of mulling over that, he adjusted his grip on his last remaining knife, just shorter than his forearm. Where was Odin?
Hela cocked her head at the approaching wall of swords and shields, the Einherjar which had followed Thor charging alongside him. Then, as if it was the easiest thing in the world, her arms rose from her sides, slowly, and a wall of black slid out the ground. Loki gaped - since when had she been able to do that?!
And when they reached it, the top was six feet tall, the edges stretched to the very ends of the courtyard.
“Running scared?!” Thor yelled as he smashed a fist into the black, “Face me!!”
Loki glanced down at Týr, still bleeding. He wasn’t yet dead, but even a healing stone couldn’t help him. A hole had been punched through his stomach, up into his chest and out the back. If he looked closely, the shorn ends of his ribs poked through and so did his heart, nicked and pumping out blood. It pooled under him as he twitched, even the usually-still prosthetic spasmed, damaged and sparking. He’d put up a fight and that was all that could be asked for, especially for someone like Týr.
Brunnhilde collapsed, hands hovering over him, then scrambled to find a healing pack, ripped one away from a dead Einherjar, held out a stone.
“Don’t,” Loki said, “It’s a waste.”
She shot a glare at him and crushed it anyway, packed the dust into the hole, wide as his forearm. His heart had been nicked and was spurting in fits, in time to its beat.
“He’d thank you for killing him,” Loki said. It was true; even Æsir couldn’t heal from something like this, but they would hang on for a long time. A very long time, before truly dying. Every cell would try to heal the catastrophic damage. And would fail. For someone like Týr, allowing his last moments to stretch far past sensible and his death to be an undignified twitching in the dirt would be the highest dishonour. Which Loki found rather ironic; that this woman who seemed to know him would use a healing stone to make his suffering extend even further.
“He’d thank me for killing you,” Brunnhilde snarled, then turned back to the General, “Týr…”
He didn’t say anything, but his metal hand reached for Tyrfing, flung a few metres away. After a moment, she grasped it, dragged the sword to his side, pressed it into his grip. And received it back with a weak push.
“D- do not…” He gasped out, “L-let me d-die slow…”
Loki’s smirk grew. How he enjoyed being right.
Because he knew Týr would have seen many horrific battlefields in his long life. And the thing about Æsir battlefields was that they cried and twitched long after the skirmish itself was over, Asgardians taking all the time they needed to die. From what little he remembered of studying the Æsir-Jötnar war (specifically the one with Midgard), killing the bodies had been an actual job of the junior Frost Giant warriors. With all those memories of how awful dying slowly could be, Týr wouldn’t want that.
Brunnhilde hefted Tyrfing, eyes welling with unshed tears. She seemed to understand and, without further hesitation she shoved the blade into his chest. And the twitching stopped.
“Týr,” She whispered at first, then her voice rose strong and the previous shaking disappeared, along with the brimming tears, “I bid you take your place in the halls of Valhalla, where the brave shall live forever. Nor shall we mourn, but rejoice-...” She swallowed, “For those that have died the glorious death.”
At least that was over. If anyone started crying he was going to murder them.
“Val…” Banner was saying, a cautious hand hovering over her shoulder, “Are you…?
“I’ll be fine,” She said, her eyes shining but no tears, thank the Norns, “I’ll be fine when we kill that fucking depraved bitch.”
Loki ignored the rest of whatever she said, because it was mostly just swearing and Banner trying to comfort her in the most sickening way possible. All ‘you’ll be alright’ and ‘what can I do?’ As if mere words could help against grief.
The battering of fists and metal against the wall Hela had erected broke Loki from his thoughts and he looked it over. With his seiðr, there would’ve been something he could do, but without… He couldn’t figure out how she’d constructed it, let alone knock it over or build something over it. Anyway, Hela was doubtless long gone, let alone her magically disappearing army. It was worrying to say the least.
Still, he looked it over, walked to it and skimmed a hand along the wall. He couldn’t detect any chinks or cracks - a solid conjuration, as much as he hated to admit she had even the slightest amount of skill.
“Can you destroy it?” Thor asked, one hand still over his face. That was odd.
Loki shook his head after a moment of consideration, “Not without my seiðr.”
Which seemed to remind his brother of something, as he promptly scanned the clamouring crowd, “Where’s father?”
“I haven’t seen him.”
Thor seemed quite troubled by that, brow furrowing.
Loki peered at his face, “Did she wound you?”
“What?”
He raised a sardonic eyebrow, “I didn’t know there was an ancient warrior practise of covering your eye after a good battle.”
“Oh,” Thor said, “Yeah. Ancient warrior practise.”
When he didn’t say anything else, Loki glared at him. Normally, he wouldn’t have to drag an injury out of Thor. Normally, he would just show it or tell him or at least not blatantly avoid showing him!
“What is it?” Loki reached up and peeled the hand away, struggling against the resistance but didn’t give up, “Thor!”
“Okay, okay, fine,” Thor grumbled and let him pull away his hand. Glared down at Loki out of one eye, the other a bloody pit with a deep score above and below. He’d seen enough knife wounds to know this was one, dug in enough to scratch bone and take Thor’s eyeball with it. Probably stabbed in at the top - just on his brow - and dragged down, over the bone, into the eye and through his cheek.
A deep breath, another. Hela had rendered his brother half-blind. And if he thought himself furious with her before, it paled in comparison with the sudden urge to rip her into shreds, feed them to her pet wolf. Or to hand her to the Mad Titan, throw her back into the Void and laugh.
Instead of letting it show, Loki forced a small, grim smile, “Now you look like Odin.”
Thor didn’t buy it, he could tell, but he just shrugged, “When she resurfaces next, we will be ready.”
For so many reasons, they would be ready. For Loki, it would be Thor. For the rest, he could only guess. The Warriors Three, Týr and others lying dead at their feet down in the catacombs and in the palace.
“Yes, we will.”
And they stood, waiting for the wall to dissolve, which it eventually did. Behind them, the constant shuffling of warriors recovering from battle, treating wounds and organising the dead. Mourning them, in some cases.
Hela wouldn’t get away again.
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After the fight, Asgard had become eerily still. No explosions, no screams of pain except from the healer’s wing and overflow tents pitched in the gardens. No drumming of marching feet down the corridors.
It felt like even the stones beneath Loki’s feet were waiting with bated breath.
But no matter that sense of suspense. Because, whilst this fragile peace could disintegrate any moment, it existed. And that meant there was time to prepare and to heal. Which is what Loki was encouraging Thor to do, by doing it himself.
His brother sat by the edge of Odin’s bed, a bandage over his eye, holding the healing stone dust into the socket as the open wound slowly knitted back together. He wouldn’t regrow the eye, but at least the bleeding would stop.
Loki really didn’t appreciate having to sit with Odin of all people, but Thor wouldn’t stay anywhere else. He’d needed to know his father was okay. And he unfortunately was. Evidently, fighting Hela had burnt a lot of his already depleted energy and he had fallen into the Odinsleep moments after sending the Princes into the palace. Literally fallen - seeing their King collapse had trampled what little morale the Einherjar had had, which was then squashed further by Týr’s death.
“We need to know where that army is,” Thor said, his voice deep and weary, “If she surprises us again…”
There wasn’t much to do but nod. Because he was right. There were hundreds of undead warriors and a giant wolf foretold to swallow the sun which had evaporated into thin air.
“I know,” Loki whispered.
They sat in silence, looking down at Odin beneath his shimmering sheen of magic, letting him rest and recover without a worry. Or perhaps not, since it was rumoured he could still hear from the Odinsleep. And his miraculous appearance just before Loki fell from the Bifröst would support that theory.
Thor evidently believed it, for he had been muttering away to the comatose King for the hours they’d been sat there, and now he continued, “Týr is dead and so are the Warriors Three. And many, many more…”
Loki tuned him out, rubbing at his shoulder. Thor wasn’t the only one healing wounds. Went over what they’d done once again.
After the general shock and battle bleariness had worn off, Thor had ordered the bodies retrieved and stored, for when this was over and they could be burned as was tradition. Then, the few who were unhurt were sent into the catacombs, told to go no deeper than the initial layer to scout for the army. Many of those Einherjar had not returned, but those that had didn’t report seeing anything amiss. Every entrance to the ancient underground tunnels were guarded, but Loki didn’t doubt that many had been overlooked. Had disappeared from memory and maps with age.
There were so many things he needed to know but didn’t. The extent of Hela’s abilities? Any weaknesses she had? How had Odin combatted her before? And then there was the literal undead army somewhere beneath their feet. Had something like this happened before? What, specifically, animated the skeletons? And how? Was it reversible?
The only place he may find answers was the library and Thor seemed to have settled down…
Loki slowly, quietly, stood from his criminally soft and squishy chair. Began to pad towards the door.
“Be careful,” Thor said behind him.
“I’m just going to the library.”
“I know.”
Loki rolled his eyes and turned, offering a reassuring smile which felt quite fabricated. But from how his brother’s shoulders slumped, it did the trick, “I’ll be fine. You be careful.”
A huff in reply and Loki continued through the door to begin the short trek to Asgard’s largest library.
He passed only a few others on the way, some lost-looking civilians and wounded Einherjar. A woman wearing tattered rags and a filthy headwrap seemed to recognise him and asked for directions. He shoved her aside and hurried on.
As Loki approached the library, the level of general chaos increased, burnt scraps of paper and leather littered the hallway and guards patrolling. Apparently, there hadn’t been an order for them to stop in all the confusion. After a minor confrontation, Loki was allowed in, despite the vita declaring him to be wielding seiðr. Evidently, the guards chosen for this job weren’t the most competent intellectually, as they accepted his excuse that he was already in the palace, and therefore not Hela in disguise. When he told them to stop the now-useless patrolling, they left with ashen faces and a slow step.
It was relaxingly familiar to walk through those huge double doors, but that was where any fond memories stopped dead. Loki sighed as he stared out over Asgard through where rows upon rows of bookcases should have been, then through the thick outer wall, down onto the city itself. Books had become ash and scraps of the remaining paper crackled under his feet as he walked further in. There was barely anything left.
Loki skirted the carnage as best he could and found an old chair. One that he had curled up on many times, a pile of books balancing precariously on the small round table next to it, within reaching distance to place tea, snacks and, in his case, mountains of ancient tomes.
He slowly sat in it, stared at the broken shelves and breathed in the smoky air. Perhaps there was still something of use in here and perhaps not, but either way, Loki would look for it until Hela showed her face again.
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