Thursday
Orange was everywhere, and a dead landscape he would have guessed was Hel. Shadowy figures here and there, and a quick look down at himself confirmed he looked much the same way. Must be how once-living creatures looked here.
He must be dead, or somehow suspended from life. He had no pulse. His breath only came when he thought about it, and made no fog in the air that he thought had to be cold. No pain, no need to eat or drink, nothing like that.
No sign of Loki.
As if summoned by the thought, Thor flashed back to the last moment of life. Loki holding him, devastated, somehow already knowing what would happen. What had happened, anyway? There was no battle, adding weight to the idea that this was Hel. Nothing glorious. But what?
It hadn’t hurt, and some part of him was glad for that. But it had hurt Loki.
All at once, Thor felt torn violently, between wanting his little brother and knowing that Loki would be dead if he were here. The selfish half of him wanted them to be together, wherever they were. But maybe Loki could have a life of his own, without Thor.
Was there a way back from this?
Reasoning that he would never get tired, and there was nothing to be gained by staying here and doing nothing, Thor picked a direction on a whim, and set off.
X
“Thor-”
The voice was hoarse, as if first being used in centuries. He turned to face it, and once again had to take a moment to realize it wasn’t Loki speaking.
“Sister.”
She pointed to herself, struggling to speak. “Hela.”
For being in a shadow world under a coral sky, she looked much better than the last time they’d met. The wound on her chest was healed, but still visible. Color had returned to her skin, more than just the flush from the sky’s light. And of course, the return of some speech. The damage she’d taken from her son was healing.
He tried again to put a hand on her shoulder, hoping that wasn’t crossing some invisible line, and this time, she was solid. As solid as he, anyway. She clasped his hand, and they spent a long moment simply comforting each other.
“As far as I know, Loki is alive. He’s got to be crushed losing me though, or am I thinking too highly of myself? Or thinking too little of Loki. Wait a second- did everybody here get disintegrated? Even you? You’re dead, right? How does that work?”
“Half- whole universe-”
Hela choked on her own voice, obviously still having trouble. What she’d gotten out was chilling. Half of the universe gone? How was that even possible? Could someone fix it?
Half of someone, even.
X
He didn’t think he’d slept, certainly he’d had no dreams, but when he opened his eyes, Hela was gone. Shame. It had been nice to have someone to speak with.
A few of the other shadows looked at him once or twice, but no one spoke, and it was no one he recognized, anyway. Maybe it only worked if it was a blood relative, or someone he’d once met? He’d checked what records hadn’t been purged; Hela had definitely been killed “during the battle” on Jotunheim. They must have known each other beforehand. He wished he knew exactly what had happened to her.
This wasn’t what he’d wanted out of an afterlife. Valhalla ideally, to fight and feast and nothing else. Not unlike what he’d been doing as Crown Prince, what he’d naively imagined being King would be like. How stupid and unready he’d been.
Loki had confessed, in the interim between his coronation and the battle, that he’d believed Thor incapable of handling the weight of Asgard’s throne. He’d even thought to interrupt the ceremony with a Jotun invasion just so Thor would hotheadedly try to launch a counterattack and prove himself unworthy.
Thor privately believed that he would have found a better solution to a simple invasion, but he’d let Loki have his fantasy of superiority, as well as the idea that one sorcerer, even one skilled as Loki, could possibly bring Asgard’s enemies into the heart of the Vault. It was too well-guarded.
Such confidence, from someone who was disintegrated along with half the universe and has not the foggiest clue as to what or who on the Nine could have happened.
Well, there was always his characteristic naive hope.
X
Thunder crackled overhead, and it startled him. Thunder was his job. This wasn’t his thunder, he couldn’t feel a thing. He couldn’t summon it anymore, not since- well, since he’d gotten exactly here.
The sky ripped overhead, and a shape fell through. Well. Apparently, the population of this strange world had just increased by one. He hadn’t seen it do that before, but who knew. There wasn’t exactly a visitor’s guide for wherever-this-was.
The woman hit the ground hard, and the shockwave knocked everyone to the ground. He caught a glimpse of Hela again, kneeling over the huddled form, but then she vanished in a familiar burst of green-gold.
After a while, the crowd dispersed, and only then did it occur to him to wonder why they’d gathered in the first place. Not unlike a nameday celebration. Here’s your baptism by fire.
The woman lifted her head, and he thought at first it was Mother. Then he realized it was a sister of hers whose name he’d long forgotten. Come to think of it, he was ashamed of that.
He tried to talk to her, but in another burst of orange, the world folded, and she disappeared.
X
The urge to travel was overwhelming, but travel where? There were mountains in the distance, but they never got any closer. Maybe the entire landscape was nothing but a dream. But if it wasn’t, if there was some sort of end to this place, Thor decided he would find it.
Maybe he would find his own end first.
X
Setting off again across the orange landscape, Thor wondered how long it would take, and what day it was. Maybe today was Thursday. He would have liked that. It would have been right.
Thursday is the day named for himself. He’d been so proud of it as a child, declaring every week that the day was his own. He’d been so arrogant. Loki’s desire to cut him down a few dozen notches was, in retrospect, entirely justified. In every way, Thursday’s child has far to go.