He lay there for what seemed like a long time, but wasn't at all sure of how long had passed. His eyes stung, every bone, muscle and tendon in his body hurt. He flung the sceptre away with as much force as he could manage, which wasn't much at all. Slowly, he crawled out of the puddle and after two failed attempts, managed to get up on his feet.

'Is Thanos dead?' someone asked in a shaky voice.

Loki didn't bother to try to find out who the speaker was, nor, frankly, did he care for the answer to the question posed. He staggered through the courtyard, tripping over the bodies of the Outriders, the Tanaj and the various species Thanos had recruited as mercenaries. There were some amid the countless corpses who still lived, they moved with as much coordination as Loki. He didn't care to dwell on them either. Only one thing still mattered.

After far too long a search, Loki finally found his brother lying face down, his entire body quivering every time he managed to take a breath.

'Thor?'

Receiving no reply, Loki gently pushed Thor onto his back. He wasn't gentle enough; Thor moaned in protest. Some of his armour had been torn away, revealing large patches of charred flesh beneath. His cuirass had proved strong enough to remain in place, but its component pieces were utterly mangled and gouged deep into Thor's torso. His entire right arm was blackened. The smell of the burns left Loki's stomach churning. He tried not to show it, but Thor seemed to see right through the facade -- with an abrupt cough, he closed his eyes and sighed.

'It'll be all right,' Loki mumbled. 'A few moments more and you'll be all right.'

He stretched his hand over Thor's solar plexus, trying to ignore the volume of blood spurting out of Thor's wounds. Loki knew every healing spell worth knowing. Between Thor, Sif and the Warriors Three, he'd had plenty of practice too, but he had never had to contend with something like this. Loki reached into his magic reserves and to his alarm, found them very much wanting. He pressed on anyway.

As the spell began to weave through the damage, Thor gasped and his eyes shot open. He threw up his left hand and after fumbling twice, caught Loki's wrist. 'W-what're you doin'?' he asked, every word forced out with great effort.

'Healing you, what am I supposed to be doing?' Loki wrapped his free hand over Thor's. His skin was cold as ice, but when Loki tried to pry Thor's hand off his wrist, Thor only clung on more fervently. 'Let me work, you fool.'

'Mjolnir.'

Loki gritted his teeth and wrenched his wrist out of Thor's grasp. 'Don't be ridiculous. You and I've both seen worse.'

'Mjol-Mjolnir.' Blood dribbled out of the corner of Thor's mouth as he spoke.

All warmth fled Loki's body. There was only one reason for Thor to be asking for his hammer right now. On the other hand, Thor had never possessed the sharpest of minds. Loki pursed his lips and resumed his spell-work, only for Thor to attempt to swipe Loki's hands away.

'Loki.' Rogers' hand rested on Loki's shoulder. He pulled away, but Rogers was actually more interested in Thor than Loki. Rogers gently set Mjolnir's hammer into Thor's left hand, muttering something in a soothing tone as he did so.

The hammer's head had suffered as much damage as its bearer had - a good quarter of it was missing and deep cracks ran through what remained. Seemingly oblivious to the hammer's condition, Thor wrapped his trembling fingers around the handle. Strangled coughs overcame him, but although his whole body shook with what had to be excruciating pain, his face remained calm.

'Don't even think it, Thor,' Loki muttered, reaching for his magic once more. 'You're staying here with me, you understand?'

Thor made a reply but the only word Loki could make out was the one word Loki wanted to hear least. Loki swore, cursed the Norns, the Allfathers, everyone and everything he could think of. He achieved nothing, of course, save expending energy he didn't have to spare. Blood seeped out of Thor's mouth, rolled down his chin and dripped down onto his neck.

'Bro... brother.' Thor's eyes widened as he struggled to get the words out and he suddenly seemed centuries younger. 'Lo... keep... A-asgar...'

Thor's lips moved for a few more seconds, but he couldn't manage a single word more. Then even his lips stilled and his eyes lost focus. Loki's heart pumped at an impossible pace as he slid his hand down the side of Thor's neck, palpating for a pulse. He tried once, twice, thrice. Nothing.

'No, no, no,' Loki muttered.

He grasped for the other plane, where magic always hummed with frenetic energy. Some small measure of that energy resonated in everything, but living things were distinct. He tore through them all: the blue-green auras around the two Midgardians, the signature yellow of Gamora's Zehoberai aura, the vermillion of the surviving Tanaj. He saw, almost felt in fact, the mass of energy contained within Mjolnir's damaged hammerhead. He saw even the wispy trails of magic clinging to his own hands. But he saw nothing of Thor.

Rogers cleared his throat, 'Loki -'

'He's gone,' Loki finished for him as he snapped back into the physical plane. 'No. He can't...'

Loki fell silent as he ran out of breath and no one else seemed to have anything to say. The silence lingered, its weight growing heavier with every passing second and every breath Thor was no longer taking.

'Loki,' Rogers tried again, 'are you injured yourself?'

Was he? Everything hurt, but everything hurt equally. Loki shrugged, which sparked an exchange between Rogers and the Sorcerer Supreme. They wanted answers from him, Loki caught that much of the conversation, but he refused to engage. He had nothing to contribute. It was as if his brain had shut itself down and only the emergency functions kept going.

He's gone. How can... He's gone.

Loki staggered up onto his feet. 'We need to return to Midgard. The time stone's there.'

'Loki, take a breath and listen for a moment,' the Sorcerer Supreme replied. 'If you try to undo this, you will unravel everything and there won't be a way to put it together again. A price had to be paid, a bitter one, but...' Loki began to turn away, but she simply stepped into his path again. 'Come with me and see.'

She held onto his arm, half-guiding and half-dragging him all of fifteen feet to where Thanos lay. The Titan was on his back, his head rolled to the side, but Loki didn't need to see his face to know he was dead. The damage was too great for anyone to survive. Swaying on his feet, Loki peered down at the man whose very name had sent shivers down his spine for a decade. Thanos was just another corpse on the battlefield now, just like everyone else who had the misfortune to get caught in the fighting. Just like Thor.

No, not quite like the rest. What was left of his makeshift gauntlet lay by the remnant of his arm. It was shattered and the glow of the space stone, which had been nestled inside, was now visible. Thor had done this, Loki realised. Thor had brought Mjolnir down onto the gauntlet and set off the explosion.

'This is where all our paths have led,' the Sorcerer Supreme said.

'Thor's my brother.'

'Your brother or the universe, Loki. One or the other, you can't have both.'

Loki pulled away from her. He would've spat in her face if his mouth hadn't gone dry. 'No, there'll be another way.'

The Sorcerer Supreme offered no reply to his words, which somehow stung all the more. He sucked in a breath and pushed his fingers through his hair, his fingernails scraping along the skin of his head. All of this was obscene - the dead, the blood, the rising stench. He couldn't think while he stood in front of the charred sack of meat that had been the Great Titan. He couldn't think at all.

'Hey, you should sit down,' Rogers said.

Loki certainly didn't want to sit down. He wanted... well, he wanted to not be here.

He lifted up the broken gauntlet and clenched it. The jagged pieces that still clung to the infinity stone jutted painfully into his skin and dug in between the tendons. Saying nothing, he staggered back to Thor.

Rogers hurried after him. 'What are you doing? Hold on a sec.'

Loki shook his head as he pulled his brother's still form toward his chest and tightened his grip on the infinity stone.

Night became bright day. Loki lost his footing, and his grip on the space stone, which had seared a brand into his palm. He ended up on his knees, in the middle of a soft meadow carpeted with now-trampled marigolds and daisies. Birds, likely alarmed by his arrival, produced a chorus of loud chirps and caws. Water rumbled somewhere.

Loki slowly turned his head while his eyes adjusted to the light. Eight apple trees ringed the meadow. He knew these trees. There had been a time where he would clamber up into their branches and pluck the ripest apples.

'Who's there?' his mother called out, her voice carrying the authority of a queen, yet also laden with warmth.

Loki stammered for a reply, but nothing would come save a new wave of panic. He would have to explain and he couldn't summon a coherent word. He still sat there as if stupefied - his mouth hanging slack and clinging onto his brother -- when Frigga slipped past the apple trees and stepped into the meadow.

'Loki?' she gasped. Her eyes wide, she sank to her knees beside him. 'What's happened?'

'I'm sorry. I'm so sorry,' was all he managed before his words turned into desperate sobs.

The musicians had packed away their instruments, the gathered crowd had dispersed and now even the torches grew dim. Loki walked slowly down the narrow ribbon of sand below the paved escarpment. He moved too closely to the tepid water. More often than not, the waves that lapped at the sand caught the trail of his passage; his boots and the bottom of his cloak were soaked.

'I thought this would be a place to look for you,' Odin said as he climbed down the stone steps that bridged the escarpment and the beach.

Loki nodded weakly, never taking his eyes off the distant murk. The cool stars and the ghostly nebulae shone brightly enough for the line where the water dropped over the edge to be visible. He knew precisely how many miles lay between the shore and that horizon -- his tutors had drilled this basic fact into him long ago, but it didn't seem all that far. He longed to strip away his heavy, ceremonial clothing and tear off his boots, and swim until he couldn't swim any further.

That's a pathetic notion even for a child. There's nothing of him left out there now, only primordial dust swept along by the cosmic winds.

'My boy, you're getting wet,' Odin said with a barely perceptible hint of a chuckle. 'Will you not come and sit a while by this old man?'

Odin sighed as he lowered himself onto the sand, then rested his walking stick across his knees. Loki took up a place to his left, but his gaze still lingered on the horizon. It was quiet out here. Sunrise lay a few hours away and neither the father nor the son had guards accompanying them. Water whispered as it rolled in and out; Loki's breath slowed to match that smooth rhythm.

'You should return to the palace, father,' he said after perhaps a minute had passed without Odin a word. 'Mother shouldn't have to grieve alone. And tomorrow will no doubt be as demanding a day as today was, I'm sure you're in need of rest.'

'I could say the same to you.'

The difference was, there was a possibility his father could embrace his son's words. He could go to comfort his wife and try to find some peace in their common tragedy. Loki could scarcely look his parents in the eye. What good would he be were he to go to his mother?

As for rest, he had tried. After the healers had patched him up as best they could, they made it clear that he was in dire need of calm recuperation, but sleep wouldn't come. Besides, there had been a great deal to do.

He had abandoned the Midgardians and Gamora back on Tanaj. While attending to that loose thread, Loki also retrieved the sceptre he had left lying in the middle of the battlefield. Having two infinity stones on Asgard soon proved to be another headache. The sceptre was a malicious weapon, while Thanos' obscenity of a gauntlet was worth about as much as a ball of scrap aluminium - Loki had been very lucky the mangled apparatus didn't cause a malfunction on his return to Asgard. New vessels to house the stones and a place where they could be stored securely had been imperative. And, most draining of all, there had been the funeral arrangements to settle.

Loki tried to wipe away the sand stuck onto the leather of his boots and ended up with sand all over his fingers instead. 'I suppose I will need to make my farewells before I leave.'

'I was unaware you meant to leave again.' Odin frowned. 'Where do you intend to go?'

'I hardly know. Maybe Alfheim.'

Or I can figure out where Brunnhilde ended up. We can wander from one planet to the next, drinking until the universe runs out of alcohol.

'Your coronation should take place before you leave Asgard again.'

Loki snickered, but he could make out enough of his father's morose expression for the mirth to vanish a heartbeat later. 'What coronation can there be?' he said. 'I'm not your true-born son. The last time Gungnir was handed to me, half the palace revolted and the other half did precious little to stop it.'

'Both you and Thor were my sons.' Odin's jaw clenched momentarily, then he seemed to contain himself. 'Your right to the kingship is no less than your brother's. I have made that clear and so has Thor. Shortly after you left for Sakaar, he had a will made setting out who would be his successor. His children were to be first in line, the second - you. Since he didn't father any children during his life, you are his heir apparent.'

Loki sighed as he glanced back to the darkened spires of the city and the royal palace, which towered over all else. 'A king can issue any proclamation he wishes; the Asgardians will still despise the Jotnar. Nor is this what Thor would've wanted.'

'His will is clear. It was signed and appropriately wit --'

'A will is only a piece of paper. It can be torn up at any time. You should take the throne, or pass it to that third cousin of yours. Alevi, wasn't it? Or have the council vote to select a new monarch. Norns, turn Asgard into parliamentary democracy if you must.'

Loki swallowed the lump in his throat and moved to get up, but his father motioned for him to halt. Out of pure habit, Loki obeyed.

'I have not raised you to flee from your responsibilities,' Odin said.

'My responsibilities? I assure you, before the end, it was Thor's will that I have nothing to do with him, or Asgard or the throne, ever.'

'I take it you quarrelled.' At Loki's reluctant nod, Odin let out a huff. 'What of it? You quarrelled often enough, all brothers do. You always made up soon enough.'

It wasn't our average quarrel, father.

Receiving no verbal response from Loki, Odin ran his hand over the line where the skin of his cheek and his beard met. 'What makes you certain he changed his mind on the succession? Did he state so outright?' Loki shook his head again, which only left his father more exasperated. 'Then what was it? Did he die cursing your name and all your issue?'

'I couldn't make out what he was trying to tell me at the end.'

'Nothing at all?'

Loki chewed on his lower lip for a long moment. 'Valhalla. Brother. Asgard. Nothing more than that.'

'He was addressing you, I presume? Then here's your absolution for whatever slight you perceive Thor thought unforgivable. A dying man has no time for insincerity, Loki. If he didn't regard you as his brother then, he would have referred to you in another manner. Or not at all.'

'I-I don't think that's necessarily true.'

'It is perhaps not quite a universal truth, but you knew Thor just as well as I did. He was quick to anger, but in the end, his nature was to forgive, not to hold a grudge.' Odin reached out and cupped Loki's chin, then gently turned Loki's head until they were eye to eye.

'What are you...'

Odin wiped away a tear rolling down Loki's cheek; Loki hadn't even realised he was crying.

'Loki,' Odin said with a weary sigh, 'if you don't trust the depth of your brother's affection for you or the sentiments of our people, would you at least trust me? I am your father and a proud one when I see the man you have grown up to be, but I don't urge you to take up the mantle as your father. I do so because I was a king once too and I know of no one else in all the Nine Realms who is more capable of taking up this responsibility.'