Loki Laufeyson | A Love Beyond Valhalla

Chapter One: Brynhildr

Long before the Avengers, before Midgard knew the name Loki as anything more than a myth, Asgard had known Brynhildr. She was an Einherjar, forged in battle and feared even among warriors who had spent centuries perfecting the art of war. Unlike the other Einherjar, however, Brynhildr carried something within her that did not belong to Asgard.

The Void answered to her.

Darkness gathered at her fingertips when she willed it. Shadows bent around her like living things, swallowing light and devouring magic. She could tear open pockets of absolute nothingness and wield them as weapons. Even Odin regarded her abilities with cautious respect. And Odin had decided that such a warrior belonged beside Thor. The engagement had been arranged with his blessing, a union meant to strengthen Asgard and bind one of its greatest warriors to its future king.

Brynhildr had accepted. She had never liked Thor. She respected his strength, his courage, and his place among the gods, but affection had never entered the equation. Thor was everything she was expected to want. Loki was everything she was not supposed to want. For years, Brynhildr had buried the truth so deeply that even Loki himself had never suspected it. She never lingered when he entered a room. Never allowed her gaze to remain upon him for too long. Never let her voice betray the warmth that threatened to surface whenever he spoke. She had become exceptionally good at hiding her heart. Not from everyone.

Frigga had noticed.

Heimdall had noticed.

Neither had ever spoken of it. Frigga merely watched Brynhildr with the quiet understanding of a mother who knew exactly where a person's heart wandered. Heimdall saw more than most ever could. He saw the way Brynhildr looked at Loki when she thought nobody was watching. And he said nothing. Then the realms began to fall. The Bifröst lay shattered beneath the violence that had torn through Asgard. Energy screamed through the broken remains of the bridge as the fate of the Nine Realms hung upon a knife's edge. At the edge of the abyss, Loki dangled from Odin's grasp.

His fingers clung desperately to his father's hands. His face was twisted with rage, grief, and something far more fragile.

“I could've done it, Father!” Loki cried. “I could've done it! For you! For all of us!”

The words tore through Brynhildr. The darkness inside her stirred. The only way to prevent the destruction from consuming the remaining realms was to unleash the Void. But the Void demanded a price. A living soul. Brynhildr understood that before anyone else did. She looked toward Thor. Then Odin. Then finally Loki. For one terrible heartbeat, everything she had spent years suppressing rose to the surface. Her duty. Her oath. Her loyalty. Her heart. Loki's fingers slipped. Brynhildr moved.

She ran. Thor shouted her name. Odin reached toward her. Frigga's eyes widened in sudden understanding. Even Heimdall could not stop what was already happening. Brynhildr reached the edge. And jumped. As she fell into the abyss, darkness exploded outward from her body, consuming the fractured magic of the Bifröst. Her final words were barely more than a whisper.

“For you, Loki. I can wait for you at the bottom!”

Loki froze. For the first time, he understood. So did Thor. So did Odin. So did everyone who had witnessed the sacrifice. Brynhildr had never loved Thor. She had loved Loki. And Odin, with all his supposed wisdom, had been catastrophically wrong. The Void swallowed Brynhildr. The realms survived.

And the Einherjar was gone.

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Chapter Two: The Souls Between Worlds

Heimdall watched. Centuries passed. Kings rose and fell. Wars came and disappeared into history. Midgard changed beneath the passage of time. And Brynhildr's soul returned. Again. And again. And again. Never to Valhalla. Never to Asgard. Always Midgard. Different bodies. Different lives. Different faces. Sometimes male. Sometimes female. Always mortal. But the Void remained. So did the darkness. Heimdall watched every incarnation pass beneath the sky of Midgard, powerless to interfere. The soul that had once been Brynhildr continued its endless journey. And Heimdall remembered.

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Chapter Three: The One Who Returned

The Avengers had encountered countless threats before. Alien invasions. Ancient powers. Artifacts that should never have existed. But nothing prepared them for the anomaly that appeared on Midgard. The energy had no recognizable origin. It was not Asgardian. It was not human. It was not Kree, Chitauri, or anything else they could identify. It was darkness without shadow. A presence that seemed to bend reality around itself. And somewhere in the middle of it stood an adult human being. The reincarnation of Brynhildr. The face was different. The body was different. The life was different. The soul was not. The dormant power within the reincarnated soul had begun to awaken, reacting violently to something that had crossed into Midgard.

Loki.

He had changed over the centuries. His appearance remained unmistakably that of the God of Mischief, his dark hair framing the sharp features that had become familiar across realms. The green and black of his Asgardian attire marked him immediately as something other than mortal. He had come expecting another threat. Instead, the moment his eyes fell upon the reincarnation, he stopped. Something inside him went utterly still. He did not know why. He did not know this person. He had never seen this face.

And yet the darkness surrounding them felt painfully familiar. The Void answered him. It curled toward him. His magic responded. Reality shuddered. For one impossible moment, Loki saw something that could not exist. A broken Bifröst. A pair of hands slipping from Odin's grasp. A woman falling into darkness. And a voice he had never been able to forget.

'For you, Loki.'

His breath caught. The reincarnated soul stood before him in silence, unable to understand the memories awakening within the darkness. Loki stared. Then the Void erupted. The boundary between realms began to tear apart. Asgard felt it. Midgard felt it. The Nine Realms trembled beneath the returning power of a soul that had once sacrificed itself to save them. And somewhere beyond the worlds, Heimdall watched. He had seen this soul die once. He had watched it return countless times. Now, for the first time in centuries, he watched Loki finally find it. The Void remembered. And this time, it had no intention of letting either of them go.

Loki took a slow step forward, his gaze never leaving the stranger before him. The darkness around them shifted again, reacting to his presence. His expression hardened.

“Who are you?”

For reasons he could not explain, the question felt far more important than it should have. His eyes narrowed as the Void stirred between them.

“And why,” he asked quietly, “does my magic remember you?”