#loki god of the hearthfire

[sarcastic-salem]

Loki decided to get creative in the kitchen tonight.

Credit To: @fuckedupfoods on Twitter.

[ramshacklefey]

Hilarious to me how many pagans talk about their gods in a way that makes them sound exactly like the Christian god with the serial number filed off.

The idea that pagan gods are omniscient, omnipotent beings who you can have personal, loving relationships with cracks me up. If you read any of the myths surrounding them, you realize pretty quick that most of them are kinda petty, amazingly capricious beings who usually seem to be busier beefing with each other than having anything to do with humans.

And when they do turn their focus to humans, it's as likely to be for the purposes of fucking with them as helping them. Sacrifices may not explicitly be bribes (a bribe could be construed as rude after all), but they aren't far off. Usually, the humans they take a direct interest in are great heroes. Athena may have done a lot for Odysseus, but it was because he was already a brilliant tactician and a clever bastard, and she appreciated that. On the other hand, she turned Arachne into a spider for being too good at weaving so. . .

If you actually look at the historical practices of ancient peoples, the entities they had close relationships with were smaller: ancestor spirits, land spirirts, gods of this hill or that tree, household gods, little spirits like gnomes. Spirits who did things like keep the hearthfire burning and help the bread rise and the beer ferment.

The great gods were to be appeased so they didn't harass you, or to be placated if you'd already managed to piss them off. If they did decide to help you personally, they don't often seem to understand the line between "helping" and "being an overbearing twat."

Zeus is a petty lech, Odin is a right bastard, and why the fuck would you want Loki taking a personal interest in you?

It's a matter of scale, see? And for the day-to-day aspects of life, it makes a lot more sense (and seems a lot more reasonable) to focus on the spirits and entities that actually understand human life.

[helreginn]

🖋 + Loki

Send me a 🖋 and a character you’d like to see me write, and I’ll give it my best shot!

"And you see, little one," His voice came, warm and comforting, much like the fire they sat before. And maybe the fire in his eyes. Was it a reflection or their very own flames? Hard to say and young Hela never had been curious.

"We helped each other, because that's what brothers do." He recounted the tails of shenanigans, loyalty and bond. There was no part of him that feared Odin. No part that didn't love and adore him.

"And tricks?" her little voice replied, the most awe struck of expression on her young face as she smiled up at her father. The very best of storytellers. Sure, Bragi was poetry and words. But Loki?

Loki is imagination.

"And tricks," He nodded proudly as he reached to ruffle her hair. "Did I ever tell you of the time I stole a cloak just to fly over him as a bird and ruin his day?"

He laughed as he remembered. Laughed as he regailed her with the trials and tribulations of old gods and ever-rejuvinated mischief. He may not always be appreciated for it but it is an unspoken truth that he is a god of wisdom, the same as Snotra, Kvasir and Mimir.

His eyes are not so good. He cannot always see trouble coming but his mind? Ever roiled with idea and thought. No situation was ever so dire one could not imagine the way out.

In that regard he is also hope. Unyielding and unrelenting.

And joy.

Always, joy.

He delighted in the smile of his young daughter as the fire before him flickered and grew, within the orange glow the stories came alive and on the walls the undertones spoke loudly of things she's still too small to grasp yet.

And as the night wore on and she became heavy on his chest, he smiled still with contentment. A sense of belonging settled in the warmth of his bones. Indeed, there were many tricks. Aimed not only at his blood brother but all of his ilk.

And just as many rescues. Just as many crisis averted.

He is chaos and he is balance. And in at least this quiet moment, he knows that the man born of lightning and foliage has a place, same as the hearthfire reflected in his eyes.

If only he could see. But he could never see.

That he is not just a spark or a flame but wildfire.

And his brother's eyes begin to water from the smoke.

[autumnwitchbomb]

Dísablót/Disting

​​In Norse belief, Disting is the festival of the Idises. For those who do not know, the Idises (or Disir) are the souls of the women of your family line – the eldest mothers, who still watch over their children through the generations. The name Oimelc means ��ewe’s milk” in Anglo-Saxon, as this was the time when the first lambs were being born. Frigga is sometimes hailed at this time for her spinning of wool.. Oimelc has been associated not only with snow and cold, but with healing, with hearthfire, and the singing around it. Some of the Nordic gods honored during this time are Ullr, Skadi, and Rind – all deep-winter figures. Some people also have honored Logi - a fire giant - Loki’s first wife Glut along with their daughters Einmyria and Eisa, because of the hearthfires. Bragi is also sometimes honored here for the poetry created to pass the long winters. Eir, Mengloth, and Mengloth’s maidens can also be honored at this time for the aspect of healing as communal illnesses are often at their worst during this season. Another possibility is honoring Surt and the primal giant Ymir as part of the fire-and-ice Norse creation myth.

Disting is characterized by preparing the land for planting.  In ancient times, Disting was the time when the cattle were counted and one's wealth was tallied; thus making it a festival of finance as well. It was said that new calves born during Disting were a sign of great prosperity for the coming year. Disting was also the time for the Thing (or main law gathering), so Forseti, Tyr, Ullr, Syn, and Var may all be honored as they are associated with oaths and lawgiving.

Also called ‘Charming of the Plow’ after the Anglo-Saxon spell and ceremony. Recorded as a regular feast only in Sweden, this blessing takes place in early or mid-February. The name means ‘Thing (assembly) of the Goddesses’. In Sweden, it was the first public moot/fair of the year; in Denmark, this is the time when the first furrows were plowed in the field (an activity much hedged about with folk custom). This is a feast of new beginnings, at which the work of the year to come is blessed.

[ihaveatypeanditstrickstergods]

Operation Hearthfire Chapter 1: It’s Better Warm

Finally, it’s up!

Post-Avengers canon divergent.  Loki is exiled to Earth, placed under magically binding house arrest in a SHIELD safehouse, watched by a bevy of highly trained agents... and one "caretaker," who up until recently had been a low-level archivist.  Heather Seagin doesn't know why she was chosen for this job any more than anyone else seems to, but she'll be damned if she isn't going to do it to the best of her abilities, even as surrounding circumstances and Loki himself endeavor to make it as difficult as possible.

Read it on Ao3!

@loki-yoursaviourishere  

(if you want to be tagged for this, just let me know!  If you asked before and I forgot, I’m sorry!  if you thought you wanted to be tagged for this and changed your mind, also let me know!)

It was one of SHIELD’s smallest facilities: an archive, built in Upstate New York sometime in the 1950’s, filled with reports, both news and scientific, then left mostly alone.  It was tended by only two low-clearance staff members, who were each only at the facility a few times a week (rarely on the same day), or by appointment if one of the files there needed to be consulted.  A woman who, until her recent recruitment for a more... unusual job, had been one of those two staff members was seated in a chair facing her former desk, looking over it at her supervising agent.

“Long-Term Operation Codename Hearthfire, Verbal Status Report 3,” Agent Richardson said into the pocket recorder, “27 August 2012, present Level 6 Agent T. Richardson and Exceptional Level 1 Archivist H. Seagin.  Recorded at 0900 hours at archival building designation 023.”  He set the recorder down on the desk and sat down in the chair.  Heather always thought that Richardson looked like he’d just stepped out of an episode of Law and Order, which didn’t help her nerves when they met at the archive for these status reports.  It made her feel like she was being interrogated.

“Alright, let’s start with general thoughts.  How have things progressed with the Subject since the last report?”

“They haven’t,” Heather replied bluntly.  She was now into her third week as Loki’s caretaker since he’d been exiled to Earth, and she could count the number of words they’d exchanged without taking off her shoes.  Or well, words she’d spoken to him.  He had yet to acknowledge her existence past a few glares, never mind speaking to her.

“Loki--sorry, the Subject,” she was still getting used to the phrasing SHIELD wanted her to use for these reports, “is still just staying in his room all day.  I did try staying up until when he usually gets up Wednesday night, but he didn’t leave his room then either, so I think he’s waiting until he’s sure I’m asleep.”  

“So, no progress, okay...” Agent Richardson nodded as Heather winced, then he went on to the next question.

“Have you been able to make any contact?  You were talking last week about leaving notes.”  Heather let out an uncomfortable chuckle.

“I tried,” she admitted.  As far as she was concerned, part of her job as the exiled god’s caretaker was helping him adjust to the minor details of life on earth.  At the time, leaving post-it notes explaining how to use various items across the isolated SHIELD safehouse where they’d been placed seemed like a good idea, but in practice, well...

“I do think he read some of them, anyway, at least it seemed like he was able to successfully use the shower, but there was no response, unless you count me finding them torn up the next morning.”

“Well, that’s something, I guess.”  He folded his hands, “Alright, elephant in the room.  Let’s talk about the attempted perimeter breach.”  Heather sighed.  “I think I already said what I wanted to say in the incident report,” she remarked.

“Can you just humor me and go over what happened again?  I need to have this on the record.”

“Fine.  So four days ago around 5 AM, the Subject,” she emphasized the last two words with a frustrated gesture, “attempted to leave the house and was knocked unconscious, I assume by his inhibitor cuff.”  The cuff was Asgardian, part of the provisions for Loki’s house arrest.  Neither Heather nor anyone else in SHIELD knew how it worked, and no one wanted to risk taking a closer look at it in case that disabled it, but it was supposed to keep him from using magic and, apparently, from leaving the house.

“I was asleep when it happened,” she continued, “since, you know, he only leaves his room when I’m asleep, but the team watching the house was able to bring him back in without incident,” even if it had taken six of them.  “One of them woke me up and brought me in, so I was present when he woke up about five minutes later, but he didn’t say anything and went back to his room pretty quickly.”

“Have there been any changes in the Subject’s behavior since then?”  Heather had to think about that question, but only for a second.

“Yes, actually.  He’s stopped making messes every night.”  At first, Heather would often wake up to find one room or another turned upside down--couches taken apart, drawers removed, the works, but she hadn’t since Loki had attempted to leave.  “At least for now.  It’s only been four days.  He might just be giving me a break.”

“Interesting.  What about changes in his psychological state?”

“I wouldn’t know.  He’s been avoiding me and refuses to make contact with me.”

“That’s fair.  Anything else?”  

Heather hesitated.  She did have one more thing to say, but if she did, either Agent Richardson would shoot her down or she’d be committed to this course of action, and at this point, after talking over what a bad job she was doing, she wasn’t sure which she was hoping for.

“There is one thing,” she said, deciding to go for it, “I want to try to directly attempt to establish contact tonight.  I have a plan.”

“I take it the plan’s more involved than post-it notes?”  Richardson raised an eyebrow, causing Heather to internally roll her eyes.

“Yes, it’s more involved than post-it notes,” she said with a small annoyed sigh, “You watch the house at night, right?”  She had trouble keeping track of the monitoring squads’ shifts, but he’d been there during the attempted perimeter breach.

“Some nights, yes.  Why?”

“Is there a usual time that he eats?  I know that he has been pretty much every night.”  At least if the dishes she found in the mornings were any indication.

“It varies, but usually between 0200 and 0400.  So you’re gonna try to get him while he eats?”

“Yeah.  Last time I stayed up it was in the living room, which is closer to his room... I think if I stay up in the sitting room by the kitchen, he might think the coast is clear and go about his business, then I can approach him when he enters the kitchen to eat.”

“And what, you’ll ambush him while he eats and try to get him to talk to you?”

“Hopefully.”  To Heather’s surprise, Agent Richardson leaned forward and paused the recording.

“Look, Heather,” he said, “I can tell you’re trying, and I appreciate that you’re taking this job seriously, but honestly?  You shouldn’t feel like you have to do this.  Given what Loki’s done and what he’s capable of, no one would blame you if you just let him sulk.”

While she could sort of see his point--they both knew that she wasn’t qualified for this, that there wasn’t anybody really qualified to share space with a demigod war criminal--something in his tone made her temper flare.  Only three weeks in, and he was already telling her to give up?

“I appreciate the thought,” she said, trying her hardest not to scowl, “but y’all brought me in to be Loki’s caretaker.  Last I checked, that meant more than just letting him eat my leftovers while I sleep.”  This job was aggravating, a little terrifying, and more than a little potentially dangerous, but she’d be damned if she wasn’t going to try her utmost to do it.

“Hmm,”  Agent Richardson tilted his head, and if Heather hadn’t known better, she might’ve picked up the slightest hint of a smile on his normally inscrutable face.  He leaned forward and turned the recorder back on.

“Alright,” he said, “sounds like a workable plan.  Puts you at a bit of risk, though, so I want to go back over contingencies for if he reacts negatively.”  Heather was silent for a moment, surprised at the agent’s change of attitude, but decided to continue on with her plan before he tried to talk her out of it again.

“So, first off, the sitting room by the kitchen is connected to the back door.  The perimeter breach proved that he can’t go too far outside the house, and if I come in while he’s eating, he’ll probably be sitting down, so as long as I stay by the door I’ll have a decent chance of making it out if he reacts physically.”

“Uh-huh.  And if he’s faster than you anticipated?”

“I say the cuff’s command word.”  It was the ultimate failsafe, a single word she could say to make the cuff knock Loki unconscious as sure as if he had left the house.  The perimeter breach had proved that the cuff acted quickly enough that she’d most likely be fine.

“Good,” he said with a nod, “Sounds like a plan.  Hopefully we’ll have some more positives to talk about next week.  End recording.”  Agent Richardson turned the recorder off and stood up, pushing the chair out behind him as he asked, “Was there anything else you needed to take care of here?” causing Heather to shake her head.

“No, I don’t need to do any of my fake job today,” she joked with a small grin, tension reduced now that she wasn’t actively being interviewed.  Officially she was still employed at the archive, although she only ‘worked’ in the building once a week. “Got some errands to run, though, so I’d better head out.”  If she hurried, she’d be able to get a nap in before her stakeout.

“Are you alright, Heather?” She was almost out the door and nearly missed the agent’s question, but turned around when she did.  There was a look of concern on his face, the most emotion she’d seen him express since they’d met when she first took the caretaker job.

“I’m fine,” she assured him with a small smile, “frustrated more than anything, but hey, maybe I’ll actually accomplish something tonight.”

“Alright.  Just... be careful.  This is Loki we’re talking about.”

“I know.  I will.”

***

After a grocery run and a couple of other stops, Heather did, in fact, make it back to the safehouse in time for a nap.  The house was tucked into a forest just far enough away from civilization that people were unlikely to come looking, although not so far away that cell service was nonexistent.  Until she’d been recruited by SHIELD, first for the archive job, then as Loki’s caretaker, she had lived in the downtown area of a small city in Virginia, so the quiet still weirded her out a little--although it was very nice when it came to napping.  When she woke up a few hours later--hopefully enough sleep to get her through the night--she had something to eat in the kitchen, took care of both her dishes and the ones Loki had left the night before and headed through the door on the far side into the sitting room.

Despite more or less having the run of the house, she didn’t usually bother with the small sitting room by the back door--she was pretty sure the most time she’d spent there was putting the armchairs back together after Loki had trashed the room one night--but it was perfect for her stakeout. It was adjacent to the kitchen, on the far side from the rest of the house, and the door between the two rooms created a blind spot that would hopefully keep her hidden.   Leaving the door just ajar enough that she could hear what was happening in the kitchen, she settled herself in a chair with a book. Soon it would be too dark to read, but she could at least get some in now before she had to try to keep herself awake on nerves alone.

One hour crept by, then an hour and a half, then two, each easily seeming twice its actual length.  Bringing a book had seemed like a good idea at the time, but she was so focused on the night ahead that she’d barely been able to pay attention to the words in front of her.  It was after two hours, around 9:40, when it finally got too dark to even pretend to read.  On the bright side, even if she hadn’t taken that nap, she was pretty sure her nerves would keep her from falling asleep.  As she sat in that chair, watching the door and waiting for any sign of life, she found herself wondering what if he didn’t come into the kitchen, what if he left as soon as he saw her... And what if she succeeded?

According to her phone, it was 2:27 AM when she finally heard footsteps entering the kitchen. Heather sat upright, muscles tense, the drowsiness of a moment ago forgotten. She could go in now, she supposed, but she wanted to wait until he was eating. Hopefully a plate full of food in front of him would make him less inclined to leave as soon as she came in the room--or at least put a table between the two of them if he reacted violently. The footsteps stopped, replaced with the sound of the refrigerator opening, followed by a drawer. Heather waited for the buzz of the microwave, but it never came. Instead she heard more footsteps, then a chair being pulled back.

Oh god, she thought, has he just been eating cold leftovers?  She mentally ran through a list of everything she’d put post-it notes on and internally facepalmed as she realized that she’d forgotten about the microwave.

She slowly began to stand up, her brain rapidly running through all the things she’d considered saying during her wait, only to freeze when she heard a voice--his voice--through the gap in the door.

“I know you’re in there,” Loki’s voice was hoarse, rougher than she’d expected, although she supposed that no one sounded their best after not speaking for three weeks, “Did you really think to hide from me?”

For a moment, Heather remained frozen part way through getting up from the chair, unsure of how to respond.  Somehow, all the times she’d run through this moment in her head, she’d never thought he might notice her--or at least if he had, she hadn’t thought he would acknowledge her.  For a moment, fear spread over her mind and she regretted even coming up with this plan in the first place.  But no.  She’d stayed up this late so she could try to talk to him, and dammit, she was going to talk to him.  Slowly, cautiously, as if approaching a skittish animal, she opened the door and stepped into the kitchen. 

“I just wanted to talk to you,” she admitted as she closed the door behind her, “this was the only way I could think of to do it.”

Moonlight shone through the window, hitting Loki like a spotlight.  The god sat at the kitchen table, arms loosely folded across his chest.  His blue-green eyes stared intently at her as she emerged into the room, the casserole dish of baked ziti sitting on the table seemingly forgotten.  As he watched her, still as a statue, she struggled to remember even a single word she’d planned on saying.  For a moment, the two just stared at each other, he in interest, she in apprehension, until finally the god spoke.

“Who are you?” he asked, his eyes scanning her face as if it was a book in a language he couldn’t quite comprehend.

“My name’s Hea-”

“No, who are you?” Loki stood up from the table and took a slow step towards her.

 “I had wondered,” he continued as he slowly and casually walked towards her, “if Odin would choose to exile me to Midgard.”  Unconsciously, Heather took a step back, backing herself against the door.

“I had even considered the possibility of being turned over to my previous captors,” his stare broke away from her for a brief moment as he looked into the room's camera, adding, “never mind that they only held me briefly, and only because I willed it. But I never anticipated you.” He turned back to her, closing the space between them as he asked, “What are you meant to be to me, hmm? A jailor? A servant?"  He leaned a hand on the doorframe, looming over her, "A sacrifice to an angry god?"

Heather looked up into Loki’s face, her eyes meeting his. She was sure he could see her fear, her wide eyes, her trembling legs. Her fight-or-flight instinct was screaming for flight, urging her to back through the door to the sunroom and either make a run for the perimeter or use the newly gained space to say the cuff’s command word and drop him. But instead, she took a quick breath, steeling herself.  If she ran now, she knew, she may as well leave the house, because she’d never get another opportunity to really talk to him.

"Your caretaker," she answered his question with only a slight tremble in her voice, "So a little bit of all three, depending on who you're asking."  

Loki’s eyes narrowed, and for a moment that seemed an eternity, he said nothing and stared into her face, his head cocked in what Heather hoped was just curiosity and not anything more sinister.  Finally, the god let out a sharp exhale through his nose--she wasn’t sure, but part of her thought it might have been the smallest hint of a chuckle--and shook his head.

“A caretaker?” he asked mockingly, “Your masters would throw a rabbit into a wolf’s den to, what, leave me notes explaining the obvious?  To wait up all hours of the night, for naught but a chance to speak with me?  No, you’re no caretaker.”

Any other time, the way he sneered the last word would have been enough to demoralize Heather then and there.  Her report that morning had been a reflection of how little an idea she had of what she was doing, and even now, the situation she’d engineered, one she’d intended to have full control over, had been all but usurped by the god who was now practically pinning her to a door.  By all accounts, she could be doing a lot better.  But then, that was why she was there.  After all, how the hell was anyone supposed to know what kind of caretaker she was when her charge made it this hard to even try?  Heather took a breath, straightened her shoulders, and began one more attempt to shift the conversation in her favor.

“So,” she said, pointedly looking past him to the ziti on the table, “you’ve been eating cold leftovers this whole time?”  Her nerves made the question spill out of her mouth more quickly than she’d intended, and she wasn’t sure if the confusion on Loki’s face was because the question was abrupt or because it was unintelligible.

“What?” the god asked, glancing over his shoulder to follow her gaze.  She continued while she had him off balance.

“I can heat it up for you,” she said, gesturing towards the table, “The ziti, I mean.  It’s a lot better warm.”

He actually did laugh at that, a rolling chuckle that seemed to come right from his chest as he turned back to look at her.

“Such tenacity,” Loki murmured, more to himself than to her.  She tensed, preparing for more insults or possibly even threats, but instead he stepped back, finally giving her some blessed breathing space.  

“Very well,” he said, “if you’re that dedicated to your role, by all means, show me.”

Heather took advantage of her newly-gained space to make her way towards the cupboards, still tense as she braced herself in case Loki tried anything.  The god remained still, but she could feel his gaze following her as she opened a cabinet and a drawer, removing a plate and butter knife--anything sharper was locked up, and she didn’t really want to deal with that at the moment--and approached the table.  The fork he’d had was still sitting next to the casserole dish, and between that and the butter knife, she managed to put what she thought was a good-sized serving of ziti on the plate.  She carefully walked the heavy-laden plate to the microwave, put it in, and pushed a few buttons, wondering once again how she had forgotten to leave a post-it explaining that--although, she didn’t know if it would’ve done much, given the shredded paper she’d found all over the house the morning after she’d placed them. As the microwave buzzed, she turned back to face Loki, who was still standing by the door.

“It’ll be ready in a moment,” she informed him, “so you can sit back down.”  To her surprise, he complied, although his eyes continued to follow her intently as she removed the now-steaming ziti from the microwave.  As she set it in front of him, he gestured at the chair across from his.

“Sit,” he ordered.  When she hesitated, he added, “You wished to speak with me, did you not?  You may as well sit where I can see you.”

“Oh, okay.”  That made sense.  Heather sat down, looking at the god now seated across from her.  Despite his claimed desire to look at her during their conversation, Loki was barely paying her any attention, instead focusing on the steaming plate of food in front of him.  He almost looked human now, a tired part of her brain noted.  As that thought ran through her head, he looked back up at her, one eyebrow cocked as if silently asking Well?   Right.  He wasn’t human.  He was a god, he was her charge, and this was quite possibly her only opportunity to talk him around.

 During the silent hours she’d waited for him to come into the kitchen, she’d mentally run through this conversation dozens of times.  She’d put together a speech she was confident would have had Loki understanding her position, and of course she could only remember it in scrambled bits now.  But she could tell that his patience--such as it was--was running thin, so she let as much as she could fall out in whatever order came to mind.

“Look,” Heather said, “I’ll admit that a lot about this situation is... weird.  I don’t know if there’s any sort of precedent for it, I mean, I’ve never been a god’s caretaker before, but I want to do the best I can for you.  To help you out here, I mean.”  As frustrating as Loki’s avoidance was, she understood why he would be wary of her--she was, after all, working for the organization that had helped to assemble the Avengers to defeat him a few months ago and now was overseeing his confinement. 

“Obviously I don’t expect us to be friends or anything,” she continued, “but I do think that things would be a lot more comfortable for both of us if we communicated... or at least if you didn’t completely avoid me.  I get if you need space, but...”

“Enough.”  The sudden clatter of Loki’s fork hitting the table cut off whatever she was going to say next.

“I’m impressed with your persistence,” the god pushed his now nearly empty plate forward, “I’m sure that some would even find it admirable.”  He picked the fork back up, idly playing with it in one hand,  “But you needn’t treat me like a fool.  We both know that you didn’t consent to being locked up here to ‘do your best for me’.  You’ve all but given yourself to a god who invaded your world not one of your years ago.”  His eyes narrowed as he stared directly into hers, “I would know why.”

“Why?” Heather hesitated.  Shit.  She’d hoped he wouldn’t have asked that.  Up until this point, she had been completely honest with him--she was sure Agent Richardson would say too honest, given Loki’s reputation for manipulation.  But she’d even kept her full reasons for agreeing to the caretaker job from SHIELD; there was no way she could tell Loki.  It would leave her far too vulnerable.  Maybe she could tell part of the truth, just enough to--hopefully--satisfy him.

“I mean...” she began, looking up to meet his eyes, “I was offered the opportunity to live with a literal god.  I knew that it was going to be dangerous, but, well... if I’d said no, I would have regretted it.  I would have spent my entire life wondering what would have happened if I’d agreed.”  Her words hung in the air between them for a moment, and she was afraid she’d said too much, but then Loki shook his head, a smirk twisting across his face.

“And you never thought you might regret agreeing?” he asked.  Before Heather could come up with an answer, or even properly register the question, Loki stabbed his fork into the table, leaving it standing straight up.  She started, almost knocking her chair over.  Before she could even right herself, she was looking up at the camera, shaking her head and hoping that Richardson or whoever else was watching wouldn’t come barging in.  If Loki had meant to hurt her, some part of her brain that wasn’t panicking reasoned, he would have hurt her, and she didn’t want to ruin whatever miniscule progress she’d made.

The god snickered, flashing his teeth in a vicious grin.

“That’s what I thought.”

By the time Heather turned away from the camera, Loki had stood up and was silently making his way to the doorway.  Before he left, he casually said over his shoulder, “You were right, by the way.  It was more... palatable warm.”

Supplemental Status Report 08/28: Subject S has successfully made verbal contact with Subject L.  L seemed unaware of any significance S may have to Asgard, although he and footage can both be deceiving.  For the time being, continue observation and noninterference unless Subject S appears to be in imminent physical danger.

 - T. Richardson, Level 6

[loptgangandi]

continued | @bluuxhalcyon​

It was inevitable. This Loki knows. That for all of his powers of obfuscation, all of his talent for concealment and misdirection, that Odin would sit upon the Hliðskjálf and seek his blood brother. And that when he did so, there would always be the chance that Odin would also see the children Loki keeps under his protection. 

That he would take a particular interest in this one is not necessarily surprising. From all of the disenfranchised misfit urchins who had somehow found their way to the God of Fathers, this goddess in her infancy stands apart. As starkly as Odin now stands against the profusion of fire that falls around him in a cacophony that would be deafening, were it not for Loki’s dislike of Thunder and his natural tendency to cushion his dwelling against the sound. Whether that dwelling is his, or merely where he happens to be at that moment. 

He hates thunderstorms. Now Bluu knows why. But far from being afraid, now, Loki is resolute as he turns his back on his brother and crouches down to look his daughter in the eye. This man she faces now looks different :  hair that had once been red as fire now is more ash than flame, and the lines in his face are deeper, his countenance more obviously aged. But those are his eyes, and no mistake, that flare like embers in a gust of wind --- golden, where the lightning strikes white-hot. This is a different aspect than the one Bluu is familiar with :  this is Loki, God of Chaos. Not of hearthfire, but of wildfire. Of the destructive forces that shape creation. But it is still Loki. Still her father. And he lifts Bluu onto his hip, kisses her forehead, and snaps his fingers. 

The lights in the room flick on --- he had let them remain off so that she could watch the storm, but there will be no more of that now --- and the house goes eerily silent. The only sound is the patter of rain on the roof and windows, but even that seems dampened, as though it were far away. 

             “ You’d best come in, Helblindi, ”  he tells the figure outside sternly, as though no window glass or howling storm stood between them. And the voice that Bluu hears is Loki’s, though it falls from a much angrier, older-seeming tongue.  “ Since you like frightening children so much, let her at least fear your grotesque face, and not just the shadow you cast. ”

There is a pause. A pregnant, heavy pause as Loki holds his breath.

And then the figure outside begins to move to the door. Loki gives his wrist a flick, and it slams open. And now it is his turn to stand silhouetted, unwelcoming upon the threshold in spite of his invitation, with his child in his arms and his jaw set in an unspoken vow :  over my dead body.

[eirianerisdar]

For the Sun will Shine

Or: Avengers Endgame fic because Brodinson feels.

A continuation of Five Choices, an Infinity War AU fic where Loki lives on as a formless fire spirit jumping between flames after his death at Thanos’s hands. Even in death, Loki is ever with his brother.

Under the cut to avoid spoiling it for those who haven’t seen it yet.

This is cross-posted to FFN, and I’ll put a bunch of links in the replies since tumblr still doesn’t like links.

>Loki sat in Thanos’s cook-fire and watched with a sense of hollow victory as Thor severed Thanos’s head from his shoulders.

It was a good thing, Loki supposed, that he didn’t have a body to turn away or a face to grimace with. The death of the mad titan was an instantaneous thing that was far more painless than many would have wanted. There wasn’t even any blood – Thor made a single, devastatingly precise swing with all the pain and grief and rage arcing in white lighting through Stormbreaker’s blade, and burnt all the places that blood could have run.

There was simply Thanos, alive – and then two pieces of him, dead.

A bloodless death – rather like Loki’s own, but with far less agony. He could feel no pain here, a fire-spirit housed in the flames of the last meal Thanos was not permitted to eat – but Loki recalled, still, the fat, purple fingers crushing his neck and pushing the blood to his eyes, so that even Thor’s grief-struck face blurred in his vision.

That was then. This was now.

The purple-skinned head fell to the floor with a muted thud, like a fat ram’s head gone rancid – followed shortly by the bulk of Thanos’s half-wasted body.

The edge of Thor’s cloak skirted around the flames of the fire pit as he moved past, his stride heavy and defeated on the floorboards. Loki leapt as far as he could on a tongue of flame, spirit straining, but try as he might, he could not reach his brother. Sparks singed the edge of Thor’s crimson cloak – burned a few stray fibres of red into the burnt brown of old blood.

Brother, Loki would have said, if he had lips and lungs and a throat to voice his words. Brother, I am yet here.

The silence made mockery of him.

And Thor did not look back.

>Loki stayed with his brother for the next five years.

New Asgard was a place of hard labour with little fruit, and Loki’s brother, King of Asgard’s remnant, did not labour at all.

Really, one could argue he did not live, either.

And neither, of course, did Loki.

“Oh, please don’t,” Loki said – or tried to say, when Thor first turned to cheap beer to water down his pain. Of course, the air remained silent. One needed a body to speak, and Loki was soul-flame.

“You were never one for doing things by halves, brother,” Loki continued, wincing mentally as his brother downed the next bottle in two careless gulps. “But this is the equivalent of a slow death by your own hand.”

He realised later, of course, that Thor wasn’t drinking himself a slow death at all. Aesir blood did away with that. It was just suffering.

Just as Loki suffered, thought-speaking words his brother could not hear, year after endless year.

“Now, was that last tub of – what was it, ice cream – worth it?” Loki chided silently from the bathroom lightbulb as Thor heaved into the toilet bowl below. “I always said you fought like a dragon and ate like an abilisk, brother. I didn’t ever really mean it literally.”

“–Brother, you’ve had plenty. Perhaps not another–”

“–Thor, sleep on your side, please, you’ve had enough drink to water a dozen of Father’s best horses. Don’t come to as inglorious an end as to choke on your own sick. If I wind up in Valhalla after all, gods forbid, I’d hardly be able to look you in the face then.”

“–Bor’s name, Thor. You never listened to me when I was alive. It makes sense that you shouldn’t listen to me when I’m dead, either. So drink away. See if I care.”

That particular instance was particularly horrible: Bitter and seething and helpless, Loki eventually soul-flitted away to a forest-fire on another planet, just to see the different stars; but on his return he found his brother deep into his third round of drinks that night, and cradled in the flickering flame of the tabletop candle, Loki looked into Thor’s haggard face and wished for eyes to weep with.

“–Please, Thor. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Stop. Please.”

Thor, oblivious, had leaned over his current bottle and blew out the candle – not knowing he sent Loki careening through Yggdrasil’s branches by doing so.

But.

Loki was in the meagre hearthfire when Thor raised his sixth mug of spirits to his lips in the same number of minutes; Loki was in the flame of the porch lamp when the eighteenth slipped out of Thor’s fingers and smashed into the wood floorboards, staining them the colour of urine and cheap liquor; Loki was strung across the dim, burning wire of the lightbulb that had needed changing for six months when Thor, huddled in his filthy bathroom surrounded by empty bottles, pressed his war-scarred hands into his eyes and wept.

The lightbulb flickered, a flare of fire stronger than possible for old wire stretched so thin and half-rusted; but Thor did not raise his grime-haired head to see.

And, bereft of a body with which to hold his brother, Loki wished.

He wished for their mother, who had fallen to the dark elf’s blade, brilliant and quick-witted and shining like Asgard’s sun.

He even wished for their father, whom Loki had tried so hard to hate and instead only found himself wanting their father to stay for a moment longer, just so Loki could touch him, on a windblown cliffside in Norway.

In a way, this present situation disgusted him.

No, not Thor, wallowing in misplaced guilt.

Loki was disgusted at the fact that he was doomed for eternity, as it seemed, to watch the brother he loved best (and only semi-recently figured out that he did, by the way, which only served to peeve him further at the wasted opportunities) grieve and suffer and drink himself to a grave he could not reach because the blood of the Aesir was in Thor’s veins.

And Loki could do nothing to stop it.

On the dusty tiles below, Thor buried his unshaven face a little deeper into the knees of his unwashed jeans. His bare shoulders trembled.

Brother, Loki thought – he soul spread thin and faint across the wire, like his non-existent heart had twisted in place to be there. Brother, I am here. Yggdrasil is open to me – every flame a doorway and a window – but I am here. I chose to be here. With you. Even if you cannot hear me.

Once, Loki had danced through the realms like a spark in the shadow of Yggdrasil, clever-tongued and fleet-footed, and even when inconvenienced with true death had soul-flitted across worlds to see the battle against Thanos. He had hoped for a future, even, when he discovered continued existence of all six original Avengers who had defeated him in New York so long ago.

He hoped rather less, now.

And then the doctor with the anger management issues and the talking raccoon showed up.

And Loki, for the first time in five years, decided to give hope another chance.

>He would have liked to travel with Thor to the day when their mother died, just to see her face again – she would recognize him, he was sure, even in the form of flame – but Loki had not spent five years solely watching his brother drink without planning.

Thanos and the soul stones and time itself was a problem, yes. But Thor and his band of incredibly hard-headed friends had the hands and feet with which to attend to the matter. And now with the Man of Iron’s arrival, it seemed, the technology with which to practically do so.

No, the problem that presented itself to Loki was first and foremost his lack of a physical body.

Loki spent a few minutes seething quietly in one of Stark’s decorative fireplaces in the Avengers compound to get to the crux of the issue.

Five years was ample time to fully comprehend I think, therefore I am; that didn’t quite change the fact that he needed a new body to drink and eat and breathe and hug with. And for that to happen, someone had to a) recognize Loki in his flame-soul form, b) make a body Loki would find aesthetically pleasing and durable enough for his preferred brand of adventuring, and c) aid in helping Loki put himself in said new body.

All the thinking in the realms had come to one person, really. A little self-flattery, perhaps, but it was truth.

And so, when what remained of the Avengers keyed into the gleaming structure of glass and steel that would send them into younger versions of Yggdrasil, Loki leapt into the flicker of quantum flame that enveloped Stark’s form and piggybacked along into the battle of New York.

Finding flame inside Stark’s tower to watch the impending chaos from was entirely thanks to the man’s penchant for stylized fireplaces and decorative flame; but when things went south in the lobby and Loki’s younger self stared down at the open case of the Tesseract, Loki looked around desperately for a source of flame on his younger person, and finding none, cursed silently and flitted directly onto the Tesseract’s flickering blue surface.

It quickly became apparent that of all the ideas he ever had, this was one of the worst ones.

It was like his soul was made of paper, and the power of the Tesseract careening in a torrent through and around him until he was sure he would be blasted into smithereens of energy.

If Loki had lips, he would be screaming, but his younger self’s hands latched eagerly around the Tesseract and twisted–

His younger self obviously had a different destination in mind, but with Loki’s soul running over the surface of the space stone, screaming in soul-speak, the Tesseract spat them out elsewhere.

The moment reality coalesced around them Loki soul-lunged for the nearest flame – a burst of new fire in a fireplace edged in green marble, familiar and solid and–

On the green-black carpets, his younger self had paused in the act of scrambling after the Tesseract, wide-eyed as he stared agog at his surroundings: the four-poster bed with emerald bedspread, the bookcases stuffed with books and relics from a hundred worlds, the desk carefully dusted with the remnants of a last magical experiment before Thor’s coronation–

Loki slowly became aware that he had settled into the flame of the fireplace he had so often sat by while reading – his favourite spot in his own rooms in the Asgardian palace. The fact the fireplace was aflame at all was due to an enchantment of his own making, eons ago – to recognize his presence and welcome him home.

Loki did not pause to wonder why his family had not cleared his rooms after his supposed death.

Apparently done with staring at their old rooms, his younger self scrabbled at his gag and flung it to the floor. It missed the carpet and clattered across bare stone to the fireplace grate. Those glittering green eyes followed its course.

Loki flared the fire a little.

His younger self paused in the act of listening at the door and snapped his gaze towards the fireplace.

Loki flared the fire a little more.

Soft Asgardian boot-soles against carpet – an expression on that bruised face of curiosity, and careful steps closer.

If Loki had eyes, he would have rolled them by now. Mother always said that one realised one’s former inadequacy as one matured – but to see this in himself after a gap of only a little more than a decade was highly embarrassing. Must he make his soul dance the boogaloo in his own fireplace before his younger self understood?

Younger Loki was so close now that Loki could see the flame reflected in his emerald eyes.

Loki decided that subtlety could go dust itself and momentarily turned the fireplace into a little live-flame rave show.

Loki’s younger self sat down abruptly. His rear end made a bony thud against the stone – he’d just come off an eon of torture, after all. “Trickery,” he murmured, incredulity in his voice. “You? Me?”

It was rather a pity, Loki thought, that he hadn’t yet discovered how to form flame into shapes. If he could he would form just the letters needed to express how much he did not care about his younger self’s surprise. Quickly followed by MAKE ME A BODY, of course.

His younger self licked his torn lips. “What are you doing here? How are–”

Loki flared the fire meaningfully. Stars, this was his only way of communicating. And his past self seemed very much like a dolt. He was sure he hadn’t ever been this stupid.

“You’re me. Dead.”

Flare.

“You need something.”

Flare.

“That only I can give you?”

FLARE.

“All right, all right, keep your cinders on. You want a…body?”

Loki flared the fire so brightly that his younger self winced at the heat.

Younger Loki mirrored Loki’s mental eye-roll with a very pronounced physical one. “Obviously, is what you’re saying – ow!”

Loki settled in the flames smugly, while his younger self glared at the fire over the minor burn on the back of his right hand.

“Fine, if only for the fact that this might serve me later,” his younger person hissed. “And I thought Thor was the petty one. If any Einherjar come I’m leaving you to the flames.”

Loki waited, patiently, as his younger self divested himself of the shackles and mucked around in the workshop in the next room. His younger self may have been rather less enlightened, but it seemed that Loki’s recollection of his magical abilities was not insofar inaccurate; in no time at all his younger self slinked back into the room, and stretched a hand towards the fireplace expectantly.

Loki stared at the hand and didn’t move.

His younger self rolled his eyes and beckoned once. “Don’t tell me I’ve become cowardly in my old age.

"Very, very carefully, Loki judged the distance and leapt on a tongue of flame. Familiar magic – his own – wrapped around him, and he soon found himself undergoing the extremely disconcerting experience of being held in his own hand.

And then there was a doorway, and a workbench, and a black-haired, pale-skinned body on top of it, a mirror of his younger self save for the bruises and the cuts and the shadows under his younger self’s eyes.

A fistful of flame was nothing to his younger self, of course, and Loki barely had any time for mental preparation before he was slammed into the sternum of the body on the table in a surge of green-tinged magic.

And then he was on fire.

Less literally, this time – he was on fire from pain, the first time he felt anything at all in five long years – nerve endings flaring anew and flashing his vision white-hot and searing.

He screamed. One long, wailing howl that he only realised he could hear when he ran out of breath and had to gulp in another to scream again.

His younger self cursed and slapped a hand over Loki’s lips, but Loki did not care; he was alive, bodied and physically present, and every throb of his heart and breath in his lungs and movement of his limbs was a blessing he could not begin to comprehend.

And his magic.

It coiled around him and within him and at his fingertips, ready and waiting and housed at last, an eager fire waiting for his command.

His eyes snapped open, and he gulped in a breath so sweet in his raw throat he could weep for it.

"Well, that was bracing,” he whispered, and laughed out loud at the sound of his own voice.

“Shhhh!” His younger self had retreated to the door. After a moment, he returned, eyes flashing. “Any more of that and you’ll have the guards on us.”

“Oh, pish,” Loki scoffed. “As if that’d matter. The space stone’s right there.”

“You’re naked,” his younger self said pointedly.

Loki checked.

His younger self was right.

Ah, well. Loki knew it had been a good idea all those centuries ago to put freshening enchantments on his closet. He’d make do with magic, but then again one never knew when one could be magically bound – and then he’d revert to whatever he was wearing before.

A pause, in which his younger self plainly struggled between turning away or watching curiously as Loki pushed himself off the workbench and moved to the find garments for himself.

Once he was suitably clothed Loki rummaged through the cupboards – blithely ignoring his younger self – and found the next most important item on his list – a bottle of aged wine.

The first sip was divine. Really, if Thor was here – wait. No. Loki would most definitely not share this drink with him.

“Ahhh,” he sighed appreciatively, closing his eyes stretching luxuriantly in his favourite squishy armchair, wriggling his bare feet – he hadn’t bothered with shoes – into the carpet. There were things one forgot to appreciate unless one was stuck as a formless flame for an extended period.

“Um,” his younger self said.

Eyes still closed, Loki gestured in the rough direction of the Tesseract. “It’s there. Go.”

“But you–"Loki cracked an eye open. "You know me. You know yourself. There are other ways to walk Yggdrasil.”

His younger self’s voice rings closer, sharper. “But you’re from a possible future? How would you return to your time if–”

“I’ll think of something,” Loki murmured. The fire was warm, comforting. “I have literally all the time I could want.”

New intensity in that younger voice. “But you would leave such a powerful object–”

“Believe it or not,” Loki snapped, straightening abruptly, “I’ve come to find that there are more important things in life than infinity stones. And there are greater sacrifices.”

His younger self froze in place, an arm’s length from him. There was a wild sort of youth to his face that Loki remembered in the mirror from times long ago – the second son, the spare, who had once wished to kill the monster within himself to win their father’s love. Who had almost conquered Midgard for a master he did not want to serve, to avoid another eon of pain.

Loki sighed. When he stood, his younger self edged backwards ��� like a startled animal.

“Our brother is a sentimental sap,” Loki began. “He wears wings on his helmet, doesn’t shave nearly as much as he should, has an over-fondness for drink, has the subtlety of a brick, and yet, despite all our repeated attempts to end his life, is determined to save us. Save you.”

His younger self was carefully avoiding meeting his gaze.

The glass of wine met the table. Loki’s fingers lingered on the stem for a minute, if only to marvel at the coolness of the crystal. “I come from a time where I realised too late that what Thor and I shared was beyond our different blood. He is my brother. When I died, he blamed himself for it.”

“What do you want from me,” his younger self hissed suddenly, eyes narrowed – and suddenly he was the monster that snarled back at Loki so many times in the mirror – bitter and bruised, a capricious thing that only laughed as though in pain.

Loki paused, and considered his next words carefully. “When Thor looks like he needs – and I cannot believe these words are leaving my mouth – when Thor looks like he needs a hug, give one to him.”

“…You’re joking,” younger Loki said flatly.

“Most assuredly not,” Loki returned, grinding his eyes with the heels of his hands. It was most unfair that the return of a physical body meant the return of exhaustion. He suddenly felt drained, like a towel wrung dry and left out to the sun.

“I tried to kill him two hours ago.”

Was it Loki’s imagination, or did his younger self sound ever-so-slightly regretful?

“He’ll forgive you. He always forgives you, the stupid oaf.” Loki moved to the window, and glanced out into the Asgardian sunset. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve just figured out a solution to my dilemma. You’d better make yourself scarce before the guards notice anything off. We’ve been here a while.”

“Wait.”

One magically-booted foot already on the windowsill, Loki turned.

The Tesseract flickered in his younger self’s hands. In the blue light his face looked thin, hollow-cheeked, and younger than his years, but his voice was clear, and knife-sharp. “How do I die?”

Loki watched him steadily.There was no use telling him the truth – that he had given up an infinity stone and pulled as pathetic a weapon as a single dagger on the mad titan Thanos in the vain hope that it would save his brother? That by then they would be bereft of mother and father, and most of Asgard?

“Treasure your family,” he said instead, and slipped over the balcony and into the shadows before his younger self could even call him back.

>The answer to the problem of returning to his timestream was simple, in the end – he took the long path to Midgard, treading pathways hidden in pocket dimensions, bridges spanning Yggdrasil’s branches – and found himself after a few days’ journey standing on the doorstep of 177A Bleecker Street.

He was shown in to The Ancient One, who took one glance at his slick black hair and his sharp-cut coat and smiled secretively.

Loki got to the point rather directly, and with impeccable politeness. “Good afternoon, madam. I require the use of the time stone to return to my time stream, several years in the future. This is, of course, provided that our mutual acquaintances have succeeded in their final task and returned the time stone to you, which I dearly hope is the case – it would be terribly embarrassing to speak to you of mutual acquaintances that aren’t mutual, so to speak.”

It was only after he finished speaking that he realised that might not have been quite as direct as he had hoped. Perhaps his silvertongue was a trifle…unpracticed, after five years of disuse. Hiding a wince, he settled for grinning charmingly instead – charm had always worked for him.

The Ancient One’s smile widened a little further, her blue eyes seeming to pierce right through him, and even as he opened his mouth to speak again the pendant hanging before her shirt opened to reveal an eye with an emerald iris…

And then a grassy field flew up and smashed Loki in the face.

“Ow,” he mumbled into the dirt. The grass was lush and green and poked his face in all the wrong places.

Voices.

The magic surged up within him, and a moment later a common green garden snake slithered where a grown man had been before.

Tongue hissing between his teeth, Loki slithered towards the voices and the tremble of feet on the ground and emerged to find an expanse of water, with a wood lakehouse beside it; and there, gathered at the water’s side, dozens of people in mourning black – both those who had vanished into dust five years ago and those who had survived.

Loki glimpsed Thor’s wild head of blond hair towards the shore itself and his heart leapt into his throat – a strange feeling in the body of a snake – but something about the words spoken and the terrible stillness of the air spoke of grief.

A moment of searching later, he understood.

It would seem that this final war was won with a sacrifice, as well.

Stark was not there – nor the Widow, the crimson-haired woman who had bested him at his own word games.

Every part of Loki’s soul ached to find his brother, and perhaps five years ago he might have barged in without a care for these Midgardians – but these were his brother’s friends.

And Loki, though some part of him still cringed childishly to admit it, loved his brother.

So, he waited.

He had waited and watched for five years, now; he could wait a little longer.

An opportunity presented itself in the early hours of the morning, when the sky had lightened to a deep blue that shone against the fading stars.

Thor stepped out on the porch and down to the lakeside, swinging Stormbreaker casually in his hand as he pulled a sloppy hoodie over jogging sweats. Loki winced internally, because by Bor’s name would they have to work on fashion after this – but he slithered after his brother, in the short grasses by the sand proper.

Loki knew he had been spotted when Thor paused in his lumbering step, and laid aside Stormbreaker.

“Hello, friend snake,” he said, voice soft. “Come to share in the morning air?”

By all rights, Loki should change back right there and then.

He didn’t.

A spark of mischief bloomed in his soul.

Loki edged forward a little, nudged Thor’s boot with his head.

Down came Thor’s battle-calloused hand. Loki slithered onto the warm palm eagerly, glad for the warmth.

“I used to love snakes,” Thor murmured, cradling him gently. “So did my brother. He used to take on the shape of one in a shade exactly like yours, and then stab me when I was caught unawares.” One thumb stroked Loki’s diamond-shaped head as his voice dropped into a rasp. “Can’t say I haven’t longed for that in recent years, dagger and all.”

Well, now, that was just heart-rendingly unfair of Thor.

Loki inhaled once, and released his form.

And suddenly he was standing in his brother’s embrace – his own arms wound around Thor’s (admittedly ample) waist, sable head pillowed on Thor’s shoulder. Not that he minded Thor’s bulk. Hugging Thor like this admittedly felt much better than the brick wall of muscle he was before.

Thor’s intake of breath was a palpable and audible thing, reverberating through Loki’s new form like the shudder of a storm gale.

“Hello, brother,” Loki murmured into Thor’s shoulder. Well, more like mumbled, but he’d be the last to admit that. Having a body was well and all but this was something he’d been longing to do for years. And now suddenly it was actually happening and his new body seemed to decide that it was falling apart.

Thor was shaking, even as his arms suddenly wound tighter in understanding.

“Loki?”

The name was a susurration of broken syllables – hardly daring to hope.

Loki couldn’t help it. He leant back so Thor could see his face and rolled his eyes. “Honestly, Thor, who else would call you brother? I’d have thought you had stone for ears, you stupid oawwwaaargh–”

That last part was courtesy of Thor pulling him in even tighter than before, a hand around him and another at the back of his neck in a warrior’s hold as they used to back when life on Asgard was simple, and unfettered, when they were simply two young princes who would die for one another as they would have their father.

“Don’t ever do that again,” Thor sobbed into Loki’s shoulder, like the big baby he always was. It was honestly rather endearing. “I’d threaten to kill you otherwise but I can’t bear to lose you again.”

“Alright,” Loki whispered. “I promise.”

Thor sniffed, loudly. “Your promises usually don’t mean anything.”

“Probably not,” Loki conceded, and their shared bark of laughter shook through them in unison, folded together as they were. “But I’ll try all the same.”

In the quiet, he had a confession to make.

“Brother, I was always there,” Loki said. “These past five years – every open flame was a vessel for my soul.”

Thor shuddered, at that – a shudder of shame.

“Shh,” Loki murmured. “We’ll work through it together.”

In the east the sun was rising – a glow that spread across the water, the wood of the cabin, painting colour in the soft grey light of morning. Purples and greens, blues and reds; the sable and gold of two heads on each other’s shoulders. Golden warmth that climbed up the shore and illuminated the two figures in brilliance.

At the sudden warmth, Loki raised his head to glance at the horizon. He smiled.

“Look, brother,” he said. “The sun is shining on us again.”

And in the moment before Thor lifted his head, Loki felt him smile.

END

Thanks for reading, everyone! Endgame ended me - Tony especially. Thor’s arc was one of the most beautiful things about this movie, though - how he dealt with grief differently as compared to so many others.

A bunch of links to my masterlist and other things in the replies as tumblr doesn’t like links!

[hearthfirehandworks]

Symbols of Loki?

I’ve  been wanting to offer Loki prayer beads in  my shop for quite a while, but I can’t seem to determine which imagery best symbolizes the god. 

I keep going back and forth between Fire and Fox, but I also keep wondering whether there is a better option that just hasn’t occurred to me. (I love the classic image of Sleipnir but it is so strongly associated with Odin that I would hesitate to use it for Loki). And if there is a generally accepted Loki symbol I haven’t come across it yet.

Anyone have any ideas? It’s really the only thing holding me back from adding it to the shop and I really feel like it should be in there!

[skaldish]

eversarcasticsalem

The association comes from Loki being God of the *hearthfire*, meaning the fire place. Its where people left offerings for him. I don’t understand why myths need to be debunked. Historical accuracy is important but at the end of the day its just gonna be used to invalidate other peoples’ beliefs and that’s bullshit.

The thing is though, nowhere does anything say Loki is the god OF the hearthfire. He's associated with the hearth due to his associations with the home and domestic life; the hearth was once considered the "center" of domestic life and also the best part of the house. In this sense, Loki more closely resembles a nisse than he does a fire god. It's also worth noting that he lived either beside or underneath the hearth, not within it.

Loki's further association with fire is based on a loose and hypothesized connection between Loki and the folkloric figure of the Ash Lad—the archetypal third son who surpasses the wealth and status of his two older brothers because of his cunning mind. He's called "Ash Lad" because he's portrayed as a slacker who sits at the fireplace and stirs the ashes around while his older brothers do the farm work. But while Loki and Ash Lad share archetypal similarities, there's not enough evidence to prove that the Ash Lad derives from Loki, or that the fireplace even plays an important role besides being something the Ash Lad uses to idly amuse himself.

If you want the laundry list of everything people have used to argue Loki's association with fire, here it is:

Richard Wagner's opera The Ring of the Nibelung, in which he confuses Loki with Logi and portrays them as one and the same.

The Article of the Ash Lad that I have mentioned.

The Snaptun Stone, which features Loki's face and was used as a way to heat bellows.

Comparisons with Prometheus.

Comparisons with the Vedic god Agni, based on an false predicate that both derive from the same Proto-Indo-European deity.

Using Loki's role as a hearth spirit as evidence for his role as a fire deity.

I've explained the problems with all of these at some point or another, but the largest is this—nearly all of these arguments come from one person, Dagulf Loptson. I don't trust Loptson as a source because of how strong their bias is towards their own UPG (and yes this is all just to "prove" their UPG) and how flawed their arguments are. Damn near everything in the Lokean community originated with him and his unique impression of Loki, one that I feel is an exception rather than the norm compared to how Loki is otherwise portrayed globally.

I don't believe its healthy to have one person's narrative so strongly influence everyone's impression of a deity. And I won't lie and say there isn't a personal element involved here—Dagulf's work nearly fucked up my own relationship with Loki with how strongly it impressed upon me. If not for my three-years' prior friendship with Loki, my communication with him would have been completely compromised.

NOW WITH ALL THAT BEING SAID. If people experience a fiery association in their work with Loki, they can absolutely have that. I'll never argue with whatever comes between someone and a god. But I will ALWAYS remain outspoken about the fact Loki's not a fire god, because while he's tangentally related to fire, he's not a god of it.

But for some odd reason, this fire god thing keeps coming up, to the point I've seen it diminish the role he actually plays and has always played since his inception—that of a subversive and transgressive trickster. And my question is; why? Does the trickster thing scare people too much? Because like it or not, Loki's a cunning bastard at his core, and you can sooner take the moon out of the sky than take that out of him.

Disambiguation of all sorts is a huge part of my work with Heathenry. Sometimes the things I uncover are disappointing, but I will talk about these things anyway because it's important people know. What people do with the things I say is up to them to decide.

Alright, I gotta admit: I'm confused by why people keep strongly associating Loki with fire. It's something that's been debunked repeatedly but it still seems to persist.

[sarcastic-salem]

I feel like I need to apologize and like I will never stop apologizing because I often fail to take my own advice. Like I fully acknowledge that the Heathen community needs to learn to listen better.

Loki devotees need to learn to listen to Odin devotees and vice versa.

And by Odin devotees I do not mean Folkish Nazis.

More than that, though, we need to learn to listen with kindness and empathy. And I feel like I played this role in popularizing Lokeans being pissed 24/7 and fixating on our own trauma. That's not okay because we are never to going to heal individually or as a community if we are constantly at war with each other.

"Holding onto anger is like swallowing poison: Painful and the only person you're hurting is yourself." -The Dalai Lama

Lokean who staunchly hate all Odin devotees because of Nazi assholes and refuse to hear out the good guys, this is you -- right now, YOU are RAPHAEL HAMATO.

But like....I'm just really sorry for motivating such hatred.

Like Ragnarok is about revolution, but eventually the revolt ends and things change for the better. Loki and Odin are always brothers and friends afterwards.

And I know that there are some Heathens out there that are still hesitant about people worshipping Loki. Look, you don't have to worship Loki. No one is gonna force you, but you definitely have no right telling anyone else who they can or cannot worship. You have no right trying to police someone else's religion.

Heathenry is not an organized religion, okay, and as far as I can tell a lot of the trouble in the community stems from people wanting it to be an organized religion. Like does it not strike you as a red flag that the closest thing our community has to a church happens to be a white supremacist cult?🤨

This whole One True Heathen™️ mindset needs to be abandoned. We do not all need to be recons or pseudo-intellectuals. We do not all need to be viking LARPers that for some deranged reason think that we should be slaughtering goats every holiday instead of just going to a butcher or a farmer and asking for like chicken blood or whatever. In fact, we do not all need to be meat eaters. Like as long as they're not pretentious and annoying about it let the vegan Heathens exist.

The only thing we need to agree on is that Nazis don't belong in our community.

"But there's no evi--"

Yes, there is -- Loki has been worshipped for 20 years and from what historians have been turning up lately, he was worshipped way before then too.

More importantly than that, I exist. This blog exists. I have two FB accounts full of six years worth of momentos of my worship and an entire friends list full of people who worship Loki Laufeyjarson.

So you're fighting an uphill battle here. Lokeans are not going away cause even if it's recent or newly discovered evidence, the evidence still exists.

And Loki isn't someone to be afraid of.

Like I've been meditating on the myths a lot lately. Particularly the myth of Loki's battle with Logi, the God of fire. Which Loki lost. So why is Loki a fire God?

Because Loki embodies the spirit of the hearthfire or the fireplace or the kitchen or dining room table. The place where we all gather together as families to laugh and drink and tell jokes and stories to our children. That is Loki -- Loki is home and in ancient Scandinavia if you didn't have a fire of some sort in your home, you were dead. Plain and simple🤷🏻‍♀️

That is why Loki was seen as a protector of children and families because he kept them from freezing to death.

So what does Loki losing the battle to Logi symbolize? That's easy -- Logi is wildfire.

The story of Loki vs Logi is a story of what happens when drought arrives and the heat sets fire to a home. The home burns down because we have to be careful with fire -- it can be dangerous. But it's still life-giving. We still have furnaces and fireplaces, don't we?

And we still use fire to cook our food -- in fact if you eat meat you have to use fire to cook our food.

Loki losing that fight to Logi is a tragedy and yeah, fire can be dangerous, but that doesn't mean that Loki is dangerous. All of the Norse myths -- The Eddas anyway -- are a tragedy. Odin literally let his anxiety and OCD and perfectionism drive him insane. It drove him to betray his best friend and brother. How is that not tragic?

Ultimately, The Eddas are a message of how Heathens and humans in general need to be there to love and support each other. To guide each other away from making terrible, irrational decisions like the ones Odin made that had such a horrible impact on his brother and family's life. The Aesir are the original dysfunctional family dramedy.

Loki is the fire and the home that keeps us alive and safe. And he is not a God of chaos. He is a God of family because families are chaotic just like people in general are chaotic.

That is it.

This is my opinion and my interpretation of the Norse Eddas. If this, for any reason, vibes with you then please stop fighting with people. Like you don't have to forgive your abusers or whoever but....I don't know. Try to find peace so that this community can find peace.

[artifactsbeyondtime]

P.4 Last Chance for an interactive meaningful experience with yours truly! Would appreciate some intelligent guests via SKYDIN.COMs chat! 🌟In what I've been sharing up to now I've explained the varying dates for Disting. My message is that you can celebrate it now, taking a note of the energies on these dates. 🌄🔮I OFFER A MAGICAL INTERACTIVE LEARNING EXPERIENCE TODAY! Ask me and learn too (via SKYDIN.COM or DM)! 🔥⚡👽🌟🦋👑🌷 Oimelc has been associated not only with snow and cold, but with healing, with hearthfire, and the singing around it. Some of the Nordic gods honoured during this time are Ullr, Skadi, and Rind – all deep-winter figures. Some people also have honoured Logi - a fire giant - Loki’s first wife Glut along with their daughters Einmyria and Eisa, because of the hearthfires. (Continued in part 5) 🔥⚡👽🌟🦋👑🌷 My Featured Talisman at right is The Ring of Vali, as I called it (also the Galactic Dragon). It's a Locket Ring! Every wearable creation in metal on my site has an incredible story - a fight for life! This Ring has 100s of hand-etched sigils! 🌟I am looking for a quality SPIRITUAL STORE or ART GALLERY to sell my jewelry. I am a rare, tireless entertainer, salesperson and psychic. I have huge social media reach on TikTok & others and can work day and night continuously! I don't even need to eat, but there's one thing I won't do and that's be complacent! If you would like to make a connection happen contact me. If it works out I will pay you! 🌟 . . . . . #imbolc #disting #disir #disablot #freyja #earthgoddess #goddess #witchcraftcrew #witchcraft #spiritualart #runes #odin #paganism #magick #spells #pagan #wicca #heathen #celtic #pagansymbols #wizard #stonehenge #occultsymbols #druid #mythology #occult #norse #greenman #germanic #pagangods https://www.instagram.com/p/CaIbty2uY85/?utm_medium=tumblr

[icyxmischief]

Question! you associate Loki with water (and honestly, your meta on it is spot on) but isnt he also known as a god of fire? How would both work?

//AHHH I love this question!!!! To me that just epitomizes his self-contradictory duality, because both elements suit him well! 

I associate Lokes with water because it’s transitional, but then again, so is fire, for different reasons.  

Water is yielding, resourceful, malleable.  It’s the agent of mirages and illusions, and it’s forever cycling through nature, eternal. Water is change.

Fire is destructive, but within that very destruction comes new life.  Fire also sustains life as a hearthfire, which is specifically the kind of fire with which Loki is associated in Norse mythology (correct me if I’m wrong, practicing Lokeans

Loki is the god of change and transition, so both work associated with him :3 

[hearthfirehandworksshop]

Loki Pocket Prayer Beads: Norse God of Chaos, Change, Transformation

[hearthfirehandworksshop]

Loki Prayer Beads: Norse God of Chaos, Change, Transformation

[sarcastic-salem]

My point was that the title God of the hearthFIRE — which I pointed out in another reply, thanks for completely deflecting is a misnomer. Nisse are animistic deities. Nature and land and house spirits that are and/or were worshipped.

Loki was never not worshipped.

He was only elevated to a different type of Godhood status after he was accepted into the Aesir. Which was probably some type of amendment to pre-existing mythology to avoid a religious war.

And are you really surprised that negative lore about Loki exists, in this era? Everything we know about Loki and Norse Paganism for that matter was originally compiled and translated by 13th century Christian scholars.

The Ash Lad thing likely refers to Loki’s role in the creation myth where he known by the kenning Lodurr. Which is a UPG that was theorized by Ursula Dronke that scholars now believe was likely true. And like I said, I’m not surprised people have negative things to say about Loki and the rest of the Ash Lad thing probably refers to how Loki was a popular animistic deity that rose quietly to Godhood in what we can assume was mostly likely modern day Denmark while the Germanics were worshipping Odin and Thor prior to the Migration Period. I mean, he IS the God of the household and the God of stories, and there is no shortage of Odinists who will claim that Loki didn’t exactly do the heavy lifting in the Eddas.

Who better to sit around the fireplace telling stories and playing with children while Odin is off wandering around spying on people in his quest for knowledge and Thor is defending Midgard? Apparently, someone was unhappy that his cult grew.

And I’m not sure what “all of this” encompasses but here’s an article on Loki as a hearth God not by Dagulf Loptson.

Alright, I gotta admit: I'm confused by why people keep strongly associating Loki with fire. It's something that's been debunked repeatedly but it still seems to persist.