Loki wakes up to a dull, dreary gray sky.

Perhaps he'd be more interested in the colors of the sky, had he not been so caught up on the he wakes up part.

He sits up with a groan and looks around. Is this Hel? These lifeless hills are more of what he'd always pictured Svartalfheim to look like, but he supposes it could be Hel. How should he know? He's never been.

He has half a mind to just sit here until the end of time, but curiosity gets the best of him and he climbs to his feet. He scuffs his boot against the ground, toeing at the grass. He's never pictured there being grass in Hel – even grass as dry and lifeless as this. Scanning the place, he even notes some mostly-dead bushes. There are a great deal of rocks, too; some boulders off in the distance.

This can't be Hel, can it? Shouldn't there have been more of a journey involved in reaching it? Maybe this is where the journey to Hel starts. Although he can't be the only god to have died recently, so the vast emptiness doesn't bode well for him.

What is this place?

He glances at the sky, where he's met with the sight of swirling dark clouds. There must be a storm brewing. He'd do well to find some shelter before it begins.

... If there is shelter in this place.

He sets off on what he assumes is going to be a very long journey to find some sort of cover to wait under. This world is a mess of hills and he doesn't have the energy to climb them all, but what choice does he have, when so much of the world is obstructed from view? He looks around, then sets off toward what seems to be the tallest hill nearby. Maybe it will give him a better view.

It's a bit of a trek, but, after a lot of huffing and puffing, he finally reaches the summit. He peers out at the rest of this barren wasteland. Off in the distance – very far in the distance; he's not even sure he's seeing it right – there's what almost seems to be a Midgardian phone booth. But that can't be right. That would be ridiculous. There is obviously no beaten and broken Midgardian phone booth in Hel, or whatever part of the afterlife he's in now.

He continues scanning the horizon, searching for something, anything, that could help him now. If he can't find anything else, he'll set off toward that thing that definitely is not a phone booth, but he'd like something a little more firm – a cave, perhaps; even a tree, if there is a single tree in this place that's not dead and dried up.

Wait.

What's that?

He squints his eyes, trying to get a better look at the shape off in the distance. Is that...?

It's a person. There is somebody else here; somebody else who has to know what's going on – or, at the very least, somebody with whom he can figure it out with. And if this person isn't as friendly as he'd like to think they are? He'll just kill them and keep moving.

As soon as he leaves this mountain, he's going to lose sight of this person, so he does his best to map out where, roughly, they would meet if the person continues in the same direction. With all the hills in between, it's hard to say for sure, but he picks a direction and heads toward it.

After what feels like far too much walking, he begins to suspect he's already passed the person; that he guessed the angle wrong and didn't even notice. But as he reaches the peak of the next hill, he realizes that's not the case. That figure is walking below, oblivious to his presence, and Loki uses this chance to really take him in.

He's wearing TVA clothing – the jumpsuit that Loki had been thrown in when he'd first arrived, not the very clearly labeled Variant jacket – which is interesting. They're both coming from the TVA. That bodes well, he'd say – the makings of a mutually beneficial partnership, if he can figure out what his next goal is.

He looks a little closer. He looks like a strong man. Even beneath the TVA jumpsuit, it's impossible to miss his muscular physique. His hair is short, a light shade of brown. More interestingly, the hand closest to Loki holds a huge ax, probably half the height of the man who wields, though it's hard to tell as he swings it back and forth with every step. It makes the idea of a fight more daunting. Should this not go well, he'd do better to run. He'll keep that in the back of his mind.

As Loki begins to descend this last hill, he says a loud, "Hello."

The man looks up at him.

And they both freeze.

It's Thor.

He looks different now than he ever did when Loki was alive. He can't remember a time when his brother wore his hair this short. He has an eyepatch over his right eye – there's a story there, he's sure. He looks a bit older, a bit more weary. But he's still so obviously Thor, and Loki doesn't know what to do.

It's Thor who moves first. He throws his weapons – Mjolnir included; it was hidden in his other hand – to the ground and starts running up the hill to meet him. There's not a moment's hesitation before he throws his arms around him, and Loki hugs him right back.

"You're alive," Thor murmurs. "I can't believe you're alive."

Loki's not so sure he is alive, but right now, he doesn't care. All he cares about is that he has his brother back. Maybe things will go better between them this time around.

"I'm so sorry," Thor whispers. "You're not the worst brother. You were never the worst brother."

Loki furrows his brows. "Thank you?" What does that even mean?

They pull apart, and Thor's one remaining eye is filled with tears. Loki desperately wants to ask what happened to the other one, but there are more pressing matters at hand.

"Where are we?" he asks.

Thor shakes his head helplessly. "I don't know," he says. "I've been trying to make sense of that myself."

"How long have you been here?"

Again, Thor shakes his head. "There don't seem to be any days or nights. If I didn't know better, I would almost say time itself doesn't exist here."

Loki takes a few moments to process that, then he groans as reality sets in. "You were pruned by the Time Variance Authority."

Thor gives him a weird look. "You know of the Time Variance Authority?"

"I came from the same place," Loki explains.

Thor eyes him with a frown. "They let you wear that?"

Loki rolls his eyes. "That is a long story that I will explain later." Not that he plans to point out exactly when he changed his attire, but the fact that he was working with the TVA against his will is probably something he'll want to share. "I assume this is where everything goes when the Time Variance Authority is through with it – the TVA trash heap, with Variants like us." That is just wonderful. They are quite literally in the TVA's garbage can. "Is there no magic here, either?"

"There is," Thor says, confused. "Why do you ask?"

Loki gestures to him. "Could you not magic yourself into your armor?"

Thor mouths a silent oh. "I don't think I want to draw that kind of attention to myself. I called Mjolnir and Stormbreaker, and that will be the extent of my magic for now."

"Probably for the best," Loki agrees. At least his own magic is rather subtle. Calling down a bolt of lightning, not so much. He gestures to Thor's ax with his head. "That would be Stormbreaker, I presume?"

Thor lifts up the ax to show him, a smirk on his lips. "The ax that killed Thanos," he says proudly.

Loki balks at him. "You killed Thanos?"

"I did," he says. "After what he did to you, to our people, to–" He cuts himself off. "Do you know what he did?"

"I know that he killed me," Loki says darkly. He remembers the footage. It's as though it's been seared into his brain.

Thor nods solemnly. "He killed you and half of our people, then slaughtered half of all life across the universe with–"

Loki's brows shoot up. "He collected all six Infinity Stones?" He'd assumed that was impossible. He'd only agreed to help him because he was so sure it wouldn't work. Nobody even knew where the Soul Stone was. How did he manage that?

"He did," Thor says. "I couldn't stop him from using them, but I killed him after. I wasn't going to let him live with what he did."

Loki nods slowly. He almost can't believe it. His brother killed the Mad Titan. That hardly sounds possible. But it must be – at least in one timeline. "That was your Nexus event, then? Killing Thanos?"

Thor shakes his head. "No, my Nexus event was that I then took the throne of New Asgard," he says. "I'd lost everything. First Father, then the Warriors Three, then our home, then you and Heimdall and half our people, then half of the universe. As much as I wanted to drown myself in alcohol and wallow in my own self-pity, I knew my duty rested in protecting what Asgardians remained. I was going to build us a new home on Midgard." He sighs. "I guess I wasn't supposed to do that."

Loki frowns. That's ridiculous. At least his own Nexus event was doing something that one could argue was morally wrong. All Thor wanted to do was to be a good person. How is it fair that he got punished for that?

"And you?" Thor asks. "What was your Nexus event?"

Loki sighs. "You and your Avengers were time traveling and left the Tesseract at my feet, yet somehow, I was in the wrong for picking it up. Time travel is allowed, but the Time Keepers draw the line at teleportation, it seems." He rolls his eyes at the memory. It was truly ridiculous. "I don't suppose you know why there were two Tony Starks in the Stark Tower lobby."

Thor furrows his brows. "No, I can't say that I do," he says, confused. "There were two Tony Starks?

"Two too many, I would say," Loki replies. He admires his confidence, but that's about the extent of the man's positive traits.

Thor ignores that comment. "So you're here from the Battle of New York? That just happened to you?"

"'Just' may be overstating it," Loki says, "but yes, that's where the TVA stole me from."

Thor just looks at him for a few moments. "You're awfully non-hostile for a man I nearly fought to the death what seems to you a short while ago."

Loki waves that off. "If you can move past it, so can I." After all that's happened with the TVA, it feels like a lifetime ago. He needs a partner far more than he needs an enemy.

Thor nods once. "I'm glad to hear it," he says. He sticks out a hand. "Friends?"

Loki cocks an eyebrow. "We just hugged, and you need a handshake to solidify our friendship?" Still, he goes along with it, shaking his brother's hand with a nod of agreement.

With that settled, he begins asking the important questions. "I don't suppose you know how big this place is."

Thor shakes his head. "I've yet to discover an end to it. I imagine that if there is an end, it's too far to ever find."

That's what he'd assumed, but hearing it out loud doesn't make it any easier to digest. There'd be no point in looking for Jane, then. If she didn't wake up next to him, then she could quite literally be anywhere. He'll never find her. The best he can do is try to find a way to burn the TVA to the ground in her honor.

"I assume there are other people," Loki adds, a question of sorts.

"There are," Thor says. "I saw a group of people sitting around a bonfire and eating a human leg and decided I wasn't interested in meeting the locals."

Loki huffs. "That's fair," he says. He likely would have done the same. He'll do a lot of things to survive. Cannibalism is not one. He'd rather be eaten than eat somebody else.

"I suppose it could be worth looking for some more experienced beings," Thor adds, "now that I know there are some sane people out here." He gestures to Loki as an example.

Loki raises an eyebrow. "We just finished discussing my actions on Midgard, and you've dubbed me sane?"

"Well, you haven't eaten anybody," Thor says. "I'll take whatever sanity you have as long as you don't eat a person in my presence."

Loki huffs a laugh. "But if I eat a person when I'm not in your presence, that's alright?"

"What I don't know can't hurt me," Thor says simply.

Loki shakes his head to himself, amused. Oh, how he's missed his brother. "What should we do now? You looked as though you had a plan before I found you."

"I was looking for something to eat," Thor says. "Something not human or Aesir."

Or Jotun, Loki wants to add. He is not eating his own kind. He was okay with murdering them all, but eating them would be a bit much.

"What is there to eat, do you know?" Loki asks.

"Animals, mostly," Thor says. "I've found some boar; some cow." He raises Stormbreaker. "Killing them without destroying the meat has proven to be the hardest part."

"With a weapon like that, I'm not surprised," Loki says. He conjures a dagger – the only dagger he has left; he lost his other when he threw it at the Variant. If he'd been thinking straight at the time, he would have grabbed it after. "This may be easier."

Thor cracks a smile. "I was hoping you'd have one of those."

"Always," Loki replies with a grin of his own. He gestures with his knife toward the sky. "It looks like it'll rain soon. Should we find shelter first, then find some food afterward?"

"Oh!" Thor's brows shoot up. "You've never seen the cloud monster! I didn't even think to warn you!"

Loki stares at him. "I've never seen the what?"

"It always looks like there's a storm approaching," Thor tells him. "As far as I've seen, it never happens. But there is a very big, dark cloud that likes to eat things. I've seen it swallow entire vehicles, and it leaves nothing behind. So while there is no reason to fear a rain shower, you should be wary of any unusually big, dark, billowing clouds with dragon faces."

Again, Loki just stares at him.

What is this place?

Thor moves on from that like it's the most normal thing he's ever heard. "I do agree that we should find some shelter before we go to sleep," he says. "Perhaps we should look for that after we eat? Then while one person sleeps, the other stands guard?"

"That sounds like a good idea," Loki replies, though he's a bit too caught up on the whole there's a giant cloud monster that eats things thing to really think much of Thor's words. He'll just assume that he's right. He has more experience down here. He doubtlessly has a somewhat better idea of what's going on. Until he gets his wits about him down here, it's just one big game of follow-the-leader.

~~~

"I still cannot process that we have a sister," Loki says, munching on his lizard dinner as they walk. "Father banished our evil sister to Hel, and never told a soul until moments before she was freed?"

"Mm." Thor nods, but he finishes chewing – eating his own lizard, of course – before he speaks. "It was a very strange situation. In the blink of an eye, the fact that you were alive and sitting on a stolen throne became one of the least-important issues."

"What would have happened if you hadn't returned to Asgard?" Loki asks. "If Father had died before the wizard told us where to find him? Our sister would have stormed the throne room and taken Asgard by force? And nobody would have known who she was? There would have been no warning?"

Thor shrugs. "I suppose not."

"It doesn't sound like a very well-thought-out system, does it?" Loki muses.

"Mm." Thor shakes his head. "I was a bit distracted with all that was happening to really think of it, but no, you're right; Father didn't think it through very well."

"Unless he just didn't care," Loki adds. "He would have been dead. It would no longer have been his problem."

Thor makes a face at that. "I don't think that's the case."

"Either he was an unthinking idiot or a selfish asshole," Loki says. "You can choose whichever title sounds better to you." Personally, he will choose the latter. Odin always did strike him as an intelligent person, but kindness was not his forte.

Thor frowns, but he doesn't argue against it. He must see the same truth Loki does, then: that Odin was far from a perfect man or a perfect king. He wonders how long it took his brother to figure that out.

Changing the subject, Loki asks, "Have you slept here before? How long does it usually take for you to find shelter?"

"It varies," Thor says. "Sometimes it only takes a few minutes; sometimes, I feel as though hours have passed. That's why I tend to start looking before I grow too tired."

Loki nods slowly as he processes that. So they could be hours from finding shelter. His knee is already starting to hurt from when the Variant kicked it, and this walking certainly isn't helping. He'd like the chance to sit down soon. Hopefully shelter isn't too far off.

As if reading his mind, Thor says, "We can take a break whenever you'd like. I don't always walk the whole time – though I do like to take my breaks atop a hill. I've yet to have a problem where that's been necessary, but..."

"You can never be too safe when surrounded by cannibals," Loki agrees. As for the break, "I'm alright for now, but if we don't find shelter soon, I may have to take a seat for a few minutes."

"Of course," Thor says. "There's more to life in this place than just walking and sleeping."

Loki cocks an eyebrow. "Like sitting."

"Like sitting," Thor agrees.

Loki shakes his head to himself. His brother is ridiculous. Sitting is not a luxury. If there is not more to life than walking, sitting, and sleeping, then there is no point in living at all.

He supposes that now is as good a time as any to tell Thor what he's been through. He's heard so much about Thor's life and the pieces of the Sacred Timeline that he never saw. It's time he shared some of his own life.

"I was working with the Time Variance Authority," Loki says casually.

Thor stops walking.

"You were what?"

Loki rolls his eyes. "Not of my own volition." He'd assumed that much was obvious. He gestures for Thor to keep walking, and as they do, he continues, "They were trying to catch a 'dangerous Variant' of myself, and they wanted my help to do it."

"And you helped them?" Thor surmises.

"Technically, yes," he says. "I found the Variant in hopes that we could work together to destroy the TVA. The Variant wasn't interested in my help, so the Time Variance Authority caught them and pruned them."

"And then pruned you," Thor guesses.

Loki nods. "I was promised a meeting with the Time Keepers to discuss my freedom. This..." He gestures to their dull gray surroundings. "This is not what I had meant."

"No, I imagine it was not," Thor says. "I don't think anybody would come here by choice."

"Nor do I," Loki agrees. "Obviously, I'd seen them prune my timeline and I'd known freedom was unlikely, and if I'd known the Variant wouldn't work with me, I likely would have let them prune me to begin with." That's not necessarily true. Mobius had done his damnedest to wear Loki down until he almost had no choice to agree, and with both his and Jane's fates in his hands, he couldn't have refused. But that is a level of detail that Thor does not need to know right now. It's only a segway into his next statement. "I don't plan to give up just because I've been pruned. If there is a way to get back, if there is a way to tear their organization down, I am going to find it. Would you be interested in joining me?"

Thor looks at him for a few moments.

Loki waits.

And waits.

And waits some more.

Just as he's about to speak again, Thor beats him to it.

"What was your goal when you attacked Midgard?"

Loki furrows his brows. "I beg your pardon?"

"It wasn't all too long ago for you," Thor says. "You must remember, as clear as day. What was your goal when you attacked Midgard?"

That does nothing to help his confusion. "Why are you asking this?"

"Because I thought you were smarter than this," Thor says. "You continue to ally yourself with these beings so much larger than yourself – the Time Keepers; the Other; Thanos – as though you stand a chance, as though you think you can win, and you can't."

"Thor..."

"You were never going to outwit Thanos," he says. "You were never going to outwit the TVA. You are not going to win. Why do you keep trying?"

Loki frowns, furring his brows. "I..."

Thor stops walking and gently rests his hand on his brother's shoulder. "You need to stop chasing these ridiculous dreams," he says. "You cannot destroy the most powerful organization in the universe – certainly not from here."

Loki just shakes his head. It's not true. It can't be true. He's going to find a way. He's going to destroy the Time Variance Authority and everybody in it. He's going to free the multiverse so that nobody's timeline is ever ripped from them again. He just... he is. He has to.

Thor rests his forehead against his brother's. "You need to stop this before you get yourself killed," he says quietly. "I've lost you too many times. I can't do it again."

Loki can feel the tears starting to well up, and he closes his eyes before they can fall. He wishes it was that easy. He wishes he could be content to settle down in this lifeless void and be happy with what he has. He wishes he could just drop his grudges and move on like nothing happened. But it's easier said than done.

"This is your life now," Thor says softly. "The sooner you accept that..."

"And if I can't?"

Thor sighs and wraps his arms around him in a hug, but unlike the first one they shared, there's a more solemn air to it. "Just give it time," he murmurs. "Please. I'm not ready to lose you again."

Loki buries his face in the crook of his brother's neck. "Okay," he mumbles. "But if I find a way–"

"If you find a way, you leave it for somebody else," Thor says. "You're here now. You're with me now. Isn't that enough? Isn't it enough to just stay alive?"

Loki swallows hard. "Okay," he whispers. "I understand."

"Good." Thor hugs him even tighter.

Loki bites his lip, squeezing his eyes shut. They've only just reunited, and he's already lying to his brother. Maybe things haven't changed as much as he would have liked them to.