[ Once, an eternity past, Loki had believed himself capable of immolating thought and desire both. He had seen himself alone and forgotten, a creature whittled to naught but bone and blackened heart. He had reached within himself and found no song, no words worth speaking; he had thought himself meant only as fate's perpetrator of destruction.

Now, again, he'd thought to immolate hatred and malice instead, and thus find perpetuity for the verdant fields, for the children blossomed from his own seed. For Thor.

Because the world will suffer, if Thor falls. Loki has loved him and hated him beyond all others, and still one truth beats singularly in his heart: that no moment of birdsong, no wide open sky of blue, no wine or mead or sweet meltwater can compare to the warmth of Thor's embrace.

Loki's fingers spread, drifting over the curve of Thor's cheekbones, down the slope of his nose; his thumbs brush along the arch of eyebrows, down the strong jut of his chin. ]

Very well. [ he whispers, his voice a ruin of sound; his fingers are tracing the curl of Thor's mouth, restless, fervent. There is sorrow in him: old, quiet sorrow that has stripped the all other emotion from him. He lies as a corpse in Thor's arms, but still he smiles, still his eyes gleam wetly. ] Here I will remain, until winter and summer clasp hands and invoke oblivion's hospitality. I swear it upon the love I bear for you. [ His smile twists; his sorrow is like cold metal at his own throat. ] And so we shall damn all others to fall alongside what we have wrought.