Archive of Our Own

“If I cannot bend Heaven, I will raise Hell.” ― Vergil, Aeneid VII.312^[1]

--

Jane has never been a believer. She does not see the Virgin Mary in her mashed potatoes or rings of haloed, rainbow light cast around busts of Jesus. Nor does she look for it. She only looks for what is quantifiable, repeatable, testable. Knowable. She is a scientist, in all things. Measured, objective, what she would describe as ‘realistic’. That is, until the Dead Rain.

It comes without warning. There is no swelling floods or tumbling mountains, no more warring kingdoms than there has ever been. For as long as the mythos of a savior has been propagated, those who followed the doctrines of such faiths have feared The End. It seemed to be an almost universal phenomenon: predicting the apocalypse. It becomes a rite of passage for each of these so called faiths to warn against the end of days.

Before the Dead Rain, Jane never once considered the concept of religion to be of any practical use. But when the rains do come, she, like so many others, are forced to reconsider their stance on things like heaven and angels.

--

It is a Tuesday. Just another Tuesday, like all the others that have preceded it. An unbearably hot, mid-September Tuesday in New Mexico. She has been holed up in an abandoned gas station in some backwater town for almost six months.

If things had gone differently, if she’d been more careful about who she trusted, maybe things would have been different. In another life, she might have been tucked safely behind an observation station at the Large Binocular Telescope on Mt. Graham in southeastern Arizona. She might have been days away from being conferred her doctorate, talking to her father on the phone when the first bodies fell.

Instead she is knee deep in data she can’t even hope to keep up with. She has more sensors and output than she knows what to do with.

“I need help,” she insists, leaning in close to the speaker on the handset phone on her desk. Her hair is pulled back from her face by the safety goggles she wears as a headband.

“The department will never approve an assistant, you know that,” the heavily accented voice responds.

“I know!” she snaps, pinching the bridge of her nose and sighing heavily. “I know,” she tries again, hoping her tone falls somewhere between frustrated and resigned. “What about an intern? I could offer some undergrad three science credits.”

“To do what?” Erik asks, and the way his voice pitches an octave up makes her painfully aware of how precarious her position with the university is at present. They’ve already cut 90% of her funding. And if she doesn’t start producing some meaningful results soon, she might as well get used to living in abandoned buildings in the middle of nowhere.

“Collate pages. Organize files. Check the batteries on the remote sensors. I just need help, any kind of help. Just another set of hands. I don’t have enough time to babysit all the instruments and collect data and interpret it. You should see the numbers the barometric sensors are spitting out right now. Either we’re about to have a freak hurricane in the middle of New Mexico or all my machines need recalibrating. Please, Erik. I know it's a lot to ask. But you still have a lot of clout at Culver. For me. Please.” She knows it’s selfish to ask; he's already put his reputation on the line to vouch for her once. Enough to get her this fellowship and her initial funding. But she doesn’t really have another choice.

“Fine,” he finally relents. “I'll ask. But ever since Dr. Banner’s accident the entire department has been under an intense amount of scrutiny.”

“Ugh, thank you Erik. You're the best.” She pushes the goggles off her head and shakes out her hair. “I gotta get going, these reading are making less and less sense the more I futz with the instruments. I'll call you tomor--”

She never gets a chance to finish her sentence. The line drops, and she can’t connect again. But after a few tries, she turns her attention back to her instruments, trying to make sense of the impossible.

What she doesn't know, couldn't have known, is that her instruments are in perfect working order. She is one of only a handful of humans with any advanced knowledge of what is about to come.

--

The first body breaks through the Karmán Line at 9:53 PM local time. Its trajectory is ballistic. Seventeen more are sighted all over the northern hemisphere before the first makes landfall just outside Chicago.

By 10:26 PM, the streaks of white become so dense, the entire sky is lit up like daylight with the fires of burning bodies falling from heaven.

The atmosphere burns and bodies litter the earth like dead leaves in autumn. Millions of them. They fall like rain, like hail, like meteors. It rains for nine days straight. There is no respite, no lull, no shelter from the storm.

It isn't until six hours in that the world goes dark. Even after the rains end, after the world realizes what has come to pass, the lights do not return.

--

“I cast you out!” Loki’s ears ring with his father’s clarion voice, proclaiming his forfeiture in the Court of Heavenly Hosts.

An anger rages inside him at the edict. He pulls taut against his chains, struggling to break free. He carries within him such a flame of righteous indignation that he can scarcely contain it. He fears he will burn himself up with this rancor. “I have only ever loved you!” he screams. Stripped bare of his weapons, armor and finery, he kneels before the Allfather, a shadow of his former self.

“If you loved me as you profess, you would have done as commanded!” his Father roars, slamming his mighty staff with enough force to shatter the marble of his dias. “I commanded you love men, and yet you seek their destruction!”

“You commanded me love them as I love you, and I cannot. I cannot love such a pitiful species more than their creator. I only sought to prove myself to you. To prove the love of my brethren to their father. The only thing we are guilty of is loving you too much. And for that, you would cast us out?” He pulls against the restraints that hold him in place. His wings unfurl high overhead, casting long, dark shadows across the snarling face of his Father.

“You oppose me, even now. You think your silver tongue can spare you this fate?” His Father shakes his head. “No. You question my rule, challenge my law, defy me, and still you think you are owed some dispensation!” There is something dark in his Father’s voice. A pain, an ache that he struggles to name. It is a resignation the likes of which strikes Loki as tragic.

“Please, Father.” His wings flatten down, the perfect sign of piety. He begs his Father with words and his supplicating bow for leniency, for another chance. “Do not forsake me.”

“It is you who has forsaken us, Loki. You have taken up arms against what is mine. Turned your brothers and sisters into traitors, and still your fiction persists.” Storm clouds gather in the sky above. All of Heaven mourns this day. “You are a petty, arrogant child. You deserve worse than banishment, but I grow weary of bloodshed. Too many angels have already been lost to this war.”

“They are animals,” Loki finds himself objecting. But his words are like sap, bitter and cloying in his throat. He already knows his fate is sealed. “Why do you love them so? Why turn your back on us? Have we not loved you well enough?”

“No,” his Father’s nearly chokes on his rebuke. “If you had loved me, you would have obeyed. You have disappointed me.”

“Father,” Loki strains on his knees, trying to crawl his way to his Father’s side. “Clemency.” But he has already seen it in his Father’s eyes. There is no backing out now. This will be the last time Loki ever sees the light of Heaven. The last time he hears his Father’s voice. The last time he will ever be an Angel of Heaven. He already knows what he will be once he is cast out. There is only one path for the Fallen. And he grieves for that which is to come.

His Father rises, and he feels his bonds melt away. He is suspended now, helpless against his Father’s power. He throws his arms wide, beckoning all to listen. “I, Odin, King of the Ten Realms, Allfather Eternal, God of gods, Creator of Light, do hereby banish you, Loki, Favored Son of Heaven. For your crimes against this Holy Realm and the Realm of Men.”

“Is there no hope?” Loki whispers, tears hot against his cheeks, desperate in his remorse.

“There is always hope,” comes the soft voice of a woman. Just a murmur against the back of his mind before his world explodes into a light so blinding it scorches him.

And then he is falling. He falls through space, through time, through creation itself. He falls past worlds and stars and the sickening darkness of empty space. And all the while, he burns.

Oh, he burns, he burns, he burns.

--

Jane wakes with a start. She rips the blackout mask from her face and sits straight up in bed. She hears something.

In the ghastly light of burning bodies that criss-cross the sky, she can just make out a dark silhouette outside the gas station's glass walls. She chose to sleep on a cot inside tonight, given the structural stability of her RV camper.

“Who’s there?” she calls, but hears only the sputtering hum of her gas generator revving up. “Who's there!” she shouts over the mechanical whorl of the engines. She grips the cool metal cylinder of a MagLight flashlight to her chest like a weapon. It's the closest thing she has to protection.

The looting began hours ago, not long before the radio signals had cut out. Satellites went down just before she’d given in and gone to sleep.

There is a thunderous crash that startles her into crying out. All around her, she can feel the ground quake. She's felt an earthquake before. She knows the difference. The closest she’s come to this sensation had been the terrorist attack two years ago in California. And they’d had missiles.

She doesn't need to turn on the lights to see; the sky is so bright she has to shield her eyes. And there, just beyond her door, is a man. He presses a single palm to the glass, leaving an unsettling streak of blood in his wake.

“I have no valuables!” she declares, her voice warbling unconvincingly. “And I'm armed!” she quickly amends, hoping the glare from the reflection of the mirrored glass and shining light will blind him enough to make it believable.

But when he lifts his head to seek the source of the voice, she takes a step back. Even from a distance, she can make out the intensity of his pale eyes.

He is naked, and his skin is blackened and charred in areas. Though, she feels as she watches him, she can almost see the skin of his abdomen and arms knit back together, leaving only dark smudges of dried blood where just moments before she was sure she could see sinew and musculature.

His face is sharp, she thinks. His pointed nose and high cheekbones give the impression of a severity that is disconcerting. He has shoulder-length black hair that clings to his neck, matted and sticky with blood.

But the fact that a naked, burned, angular man is pounding on her door isn't what causes her to retreat. No. That is due solely to the skeleton appendages that seem to sprout from his back. Like the stripped-bare bones of a bird’s wings. They arch high above his head, fluttering in frantic, spastic motions that make Jane think of a hummingbird.

“Please,” he beseeches, his fist bloody against the glass. “Sanctuary,” he pleads.

Jane can see the waist-deep crater he's just crawled out of. She understands, though somewhat abstractly, that bodies are falling from the sky. A storm of the dead falling like stones. But it isn't until she is face to face with one that her sluggish brain really begins to comprehend.

The storm. Her readings. The bodies. His bone-wings.

And all at once, it comes to her.

He's not human.

--

Loki falls. Through the vast expanse of the universe, past stars and planets, through swirling galaxies and amorphous nebulas. He falls endlessly, drifting ever-farther away from home. At first he is filled with a bright rage; a bitter anger that froths inside him, like foam on the tips of breaking waves. He feels it consume him. He can feel it in his blood, in his bones. This anger that erupts from somewhere deep inside him, a place he doesn’t know how to tame or trace.

The fall is endless.

“Please,” Loki begs. He calls into the darkness, into the gaping, yawning void that springs to life inside him. He feels it like a tangible thing. He feels his Grace being carved from his bones. The loss of divinity leaves him hollow.

His wings are the first casualty of the fall. He screams in unending agony as he feels the feathers and flesh being burned away. He has been cut off from Heaven. Like a limb being severed, he finds only darkness and pain where once there had been honey-warm light and the sweet embrace of home.

He tips, head over foot, as he tumbles into the lowest of the six mortal realms. He knows the oppressive heat of its air in his lungs at once.

Earth.

The realm of the beloved. The realm of the unworthy.

At first, in his pain and confusion, he thinks he is alone in his descent. But once his wings have turned to ashes and he is left numb, he realizes the multitude of hosts that follow. But when he calls out to them, reaches for their thoughts, he finds nothing.

There is a resounding silence where their grace should be. Their vessels are empty. All around him, the corpses of those who followed him are burning.

One third of Heaven, dead.

All by his Father’s will. And he, the only survivor, twists and screams in agony.

“Kill me,” he begs. “Let me die!” he bellows into the darkness. Thus is his punishment. Forced to watch as all those who were loyal to him are burned for their sins. “Father!” he cries out. Desperate for mercy. How cruel He was, to love Men so and yet feel no pity for his own children as they burn.

The stillness of the ground rushes up to meet him, eager in its welcome. And Loki finds himself hoping for death. To hit with such ferocity that this meager vessel might explode from the force of it.

For what seems like the hundredth time this day, Loki finds himself denied. While the earth splinters and shatters under the pressure of his landing, he finds himself staunchly intact. And regrettably angelic. Though not what he once was, he is still more than a man. He feels the telltale itch of his wounds closing up. Even as he stumbles to his feet, the burns that cover his body are healing.

He hears a woman call out. Her voice is shaken and full of more fear than he has felt in some time. Drawn to it, to the promise of aid and rest, he crawls from his impact crater towards the bright iridescent light of her mortal soul.

She shines like a beacon in the night. A lighthouse in a storm-tossed harbor. He is desperate to seek refuge in her presence. Even after his fall, after being cut off from Heaven, he craves the light. Everything about the world of men is so dark by comparison.

Though the Grace of angels make humanity dull by comparison, her light is like nourishment to him, particularly when he is so wounded.

“Please,” he finds himself asking. “Sanctuary.”

--

Something about him - his voice, his face, his eyes. The way he looks at her through the glass door makes her pause. She still doesn't fully know what's happening. Just that bodies are falling from the heavens and this man at her door appears to be some kind of creature. She should barricade herself in her lab and wait for the authorities.

She should do a lot of things.

But instead, Jane finds herself taking hesitant footsteps towards the locked doors.

“This is crazy,” she mumbles to herself as she flicks the deadbolt counterclockwise 90°. The lock springs open with a sickening clunk.

As soon as she has the door open, she regrets it. The smell of burnt flesh makes her gag. And his large bone wings flap wildly. She is not prepared to handle this. But Jane has never been one for half measures.

“Can you walk?” she asks, holding the door open with her shoulder. She hesitates to offer her hand. But she can see he is unsteady on his feet.

He doesn't answer, but takes a step towards her. Almost immediately he collapses under the weight of his own body. His hand squeaks as it slides down the glass, leaving bloody, smeared finger streaks. “It would appear not,” he answers and Jane has to hold her breath and listen closely to be sure. But she can hear a British accent.

She reaches for his forearm, still holding him upright against the window, but he draws away so suddenly she falters. Her hand hangs in midair, and an unseen terror grips her.

“Don't touch me,” he hisses. But the effort of drawing away seems to have been too much. He abruptly slumps over, losing his balance and flopping face-first into the New Mexico dirt.

“Shit,” she mumbles. This is not how the world was supposed to end. This is not how she pictured civilization descending into chaos. And yet, it is most definitely what's happening. This man, this thing, whatever he is, heralds the end of Jane's life before.

She stares at him, almost as if she can see through him, into the nebulous future. And what she sees there doesn't look good. If she has any hope of surviving, she already knows it won't be alone.

So maybe its self-preservation that makes her come to his aid. Though, if she were being honest with herself, she would know that wasn't it. Helping him is helping herself. But not to gain teamwork in the apocalypse. She wishes to avail herself to the only commodity she has ever known how to trade in. Information.

This being knows something about what's happening. He might know why or how or who. How long will it last? Is it an attack? Where does he come from? Are there more of his kind? What does he want? Why are they sending their dead? All these questions and more, she knows hides away in this being. And if she has any hope of finding them out, she's going to have to help him now.

--

There is a light. It starts as a spark. A flame that flickers to life. Amber and warm and growing. As it expands, the darkness recedes. There are stars in the dark. Twinkling and brilliant in the distance. They shine like diamonds, like specks of light caught in the dark, dew drops on spider webs, forming constellations she doesn't know the name of.

And then the dark is replaced entirely by a brilliant, gleaming city. It's made of light. Golden rays that bathe her in a warmth she has never known. And there is such peace, such joy that Jane falls to her knees.

Wings sprout from her back; dusty brown, like her hair. They pull wide, exposing the soft down feather of the underside in a pose that she instantly knows means trust. It's a strange sensation, to feel her hands pressed against the warm street and yet another set of hands raised high above her head.

“You are loved,” a voice tells her. And it rumbles so deeply inside her, she feels as if it emanates from within her. “You are cherished,” he says and Jane weeps. Never has she felt so happy. She has never known joy like this. Love like this. Pure and undiluted by humanity.

Then the light is gone, replaced by darkness. And Jane is left so cold, so empty, that she shakes. There is nothing she has ever desired more than to return to the light.

--

Jane wakes up to the blinding light of the blazing sky. Her mouth is dry and her muscles ache. She doesn't know how long she's been unconscious, or what time it is. But she feels as if a lifetime has passed in the interim.

She doesn't question her dream, which she knows instinctually is not a dream.

“Foolish girl,” the honeyed voice from her vision mutters. But it is not the same, joyful tone of love that she remembers. He speaks to her now so full of scorn and resentment she wonders at how it could be the same. But she knows it is. How, she's not sure.

“I shouldn't have touched you,” she guesses, trying to sit up and finds herself dizzy from even that small effort.

“No,” he answers and shakes his head.

“You're an angel,” she says and watches the way his eyes shift from gold to green to blue like the swirling of the Northern lights.

“I was,” he answers and it's only then that she realizes they're inside. He must have brought her in. Though he was looking pretty bad the last time she saw him.

“What are you now?” She wishes she’d paid more attention to the guy with the megaphone that used to preach fire and brimstone outside the science hall at Culver.

“Fallen,” he answers.

--

Her eyes are bright with inquiry and Loki finds a dull sort of dispassion at her interest. What good do answers serve, when there is no solution?

“Am I an angel now too?”

Despite himself, he laughs. The arrogance of this mortal astounds him. How his Father ever thought him vain is beyond him. “No, you are human.”

“But I had wings,” she protests, reaching one of her slender hands over her shoulder, feeling for the appendages that do not exist. Not for her. Not in this realm.

“An echo only,” he assures her. “In my reduced state, my grace sought the nourishment of your soul.”

“Nourishment?” she asks and Loki finds his patience wearing thin.

“The fall was draining. I required aid. Your mortal soul, as paltry as it is, was readily available. Though I did warn you, did I not?” he accuses and takes small pleasure in watching her swell her chest with petty pride.

“How was I supposed to know this would happen? Whatever this is,” she amends and he can see now, the source of her curiosity.

“We are bound. My grace to your soul. Inexorably. An unavoidable consequence of your carelessness.”

--

Jane shakes her head. None of this makes any kind of sense. “We're bound. Because I touched you. What does that mean? Bound how?”

“One cannot exist without the other,” he answers cryptically. And, for now, at least, she thinks it will have to do.

“Why did you fall?” she asks, instead of the million other questions she wants to ask.

“You already know,” he tells her softly and at once she sees it.

An army of angels, clashing together. A civil war. And there he was, no longer naked, but wearing golden armor and distinguishable from the millions of other angles around him only by the alarming black of his wings. Where all others were white, his wings were as black as night. Like a shadow against the sky.

“You rebelled,” she answers her own question. But more than knowing, she feels it. She feels his loss, his shame, his desperation so acutely, she grips at her chest. Afraid that the pain she feels is so sharp it must only be possible by the shedding of blood. But her hands come away dry and she is almost sorry for it. She doesn't know how to stop a pain that has no physical source.

“You mourn,” he observes and Jane finally realizes what ‘bound’ really means.

“Yes,” she concedes. She already knows there can be no secrets in a situation like theirs.

--

“Can it be undone?” she asks softly and it calls to mind something he can't quite place. It brings with it a sense of unexpected calm.

“Only through an act of God.”

“Up until a few hours ago, I didn't even believe in God,” she confesses and the iridescent rage he feels is suffocating.

“Why He favors your kind, I will never know. I have loved him for eons, served him faithfully, dutifully. And yet, he dotes on men. Frail, petulant, ignorant men. So presumptuous they do not even believe in the Allfather, let alone love Him. You are pathetic, momentary, greedy little creatures the universe would have been better off without!”

--

Jane struggles to breathe around the lump that’s formed in her throat. Guilt and shame and fear all coalesces into a peach pit of despair, lodged in her esophagus. “Please,” she whispers, trying to swallow back the hate she feels coming off him in waves.

And then his hands are on her arms, steadying her. There is a distress in his eyes she tries to ignore. Just as she is bound to his hate, he is bound to her fear, her mortality. And by the looks of it, he is terrified at the reality of her fragility.

--

Loki feels the panic spring to life inside himself. A reflection of this feeble woman’s fear that worms its way into the heart of him. And the pain he feels, the shock of hysteria chills him to the core. He acts on instinct alone. To comfort her, to quell the frenzy that threatens to topple him.

He touches her with a gentleness borne of desperation. How his Father must be triumphant now, to see Loki so cowed. Bound to the very thing he sought to destroy. It’s a mockery of his campaign that he should not be so preoccupied with keeping this one mortal alive when only hours ago he waged war to destroy their kind.

“It would seem He is not without a sense of humor.” Dark and twisted as it is, there is still something of his Father in him.

--

Jane pulls away from his touch once she feels she is able. And the relief they both feel at the retreat is palpable. “What do we do now?” she asks. She has only ever known how to look forward; it is little wonder now that the same trait that got her through her parents’ deaths, her undergrad, her humiliation is the same trait that will see her through the Angel Apocalypse.

“Cooperation,” he suggests and she tastes the bitter resentment of it.

“I need you, you don't need me.” She shakes her head because she is sure that is what she felt in her vision. A tether, a string, something that tied her to another plane. But there was no connection to home, to humanity. She is reliant on him, not the other way around.

“You are a means to an end,” he answers and she struggles to decipher his meaning.

“You think you can still go back?”

“‘There is always hope,’” he quotes and Jane feels the weight of his words across their bond. “I believe He is testing me.”

“For how long?” she wonders, and turns her eyes away from his. She wishes he would put something on.

“As long as it takes,” he answers flippantly and she feels the world tilt beneath her.

In just a matter of hours, all that she knows, all that she believes has been changed.

--

It starts as a fragile thing, their truce. She offers him clothes and he accepts. Though he forgoes the shirt, by looking at his burnt wings, she understands why.

She sleeps through 16 hours of falling angels and wakes to find him standing guard. She offers him food, a sad pop tart that she knows barely counts. He declines, and she can feel through their connection the instant he really comprehends her mortality.

He watches her eat; all the while, she tastes a bitterness under the artificial sweet of the breakfast pastry.

They outlast the bodies. Jane spends the days gathering supplies, bottling water, rationing food, transferring the contents of her RV into the gas station. She doesn’t know how long it will last, and when she asks, the bright flare of anger she feels is enough to end that line of inquiry.

They aren’t just bodies, she knows. The same way he knows he mourns for them, she also knows they were his. His followers? His siblings? The distinction for him seems to shift.

For the most part, he keeps his distance. Keeps his lonely vigil at the wall of glass windows that radiate light and heat from the burning sky. How many of them are there, she wonders?

He only speaks to her when she asks a question. And then, it is usually short and unhelpful. So much for trading in information, she thinks.

After four days of constant light, she feels a little like she’s going insane. She hasn’t slept since that first night. Maybe it’s the connection, his vigilance keeping her up. Or maybe it’s the fact that the world is ending. In every direction she looks out her windows; she sees fire, smoke, bodies. They litter the earth. Cities burn. Crops burn. Water evaporates; the world is on fire.

--

He feels her restlessness, like a clawing thing. She spends her time making piles. Piles of clothing and cloth. Piles of packages that crinkle and cans that burst. Her meager supply of food dwindles in alarming speed. Her water well has run dry, and through the passage of time he feels her anxiety gnawing away at him.

“When will it end?” she asks herself, alone in the vast room. He knows she does not speak to him; her thoughts are dull and muddled from lack of rest. The light of the fires seem to keep her from sleep. And she is beginning to take on an unpleasant odor.

If only for himself, he moves from his guard. All around her dwelling, the humans seem to be in chaos. They smash into stalls and root in the dirt like the animals they are. They kill each other over petty things. Had he known it was so easy to destroy them, to set them upon each other, he would have done so long ago and left them to their downfall.

Now he finds himself saddled with the sad task of keeping this one woman alive. A task that, day by day, seems more impossible. He feels the exhaustion from her, like a mighty weight that rests on his chest, slowing crushing him. She is withering away before his eyes.

How then is he to prove himself? Surely keeping her alive will do. Even that seems a feat too tiresome to achieve. How long do men live? How long shall he be forced to toil away under the threat of her mortality?

He is unable to mitigate her distress a moment longer. Out of sheer desperation, he leaves his post and picks his way through her piles.

--

Jane can feel the anger coming off him in hot waves. ‘This is it,’ she thinks. ‘He’s going to kill me.’

There is a strange look on his face when he finally looks down at her. She feels the same astringent anger he seems to exude at all times. But underneath that, she feels, what? Pity? Resignation? She’s not sure, and she doesn’t have a lot of time to examine it before he lifts his hand to touch her forehead.

Then there is nothing.

--

She collapses immediately. He leaves her there, in a boneless spiral in the middle of her meager piles. Almost at once, he feels his strength return. He had not realized how draining it was to carry her fear and fatigue.

He knows they cannot continue as they have been. At this rate, she will die before the bodies of his brethren have ceased. No, this will not do.

She requires rest, sustenance, and shelter. All of which are in short supply in the desert he finds himself. What curious creatures men are, to live in such inhospitable places. Surely there were lush forests or temperate coasts she could have selected. Why then did she choose such a barren wasteland to live in?

It has been eons since he was last sent to Earth, but he still remembers the rolling sea of green where he visited. A land surrounded by sea, plentiful with water. It is as good a place as any to live, he thinks.

--

When Jane wakes up she is in the dark, and after so many days of endless light, it’s disorienting. For just a second, she considers that maybe it was just a bad dream. But she already knows it’s not.

“Loki?” she calls, because even though she’s never used it, she’s known his name for some time now. Another side effect of the bond that links them. She dreamt of him again. Cutting a bloody swath through heaven. His black wings like a stain of ink on a white canvas. She flies with him, a warrior at his side, her tawny wings catching the amber light that seems almost alive, letting it carry her. She feels strange, like she’s left part of herself behind when she does wake up. Like she’s moving backwards. She mourns the loss of her wings, and she can’t understand how her life has turned into this.

No more than a week ago she was a scientist. A fringe scientist obsessed with other dimensions, but a scientist nonetheless. And for the first time since he fell, something dawns on her. Where did he come from? Surely angels weren’t just hanging around space, waiting to fall. They had to come from somewhere. They traveled from another world. But maybe it’s more than that. Not just aliens. But interdimensional creatures.

Everything she’s worked for her entire adult life, and it’s standing at the foot of her bed, looking sour.

“Where do you come from?” she asks, unable to keep the revelation to herself. Even if she can’t publish, even if she will never be able to prove it, it doesn’t matter. Because she’d been right.

“Heaven,” he answers dutifully, and Jane feels like clawing her own eyes out in frustration.

“Okay, I get that you’re, like, the master of being laconic, but I really need you to work with me, okay? Where is heaven? It’s not Mars, or the moon. It’s a different dimension, right?” Her head on her sleeve, she almost begs him to indulge her. Just this one thing.

“Realm,” he says finally, looking eternally displeased to have to even say that much.

And suddenly Jane finds herself accosted with knowledge she didn’t have before. It’s such a strange sensation, remembering something she doesn’t know. But he seems to prefer communication through their link rather than with words. And given the few glimpses she’s had of his time there, mostly when she was unconscious, that seems to stem from the fact that in Heaven they ‘spoke’ through the sharing of thoughts. It was only on rare and mostly shameful occasions did they use the physical manifestation of thought.

In a flood of images and his dulcet voice in her head, she learns about the ten realms. Ten! Her hands shake as she runs a hand through her hair. “The realm eternal?” she says, already knowing he understands. The sharp pinprick of pain that she feels in her chest is not her own grief. “I was right.”

“It would appear,” he concedes, his skeletal wings fluttering, and she’s sad that he’s lost his feathers. They were so beautiful in her dreams. She reaches over her shoulder, just to make sure her wings are gone. It’s silly, to miss something she never had. But she suspects the sensation of loss does not only come from her lack of wings when she wakes up. Looking at the sad state of his, she thinks it might be coming from him too.

--

He would not admit it, even to himself, but when she does finally wake, Loki finds himself relieved. She’d slept so long he feared he may have unintentionally harmed her. But she wakes with the same reckless enthusiasm for what she perceives to be knowledge as that first night they met. And as always, he indulges her interest, though it will do no good to know the ‘how’ of a thing if there is no hope to change the ‘why’.

--

She’s not really sure where she is anymore, but she knows it’s not New Mexico the instant she leaves the tiny hut he’s taken her to. The lights from the falling bodies have begun to decrease in their intensity. And as she looks up to the sky, she can see bits of black peeking through the fires of them burning up in the atmosphere.

Unlike New Mexico, the place she’s at now is cold. In the false illumination she sees rolling hills of grass in all directions except the cliff to her left. Beneath it, she can hear waves breaking against stone. Also, unlike New Mexico, the ground around them is not littered with the smoldering remains of angels.

She assumes that their relocation is his doing. If he is able to move between realms, then whatever method he uses to travel would probably make it possible for him to move from place to place in this realm. What must it be like, to perceive time and space as just another axis rather than an insurmountable truth? She wants to ask him how he does it, what method he uses to travel, but she has a feeling she already knows the answer.

Whatever his ‘grace’ is, it seems to be the source of most of his alienation. Perhaps it is an electromagnetic field unique to his kind. And with the correct application of pressure, he is able to manipulate it to achieve what, until a week ago, she’d thought was improbable. Not impossible, considering what she’d been studying, just infinitely unlikely.

Right now, though, she’s more concerned with where she is rather than what he is.

--

She is a strange mortal. She seems to know more of the world than most of the pathetic creatures that inhabit this rock. Though, she has such strange names for everything. ‘Dimension’ for ‘Realm’ and ‘Science’ for ‘Faith’ and ‘Theory of Everything’ for ‘God’s Will’. She dances around the divine in both work and thought, but is careful never to name Him.

He is tempted to ask, but he dislikes conversing with her. So often her thoughts are disharmonious with the words she uses. He much prefers to communicate through their bond. An unanticipated benefit to their unfortunate circumstance.

She is most vexed to find that he has moved them from her dusty tomb in the wastes to the lush land he recalled from his brief tenure inhabiting this realm. A strange fixation with names, again, from what he can gather from her inarticulate protestations and the dark swirl of her thoughts. She seems to take great offense at being moved beyond the invisible boundaries that demarcate where the names of places change.

“Is it not all the realm of men?” he asks, just as she is preparing to launch into what he can only imagine will be another fruitless effort to convince him that ‘New Mexico’ is somehow preferable or unique or vital.

“Yes, but not all of it is my home!” she declares loudly and with more defiance than he has seen her display. That, and with the newfound knowledge that she only considers certain areas of this realm as her home, Loki is forced to reconsider his prior actions.

“I apologize,” he offers in all true penance. “It was not my intention to deprive you of home. I only sought your survival, and felt this location was better suited to long-term habitation.” As always, her eyes watch his wings with more attention than he feels is warranted. He understands her fascination with them, as she has none, but the way her eyes seem to be drawn to them at all times is unnerving.

“You didn’t even ask,” she pouts and whatever remorse he might have felt wears thin.

“You were in no state to be consulted. You had not slept in some time, and you were on the verge of collapse,” he snaps. “I am not protecting you out of some misplaced affection. You are--”

“A means to an end,” she interrupts. “Yes, I know.” Her tone is scornful, dripping with disdain.

“Then you should know your place!” he roars. What is left of his wings spread wide, towering overhead. And it is only right that she look terrified in the face of his wrath. “You are alive, and shall remain so, at my whim alone.” He crowds into her personal space and is gratified to see her wither in fear. “I may have been exiled to the realm of mortals, but I am no powerless cur! You would do well to remember that,” he spits, “the next time you challenge me.”

Tears spring to her eyes and through their bond he feels her pain. There is such sorrow, such anger, and now a noxious mix of fear that he retreats. As if distance could dull the agony she feels, the distress his words uproot in her. She takes a breath and turns away, something he knows to mean supplication for her kind. When she does speak again, because he already knows she will, her voice is soft. And he struggles to comprehend the paths her emotions take from one extreme to another. She seems, to him, to exist in a near constant state of turmoil. “I wasn’t challenging you,” she whispers, her fingers tangling in the hem of her garment. “I just want to be treated with respect.”

“You earn respect, it is not given.” With that he vanishes from view. She will still feel his ire, but he feels it best that she not see it. From his concealed place, outside of her visual perception, he is free to study the strange creature she is.

She is such a common thing. All skin and bones. No touch of the divine. There is nothing singular about her, and yet, he cannot reconcile what she is with the intensity with which her soul shines. That first night, when he was wounded and weak and saw the light of it in the darkness, he assumed that it was only luminous compared to dark void of this realm. But he has come to see it for what it is: beautiful in its own right. And little by little, she seems to shine just that much brighter, if such a thing is even possible.

She cries now, assuming she is alone. But even muddied by her pain, the radiance of her soul is warm against his grace. The nearer he is to her, the more he is aware of how they entwine. Like rays of the sun mixing with its own reflection, the distinction of her soul and his grace blur along the edges. And he fears the longer they remain linked, the more their unnatural amalgamation will spread.

--

The next few months pass in a blur as Jane learns how to live with an angel. She finds that he does sleep, but only when she’s asleep. And even then, only for a few minutes at most. She feels the fatigue of the strain rest heavy on her shoulders. He never eats, but he seems to know about the act. The day after she’d woken up here (she was still figuring out the ‘where’), she emerged from the small, one-room hut to find an entire garden in full bloom. It was full of vegetables and herbs, all of which Jane didn’t have the first clue how to go about preparing.

But she learns quickly. That has always been one of her strongest skills: adaptation.

She learned to be an orphan at 16. She learned to be a pariah at 23. And she would learn to be a vegetarian at 27.

Everything she prepared was bland and unseasoned, but she would rather die than ask him to get her some salt.

Ever since their last disastrous encounter, she’d done her best to make herself as scarce as possible. Not that it mattered; he seemed to disappear most of the time anyway. He was still close by, she knew, but out of sight. And that was fine with her.

After the skies finally cleared up, she grew more familiar with her tiny world. She learned how to wash up in the ocean and scrub her one pair of clothes. Though that had only lasted about three weeks before she got so fed up with wearing the same pair of jeans she’d sent him a mental barrage of ‘clothes!’. She woke up the next day to find an entire new room on their house that contained every piece of clothing from her RV. He must have gone back for it.

She wanted to ask him what it was like. What was left. But his apathy for humans was one of the things she hated most. So to avoid it, she decided not to bother. She settled for sobbing into her clothes until she eventually passed out.

And so, they proceeded. When she needed something, she would shower him with images of what she wanted. Their house grew, one room at a time, as she asked for more things. Parts to build a rudimentary telescope, pots and pans, plates, soap, an entire pantry full of things that would not last. And books. So many books. Her library was now the largest room in the house, spread like an organic thing over the rolling hills of Northern England, because she was finally able to figure it out once she could see the stars.

Her books started out as strictly utilitarian tools. She doesn’t know how he decided which ‘survivalist cook books’ to bring her, but his knowledge of Earth seems to extend far beyond what she’d first expected. After a while, she just sort of assumes that he’s reading the same books she is. Albeit, a lot faster. But soon her quest for reading materials turn to more impractical needs. Fiction and nonfiction alike. She craves stories about life before. And he brings them by the armful. She wonders sometimes where he gets them; who is she depriving of these books? Is there anyone else left alive? She assumes there must be. But she can't quite bring herself to ask.

Though the results are the same, she is surviving. And they find a way to live together. Her days are long and full of silence, but her dreams at night are so vivid she often goes to sleep when the sun sets. Of course that means she wakes up in the middle of the night, then reads some by candlelight before she can get back to sleep.

It's a lonely life, full of cold, rainy weather and hard work. But a life. And she is thankful for that, even if most of the time she feels more like a pet than a person.

Her dreams are different. When she's there, with him, she is one of them. There is no distinction of legitimacy. She is accepted fully. She is revered, loved even. She learns about the ten realms, about Odin, Allfather, King of kings. She learns to love the light, the way even the most mundane acts can be full of such tremendous purpose.

And in return she learns to appreciate the sensations of being surrounded by so much love and peace that she often wakes with tears in her cheeks, gasping for one more glimpse of the light. Because it is like a physical being, capable of conveying such a gentleness and warmth that it reminds her of her of the memories she has of her mother. 

She's not sure if they are his memories, or if he is still connected to that realm, and her by proxy. Either way, she is always sad to leave it when she wakes. She misses her wings. She misses the music on the wind, the caress of light.

He often sits with her at sunrise on the cliff. It is one of their only rituals. No words are spoken, and she knows better than to mention how close she feels to him in her dreams. The way his hands feel against her cheek, his eyes soft and iridescent when he tells her she is beautiful. She doesn't want to ruin the only interaction she has by asking what it means.

But she thinks about it. She thinks about him. About the way he admitted, once, when she was upset and lonely and desperate for solace that her soul was remarkable. She thinks about his beautiful wings, about how they look in her dreams. She watches them carefully over the following months, watches the way they slowly fill in with soft, downy feathers before they grow out to sleek long ones that catch the rising sun like dark mirrors.

In her dreams he lets her touch them, stroke her fingers along the spine of his feathers, ruffle them with affection when he presents them to her. He is so different there, like another person. He smiles, he talks to her. They speak about everything and nothing.

She wages war with him as often as they sit in quiet contemplation. But her favorite dreams by far are the ones where they fly. When there is nothing else to do, no lessons, no agenda. Just the resplendent wind caught in her wings, carrying them through pastel clouds and milky sunsets.

In those dreams, he smiles. And sometimes, just when he reaches the peak of his ascent and tips forward to swing downward, he laughs.

It's in those stolen moments that Jane falls in love. And it's those moments that hurt most when she wakes. When she remembers that she's only human. That she is utterly alone, and that he doesn't even speak to her, much less laugh in front of her.

And it's almost like a betrayal. Why does he torture her like this? What is there to gain from making her fall in love with him? She already knows what he thinks of her. He's made that abundantly clear in their months together.

She is a means to an end.

The key to him getting home. The home she can only see in her dreams. The home she now feels the loss of just as acutely as he does. She worries that he'll notice her crush, but if he does, he never says.

Most days he's content to just let her be. Let her work in the gardens and kitchen. She learns to can and pickle and how to collect salt from evaporated ocean water. She keeps herself busy with tasks, chores, plans. But there is an emptiness that is steadily growing inside her. A restlessness that she doesn’t know how to quell. And she finds that an aimless life, just trying to survive, is stifling. Without a purpose, without goals, with the only thing to look forward to is that someday he will leave, she finds that the promise of a future has become a dark shadow, looming over her.

--

Loki grows restless. How long must he keep watch over this mortal before he is allowed to return home? How long must he endure her intrusions on his thoughts? Their link is a tentative thing, a string that ties them to each other. But being the frail thing she is when she sleeps, when her mind wanders the path to his grace with such ease, he struggles to keep her at bay.

Even so, she delves so deeply into the heart of him that she has become a permanent fixture in his memories, in his thoughts of home. And when he takes his occasional rest, his defenses crumble. Leaving them trapped in a cyclical path, leading him ever closer to the light of her soul.

Because she seems to shine so brightly now that he is at a loss as to how he ever thought it inferior to an angel’s grace. Begrudgingly, he finds himself admitting that humans are not as cut-off from the divine as he first assumed. Their souls, those shining effigies that sang like the warm light of Heaven, were unmistakable in their beauty. Only He could be responsible for something so precious. Mortal souls were, perhaps, even more radiant than an angel's grace. If for no other reason than they had so little time with which to illuminate the world around them. Like a star, the death in her shines so brightly, that sometimes he has to look away.^[2]

He, of course, does not share this with her. Not intentionally. But in her dream-state, he has told her of the remarkableness of her soul. Her dark eyes were rich with joy, and there is a passion growing inside her that terrifies him to the core.

Such carnal things, these humans. So attached to physical intimacy. He watches the way she turns inward, pulling herself away from him. He watches as time marches on, and little by little she comes to resent him. There is a darkness growing in her. A pain, an anger he cannot tame.

--

“Leave,” Jane declares loudly one afternoon. She’s lost track of time, but she knows it’s been less than a year since the Dead Rain. The stars are only just beginning to settle back into alignment. Maybe ten months?

“You would be defenseless,” he argues. His voice is flat and dispassionate. So unlike the way he speaks to her in her dreams. And she hates it. She hates the comparison. She hates that his face is the same. She hates that she knows what his grace feels like, the way it touches her.

“There’s no one here!” she insists. In all the time they’d been holed up on this wet, cold rock, she hasn’t seen a single hint of another human.

“Because I keep it that way,” he hisses and Jane stumbles back as if struck.

“You…” She shakes her head, and feels cowardly for the tears that are already falling. “What am I to you? Am I your prisoner?” The thought has occurred to her, but she always felt justified in thinking there was more to it than that. She feels the sour rage build in her gut at the thought, and she’s disappointed in herself for letting her dreams fool her.

“You are--”

“A means to an end!” she interrupts. “Yeah, I got it. But if I wanted to leave right now, would you let me?”

“There is nothing but pestilence and death out there. Can you not see that?” She can feel the desperation coming from him through their connection. He isn’t angry, as she expected he would be. Instead, she feels a fear in him. He’s scared if she dies, he’ll never get home.

“Not everything is about you! I lost everything when you fell.”

“As did I!” he screams, inching closer to her in the hall between her bedroom and the kitchen where she'd cornered him.

“But unlike you, I will never be able to go home. My home doesn’t exist anymore!” she presses her advantage because she’s spent too long being meek. It was unlike her to accept things as they were. Although, she supposes that watching the world burn might have had a bigger impact on her than she could have anticipated. But it ends now. She will not be lead like a sheep to the slaughter. She will not allow him to use her to get what he wants. “And what happens when you leave? Huh? What happens to me? Are you just going to disappear? Leave me to fend for myself in a world you are responsible for destroying? Leave me in the middle of nowhere, alone, and just go home so you can fly around with your buddies?”

“Yes!” he screams, backing her into a wall. And he is so close she can see the swirling colors of his eyes, the lines of his face; she can feel the heat of his body. And she is suddenly hyper aware that this is the closest to physical contact she’s gotten since the fall. “I would happily kill you now if it got me what I wanted.”

“Which is why you will never get home!” she counters, pushing back into his space. And the shock on his face is reward enough.

“What do you mean? How would you know? Has He spoken to you?”

“What?” she asks, momentarily confused about who ‘he’ is. But when she does get it, she laughs. “You think I’m palling around with God behind your back? No, He doesn’t talk to me. But He doesn’t really need to. I’m smart enough to work it out all on my own. If this is some kind of test, if you’re supposed to earn your way back in, then He’s expecting you to change. And you’re the same asshole today as you were when you fell. You think you’re so much better than me, than humans? You’re not. You’re just a jealous, sad, spoiled little boy.”

“Know your place, mortal!”

“And you know yours, Loki! Let’s get one thing straight: without me, you’re never getting home. So you better start treating me with some respect, otherwise you can kiss Heaven goodbye.” She puts her hands on her hips and hopes that the confidence of the pose will leak into her emotions, because she knows full well that he can feel the terror that grips her at picking a fight with a celestial being.

--

Loki vanishes from her perception. A trick he has learned in their intervening time together that she dislikes.

“Oh no!” she declares, her anger spiking dangerously through their connection. “You don’t get to just poof away. I know you’re still here! We’re not done!” she shouts, her face blotching unattractively with a red flush. “I am not your prisoner!” she screams, but still he does not reveal himself. “You owe me!” She is in hysterics now, crying and pounding her fists on the walls. “You owe me,” she whispers in a broken cadence that echoes the alarming flecks of madness that lurk within her.

She will tear herself apart to spite him, of that he is sure.

Avoiding her has done nothing to calm her. And all of the ‘help’ texts he’s encountered on mortals are shameful. They preach physically as a tool in compliance. But he fears the mingling of their light already. He’s sure if he were to touch her again, he would be lost to her. Such is her pull on his grace already.

Instead, he lifts the barrier he placed around their dwelling when they first settled here. There are no other humans close by, but he will not actively stop them from stumbling across her, since the idea of isolation seems to terrify her so.

--

When she wakes up the next morning, the bruises on her hands are gone, and she wants to be mad about it. Those were hers. They were her badges of honor; or stupidity. Badges of humanity at least. And he takes them away, just like he does everything else. But she can’t even bring herself to really be surprised.

She dreamt of him last night, as she always does. But in her dreams he’d touched her bruises and whispered such kind words of remorse. And she thinks, maybe it counts? She’s pretty sure she’s not coming up with these dreams on her own. But it’s different. The way he is with her in that place is like he’s someone else.

--

Loki watches her prepare for the coming day. The care with which she lights a fire and boils water. The way her hands look as they mix the sweet batter she seems to prefer on cold days. He wants to turn from her, leave her to this place as she asked. He knows, of course, where her desire for solitude comes from. He is no stranger to the selfish want all humans are slaves to.

She craves a release she has not found in some time. She grows frustrated and more prone to outbursts of anger the longer it goes. He has felt her release only twice before. When she was so impatient and desperate that he had even considered supplying her with that which she sought, just to keep the itch from deep within her from infecting him.

But she’d seen to it. Found that shock of pleasure amongst the anguish of building pressure. The first time he was gone from her sight, contemplating by the sea. He often went there to think, where he could see the sun’s rays reflected off the water. It was the only place in all this realm where he felt an inkling of the divine.

At the sensation he feels his vessel’s knees go weak. Never has he felt a sensation like it. It's jarring and intrusive and is gone too soon. When he feels the build of it a second time, he settles his mind to better focus.

He feels himself straining through their connection to reach that peak again. It is the same the next day when she finally brings herself to completion. Her thighs quiver and she muffles a cry into the back of her hand. He feels it as she does. Experiences that burst of effervescence that fades soon after.

However, unlike the times before when he'd left her find her release in peace, this time he crowds her room and watches the way she presses into herself. And it almost seems to him to be some sort of magic. With just a slight pressure and motion, she is capable of conjuring such overwhelming pleasure.

He understands better the allure of these creatures. Why there are those among his siblings who have risked wrath and ruin to be nearer to them. He might even understand what his Father had meant when he said they were special.

But then the sensation recedes, buried under endless resentment and anger. And all that he has come to appreciate about her, the brightness of her soul, seems dulled by petulance.

He leaves her to wallow.

--

Jane doesn’t see him for a few weeks after that. But something feels different in her connection, like she can only get a sense of him when she really tries to look for it. Like he’s trying to pull away from her. And strangely, it makes her feel even worse. Now instead of being lonely, but still connected, she feels utterly alone. Even in her dreams, she sits alone on gleaming benches, flexing her wings in the light and wishing he would come to her.

She thinks she understands more about what her dreams are. They aren’t memories exactly. When she sleeps, her mind is drawn to his. And for a brief while, she exists as part of him. She’s in his mind. And sometimes it’s his memories; other times it’s his thoughts or wishes.

She is thinking about her wings and picking green beans when she hears footsteps. But before she can turn around, she feels something collide with her back, pushing her face-first into the dirt.

Whoever it is that’s tackled her seems to be torn between focusing on her or her garden.

“Please,” she begs, “take what you want!” And the irony that the first human she’s encountered is attacking her is not lost on her.

“Take what I want,” he repeats. He has a thick Scottish accent. “Take what I want,” he says again. “Take what I want. Take what I want. Take what I want. Take what I want,” he repeats it over and over again, grabbing handfuls of her garden. Anything that’s in reach and shoveling it in his mouth. But he doesn’t get up; he keeps his knee on the small of her back, her arms pinned with one hand. And Jane realizes this man is going to take more than just her garden.

“Loki!” she screams, both in thought and voice. Then the world goes dark.

--

Loki is gathering more texts. He is loathed to admit it, but he has become quite fond of human literature. Such imaginative creatures they are. Just one of the novelties he’s come to appreciate in his time here.

He feels a spike of fear from her, and immediately leaves the decrepit building. He makes his way as quickly as his wings allow. But they have not fully healed from his fall and his progress is achingly slow when he feels the flood of terror blossom from within her.

“Loki!” she calls to him, and then there is nothing. She is gone from him. He cannot even feel her presence in his mind as he usually does when she sleeps.

“No!” he roars and tears into the physical realm next to her body.

There is another human, dirty and putrid, preparing himself to copulate with her corpse. And there is such a blind rage that takes hold of him he forgets that she was the key to his homecoming. He forgets that he was exiled even. When he looks at the dark, murky light of this creature’s soul trying to worm its way into the fading light of hers, he feels an unrepentant fury ignite inside him. How dare he touch her? How dare he defile her? That which he had grown to love, the brightness of her, the holiness of her. And this thing, this man, has destroyed it.

His attack is uncoordinated and fringes on mania. He has not had occasion to battle since he was cast out. But he remembers well, how to pull his sword from its place beyond perception. He runs him through so easily, he almost regrets killing him so quickly.

But then it is over; the rotten flesh of his body sullies his blade. He watches the light leave his body, until there is nothing but an empty husk, skewered by his sword. And still, he lingers. It is easier to kill than it is to mourn, he finds. For he is terrified to turn his attention to the shell of his companion. Because she was never his prisoner. And as much as he denied it, she grew to be so much more than just a path to redemption.

He cannot bring himself to look upon her dark body. With all the luminous light of her soul faded away. How terrible a thing, how tragic for this realm to lose her light.

“She was so beautiful,” his brother’s voice comes to him. And in his despair, he cannot even bring himself to rejoice.

“Thor,” he greets the favored. “Why did He send me to this place?” he asks, his eyes still trained on the dead thing at his feet.

“To learn,” his brother says, and Loki feels himself buckle from the weight of it. “So that you might know the beauty of this world. We are all His creations.”

“What have I learned?” Loki laments, finally turning to face his brother. His eyes, though, are drawn to her tiny form. She seems even smaller now, in death. She had always shone so brightly, especially in anger, that she seemed larger than she was.

“You tell me,” Thor says.

“Why did her soul shine so brightly?” he asks. It is the only question he wants to know the answer to. Even, he admits, if knowing the reason will not help the loss he feels.

“Did it?” Thor asks, playing the fool. “Or did you just see her for what she was?”

“An angel?” Loki asks, the sudden gnawing suspicion he’d long held bubbling to the surface.

“No, Loki,” he laughs jovially and Loki feels anger twist inside him at being mocked. “She was human. A fine example of one too. He loved her well, this Jane Foster. Tell me, brother, did you?”

“Did I love her?” he asks, bewildered. As if he cannot fathom such a thing.

“Do you not mourn?”

“I do,” he admits. Because there is no shame in it. “She was…” But his thoughts jumble and he finds himself at a loss. Why does he mourn? She was nothing; a human. She was destined to die, just as he was destined to rule.

“All of His children are precious to Him, Loki. They are each special, in their own way. But men are unique among His creations. They are so young, children only. Still learning, still growing. And yet He asks so much of them, in such a short time. Can you imagine? Asking them to love Him when they can never know Him?”

“She admitted herself, she did not love Him,” Loki snarls.

“Did she not? I thought she spent her life in pursuit of finding Heaven. Did you never hear the awe in her voice when she spoke of space, of stars and physics and knowledge? What more could you expect of a child than that? They are young, they are still finding their way to us.”

Loki falls silent, remembering the nights when she would point her contraption at the vast expanse of space and speak so fondly of her ‘science’. He’d mistaken it for idolatry at the time. For her to love something so purely was not possible. Surely her love was flawed; lacking in some way. But now his brother stands before him, informing him that even a mortal woman loved the Allfather more devoutly than he.

And he is ashamed.

“Leave me!” he declares, falling to his knees. The dirt of this realm is soaked with her blood. “There is no way to enter Heaven now; just leave me to this wretched fate!”

“As you wish, brother,” Thor concedes. But before he goes, Loki feels an intense wave of his brother’s grace sweep over him. That you might know, echoing in his thoughts as his brother departs from this realm. Leaving him to mourn and waste away.

--

Jane wakes up, still in her garden. Her head aches, and she can see the body of the man who attacked her with a sword sticking out of his chest. Immediately, she knows whose sword it is. She’s seen it in her dreams a hundred times. To her right, she can see him kneeling, with his back to her. He is weeping.

“Loki?” she asks softly, not wanting to alarm him.

--

“Loki?” she says his name and something shatters inside him.

He turns to face her, terrified to find that it is only in his mind, an illusion borne of desperation. But he can see the blazing radiance of her soul as soon as he turns. And it is so bright, so golden and shimmering that he has to look away.

He crawls to her, half insane with grief and hope. He does not speak, but pulls her to him. He lifts her into his lap and cradles her head to his chest. All around them his grace fuses with her soul. It clings to her as surely as he does.

“Loki, what happened?” she asks and at the sound of his name he feels himself fall into her. All the fear he’s harbored about keeping his grace a careful distance from her soul evaporates. He is elated to simply know that the light of her soul, with its pure luminosity and gentle pull, is not gone from this world. And in his haste, he forgets to fear their connection.

“I was wrong,” he confesses, pressing his cheek to the crown of her head.

“What happened?”

“Do you not know?” His proclivity for thought communication makes this harder than it should be. But to speak it, to give the actions weight, to assign them words, means to acknowledge the consequences. He tries, instead, to show her. But despite feeling the light of her soul enveloping him, he cannot graze her mind with his. She is gone from him. “The bond…” he puzzles at the loss.

“It’s gone?” she guesses, pulling from his embrace. There is blood on her face and it pains him more than he can express with words alone.

“It would seem.”

“But I thought you said--”

“Only an act of God,” he confirms her suspicion.

“Does…” she asks, her voice catching. “Does that mean you’re leaving?”

“No,” he responds before he can think better of it. “I have not been redeemed. Not yet.”

And curiously, she presses her lips to his. It is an act he is familiar with, in concept. But he has never had occasion to display such affection with a mortal. He does not move, for fear of disrupting the balance they seem to have found.

“I’m sorry,” she says when she pulls away. “Did I die?” she asks and there is such sorrow in it that he succumbs to the allure of mortal communication that does not require words. He understands now, without being able to know another’s mind, it is only through touch that he is able to truly extend the will of his grace.

His first touch is hesitant. Just the lightest of fingers over her cheek where her tears have washed the blood away. And there is wonder in this, a novelty he hadn’t thought to look for in this realm. Love, Thor had said.

Did he love her? Would he forsake Heaven for just a few moments more to bask in her soul’s shimmering presence?

Surely this must have been what the Allfather spoke of when he proclaimed men to be cherished. They are such fleeting things, but their soul shone all the brighter for it. He understands now why she always seemed to exist on the verge of emotional collapse. She felt everything so acutely, so intensely, that to him it seemed impossible.

Love.

This thing that grew between them. Without consent. Without intent. It grew like a weed, taking root in the shallows of her soul, in the depths of his grace. It was divine, surely. To love at all was only possible through the benevolence of his Father.

He had not thought, never considered that such a thing could afflict one such as he. But here he sits, bound by the heart in a foreign land, to a woman he could not stop himself from touching. Once he started, just fingers on her face, he could not bring himself to part with her. He presses his lips to hers, as she had done. And in his fervor it feels as if he may devour her.

--

“I have not been redeemed,” he says and she feels her heart break. She doesn’t want him to go, but she is sad for him too. It’s a strange mixture of guilt and joy and sorrow.

She kisses him. If only to stop the swell of despair she feels. And it’s a little like kissing a statue; he is completely immovable. She knows the second her lips connect that it was a bad idea.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “Did I die?” The thought comes to her in a daze. A far away seed planted by someone else. And she finds that she is more concerned with his reaction to her death than actually dying.

It’s hard to be sure without feeling his thoughts, but she feels like he was coming to some great decision. Maybe her dying had been a test for him. Or maybe her dying made him consider her more than an animal. She wasn’t sure. But the way he clings to her makes her heart swell. She misses knowing what he’s feeling, even though it had always been harder for her to guess his emotional state than it had been for him to know hers.

He touches her cheek, and the look on his face almost seems like he is surprised by his own action. And then he's kissing her. Not like before, where he was stone-still. No, now he presses into her, holds her face to him as he takes heated breaths in through his nose and licks along her lips.

And this all is too much. Dying, being touched, held, and kissed. Loki, the body of the man who attacked her… too much.

She pushes him away and stands, wiping the tears away. “I'm sorry, I just need some time.”

“Yes,” he says after a moment of consideration. “Of course.”

--

He feels a pang of regret, for allowing himself to be swayed. For permitting the corruption of her mortality to influence him.

“How am I alive?” she asks. “Did you…?”

“No,” he admits. “My brother,” he tells her and feels ashamed for it. For not being capable of restoring her life when it was he who left her exposed and alone.

“He did it for you?” she asks, and he does not comprehend her meaning. Without her thoughts to guide him, he is lost. The imprecise application of speech aggravates him.

“Yes.”

“To make sure you'll still be able to go home someday?” Her tone belies the sorrow he sees in her eyes.

“No,” he says and takes a step towards her. “To spare me pain,” he explains.

“Pain?” she wonders, and takes a step towards him. As if proximity could pull his thoughts across their now defunct connection.

“Grief,” he explains. “Do mortals not mourn the dead?”

“Only the ones we care about.” Her hand is small and fragile against the bare skin of his arm. And at the touch, he feels a desire well up within him. A carnal urge to press into her.

“You were never my prisoner,” he whispers. It is a reflection of the same thought he's shared with her when they were joined. And he thinks he sees a hint of recognition in her at the sentiment. “We are bound.”

“Not anymore,” she corrects him.

But he is already shaking his head in negation. “Our minds are no longer linked, but my grace still seeks your soul. Even now, we are entwined. No matter the cost, I cannot separate from you. Even to return, I do not know I am capable of existing without the light of your soul.” It's a bitter thing, to admit he is so fallible. But in the wake of losing her, he knows better than to hide the truth of it. There is no benefit in it. Not anymore.

--

Her breath hitches at his words. She didn't think she'd ever actually hear him say something like that. Not outside of her dreams. She wishes they were still linked, so she could feel the truth of it. But the way he looks at her is really the only proof she needs.

“Was it real?” she asks, something like hope caught in her chest.

“What?”

“My dreams,” she clarifies.

“Yes.” His reply is strangled.

--

When she kisses him again there is no hesitance to it. Her hands trail through his hair and down his neck, brushing against the soft feathers of his wings where they sprout from his back.

And then he seizes her. Lifts her effortlessly and together they fall into the soft contours of her bed. He is eager in his pursuit of that bright place he has only ever felt as an echo through her.

She takes gentle charge of his tutelage. He learns the shape of her, the secret places that elicit such sweet noises he can scarcely contain himself. But she is gracious as she guides him inside of her. And there he finds the release he seeks. Buried deep within her, his face pressed against the heated skin of her neck, he cries out with the sensation of it. Like an explosion that radiates up and out, he is sure he loves her then, for showing him the truth of mortality.

That there is pain and sorrow and everything is over too soon. But there is such overwhelming beauty in it. There is divinity in her even now, as she gathers his shaking form in her embrace and whispers words of encouragement. Her soul is as luminous as the sun.

--

“Show me how to please you,” he asks, still trapped between her legs. And it's a little daunting, the thought that she's some sort of ambassador.

“I am pleased,” she says and kisses his head.

“No, the…” He struggles with words; she already knows that. “The release,” he tries to explain.

“An orgasm?” she guesses. “You want to make me come?”

“Yes,” he nods against her breast.

“There's time for that later,” she sighs. “Right now I'm happy to just stay like this.”

“I should not have left you.”

“It's okay,” she shushes him. “You're here now.”

“Would you come with me?”

She tilts his head back to look him in his unnatural eyes. His neck is strained back, exposing the long line of his jaw and the swell of his Adam’s apple. She needs to see his face. “To Heaven?”

“I am sure the Allfather would permit it.”

“Would I have wings?” she wonders.

“As white as snow,” he promises.

“No.” She shakes her head. That's not what she wants. “Brown, like my hair.”

At that he laughs. “Brown then.” He nods in agreement.

“What if you can't go back?”

“Then I will stay, as long as you will have me. As long as there is life in me,” he says passionately.

“Do you think He will let you come back?”

“I do,” he answers confidently. But Jane still isn't sure.

“Your Father,” she says softly, touching a lock of his hair absentmindedly. “He told you to love humanity more than you loved Him.” She can still remember the pain he felt at the edict. The rage he felt at the betrayal of being loved least^[3] among all of His creations.

He sighs and she feels it along the entire length of her body. “And I have done as commanded.”

At first she doesn't understand what he means. She knows he can't love all of humanity more than his Father. The man with a sword through his chest in their garden is proof enough of that. When it does come to her, she feels a flush spread out from her chest along the exposed skin of her body under him.

Her. He loves her.

And it seems inevitable that they should end up like this. Because she admits then that she's in love with him too.

--

Some years later, when they have been welcomed home with open arms and joyous triumph, Loki wonders if he was sent to her or if he found her. He likes to think it's the latter. That the light of her soul shone so brightly that night that even in his agony he was able to aim for the light of it in the dark.

Even without her singular wings to give her away, he could always find her. Even as one among millions, he would know the light of her soul anywhere. And just as it had since his grace first felt the touch of her soul, it calls to him. Beckoning him home.