A/N: I don't own Marvel.

Loki was - surprised.

Not surprised that he was dead, that was the kind of possibility that couldn't help but be planned for when you went up against Thanos and an infinity stone with nothing but your third best knife and a trifling attempt at deception, but surprised by his surroundings.

There was a great door arched in front of him. An open one. Beyond it stretched a seemingly endless table, loaded down with so much food that even the strongest beams must surely groan and surrounded by a horde of laughing, boasting, cheerfully brawling people.

He - recognized some of them. Some that he had thought to never see again save in painfully drawn illusions or the accusing dreams that came when he dared to sleep.

Surely this was Valhalla.

He had come to Valhalla?

That a frost giant might come he could accept, for he had at last begun to accept that in himself, and besides, he was, however begrudgingly, Odin's son as well, and he could well believe exceptions might be made at the request of the late king of Asgard.

That Odin would make such a request . . . Well. Mother might have persuaded him into it. He could believe that of her.

So a frost giant, yes.

But him?

Unless, of course, this was just a cleverly disguised torment. Yes, that was more sensible. He would walk in and find there was no place left for him -

Yet there one was. There were few seats left at the table, but seats there were, and one was surrounded by all his favorites and bore a suspicious resemblance to the chair that had once been his place at the high table at Asgard's feast.

So there was a place, but perhaps he could not pass through the door. Always striving, never obtaining -

He put his hand hesitantly over the threshold. Touched the other side of the door.

He could pass through.

Mother looked up from her own honored place and smiled straight at him. His last, lingering fear of being invisible and forgotten drifted away.

He could take his place. He could step forward and be seen. His deeds of honor could be read from the scrolls, and he could watch as all of Asgard's honored dead raised a toast to him.

Not all his deeds had been honorable, true, but then that was true of Odin as well, was it not? It was a warrior's lot to have blood they should not have shed mingled with that of monsters' on their hands.

He had striven and obtained at last.

Except.

Except he had done that before. He had successfully become king. He had striven and obtained -

And it had all turned to so much ash in his grasp. It had not been what he'd wanted after all.

He had wanted Thor to stop, to admit the truth, to leave him be, and then when he'd finally had it -

That had not been what he'd wanted either.

Slowly, he withdrew his hand from the door.

This was not what he wanted.

He had returned from the void between worlds. He had clawed his way from prisoner to king. Surely he could do the impossible once more?

He wavered in the doorway. There was a warmth coming from the room beyond that he had not felt in an age. And returning from the dead again would be tiresomely predictable, would it not? Perhaps, just this once, he should shock everyone by following the prescribed path. He could sit down. Embrace his mother. Join the feast.

But he had made Thor a promise.

I assure you, brother, the sun shall shine on us again.

Not that Thor trusted him to keep it, he was sure. Loki Liesmith's promises were not worth the air they took to speak.

So to keep it, then, would be . . . highly unexpected. Unforeseen. Unpredictable, even.

(And if he was worried about Thor, left nearly alone, facing Thanos with the broken fragments of a kingdom not even he was strong enough to protect, well. That was no one's business but his own.)

(He had made a promise once, hadn't he? To stand beside Thor when he became king? Loki Liesmith, keeping not one but two promises. Truly, Ragnarok had reshaped the world.)

His mother's smile turned knowing.

Loki drifted back into the shadows.

To his knowledge, no one had ever broken out of the halls of the dead before.

Loki had never been one to object to being first.

A/N: As those of you who follow me might remember, every year in July I hit you with a deluge of short one shots to celebrate my beta's birthday.

July will be here before we know it, and I have a lot to do between now and then. Unfortunately, I have a small problem.

I need 23 stories. I currently have ideas for . . . we'll call it ten, and at least one of those is kind of iffy.

So! I am opening myself up for prompts, and I'll be posting this message about it on every story I post between now and then. There are no guarantees, I'm afraid - Whether or not I take the prompt will be entirely up to whether or not I think my beta would like it and whether I can think I can pull the story off. A few guidelines that should help:

- Any fandom I've written for before is fair game. If I haven't written for it before, you can still ask, but if my beta isn't into whatever fandom it is, it's not going to get written for this. If you would like to check out the kinds of stories my beta's written or favorited to check your fandom against, go check out MegMarch1880.

- The prompt has to have the potential to end happily. My beta loves romance, fluff, humor, and family feels, not stories that end with tissue boxes and pillows getting thrown at the offending author's head. If you want examples of what I've used before, go to archiveofourown where I've compiled the fics I've given for the last two Christmases into two series, "On the Twelfth Day of Christmas" and "Winter Wonderland."

- It needs to be something that can reasonably be covered by a oneshot. I don't have time to write twenty-three novel length fics.

- My usual writing guidelines still apply. I won't be writing slash, smut, or heavily political stuff.

Because I'm doing this because I desperately need ideas, feel free to submit as many as you would like! Submit one. Submit thirteen! Submit more than twenty-three for that matter!

If I do end up using your prompt, I'll credit you in the author's note with my thanks.