Warning for suicidal thoughts.

Asgard is not a place, it's a people. That's what his father told him. That's what Thor says in a speech to his people. Asgard is not a place, and it never was.

It isn't the royal library, filled with knowledge that may never be regained. It isn't the armory filled with weapons whose might is matched only by their history. It isn't the treasury whose treasures are all now, surely lost.

(Surely Loki would have mentioned it if he'd scavenged something. Surely.)

It isn't the great walls that kept them safe. It isn't the mountains where Thor's grandfather won his war to unite the people. It isn't the catacombs where they keep their honored dead.

(Where his mother lies - )

It isn't the cubby behind the tapestry he'd hid in with Loki to escape their tutors, it isn't the fireplace they gathered around with wide eyes while Mother told them stories, it isn't the training grounds where he met Fandral, Volstagg, Hogun, and Sif, it isn't every inch of ground that he once swore to defend -

(It was a place. Just a place. He has to believe it was just a place.)

Asgard is not a place, it's a people.

But there are fewer of those than there once were.

Thor knows the mighty battles of his people by heart. He knows how they defeated the Dark Elves, how they defeated the Frost Giants, how they have defended the Nine Realms.

(Or he thought he knew. Does he really know anything at all?)

He can sing the songs of their deeds. He fought in some of those battles himself. He knows what the might of Asgard's army is capable of.

Except thanks to Hela, Asgard has no army.

(All his friends were in that army. He does not see them on the ship. Which means - which means - )

(He tells himself they are feasting in Valhalla. Along with Father and Mother, and all those fell to the Dark Elves, and - )

In place of an army, Asgard has Valkyrie, Loki, Heimdall, a collection of former gladiators, and, depending on his mood, Hulk.

And, of course, Thor.

That is what Asgard has. What Asgard is currently, if it is a people and not a place, is a collection of people who are half-armed and wholly frightened, floating in a pleasure ship with no guns and no way out.

This is not an army. This is a massacre waiting to happen.

This is Asgard's last battle, and when it is over, Thor will be the only one left to sing.

(Valkyrie dies defending two girls desperately hunched in the corner. When she falls, the older girl throws herself in front of the next swing of the blade to protect her sister. The little one lays still and shocked, half-hidden under her sister's cooling body, drenched in her sister's blood. She survives Thanos's purge unnoticed. She does not survive the might of the Power Stone as it seems only the king himself can.)

(Thor does not know how to sing of such things.)

He focuses on his grief for his brother because it is familiar and because even now he cannot quite believe Loki gone. Grief for Loki is almost the same feeling as hope.

He focuses on Heimdall because he has lost shield brothers before, and he knows how to survive this.

He focuses on Valkyrie but does not speak of her, because he has some practice in mourning legends, but that practice was with his father, and that grief is still too close.

He can survive those griefs.

(Asgard is not a place, it is a people, but what happens when all of those people are gone? Valhalla, he thinks, with a desperate, forced lightness, must be in a great hurry to find seats of honor for them all.)

(He does not know how to grieve the entirety of his people. He does not know how to face the fact that he is Asgard's last king. That he has failed the Nine Realms, failed Asgard, failed his father.)

(He has failed his little brother, who finally called himself Odin's son. His little brother, who is not quite of Asgard, and who died playing one of his tricks instead of honorable combat. Will they let Loki into Valhalla's halls?)

(If they do not want to, he will make them, he thinks, he will make them let Loki in, he will drag his brother in past the guards or pull a trick worthy of Loki himself, he will see his brother again, he will, he will, HE WILL - )

He is a prince of - He is the king of -

He is Asgard. He will survive these griefs.

He sees the costs of Asgard's failed protection. He volunteers to face the might of a star.

One last mighty deed for Asgard. One last great tale.

And if he dies - If he is called to find Valhalla -

He remembers his mother telling him tales of Ragnarok. He remembers thinking about the last of the warriors to become one of the honored dead and feeling a childish anxiety that they would run out of seats. He would not like to be the last, he had thought then. He wanted to lead the charge and go out in a bright blaze of glory for others to avenge.

But he is called to do the avenging. It is only right. It is the duty he has shouldered. It is the title he has accepted.

So he will avenge his people, and only then will he start to wonder about going to claim his seat.

Thor is not the last. Not yet.

There is Sif, flying desperately through the stars towards a distress signal that it took her far too long to hear. She was banished, but that will not stop her now. She was banished from a place, not a people.

Sif is coming, though Thor does not know it. Asgard is still a people.

And then Thanos snaps his fingers, and a moment later, there is a ship following its last given instructions, hurtling through the stars. There is a new layer of black dust in the air filters on the ship.

Asgard is not a people because people is a plural.

Asgard is a person.

Asgard stands on Earth and thinks of Valhalla and vows his axe will once again taste Thanos's blood before he allows himself to dream of its seats.