Author's note: I couldn't really think of anything particularly meaningful to write at the top here.

*Smiles*

Thor feels lighter as he walks from his chamber to the main hall; he has removed his heavy riding coat in favour of a plain shirt and jacket that remind him of the attire he often wore on Earth. He stops just outside the pair of double doors to wait for his companion and watches other residents trickle through the corridor. Streams of morning light fall through the arched windows along the hallway, enough to illuminate the forming kaleidoscope of different species. It vaguely reminds Thor of when he had elbowed his way through the streets on Sakaar an eternity ago, but more peaceful, like jagged pieces of a jigsaw puzzle fitting together.

"Next time, I've got the far one."

Thor smiles before he turns. Sif looks similarly refreshed from their morning ride, face scrubbed clean for breakfast.

"No doubt." Thor says. "You let me hit that target this time out of courtesy, yes?"

"You know, when you make Stormbreaker alter its trajectory to strike a target, it spoils the fun when we are out for target practice."

"Not as fun as using your horse to jostle mine off path to give you a clear shot?"

"You must have been still asleep." She retorts. "I rely on no foul play. That's your own poor jockeying."

Thor laughs as they enter the main hall. The cream marble ceiling soars overhead to accommodate the sunlight as well as people; dozens of arched windows let the pale light infuse the room like a steeping strainer of dandelion tea. "Well, if my scorekeeping is correct, I believe we still tied this morning."

"I shot more targets this time, I'm afraid – " Sif says archly.

"No, remember those hidden amid the trees. We hit them each at the same times."

"Your axe may have shattered them, but it was my spear that struck the bullseyes – "

Their banter is still as easy as walking, for Thor. He feels a new grin as they see the table where Volstagg, Hogun and Fandral sit, beneath a window through which he can see mountain ranges.

The main hall of Valhalla's citadel is not furnished with the orderly rows of long banquet tables that Thor is familiar with. Burnished tables of various shapes, sizes and heights fill the chamber like mosaic tiles; he imagines that every one is able to find a comfortable seat. Loki told him once that the Hall of Valhalla grows subtly like a living thing according to its number of inhabitants.

At the round table they occupy, a pot of steaming golden tea waits for them as they begin to eat.

When they rode home that dawn from the field they had used for target practice, Thor had wondered at Sif's laughter as they had trained. It was carefree, same as the way she held herself now, as if she had never seen a day's war all her living life. It buoyed his own spirits.

In the stables, he had said impulsively, "This suits you."

"What does?"

"Being in Valhalla."

Her slanting eyebrows had risen. "Being dead, you mean?"

"Being free."

She had smiled with teeth, and not for the first time, Thor had thought how well-suited Sif would have been as a Valkyrie.

"I know I am oft silent," Hogun had interjected after a moment, "but I do prefer you save your special moments for when I am not here."

Because she became suddenly uncomfortable, and Loki was still an easy distraction, Sif had asked, "And how does that brother of yours occupy himself in death?"

"For real, this time," she had added. Thor could sense her eye-roll without looking at her.

He had stroked his mare's silky neck before locking her door. "Hopefully without doing anything stupid, is all I'll say for now."

She had snorted. "Here's to hoping."

"You have no idea."

"How do you see Loki now?" Thor asks Sif. He mops up the dregs of herbed oil from his plate with a hunk of bread studded with seeds. Sif pops a blackberry into her mouth before she answers amid the surrounding chatter from other tables. The Warriors Three had left to pack, having planned a week's journey to discover the outer western regions of Valhalla for themselves.

"It is hard to tell at times," she says. "I think… during our younger years I detested the aura he always had that he was brewing mayhem beneath the surface, almost as much as I detested the chaos when it finally emerged."

A strawberry this time. "Now that we exist in a time after his chaos, I'm more at ease around him knowing he won't be plotting further trickery in this haven. At least, no life-threatening trickery."

"Two nights ago, I entered the banquet chambers for the evening meal and saw him already dining beside Fandral. I automatically made to sit on Fandral's other side although it would have meant squeezing myself between he and another diner while there was an easy space beside Loki. I figured I ought not to bear grudges still in this afterlife and took the free seat."

"And?"

"And then we ate." She says simply. "And not in grim silence. His jokes are still annoying as ever, but now –" she shrugs "– it seems he is just your brother again."

Thor finds this last statement vaguely amusing – as if Loki has just recovered from a disease or delirious fever. "He is Loki."

"Is this question not just of mere curiosity?" Sif looks at him over her empty plate. "Has he squirreled himself away like he used to among the library books and magic artefacts and caused you concern?"

"Rather he has proven more outgoing than ever." Thor flicks a cherry pip on his plate with his fingertip, making a tiny ping as it strikes his mug; the sound feels something like an understatement. The hall is nearly empty, and the assortment of glasses filled with the last inches of different drinks form a strange rainbow glinting across the tables. "We returned from journeying up Valhalla's tallest mountain not a fortnight ago, and already he has made at least two other trips alone to other new places since then. He tells Mother and Father he wishes to explore the other areas of the realm. Now, he is away travelling east."

"What lies east?"

"Lakes. Woodlands. Marshlands." As he lists the landscapes Thor tries to imagine his brother in each, alone and peacefully cloud-watching. Each picture is unconvincing.

When Loki raises his eyebrow, it is a cynical question. Sif uses the expression now – it is a firm statement. "And you don't believe that. So what do you think he's up to?"

"I don't believe he is planning anything in particular." The words taste flawed as he says them and thinks back to the top of the universe.

I wouldn't brand it escape if one intended to return afterwards

So a vacation then

Thor adds, "I think he is just… unsatisfied." Outside the nearest window, the branches of an olive tree cast shadows over the polished floor; they catch Thor's eye when they shift for a second into the shape of curved horns.

Sif frowns. "With Valhalla?"

Together, they stand and stack their plates. Thor responds with another question. "Do you ever go to the seaside?"

He can guess her answer without reading her expression. She is his oldest childhood friend besides Loki, after all.

(And her life had been tiring, and satisfying)

"I've gone for the odd swim on rare occasions." She downs the last mouthful of her tea before turning toward the doors. "But you know I prefer to stick to the shore."

Thor wonders if that had been a bad idea.

He stands just shy of the saltwater, on the strip of sand along the shoreline where it is damp and compact. On the black ocean there are a million shards of moonlight as though a giant has dropped a glass bottle. If he closes his eyes, smelling and listening to only the breeze and brine, he could be standing anywhere else by the sea's side. Maybe on a clifftop in Norway.

But even if it were a bad idea, it is now no longer only an idea – he had already chosen to wade forward once more and let the warm water soak his boots and socks, and mind. Thor could have refrained, and just enjoyed an hour on the moonlit sand before going home to bid goodnight to his friends and parents. Now, he replays behind his eyes the fresh scenes from the lower realms.

"So lovely an evening to be at the beach, isn't it?"

She speaks from the dry sand several feet behind him. The sinking of her heels in the white powder does not diminish her grace in the slightest as she approaches, smiling.

"Very much so," Thor agrees.

His mother stops beside him so the white-lipped tide can only reach hopelessly for her toes. In her silvery dress and the silvery moonlight, Thor thinks she must look like an archangel.

"How was your day?"

Her questions always so genuine – Thor can tell she only wants to know. Even while he is soaking wet from the waist down, obvious to have just been watching the other realms, she asks about the rest of his day.

"It was a good day. Sif and I rode at dawn to the fields beyond those hills behind the Halls and had more target practice. I won, by the way. Father and I spent a long while this afternoon simply walking the courtyards and talking of… many things." Thor knows his smile is rueful. He still finds it funny that he had earlier fancied himself as world-weary as Odin by the time he had entered Valhalla, and then realised how wrong he was while he and his father spoke. "The Warriors Three left to travel west to see more of Valhalla, but say they should return after several days."

"They'll not get through a tenth of it." Frigga says. "It seems this world is ever expanding."

Thor says, "I think Loki said something similar."

"Likely."

Then he wonders if his mother has come here only to look for him, or for other reasons of her own.

"How much of Valhalla have you seen for yourself?" He asks.

"Only and all that I care to see," Frigga replies.

"I'll tell you a secret, Thor." She takes his hand gently in hers, seemingly not minding its semi-dry layer of seasalt. Despite her words and their dark surroundings, everything feels serene. "Sometimes I forget that we're all dead."

Thor peers at her closely. Her clear eyes are not at all upset. "What do you mean?"

"Today I returned to the Halls after visiting the witches' gardens in the north-east. I saw your father, your brother, and now you, and I could ask each of you how your day went just as if we are alive." Frigga smiles at the waves reflected in her eyes. "It's everything I've longed for."

Thor holds their clasped hands over his heart for a moment. "Mother, your secret is safe with me."

"I'm sure it is, Son."

"And I'm overjoyed that you're at peace."

She turns her smile to him. "I think we each deserve a little of that."

"I couldn't agree more." Thor pauses. "Loki's back?"

"Loki's back." It is another voice that replies with a flourish.

They both turn. Loki stands on the powdery sand where Frigga had been a few minutes earlier, filling her footprints. A dark blue travelling cloak with its silver fastenings still swirls around him.

"Glad to see you've freed yourself and your cloak from all those thorns." Frigga's eyes are light with amusement.

"What thorns?" Thor asks before Loki can respond.

"Your brother fell into some brambles on his return trip. Don't tease him." Frigga winks. Thor grins while Loki sighs.

"Thank you, Mother." Loki gives her a dry salute with two fingers.

"Always, Son."

"Always." Thor adds solemnly.

"Shut up, Thor."

Frigga snorts. She supplies to Loki, "Sif bested him in target practice again this morning."

Loki grins while Thor sighs.

"The balancer of the scales as always, Mother." Thor remarks.

She just laughs and brushes a light palm over each of their left cheeks before she disappears.

"How did you manage to fall into a bramble bush?" Thor asks as Loki takes Frigga's place beside him.

"I didn't fall. My horse was startled, and she threw me."

"Oh, of course."

"Sif tells me you can only outdo her when you have Stormbreaker to aim for you."

"We'll call it even for now, alright, Brother?"

"Very well."

It is quiet for a few seconds as they watch the ocean.

"When did you return home?" Thor asks.

"A few hours ago. And then it took half an hour to rid myself of all the damn bramble thorns."

Thor chuckles, softly enough that the corners of his brother's mouth also lift slightly.

"Did Mother come here only to look for you?" Loki's real question remains as a shadow beneath his spoken one.

"I would say so," Thor answers.

"But do you think so?"

"I'd give her the benefit of the doubt," he says. Thor tries not to sound accusatory when he adds, "She says what she has in this afterlife is enough for her."

"Then what a blessing it is that she's satisfied." There is nothing sour about Loki's tone.

After a moment, Thor asks in return: "Are you here only because you were looking for me?"

"I would say so." Loki answers. Thor raises an eyebrow. "Sif said you might be here."

"I see."

"Speaking of seeing," Loki says, "Seen anything interesting?" He gives a pointed glance at the damp dark patches of Thor's trousers and shirt hem, and the beads of saltwater clinging to the leather of Thor's boots.

"I looked upon Midgard. Nothing too unusual." Thor murmurs.

"What's the usual?"

"Wars."

"Any aliens involved?"

"No."

"Well done, Earth." Loki murmurs.

"They've many causes for celebration too," Thor adds defensively.

"Such as?"

"It looked like many nations have advanced in their technologies to better preserve the land and oceans. At least, more and more appear to be flourishing, in both their natural and industrial forms." Thor says. "In harmony."

Loki's eyebrows rise slightly. "I thought you said you saw nothing unusual."

Thor claps a hand on his brother's shoulder. "You're the one who ought to tell me what you've seen lately, off traversing other areas of Valhalla as you've been."

"If I tell you, it'll spoil the surprise for when you explore it yourself."

"Brother, I don't get surprised."

"Lakes. Woodlands. Marshlands." Loki lists. "As I told you before I left."

Thor nods. "At least I'll be easily impressed when I do go. How did you navigate your way?"

"By the stars, suns, and my magic."

"Do you think you ever relied too much on your magic when we were alive? You would be lost without it, literally."

"In the same way you were lost, figuratively, without Mjolnir?"

"Hey, I overpowered our sister even after losing my hammer – "

"No you didn't, Surtur did – "

"After we freed him – "

"I freed him."

"I told you to free him – "

"Fine." Loki rolls his eyes. "There are also some friendly towns along the eastern coastline. Some pretty gardens too." Loki holds out his hand before them and opens it, as though offering something to – or begging from – the night sky. "Also picked this up on the sand back there when I got here." He gestures with his other hand vaguely over his shoulder. A pearl sits in the palm of his hand like a full moon.

"Pretty." Thor remarks.

"Common." Loki counters in a tone between boredom and disgust. Nonetheless, he lets Thor pluck the tiny sphere from his palm. It is warm from being held against his skin, smooth as a marble.

Thor feels his eyebrows rise again. "Common?"

"The things are so easy to find in this realm." Loki shrugs. "I saw dozens of pearls in the past several days, some still forming in their clams, by the coastline."

Thor rolls the pearl between his fingertips of one hand. He feels a tiny divot on its otherwise perfect surface. "So they need to be rare for you to appreciate them?"

"They need me to be in a good mood to appreciate them."

Thor turns to clasp his hand between his brother's neck and shoulder. He feels Loki tense beneath the thick blue fabric of his cloak. "And your mood is still sour now."

It seems for a second that Loki will reply with only more disdain. He looks at the hand resting on him. "Perhaps."

"I take it your recent ventures didn't quench your restlessness."

"If anything, they have stoked it."

Thor tilts his head as though it will help him to really see his brother. Unlike their mother, who turned almost celestial under the moon, the figure before him appears ghostly.

"Why?" Thor ventures.

Loki's words are bitter as though he is placing a curse. "Because they have shown me that everywhere in Valhalla is stagnant, not only us in our golden halls." He holds his hand out. Thor reluctantly gives back the pearl.

"The people here prosper in peace." Thor insists quietly.

His brother rolls the snowy orb between his fingertips as if he is trying to crumble it. "Meanwhile, you yourself have just seen so much havoc, so much potential, in the worlds around us and yet you're happy to languish here in peace."

And Thor watches his brother fling the pearl into the sea. Whatever splash it makes is drowned by the sound of waves.

"You still would wish for a civil war to break out across Valhalla just to give us a fight." He could be voicing either a statement or question.

"When we lived, you would tell me that life was about change."

Thor shakes his head. "If you haven't noticed, Loki – we're dead."

"Yet can still change, can't we?"

"Loki – "

"You were once willing to escape a world for its own good and for Yggdrasil's." His brother's expression is darker than the sea. "Please don't disappoint me – surely that hasn't changed."

Thor knows. He knows what Loki is trying to do, and he is immune to it now. If he were his much younger self, he knows he would have been easily tempted by the idea of another venture, another fight, for the good of something, or anything. Loki is looking at him obstinately, and he too reminds Thor of a much younger self, a younger Loki covertly trying to pick at loose threads to send everything unravelling.

Thor lets his own expression harden. "Whatever joys and destruction I saw in the worlds below are no longer in our hands, Loki. And you know it."

"We can fix that."

Thor narrows his eyes. "What are you planning?"

"Nothing, without you." The words would sound affectionate if they were from anyone else.

"Then you'll be planning nothing."

"Then there's no reason for me to be here."

Loki turns his back on the ocean to leave. But he pauses for a moment, crouches briefly and glances back at Thor.

"See – easily replaced." Thor automatically reaches out to catch the pale speck that his brother tosses to him. The pearl is practically identical to the first. When he looks up again, Loki is already several yards away, deepening their mother's footprints that she left just before.

When he is alone again, Thor sighs. He asks, offhand, aloud, of no one:

"So, how was your day?"

The knife buries itself into the board with a solid thud. Several yards of grassy field away, Loki takes his time preparing to throw the second blade. He lets his eyes drift upward, skyward, to rest on the moons and films of stars. They seem high enough overhead that he could pretend to be back on Old Asgard, not at the top of the World Tree. He returns his gaze to ground level in search of a free target. At least two dozen padded boards painted with bullseyes are hanging from the evergreen trees like garlands of a violent festival; most of them have a dagger lodged in their centre.

Before he throws, he hears someone entering the clearing from behind him – the sound of soft leather shoes on the grass.

"Not bad," she says.

"Then invite me to target practice next time," he suggests without turning around.

"We would if you weren't away so often," Sif replies.

Loki drops his shoulder with the weight of the knife in his hand. Before he launches it, a short spear slices the air from over his shoulder and strikes his prospective target. The board, with its new appendage, swings wildly on its branch, while Loki rolls his eyes.

"Of course you were going to do that." Before he turns around, he holds out the knife point-down over the great tree stump beside him, and lets go. The blade sinks into the natural bullseye formed by the concentric rings in the wood grain.

Sif stands at the clearing edge shrouded in her own wine-red traveling cloak. She smirks briefly before she crosses the field with him to the copse of trees where the targets hang. She twirls her spear absentmindedly like the handles of a fast clock, while waiting for him to recover the rest of his knives.

"So was Thor there?" She asks.

"Yes. Just as you said he would be." Loki replies. "His clothes were damp."

Sif's spear pauses mid-spin. "I believe he's wise enough to watch the living realms without envy."

"He certainly wasn't envious when I spoke with him."

She resumes twirling her spear slowly as she walks ahead to the other end of the clearing. "I doubt he would slip into pining for the life we left behind, spending all his days in the waters just for glimpses of the lower worlds."

"As I said, that doesn't seem like it will be an issue for our Thor." Loki says.

Sif adds, "He was halfway back to the Halls when I went to find him tonight after you did. He told me you might be here."

Loki selects a wide multi-edged dagger that nearly resembles a maple leaf. "Which makes it strange that you've chosen to come here." She flicks her eyes skyward, not in the way he had regarded the constellations earlier.

"Your brother worries over you." Sif's scrutiny follows the arc of his hand as he throws the blade. They wait for the thud and the rustle of disturbed leaves before he responds.

"I would rephrase that. Thor worries – " he raises his voice to her over his shoulder as he crosses the field " – about me doing something stupid." He yanks the dagger out to see the gash he left.

"He told me that this morning." Her volume matches his. "Now I'm starting to worry."

"Don't concern yourself. I'm not planning to jeopardise anyone's peace here." He is back by the stump, selecting another blade with as much deliberation as selecting his next book to read.

"It sounds like you might jeopardise your own." She moves closer until she is on the opposite side of the stump, as though they are having a discussion at a dinner table. "And that means your family's. Thor's."

He looks at her. "I won't jeopardise what I don't have."

"What are you planning?"

Loki whirls. Another target amidst the trees rocks violently on its branch, suddenly no longer blank.

"Too much flourish with your nondominant arm." Sif comments.

"What are you planning?" She repeats, not harshly.

Loki tugs the other dagger out of the stump between them. Another deep gouge. "Nothing, without Thor."

Maybe he sounds sincere enough, or she trusts him more. Sif just bows her head slightly although Loki highly doubts that answer is enough for her.

"What did you do while you were away?" She asks instead.

"Had a little 'me' time." Loki says, offhand. "Admired the scenery. Visited the towns along the eastern coastline."

"That's all?"

"What do you mean? That's what you, Thor, and the Warriors Three oft considered an enjoyable expedition when we were alive."

Sif's spear pauses again in its revolutions. Loki thinks how late it must be; Sif's spearhead even points straight upwards like clock hands at midnight.

"Like your brother," she says finally, "I'd implore that before you do anything extreme, to try and remember why you're here. You made it here against all odds, Loki. To Valhalla."

"Don't worry, you're not the only one who was amazed."

"You deserve some kind of peace."

"Why does everyone confuse boredom with peace?" Loki mutters.

"You're bored?" Sif's eyebrows are raised again, not scornfully. "And we thought Thor had the fighter's nature out of you two."

"It's not a fight that I'd wish for." Loki says.

"What, then?" She probes impatiently.

Loki just turns his back to her after a second and throws the next knife. He hears her depart the clearing behind him – the sound of soft leather shoes on the grass.

As he shutters the lantern in his chamber, Loki replays in his head the meeting with the witch, over and over and over again.