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Unlike many things about him, Loki's demise was not layered. There was no intricate, masterful weaving of motive and manipulation as Loki's craft was so wont to do, only a crushed windpipe and burst blood vessels. One moment Loki was alive, and the next he was not.
Even in death, however, Loki was not entirely devoid of cunning. Thor happening upon his brother's dagger years after its owner had sacrificed himself in a final act of desperation was no happy accident, though much more belated than Loki had envisioned. And that, perhaps, was why when Thor picked up the blade and it burst into green light, arcing out to connect with the strand of black hair wrapped around blond, Thor was too shocked to burst into tears or rage when Loki's form shimmered into being before him.
"Do not throw anything at me!"
Loki's voice was tinny, as if he were speaking through a metal can, but everything about its character--the sharp, whip-like edge to his eloquence, the slight lilt pressing over the vowels--was exactly as it had been in life.
The warning was delivered just in time; Thor lowered the arm hefting Stormbreaker and peered at his brother's figure suspiciously. This was unexpected, although Loki was equal parts surprised and reluctantly proud of his brother's newfound caution. In a sense, it was almost saddening to see Thor lose the hotheaded streak that had defined their youth.
"Whose nameday celebration did I pour mulled cranberry cider over your head at?"
"Idunn's," Loki answered promptly, with a roll of his eyes.
"Whe--"
"We were ten at the time, and you had just found out that Sif's rather unfortunate haircut was a consequence of my doing," Loki drawled before Thor could finish his question. With a toss of his head, he continued, "Now hush, brother dearest, I don't have much more time."
Thor, of course, refused to be silenced. "Loki, where are you? Where have you hidden for nearly a century? After what happened, after Thanos was defeated, I searched the universe for you! I...I thought you were dead. Again. I mourned."
Something twisted in Loki's face, his eyes deepening as a certain glassy liquidity pooled over his corneas. The sharpness of his voice broke away, ground ragged by softness when he answered Thor's stumbling, tightened rambling and increasingly wild gesticulating.
"I...had hoped you would. But Thor, you must listen to me. I--would you put the damned axe down, you buffoon?! My seiđr was hastily cast, this form cannot sustain touch!"
Loki jumped to the side as Stormbreaker clanged to the ground, narrowly missing his toes. Thor stared with wide eyes, something like storm clouds moving slowly over his face.
Suddenly, his face fell, and Thor muttered, "I knew you wouldn't be here. Not really."
Loki paused, lips parted. Quietly, he said finally, "I would not trade my life for yours. I don't regret my choice."
Tears threatened to spill over into Thor's beard. Thickly, he said, "The sun will shine on us again, brother. You swore it."
Loki's smile was pained. "I may have been speaking...more metaphorically than originally intended. Tell me, Thor, does Asgard still live? Do...did my actions make any difference at all?"
As he stared at his brother's final scrap of memory, Thor realized that only in death could Loki bare himself so fully. Bowing his head, Thor replied, voice roughened, "Yes, Loki. Your people remember and revere you as a..." Thor paused to swallow past the fresh salt in his throat, "their savior."
Loki exhaled, the sound more naked and shuddering than he ever would have permitted in life, and closed his eyes, fingers clenching tightly at his sides. Finally, in a voice far stronger than Thor's, Loki corrected, "Not mine. Our people."
The sheen glistening in Thor's eyes broke over, tears running down battle-hardened cheeks and into braided beard. "Our people," he repeated in a scratchy whisper. "Loki..."
The illusion cleared his throat and crossed his arms over his chest. "It's over, then," Loki declared, rather brusquely for someone who had just been delivered the revelation of his living dreams. Also for someone speaking through magic after death, but given the caster, that much was not to be questioned.
Thor blinked at him, brow beginning to furrow in consternation.
"The war," Loki prompted, none too patiently. "It's over, long done with. You can stop with your foolish quest for closure and go back to our people--can't believe, by the way, that you've left them to their own devices on a colony, congratulations for repeating history without ever having read a single page--and rule as you were meant to. Reclaim the throne. Take your birthright. Odin wanted...you were meant to be king."
Thor's confused blinking mutated into shock. "Loki," he began, but the other cut him off with a flippant wave of one hand.
"I do expect a memorial, mind you. And a nice statue, with my helmet, the one with the horns. At least one, in gold. In fact, why not declare a day of remembrance? Invite your Midgard friends too, I fear that despite my efforts, Asgard must be rather sparsely populated. A celebration would do our people good--not a feast though, those are really so distasteful. Put on a play--"
"I abdicated."
Loki's mouth pulled into a perfect "O" as he froze, midspeech. "You what?!"
Thor spread two open palms. "I gave the crown to Brynnhilde. She's King of New Asgard--she makes a much better ruler than me. She has, hmm, what would you call it? Leadership qualities?"
At Loki's continued sputtering incredulity, Thor sighed. "Loki, you knew far before I did that I'm not fit to be king. I take too much after Father--sitting and ruling, mulling over the most minute of decisions, talking in circles and putting the many before the one--it's not for me."
"But why?" Loki demanded. "You were born to inherit the throne. Trained since before you could speak on royal etiquette, diplomacy, warfare--you were nearly crowned, Thor! Why would you abandon a bleeding, newly reborn Asgard when you were most needed?"
Thor's answer was simple, his eyes earnest as he replied, wishing that he could reach out to clap a firming hand over Loki's agitated shoulder.
"Asgard needed a king, and I was no king. I could not give our people what they needed, and so I fled. Out of shame, out of fear...and out of grief."
Loki's jaw worked under flared nostrils as Thor continued.
"Your death destroyed me, Loki. I was consumed. When we found Thanos again, the first time, I beheaded him for what he had taken from me. I expected it to quell the pain. I was wrong."
Loki's lips sealed into a grim line, icy eyes darkening like a tempest brewing behind seaglass.
"I had to find myself when everything that I thought defined me was gone," Thor went on. "It's not that I blame you, Loki. It's that I don't know how to let you go. Even now, I don't know whether to be furious or overjoyed at the sight of you."
Loki's eyebrows knit together for a split second before arching high above his eyes. "You absolute idiot," he spat. "Thor, I'm dead! I can't come back, not from this!" His jaw snapped shut with an audible click of teeth on teeth before Loki ground out, "Thor, you have to move on. Your brother is gone. I said my farewell as best I could on the ship. Time will not spare my memory, and you cannot fight it."
Loki inhaled deeply, his anger ebbing as suddenly as it had flowed. "We were not intended for forever."
Thor regarded him sadly, an ache yawning wide and deep in his chest at the impossible longing to embrace his brother.
"Then why are you apologizing like we were?"
Loki stiffened, only the slightest waver of light through his increasingly translucent form directing the illusion of motion. In a scathing voice that bit like frozen steel, Loki spoke, snapping the end of each word harshly.
"And here I was under the impression that the last century had some effect on your addled brain."
His jaw was set, every word hard beneath an impenetrable glower.
"I am not apologizing to you. This is not some deathbed confession of sin and fraternal reconciliation. I am dead, and once this illusion fades, nothing will be left of me."
"Loki Odinson is sung of as a hero," Thor said softly, palms itching at his sides. Loki stopped, mouth still half-open, rebuke quasi-formed.
"You made a good king," Thor continued, "in most ways. Asgard was happy. And your sacrifice is remembered with honor. There is something left of you, Loki, and there always will be, as long as Asgard survives."
Loki's form shimmered, pale skin growing translucent and voice fainter. Undeterred, he spoke: "Remember me, then. Remember me and stop...stop mourning. Let the sunshine warm you, brother."
Thor could see the floor through his brother's feet as he nodded somberly. "Until the line of Odin is reunited in Valhalla, I will."
A familiar, thick bitterness clogged Thor's throat, but the tears did not come. This grief was too ultimate for that, too final.
Loki was more outline than full illusion now, and Thor suspected that the gleam on his cheeks was more than a refraction of the light on seiđr.
"If you were here, I would probably hug you."
"Oh, is that so?" Loki's voice floated from nearly invisible lips. "Did our childhood teach you nothing? That's how you get yourself stabbed."
Thor's smile was resolute. The aching abyss in his chest was slowly filling--not quite healed, but ready to be sewn with careful closure. "Well, you can remind me."
His arms wrapped around Loki's nearly vanished form. The peculiar tingle of seiđr swathed Thor's skin as he pulled his brother as close as he could, or tried to, at least.
"Rest, brother," Thor whispered into the wavering space where Loki's ear had once been as the final vestiges of Loki Odinson's seiđr consumed themselves and his illusion disintegrated into motes of emerald light.
"Until we meet again."