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It starts with a distant beat, the awareness. For a long time it’s all he can hear. That beat. Feeble and faint, and after what might be an eternity it comes to him that it is his heart. It seems…wrong, somehow, that his heart still stirs. But he lies motionless and listens to it until he is aware enough to realize that he is motionless. He has a body. He exists. It all rushes in like a pounding river then: the giant blade driving through his chest, Thor’s face above him, crying, screaming—
He is burning, aching, covered over in sand and for a moment he wonders vaguely, detachedly if he is not indeed alive but finally in Hel.
The winds howl around him. It is not Hel, he recognizes, but Svartalfheim.
He does not know if it is relief or disappointment in his heart, but he doesn’t examine it. It does not matter. He has survived. He will continue. He will get up.
The magic that has sustained him all his life weaves protectively, lovingly through his body, knitting flesh and muscle and bone back together. Purging the poison.
When it is done, he gets to his feet.