Odin walked beside the new ocean. Fresh winds scoured the coast, unburdened by the past, carrying scents from hundreds of miles away. The green of the grass on his other side hurt his eye with its purity. Everything seemed possible, now that so many paths had been wiped clean. Even man had so many options now.
Loki appeared beside him, his face a wreck from the renewed poison dripping on it in a different past, another way. His bare chest gleamed in the morning sunlight, and his gray woolen pants were filthy and hung from his emaciated hips.
“Wouldn’t this fate have been better?” Loki whispered from across the worlds. “Wouldn’t it have been easier?”
Odin shrugged. Maybe this fate that Loki had engendered would have been better.
Not easier. It was harder to start again, to try to live fresh, to not make the same mistakes as had been made in the past. Especially as Odin would appear in this place, his skin hanging from him in folds.
“It is a lovely fate,” Odin did finally admit. “Thank you for letting me see it.”
Since Loki had brought it into the world, Odin had found a way to step through to it, following the planes on Yggdrasil, the world tree.
This fate wouldn’t last, however. The edges were fraying fast. The old fate would return to dominance soon. Odin would only be able to visit this other fate, where he survived the Twilight Battle, this one time.
“Always. Only for you,” Loki sighed and shivered in pain.
Odin knew better. It wasn’t for him—none of this had ever been for him.
However, he didn’t blame the trickster. Loki couldn’t help but try to find a way to cheat Fate of her due.
“I will find another path, you know,” Loki admitted. “To free myself from this place. To end my pain.”
“I’m not sorry you’re in pain. It’s only equal to what Frigg suffers, every day, from the death of her son,” Odin pointed out.
“How can she stand it?” Loki cried out. He writhed, trying and failing to free himself from his fetters.
Odin looked out across the water. On a nearby point, two fair-haired gods strode, blessing the earth with every step, their song ringing out clear across the new land, bringing joy to all who heard.
“She has her ways,” Odin said. Knowing her sons would live on past the end of the gods helped.
Loki didn’t have such assurance, such faith.
And Odin couldn’t give him any.
Each person had to find their own path out of darkness. Such was the curse of all fates.