Loki smiled, small and genuine. “It’s not the worst year. I’ve lived a thousand. This one… this one taught me that you can die and still keep walking.”
He was Loki. God of Stories. And he had lived an entire lifetime in twelve months. Loki -2021-2021
September broke him. He found a timeline where Thor was alive—not his Thor, but a Thor who had lost his Loki in 2018. This Thor wept into a beer at a dive bar. Loki sat beside him. He didn’t say, “I’m your brother.” He said, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Loki smiled, small and genuine
In July, he pruned a rogue timeline himself. Not because the TVA ordered it—there was no TVA—but because some branches grew thorns. A reality where a mad scientist weaponized grief into a plague. Loki stood at the epicenter, held the detonation in his hands, and whispered, “Glorious purpose.” Then he let it go. The branch dissolved. No one cheered. He was fine with that. This one… this one taught me that you
For the first few months—January to April—he did nothing. He sat in a small apartment in a reality where Asgard had fallen but New York still stood. He drank cheap coffee and stared at the ceiling. The TVA was gone. He Who Remains was dead. The loom of fate was unspooling into infinite, beautiful chaos. And Loki was… tired.
Sylvie had pushed him through a time door. She had kissed him, betrayed him, saved him, and left him with the most terrifying gift: hope.