This post has the following content warnings:
post-snap avengers in (and out of) the halls of mandos
Next Post »
+ Show First Post
Total: 485
Posts Per Page:
Permalink

YOU TOO, FINDARÁTO. She is speaking to the Noldo who was arguing with Legolas earlier, who had accompanied them to Thingol's court.

The world changes, and now Varda, Tony, and Findaráto are standing on a smooth hard floor that is neither metal nor stone nor glass, beneath a transparent dome. Based on the color of the sky beyond, they must be almost at the edge of space.

Permalink

Tony walks to the edge of the room and looks down.

Permalink

He's on top of a really high mountain. Its base lies nine miles below him, covered in equatorial jungle, but it extends up through cold forest, and alpine tundra, and everlasting ice, to an uttermost tower of stone in air so thin and cold that not even snow can form, and on that tower stands Ilmarin, mansion of Manwë and Varda, from which one can see the entire world.

He can see Tol Eressëa out to sea and far below him, in impossible detail, down to the smallest leaf, down to the cells that make up the leaves, and on scales smaller still. He can see the planet's curvature, easily, but he can see beyond the horizon, to the other side of the world. If he looks up he can see stars, thousands of light-years away, with planets around them, and on those planets, craters and continents and oceans and forests and individual trees

He can see Earth, if he wants to.

Permalink

He's afraid to look.

Permalink

Varda looks at Tony playing with his new infinite-resolution vision, and laughs, a sound as though the crystal spheres of heaven had been made into wind chimes. IT'S COOL, I KNOW. TRY NOT TO GET LOST IN IT. WERE MY HUSBAND WITH ME, I COULD HEAR AS WELL AS SEE ALL THINGS THAT CAME TO PASS IN THE UNIVERSE. BUT— Her words fail, and she gestures to the two thrones of translucent crystal in the center of the room, and Tony remembers what Elu said about the Snap extending even to the Valar.

Permalink

"I'm sorry. We're going to beat him."

Permalink

I KNOW.

HE IS HERE. The sky beyond Ilmarin seems to zoom in on a particular star system, and on a green planet, and then on Thanos himself. He's picking some sort of large vegetable.

I COULD, AND VERY MUCH WANT TO, DESTROY HIS WHOLE PLANET IN AN INSTANT, BUT I DO NOT THINK IT WOULD BE THE WILL OF ERU.

Permalink

"Is he—farming?"

Permalink

"He called it the Garden. His work is done, and now he means to rest. You could kill him, if you like. I don't think he would care. But he will destroy the stones before you can manage it—the Time Stone lets him see far enough into the future to be forewarned."

Permalink

"How did you get up here?"

Permalink

"The ship." She points out the window; the Benatar is docked to one of the many wings of Varda's celestial mansion. "There was a voice calling me. I followed it. I think it was her." She points at Varda.

Permalink

IT WAS.

Permalink

"So, uh, what's the plan here?"

Permalink

"I was going to ask you that.

"Ah, I don't think we've met. Findaráto Ingoldo called Finrod Felagund, one of far too many Princes of the Noldor, first ambassador of the Eldar to the race of Men."

Permalink

"Tony Stark, called—well, you know, apparently."

Permalink

"Iron Man. In Quenya that could almost be a real name—Atanango or something like that. Yes, I'm familiar with your deeds, although I was a friend of your species long before you started doing anything interesting."

Permalink

"I'm not sure whether that's a compliment or an insult. To me, or to my species."

Permalink

"Take it as a compliment. You're way more interesting than us, now."

Permalink

"Anyway, I have a suit of nanite armor powered by a miniature fusion reactor that I need to repair and I've yet to see any indication that your tech level is remotely suitable for the job, so the plan is probably going to involve me going back to Earth. You're welcome to come along, if you like. Goddess lady should probably stay here, she might accidentally kill people."

Permalink

"We're generally exactly as high-tech as we need to be—which isn't very, this land is safe and plentiful and necessity is the mother of invention, as I've heard it said. But the Mírtani, in Formenos, like to experiment for experiment's sake, and they've had like ten thousand years to do it, so they can probably help you out."

Permalink

"Cool." He turns to Varda. "Can we go to—what was it?—Formenos? Also, can you, like, send me the coordinates for Thanos' planet—do you even know what that means—"

Permalink

YES. YOU WILL LIKE FORMENOS. THE GREATEST OF ALL THE ELDAR IN LORE AND CRAFT ONCE WORKED THERE, THOUGH OTHERS MADE IT A PLACE OF LEARNING AND NOT A PLACE OF SECRETS. I WILL HAVE WHAT REMAINS OF YOUR SUIT SENT THERE ALSO, AND I WILL ENSURE THAT YOU ARE ABLE TO FIND THANOS AGAIN BY LESS SUPERNATURAL MEANS.

She turns to Nebula. YOU, DAUGHTER OF THANOS, HAVE A DIFFERENT TASK. PERHAPS THE MOST IMPORTANT TASK OF ALL, AND THE MOST DIFFICULT. IT IS APPOINTED TO YOU TO SEE—well, I will let Eru worry about whether such creatures as Thanos may still be said to 'love'. But perhaps you can cause him to let down his guard long enough for the Stones to be taken from him.

And then she is alone on Taniquetil.

Permalink

Meanwhile, Loki is pretty sure this isn't Valhalla. He didn't really want to go there anyway—too much feasting, for one—but he doesn't like this either. This looks like the sort of place where there are rather few opportunities for mischief, or even for anything at all interesting to ever happen to him again.

He can think of a few reasons why he might have ended up in the wrong afterlife.

One, being strangled by Thanos after trying to stab him didn't count as a proper death in combat. Asgard has all sorts of rules about honorable combat that he had always made a point of ignoring. Honor doesn't keep people alive. Except, apparently, in Valhalla.

Two, Thanos used the Infinity Stones to deny him his proper afterlife. No resurrections this time, he'd said. But something like that was a job for the Soul Stone, which he hadn't had at the moment of Loki's death.

Three, Valhalla didn't actually exist at all. But it was supposedly a physical place in Asgard. He had never visited, but Odin supposedly had. Odin, who had lied to him about his species and would have continued doing so to his dying day if he'd had the choice—

Four, Asgard, and therefore presumably Valhalla, had been destroyed. Being a physical place had its disadvantages.

Five, he wasn't actually Asgardian.

There are tapestries on the walls of this place that show him the past, present, and future. Mostly they show him things he doesn't want to see: the suffering of civilians during his attempted conquest of Midgard; Thanos, whom he had once served, advancing mercilessly towards his twisted goal. He starts walking, trying to get away from them, but these Halls seem to go on forever.

When he has been walking for what seems like several days (the dead neither tire nor thirst), a wave of power passes through the Halls and tears all the tapestries to shreds, and the space around him, which once was empty, is now filled near to bursting with other souls. He doesn't know exactly what's happened, but he knows Thanos did it.

At almost the same moment, he reaches the edge of the Halls.

Permalink

There's a spirit there that burns brighter than most, turned away from the others to face out into the void.

Permalink

"Hail, stranger."

Total: 485
Posts Per Page: