So this is what the bottom feels like. Loki had thought he had reached it so many times before, but there had always been deeper levels for him to descend into. But now there is nothing left. Just rock, and the echoes of his own revelation.

The shock of it silences the Silvertongued One more effectively than any muzzle.

Thor's boots crunch against the pebbles scattered on the cavern floor. "Loki?"

Loki doesn't respond. It's not that he feels dead, or that he is deliberately refusing to answer Thor, he simply cannot form what he senses inside himself into words. He cannot even think of words.

More pebbles are crushed. Thor has stepped closer. "Loki?" he calls again, this time sounding less imperious and gruff.

Loki's recovered, just a little, from his initial shock. He doesn't dare look up at his brother. Staring down at the floor, still on the knees he had fallen to earlier, he says, "You should kill me now, Thor."

"You know I never can do that, Loki." He doesn't say it, but somehow Loki knows that sentence still ends with because you are my brother.

"You cannot allow me to live, Thor," Loki insists. "You cannot. Not… not with what I have done."

Hesitation on Thor's part. The pebbles protest beneath his shifting feet. "Is this regret, Loki?"

Loki feels the tears spilling, the desperate tears he has never truly known what to do with. He lifts a hand and wipes them away with the back of it, but what is the point in that when the tears merely continue to rise?

"Yes," he whispers, and somehow that undertone is the loudest word in their conversation.

Thor enters the peripherals of Loki's view. Mjolnir is in his hand and Loki stiffens, expecting and maybe embracing the worst. Thor sees his expression and shakes his head.

"Nay, Loki," he says. "This hammer is not meant for you."

He pulls Loki to his feet, and then a strong hand holds the Trickster's face in the brotherly way it used to.

"Are you sincere, Loki?" Thor wants to know.

Loki tries to pull away. His tears are uncontrollable and he feels ashamed. He cannot bear to look Thor in the face. But Thor does not let him go, and he is forced to look him in the eye.

"I am sincere," Loki manages to reply.

He is shocked when it is Thor who begins to weep. Everything after that is a confusing blur, moments blending together in a vast whirlwind of emotion. Thor, gripping him tight and using Mjolnir to fly them both into the light. The Bifrost, come to take Thor and Loki to Asgard. The wholly unexpected greetings of joy from The Warriors Three and Lady Sif. A feast, he thinks.

Everything becomes so clear, clearer in a way it hasn't been since he was a child, when he is at last alone with the rulers of Asgard. They and Loki, totaling four, are out on the balcony, gazing out at Asgard and all the worlds beyond. Loki finds it strange to think that he knows stars that the other Asgardians don't.

Frigga stands at his left, fingers interlaced with his and gripping them almost to the point where it hurts. Thor stands at his left, looking more calm than Loki has ever seen him. Odin stands by Frigga's side, and his weathered face has lost some of its grief.

And Loki realizes. It takes him by such surprise that he must utter it out loud. "I'm home."

Thor smiles at him, those strangely wonderful tears appearing again. "Yes, brother," he says, and Loki does not argue. "You are home."

Frigga rests her head against Loki's shoulder, and she is Frigga no more but Mother once again. Odin… Odin may always be Odin for Loki, but now at least he can call him Friend. And Thor, dear, perseverant Thor, is his brother just like he used to be.

Loki has been redeemed, he sees it now. Oh yes, the full price has not been paid yet, redemption is a process of time and proving. But it has begun. And for the first time, Loki feels hope.

So I literally just wrote this. Maybe an hour ago I stumbled across the Loki's Redemption Project, was inspired, wrote something, and now here you have it.

I am actually very proud of this. It's small, very small, but... well, I guess I can't quite put it to words. Family is such a huge thing for me, and to see Loki's family crumbling apart just kills me. I think Loki's redemption would bring together all that closer that which has been torn asunder.