The storm did not die when the hammer stilled.
It lingered above the shattered coast like a living thing unwilling to release its prey. Clouds churned low and heavy, dragging their bellies across the mountain peaks. Rain fell in sheets, not gentle, not cleansing, but relentless—washing blood and lightning residue alike into the cracks torn open by gods.
Thor stood amid the ruin, shoulders rising and falling, breath steaming in the cold air.
The ground around him was no longer land so much as memory. Stone had been broken and reforged by force too great for shape to endure. The sea below roared endlessly, waves smashing against the cliffs as though trying to climb back into the sky.
Across from him, Hela straightened.
Her form was whole again. Death always healed faster than life.
Shadows withdrew slowly from her feet, folding back into the fractures from which they had spilled. Her gaze never left Thor's face, and when she spoke, it was not with mockery now, but with certainty.
"You're thinking of them," she said.
Thor did not answer.
Mjölnir hung heavy in his hand. Lightning still whispered along its surface, but the storm no longer obeyed him as readily as before. His strength remained, vast and terrible, yet something within him had shifted—pulled tight, stretched thin.
His eyes had drifted eastward.
Not toward Asgard.
Toward Midgard.
Toward a small, fragile world that had never asked for gods.
He saw it clearly, as he always did when the battle quieted enough for memory to breathe. A narrow road lined with trees that lost their leaves every year and grew them back again without ceremony. A modest house, warm with light in the evenings. A woman standing at the doorway, arms folded, pretending not to worry, pretending she did not hear thunder differently than other people did.
And a child.
Too small for prophecy. Too young for fate. Born beneath an ordinary sky that did not split open to announce his arrival.
Thor's jaw tightened.
He had stayed.
For decades measured by mortal calendars, for nothing at all by divine ones. He had worn borrowed names, worked borrowed hands raw, lived in borrowed time. He had guarded Midgard not from grand invasions but from quieter ends—things that crawled between cracks, things no saga would ever bother to remember.
And somewhere between vigilance and solitude, love had found him.
Hela followed his gaze, then laughed softly.
"So that is where you buried yourself," she said. "Not in battle. Not in rebellion. In tenderness."
Thor turned on her, lightning flaring instinctively, the air cracking with warning.
"Do not speak of them."
Hela's smile sharpened. "Why? Because it makes you mortal?"
Before Thor could answer, the air itself twisted.
Reality folded like cloth drawn through unseen fingers, and green light spilled across the broken stone. From it stepped Loki, boots touching the ground as lightly as a thought that refused to stay buried.
He took in the battlefield slowly, eyes narrowing at the devastation, the torn mountains, the residue of power still bleeding into the world.
"Well," he murmured, "this will take ages to explain."
Thor did not look at him.
Hela did.
"You're late," she said.
"I was detained," Loki replied, straightening. "Father does that thing where his disappointment becomes… atmospheric."
The storm answered him with a low, distant roll.
Loki's gaze shifted to Thor then, and the humor faded.
"He's calling," Loki said. "Both of you."
The words settled heavily into the air.
Thor closed his eyes.
He had known this moment would come. Had felt it approaching like winter behind a warm autumn—inevitable, patient, merciless.
Hela turned fully toward him.
"Did you truly think he wouldn't notice?" she asked. "That you could hide a life from the All-Father?"
Thor opened his eyes slowly.
"I wasn't hiding," he said. "I was choosing."
Hela's laughter was quiet, almost sad.
"He sent me because you chose wrong."
The storm dimmed, as though the world itself leaned closer to hear.
Loki's voice lowered. "Hela—"
"He gave you terms," Hela continued, her gaze locked on Thor. "Clean ones. Cruel ones, perhaps, but honest. Leave them, and return to Asgard. Or stay with them, and never cross the Bifrost again."
Thor's hand tightened around Mjölnir.
"And when I refused both," he said, voice rough, "you were sent to remind me what gods lose when they pretend to be human."
"Yes," Hela said simply. "I was sent to end the attachment."
The word end echoed.
Thor stepped forward, thunder gathering around him like a reflex that had nowhere to go.
"You will not touch them."
"I already tried," Hela replied. "And you bled for it."
Silence fell.
Even the wind seemed to hesitate.
Loki swallowed. "Thor… Father's patience is gone. If you don't come now—"
"I know," Thor said.
His gaze drifted again, heavier this time.
He imagined her standing alone, unaware that the universe had weighed her life against divine law. He imagined the child growing, asking questions no one could answer.
A god does not age.
But regret does.
"I stayed too long," Thor said quietly. "Long enough for them to become targets."
Hela watched him with something like respect now.
"You understand, then."
Thor lifted his head.
"I will go," he said.
The words tore something loose inside him.
Hela nodded. "Wise."
"But not because Odin commands it," Thor continued. "And not because you threaten what I love."
He met her gaze, thunder dim but unbroken.
"I will go because my presence endangers them," he said. "And because leaving is the only protection I have left to give."
The ground beneath them rumbled, deep and slow.
Something far below the mountains shifted in its sleep.
Loki felt it and went pale. "We need to leave. Now."
Hela turned away, shadows already curling to claim her.
Thor lingered one last heartbeat, eyes fixed on the distant horizon of Midgard.
On Earth, a child stirred in his sleep.
And deep beneath shattered mountains, ancient hearts began to beat again.