Falls and Meetings
He doesn't know how long he falls for, only the freezing cold and the pressure on his chest from the vacuum of the space around him letting him know he lives still. The only thing he sees is his magic, flickering around him, keeping him alive, and letting him know he's reverted to the skin of his true, hated heritage in the green flickers of light. He falls long enough to realize that he's had enough of Asgard, and that should he somehow survive, he's not going back.
Once the thought takes hold, it's all he can think about, memories of all the wrongs done to his person, from Odin and Thor to the lowliest servant. Really, the only one who's always been consistent with their affection, who has never wronged him, he remembers, is the Queen of Asgard. It had been the Queen who had hired tutors for his magic when she had taught him as much as she knew, over the protests of the King. It had been the Queen who had commissioned his set of throwing knives, ten inch long strips of pure adamantium death, when he had completed his magical training. It had been the Queen who had also commissioned the adamantiun staff with the uru core for enchantments he had used. Of course at the time, he had been furious at what he had considered an insult, because Thor had received a powerful weapon in Mjolnir, and he had been commissioned a useless staff. It had not mattered to him that the staff had been the single most expensive thing, had made quite a dent even in the extraordinary vaults of the Royal family, or that the thing has proven an incredible aid to his fighting and his magic. Thor had received Mjolnir, and that had been all that he had cared about.
That memory now fills him guilt, as he remembers shunning his Mother for the incredibly useful, but subtly powerful weapon, she had given him. Although he had eventually named it Laevateinn, he had never told the Queen just how grateful he had been for the gift. While not as powerful as Gungnir, nor as flashy; Laevateinn had been perfectly suited to Loki's style and personality, whether as a fighter or mage. As it is, Loki vows to let her know if he ever survives the void.
Just as he's thinking that, there's a surge of power that he feels, as if something deep within him has broken free. It's so sudden, so unexpected, that for a moment Loki thinks that this is what having the thread of your life life cut must feel like. The last thing he sees before he's sent into a dizzying spiral is a flash of gold wrapping around him.
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Loki regains consciousness at the feel of air whipping past him, with flickers of orange. For a moment, he basks in the feel of it, before he realizes with a shocked jolt, there was no air in the void. Reopening his eyes, Loki is disoriented by the spinning of his fall. With a few jerky movements, he manages to orientate himself so that he's falling on his front.
There's clouds whipping past him, obscuring the ground below him, so that there's no way for him to know where he's falling to. Just as suddenly, he breaks out of the clouds, and he can see the vaguely green and blue earth he's falling towards. Frantically swinging his head around, looking for familiar landmarks, but all he see is the different shades of green earth and blue water, falling off into the horizon. There's no gleaming of gold anywhere, and so he immediately rules out Asgard.
He works through the other realms, and each is ruled out for one reason or another, until he's only left with Midgard. The hysterical laugh that bursts out of him is whipped away before he can hear it. After all, how ironic is it that he would end up at the same place his worthless not-brother was banished to? He doesn't know how long he falls, but he spends the rest of the time watching, fascinated as the earth he's heading to takes on more and more detail. He is falling towards a pair of islands, their green in beautiful contrast to the incredibly dark blue water surrounding the pieces of island. As he falls ever closer, he sees as the green is broken up by concrete and glass, the roadways cutting through the green like giant snakes. His trajectory means he's heading to the left side island, the smaller island from what he can see. There's a batch of thick woods to the left of him, and as he gets closer to the ground, Loki aims his descend in that direction, slowing down so that it's more of a controlled fall. Even so, he slams into the ground, and is sent tumbling head over heels ungracefully. The sudden halt leaves him unconscious.
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He regains consciousness to the sound of loud, deep barking. Dazed again for the second time, it takes him a moment to concentrate. Above the barking is a female voice, strained and panicked, and he can't make out the words. He's interrupted by a weight settling on his shoulder, and the face of a large dog snarling at him.
Behind the dog, he sees the woman he had heard, frantically pulling the leash of the dog away, even as she wrestles to keep a second dog from joining the one about to eat his face. She manages to pull the dogs away, and disappears from his line of sight. While she's gone, Loki tries to get up, vulnerable both from his position and disorientation.
He is startled by the woman appearing as his side, not having seen her. She throws her arms up in a gesture of peace, before running to Loki and steadying him when he tilts dangerously.
"Hi!" The breathless declaration surprises him, and he spends a minute gaping at her. Is that the first thing to say to the strange man who fell from the sky? Hi? She's waiting for an answer, he realizes, and he quickly mumbles a reply. She beams at him, and starts talking a mile a minute as she leads him away from the broken ground where he fell.
He's too busy trying to walk when she stops and starts to look expectant. He hadn't been paying any mind to her rambling, and has no idea what she'd asked him. She huffs and repeats the question.
"I said do you need any medical help? I can't imagine falling from the sky not hurting, and you're really out of it. I mean, you're not paying any attention. Do you even know where you are?"
She sets him down on a large rock and starts rummaging through the bag he hadn't noticed her carrying as he tries to work out which question to answer first. She thrusts a bottle into his hands, and when he only blinks at it, opens it for him and tilts it to show him the water. He drains the bottle before he knows it, finally becoming aware of his thirst.
She frowns at him, nods decisively, and starts gathering the dogs, which she'd tied up to a tree. Loki watches impassively, too numb to even think about what to do. "It's probably not a good idea for you to go to a hospital, being who you are. You'll come home with me, and you can rest and heal and leave when you want to."
"What do you mean, being who I am?" Shocked and surprised by the fact that, not having been on Midgard for centuries, there might be people who would recognize him enough to know it would probably not be safe for him to go to a human house of healing in his condition.
"Well, you're a Mutant, aren't you?" The woman raises an eyebrow, as she struggles with his weight to keep him from falling as he lists over. "Mutants are kind of unpopular right now, and there have been lots of attacks worldwide against those suspected of being Mutants."
Loki hums as he lets the thought sink in. While he hadn't been on Midgard for centuries, he'd heard about the humans with supernatural abilities, especially since it a was topic of debate around the realms if those people were simply humans or they might be those descended from people of the Nine who had made Midgard their home. That he might be mistaken for one, and treated as one, hadn't occurred to him. He lets the woman guide him away from where he'd fallen, and as the trees around them thinned and he begun to see other humans in the distance, he gathered his magic enough to make the two of them, as well as the dogs, invisible.
The woman kept them to the edge of the gathered humans, and a few more minutes of shuffling along brought them to a place with machines he recognized as automobiles. The woman navigated around until she stopped and shifted him so that he was leaning against a medium sized auto. He ignored her as she fumbled around in her bag, instead watching the other humans. He startled when the side of the auto he had been leaning against jerked out, and was only saved from falling by the woman grabbing him, muttering apologies against his ear and she guided him into the door and the seat.
He shifted around until he was comfortable, ignoring the dogs nosing him curiously. He looking up when the woman slid into the seat before him, did something to the console of the auto that had a rumbling starting up under him, and twisted around to look back at him.
"Relax, okay? We're going to my place. It's safe, and you'll have somewhere to recuperate. The drive is going to be a while, though."
She twists around to face the front again, and Loki is lulled to sleep with the soft rumbling under him. He wakes up to the woman shaking his shoulder, a wary look on her face, and when he sits up, he sees why. His magic is leaking out of him in golden green tendrils, lighting up the dark interior of the auto, and there's a tendril of magic wrapped around her wrist. Loki tries to reign his power in, even as she calmly helps him out, and once again supporting him, leads him into a door he hadn't seen, and he remembers just in time to make them invisible again.
The twists and turns and stairs they take in the building mean nothing to him, too busy keeping his magic from leaking out like it had been doing. The pause outside a door, and Loki shifts himself to lean across the wall while she unlocks the door for them, blinking at the smile the woman shoots at him. When they get inside, the dogs immediately run off while she's busy locking the door, and Loki finally stops trying to reign in his magic. The woman eyes the tendrils of magic, shrugs, and steps up to support him walk.
They go through another doorway, and Loki is lowered down to a bed. He lets the woman fuss with the pillows and cover, watching instead as his magic spreads out to create a safe zone for him. He watches as the doorway they'd come through lights up with the golden green of his magic, and turning his head, watches as the large windows also light up. The woman sees that, and having finished her fussing about the bed, turns to him. That's when she also sees the door, glowing, and she turns around, watching the whole room, and seeing the green covering the walls, ceiling, and floor.
She grimaces, drops down on the bed beside him with a sigh, and asks the question he'd been dreading.
"What's the green everywhere mean?"
"My magic senses I'm injured, and it's creating a safe zone for me to recover in." She frowns at him, before tugging at his armor.
"Can you take this off? It doesn't look like it would be comfortable to sleep in." Loki blinks at the sudden change in topic, but dutifully vanishes his armor into his space pocket. She whistles at the display of magic, and he feels himself smirk at her. She wasn't surprised by magic taking over a room of her house, but a simple vanishing impresses her? His question reminds him of something she should probably know about, and he shifts around on the bed to look at her, face serious.
"My magic will seal this room, and it might spread to the entire house. This means you will not be able to leave if that happens. If you want to stay here with me, will you have enough food for you to survive if that happens? I would suggest staying with a friend or someone if you don't have enough." It would be a shame, if she got sealed in and ended up dead. After all, he already had plans forming for the curious specimen of a human.
She thinks over what he'd told her, before nodding decisively. "I have enough food in the pantry to easily last me a month. Do you think it will take you that long to heal?"
"I'm not sure. It's never happened before." He winced as the confession slipped out. He hadn't meant to tell her that.
"It's never happened before? How come?"
"I was always able to get help in time. I've seen it happen before with others who were injured. Their magic would create a safe zone for them wherever they were. It just never happened with me."
She nodded thoughtfully, and busied herself with helping him get comfortable in the bed. When he was comfortable, with pillows stuffed behind and under him, she retook her seat at the edge of the bed. By this time, Loki was having trouble ignoring the call of his magic to sleep, but unable to do so with her in such close proximity.
"What's your name anyway? My name is Keeva Kieran. I can't keep calling you Dude From The Sky, you know." She snickers, and he glowers at her.
"If you must know, you may call me Loki."
She smiles at him, and Loki realizes that his vision is beginning to gray out around the edges. "Well then, Loki From The Sky, it's a pleasure to meet you. But you look like you really need to get some rest and get healed up, so I'll leave you alone. I hope you have some good dreams, so good night for now."
The woman pulling the covers up around his shoulders is the last thing Loki sees before he is finally pulled under by his magic, and her teasing voice telling him good night the last thing he hears.