Chapter 4
Loki was staring into the glittering crystals. He had been sitting on the cold, white blanket of snow for several hours, having woken up there after an horrible night of tears and no real sleep. He had been sitting there, staring into the infinite width of silver reflecting fields and just admiring the sparkling little flashes which seemed to dance over the ground. He had thought about the snow and at first he had panicked, thinking he had somehow managed to end up on Jotunheimr, but with time the sun started to rise and with the sun came the relief. There was no sun on Jotunheimr. No beautiful reflections of it's rays on those fragile, fair ice constructs, glistening like jewels. And maybe he shouldn't have been as impressed as he was, being raised on Asgard with all of it's shiny gold and originally being from Jotunheimr, with it's coldness and it's snow, but here, on earth, those two worlds seemed to melangeso perfectly. Those two radical opposites melted into one perfect picture, there only was one word. Breathtaking.
He had never seen something alike and for a moment there was something akin to hope, seeing right this moment, that cold and beauty could complete each other, that maybe there was a way for him, adopted or not, to make his way through this life. To find his place, to just use the best of his different heritages. Like the mortals here on Midgard, uniting fire and ice! But then reality had hit back home and Loki had once more remembered the reason he was out here in the cold, all alone, devastated and pathetic: because no matter the beauty, no matter the perfectness, the mortals also always found a way to destroy it. And he and Tony hadn't even been perfect to begin with. Loki hadn't been perfect. Loki wasn't perfect. He wasn't even normal, he was a Jotun, a Frost Giant. He should have died out here on the icy cold, frozen to death, but his body all but craved these temperatures!
How could he have ever thought someone as shiny and perfect as Tony would want – could want – a broken creature like himself. It was like Asgard and Jotunheimr, really. Tony was shiny and golden, while he himself was not compatible. Like ice, he was just too cold.
But now, he had buried those thoughts. He wouldn't let them win again. After all those times, in the end a lowly mortal had been right. Love was for children. And just because he hadn't made any good experiences back then – it was more like one experience, anyway – didn't mean that he would be fortunate now. Stupid hope.
But no. Loki finally stood up, the snow crunching under his feet. Enough thinking.
That had always been his problem. He thought to much. But not right now, not when every thought just hurt, because everything was about Anthony. He needed a distraction from the emotional pain, so he decided to just walk, until he would arrive...somewhere. And he would have to arrive, eventually!
He didn't even know where he was, to be honest. He hadn't paid attention to where his seidr had taken him, just away. Maybe it was intentionally that he landed in the ice, maybe his true nature had needed the soothing cool of snow and ice. The thought somehow frightened him more than he liked to admit. He hated being a frost giant. Despised it.
Or maybe, it had just been a coincidence, who knew.
Anyways, he started to walk, making his way through kilometres of ice and snow flakes falling from the sky. Exhaustion slowly crept into his bones, but he never stopped. It actually felt good, walking for hours in the cold snow, it almost felt … natural. So he set one foot in front of the other, and again, and again until he lost track of count.
He didn't stop until he was surrounded by complete darkness, only some stars shining brightly above him. Then, Loki came to a halt and started to stare at the dark sky. He stood there for hours, just watching the stars, wishing to be one of them, beautiful and far away. And the time he finally came back to reality again he had sunken to his knees without realizing it and his cheeks were covered in thin streaks of ice. He had cried again, he concluded.
It went like this for days, Loki walking over the ice, leaving behind a lonely trail of footsteps in the snow. He climbed every mountain in his way and survived on occasionally drinking from some melted snow alone. And not once had he felt the cold.
And then, the day came when the god saw the first sign of life in this wasteland made of ice and snow. It started with birds flying over him, indicating at least some sort of vegetation around, and then there was less snow, the temperature became higher and he saw actual green – plants. Then came the day, there was no snow no more and not far away from that, he was in the first village. Nice people, open people, also old people. They gave him some food he didn't need, but he took it anyway, and then went on with his journey. From the small village whose name he never learned, he walked on the road to another, bigger, village and so on, until he finally was in a city, with people, all talking and drinking and buying and laughing. All to loud. And still, Loki finally came to again. His spaced out brain started working once more and suddenly he was sick of walking, he didn't want to anymore, as if realizing just now for how long he had done just that. He wanted to leave, get as far away from this cold city as possible, but he still didn't feel confident enough for his subconscious – which was compromised by his aching heart – to make a solid decision such as where to go next, meaning he couldn't just use his seidr to teleport him to wherever. So, human traveling means it was.
That was, how a very much disguised Loki ended up on an airport, boarding a plane with fake tickets and a fake ID.
Why disguised? Well, Loki wasn't stupid, he knew there were cameras everywhere on places like this. And under no circumstances did he wish to be recognized by- anyone, really!
Some times later, after the aircraft had touched down rather roughly – seriously, how were so called “pilots” like that even allowed to fly? On Asgard, there were some abilities requested from them! - said self proclaimed pilot told them about the weather here and bid them welcome in München , but all Loki understood was that he was in Germany, once again and thinking of Stuttgart he decided to take the next plane available to some place else that wasn't fucking Germany because hiding here, on the site of his first public appearance? Too damn obvious!
But then he was finally able to leave the plane and he was greeted with sun and birds singing and a blue sky, while the warmth of a beautiful autumn day tingled on his skin. There were colourful trees with red and yellow and orange leaves and Loki couldn't help but fall a tiny bit in love with the nature here – and he had just left the plane!
How would the real country look like? New York City was all skyscrapers and big buildings, flashing colours from commercial screens. Surely, it wouldn't be different here? and New York also had it's nature! There was Central Park, naturally, but also the other parks! That was botany pure, right?
And still, Loki was intrigued by this sight from the first second. So without thinking about it further, he decided to stay in this country for a while, maybe here he could heal, surrounded by nature and sun. Oh so desperately hoping that one day, everything would be right again.