"To the Sky"
Inspiration:"To the Moon and Back" by Savage Garden
Loki x Unnamed OC
She sat on the roof, looking up into the star-dotted sky above her head. It was just another night. Another night pretending that things were okay.
Another night of her parents insisting she shouldn’t have ever been born, that at her age she should be out in the world, either making a career or making a family (apparently, one couldn’t do both). Another night of their bitching at one another, wishing divorce was allowed under the family religion (it wasn’t). Another night she packed her duffel and climbed out the window to sit on the roof, not only to drown out her miserable life below, but to wait.
For him.
The first time the strange, be-horned man appeared in the small, faulty spacecraft, she thought she was dreaming. Superheroes lived in New York and fought off giant threats from other universes. Why was one here in her parents’ yard in Upstate New York, where the closest city was Syracuse, not downstate?
She’d been crying, and the tears streaking her face were hot against her skin, even as she completely forgot about why she was upset.
“Are you lost?” she’d asked.
The strange man shook his head. “Blasted Tony Stark gave me a faulty craft,” he murmured. “I’ve been separated from my team.”
“Tony Stark? THE Tony---you’re an Avenger, aren’t you?” she’d said, disbelieving.
The man almost immediately clicked his heels and bowed cordially at the waist. “Loki, Prince of Asgard, my lady. May I ask for some assistance?”
Sadly, there was little assistance she could give (and she sure as hell wasn’t waking up her folks, who were finally asleep in their separate beds and had stopped being violent for the night). Instead, she had offered Loki, Prince of Asgard, some tea (which he generously accepted) and sat with him by her window, overlooking the rest of the village where she lived. As the night had gone on, the pair of them had begun talking as if they were twin souls, their laughter intermixing and wafting up to join the peaceful ambience of the midnight air.
Loki told her stories of his many adventures, conquests, and journeys across the stars, about the places where he was welcomed as hero, and the others who’d tried to murder him before he’d disembarked. Every word that fell out of the dashing man’s mouth were like sweet bells to her ears as she listened, and fell more and more in love with the prince from the stars.
Just before dawn, the man was able to procure help from a member of his team, and he was off before she knew it. Before he left, she made him promise to return.
“Please, come back for me,” she said. “I am lonely and miserable here. I’d rather go off with you and see the universe.”
Loki smiled and caressed her cheek before boarding his ship. “And where would you like me to take you first?”
“Up there,” she immediately pointed up to the full moon setting near the northern horizon.
Loki scowled. “The moon? Nine realms and an entire cosmos and you pick the first rock you see above the clouds?”
Regardless of his initial disapproval, he promised to be back for her one day soon, to bring her away and to show her the moon. “Sadly, I’m needed at the moment, and I’m afraid bringing you with me may cause harm to you.”
She shook her head. “I’m already in pain here,” she said, indicating the small, run-down house behind her. “For once, I wish a day would go by where my mother didn’t say she wished she’d aborted me.”
Planting a kiss on her forehead, Loki whispered, “I will be back for you. One night. Be ready for me, and I will fly you to the moon and beyond.”
She watched sadly as Loki and his aid flew away in their crafts and into the pre-dawn sky, regretting not being more insistent on coming along. She didn’t know if she’d ever have another chance. She only had his words to go on, and she only hoped they would be enough to see her through until the blessed night he’d come back…
“I will be back for you. One night. Be ready for me, and I will fly you to the moon and beyond.”
That was nearly two years ago.
Every night, as devoted as ever to the mysterious god she’d met only once, she came out to her roof (even when it snowed) and spent hours looking up hopefully, always disappointed and giving up before dawn broke. She devotedly kept vigil night after night, insisting that Loki would return and bring her away.
Today had been the worst day of all: her job had laid her off, sending her father into a fit so violent he’d nearly physically hit her, insisting she needed to be out of the house in the morning. Sobbing, she’d done her nightly ritual of packing her bag and going outside to wait for the man who was quickly becoming nothing more than a dream, an imaginary friend to her.
“Perhaps this will be the last night I look for him,” she said to herself. “I’m used to being disappointed.”
An hour went by. Two. Three.
Sure enough, it was getting close to dawn, and she felt herself cry a little as she stood up to go inside, perhaps to get a few hours sleep before getting up early to find a hotel room to stay…
“...excuse me, Miss,” came a voice from behind her. “I’m sorry I’m so late, but I believe I promised you an adventure?”
There he was, dressed just as he’d been the night you’d met (full Asgardian leather, of course), smiling, his small craft parked behind him on the roof. She hadn’t even heard him land.
“Yes,” she said, wiping away a tear forming in the corner of her eye. “To the moon and back, please.”