Asgardians

Loki patted his horse in encouragement as it as it stepped gingerly up the narrow path. She was trying not to look to the left where cliffs fell away steeply with only the occasional rock to break what would certainly be a fatal fall. The water glimmered some hundred meters below each ripple reflecting golden with the bright sunlight.

He pressed the horse forward and it continued. He had trained the creature well, in her opinion, but he could not expect it to walk without any fear on uneven footing between the cliff and the towering cliff above them, precariously angled, and a steep drop below.

Letting it chose its own pace, she leaned back in the saddle slightly and looked up at the clear blue sky.

It was odd that the sky was blue here and not just a void or stars. It was odd that a floating disk in the middle of an empty universe could produce its own atmosphere, or even exsist, come to that. Presumably it was some kind of godly magic. The kind it was only ok for males to use if it had some great importance and power, or if the man in question enslaved a couple of witches to do it for him. That seemed plausable.

The horses shoes clopped against the stone and Loki's mind drifted from the quanderies of the clear skies and the admiration of the glittering lake to the reason he was here. She thought it would probably be more enjoyable if they continued to dance through the medows a glide between the gilded houses in the distant city. From here they looked little more than toys.

She was still panting and the horse was slick with sweat. He had galloped from the city. Unable to think of anywhere to go, he had fallen back to his old habit of exploring. As a child, she had told himself that she was looking for buried treasure. Asgard had to be full of it after all. As she had grown up though, it had just been somewhere to hide. Somewhere she wouldnt be judged and where her father might not find him for a while. Usually it worked and it was his mother that eventually sought him ought, but her father never liked it and it was only delaying the inevitable.

Today her father had got annoyed at her for some reason or another. Apparently he had not been trying hard enough to hit the target they had been aiming at in archery practise. Apparently his apology had not been sincere enough and when her father thought he was being dissrecpected...

Anyway, it had all blown wildly out of proportion. His father had ended up calling him a failure and dissapointment of a son infront a the whole crowd of intently staring people. It had been all Loki could do not to break down right there. Despite himself, she could not help but feel the words like a spear through the heart. It was nothing new, but it still stung for some reason. Instead, she had simply sneered and left the training yard.

He could hardly remember finding his way down to the stables and saddling her horse.

The journey to the foothills of the small mountain region was a blur of pounding hoof falls.

Birds had hiding in the plants had darted from beneath the horse as they galloped down the dry mud and to her horror she found she enjoyed the sensation of making someone else feel fear for once. He was so used to being the one that cowered and feld beneath thundering fists and raised voices that finding she could spark that feeling in someone else was... intreguing. It did not feel like her though. He was more used to aggravating people, not upsetting them or making them afraid.

At last the horse had come to the foot hills of the mountains.

They had been riding towards the edge, so as to look out over the blue expanse of water.

Loki had been looking up at the cliffs and had spotted, nestled between jagged boulders, a small winding path that meandered across the cliffs. Once she had spotted it, she was able to follow it as it zig zagged up the rock face.

He blamed curiosity for his decision to press the horse forward and up onto that narrow path.

In all the maps and books she had studied, she had never come across any mention of a path like this. She wondered where it had come from and who had built it. Maybe it lead to some secret hidden spot where no one would ever find him and he could sit and read and practice magic for however long he wanted. She had her spear with her, he could not be in any danger if she chose to follow that path. Besides, few malignant beings would be able to climb this path. Giants would certainly be to large, even his horse was sending cascades of small rocks to splash in the water below.

When they had come to where Loki estimated must be arround half way, she slipped gracefully of the horse.

The path widened out for a short time and a flowering tree growing in the corner spread branches against the cliff face. The petal were a pale orangish colour and the trunk was twisted and knarled. Loki did not recognise it as any tree he had seen in Asgard before.

Above, the path grew suddenly much steeper and rockier. As much as he trusted the horse, Loki did not sant to risk riding it up there.

Leaving it tied to the main trunk of the tree and hoping it could not be seen by people who might be watching in Asgard, she continued the climb.

Without the steady beat of the horses hooves, it was oddly silent. There was none of the normal noise he was used to in Asgard: no people or animals or music. It was not the silence she was used to when he came out alone either: birds and wind or the distant trickle of water. No, here it was entirely and completely silent.

It grated against Loki and he began to wonder if this temper fueled adventure was not a bad idea. She was determined not to give up though and continued to clamber up the increasingly derelict path.

After some time, she began to hear a rush of wind above her. It was like a harsh wind racing through a valley.

The sound reenergised him and he continued with fresh vigor hoping that sound would be the end of his climb. A hidden valley would be exactly what he was looking for. Somewhere he could be alone with no fear of discovery.

When she at last mangaged to pull herself to the top, cursing whoever had made the path and thought it was a good idea to turn it into basically a cliff and the end, she looked arround.

It was not a valley. The cliffs continued to grow above and tower into that oddly blue sky.

Loki stood on a small ledge, thick with boulders. The cliff face the he now faced was craggy and filled with cravasses, but none of them appeared to be that deep, hardly caves. She could feel that rush of air though and he could sense the tingle of magic thick in the air.

Suddenly, the idea that he should not be here struck him. Whatever this place was, Odin would not approve. She checked the magic he had woven about herself to prevent even Heimdall from seeing her. Still intact, she hoped, it was only recently that his mother had taught her that trick and it had taken a lot of persuasion on his part. His mother had seemed to think he would use it to run away. To be fair, she was now proving her suspicions right, but Loki hardly thought it was a reasonable excuse.

Following the rush of air and the tang of magic, he let his senses lead him to a particularly large crevasse in the cliff face.

From where she had stood before, it had not looked deep, maybe a meter or two, but from where he stood now it was clear it was a lot deeper.

Loki hesitated a little at the mouth of the cave. It was narrow and low and fell unaturally quickly into darkness. A dark broken only by the occasional flicker of rainbow light, like the rainbow bridge. That was much more than he had bargained to come across in this little escapade, but that had never stopped her before.

Slowly he stepped inside. It felt as though something was tugging him in, like a gravity, pulling her slowly into the depths of the darkness.

A moment of pannic seized him as it continued to pull, but what did she have to lose anyway? She continued, ignoring the gradually increasing pressure.

After a couple of steps, she doubted she could have turned back if she'd wanted to. After a few more, she had to hold onto the walls to stop himself being dragged of his feet.

The rainbow sparks increased untill they were a blur, sucking Loki down into an abyss a rainbow dark.

A sudden pannic clutched him as he felt his body dissintergrating and rushing somewhere. She was out of controll, so horribly, horribly out of controll.

Her heart raced and her breathing increased as she clawed for anything solid to take hold of and keep her on solid ground. It was futile though and his hand grasped only empty air.

Before she could lose controll entirely, a sudden calm sense washed over her. A voice that demanded that this was not where she died, or disintegrated as seemed more likely at the moment.

Pushing down the pannic, she thought. This was like the rainbow bridge. He just needed to choose where to go and, hopefully, the bridge would take him there.

He was not sure why, but the first place that came to mind was Midguard.

She had not been there much. Her father disapproved of the mortals. Prehaps that was why he wanted to go.

Doing his best to focus on an immage of some place he had been on earth, he concentrated all her thoughts on a desire to be there.

A jolt went through his legs and he found herself colliding with hard ground.

The rainbow blurs vanished and she looked arround.

He seemed to be in a narrow ally between two large grey brick buildings. It was the kind of place you would never find in Asgard and the kind Loki had learnt to misstrust on her last trip to Midgard.

At one end of the alley was the noise and the disgusting stentch of mortals. At the other was a pile of bin bags and a rusty metal staircase leading up to an even rustier metal door. A strange smell lingered in the air and a rat darted out from a crack in the wall.

Loki wrinkled his nose and turned swiftly towards the street.

When he had said he wanted to find some place far away where her father wouldn't follow, she had not meant Midgard. Her father wouldn't look for him here at least, but only because he would never deign to associate himself with mortals. That was one of the few things Loki had in common with her father. Now he was stuck in a city full of mortals with no idea how to get home.

With nothing else to do, he changed his appearance into what she hoped was midgardian fashion, though she did his best to make it as genderlessy gendery as possible and walked briskly towards the street.

It was much more crowded than anywhere in Asgard.

People of all types walked through the filthy streets. Some dadled and stopped to look at the building or looked at their... Loki thought they were called phones, but they had changed a lot since the last time he had been here. Some walked briskly with unmistakable purpose. They all looked so different. She found it pathetic. They were like ants, working so hard, and for what? Mortals.

No one give her odd looks, even though the style of clothing he had chosen would be certain to raise eyebrows in Asgard. No one even looked at her twice. He was not sure wether to be happy about that or insulted, but it was freeing to were something other than the ubsurd fashion of Asgardian men.

Realising he could not simply walk forever, she began to think of how she might get home.

It was too crowded to call on Heimdall to bring him back and Loki did not even know where she was. Not that it would have made much difference if she did, he knew nothing about Midgard's cities and certainly not how to navigate them.

He began to seriously consider that he should have just stayed in Asgard instead of going on this ridicules quest. Certainly it was great the she had found the place and she was already formulating many plans of what she could do with the knowledge, but for now his main concern was how to get back before someone noticed he was gone. That would not be a fun conversation.

"Excuse me," he said to a stranger in a suit, "Where are we?"

For the first time he was given a strange look, before the man just sighed and walked off.

Confused, Loki continued to walk until he found himself on a bridge looking down on a wide, sluggish brown river.

Infront of him, across the river on the left side of the bridge was a large metal circle.

Next to him was a stand selling tourist junk, notibly a flag pin badge. Blue and white with a red cross. The UK then. This had to be London.

That didn't really help.

Maybe she could catch a bus to some quieter area and call Heimdall. Calling Heimdall seemed to be the only option. She had found how else to get out of Asgard, but had no idea how else to get into it. Hopefully the gatekeeper would be to preoccupied worrying about how Loki had got out to inform his father she had got back in. That was if he could even find somewhere to call him.

He looked about. To his right, a series of old beige buildings topped with little spires and with one wall against the river. The houses of parliment. They had been there forever, always full of incredible mortal and obnoxious men.

To his left, a few newer, less important buildings and another, less pretty bridge.

Infront of him, that odd metal circle that seemed to have people in the little pods now she looked closer, behind that was the Globe. That was one thing in this place and about mortals in general that he actually liked. It was tempting to cross the river and enjoy a play for a while. Her father never let them usually, though he and her brother had managed to sneek in a few times. Loki loved plays, and they were not much differnt here to Asgard. Though Asgard did not have Shakespeare. That was one thing Midgard could boast of, aswell as their apparent uncaring for what she looked like.

Aside from that, he recognised nothing of her surroundings.

Deciding that he should really make the best of a bad situation, he walked quickly over the bridge then turned left and followed the tarmac path along the river for a short way until she was at the enterance to the globe.

Tarmac was one thing she despised about Midgard. There was something so dull and permanent and unatural about it. Really, it was a wonder it wasn't everywhere in Asgard. It was just the kind of tasteless solidness that his father would love.

Quickly talking her way past security, possibly using a little magic to convince the fragile human mind to let him in, she stood in the thick crowd on the floor of the Globe.

Now she was packed in with the rest of the mortals like sardines in a can, which was another Midgardian delicacy Loki could not stand. Usually being this close to mortals would have made him gag, but he forgave them this once, though he was reconsidering her decision not to talk her way into a box. It was just a different feel being down her. Something that did not exsist in Asgard and Loki was not going to pass up this chance to enjoy it.

At last the actors walked up on the stage and the play began.

Sadly, Loki gad little knowledge of Shakespeare, her father had forbin him from bringing any of the scripts back to Asgard and he had had to make do with occasional glimses on the stage.

Never the less, she enjoyed it immensly. The hugeness of the characters, the way the were brought to life with ridiculous, bold movements and expressions, the story they told, the strange way they spoke, a little like the people in Asgard did normally.

She barely noticed the hours passing, so engrossed with the play, but they must have passed, for when he eventually left the theatre, the sky was darkening and lights were beginning to flicker at the top of the numerous metal poles that stood in rows everywhere here.

"Having fun?"

He turned quickly as someone grabbed his arm only to find himself face to face with a pair of golden eyes.

"Heimdall," he said, attempting to sound relieved as her heart pounded.

"Loki,"

She must have let his sheild down in her enjoymenrt of the play. How much had Heimdall seen? Probably too much. How much had he told his father?

They stared at each other for a moment. Neither sure what to say.

"I'll agree not to tell Odin what you were doing if you agree not to tell him how long it took for me to find you,"

"Don't you have to tell him everything? Duty or whatever?"

"There is no need. You were not plotting against him or anything like that, so really there is nothing to tell."

"Thank you, Heimdall,"

"No problem. To tell the truth, I also enjoy looking down to watch Shakespeare sometimes. That's how i found you."

Loki smiled and Heimdall put his arm arround her shoulder.

"We should get back though," sighed Heimdall, "I take it you won't tell me how you got here in the first place."

"A lift would be appreciated. And no, sorry, I'd rather keep it a secret,"

Heimdall did not seem put out by that, but nodded and smiled and led the way to a secluded ally where, in the dark, there was little chance of them being spotted as they dissapeared into a flash of rainbow light. Judging by the broken bottles and odd smell, anyone there was probably to drunk or high to notice them anyway.

They arrived back at Heimdall's place, stumbling slightly as they were thrown out the rainbow bridge.

"You should get back, your father is looking for you," said Heimdall after a moment.

"Yeah," agreed Loki as the memory of his father and their fight rushed back to him.

Beginning to jog down the rainbow bridge, she glanced back once over her should to see Heimdall watching him, a sad smile on his wise face.

"Hey Heimdall, thanks," Loki called.

Heimdall didn't reply, just continued to smile.

Loki looked over to the cliffs he had been exploring earlier which had lead him to her periless adventure. Suddenly, he remembered her horse.

Oops.

It would have to wait. Her father would be getting impatient. He could sneek out later and retrieve it.

Cyrsing himself soundly for his neglect, he increased her pace, the faster she got back and faced his fathers wrath, the faster she would be able to retrieve the poor animal.