Ch.1
Loki slowly raised himself off the ground and looked around. Even through he faked his death the injury was pretty real. It took him several hours to heal himself before he could even stand. And of course, in those several hours, Thor hasn't shown up. The big oaf just left his "corpse" on a stranded wasteland. After claiming he loves his brother so much, he leaves his body to rot on Svartalfheim. But what would you expect from him, the thunderer is incapable of thinking. So yes he was angry with Thor. The brute went chasing after his precious women, not even giving a single thought over him.
Whatever he didn't care what Thor thinks.
So now comes the question of what he should do.
The information about his death will probably be known in the entire nine realms by tomorrow noon. After all, his so-called brother can't keep his mouth shut for even one second. The first one to know will surely be Odin. Thor will come to him crying with the news of his brother's death and Odin will hold a great feast in Loki's name. Rigghhtt...the only one who would think of him at it would be Thor, but no doubt will the Warriors Three and Sif make him forget about his treacherous little brother.
Anyway, he has to hide somewhere, where no-one would find him for now.
Odin would never fall for the lie that he's dead.
Well, he couldn't stay on Svartalfheim. Maybe Vanaheim or Alfheim? No that would be too obvious, everyone knew he always preferred the company of the Elves and Vanir more. He's not particularly liked in Nidavellir, after the bet he made. Muspelheim is out of the question, he doesn't want to die being burned by a Fire Demon. Jotunheim....no. That only leaves three options. Well two, because there is no way he's going back to Asgard. Niflheim, he's not particularly sure his daughter would want to see him visiting her in Hel so early. That only leaves one. No-one would suspect him to go back to the realm of his defeat.
Off to Midgard then.
*****************************************************
After a few hours looking for a secret pathway that leads to the realm of the mortals, he finally found it. Normally it wouldn't have taken him so long, but even though the injury was healed, his chest and back still hurt. He had to take short breaks to stabilize his breathing from time to time.
But it was worth it. There it was, a big split in a rock, laying in front of him. Bright colors shone from the crack, mostly blue and green. It was probably reflecting the colors of the place it leads to, Midgard.
Now that he thinks of it, what would Asgard colors be. Definitely gold, maybe blue, no, it was surely red.
Looking into the passway, he hesitated.
Maybe it wasn't such a good idea. The people of Midgard hated him. Even though he loathed to admit it, they still defeated him. Eventually they could do it again. Then they would call his brother and he would be sitting in a cell ,again, in no time.
But this could be his only chance. He wouldn't have one in any other realm. He isn't even sure what food he would eat, if he decided to just stay on Svartalfheim. He hasn't seen a living creature, not even speaking of vegetation, in hours. The only thing he came across was this little, slimy rat-thing, but he doubted it was even eatable.
So he finally made a choice.
He took one step forward. And another. One last time he looked at the grey skyline before taking the final step.
And he was falling. Bright colors shining around him, like they wanted to swallow him and never let him leave this place.
Then blackness. And Silence.
Loki knew that traveling through the hidden pathways was dangerous. There could always be the rist he would fall out of the stream of lights, and drift away in the In-between. It was a place similar to the void, but had it's differences.
The void was a place between the many worlds, a part of the cosmos. A blackhole that rested under Asgard and stretched up until the end of Yggdrasil and even beyond. That's the place he fell into after his attempt to destroy Jotunheim. That's the place he met Thanos, his ally the Other and the Chitaurie. That's the place of his downfall.
The In-between is also a place between the nine realms, but in a different perspective. It's a place you have to go to deatomise. Like through teleporting. It isn't a physical place you can just enter without knowledge, or it will rip you apart within a second. You can't escape it if you are stuck there, then it is your end.
But there is still a difference between teleportation and going through a secret pathway. When you teleport you walk the branches of Yggdrasil, you have ground under your feet. But when you take the pathways, you're falling. Naturally there are a couple of pathways where you can walk, but they are very rare. Through these pathways you can walk to both sides, in the others only one.
The process to step into it is very difficult. First to be able to transfer the body safely through that place, but also to think about the exact location, you will emerge. It takes years, even centuries to accomplish that state of mind, body and soul to be successful.
That's why only a handful of sorcerers, witches, or mages learn the arts to teleport. And Loki was one of them.
Using the passways between the worlds doesn't require you to settle on an exact position where you're going to end on. That makes it easier, because you have to use less energy and not so much practice to pass them. That's why most magic users use them and not teleportation with only your own energy.
Normally Loki would teleport manually, but because of the damn pain he can't, that's why he chose the pathway.
Now enough with the magic lesson.
It only took a few seconds, but it felt like hours, when his feet finally touched solid ground.
He was in a sort of field, with a few trees and small trails going in every direction. A park. To be specific, the Central Park. After his last visit on Midgard he learned a few things and could remember being in this place.
Interesting, the passway took him to the place where he last took off with the Tesseract, when Thor was taking him 'home'. He will have to look up later why that happened.
A light breeze blew against him and the sky was clear blue with a couple of clouds.
He quite liked the place, of what he saw till now. But there was no time for admiring.
He was born with the ability to shapeshift, so it was effortless for him to change into another person. No one was paying attention to him so he swiftly shifted into a young man, smaller than Loki but still tall, with blue eyes and brown hair. He also got himself another pair of clothing, so he wouldn't look out of place. Black jeans, a green shirt ( he couldn't resist) and a black jacket. Also black shoes that were going over his ankles.
Loki walked out of the park and looked up. In not so far distance he could see Stark's Tower. It was renewed after the attack, only one thing wasn't repaired. The name STARK wasn't standing there anymore, only the letter A.
**********************************************
After he chose the apartment he will be living in, he again changed his appearance. Now he was a woman with black hair, green eyes and was a little bit shorter than his last appearance.
Loki was more familiar with this form, so he felt rather comfortable. He often shifted into it on Asgard. Lying in it to people who didn't know him was easier that way, no one would suspect an innocent woman to lie to them.
The apartment wasn't too big, but had enough space for him. There was still some furniture from the previous owner. In the living room stood a grey couch and in front of it a small table. The rest of the room was empty, like the whole bedroom. The kitchen and bathroom furniture was still there.
With a bit of magic the couch looked like new and there was a bed in the bedroom. He will acquire the rest later.
******************************************************
It has been two days since he stepped through his apartment door for the first time and since he changed back to male. The apartment was cleaned now and the new furniture was standing. In the living room were now standing two big sheelfs, with various books from Asgard, that he still had in his pocket dimension. Loki loved books and with that also the view of them standing neatly ordered in the regals.
He got himself the strange midgardian thing that was called a TV, because it seemed like everyone did have one. Loki was curious why the mortals all loved the weird electronic inventions. He figured out that most people had it to get information on what was happening in their realm or to watch something called 'Movies'. He really didn't get why someone would like to observe some beings humanilating themselfs. Okay he had to admit it was funny, but why sit around when you could make people humanilete themself of your own.
The thing called 'Internet' which you could go through 'Google' was actually pretty useful. There were so many things he could learn about the midgardian heroes, just by searching their names.
Right now he was sitting on his couch reading a book about 'Earth's' history, he wanted to learn something about his new place of living, when the doorbell rang. For a second panic started rising in him. What if Thor knew he wasn't dead and now the Avengers were after him and somehow found him. Of course he could just teleport away now, but after sitting so long in prison, not using magic, it came back to him slower than he would have wished. Besides curiosity was always a problem of his and right now it was pushing him to open the door.
After changing back into a woman and as silently as she could advanced, step by step, to the door. Taking a deep breath and putting on a smile, she opened the door. To say she was surprised at who she saw, would be an understatement. Right in front of her, looking her straight in the eyes, was standing the banished Enchantress.
Amora straightened her blond hair back with one hand and chuckled. A sign of confusion showed on Loki's face, before she realised what the woman was laughing at. She must have looked humorous with her mouth wide agape and eyes widened. Quickly she schooled her expression into her natural cool demeanor.
"Amora?" Loki asked, looking at her confused.
"Well hello to you too darling, we haven't seen each other for a while" Amora greeted in a sweet tone and went into the apartment without shooting Loki a second glance.
Dumbfounded, if someone would mention that later she would deny it, she closed the door and turned back to Amora, who was laying now on the couch, looking at her expectantly. She turned back to male, afterall Amora already knew who he was. Walking into the living room, his eyes never leaving her, he stopped in front on the couch.
"Amora, what are you doing here?" he got straight to the point.
"Oh you know, after I got banished from Asgard... I mean you probably didn't know but I got sent here, I was living with the humans for some years. It was actually really interesting seeing how the things changed through the decades. And then I heard about your attack on Earth, I really missed you, ya know, so anyways I got here but you were already gone. New York is a really great place, so I settled here." she finished and sat up.
"That doesn't really explain what you are doing in my apartment." he retorted.
"Oh I felt seidr being used, even if in small potions, and followed the magic signature here. A few minutes before I got to this place, I recognized it as yours. The last time we saw each other was almost two centuries ago, so I didn't realize it immediately." she patted the place next to her, so he sat down and turned to her.
"I'm going to assume you want to know what happened, that I'm back on Midgard." Loki concluded.
"Yes please, you know me so well, my prince." she said in a sweet tone and flashed him a wicked grin.
"With pleasure my lady" he shot the same grin back at her.
They both chuckled. Oh how he missed the days when he could freely joke with his best friend, without having to worry about his position in the world. He had to deal with all the insults from Thor's friends, but he could handle it, it was still better than now. Before he knew about his real heritage. Amoras banishment hit him hard, but he handled it perfectly. Knowing about his parentage, just finally broke him.
"I'm not going to talk about the attack and why I did it, but I can tell you what happened after." Loki told her.
"That's fine with me, whatever you want darling." Amora agreed.
"After the attack I was taken to Asgard and sentenced to imprisonment in the dungeons for the rest of my life. Then the Dark Elves attacked Asgard." at Amoras gapping expression he mentioned " Yes they're not dead, Odin thought so himself, but it turned out they were just hiding, it doesn't matter anymore, Thor probably killed every single one of them." Amora nodded and concentrated back on the story.
Loki's face darkened when he thought what he was going to say next. " They... they killed moth- the queen." he corrected himself, even when it sounded wrong. Amora's eyes widened. She wanted to say something, resure Loki everything would be alright, but she knew it wouldn't. There was no need to lie to the God of Lies.
As quickly as he could, Loki continued. " Then Thor came for me to help him get out of Asgard, he wanted revenge on the Elves, but Odin wouldn't let him. He and his friends helped me out of prison and we travelled to Svartalfheim through a secret pathway. Thor told me this Foster woman, his lover, was injected with the Aether."
At that Amora's jaw almost hit the floor. Loki snorted but started speaking again.
" Thor and I tricked Malekith to get the Aether out of her and then started fighting, but he got away. And then I, I faked my death." he finished.
"So... Thor thinks you're dead. All the nine think so." she concluded.
"If Thor already told the news Odin, then that would be about right." he confirmed.
Amora looked at him for a second before bursting out laughing. "I can't believe I missed that. And he believed it. I love Thor but sometimes he can be pretty stupid."
"Amora... are you alright. Does that mean you don't think Thor's perfect anymore." he raised his eyebrows.
She huffed at that, but didn't answer.
********************************************************
For the next two weeks Amora and him have been meeting and she showed him through New York. Out in the city he always was in the form of a woman, so no-one could recognise him. Amora showed him her apartment, where Skurge was laying in front of the TV watching some midgardian show. They greeted each other, but didn't talk much. Skurge isn't much of a talker.
The Enchantress introduced him to a lot of new food, he hadn't ever tried a great number of places. Like the New York Public Library. He could spend whole days at this place, if he wanted, but Amora always dragged him away, saying if he would beginn, there is no stopping him. And she wanted to show him so much more.
Right now it was three weeks after he faked his death and Amora and him were sitting in his apartment talking. Both of them were bored out of their minds, so they looked for possibilities of what to do next.
Loki was now back to his full strength, so he decided to finally show the realms, how wrong they were about his death.