Hello Everyone. This is a story I began writing when Thor came out, before avengers, before Loki's hair grew past attractive. So forgive the slight AU. Also, I had not done much research on Norse Mythology, so forgive me if i twist things a lot =) Also,I am now a huge Loki+Sigyn shipper, so i dont know if i will even finish this story, depends on the reviews, if ten or more people say "go for it", I will.

Chapter I

In the legends and myths of the Asgardians it is written that there are beings who reside on a high plane, a realm so shrouded and ethereal that the inhabitants must be of pure consciousness. The legends say that these beings control the fates of all beings in all the realms. Watching, Guiding, orchestrating.

Voices in the darkness:

"Tell me oh one-so-full-of-care, what is it that presses so heavily on your mind that you do not join with myself and the others to observe the events of our charges?"

"The events disturb my mind. I see an imbalance in the fate of certain high forms. This, Thor, who we have so long guided, has finally found his pathway and will indeed complete what needs' be done. Yet…"

"Yet you sense an imbalance."

"Mmm... Indeed, and a great capacity for evil. I fear that one of us must intercede as has not been done in a thousand or more of our lifetimes."

"Impossible. While the pathways of the Asgardians have long been of great concern, when compared to the mortals, their lives are well placed, all pathways are intertwining as we see fit."

"Yes…YET…there remains a shadow on the edge of my mind, one that has yet to take shape."

"You speak strangely oh wise-one. Come, join the others with me."

Loki can feel the pain grab him. This is so much worse than the horrible dull ache he's felt all through his life, so much worse than the open wound of his recent actions. All this pain, inflicted by the lone eye of the man he once called father, who looked with fear and caring at his son, Thor, but when he turned to Loki, the disappointment and regret were horribly obvious.

"I could have done it, Father, I could have done it! For you, for all of us!" Loki cries, voice cracking.

"No, Loki" Odin says softly. No? That makes Loki's decision for him.

Loki looks at his brother Thor. Remembering their childhood and their bond, for a bittersweet second…and then.

He lets go.

He doesn't close his eyes. He hears Thor shouting after him. He watches as Odin pulls his brother up onto the Bifrost. He watches until they are one of the many specs of light that dance before his eyes.

Amidst the whirling atmosphere and the suction of space as it compresses and expands and flies around him, Loki could feel everything. The broken shards of the rainbow bridge sliced through the air around him. Most missed him, he was so small in all this open space, but some made contact causing him to twist and bleed. He wanted to scream, to curse and kick and fight, but soon, he began to lose himself. Lights were going out, he realized, from inside himself as well as around him. He dimly registered another Bifrost shard cutting into his side, and then he knew no more.

A voice in the darkness intones, "Rend from this usurper the power he was gifted, a burden put upon him till he be strong enough to lift it. Let a hidden challenge be planted in his breast, human heart in human chest."

Loki slowly became aware of a sharper pain than he had felt yet, a tearing that started in his chest and continued throughout his body. Still unconscious he silently screamed.

No sooner had the pain started then it ebbed away into a dull throbbing in his temples. It was with that sensation that Loki awoke with a gasp and strangled cry.

He was falling. Fast.

Air whistled in his ears and he struggled to take a breath. He barely had time to wonder at his predicament when a wall of dust rammed his body, winding him. Dust worked its way up his nose, into his mouth, stinging his eyes and skin. Loki was thrashing about trying to right himself in some way when he felt a massive object slam onto his whole body. For a split second everything was still and he took a deep dust free breath before his mind plunged into darkness once again.

In a little farmhouse on the edge of the Palouse in Oregon, Faith Anderson sat at her kitchen table reading. She mumbled to herself, taking mental notes on the book's complicated subject, how to bake. The hot sunlight that came streaming through the kitchen window slowly shifted, and reflected off the pages into faiths eyes. She slammed the book and shoved it across the table. Making a small, exasperated sound, she stood up and began to retrieve a number of ingredients from various cabinets.

After a few tedious hours she finally had put the strange looking concoction in the oven and sat down in a huff. "God, I'll never be any good at this." She said to the air. She looked at the clock, 4:25.

Gramps was late, she thought. What on earth could be keeping him? She walked across the room and leaned out the back door, pushing aside the creaky screen. In the distance she could she a green pickup rolling down the road, with a cloud of dust in its wake. She chuckled. Grandma always said he brought a handmade hurricane with him wherever he drove.

Faith hopped down the back stairs to wait for him. It was several minutes before he finally rolled up to a stop next to the house. Faith frowned, something was off. He was driving much too fast,

"What's wrong?" She asked as she bounded round to the driver side. Gramps look like he'd seen a ghost.

"A...a…feller…some… man, he fell outta the heavens right before my eyes, Faith!" He yelled, slightly out of breath.

"OK, slow down, grandpa, what exactly happened?" Faith was amused, but worried at the same time.

"Well, it was like this, I was comin' home after work today when I passed by neighbor Herman's empty field, ya know the one, all dusty n' misused? Well I'm about half way passed it when outta nowhere, there comes this twister! Just materialized! Right outta the sky, like it was set on going straight threw the earth to china! And then it was gone! Just like that! And, in the middle of it all, I see's this feller, all caught up in the whirlin' n' swirlin' mess! Yellin' and kickin' and then he was on the ground, and I was slammin' on the brakes, and runnin' to him and he weren't movin', and I didn't touch him, like I see's on TV you're not supposed to touch 'em when they fall, so I puts my hat over his face to keep off the sun, and I rushes back here to get you!" He says in one breath, his eyes wide and nervous.

Faith stood there stunned for a moment, and then flew into action. "Alright, grab some water from the fridge, I'll get the first aid kit up stairs, and some blankets too, if he's really hurt we might have to take him to the hospital in Greenville." She yells as she sprints up the stairs and through the house, hoping that the man was even alive.

Within five minutes they are on the road again, with gramps pushing the little pickup to its limits. Ten minutes pass, and soon they are pulling up alongside a huge empty field, mostly dirt with small tuffs of weeds here and there. Faith springs out of the truck with the first aid kit and water bottles. She can see the form of someone lying way out in the dust.

"Gramps bring the blankets and hurry!" she yells and runs towards the figure.

"Oooh my god." She whispers, and kneels next to the young man. "What the hell," she thinks, what is he dressed in?! The man was pale, with long black hair caked with dirt. He was clad in black leather pants, heavy boots, and what looked to Faith like medieval armor. He was beautiful and frightening, but Faith barely registered it as she looked him over. His armor had once been wonderfully inscribed and his green robes intricately embroidered, but now they were both twisted and ripped, and dirty with blood and rock and dust. She takes his pulse.

"Oh thank god he's still breathing…Gramps, do you have your pocket knife?" she says holding her hand out. He jogs over and hands it to her. She then proceeds to cut away the tangle heavy cloth and leather from his chest. She flings the bits and pieces away and then cuts away the shredded legs of his pants. She checks for broken bones and blushes when she realizes he's about her age, but she shakes it off.

"Gramps, I'm pretty sure we can move him, he doesn't seem to have any broken bones." She says over her shoulder

"Aaaaggh…uuhhh." Faith jumps and gramps looks startled when the man moans and coughs up dirt. Faith grabs a bottle of water and holds the man's head up to it. He doesn't register it, merely coughs some more, eyes still closed. She pours some water into his mouth, but he only drinks a little before he slumps back down again.

Faith and Gramps spread out a blanket and manage to maneuver the young man onto it. Then the struggle to get him onto the back of the pickup starts. After nearly dropping him four or five times and thumping his legs against the bumper once or twice, they finally manage to lay him down. Faith hops up onto the back and puts the man's head in her lap.

"Let's go Gramps, I'll ride back here so he doesn't knock around, but we have to get home quick, some of his cuts are still bleeding." She says with a concerned look at the man's increasingly bloody thigh.

Gramps gets in and they head off down the dirt road. When they hit a few bumps Faith pulls the man's upper body across her lap, cradling his head in the crook of her arm. She studies his face, wiping dirt away from his mouth and eyes with the edge of her t-shirt. His features were sharp and thin but attractive, almost fair.

"I imagine his eyes are blue. Like ice…" she thought.

Loki slowly opens his eyes. His whole body is sore, and his head is pounding. His vision is blurry at first and then he becomes aware of someone speaking. To him it seems.

"Alright, you're almost all stitched up. Your hip and thigh look a bit like a quilt, but you'll definitely live."

He glances down at his body. A blonde head is bowed over his torso and he can feel gentle hands pressing on his hip.

He struggles to sit up. Sparkling blue eyes snap up and widen at him, startled. He pushes the small woman off of him and stumbles off the table he'd been lying on. She moves towards him but he raises a hand defensively and she stills.

"Don't come any closer girl. Where am I? What have you done to me?" he rasps, breathing heavily.

A little scared, but mostly intrigued by the man's demanding presence, she answers, "Ok, ok, calm down. Sir, what's your name, I'm Faith...I -"

"Silence. You'll answer my questions first please." Loki growled.

"Excuse me? You are in my home and you better calm the heck down or you'll bust your stitches, which is the only thing I've done to you except get you out of the sun and probably save your pale butt from bleeding out and drying up like a raison." Faith huffed; hand on her hip, and the other pointing a hooked needle at Loki.

Surprised at her reaction he put his hands down and takes a step back. "I apologize miss. I… I'm not, really… quite…" He became distracted by a dull pain in his side and his head began throbbing in earnest.

"Here, sit down here." Faith turned and pulled out one of the kitchen chairs.

"I'm alright." Loki said putting a hand on the bandages covering his chest and abdomen. "Why am I covered in white cloth?" he raised an eyebrow at Faith.

"Sit down and I'll tell you." She said sitting down in the chair across from his and crossed her arms. She mimicked his suspicious face. She wondered why he questioned the bandages she had painstakingly placed on him. She had gagged as she stitched up the finger length gash below his hip.

Begrudgingly, Loki took his seat. "Tell me then."

"Alright, well, my granddad was driving home from work this afternoon when he saw you, caught up in a cyclone. He rushed back here and got me. You were pretty banged up. No bones broken amazingly. We figured the twister must have picked you up somewhere and dropped you in the field where we found you…so… we fixed you up, well, I fixed you up mostly." She gave him a soft smile.

Loki stared at her, astonished. How had he come to be here, what realm was this, and how had he survived a fall to another realm at all!

"Where is here?" he asked, turning his head slightly to take in the room. It was a quintessential country kitchen, but to Loki it was baffling.

"Um, the edge of Oregon. Where are you from, further north I suppose?" she said sounding equally confused.

"Oregon?" he thought for a moment and then he closed his eyes sighing. "Please, don't tell me I'm in Midgard."

"Mid-Gard? What, no you're in America buddy." Faith started to get worried, if he'd hit his head and had brain damage, they had to take him into Greensville right away.

"No!" He slammed his fist on the table, making faith flinch. "Earth, how and…why. Aaaaghhh." He made an angry sound in the back of his throat and put his face in his hands.

Faith leaned forward on her elbows, very worried now. "Let's start this over. Hi-I'm-Faith-Anderson-nice-to-meet-you-what's-your-name?"

The man looked up at her, eyes boring into hers, full of pain so obvious it made Faith shiver. He looked down at his hands. "Loki...Laufeyson." He spit the words out like they tasted terrible.

Loki, what a strange name. "Ok Loki," she smiled at the rhyme, "where are you from?"

"The realm of Asgard." He said proudly, raising his chin.

"Is that in Europe or something?" said faith, wide eyed.

"Ha. No." Loki looked over her shoulder and said no more.

"Does, ahem, does your head hurt Loki?" she asked in a small voice. Faith didn't like how irrelevant he made her feel. When his eyes met hers again it was her that looked away first.

"Faith," He said slowly.

"Yeah?"

"Something is burning."

She looked at him confused for a second, then gasped,

"OhmyGodthecake!"

Please Review! It will allow for much excitement on my part! Thanks for reading! TA!