An Unexpected Interlude
Traveling the long way through the World Tree means you sometimes make some unexpected stops.
Loki wasn't particularly happy to fall through the worlds, as it was, but gathering enough energy to stop the momentum he'd built up was taking quite a long time – long enough for him to fall from Asgard and through Alfheim, Niflheim, Muspellsheim, and Midgard before finally stopping on a tiny realm he'd previously never heard of which hung directly below Midgard.
Alas, having fallen so far, his landing was less than graceful. The hedges he'd crushed beneath him hardly broke his fall. Cracked flagstones and twigs that used to be hedges surrounded him, but most pressing – and irritating – was the small, spindly creature who was yelling at him for breaking the stones and – did that vile creature just insinuate that his mother had sex with an aardvark?
He was pulling himself up to his feet and debating whether to turn the dull cretin into a snake or a pebble when it was abruptly punted out of the way by a lithe blond man, dressed in a manner reminiscent of Alfheim but centuries out of date.
The blond man looked him over and smirked, tapping a riding crop against his leg. "You've certainly come a long was, Aesir," he said. He looked away, pulled a crystal out of the air, and peered into it intently. "Oh, it's only the world you want – hardly anything at all." He extended the crystal to Loki and asked simply, "Do you want it?"
Loki knocked the crystal away – it shattered with a pleasing chime. "I am a god, elf, and there's nothing your charlatan tricks can offer me," he hissed.
"Well, if you're going to be that way about it, get out of my kingdom." The pale man summoned another crystal. "And you're lucky I'm not bogging you first." He tossed the crystal, which Loki caught – it burst in his hand like a bubble and, abruptly, Loki found himself falling through space again.
This time, at least, he had enough magic left to aim himself at a desolate rock inhabited by horrid creatures… who would provide him tools to conquer what was rightfully his. Once he'd finished with Midgard and Asgard, he'd make sure to take an army to destroy that insolent little elf-king and his imbeciles. And he'd burn down those hedges, too, for good measure.
Oro: Got this in my head all of a sudden and had to jot it down because hey, why the hell not? Takes place between the end of Thor and the stinger for Thor.
Hob: She doesn't own anything in this - not even a tiny bit! Though the general Norse mythology is public domain -
Quill: The Marvel and Henson characters and settings are not.
Hob: Hope you liked it!
