The Long Way Home

Warnings: None for this chapter.

Disclaimer: I own neither anything related to Doctor Who nor Marvel. All canon characters belong to their respective owners. Any OCs belong to me.

Pairings: Eventual Lokane, Sif/Thor, mild Jane/OMC, Jane/Thor, Fandral/Darcy.

Chapter Playlist: 'Gallifrey' from 'Doctor Who: the Specials', 'Crisis in Asgard' from 'Thor', 'Into the Lair' by 'Zedd from the Mortal Instruments: City of Bones soundtrack' and 'This is Gallifrey: Our Childhood, Our Home' from 'Doctor Who: Series 3'.

A/N: There is very little verified canon about the education of young Time Lords, other than they begin at the age of eight usually. So I'm making this up as I go along from what little there is in DW canon about the Time Lord Academy. And a huge thank to MidnightInParis (aka bldskr on Tumblr) for the beautiful story cover. Thanks darling!

One month after Loki first awoke after his fall through the Vortex, he prepared to enter the Time Lord Academy.

The organisation of the new classes had taken some time, and Loki's inclusion had been a late one. Romana had told it had taken some weeks of arguing before the ruling Council of the Academy had permitted his entry. Now he was to begin his new journey into his future with the others.

He grimaced with slight distaste as he glanced at his reflection in the mirror. While the cut and style of his garments were still his to decide, the colour was not. The bright scarlet and gold reminded him painfully of Thor, and of Asgard.

Unlike the Time Lords, Loki did not wear long robes but a tunic and surcoat similar to the design he had worn when he arrived on Gallifrey. He still wore boots and riding breeches beneath his coat, and at his throat was the tarnished gold collar he'd worn, a gift from his mother upon reaching his coming of age, some five hundred years before. Over the long sleeves of his tunic, he still wore the bracers engraved with protective spells and enchantments, standing out against the garish red. His dark hair was ruthlessly slicked back and out of his face.

As he stared uneasily at his reflection, he reviewed all he had learned about his new home in the past weeks since his recovery and acceptance of the Lady President's offer.

The Time Lord Academy, it seemed, was a collective name for a number of academies, each assigned to a particular chapter of Time Lord Society, which were split into houses. He was to be invested into the Prydonian Academy, hence the scarlet and gold of his clothing. He would have much preferred the green and brown of the Arcalian Chapter.

The alien students in the Academy had been split between the Chapters of Gallifrey according to their temperaments. The Prydonian Chapter was apparently known for the cunning and ambitiousness of its children, so at least that Loki could take as a compliment. Each Time Lord candidate was nominally a member of their assigned Chapter, each sponsored and mentored by a member of one of the Houses. Loki's mentor was to be one Cardinal Braxatiel, of the House of Lungbarrow. Once he became a Time Lord, Loki would then gain the status of an adopted son of the House of Lungbarrow. The thought had brought an ironic smirk to Loki's lips when he'd heard the news. 'Always the adopted…'

He had briefly met Cardinal Braxatiel after he had been formally accepted into the Academy. A brusque, but not unkindly, figure; nonetheless Loki sensed very little escaped his new mentor and he was not one to cross. He would have to tread carefully while under his tutelage.

It would take four hundred years for him to graduate the Academy. Unlike those Time Lords born on Gallifrey, he would only be granted the Rassilon Imprimateur once he had graduated. Loki foresaw few problems; he was not unintelligent after all.

A knock came at his door, and he turned as Cardinal Braxatiel, a tall, pale man with dark brown hair and wearing, of all things, half-moon spectacles, walked briskly in, his Prydonian robes rustling as he moved. He wore the cumbersome shoulder and headdress that all senior Time Lords wore at official functions, but despite that impediment, he moved gracefully enough. But he was no warrior.

Loki had grown up among the finest warriors in the Universe; he knew when someone was a fighter and when someone was not. However he sensed that for all his physical ineffectiveness, Irving Braxatiel was not a man to underestimate. Behind his reasonably affable façade, lurked a ruthlessness and deviousness to match Loki's own. He was rather intrigued by the man.

For his part, Brax was looking forward to his mentorship of the young Aesir. There was a certain frisson of danger and unpredictable guile to the young man, that undermined his elegant, fighter's form and face. And like all Time Lords, he sensed the mental anguish lying buried deep in his mind, just biding its time before it emerged again. If Brax could have shown sympathy, he would have done, but since he could not, he didn't. Instead, he regarded the young man with a sly smile and inclined his head. "Are you ready, young Loki?" he asked. "Your classmates are gathering in the great hall of the Panopticon."

Loki looked at his reflection one last time, and watched his jaw firm, feeling oddly detached. He might be wearing scarlet and gold, but they were the colour of his Chapter, of the Prydonian Academy of which he would shortly be a student. They had nothing to do with his…with that oaf. They had nothing to do with his past.

With a mental shake of his head, he turned away and faced Braxatiel with a curt "I am ready, Lord Cardinal."

Loki followed Braxatiel down the long corridors of the Capitol, until they reached the hexagonal chamber of the Panopticon. There, before the ruling Council of the Time Lord Academy and the High Council, stood the new intake of students for the Academy. Segmented first by those of Gallifrey and those of alien origin, then by Chapter, they stood in a whirlwind of colour. As Loki took his place among the first rank of the Prydonian students that hailed from other Realms, he picked out the vivid green, light blue, silvery-grey, dark brown robes of the Arcalian, Cerulean, Dromeian and Scendles Chapters. The last group wore robes of a colour Loki could not identify and almost hurt his eyes to look at. As he eyed them narrowly, he heard a quiet chuckle beside him, and turned his head to meet the gaze of his neighbour.

She was a tall, slender female with dark skin and hair that appeared black at first, but on closer inspection, he could make out tints of brown and dark green in the wavy tresses, bound up as they were in a tight chignon. She wore the red of the Prydonian Chapter, fashioned into a short dress worn over leggings and boots, and she smiled lightly as she met his gaze firmly. "They're called Patrexeans. That snooty lot over there with the eye-watering robes," she told him in a whisper, below the rumble of conversation around them.

Loki's brows rose at her words. "Thank you for the insight," he muttered coolly. The female's eyes flared and she smirked.

"I'm Akeeta, by the way," she continued.

"I didn't ask," Loki replied repressively. Akeeta's eyes just sparked with amusement.

"I know," she whispered. Over the next ten minutes, Loki found himself drawn into conversation, despite himself, with the persistent female. He learned she had been adopted by the House of Hoardfleet, and was being mentored by Lady Valeria, a Coordinator of the APC Net, a subsystem of the Matrix. She was originally from the planet Thetas VI, in the Thetasian System, on the outmost tip of the Andromeda Galaxy. Her people were a race of engineers and inventors, and Akeeta had been handpicked by the Time Lords for her extreme promise and technical skill. He revealed very little of himself, but Akeeta did not seem to mind, although he sensed she was not deterred by his cool manner. After she had told him her life story, she entertained him by making some rather cutting, but witty, remarks about their fellow students and the ruling Council of the Academy. She almost surprised a laugh out of him once.

By the time the Lord Principal of the Academy called for silence, Loki was inwardly shocked to realise he'd rather enjoyed speaking with Akeeta. Slightly perturbed, he tried to ignore her knowing smile as he turned his attention to the venerable old Time Lord in Prydonian robes. Looking around, he noticed a good deal of the senior Time Lords wore Prydonian red and orange. There were a fair number of Arcalians and Patrexeans, but only a bare handful of the other Chapters were present to represent them.

The large number of Prydonians could only bode well for him. If they had the ascendancy in Time Lord society, he should be able to curry favour and allies easily enough.

The Lord Principal, a dusty old Time Lord halfway through his tenth regeneration, looked at them all through eyes that appeared shrewd, but to Loki, old and blind. Again, all to his good if the Lord Principal could be easily manipulated.

"Welcome, new students!" the Lord Principal called to them all. "And to our first class of off-world students, welcome to Gallifrey. Today, you will take your first steps into eternity…"

Loki mentally switched off while the old man twittered on and on about the Web of Time, responsibility, detachment and duty, and how difficult their studies would be, and the cost of failure. Loki knew what failure would mean already, he didn't need lecturing.

Akeeta leaned over to him and asked discreetly, "Who do you think is going to fall asleep first? The Curriculum Coordinator or the Lord Recorder?"

Loki couldn't help glancing at the two old Time Lords, and he swallowed a snort. Both looked ready to start dozing at any moment, even though they were standing up. Akeeta shot him a satisfied look out of the corner of her eye, and Loki rolled his eyes.

It seemed he had found a kindred spirit in mischief, at least.

Finally it came time to recite the Oath of the Time Lords, the promise all Time Lords made at their induction into the Academy. As one, the assembled students spoke, "I swear to protect the Ancient Law of Gallifrey with all my might and brain. I will, to the end of my days, with justice and honour, temper my actions and my thoughts."

After that, the newly inducted students were herded onto transports and flown to their new homes for the duration of their studies. Loki sat with Akeeta by his side, and looked out of the observation window as the Capitol receded into the distance, and slowly the towering peak of Mount Cadon came into view. Loki recalled, from the various texts Romana had lent him to prepare him for his life on Gallifrey, that the peak was the highest on Gallifrey and even grazed the transduction barrier that encircled and protected the planet. The Prydonian Academy was located at the base of the peak.

"There it is!" Akeeta breathed, in awe. The Academy was a large, fortress-like building; dark and ebony coloured, clinging to the side of the mountain like a giant beetle. The transport glided smoothly towards an opening in the side of the gigantic building, a shuttle port.

After they'd docked and departed the craft, Loki let his senses discreetly take in his surroundings as they left the cold shuttle port, and entered a set of wide, towering doors that led into an austere, cold entrance hall. From it led three staircases, and above them on the ceiling was imprinted the Prydonian Seal. The group of twenty-six Gallifreyans and twenty-six off-worlders as they had been called stopped and waited.

The Gallifreyans made no attempt to speak to the alien students, despite several encouraging looks and smiles from the latter. Loki didn't feel the need to speak or engage them, just yet. They were just students; he had no need to form relations with them until they were needed. In any case, he was still a Prince. He did not seek relations with inferiors, they sought relations with him. Their obviously disapproving attitudes towards the alien students had little effect on him.

"I'd heard the Gallifreyans were a cold bunch, but I didn't know they were this unfriendly," Akeeta whispered to him, after a failed attempt to catch the eye of a native Prydonian female opposite them.

"I suspect that the Lady President's educational reforms are not popular with many on Gallifrey, including our fellow students," he replied softly, and her face hardened.

"Well, we'll just have to show them. Won't we?" she asked rhetorically, and Loki chuckled. The girl had spirit, at least.

Loki decided at that moment, to try a little mischief. Valhalla knows, I've not had the opportunity for a bit of harmless sport in some time…

With a sly grin to himself, he twisted his hand in the folds of his surcoat, and twisted his hand. A great cry went up as suddenly copies of nearly everyone in the room appeared in shimmers of golden light, and confused shouts echoed around the chamber as they began dancing and cavorting about, some making grotesque faces at their originals. Akeeta jumped as a perfect copy of herself suddenly appeared in front of her, blowing a raspberry, and Loki folded his arms, chuckling in a satisfied manner. Her warm, dark eyes narrowed suspiciously, as she looked him up and down.

"You're doing that!" she breathed. "How?"

Loki just smirked and shrugged as the doubles suddenly melted away into nothingness. "I haven't the faintest idea what you're speaking of, my dear Akeeta…"

"Of course, you don't. Don't know, my foot!" she snorted. Some of their fellow off-world students were looking to Loki, some impressed, others uneasy, and a few disapproving. The Gallifreyan students were still trying to work out where the doubles came from.

Just then, a severe figure appeared, in the now familiar robes of the Prydonian Chapter, though less formal than those Loki had seen worn during the induction ceremony. It was a female Time Lord, stately and relatively young-looking compared to some of the others, her stern green eyes flashing as she looked out over the crowd of students, her auburn hair pulled tightly back into a bun above the collar of her robes.

"I am Sarvana, Coordinator of Studies here at the Prydonian Academy. Welcome all," she announced. "Now, you will each be shown to your quarters and will have the day to settle in before your studies begin tomorrow morning. You will be each issued with a timetable tomorrow morning at the morning meal. Now come!"

With a wave of her hand, she turned away and led them up the central staircase and through several corridors in the same grim, ebony shade as the stone façade of the exterior, until she came to a long corridor. "Off-worlders, these are your quarters. You will find your names on the door of your designated quarters. The rest of you, follow me!"

Loki nodded once to Akeeta as he found his room, who disappeared inside her own room with a wink and a grin. Shaking his head, he slipped inside his new living quarters and shut the door.

His quarters were sparse and austere, at least to one born and raised a Prince of Asgard. It was larger than expected, especially from what he had seen outside, a square room that looked out over the abyss that extended from the base of Mount Cadon, towards the setting suns of Gallifrey. Their bright light filled the room, filtering in through two large windows that stretched the entire length of one wall. Against the opposite wall stood a long, narrow, bed in scarlet tones, and beside it a desk containing a computer terminal. The lights flickered on as he entered, a dim, warm glow that reminded him painfully of the golden patina of his rooms on Asgard.

In another room was what the Gallifreyans called a 'hygiene chamber'. Loki suspected that to everyone else in the Universe, it was simply a bathing chamber, or as the Midgardians called it, a bathroom.

With a relieved sigh, he pulled apart the lapels of his coat, shrugging it off and flinging it on the bed. He felt completely exhausted, more than he'd thought possible. He flung himself down on the bed after his coat, crossing his booted legs tightly, just as a chime sounded at his door. Sighing, Loki rolled his eyes and closed them, hoping whoever had rung would go away.

They didn't.

"Fine, come!" he called impatiently. "If you must."

"Well you're a friendly one, aren't you?" a tall, fair-haired Gallifreyan, in Prydonian robes, muttered as she stepped over the threshold, followed by a dark-skinned male and Akeeta. "I just know we're going to get along famously."

"You're Gallifreyans," Loki replied, eying them both after a curious glance at Akeeta. "And here I thought most Gallifreyans disliked the Lady President's educational reforms."

"Not all of us," the male muttered. "Some of us anyway. We're from the same House as the Madam President. Heartshaven."

"Just call it following in our prodigious relative's footsteps," the female added. "I am Talia, and this is Lial. Akeeta here let slip you were responsible for that amusing little prank in the Entrance Hall…"

"That was rather amusing, wasn't it? I couldn't possibly reveal who was responsible," Loki trailed off with a sly grin as the female, Talia, simply chuckled as she sat down beside him on the bed.

"Of course you can't," she replied. "Nevertheless, an impressive trick. Care to show us how it's done?"

"Simple enough. A magical illusion, a reconstruction of others that I can control…" Loki began quietly.

"Like a perception filter?" Lial cut in enthusiastically, or as enthusiastically as Gallifreyans got. "But one powerful enough to fool Gallifreyans…"

"Many perception filters are not strong enough to fool our eyes," Talia explained. "That yours was able to, and that you could simultaneously achieve and control so many at once…is quite remarkable."

Akeeta grinned at him behind his back, and Loki rolled his eyes at her. "The telepathy department will be slavering to get their hands on you," she replied with a wink.

The two Gallifreyans, Loki and Akeeta spoke along into the night and despite himself, Loki was enjoyed their companionship. More than he'd thought himself capable of, after everything.

That was the last time for a long while that Loki found anything enjoyable. As the days turned into months, and then slowly into years, he began to ponder whether or not he had made a mistake in accepting Romana's offer. The Time Lords' science was beyond anything he had ever encountered before, and the phrasing and execution of the many different fields in which he was expected to be proficient was alien and unintelligible to him.

Despite the early promise of friendship in his encounters with Akeeta, Lial and Talia, he found himself withdrawing from them. Shame, rage and frustration drove him and he preferred his own company to that of others, others he knew were judging him, finding him wanting, as always.

As he had always been. Even on a planet that existed outside of the normal flow of Time, from under the shadow of his brother and his own heritage, he was being found wanting.

He did indeed excel in all forms of telepathy and mental shielding, art and architecture, law and history. He was careful to hide much of his contempt for the lazy disdain of the Time Lords for the rest of the Universe, as well as their cowardly evasion of responsibility by refusing to intervene in the outside world. It seemed, even here, that only those the Time Lords termed 'renegades' had the courage to seek to intervene in the Universe beyond the transduction barrier, although they were often warned that such renegades were often degenerate and corrupt. But the more Loki learned of the Time Lords, the more he saw their own corruption and hypocrisy. Even self-proclaimed deviants like Lial and Talia were not inclined to do much more than set up the occasional time-flow analogues as pranks on the other students.

There was very little interaction between the Gallifreyan students and their off-world counterparts. Apart from the occasional deviant like Lial or Talia, the other Gallifreyan students maintained an air of superiority and distance, often walking past the off-worlders with their noses in the air, or shooting triumphant glances at them in class when examination results were disclosed and the off-worlders did not perform as well as the others.

Over the course of the first year, the off-worlders' class was halved from twenty-six to thirteen. Of the Gallifreyans, only four had been released from the Academy when it became clear they did not have what it took to become full Time Lords. Talia told him such rejects were often put to work in minor service roles, using their limited technical and artistic capabilities but never able to leave Gallifrey. The off-worlders were merely sent home, in disgrace.

Loki was used to being an outsider, used to being snubbed and passed over, so while he barely hung on by his fingernails, academically, the Gallifreyans' attitudes towards him merely amused him. And he saw, to his further amusement, that his nonchalance annoyed his Gallifreyan counterparts more than anything else.

He saw, however, that Akeeta was less able to handle the derogatory remarks and disdainful looks of their fellow students. He noticed that she often limped, and that she sometimes bore a rictus of pain on her face when she thought no one was watching, but Loki always watched her carefully. Despite himself and the distance he maintained between them, he cared for the cheerful little Thetasian. She was quick and insightful, brilliant even he had to admit, and one of the few in their class who easily kept up with the Gallifreyan students. He would let no one harm her.

One day, however, things came to a head.

They were in the refectory for the evening meal, comprised of nutrient drinks and food pills. Valhalla above, Loki had never yearned for roasted boar or venison as he had on Gallifrey. I'm beginning to sound like Volstagg…

The thought crossed his mind just as Akeeta fell, across the room from him, pain flashing across her face. Before he even thought about it, he was up and across the room within moments, at her side.

"Who did this?" he asked insistently, as Lial and Talia both rushed to aid Akeeta as Loki helped her up. She bit back a cry of pain, as she nearly collapsed again. "Akeeta?"

"I don't know why you waste your time, off-worlder," a cold, pompous voice drawled from behind him. "Defective stock like her can't be helped. What harm is a little sport?"

Loki's hands turned into fists as he stood and turned, lethally graceful and feeling an icy, unstoppable rage burn within at those words. They came from a handsome, though physically weak specimen, in the scarlet Prydonian robes, and Loki recognised him as one of the most arrogant of the Gallifreyan classmen. He and his friends chuckled to themselves, as Loki stepped forward and the laughs turned to shocked gasps.

With a slight thrill of shame and anger, he realised his skin had turned to frozen blue, and his eyes were burning blood-red. But in that moment, he forgot his shame and his anger, and relished the power of fear that his true appearance brought him in the eyes of such as the Gallifreyan before him.

"Care to say that again?" Loki enquired, his voice tightly controlled and icy. "What right have you to call her defective? Or are you still stung by the fact that an off-worlder gained a higher score in quasitronics than you and your vaunted kind?"

The Gallifreyan's face turned puce, as he sprang up and spat venomously at Loki. "None of your defective kind have any chance of understanding the true intricacies of Time. I do not know why you waste your time here."

"Pardon us if we do not take your judgements of us as accurate character assessments," Loki replied coldly. "Regardless of physical capabilities, it is the mind that matters here, nothing else."

"Lord Rassilon would be disgusted to know such creatures were polluting this world!" the Gallifreyan tried again.

"What luck the Lord Rassilon is not here then?" Loki drawled rhetorically. "If that is all you have to say, then we are done here." Loki turned away, hefting a stunned and quiet Akeeta into his arms. He did not see the Gallifreyan reach out to haul him back, his hand tight on his shoulder.

"I did not give you leave to-ARGHH!" his words were cut off by the skin blackening at his wrist where Loki held it in an iron grip, the shiny red skin spreading up his arm, as the other students backed away with shocked glances, although new respect lingered in the eyes of the off-world students.

"I do not bow to you, or to any of your kind, Gallifreyan," Loki released his prey long enough to bend over and whisper in his ear. "I am not bound to your rules or your laws. I do what I want. Remember that."

He released the Gallifreyan just as one lunged for him in a clearly unplanned and unthinking assault. He was slightly surprised but not enough to stop him catching his arm and snapping it down, throwing his assailant to his knees, all the while keeping hold of Akeeta.

"Enough!" Talia shouted authoritatively, as she glared down her classmates, and then laid a soft hand on Loki's sleeve. "Enough," she repeated quietly. "You've made your point, Loki."

Loki conceded that, but looked down at the two Gallifreyans, the one who had verbally attacked Akeeta and the other who was now nursing a sprained wrist. He was lucky it was not worse. "For such an intelligent race, you truly are slow at learning from your mistakes."

And with that, he turned and swept away, Lial and Talia at his back, as they left the crowded and speechless refectory behind.

He took Akeeta straight to her room, followed by Lial and Talia. They all had a two-hour period of thermodynamics next, the one subject in which Loki did not struggle quite so much to grasp the key concepts, but he could care less. He was more worried for Akeeta.

He refused to think about what he had just done, the instinctive rage that had welled up at that Gallifreyan's words, and the violence that had undone his façade long enough to show his true face to all. He refused to look for the expressions of disgust and fear on his companions' faces, as he led the way into Akeeta's rooms, lit by the fierce glow of the twin suns in the Gallifreyan afternoon.

He laid Akeeta down on her bed, already moving down to her boots. What he heard next made him tense. "Well if that's what it takes to get you to talk to us, I'll have to go looking for a fight more often."

Loki's head snapped up, to see Akeeta smiling softly at him, wonder in her eyes. "You never told us about this…" she stretched out a hand to his, then paused. "It is safe, isn't it? I mean I won't be burned…"

"No," Loki breathed out through the chains binding his lungs. "I can control the power."

"Incredible," Talia moved to his other side. "All this time you had a perception filter built into your very DNA and we never realised…"

"Yes, how wonderful," Loki muttered sarcastically.

"Talia…" Lial muttered warningly. Talia smiled gently.

"I meant nothing by it. It's truly a marvel," she breathed, as she took turns stroking Loki's hand with Akeeta. "So cold, even colder than ours…but it is not when you are in your other form. Incredible."

"When you've quite finished marvelling over me…" Loki cleared his throat impatiently, before looking to Akeeta intently. "Why did you stumble? And why are you in pain?"

"Someone tripped me and I fell," Akeeta replied, before sighing and hauling up the skirt of her coat to unlace her boots.

"Childish. We're supposed to be above such silly pranks," Lial remarked fiercely. "They dishonour their Houses with such behaviour."

"He wasn't being entirely derogatory when he called me defective," Akeeta sighed, as she grimaced in pain as she removed her boots. The moment Loki saw what lay beneath, he tensed but did not move away.

Akeeta's feet were mangled and twisted, barely in the shape of a normal foot at all. Her stockings were bloodied slightly where the skin had been rubbed and there were small cuts that bled lightly. "I was born like it," Akeeta explained. "A side-effect of radiation on our homeworld. Some of us have it worse, of course, and mine were corrected slightly with surgery so I could walk-"

Loki felt cold rage burn with him once more, but pushed it away. With a sigh of relief he felt his Jotunn self retreat, and the appearance of his Aesir form return. Immediately he felt more at ease with himself, and pretended not to notice the swift, shrewd glances of Talia and Akeeta.

"You are not defective, Akeeta," he said through clenched teeth. "You had no more control over this than you have over the colour of your eyes. Why have you not seen a medical technician about this?"

"I left my old boots in the Capital. I didn't dare tell anyone about my feet here because I didn't want to be sent home," Akeeta murmured. "And I didn't complain for the same reason."

"There are plenty who are eager to see the reforms fail and the off-worlders banished back to their home planets," Lial added, at Loki's angered look.

"Many among our race would see this and use it as an excuse not to allow off-world students into the Academy. They would claim their DNA was impure and unfit to be mingled, either with our own or with the Rassilon Imprimateur," Talia explained, a slight expression of shame washing over her lovely face. "Rassilon instilled in our ancestors the importance of genetic purity. That is why only the elite of Gallifrey are permitted to take the Rassilon Imprimateur and become Time Lords, and so gain the ability to regenerate."

Loki nodded and turned back to Akeeta. "You should have come to me, then," he said fiercely, passing his hand over her mangled feet and ankles. She gasped as the blood disappeared and swelling eased. Loki caught her gaze and held it intently. "This does not mark you as defective, or weak. You are truly strong if you endure this every day without complaint. Your mind is one of the strongest here, and you deserve to be here, not those pathetic beings in the refectory."

"I do hope you're not including us in that category, Loki," Talia muttered.

"Of course not," he snapped, before looking back to Akeeta. "Do you understand? This," he gestured to her feet. "is something you cannot control and you must not allow it to dictate your future. You have all you need to succeed, wherever your path takes you."

"And so do you," Akeeta replied firmly, as Loki paused, struck. She smiled as Talia sat on the bed beside them both and Lial came closer. "You think we do not see how distant you hold yourself? How you refuse help and blame yourself when you do not immediately succeed? How you flinch away from any contact with your skin, and how you could not even look at it, just now, before you returned it to its usual colour?"

"It is not the same…" Loki turned away, rising from the bed. "You do not understand."

"Then help us to," Talia breathed.

Loki shuddered and shook his head. He felt Talia's hand on his shoulder as she turned him to face her, with understanding eyes. "Whatever you are, Loki of House Lungbarrow, you are like Akeeta. Your skin is not a defect, your path is not fixed by it. Do not let your past dictate your future."

The memory of that encounter, and Talia and Akeeta's words, stayed with Loki for weeks until he was invited to the Capital for the winter break in the Academy semester. Talia and Lial were going to their Houses, and Akeeta was going home to visit relative. And he had been sent for by the Madam President of Gallifrey.

He idly wondered if this was about his encounter with the two male Gallifreyans. He did not know their names and couldn't care less; just thinking of them made him boil with rage and he felt the thin veneer covering his true self breaking when he did so. He noticed they avoided him now, and they did not acknowledge Akeeta, Talia or Lial either, but that was better than vitriol and insults.

There had been minimal disciplinary action for the fight, just a reprimand and a revoking of some privileges for a few weeks. Loki had experienced worse.

But now he wondered if Romana was going to punish him too, and mentally bristled. He had done nothing wrong, merely defended a friend. Yes, he could admit however grudgingly and unwillingly, over the past few months he, Akeeta, Lial and Talia had truly become friends.

Back on Asgard, friendships had been mostly conditional and temporary, political and military alliances for mutual benefit until they were no longer useful. Even his relationship with the Warriors Three and Lady Sif had been cool and distant as they lauded Thor and basked in the glory their association with him bought them. As always, he been tolerated and occasionally made use of, as he'd done to them also. But the only he'd truly called friend….

For the first time, Loki thought of Thor without pain or anger. He remembered his golden-haired brother with his impetuous fire and childlike view of the way the Universe should be, fuelled by the tales told them by their tutors and the All-Father. He pictured what Thor would have done with those two pathetic excuses for living creatures, and smiled to himself. He'd have pulverised them with Mjolnir and worried about the consequences afterwards…

Would he have been proud of me in that moment…?

Immediately he suppressed the thought. It didn't matter what Thor would or would not think. He was light-years away and that part of his life was over. He would not dwell on it any longer.

But even as the empty transport glided ever closer to the Capital, the ghost of Thor refused to leave him.

"Well, you've certainly had an eventful year Loki," Romana's piercing eyes watched him as he sat on a sofa in her living quarters, a glass of the Gallifreyan equivalent of wine in his hand. Brax sat beside him, chuckling into his own glass.

"I'd have given anything to see their faces," he snickered. Loki rolled his own.

"I do not take kindly to questioning someone's worth based on physical perfection alone," he replied repressively, and Romana's face softened.

"No, of course not," she breathed, rising from her chair. "The reports I'm hearing from your tutors are promising."

"They're awful," Loki sneered. "I'm failing almost every subject of consequence-"

"Almost being the operative word there," Brax cut in. "Not every Gallifreyan makes it through the Academy first time either, you know."

"I remember one very brilliant Time Lord of some infamy who only scrapped through on his second go," Romana added with a rueful smile. "And now he's one of the greatest forces for Good in this Universe. Although for Rassilon's sake, never tell him I said that. I'll never hear the end of it."

Brax laughed, as Loki frowned questioningly. "The Doctor," she explained further. "An old friend of mine and a brother to Brax here. You're in quite infamous company, my friend."

"I've heard of the Doctor. They told us of him and the other 'degenerates' at the Academy," Loki murmured. Romana's eyes flashed.

"I may not always agree with his methods, but he is far from degenerate. He has saved this Universe many times, and most of the time he doesn't even do it on purpose. He just stumbles into trouble."

"And then gets himself out of it again, saving alien races and planets galore in the process," Brax chuckled. "Not many would admit it, not officially anyway, but the Doctor leaving Gallifrey was the best thing for the Universe to occur in aeons."

"He sounds an interesting character. I should like to meet him," Loki remarked.

"I doubt it. He almost never comes home," Romana shook her head, almost sadly if that were possible for a Time Lady. "He dislikes being here, dislikes our attitude to many things."

"Can't say I blame him sometimes," Brax muttered gruffly. Loki nodded, remembering the insults hurled at himself and Akeeta only weeks before.

"I understand you're having some trouble with your studies?" Romana prompted him gently.

"You could call it that," Loki admitted grudgingly. Romana set down her glass and moved forward in her seat.

"You expect too much of yourself. You were not born here or raised in Gallifreyan society. You do not have the advantages that the others in your classes do. Be patient. You did not grasp the key concepts of your magic in mere months, did you?"

Loki remembered the long years spent at his mother's side, learning her magic, and the lessons of his tutors. It had taken him nearly five hundred years to become competent with magic, and a further four hundred to master it fully. But he didn't have nine hundred years to master the laws of Time.

"I cannot fail," was all he said, as Brax looked away and Romana inclined her head.

"Then don't. But do not let your pride get in the way of your success, Loki. Not everything has to be done alone," she told him gently.

"Perhaps, it is not so much a matter of learning our concepts, Loki, but of translating them into a language you can understand better," Brax suddenly suggested. "If there is a connection between the magic you wield and the science of the Universe, it can be found."

Loki frowned at that, but it was a thoughtful frown, and he sat for awhile in silence, thinking while Romana and Brax spoke of peoples and places he knew nothing of, and at that moment cared little.

That night in his rooms, he picked up a holobook from his class on temporal mechanics, and sat down with it determinedly. His eyes skipped over the unfamiliar theorems and concepts quickly, and then he leaned his head back against the pillows of his bed, frowning as he reconciled them with what he knew. With a rush of surprise and excitement, he realised there was a connection, that he could decipher the seemingly complex equations and correlations and adapt them to magical theory.

With a surge of excitement, he leapt from his bed and went to his computer terminal, his fingers flying across the control pads. He worked all night, and the screen filled with complex equations and magical solutions, as he balanced one against the other, discarded irrelevant variables and slowly, he began to understand. And with understanding came the thirst for more.

Romana noticed his satisfaction the next morning, but said nothing as she looked at him from the other side of her official desk. He sat stock still under her gaze, dark shadows under his eyes from lack of sleep but little other sign of his sleepless night. "I have a favour to ask, Loki," she began quietly. He stiffened slightly, his attention caught. He'd been expecting this for some time. "As you know, under my Presidency, Gallifrey is once more opening itself up to the Universe beyond the transduction barrier. Even without that, Gallifrey has been invaded before and we have been ill-equipped to deal with such incursions. Time Lords are not warriors."

"I've noticed," Loki replied wryly.

"We have our own Security forces, but they are green and untested. Many have never even seen military action," Romana continued. "You are the ideal mix of warrior and strategist. I want you to work with Leela, Commander Andred, Commander Maxil and the others to change that."

Loki opened his mouth to reply, then hesitated. He had to admit, the physical inaction encouraged at the Academy had been grating on him lately, his muscles and mind burning for the thrill of combat. And if the price was that the Gallifreyans gained some knowledge of combat from him, it was but a small one. He would teach only what he wished to, and it wasn't like he was planning to invade Gallifrey anyway. With a nod, he spoke. "Very well. I accept."

There was not much time to put anything into place before Loki was to return to the Academy for the winter examinations, but he consulted with the two Commanders, Andred and Maxil, both practical, experienced men who courteously welcomed his input. Together they drew up a regime of practice drills for the men, slowly intensifying until it reached somewhere close to the level of skill Loki had known on Asgard. He would instruct when he could, but in the interim Andred and Maxil would intensively drill the guardsmen in his absence.

Once again, he encountered the mysterious human savage Leela, who had been advocating more combat training for the Guard for decades. Her smirk as he crossed the training ground to her side one cold, dark morning, looked anticipatory as he watched the squad of Gallifreyans stretch in the cold morning. He'd insisted on an external training ground and early morning training sessions.

As he watched them, he reflected on all that he knew of the Gallifreyans' combat skills. As a species, they were all strong, nearly as strong as Aesir or Jotunn, but they lacked any training or even much of an urge to fight. That was his first challenge to overcome.

"They are not trained to fight," Leela whispered beside him, clad in a tight-fitting pair of training leggings and her usual animal skin top. Her hair was tightly bound away from her face, and her eyes were fixed on where her husband and his fellow Guards were warming up. "They know nothing of war, of bloodlust or the terror of battle. But for that, there is courage among them."

"I do not doubt it, Lady Leela," Loki replied smoothly. "But courage alone will not save them in a fight, or protect their planet from invasion."

"Need any help?" Leela asked. "I may be human, but my strength has been much improved thanks to their science. I think I could take even you in a fight."

Loki grinned, an unpleasant, sly grin that made Leela smirk back, her teeth bared. One predator to another, they acknowledged each other as they had not during their first meeting, and he almost looked forward to sparring with a worthy opponent again.

As the warm-up exercises finished, Loki stepped forward to address the squads. "As many of you know, the Lady President has asked me to train you in combat. Despite Gallifrey's power and isolation, it has been proven in recent times that these will not be enough to save you. A transduction barrier will not stop your enemies from attacking you, nor will your complacency protect you when it fails. You must learn to fight, and to fight well. You must learn the thrill of battle, the rush of blood through your veins as you wait for the call to charge, the unstopping, relentless dance of the fight. You must overcome the training that calls for detachment, for emotionless. Feeling nothing will only get you killed."

"However," he continued. "So will unrestrained emotion. There is a reason that berserkers are always the first to charge and the first to die. You must learn to combine intellect with the desire to win, the courage to fight on even in the face of death and defeat. You are strong, as a species, but you favour too much the power of the intellect. In the Universe, intellect alone cannot save you. Sometimes fighting is the only way."

There was some disapproval or even disbelief in the eyes of the guardsmen, but for the most part, they listened intently. Some of them had known combat, like Maxil or Andred, but most did not and they were curious enough about the infamous alien Romana had rescued to listen and learn.

After that, he set them working in pairs, learning how to dodge and how to attack, basic hand-to-hand combat. He advised them on the difference between bravery and stupidity, telling them to pick their battles wisely. As he'd seen, they were strong but clumsy and unskilled. The Commanders fared better, but even they were not up to scratch. As the suns rose, eventually Loki called a halt to the drills.

Leela sidled up to him with a smile. "How about we show them a true fight?" she suggested as her eyes gleamed. Loki smiled and inclined his head.

"Your weapon, my Lady?" he asked. Leela's knife was in her hand in a flash, and Loki nodded, impressed. He still had two daggers from Asgard, and kept them on his person at all times. He produced them, and stepped out onto the training ground, Leela at his side. The guardsmen gathered curiously, Andred shooting a concerned look at his wife. "See this as a demonstration, not just of what standard you must strive for, but also what you may face from the Universe. Watch and learn!" he called to them, before facing Leela and raising his knives. "First blood to the torso?" he enquired of her quietly, and she grinned.

They circled each other warily, each watching for the first move from the other. Loki was not concerned; Leela was still human, she would not-

He cursed as he was forced to drop and roll to avoid a blade suddenly slashing towards his chest. Leela recovered and jumped away to avoid his counter-attack as he straightened and came at her. She could not match his strength, but she could match his agility and speed, and her technique with the knife was impeccable, if somewhat wilder than his own.

They sparred, spinning back and forth in an intricate dance of kicks and punches, carefully aimed and timed to catch the other off-guard, their knives flashing in the twin suns above them. Loki kicked, Leela leapt into the air, she lashed out, he ducked and stabbed into her. She danced away every time, evading his strength and matching him, stroke for stroke.

Loki shrugged off any gentlemanly notion that bade him go easy on her, after he felt a burning sensation across his cheek and ducked away only to see blood on his fingertips as he drifted them across his cheek. Leela was panting, but satisfied, as she eyed him bestially. "Do you go easy on me because I am a woman, or because you are not as skilled as you believe?" she called to him, and Loki smirked. The insult did not sting, as he knew she intended, but he finally let loose and unleashed his full strength and speed on her.

He parried her next blow and shoved her away, using his strength against her, as he caught her blade in a lock. She kicked him in the thigh, but he did not yield, merely rolling with the blow and pulling her with him. She wrestled with him but her strength did not match his, and he caught her arms in a lock. With a Herculean effort, she untangled herself and spun away. Loki brought his daggers up just as Leela lunged into him, knocking one arm away but not seeing the other as it drew a red line across her collarbone, just as Loki felt a sting below, on his stomach and looked down to see a shallow cut framed by the torn edges of his tunic. "Well played, Lady Leela," he breathed, as she smiled and laughed.

He heard applause, and turned away to see Romana and members of the High Council watching them from the doors into the security compound. The guardsmen applauded politely too, and Andred looked ready to kill Loki, despite Leela's exhilaration.

"That was the best fight I've had in a long time," she muttered. "You fight well, Loki."

"As do you, Leela. For a human," he said, almost dismissively and her eyes flashed before she realised the joking edge to Loki's tone, and relaxed. Their eyes met and they both nodded, a new respect for the other in their gaze.

A few weeks later, Loki was back at the Academy. He'd only had a few weeks to apply his newfound understanding to his work, and developed it further, with the aid of Talia and Akeeta. But even in that short time, his scores had improved. Lial drifted away from their small group, choosing to associate himself with the most conservative of the Gallifreyan students. Talia confided in Loki that it was part political pressure and part familial. Lial's and Talia's Cousins were pressuring them to distance themselves from the off-worlders. Lial listened, Talia did not. Their group did not suffer for his absence.

One morning, when they had some precious free time, he sought Akeeta and extracted her from her study group. He noticed her boots were still paining her, and had a surprise for her.

"What is it, Loki? It's not another one of your pranks, is it? I DO NOT want to be stuck in a time loop watching Valerian trip in that ice patch for weeks on end again," she asked suspiciously.

"I thought you enjoyed watching him trip up?" Loki replied innocently, with a smirk.

"The first few hundred times was funny, admittedly. The next ten thousand were boring. I felt like my brain was turning as soft as a Thetasian tree slug!" she pointed out.

"I promise it's not a time loop," Loki sighed. It'd been his first time using temporal mechanics for some mischief-making, and it had gone swimmingly. What was better, they had no idea how to undo it until he got bored and undid it himself. His tutors hadn't known whether to reprimand him or praise him.

He led Akeeta into his room and bade her close her eyes. She did so grudgingly, as he retrieved a box from under his bed and laid it out for her. "Open your eyes," he breathed softly, and Akeeta gasped when she saw what was in the open box.

"My boots!" she gasped, swiping up the worn leather and raising shining eyes to Loki's. "And a new pair too! Loki…"

"There is no need to thank me, Akeeta. I grew tired of your groaning about your sore feet," he muttered, as Akeeta eyed him narrowly.

"Yes, yes, whatever you say, Silvertongue," she muttered back. He'd shared the nickname with them after his proficient skill at lying had gotten them out of a scrape with involving a tutor, the other Gallifreyan students, and magically bottomless bucket of ice-cold water magically placed over the entrance to their quarters. It was a useful skill, one that Loki used easily enough when he had to. Now however, it wasn't good enough.

Akeeta hugged Loki tightly in thanks, pressing a kiss on his cheek before happily discarding her uncomfortable old boots, and replacing them with her beloved Thetasian ones. "Good riddance too," she muttered as she placed the old boots in the waste disposal unit. She placed the other pair in her room while Loki stood staring at her, still shocked by the hug and the kiss.

"What?" she asked, staring back at him. "Have you actually succeeded in freezing yourself this time?"

"I'm just not used-…" he mumbled, mentally staring at himself. So much for my vaunted Silvertongue…

No one had hugged since…the last had been his mother…Frigga.

"You're as bad as the Gallifreyans around here. Somatophobes, the lot of you," Akeeta rolled her eyes jokingly, sensing it was best just to let it go. "Come on, let's go and rig up a time pocket on the door into the Gallifreyans' quarters."

As the months passed, and Loki's studies progressed and his friendships with Talia and Akeeta only grew, he felt a strange sense of contentment steal over him. Dare he think it, but he felt almost…happy.

The day he received his examination results though, was truly the day he felt his first step on the path to freedom.

Akeeta and Talia pulled him through the crowd to the results screens where each student could tap in an ID number and access their results. He waited with Talia and Akeeta as they accessed their results.

Student: Taliakrennaheartsven

ID Number: 001849563284-Gamma-4

Results -

Temporal Technology: 295/300

Mathematics: 99/100

Law: 99/100

Physical Inactivity: 12/100

Conduct: 50/100

Thermodynamics: 98/100

Cybernetics: 85/100

Telepathy: 60/100

History: 99/100

Languages: 89/100

Art and Architecture: 78/100

Talia breathed a sigh of relief. "Those conduct and physical inactivity scores are all your fault," she hissed at Loki. He faked an innocent face, as she scoffed. Akeeta's hand fumbled on the keypads, and Loki placed a hand on her shoulder.

Student: Akeeta Reavon

ID Number: 006777495093-Omega-4

Results -

Temporal Technology: 289/300

Mathematics: 93/100

Law: 56/100

Physical Inactivity: 12/100

Conduct: 50/100

Thermodynamics: 98/100

Cybernetics: 100/100

Telepathy: 46/100

History: 65/100

Languages: 78/100

Art and Architecture: 80/100

Akeeta laughed and clapped her hands. "Who cares about physical inactivity anyway?" she shrugged. "Sitting still all day is boring anyway. Come on, Loki, it's your turn."

Loki turned to his own keypad and screen, and breathed deep. Finally, he was about to find out if all his hard work and his new approach to the science of the Time Lords had paid off.

Student: Loki

ID Number: 007685940332-Delta-9

Temporal Technology: 290/300

Mathematics: 96/100

Law: 99/100

Physical Inactivity: 7/100

Conduct: 30/100

Thermodynamics: 99/100

Cybernetics: 98/100

Telepathy: 99/100

History: 100/100

Languages: 100/100

Art and Architecture: 98/100

Loki saw his results and felt almost floored by them. He and Akeeta were the highest scoring students out of the thirteen students left in the off-worlders class. Talia was in the top 10% of her class too.

"Well, I guess with all those pranks we were never going to be top of the class for conduct and physical inactivity," Talia chuckled. Loki felt Akeeta's hand slip into his, squeezing it and smiled at her, until her words registered.

"I know your family would be proud of you, Loki," she whispered, and he froze. With a heart as heavy as titanium, he extricated his hand and walked away briskly, ignoring both Talia's and Akeeta's calls.

He left the Academy, climbing out of an old doorway he'd found on his many explorations while a double sat in on his lessons, and climbed the mountainside as easily as if he were climbing a ladder. The cold wind and scant oxygen buffeted his cloak and made even his lungs burn slightly as he finally reached the peak and paused, looking out over the mountain ranges of Southern Gallifrey and beyond, to the horizon where the Capital glimmered faintly, like a golden jewel in the distance.

Akeeta's words echoed in his ears as he sat in a small dell in the mountain wall, looking out over the world. He knew she meant nothing by it; he had never told them of his past and they had never pushed him for more information.

Would his family be proud of him? Of the All-Father, he had little doubt he would not be. In his eyes, Loki had long been a disappointment. But his mother's? Thor's? Why should he care?

He thought he had long ago locked his heart away, that awful day on the Bifrost when he had fallen from grace and from his home. The Time Lords had saved him, given him new purpose and a new existence, but they had not, could not, heal the wounds in his heart. The exuberant friendship of Akeeta, and the soft, quiet companionship of Talia had eased the pain, even slightly and at first without his knowledge. But they could not take the place of brother and mother in his heart.

He sighed and leant his head back against the snow, closing his eyes as he breathed cold, thin air, so cold it almost froze his airways. With a shudder, he let his Aesir self dissipate to be replaced with the icy skin of his Jotunn form.

He had learned much, in his exile, he had grown more than he had been, but the revulsion instilled within him by his former home was still difficult to shake off. He tried now, as he opened his eyes and looked at his hands, eying them, following the lines of complex ridges on his skin, disappearing into the sleeve of his tunic, but he knew they extended over his body. Marks of royalty and power, in the Jotunn way.

Had he done wrong in his attempted attack on Jotunheim? At the time he had not thought so…but now…now he was not so sure.

All of his life he'd been playing a game of the All-Father's making, one where he fought and battled with Thor for their father's attention and approbation. All of his life, he'd striven to be all that was expected of him and more. But it had never been enough, it would never have been enough. Because Odin had seen him only as a monster, a useful one while it remained its leash, but a monster nonetheless.

Well, no more…

He would be the All-Father's puppet no more. He would be the monster no more, neither Asgardian or Jotunn. His past was behind him and his future lay ahead, and he would shape it, alone. If his time at the Academy was teaching him one thing, it was that there was no such thing as destiny. Not really, fixed points in time but Loki's life was not one of those fixed points. It was his to choose, his to shape.

And he would be ruled by the ghosts and prejudices of the past no more.

Loki stood from his perch, and felt the rock-hard burden of his past ease, just a little. He stood on the pinnacle of Gallifrey, literally on top of the world, and breathed easier.

There was still 399 years to go, but soon, he would be free. And in that moment, he was freer than he had ever been in his life. And in his heart, which half the time he pretended not to have, he knew Thor and their mother would have been proud of him.

To be continued…