It's been a little while since last chapter. Maybe a week? Idk. Loki doesn't know, and he doesn't care, so, for out intents and purposes here, it doesn't matter.
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Breath dragged into his lungs as he shot to the surface of his dreaming and into the desolate night.
His throat ached and his chest would not rise.
There were the sounds of the others around him. Sleeping murmurs and deep breathing. All of them in a press of dirty, limp bodies like a mass grave.
He looked at them in the dark, his heartbeat aching in his chest. He couldn't be here anymore.
Pushing himself to his feet all in one smooth movement he lurched over the bodies. His hand shook where it was, white and skeletal against the dark stuff of the doorframe, but he didn't stay to look at it. He flung himself out into the biting cold of the dark.
The cold drove at his skin, cutting through his clothes. He hadn't more than that he'd had on his person when he fell. All that he gained was by the skill of his own hands. He conjured what gold he need provide that he not be driven out of the hovel in which he slept, and as little more as he might.
His eyes burned and he locked his teeth, putting his head down and driving himself forward.
He'd dreamed his mother again. Dreamed himself come home. Dreamed her shock, and her quick rising from her chair. She'd come to him, where he'd stood, shaking, choking on the words he'd forgotten to say.
"Loki," she'd said, wonder in her eyes, "You've come back,"
The words would not leave his mouth, and she'd put out her arms.
It was only as he'd fallen against her that he'd felt the knife.
And then he had heard her laughing.
And he'd woken.
The sound dove about his head. It fluttered black wings in his ears until they rang with it. Until it felt as though they would bleed. It sent him out into the streets because he couldn't stay there any longer. He couldn't be in that press of flesh in the dark.
But he knew why he stayed there. He lacked the strength to travel again.
He'd woken on that rock where he'd landed. He'd slept, and again he'd woken.
And his head had been clearer then.
He was too weak to stand. He drove himself to his feet. Stone spun under him and the stars above. He could hear nothing over the screaming of his bones.
He'd reached. His vision popped until it ran black and cold and depthless. He pushed farther. Grasping, he found a solid thing. And he'd latched to it.
He would not remain on that rock. If he was to be denied death, he would continue elsewhere.
And elsewhere he had gone.
Days he had endured in this place where he had come. He made no attempt to count them.
He did not hide himself from the Gatekeeper. Heimdal could not find him, he knew. Heimdal saw nothing. And should Asgard come against all odds to collect and kill him, so much the better. Life held nothing for him.
His breath was thick and heavy, even with only his walking, and sometimes, as he went, the cold gave out and he burned.
He had not healed from his fall. Had given himself neither the time nor the care it necessitated. And he would not.
He was thinking of his brother, and trying not to. He had no brother. Not anymore.
He was not watching where it was he walked, not that it mattered in this cess-den beyond the Nine where he had come. What more had Fate to take from him?
He did not see them until it was too late.
He fought them.
But he cared little.
And it came as small surprise to him when they took him.
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I'm gonna have to take a slight breather here. Just a few days. I got side-tracked by writing a one-shot that I had hoped I could finish while keeping up with these. Turns out my life is too busy for that.
Stay posted for my treatise on 'Ragnarok' in a day or two, and more of this when that's over ;)