Tier: Hope you liked! :D

Missing: Aw, thank you! I try. :) It's fun to write about Loki finding the similarities of himself in others - maybe he's not as alone as he thought he was! ;p And yeeeeah, he's probably NOT going to find being kidnapped as hilarious as the rest of us! XD

LoneGarurumon: Hah, yeah, I love rehabilited!Loki, too! Just a few "tiny" obstacles to get there, of course...;p

Snafflefang (heh, that username sounds like a cute dragon! :3) Thank you! I was also looking for Loki/Doctor Who crossovers a while back and didn't find many completed ones! So here I am rectifying that, glad you like! :)


Long time no see! Last time we were with Loki and the Doctor, the two had just had a heart-to-heart over their campfire - but today, the confrontation with the mysterious sorcerer seems inevitable! Who will prevail when it's time for...

Chapter 12: Enter the Winter King

"So…how do you occupy yourself when not trapped on foreign realms?"

The Doctor glanced up. It was the first thing Loki had said after stirring awake, apart from a cursory noise to indicate that he had woken up. The night had been uneventful after all – their resting place, shielded on the one side by a thick forest's edge and on the other side by a sheer cliff drop-off, a valley stretching out hundreds of meters below, had evidently been a very good choice.

Now the frost giant was sitting on the other side of their magical glowing fire, one hand of his curling around a mug with the last of the stolen Nutriliq in it, the other lazily outstretched, his tracking spell sphere floating and shining over its turned-up palm. But despite the outwardly calm atmosphere, both of them could feel the day's events to come lying heavily across their shoulders – today, the confrontation with the enemy mage would inevitably happen.

The Doctor wasn't sure whether Loki's question was therefore just meant as a distraction or asked out of genuine interest – but then again, judging from him being Loki, it was just as likely to be asked out of three different lines of reasoning anyway, so the Doctor supposed it didn't matter all that much in the end.

"Well. I travel," he therefore replied honestly. "Meet people. Sometimes take them along, too. Or at least…I used to."

Loki looked at him for a moment, silently. The Doctor wasn't quite sure what to make of his expression, or whether Loki had heard (or guessed the reason for) his last words.

"…people," Loki said eventually. "You mean, humans?"

"Mmh," The Doctor nodded. "Mostly. Like I said, they're by now one of the most widely-spread-out species. Though I had the odd Trakenite or Alzarian along, too..."

"And where do you travel to?"

The Doctor raised an eye brow, momentarily intrigued by Loki's apparent newfound interest in his life. He wondered if…

"Well. Lots of places. To be honest, my TARDIS has a bit of a temper, so I tend to end up anywhere, really." He cocked his head, a small smile tugging at his lips. "She does like taking me to places to…fix things, though."

This, for some reason, immediately let Loki seem to bristle, his earlier curious demeanor gone. "Oh? And I am a 'thing' to be fixed, then?"

"Oy," the Doctor admonished, eye brows drawing together. "You crashed into her, alright?"

"…conceded," Loki admitted somewhat grudgingly, taking another sip from his drink while the Doctor didn't know whether to roll his eyes or snort at his current companion's tendency to try and pick fights as practically a default setting.

Then he mentally stopped himself as he realized he had just thought of Loki as just that. A companion. But…

"I don't…" he heard himself say, "I don't fix…people." He sighed. "I can fix problems, sometimes." He looked up at the sky where the clouds where still midnight-grey, the dawn almost upon them, but not quite yet.

"Sometimes an entire frozen planet is easier to set right than a single person."

There was another moment of silence as Loki didn't reply to that. The Doctor was just about to suggest they pack up and leave for the winter sorcerer's stronghold, when –

"So…if you do travel with 'companions' who apparently get abducted on a regular basis," Loki spoke, eyes carefully on his mug. "Where are they now, Doctor?"

It was hard not to wince at the direct question. Grimacing inwardly, the Doctor supposed he deserved that one, maybe – his needling of Loki last night could scarcely have been more comfortable for the other.

"I…lost them," he heard himself reply, quietly. "All across the universe. Most of them left, eventually," he said, glancing over at Loki's opaque expression. "But some of them," he paused. "Some of them never made it back."

His own voice sounded bleak as he gazed over the dead, snowy landscape, washed-out and grey in the pale light just before dawn. He had managed to think about other things during the last three days, caught up in another pressing need to save a world, rushing about with Loki at his side, adrenaline and intrigue keeping him successfully distracted. But of course, this was what he had been trying to avoid thinking about before Loki had crashed into his TARDIS like a homicidal gazelle – the unavoidable reality that people who travelled with him kept dying. Astrid had only wanted to see the stars…

"Not very peaceful, your travel, is it?"

Loki's words pulled him out from his own morose thoughts, and the Doctor had to blink for a moment before he could re-focus. Loki's voice had sounded carefully neutral, the frost giant still regarding him with an expression impossible to read. The Doctor shook his head.

"No."

"Likely a side-effect of being taken where…things need to be fixed," Loki said, and it still felt like he was choosing his words with great care. There was a moment's pause and the Doctor thought that perhaps this was it, but then -

"One could think you would benefit from keeping sturdier company in your future travels."

The Doctor blinked. Loki was still looking at his mug, his tone sounding like someone taking a vaguely interested stab at solving a simple theoretical problem, and the Doctor could already feel a surge of irritation flare up in him, Astrid had been capable, they all had been-!

But then he stilled. Mostly because he now noticed that under his carefully crafted air of indifference, Loki was just staring slightly too fixedly at his hands, grasping his mug just a little bit too tightly for his pose to look entirely natural.

Loki, the Doctor realized, had just tried to ask in the most roundabout way possible whether he could travel with him.

Xxx

Loki could feel his heart pounding inside his chest, even if he knew nothing would show on his face, that his tone had been one of perfect non-chalance – his masks impeccable after years of effort to prevent showing any weakness whatsoever.

This was stupid, stupid, he knew – wanting someone else to want him along, clinging to companionship like a mewling child to its mother. No one in their right mind would want to have him along, and asking, setting himself up for rejection like this was humiliating.

But maybe, that single, infuriating voice at the back of his head insisted, a voice that had only grown louder during the past few days when the Time Lord had marveled with open appreciation at his magic, asked about him with genuine curiosity, had not even flinched the tiniest bit at his Jotun nature…maybe

"Loki," the Doctor whispered then with wide eyes, but he needn't have said anything. Loki had sensed it behind him at the same time.

A surge of raw magic that had just rolled over their campsite like the shockwave of an explosion, as if Mjolnir itself had impacted the ground.

Loki turned around to see what the Doctor was looking at. And stared at eyes colder than anything they had seen on this planet.

Only a hundred yards away from them, a pale rider had arrived, staring right at them through the trees.

"Rassilon," the Doctor breathed next to him, "What is that?"

xxx

The…apparition, because it was anything but human, was shaped like a man long dead sitting astride a half-decayed horse, the bones of the animal's skull protruding through its snout.

Its rider's face was completely skinless, reminding the Doctor more of the scaly visage of a Silurian - or perhaps frozen muscle on a face that had its human skin scraped off. On its – his?- head, small thorns were protruding from the roof of his skull, letting him appear as if he were wearing a twisted parody of a crown. His body was clad in dark, equally royal-looking armour, a sword with a black hilt at his hip.

And his eyes were glowing the brightest blue, staring right at them.

Loki stepped forward easily, his own battle armour appearing out of thin air, golden plate a shining contrast against the colds and greys of winter. He bared his teeth at the rider in what only a fool would have called a smile.

"So you have come to face me at last."

The creature on the undead horse moved his head, near imperceptibly. His blue eyes were now focused entirely on Loki, their stare cold, assessing. And then he opened his mouth to speak.

YOU ARE THE MAGELING WHO HAS DARED TOUCH MY SPELLWORK. I HAVE SENSED YOU.

It was not a question. It was also not a voice that sounded even remotely human, or entered your head through your ears.

"Your spellwork? Child's play," Loki, apparently in a particularly suicidal mood, waved dismissive fingers with the hand that wasn't holding his spear. "Now tell me your name, so I know who will fall to Loki of Asgard today."

I AM THE WINTER KING, the rider spoke, and his voice in their heads sounded like the doors of crypts falling closed in the dark, like graves covered by snow eternal. AND I HAVE COME TO LAY YOU TO REST IN MY NIGHT.

The Doctor's eyes narrowed. Wait. Something about that creature rang familiar…

Xxx

"You will find, old man, that I do not bow to kings any longer," Loki smiled and then braced himself as the Winter King charged.

As expected - and hoped for - he himself was the target of the attack, not the Doctor (who wisely seemed to throw himself out of the way). The undead horse reared, and its rider lifted a glowing lance, seemingly made from ice, hurling it at Loki as his horse tore toward him.

Loki used his own spear to strike his enemy's weapon from the air, shattering it. His weapon was no longer Gungnir, the spear taken from the Allfather and abandoned for his fall from the Bifrost, but one he had forged himself decades ago, and his body remembered the battles he had used it in.

INHUMAN STRENGTH, the Winter King noted dispassionately as he commanded his horse to a stop in front of Loki, the half-decayed animal rearing once more and slamming its hooves down in the snow, their thump resonating in Loki's chest, the snow spraying against his armor. Loki didn't flinch.

NOT MERELY MORTAL, THEN.

"No," Loki said. "Are you?" And he rammed his own spear forward.

As expected, the horse screamed as the tip of his weapon tore through it, and Loki had to leap backwards as it rose before its hooves could have caught him. It fell back down stumbling, exposed ribs on its left flank broken in two. On its back, the Winter King's eyes flashed in what Loki severely hoped was genuine irritation.

VERY WELL, he said, and then let immediately another spear appear in his hand, stabbing it clear through Loki's chest.

Or at least, what had appeared to have been Loki's chest. But as the Asgardian collapsed in front of the rider's expressionless face, green eyes wide and shocked, he also disappeared. And when the Winter King looked up from his suddenly vanished foe's corpse, what greeted him was merely another Loki, standing a couple of feet back and smiling.

"'Mageling', you called me, was it not?" he asked, then let his grin abruptly become sharper. "You may have been mistaken."

Which was the exact point he spread his arms and then there were a dozen and then twice that amount of Lokis at their forest's edge, all of them laughing and brandishing their spears.

ILLUSIONS. THE FALL-BACK OF THE WEAK, the Winter King commented, his words like ice cubes melting in Loki's head.

And then he attacked in earnest.

The space where their campfire had been at the edge of the cliff became what from Heimdall's perspective would look like the most violent snow globe in history, Loki thought, ice crystals spraying everywhere as the undead horse pranced and kicked, tearing through illusion after illusion of him, all of which were also whirling through the snow, making ethereal stabs at the pale rider.

Loki laughed and his mirror-images laughed with him, out of his eye he could see the Doctor wisely staying back from the fight where he was safe – now this was how he enjoyed his battles, duels where his wits and magic could shine. And this fight was more like a game of Hnftalf, the winning strategy a clever changing of positions and maneuvering your opponent just where you wanted them –

YOU ARE LIVING. YOU WILL TIRE, the Winter King spoke at this, spearing the last of Loki's illusions through its head and letting it vanish. He turned his expressionless gaze at him. YOU WILL FALL IN THE END.

Loki allowed himself to grin like a shark.

"You know," he said, pleasantly. "You really could have worded that better."

And with those words, he rammed his spear into the ground, channeling a spell of thunder and earthquake through it, and watched with incredible satisfaction as the stretch of ground before the sheer cliff the Winter King stood on broke off, and both horse and rider seemed to drop off the face of the earth without so much as a scream.

"…wow," the Doctor commented only a heartbeat later, also staring at the cliff drop where only a moment ago their opponent had been, slowly detaching himself from the line of trees. Loki, for his part, was still panting, but could also feel the triumph of battle rushing through him, elation filling every part of his being. Then the Doctor started pulling a frowny face, though.

"Right. Was that really the sorcerer who not only plunged this planet into an ice age but also manipulated the time line…?"

Loki's eyes narrowed as he shot a glance at the Doctor. "What? Why would he not be?"

And then they both heard the rumbling coming from the cliff's edge.

Loki and the Doctor simultaneously took a step back, because right where the Winter King had fallen, an ice pedestal suddenly erupted from below, rising until it was well above them. On its peak, of course, stood none other than the pale sorcerer, hands outstretched and staring down at them like an implacable glacier.

"Well," the Doctor commented from the other side of the camp site, "At least you managed to get rid of the horse?"

But the Winter King seemed to have heard him, because next, he summoned another ice spear to his hand and hurled it straight at the Time Lord.

"NO!"

Loki heard his own scream even as his arm was already in motion, hurling his own spear to intercept the weapon of his enemy. The lances collided in mid-air, the ice spear shattering but his own weapon falling down at the other end of the campsite at the Doctor's feet, useless to him now.

"Your quarrel is with me, old man," Loki said as the Winter King turned, expressionless face staring at him, if surprised or calculating he couldn't tell. He hoped his voice sounded condescending rather than panicked as he continued, "Or are you afraid of challenging me now?"

YOU PROTECT THIS MORTAL? WHAT IS HE TO YOU? The Winter King asked, something almost like curiosity underneath the dispassion of his tone.

Loki gritted his teeth. "Nothing," he said, at the same time flicking a hand that let a wave of snow rise up and overwhelm the Doctor, completely covering him with a muffled yelp. "And I would prefer you not to get distracted from our duel," Loki made himself summon a smirk. "I have not faced a worthy opponent in months," he lied.

YOU ARE INTRIGUING, the Winter King acknowledged. THEN LET US FINISH THIS. YOU WILL NOT LAST LONG WITHOUT YOUR WEAPON.

"Oh, will I?" Loki said, before summoning flickering flames in hands, grinning as he hurled two streams of fire at his opponent.

The jets of flame roared across the clearing, bathing the cold colours of snow and dead trees and the dead king for a moment into their warm shine. And the Winter King merely stood, watching them come toward him –

- and disperse harmlessly in front of him. Loki just caught the edge of a magic shield flashing in the air before his enemy,

YOUR SPELLS CAN NOT HARM ME, the Winter King said. FIRE CAN NOT REACH THE HEART OF THE FROST. He readied a spear again, icy cold air coalescing into a weapon in his hand. CAN THE SAME BE SAID FOR YOU?

The spear soared toward Loki before he could dodge, and his eyes widened – but, the Winter King was not the only one in possession of shield magic. Loki threw his hand up in front of him, the air briefly lighting up where he cut through it, and the spear collided with an invisible wall right in front of him, evaporating like ice magic caught in the sun's light. Loki smirked at the rider.

"Well. Two can play at a game of shields impenetrable by magic weapons. It seems we have reached an impasse," he said, hoping the Winter King would not remember the far more vulnerable Doctor buried and hidden under the snow drift nearby. No, if Loki could get him to talk, then this battle would be over, his silver tongue perhaps his only weapon more dangerous than his magic.

It was quite a surprise, however, when the next thing that happened was the Winter King briefly looking for the first time frustrated, but then drawing a rather modern-looking gun from a holster at his side, saying, OH YEAH? and shooting right at Loki's surprised face.

The decidedly non-magic projectile tore through his shield, there was a stinging pain at the side of his neck, and Loki barely had time for his hand to fly up and pull the red, plastic, dart-syringe from his neck before the world in front of his face already began to worryingly swim.

The last thing he saw was the Winter King dismounting, already pulling out what looked like a length of rope, and, right before everything turned black, there was only one last thought going through his head…

By the Norns.

I am his companion.

xxx

To be continued…


Well, well! It's been a while, but I hope everyone's still reading! Things are shaping up for a grand finale with our heroes now in a bit of a pickle...! Hope you liked and if you read, please review :)