A/N: I am a douchebag for making you wait so long. I had all these ideas in my head and I've been punching them into my phone for nights at end. There's been a lot of rough shit in my life of late and I wasn't in a good place to begin writing, but I think I can now, so here it is. Also, send me some love in the reviews? I could use it just as much as Loki could right now :/

Part Three: Porcelain Prince

I wasn't as composed as him. He just stood there in stiff silence, eyes cast skywards as the world around us seemed to be crumbling to pieces in a single ray of light. I could feel my feet pounded through the grass and my hands wringing and my heart thudding, but my mind itself was bereft of all sensation.

"Will you please stop prancing around like a rooster!" Loki snapped.

But the order fell flat on its stomach as I continued to chew on my nails and shift my weight from one foot to another, considering bolting and never coming back. After what seemed like ages and ages of having my pupils assaulted by the bright light, something dark was emerging from its very core - oddly shaped and emitting a high frequency sound that sent me to my knees, holding fast onto my ears.

Loki seemed much unaffected by the display and stood his ground until the light began to die down. Blinking away the tears from my eyes I noticed the outline of what had descended into the clearing behind my small cottage and my jaw hung slack.

UFOS? U-flippin'-FOs, Paton. You did not sign up for this shit. This is not happening. You're probably dreaming. You must've fallen asleep in the truck waiting for a delivery on the pier. It's late Monday morning and your life is a mess, but it's a mess you can handle. This shit, you dreamed up so start pinching!

I couldn't quite manage it and remained frozen on the ground as I tried to make sense of what was unfolding before me.

Cracking open's more like it, really: the dust was settled around what could only be described as a spaceship. Streamlined, jagged and made of burnished metal, it stood imposingly against the trees and with a loud hiss the front began to slide open. Loki watched in rapt interest as two figures emerged from the mouth of the ship. The voice in my head was full on screaming and I hadn't realized the sentiments were dancing on my tongue as well.

"I don't want to die like this," I moaned pathetically.
"Quiet!" Loki whipped around on me, his emerald eyes ablaze.

They were a pair of the most hideous creatures I had ever seen, armour and jowls and teeth and saber-like claws and nasty red glows where they eyes should've been, but they were surprisingly human in their build and sure-footed with an intimidating gait. My heart beat in fear, but a part of me was rejoicing in the fact that they didn't have much the same effect on Loki. He stood, poised like a cat about to pounce, watching their every move as they stepped towards us, their breath rasping and menacing. He slowly lowered the lethal end of the sceptre at them and stared them down.

The strange beast on the left snarled loudly, the mouth twisting itself into a cruel world in a language I couldn't understand. If I thought housing a cast-out prince (a dangerous, damaged cast-out prince, no less) was the most incomprehensible thing that had ever happened to me, I wasn't at all prepared for what followed.

Loki responded to the low growls, "You cannot harm me. I am a god."
There was a shrill cackling sort of noise and some clicking.
"Why should I believe you?" Loki asked slowly.
The creature on the right offered some sort of answer, a lengthy one. I was trying to wrap my head around the fact that Loki was a master of many things, including, apparently, inter-galactic-linguistics.
"Well, then that makes two of us," Loki went on in a low tone.
More growling through hideous jaws; I found my body shuddering. The only thing between you and sudden death is an uptight and supernatural house-guest, you couldn't wish for better odds, actually. Actually, that was probably true. But then I was rather quick to judge. Who was to say they couldn't overpower an injured and weakened god?
"I don't enter deals with your kind," Loki sneered.
The creatures did not seem to take this very well. One of them lunged forward but was restrained by the other, who began a negotiation of sorts in short clicks and growls.
Loki stood a long moment in deep thought.
I was close to having my knees buckle.
He spoke at last, "And you offer me your entire army?"
A roar of confirmation.
A cold smile slid over Loki's face. He nodded once at them and said, "Very well."

I watched in abject horror as his outstretched hand was swallowed by the gnarled claw, up once, down once and that was that.