#manifoldmischief

Semi- Plotted starter for @manifoldmischief

On Earth, the attention people gave the King and Queen of New Asgard was skewed in Loki’s favor. Handsome, clever, charming, and true royalty which often entranced the masses. Jane stood in his shadow and was usually fine with their relative positions. Omnipotence City on the other hand…Loki educated her on what to expect when she traveled with him to the home of the gods so they could present their infant sons for acceptance. Jane had also been told of his past sexual escapades with Apollo and Artemis who lived here. But nothing he said prepared her for the overwhelming interest all the gods had in plain Jane Foster. It had been centuries since any of them interacted properly with a mortal and it showed. Here, the doctor was the exotic one. Interesting, unique, worthy of notice. Jane was amused while Loki was not.

That night Vali and Narvi were safely sleeping in the King and Queen’s temporary chambers while their parents attended a party not intended for the such young princes. Which meant Jane could enjoy the flirtatious attentions of gods from various pantheons, both familiar and unfamiliar to her. Jane smirked, sipping from a glass flute of alcohol that had been deemed safe for mortal consumption and caught her husband’s eye across the room. He didn’t seem pleased that yet another immortal had her cornered, asking ceaseless questions about Earth for Jane to answer. Questions they didn’t actually have much interest in having answered because each time this happened their gaze burned into her in an intense way that Jane had only experienced from her husband. Usually the doctor might have been repulsed, but tonight the was something heady about all the attention. Or perhaps it was Loki’s jealousy.

There was something very off about the world. Portals could be finicky, of course, and time in the Negative Zone didn’t pass at the same rate. But she was starting to suspect that her trip back home had taken her somewhere else entirely. The streets were both familiar, and not. The house she’d been returned to wasn’t the one she lived in with her roommate Nancy. Though the floor plan was the same, it lacked so many of their personal touches. Her roommate was nowhere to be found.

She’d been searching for the better part of a day. For signs of her friends... for signs of herself... Even the local squirrels didn’t know her, though they were all friendly enough. 

When she finally saw a face she recognized it was like a shock to her system. Doreen gasped, and ran to him.

THINGS HAD REALLY GOTTEN OUT OF HAND BY THE END. the situation had turned and it became a manner of getting out alive and regrouping. they had more or less managed to get out alive, so that was something. he was sinking down towards the wall and taking a breath as his gaze turned up towards loki as he drew his hand away from his shoulder, an old weak point found and taken advantage of, unfortunately. as fandral attempted to readjust his footing and find some grounding once more as he licked his lips and fought off a wave of pain as he adjusted. “loki.” he began as he started towards the other man with careful and cautious steps. “are you alright? we can’t afford to linger.” he admitted.

although would his body even hold out, he had not truly assessed how badly he was injured and if he might just need a minute to rest, or if he was in a worse state. he told himself either way it did not matter right now as his feet shuffled against the ground, “we should get a move on, quickly.”

+ @manifoldmischief​​ liked for a starter ! 

Her hands trembled with the force of her rage as she held them out towards him, fingers curled as if she wished his neck was between them. She stared him down with such ire if he were a mortal man he would’ve crumbled under the weight of it.

-

His voice cut through the ringing in her ears, the pounding of her pulse as it pumped her blood through every limb, every breath, every feather on her outstretched wings. The scent of smoke and dust and iron filled her senses, her sight sharpening once more to focus on Loki. Behind him lay a waste, and at her feet... Oh, in her feet lay a small body. Too young for this battle. Too young for any battle. Too wrong for this space. The wrong size. The wrong shape. It was all wrong. 

And fuck. She was angry. 

“I don’t need to be calm to get out of here.” Brunnhilde replied, jaw tight, gaze hard. “But you need me to get you out of here, right? That’s what this is about. You need my magic.” 

The Valkyrie paced a few steps left, then right, and then back again - this time screaming, hands curled in anger. He needed her to use her ability to travel realms. 

No. That wasn’t right. She hadn’t put them here. The edges were blurry. The enemy unnamed. This place... familiar, yet unfamiliar. 

Brunnhilde became still. She did not dare to look at the body in that moment. The boy. Blonde and blue eyed and bleeding. She felt like a ghost. Were they ghosts here? 

Her hand came to the front of Loki’s shirt. Unarmoured. Not his battle. “Why are we here?” A pause. Everything in her screamed fury. Her eyes were brighter, her teeth felt sharper, her body felt stronger. Everything in her was fury. A storm. Valkyrie. The silence extended like the moment before a crack of thunder one that never came. “Who is the boy?”

“ don’t play with fire if you don’t want to burn ”  THE HUMAN STARED up in both fear and awe. her body felt like lead, weighted down on her knees, unable to move as she gaped. it wasnt possible. maybe she was dreaming, there was a slim possibility that she had fallen, cracked her head open and this was some unconscious fantasy her bleeding brain had come up with. but she felt the fear inside her, the racing of her heart. that felt real. there was something primordial about the way she wanted to sink into the floor much like a weaker animal showed its belly to a predator. 

he was right, she shouldve known better than to play with ancient texts. could she ever fathom that she might have summoned an old god with a paper cut and some store bought candles? no, she was a woman of science. this was all impossible. magic didnt exist and neither did gods. certainly not handsome ones that manifest in her living room and almost burning the damn place down. she had barely been able to snuff out the rising flames before they took out her curtains.  “ no no no no, ” she pushed herself back in a weird crawling motion, trying to put space between her, the cursed book and the man. man? she wasnt sure thats what she would call him. she wouldve reached for her phone if she knew what the hell she would tell the police.    hi, i summoned a strange handsome man into my living room who appeared in green and gold smoke, please send back up.    yeah, that would go well. “ im losing my mind, ” she let out a humorless laugh despite watching him like a hawk. “ theres no way that—that you came out of the book because thats impossible. ”  deep down, there was an ancient voice inside her head telling her that she knew he didnt come out of the book, it wasnt some weird jinn. she knew what he was and it scared her.