Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"No, Loki."

Loki was still falling. Had been falling. Would be falling forever.

And he didn't even care.

"No, Loki."

Odin hadn't roared the words. He had spoken so quietly. And just like that, so softly, so irreparably, Loki's last, desperate appeal had been crushed. No hope for him now, no chance to ever repair what he had done.

And, realizing that, he had finally let go.

Falling...

It hadn't even felt like falling, at first - it had felt like weightless drifting, like lightly floating, and only Thor's anguished face, his uselessly outstretched hand and the shattered edge of the Bifrost receding into the vast distance gave him any real feeling of motion. It was surprisingly gentle, or would have been, if a part of him inside him hadn't been screaming.

But then the tendrils of the universe had wrapped around him and oh, Loki fell.

The void was tearing at him, fierce winds howling in absolute, surreal silence, enough to drive anyone mad who wasn't already. He was cold, oh so cold, his blood perhaps already frozen, and he thought it was bitter irony that his very nature as a Jotun that had caused him to lose everything was perhaps the one thing now that prevented him losing his life, too.

Was this to be his punishment, then? Falling, plummeting, rushing downwards in endless space forever, through the empty and senseless void until his mind would simply give up and break?

Fitting. Let him who is nothing rejoin the nothing in its most pure and absolute form, an icy voice in his head supplied.

Nothing.

Nothing forever...

...wait.

Loki's shut eyes had blinked open again. Had there just been a noise?

A...strange noise...

Loki's face creased into the tiniest frown, his lips trying to recreate the sound he had just heard...

"'Vworp Vworp'?"

And that was as far as he came, because then his remaining breath was suddenly knocked out of his lungs as his back collided with something hard. Whatever it was, it  seemed to break underneath him, because he could feel it give and then himself tumble through it, into it, and the next thing he knew everything around him had just exploded into existence.

Colours and sound were suddenly there again, assaulting his numbed senses after the void like a caleidoscope gone mad, but his lungs immediately seemed to realize there was now air and sucked it in greedily with a gasp. Loki still had no idea where he was, flailing wildly as his movement seemed to not have stopped so much as instead become a lot more painful.

He crashed against something with his shoulder and then fell *through* something else, and just when his brain had registered that in between the air and the pain and the things surrounding him, that yes, he was undeniably alive, before he could actually DO something about it, there was a splash! and Loki Odinsson, Trickster, Liesmith, God of Mischief and Prince of Asgard had landed headfirst in a swimming pool.

xxx

The Doctor was having a boring day. It had been a while since Martha had left and even though he was already beginning to wish there was somebody around to talk to and be clever at, he hadn't yet really found it in himself to go and find somebody to travel with. Thinking of Astrid also always sharply reminded him that his companions did not always meet with the kindest fates, which...left him a bit reluctant to take anybody in at the moment.

But without company, the TARDIS was...empty.

And, even if you could go anywhere, anytime and to any place in the universe, sometimes, the Doctor thought, a day could still be simply...well.

Utterly boring.

Fortunately, it took a turn for the interesting approximately five seconds after when a man (or at least, a man-shaped being – this was the TARDIS and one could never be sure) crashed through his space ship's doors.

The Doctor's eyes grew wide. "What!"

Before he could do anything, his involuntary visitor had whirled through the control room in a tangle of limbs, wide eyes and an utter disrespect for gravity, and then proceeded to bounce off the console in a way that would have looked rather comical if it hadn't probably also been rather painful.

The Doctor stumbled backwards. "What?!"

Next, the TARDIS apparently decided to be helpful, because she abruptly shook like a rodeo bull and as a result the alien then crashed straight through the other door, until a loud splashing noise indicated where precisely his journey had ended.

Not even bothering with a third customary 'What!' the Doctor had already taken off running.

xxx

Loki gasped, and struggled, and would have screamed if water hadn't rushed into his mouth the moment he tried.

If this is the afterlife, it is missing a certain amount of dignity, shot through Loki's head, and for a moment he wondered whether he should transform into a salmon or maybe simply let himself drown, but then his head already broke the surface, and, indeed, his feet came to stand on solid ground.

He then noticed that the water was approximately four feet deep and came up to a point somewhere around his navel.

Right. So drowning here would have been potentially rather humiliating.

Well. Not that standing like a drenched poodle in full battle armour in what was apparently some sort of extravagant bathtub had ever had the potential for a lot of gravitas in the first place.

Loki looked around, blinking water out of his eyes and absentmindedly picking his helmet out of the water that had left his head in the fall.

Where was this? A bath of some sort? Was this a joke by the universe?

The room he found himself in was wide and circular, the floor, ceiling and walls seeming to be covered in the same golden-hued tiles. The hexagon-shaped pool he was standing in measured perhaps sixty feet across, the water looking deeper at the other end. The entire architecture certainly looked different than anything Loki had ever seen on any realm.

Where am I?

His eyes fell upon a ladder at the side of the pool and, after a few shaky attempts, he even managed to marshal his bruised, tired and cramping body into obedience to take a few swaying steps toward it and climb out of the water. Up here he could see the door he had to have come flying through and wondered whether he should try and hide somewhere until he knew where he was or wait a bit to see whether he could get some of his strength back first. But then that decision was already taken from his hands, as running footsteps started in the distance, growing louder and of course headed right for him. Loki instinctively tensed and felt himself shifting into a more battle-ready stance, internally cursing himself that he had let go of Odin's spear now. He felt too weak to trust in his magic and that meant he was reduced to the few throwing daggers concealed beneath his clothing.

But then again, now that he was listening more closely, the footsteps only sounded like one pair of legs and those not even like heavy boots or armoured footwear, rather more...

"Oy! Who are you and how did you get in here?!"

Loki stared. The...man who had just burst through the door did not look like a soldier or a guard.

But he also hadn't expected someone who looked like an accountant in a tizzy.

Before Loki could say anything, the man had already stopped himself a few feet away, and then for some reason donned a pair of glasses and waved a...rather pitiful wand? a voice in Loki's head supplied.

Loki instinctively stepped backwards, wanting to bring a spell up in defence, but then also realized that the thing glowing a light blue at him was not magical in nature.

But it did seem to tell the other something, because his eyes immediately widened even more, and his face split into a (from Loki's perspective) rather worrying grin.

"A frost giant!" he exclaimed.

"...excuse me?" Loki croaked, mostly because he a) was currently reeling, since he had never expected anyone to see through his disguise and b) had never expected anyone to react to this realization with quite that much enthusiasm.

"That's what you are, a genuine frost giant!" The other was carrying on, seemingly completely ignoring Loki but still grinning like a lunatic, "Coldest creatures in the universe, you lot are, not particularly known for your warm welcomes, either, but biggest ice palaces this side of the Medusa Cascade. Oh, you're beautiful..." but then he he trailed off and his grin started to actually transform into a frown. "...though you don't actually look like a frost giant. Why don't you look like a frost giant?" He cocked his head and sniffed. "You're supposed to be blue," he added helpfully. His tone actually wasn't unlike a school teacher's in art class who was asking Loki why he hadn't gotten the colour right in a painting of a giraffe.

Loki stared. For all he knew, he was in a strange place he did not recognize, his magic was not functioning properly, everything hurt, he was soaking wet, and the presumed ruler of his unknown surroundings seemed to be stark raving mad.

And also someone who knew way too much. Loki didn't know whether this man had any ties to Asgard or Jotunheim, didn't know why he was so pleased to have found him and didn't know what he planned to do with the knowledge about his Jotun nature. But then, the other seemed to sense his unease, because the scrutinizing expression dropped away with some of the manic energy, both to be replaced with a more relaxed expression and a friendly smile.

"Oh. Sorry. I think I'm being rude. You're completely soaked and I haven't offered you a towel, even. And I of all people should know one can't always choose their appearance, I suppose," he said, the last as a muttered aside, before he offered his guest an apologetic shrug. "Always wanted to be ginger, myself, you know?"

Again, Loki blinked, a bit more slowly this time, a part of him hoping that things would make sense again when he opened his eyes once more. They didn't.

"But yeah, anyway, I'm the Doctor, we're in my...home, I suppose, so I should probably offer you a cup of tea. You're not going to melt, are you? Sorry, bit of a badly timed joke. Bad habit," he grimaced, before perking up again, "But you might want a change of clothes, can't imagine anyone wants to stand around being soaked. And what you're wearing doesn't look very comfortable. Especially that helmet," the man who had called himself the Doctor pointed out and raised an eye brow. "Don't you bonk it in door frames a lot?"

"...no," Loki managed his first active contribution to the bizarre conversation. If all of this had turned out to be one single, insane prank at this point he would not have been surprised, if only for the fact that he couldn't think of anyone beside himself who would actually be able to come up with such a ridiculous scenario.

"Right," the other said, as if he hadn't even heard the reply, and cocked his head. "But yeah, your get-up all seems rather..." - his mouth twisted a bit, as if something tasted bad - "...martial. Who are you?"

Loki took a breath. "Loki of-" he began, then paused for barely a second, before he caught himself again. " - I am Loki."

"Loki?" A spark of recognition seemed to flash through the eyes of the Doctor, and his eye brows rose a little. "Loki as in, Loki the god?"

Loki drew himself up instinctively, feeling some semblance of poise returning and taking to it like a fish to water. "The very same."

The Doctor grinned brightly. "The one who gave birth to a horse, right?"

The temperature in the pool room seemed to immediately drop just a few degrees.

xxx

"Hey, nothing wrong with horses, honest," the Doctor added quickly, trying to defuse the situation as glibly as he could, "I, uh, almost married one. Once." He rubbed his chin. "But yeah, not one of my better ideas..."

"Are you from Midgard?" Loki interrupted him, now seeming more irritated than angry, wary or befuddled, which was a start, the Doctor supposed.

"Midgard...?" The Doctor blinked for a moment, before realizing what the other meant, "...oh. Oh, I see. No. I'm from...somewhere else entirely. I visit that place a lot, though. That where I could take you?" Meant to visit that place anyway, that strange weight loss company basically reeks of someone tampering with that planet again...

"…"

The Doctor interrupted his train of thought when he realized his guest hadn't replied. Instead, the dark-haired man who had just claimed to be Loki, the God of Mischief, just seemed to be tired and wet and slightly lost, right until he noticed the Doctor's gaze on him and immediately it was as if a mask slid over his features again, obscuring any visible trace of emotion.

Well. If that isn't not suspicious at all.

In fact, the Doctor had felt slightly uneasy around Loki from the start, but without being able to pinpoint exactly why. The armour, the guarded expression, the concealed knives he had been able to spot, even the, well, honestly slightly silly helmet, all suggested that this was an individual who had scarce reason to trust others and probably rarely found himself in peaceful circumstances.

But because he was the Doctor, he still saw all this and said,

"...or how about a cup of tea and that towel first?"

To be continued...

Chapter Text

Loki was towelling his head dry, and dearly wished that things would maybe somehow look better when his hair did.

He supposed he shouldn't be surprised when they didn't.

Loki dropped the towel with a sigh onto the bed and looked around. His host calling himself the Doctor had led him out of the pool room into a corridor with several hexagonal – Loki sensed a theme here – doors leading off at its sides.

"There's a guest room here...I think – yeah, that's where she put it today. You can dry off and get changed, I'll put the kettle on."

With that slightly mystifying comment the Doctor had stopped next to a door that slid open and revealed a small, but tidy room with a bed and wardrobe inside.

"For clothes, have a look inside the closet. She'll probably know what you need," the Doctor had said, and with that last strange remark had left Loki on his own, "Find me in the kitchen when you're done. Or, well, probably let the kitchen find you."

Loki at this point wondered whether he had maybe died after all and gone to a place that was solely meant for deceased people who had been stark raving mad.

The door had closed behind him, but opened again when he stepped close to it, so he really did seem to be a guest rather than a prisoner. The room also looked elegant, furnished with a table, a nightstand, a...bunkbed for some reason, and a carpet and a sink, all tasteful and in warm colours, if slightly alien in design. He wondered if this was a palace, then, and for a moment there were were memories again, and with them the guilt, fear, grief, shameangerloss-!

...and Loki had to consciously breathe and calm down again before everything connected with memories of his former home could run together into one insurmountable wave that threatened to drown him.

No. Focus. Things at hand that can be done first.

'She will know what you need', the Doctor had said. She? Loki had looked around, expecting perhaps to see a maid of some sort, which would cement his host's status as some kind of ruler further, but couldn't see anyone. Frowning, he stepped over to the wardrobe and opened it, and then couldn't decide whether to be alarmed or pleased, because most of the clothes inside eerily looked a lot like what he would have chosen for himself, if he could.

Well.

Perhaps apart from the thing in the corner that inexplicably appeared to be a carrot costume, but other than that...

The dominating colours in the wardrobe were green, gold, black and grey, and its contents featured both Midgardian suits as well as Asgardian robes and leathers – but interestingly enough nothing that even remotely resembled any kind of battle armour.

Loki reached inside, briefly hesitating between a sharp-cut suit and a pleasingly patterned robe.

His host, at least, had dressed like a Midgardian – albeit a slightly strange one, Loki amended in his mind. The prince of Asgard might not have paid that much attention to fashion during his visit to Midgard when he had been mostly busy trying to stomp Thor into its miserable dusty ground, but even he knew that if you were wearing a pinstripe suit, you wouldn't add...well, whatever his shoes were trying to be.

In fact, I suppose even Th- HE would know that one.

"Right." Loki's hands clenched briefly, before he grabbed the suit with rather more force than necessary and put the helmet firmly down on the table, not looking at it.

He had tried to magic himself some dry armour into existence, but the effort had only left him with a sharp headache. Now the bed seemed almost inviting, even if his strange host was expecting him in the kitchen...

Yes, brilliant idea, Loki Liesmith. Go to sleep in the fortress of a potential madman, why don't you?

Loki's face briefly screwed itself up into a grimace of distaste. Very well, then. He would have to deal with this in the manual way. With another sigh, he unbuckled the soaked armour, then hesitated briefly before slipping off the rest of his clothes and drying himself off as quickly as he could. Technically, there was little point to his hurrying – modesty wasn't a concern of his and he was vulnerable here one way or another. But the other also hadn't yet done anything that Loki could construe as threatening, even if he tried. He hadn't been searched, he had been allowed to keep his knives, and neither a guard nor a servant had been sent as an obvious way to keep an eye on him. In fact, now that Loki thought about it, he hadn't even seen anyone else since they had come here. If this man was a ruler, where were his subjects? But if there weren't any servants here who had prepared the room...?

None of this has been magicked into existence. There isn't an enchanted or glamoured object in the entire chamber, Loki thought as he brushed over the bed and the clothes and the furniture pieces, none of them registering to his senses as anything but utterly ordinary.

Well. This was intriguing at least. Something to busy himself with so he didn't have to think about...

Resolutely, Loki cut that train of thought off and instead started dressing himself in the dark grey suit he had selected to match the clothes of his host, again wondering where this Doctor could hail from. Even though he had denied it, his accent indicated that he was from the place Midgardians called England...

And.

Well.

Maybe the fact that he had been offered tea almost instantly had also been a clue.

But then again, for some reason some people on Midgard had also insisted that he sounded like he was a resident of this 'Britain' place as well, so maybe he shouldn't put that much stock in perceived accents.

Loki brushed his hair back and slung a tie around his neck, for some reason feeling as if this would be armour for an entirely different battle as he left the guest room in search for his mysterious host.

xxx

The mysterious host in question was currently not that mysterious, but rather staring at a scanner, frowning and, apparently a bit lost in thought, because he was chewing on one end of his screwdriver. (Which, to be honest, ruined that whole mystery-aura anyway).

"Hmmm..." the screw driver was removed as the Doctor pushed the screen aside and leaned back on the seat in front of the console. The TARDIS scans were in accordance with what he had found earlier. The alien he had picked up was definitely a frost giant, but readings of his travels indicated Asgard origin. And he had claimed to be Loki, the God of Mischief...

"...Doctor?"

"Yeah? Up here," The Time Lord raised his head as his guest had entered the console room, signalling him to step closer with a wave. "So, you showing up, that supposed to mean the world is ending, then? Will I have to start looking out for giant snakes or keep a generous supply of dog food ready?" 

Green eyes stared at him, perhaps with a bit more of honest surprise than their owner had intended.

"...excuse me, what?" Loki asked after a moment.

xxx

"Says here you're supposed to be around at Ragnarok," the Doctor said, slapping a thick book that lay on the strange contraption before him. "End of the world, ba-da-boom, the Twilight Of The Gods," he said, eye brows wiggling before he sat up abruptly from the – were those car seats?- swinging his legs off the console and bouncing to his feet, perhaps just a bit too disturbingly cheerful for someone announcing the apocalypse.

In his hands he now held the large tome, a beautifully bound book as a part of Loki's mind registered, and for a brief moment he had the feeling the title was in a language he didn't know, all strange circles and dots - but the impression was gone in a flash, the embossed letters on the cover now only reading 'Fate of the Gods' in Asgardian script.

Loki felt rather sure that this book was written in anything but Asgardian.

But still, when the other held it out, he reached for the beautiful book instinctively, almost reverently, perhaps only imagining the...flash of approval? that seemed to show in his host's eyes at this reaction. He filed that information away for later out of habit, even if he as of yet had no idea what he was supposed to do with it. Ignoring it for now, Loki opened the book and scanned the pages, running his hand over the letters. His eyebrows rose when he caught his own name and those of Odin, Freya, Frigga, Thor and others. They were printed (painted?) in an elaborate, beautiful script and illustrated at some points with what looked like...woodcut pictures...

"They seem to have captured your hat rather well. Fancy that."

Loki glanced up from the page sharply, narrowed green eyes boring into entirely too innocent brown ones. For a brief, strange moment, he didn't even know whether to feel offended or to laugh. But there had been no malice or condescension in the other's tone and how long had it been since somebody had simply teased him without a mean streak in it...?

"So, about that business about the world ending...?" the Doctor prompted him when it became apparent Loki seemed to have hit some sort of mental roadblock, and he had to force himself to focus again. He shook his head.

"Entirely fictional. There seem to be some naming similarities, yes, but apart from that it all seems to have been written by Midgardians with..." he gave an irritated wave, "...slightly too much enthusiasm for the subject."

"Fiction written by fans, huh?" the Doctor asked, and for some reason Loki briefly felt like a joke had just soared over his head.

xxx

"If that is how you want to put it, yes."

"Okay, then." The Time Lord shrugged. "No world-saving today. It was getting rather dull, to be honest."

In truth, the Doctor could probably have figured the answer to that question. He had been suspecting that there was some sort of connection between the actual Asgard and the Earth myths about Norse gods, but had doubted they contained much more factual information apart from the fact that Asgardians existed and had visited Earth once – especially since they read exactly as they would if you had a bunch of armour-clad aliens show up in full battle mode above a horde of drunk vikings.

And then proceed to smash the living daylights out of some ice giants, yeah. One of which is currently alive and on my ship. Which begs the question...

"So how come you crashed into my TARDIS – that's where we are, by the way - mid-flight? Not many people manage that."

Loki briefly looked at him like he seemed to weigh two different options in his head, calculating, staring at the Doctor as if he was trying to figure something out.

"...I fell."

"You fell?" The Doctor cocked his head, and then decided to take a chance. "Off the Bifrost?"

"Yes," Loki replied, and then curiously almost looked panicky as if that word had escaped before he had been able to stop it.

"Ouch," the Doctor commented with a sympathetic wince. "Blimey, I always said they should put some handrails on that thing. Honestly, big, psychedelic rainbow road over an endless chasm is just asking for trouble, I mean, just look at certain video games – oy, you alright?"

xxx

"...I have been better," Loki replied honestly, also feeling like he was starting to develop a headache now. He still wasn't sure how this man could know an uncanny amount about his world, but at the same time talk so much utter nonsense.

"Oh. Yeah. Sorry. I think I offered you a cup of tea, didn't I? Let's go to the kitchen," the Doctor said, at the same time taking the thick book again and starting to head down the stairs. For want of anything better to do, and because the promise of a soothing drink was actually starting to sound more appealing by the minute, Loki followed him.

"So...you're a doctor?" he asked. "A doctor of what? Medicine?"

The other threw him a grin over his shoulder.

"Just the Doctor. I'm a doctor of everything."

Loki frowned. In his limited experience, doctorates didn't work that way, but perhaps they did on whatever world his host hailed from.

"There you go," the other said as he handed him a steaming mug when as they reached what probably qualified as a kitchen but which was, again, devoid of anyone but them. "It's English Breakfast tea." He took a sip from a second mug himself and then drew a grimace. "Well. English Breakfast tea like they tried to reproduce it centuries later on planet Sto, where they sadly got their historical sources a bit mixed up and as a result this tastes like liquid beans on toast. With porridge. Sorry."

"It's...interesting." Loki, who had always been the most diplomatic of his family, tried very carefully to keep his voice even.

"Is it," the Doctor says neutrally, but his brown eyes flashed with warm amusement as he met Loki's over his own mug of hot terribleness. For a moment, Loki was tempted to snort or smile back, but kept himself in check – nobody had even so much as joked about something as trivial as terrible food with him for a while now. It...wasn't something people liked to do with him, and expecting it from a stranger couldn't possibly end well. Loki gripped the mug with a little more force than necessary and took another swallow, because if the liquid only scalded his throat badly enough, the tight feeling there would probably go away.

The Doctor seemed to sense the change in Loki's mood, because he took another breath and then motioned for them both to sit at the table, perhaps in another attempt to make them more comfortable.

"Well. Culinary highs and lows of the cosmos aside, anywhere in particular you'd want me to drop you off?" he asked. "My ship can go anywhere, so if you'd like to go back home to Asgard or..." his eyes briefly trailed over the exposed skin of Loki's face and hands, before the Doctor met his gaze again, his expression careful, questioning, "...Jotunheim...?"

Loki could feel himself stiffen, and had to briefly fight the urge to hide his bare hands, avert his face, because that would have given too much away. "No," he said instead, forcing his voice not to sound too hoarse. "Not there."

"Not going home again?" The Doctor raised his eye brows.

"I'm like you, Doctor," Loki replied, coolly. "I don't have a home."

It had been a gamble. But he was Loki, and he always won.

For once, the Doctor's face briefly stilled, brown eyes hardening, a miniature slip in that cheerful mask of the other.

"...I see," the Doctor finally said, quietly, before he seemed to swallow and try to return to normal, but a bit of the friendliness seemed to have gone from his expression and tone now. Loki felt a small sting when he realized this, and then felt like kicking himself because this – the alien's feeling's, his own feelings about him liking him or not - shouldn't matter.

"Anywhere else you'd like to go, then?" the Doctor asked, tone casual on the surface, but guarded underneath.

Yes, Loki thought, back in time to fix things, he would have liked to say, but didn't. It was a silly idea and for children. His family – the people who pretended to be your family – would not want to see him again and that was the way it would stay.

xxx

"I...hadn't thought about it," Loki said after a few moments had passed and it sounded like a confession. "I think Midgard – or Earth to you, I suppose – would be suitable."

"Earth, huh?" the Doctor repeated the word, but sounded less than enthused about the idea than he had earlier. Mostly because of that fact that being one himself, the Time Lord thought he knew what a trouble magnet looked like, and if his instincts were right, and you imagined trouble as lightning, then Loki was the equivalent of a wet man with a copper rod standing atop a hill in a thunderstorm, holding up a sign saying 'ALL GODS ARE BASTARDS'.

And that's taking into account that he says he's one of them himself, a voice added in the Doctor's head with a humourless snort.

No. It's bad enough that you bring your own monsters with you every time you visit, going to Earth and unleashing a self-proclaimed alien trickster god that has clearly just been in a fight with Rassilon knows what and barely made it out alive would be pushing it, even for you. Loki was clever, the Doctor could see that. Clever, and brilliant, and scared and hurt and obviously angry, and wasn't that a promising combination...

"Okay, and are there any other places you'd like to go?" the Doctor asked carefully.

Loki raised an eye brow. "You offered to take me to Midgard earlier," he said, and it almost sounded like a slight accusation.

"I changed my mind," the Doctor replied, flippantly and now there was a definite flash of annoyance in the eyes of the other, much more badly masked than the others had been. The Doctor was getting the vibe that Loki wasn't really used to getting that answer.

"I see," the Asgardian replied, stiffly setting the tea down and not touching it anymore. His tone was definitely cold and distant now, void of the earlier emotion that had started to appear. "Would you consent to drop me anywhere else then, or am I to understand I am your prisoner?"

There was a pause. The Doctor looked at him, also trying to keep his face as neutral as possible as he wondered how to phrase what he would say next to not make this any worse. Even dressed in a finely cut suit, his movements and phrasings so obviously educated and refined...any time Loki's affable demeanour slipped, there was something about him that suggested what you were really looking at was a wounded and cornered animal, ready to either bolt or attack. The frost giant's eyes were burning with a fierce, raw intelligence, but also just a touch of madness if you looked deep enough, his entire body language wary and guarded, as if their owner hadn't come to expect kindness from anyone in a while now...

...and the Doctor all at once felt like he had been punched in the stomach, because now he couldn't help but be reminded of a different face he once knew, that had been just as intelligent and mad and desperate, and that he had failed so badly he still hadn't been able to forgive himself.

You mean, you're just gonna...KEEP me?!

"...no." The Doctor let his face consciously relax again, though he noted that Loki's stance did not become less stiff, or his expression any warmer – Rassilon, what happened to him to make him this suspicious? - "No, I'm not planning to...keep you if you want to leave," the Doctor said, watching the Asgardian, before he carefully picked his next words.

"But if you have nothing better to do at the moment...why not stay for a while?"

That provoked a reaction. For a moment, Loki even looked younger again, which seemed to happen when something had surprised him.

"Stay?" he asked. "In your palace?"

There was a noise that sounded like a mechanical choke and the Doctor suddenly laughed.

"...palace?" he repeated. "Oh, it's a long time since she's been called that, the old girl, but good going." He winked. "I think she definitely likes you now."

When Loki of course only looked more confused at this answer, the Time Lord relented a bit and smiled.

"No, this isn't my palace," he said. "Sorry, guess I should have cleared that up earlier. Come on," he said, rising from the table and striding back into the room with the column in the middle and the tables containing switches and what looked like the contents of a Midgardian junkyard sale arranged in a circle around it. The Doctor strode up to it and started flicking a few of them, looking back at Loki as he continued talking. "Way I see it, palaces are for rulers and I don't do..." he trailed off and gave a small, unwilling handwave "...that sort of thing. No. This is my ship," he said, letting the 'p' sound plop at the end of the sentence. "My space ship. She's called the TARDIS. Can materialize anywhere and materialize anything, including, but not limited to, terrible breakfast tea and snazzy suits." He grinned. "And she can go wherever you like...except I'd appreciate it if you wanted to go anywhere that isn't Earth. That planet already gets more alien interference than it should," he added with a bit of a lopsided smile while he hoped that Loki would accept that explanation for why he was reluctant to take him to his first choice of port.

xxx

Loki pursed his lips. The gears in his mind were already whirling, presenting him with several possible scenarios and plans of action. Truthfully, landing on Midgard would have had its advantages – he could travel between worlds without using the Bifrost, yes, but if he used those secret paths he knew, he was still limited to the nine main worlds – Hel, Niflheim, Svartalfheim, Muspellsheim, Jotunheim, Midgard, Vanaheim, Alfheim, and of course, Asgard - connected to each other by the branches of Yggdrasil and if he wasn't on any of those, he was stuck. On the other hand, the downside of landing on any of those worlds (save Midgard) was that they were either all populated by people wanting him dead, or people under Asgard's authority, in which case, see first point.

If he really wanted to go to Midgard, he supposed, he could still try to incapacitate or kill the Doctor, and then try and figure out how to fly this strange contraption that he called his ship, but...for some reason that plan didn't seem as appealing as it should.

He offered to take you along for a while. Why don't you gain his trust and see where that goes? a voice in his head supplied and Loki seized upon that idea eagerly, especially as he was glad that it meant he didn't have to think upon that strange flash of reluctance he had felt when pondering to harm his host or steal his ship.

Loki turned his gaze on the Doctor again. "Your ship can go wherever, you say?"

For some reason, the Doctor now looked as if he was really regretting his earlier words.

"Well...technically yes, but..."

"Then I want to go to the roots of Yggdrasil."

And a part of Loki was really enjoying the bit where the Doctor now looked positively seasick.

"You...you really want to go...?"

Loki gave a dismissive wave. "I'd like you to know I'm not planning to do anything there. I'm just..." he hesitated, for what he estimated to be just the right amount of time to sound genuine, "...curious. To see if it can be done."

The Doctor didn't reply immediately, just looked at him, silently – and for a moment Loki had the extremely uncomfortable sensation that the man had just read his thoughts and what if that is true, you don't even know what species he is, flashed through his mind, because suddenly he also noticed that even if the Doctor looked like a human in his thirties, those eyes of his looked old, and for another moment Loki wondered whether by falling from the Bifrost and crashing into the spaceship of a madman, he had just come across the first person in the universe who just might be able to match him.

And now Loki could feel a small tendril of panic creeping up inside him, because if the Doctor would realize what kind of monster he had let into his ship, before Loki had been able to figure out what had happened to his magic, before he had a proper weapon, before he would be able to defend himself-

And then that entire train of thought was once again cut short abruptly as from one second to the next the Doctor was now flashing him a wide grin and called. "Alright then! To the roots of Yggdrasil the World Tree it is – Allons-y!"

And before Loki could say anything else, the Doctor had pulled down a lever, and the god of mischief was flung through the room with the pillar for the second time this day, only idly wondering whether it wouldn't have been better if he'd just continued falling through the damn void.

To be continued...

Chapter Text

The inside of the TARDIS was currently feeling as if the space ship was a barrel, and the Doctor had decided to push them down the falls on the edge of Asgard.

"What the Nine is happening?!"

"Sorry!" The Doctor called over, holding onto the controls with the apparent ease of a seasoned TARDIS flyer, while Loki was hanging off one of the coral support beams and felt like someone trying to stay on his feet while balancing on a greased rodeo bull.

"Not the easiest place to hit, the roots of Yggdrasil!", the Doctor shouted in an apologetic tone. The fact that he then proceeded to start hitting the controls of his space ship with a hammer didn't help Loki's confidence any.

But of course, Loki also knew that the Doctor was right about the roots of the World Tree   being not the easiest place to get to...mostly because they weren't a real place at all.

Loki had thought about trying to visit there before, simply as an exercise in magic (he knew it was possible, because the Allfather had done it) but had not yet made concrete plans to do so. But what he had understood already was that Yggdrasil's roots didn't "exist" in the same, physical way that the other nine realms did. Oh, they were real enough, the source of all energy and matter in that corner of the universe that was Asgard and all its surrounding worlds, but they were more of a...state, a single point in an imagined system of coordinates of quantum and magic, and to get there was not about going somewhere, but rather...bringing yourself into alignment with the way Yggdrasil had woven herself into the world, and then turning toward the source of where she grew.

Loki had once tried to explain the process to Thor, but had only been rewarded with a stare that suggested Thor thought his younger brother really needed to find a maiden, and that had been the end of Loki ever speaking of that topic again.

But the fact remained that Yggdrasil was not so much a place, but rather the idea of one - a visual metaphor, something your brain would show you instead of what was really there when you had slipped between the folds of the universe and managed to behold her, because no sense of a living being had ever been made to perceive the raw magic, power and firmament that was the World Tree.

Of course, in that same way, even the word 'tree' was only another metaphor, but it was a way of thinking about it that worked, so Loki didn't mind using the expression. He also expected that when he got there his mind would actually show him something like an impossible, towering, mad kind of tree with branches twisting like snakes trying to reach a sky infinitely removed.

He also expected his brain to insist there were the other things from all the legends, ballads and nursery tales he had ever heard, like the squirrel Ratatosk whisking up the trunk vanishing in the distant crown, or, up above, the blind eagle Veorfollnir circling. In fact, seeing them should be inevitable, simply because of that habit all minds had, which was that when you expected to see something, you usually did.

And then the TARDIS landed with a shuddering jolt that nearly threw Loki off his feet completely, and when he had managed to make his way out of the door, he also learned the lesson that most companions learn eventually, which was that when you're travelling with the Doctor, you hardly ever see what you expected at all.

xxx

"Theeeere we go! Good girl," the Doctor patted the console affectionately when the TARDIS had stilled once more. Truth be told, he hadn't been too sure about being able to land where Loki wanted to go – he as well knew that Yggdrasil was more an idea of a place than a physical spot, but he also knew that if there was anything that could potentially take them there, it would be his ship. He released the controls, straightened the jacket of his suit again and chanced a glance over at his visitor – currently, Loki seemed to be muttering something incomprehensible about this situation being 'worse than that time when the great oaf tried to leash a dozen harpies to his 'flying sled'' but he also appeared unhurt, so the Doctor only threw him a cheerful

"Well then! You coming?" and, grabbing his large brown coat, strode toward the door to throw it open.

The Doctor's first thought was that if this was an idea of a place, someone could do with warmer thoughts.

"Huh." the Time Lord said, looking around the area they had landed in. He also thought about calling back to Loki walking to the doors behind him that hey, he should feel right at home here, but hesitated. The young frost giant hadn't reacted positively during any of the other times his origins had been brought up, so the Doctor doubted he would now.

"Come on, come out, it's lovely," the Doctor said instead, stepping aside to let Loki emerge from the TARDIS. The dark-haired man frowned when his dress shoes sank into the snow almost immediately.

"What?" he asked, blinking. "No, this isn't right."

"Well, snow in the mountains does seem normal to me," the Doctor replied casually. And they were in the mountains. In fact, the Time Lord would have been hard-pressed to remember a place more mountain-y.

The TARDIS had parked herself like a static impossibility on a steep snowy flank, her doors facing the peak. The Doctor had had to step carefully out of it to not tumble right back in. There was white, brilliant snow everywhere, glistening underneath a beautiful, sunny sky, the surrounding peaks of the Himalaya-like range they had landed in looking sharp enough to cut your eye if you looked at them too long. Somewhere far below, at the foot of the mountain, the Doctor thought he might have been able to detect rolling hills and valleys, but it was hard to tell because they, too, were covered entirely in white.

The Time Lord turned to Loki, who had taken some more steps outside the TARDIS, staring.

"Brilliant view, innit?" he suggested. "Also, since I forgot to say this earlier, I suppose I should tell you about one of the rules when travelling with me – don't wander off."

"What?" Loki repeated again, head whipping back toward him, confused and irritated. "Where is this? Where have you taken me?"

The Doctor pursed his lips. "Would you believe me the roots of Yggdrasil are a skiing resort this time of year?"

"This isn't the roots of Yggdrasil!" Loki snapped, stalking a few feet away and looking around with narrowed eyes. To his credit, he only paused when he beheld the TARDIS from the outside for a moment, but then his general anger seemed to win out again over surprise. His gaze narrowed back in on the Doctor. "This isn't anywhere even close to it. You lied to me."

"You're the God of Mischief," the Doctor pointed out. "Doesn't lying to you count as some sort of worship?"

In fact, he wasn't even sure why he was starting to feel peevish now. Landing here had been an honest mistake, but there was something about Loki, the way he was so prickly all the time that it was hard not to let your hackles rise - even if, when he had accused the Doctor of lying he had almost seemed...hurt?

Right now the frost giant seemed ready to explode, though, so the Time Lord quickly continued, "Anyway, no, I didn't lie. Sometimes I just...don't land exactly where I intended. Look, the roots of an imaginary tree are not the easiest place to hit, alright?" he defended himself when Loki didn't seem particularly convinced.

"I'm not sure where we are," the Doctor admitted, taking a few steps away and looking around. "I'd have to check the scanners again. This, um, isn't your home world, is it? Jotunheim?" he added with a side glance at the alien. Maybe the TARDIS had been trying to take him home...?

xxx

"No, it is not," Loki ground out. He could feel the frustration boiling up inside him, not only because the other man was by far not grovelly enough when confronted with the anger of a god, but also because now even ships seemed out to defy him today. What had he ever done to deserve this?

Well, I could think of a few things, a treacherous voice in his head whispered and Loki crushed it. Instead, he waved an irritated hand at the Doctor.

"No, this is not Jotunheim, you fool. To be more precise, this backwater ditch isn't anywhere in the realms of Asgard's jurisdiction, otherwise I would know."

"Oy! Not exactly polite, calling someone a fool, is it?" The Time Lord protested, shoving his fists onto his hips. "And I should know, because I do that a lot!"

Loki stared at him for a moment, for a moment with no idea how to compute that latest nonsense, but then his gaze grew simply cold. "Forget it."

"You know, you could really try to be more friendly," the Doctor replied with a frown. "Hey! Are you even listening?" he was raising his voice now because Loki had started stalking away from the TARDIS, up the steep snowy slope the blue phone box was precariously parked on. "OY!" the Doctor hollered again when it became apparent that Loki had no intention of stopping, shouting now. "I said no wandering off, didn't I? Come on! What have I ever done to you?!"

Next, of course, Loki did halt.

But that was mostly because the Doctor's shouts had just caused the start of an avalanche above their heads.

"Well," the Time Lord said. "Besides that, obviously."

xxx

"Open the doors!" Loki was the one shouting now, his eyes wide and panicky as he was all at once sprinting back towards the Doctor and his damned blue box.

The Time Lord whirled around. "Right!"

From a bird's eye point of view, the two tall, lanky figures in suits now stumbling and flailing through the snow field were a sight that could have easily been compared to a couple of panicking flamingos, if the situation hadn't been so grave. As it was, the huge, thundering mass of snow crashing toward them would probably reach them in under a minute if they couldn't get out of its way. Loki, looking back at it while he was running, wasn't even sure whether his magic would obey him now if he stopped to try and teleport himself away, or whether being a frost giant would potentially let you survive being buried under hundreds of tons of picturesque winter scenery.

The Doctor arrived at the doors first, fumbling to get key out of his pocket, briefly looking back whether Loki was coming – and oh yes, he definitely was.

The only thing the Gallifreyan could shout was "Loki, stop-!" before the self-proclaimed trickster god had already barrelled into him full tilt, apparently a lot better at running than actually looking where he was going.

The Doctor collided with the TARDIS doors with a thud! and an "Ooomph!" before he had a chance to attempt to open them. Loki had crashed into him hard enough to knock the breath out of them both – and then the Doctor felt like both his hearts were about to stop, because now that he was pressed against the blue box, which had stood at a very perilous angle on the steep ground to begin with, he could feel it...ever so slowly...tilting...

"Wha-NO!"

There was another Womph! as the TARDIS abruptly keeled over, letting the two man-shaped aliens fall forwards into the snow. Behind the Doctor, Loki's head popped up, the green-eyed frost giant with the snow in his hair glaring at him like a pissed-off Christmas Elf.

"By the Allmother, are you trying to aggravate me-?!"

"No time for that!" The Doctor shouted, already having jumped to his feet and roughly yanking at Loki's wrist for him to get up, "Run! We need to catch my ship!"

Loki blinked, because now he could also see the TARDIS sliding away, and steadily gaining speed along the incline. Behind them, the avalanche now sounded a lot closer.

...this was SO not his day.

xxx

"Hurry!" The Doctor was yelling the word, not even sure any more whether he meant it directed at Loki or himself. In front of them, the TARDIS was now almost as fast as they were running, and would soon be faster, the white icy death behind them now only seconds away.

"JUMP!" The Time Lord shouted, leaping at the same time as Loki did and they both landed on the front doors of the phone booth that were now its top side, the blue box gaining some more momentum as a result, now careening down the incline like the nerdiest bob sled ever.

"The doors, open the doors!" Loki was staring at the white wall of terror behind them, now almost upon them -

"I'm trying!" the Doctor shouted back, but the bumpy ride was making it almost impossible to insert the small key into the lock, and then the avalanche had almost reached them, and Loki yelled

"NO TIME!" and then the Asgardian threw up his hands, blasted the ground behind them with something that could have been magic but let the snow explode akin a jet engine flare, and as a result the TARDIS took off down the slope like a rocket ship.

xxx

Somewhere a long, long while away, Thor, the god of thunder, looked at the Allfather Odin. Both of them were standing in the observatory with Heimdall, the Watcher of the universe.

"Erm. Any...any idea of what he is seeing, father?" the younger of the gods sounded somewhat clueless, and varying between confused and worried.

"No." Odin shook his head as he regarded the golden-armoured god with a frown. "But he has been laughing like a man without sense for the last half an hour."

xxx

Back in a yet unnamed world, far away from Asgard, two men (well, man-shaped beings) were currently screaming, and sledding down a mountain on a phone box at near sonic speed, while behind them an avalanche was catching up.

It said something for both Loki and the Doctor that this might not even have made it into either of their Top Five Dangerous or Top Five Crazy situations.

But then again, you wouldn't have been able to tell that from their combined screaming.

"AAAAAAAAAH!"

"THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!"

"HOW IS ANY OF THIS MY FAULT?!"

Loki, lying flat on top of the phone box and clinging on for dear life, managed to turn his head fractionally to stare at the Doctor hanging on next to him.

"Your ship landed on this planet! Your shouting caused the avalanche! You're a bigger imbecile than my once brother!"

"Because you were running off! I was only trying to help! You ran into me and keeled over the TARDIS!"

"If you had said something to warn me-!"

"Oh, really, like what, WATCH OUT!"

"Yes, something like that would have been acceptable," Loki conceded irritably, "I mean if-"

"No, no, no!" The Doctor grabbed his shoulder and pointed toward the front, "I mean we need to WATCH-!"

And then, by the laws of perfect timing, the TARDIS of course soared over a mountain cliff.

For a moment in flight, the Doctor looked at Loki.

"You're not very good at following orders, are you?"

xxx

Odin looked at Thor.

"What is this he is eating?"

"It is a...Midgard thing," the younger god responded numbly. "They call it popcorn."

xxx

Loki was...flying. Beneath them, the abyss was stretching out, the avalanche behind them now pouring into it. They were soaring across the chasm, the mountain behind them towering like a monolith, their flight path taking them clear over the fissure in its side and the sharp-edged stalactites at its bottom, their course headed straight for a plateau below...

The TARDIS narrowly landed on the other side of the chasm with a spectacularly powdery crash and a painful bounce, its two passengers being thrown off the box by the force of the impact. They landed in the snow with similar muffled exclamations, both rolling to a rather undignified stop. Then there was a moment of stunned silence with both Time Lord and frost giant raising their heads out of the snow and simply looking at each other, wide green eyes meeting equally baffled brown ones and then, maybe just because it was the aftermath of the adrenaline, or maybe it was because the Doctor's lips had twitched first...but suddenly Loki found he couldn't help but laugh.

This was all completely ridiculous, and in a way so familiar it hurt - like it had been centuries ago, him and...he...getting into trouble, days filled with madcap deeds and daring escapes, adventures on worlds he had smuggled them onto, past the Allfather's orders, just because they could -

Their laughter abruptly froze as beneath Loki and the TARDIS, the ground broke away into the fissure, both him and the phone box abruptly starting to tumble into oblivion.

And Loki for a moment could not have felt greater surprise as the Doctor didn't hesitate for a second before lunging after him instead of his ship.

The hand of the Time Lord closed securely around Loki's wrist just as the ice beneath the frost giant tumbled into the abyss.

"Loki!" the Doctor called, brown eyes wide. "Hold on!"

"What do you think I am doing?!" Loki snapped back before he could stop himself. Looking down, all he could see were sharp, icy spikes far, far below in an icy chasm. Somehow letting yourself fall dramatically into an interminable void had seemed a far more romantic option back then than getting impaled on very concrete ice pillars and rock shards not a hundred metres below now.

He saved you without thinking twice about it.

"Can you find purchase anywhere?" the Doctor called down. "I...don't think I can pull you up, you're...too heavy...!" the Time Lord's voice was strained. "See, this is why I always have female companions-"

Loki looked around himself. The wall he was hanging in front of was basically sheer ice, not offering foot- or handholds anywhere...and his magic, though obviously healthy, seemed now to have gone to sleep again, overtaxed by his earlier, panicky exertion. Which really only left him with one thing as an option...

Loki sighed. He brought his free hand up. He didn't even need to touch the ice before the wall was pierced by blue Jotun claws, his hand in its natural shape finding secure purchase on a surface that would have frozen human fingers and numbed even those of an Aesir.

"Right! Right, got you..." the Doctor managed between gritted teeth as with combined efforts they managed to hoist him upwards again, Loki taking care to change his hand back as soon as he didn't need the hold any more.

"Okay, I'd like to preface this by saying I'm very sorry, but I'm really, really glad you decided not to fall," the Doctor managed, just as he pulled Loki over the edge. But the Asgardian had already paused as soon as he had solid ground underneath his hands and knees, and was now staring up.

That is, staring at the group of armed soldiers in thick winter coats that were now running toward them, weapons in their hands.

The Doctor looked at the frost giant with a guilty grimace.

"...mostly because I also really hate being taken prisoner when I'm on my own. Sorry."

To be continued...

Chapter Text

Loki stared at the approaching soldiers. They seemed to be human, or close enough, and there were about a dozen of them, all clad in thick winter clothes that seemed to be a mixture of Asgardian furs and leathers and more modern fabrics that he had seen on Midgard. He couldn't see their faces, which were covered by cloth and, in some cases, tinted glasses against the snow's glare, but he saw their weapons well enough.

Guns, and spears and axes; like their clothing, their weaponry was an odd mixture between the sophisticated and the crude – but Loki also knew well enough that a pick axe hitting your head didn't need a degree in physics.

"No," he said.

"What?" the Doctor asked.

"No," Loki repeated, and he meant it with every fibre of his being. He had had enough. Thor had beaten him, Odin had rejected him, a phone box had hit him, he had landed in a pool and then in the snow and then almost in a chasm -!

Loki pulled himself to his feet, and the running soldiers immediately stopped dead at his expression. The Doctor also looked at it, and then pulled the worried grimace of someone who really, really didn't like what he saw.

"Now, look-"

"Nobody takes me prisoner," Loki said, and there were icicles basically hanging off every syllable. And now he could feel the rage inside him, that which he carefully kept locked away, and which grew every time that someone slighted him or insulted him or hurt him while he would usually keep smiling. That icy knot of white-hot fury burnt with searing cold at his core, and he could feel it washing through him now, urging him to make everyone opposing him pay, and it tore his magic from its recuperative slumber and when it came to him again he smiled like an owner of a runaway, deadly pet. He flicked a hand, calling it forth for battle.

"And to those who try..." he said, and now the eyes of the soldiers that weren't covered with tinted glasses grew wide as all at once there was a wind around him and the dark grey suit he wore morphed into his proper battle armour, a spear appearing in his hand like lightning given form, and when he turned toward his would-be captors and spoke, he showed them his teeth in what only a fool would have called a smile.

"I am Loki of Asgard. Do not dare come closer."

There was a moment of utter silence, as all of the soldiers stared at them in terror...

And then the smallest one of them frowned and asked "Who?"

and someone else said, "Woah, did you just see that, that was amazing!"

and a third one added, "I dunno, that helmet looks like you would bonk it in doorframes a lot."

and a fourth one cocked his head and said. "Do you need help? You got out of that fissure alright, but you look like you're both pretty cold..."

...and Loki, not for the first time that day, couldn't help but wonder when exactly the situation had gotten just a little bit away from him.

xxx

The Doctor could see how the soldiers and Loki were now staring at each other a bit like a feral hawk confronted with a batch of canaries all called Tweety – as in, both sides were obviously trying, but failing to understand the concept of each other. The Doctor cleared his throat and stepped forward.

"Uh. Hello," he said, and gave them a warm smile that he always fancied disarming (despite people very often shooting at him despite that, so, maybe not that disarming). "I'm the Doctor, and who are you?"

Turning to Loki he added under his breath, "Yeeeeeah, bit of a misassumption on my part. I don't think they're here to take us prisoner, actually. I just usually don't get very friendly greetings on planets but hey, just goes to show you should never expert the worst, ey? Ey?" And with that he slapped Loki on the back and stepped past him (and while he didn't know it, only narrowly avoided getting his hand sliced off for the second time during this regeneration, mostly because Loki was still in shock).

"Yeah, thanks for coming to help us," the Doctor said, once more turning to the soldiers. "We, uh, landed on that mountain flank and then my ship tumbled down that chasm. We were...sort of sleighing on it when that happened."

The soldiers stared at them.

The Doctor pulled a bit of a face.

"...maybe not one of my better ideas, yeah."

More silence.

It was broken when one of the soldiers at the back whispered just a tad too loudly and said "Okay, do you think they hit their heads...?" and then the man in front of them sighed and said,

"You might want to come inside. I'm Fjell."

xxx

'Inside' turned out to be a sort of igloo with a bigger, underground cavern beneath it that resembled a temporary living base. The soldiers had led them (after the Doctor had talked Loki into following them, anyway, claiming they could at least find out where they were) back the way they had come running, following their trail of footprints in the otherwise pristine snow.

The igloo, a round, squat dome-shaped building made of ice blocks that looked a lot less elegant than the ice palaces on Jotunheim, had a wooden door that looked haphazardly pieced together from old planks, but at least on top there was a satellite dish. Like the clothes of the soldiers, it gave off the odd vibe of someone having mixed up the puzzle pieces of a medieval picture and a modern one, and instead of separating it into two piles again, relied on the old method of simply banging pieces together until they fit.

"Here, have a sit down. Osgord will get both of you something hot to warm you up in a minute," the man named Fjell said, gesturing to a bunch of rag-tag furniture (and, in some cases just plastic barrels with furs strapped over them) arranged in what could pass as a circle around a fire pit in the middle of the igloo. Again, the rustic atmosphere was somewhat shattered by two large, battered consoles arranged against one of the walls, showing some sort of screens reminiscent of an old-fashioned radar in air field controlling tower.

Now that he was listening to it, the Doctor thought he could also hear the distinct hum of an artron energy generator somewhere close-by, which would explain the electric lamps on sticks stuck into the wall at strategic intervals. Curiously, someone had even hung up a string of something that looked like Christmas lights. There were perhaps a total of twenty people shuffling around in the igloo/base, all human and most of them men, but also a few women (the Doctor thought so, at least. But then again, most of them looked like spheric walking piles of fabric anyway, so it was a little bit hard to tell.)

However, there also seemed to be a bit of an...empty feel about the place, something that didn't quite fit. A dark voice inside the Doctor's head asked him whether the base might not have held more people some time ago, and what could have happened to them, but he tried not to let it show on his face. Time for that later.

"Thank you. We will," he said, giving Fjell a friendly smile and an encouraging nod to Loki, who looked slightly less pleased to be here than him. The frost giant ironically seemed to be managing to look uncomfortable in an igloo now, which the Doctor supposed was quite a feat. They sat down on two sacks covered by fur and soon enough, someone who was probably Osgord and looked like a friendly, humanoid walrus pressed two mugs into their hands. Fjell sat down opposite them, accompanied by more soldiers also slumping down on seats around the fireplace like congenial clothpiles, each clutching a drink of their own.

"Right, then. Welcome to the base – or what's left of it, anyway. Where're you boys from?" he asked. Stripped off the mask covering his face, he revealed an old and grizzled visage, reminding the Doctor a bit of what he himself had looked like during the Time War.

"Oh, we've come quite a long way, actually. Loki's from Asgard, I'm from Earth. We weren't exactly planning on landing here, but..."

"But someone can't fly their own ship," Loki interjected, and Fjell gave a snort at the Doctor's immediate air of indignancy.

"Right. Can't say I've heard of either of those places, but of course we don't get many visitors these days," Fjell said, taking a sip from his mug. "The snow storms keep most craft from landing, no wonder you crashed when you tried it – that's what happened to you, right?" he asked, frowning a little. "You came sliding down the mountain on the wreckage of your ship. Your crash landing caused the avalanche."

"Yeeeeah, kind of like that," the Doctor said carefully, wondering whether it was necessary to direct another warning glare at Loki, but he needn't have worried. The frost giant seemed to be preoccupied with his drink at the moment, peering at it a bit doubtfully, before then passing a hand over it in a gesture that seemed casual but the Time Lord guessed was anything but. He raised a questioning eye brow at Loki and was rewarded with a bit of a startled look from the Asgardian when he glanced up and noticed the Doctor's gaze – Loki obviously not used to someone watching him.

The Doctor looked from the cup back to the frost giant's eyes and Loki paused for a moment, seemingly thinking – before then, just smoothly enough that it wouldn't be noticed, swept his hand over the Doctor's drink as well. The Time Lord noticed how the liquid glowed the faintest green for a moment...and coupled with the blast earlier, this left the options that Loki was either a highly functional, weaponized microwave – or a wizard.

The Doctor carefully took a sip.

"This is really nice, thanks," he offered to their hosts, to end the few seconds of silence the entirety of his and Loki's silent exchange had lasted.

Fjell nodded. "'s called Nutriliq. It's almost all we ever drink around here - almost all we have to drink, really. This base is in the middle of the Northern Wildlands, not a great lot of options on supplies," the man said with a shrug, tipping his own mug back and emptying it.

"Lucky for you we are here, though," a younger man sitting next to Fjell, the one who had previously been so wowed by Loki's magical clothing change, and had been eyeing the golden helmet with fascination ever since Loki had placed it next to his seat, remarked. "There ain't anything around here for miles, all of this has been snowed-in wasteland for a while now. If we hadn't found you, you could have frozen to death out there." The tone in which he said this was almost eerily casual, and the Doctor again got the worrying impression that out here, maybe this really had been only all too common.

And then he could hear it, a voice inside him that had the exact same steel in it that Loki's voice had had earlier, and it said NO, it said This isn't right -

Next to him, Loki leaned forward, the frost giant's expression predictably unimpressed by the possibility of death by hypothermia, but nevertheless curious. "If this is nothing but frozen wasteland, then what are soldiers doing out here?" he asked, and the Doctor was pulled a little from his dark thoughts and had to refrain from giving him an appreciative smile. Clever alright...

But Fjell just looked at them, seemingly a bit surprised at the question.

"Why, we are trying to find out why it is winter."

Loki raised an eye brow, and then began in a flat tone of voice. "Really. And it has not occurred to you, by any chance-"

"-that we might be able to help you?" the Doctor cut in quickly to finish the question glibly (and doubtlessly differently than Loki had intended). By now for the Time Lord it was slowly becoming clear that at least one of the reasons why Loki was always so on guard was because he managed to tick people off in record time. The Doctor shot the frost giant a 'Would you kindly try not to get us facing the firing squad before lunchtime'-stare and was rewarded with an eye roll that, in Teenage Human at least, could be effortlessly translated as 'Urgh, fine.'

Turning to their hosts, the Doctor continued, "Why are you trying to find out why it is winter?" He asked. "Any problems with the season? Snowmen attacking you? No, wait, that would be ridiculous..."

Fjell blinked again, but then shook his head, apparently resigned to the permanent oddities of his visitors.

"...right. Right. If you're from farther away, I suppose it makes sense you wouldn't know. The problem is actually not that it's winter but that it's still winter. Our planet hasn't seen spring for three years."

"Really," the Doctor leaned forward with bright eyes, now definitely intrigued. Beside him, Loki looked like someone who was trying to still seem aloof when he was also clearly interested and as a result looked slightly schizophrenic. The Doctor ignored him for the time being and focused on Fjell.

"Yes," the base leader confirmed, looking grave. "Of course, on Lakvit there have been ice ages in the past, but there hasn't been any meterological or astronomical event that should have caused one this time. It seems like our planet is simply dying and we have no idea why."

"Lots of people have already left," a dark-haired woman on the other side of Fjell said, looking slightly sad. "After it had been winter for a year, the first evacuation ships were chartered. But we who didn't want to leave our home are still here. Only by now it's getting hard to grow enough food for everyone, even with the underground hydrocultures, so..." she bit her lip and stared at the floor. The Doctor's expression had changed as the Lakvitian spoke, going from curiosity at a mystery to the harder lines he could feel settling on his face whenever he was confronted with an entire planet who was suffering.

"You still haven't said why you are out here precisely."

It was Loki who had spoken up again, the frost giant apparently having given up on feigning disinterest and now almost reluctantly giving in to his obvious curiosity. Well, that was at least one character trait that whatever had happened to him hadn't been able to extinguish...

Fjell blinked. "Right. Yeah. Well, there's several reasons for us to assume that there might be something going on here that could be the cause of all this. It took us a while to trace it, but...we noticed something was off with the weather patterns in this area. There's more snow coming down here than there could possibly be moisture in the troposphere, for instance. The temperatures are colder than a cloud cover should permit. Strange wind patterns. Those kinds of things."

"And you're here investigating it now," the Doctor finished the explanation, gesturing around at the computer equipment surrounding them that now made a lot more sense in an igloo. "That means you aren't soldiers - you're scientists," he said, sounding like he had just found out it was Christmas ( - the celebration, that is, not the weird truth field village in the middle of nowhere. He didn't know that one yet). Next to him, Loki muttered something like 'Is that supposed to be an achievement now? The last scientist I met didn't succeed in anything but running Thor over twice,' but the Doctor ignored him. "Found anything interesting yet?"

Fjell hesitated. "...that's classified. Sorry."

"Translation: You have not found anything." Loki, who was apparently hoping to get burned at the stake today, was sipping his Nutriliq so delicately, the Doctor wouldn't have been surprised if he had had his pinky extended.

A few of the younger soldiers were now shooting him distinctly pissed-off glares that the frost giant barely seemed to notice. Fjell, however, only looked more defeated.

"No, you're right, we haven't," he said. "But first of all, it's a very wide area, and it doesn't help that half the time our instruments don't even seem to work properly and we have no idea why that is."

"Hm," the Doctor pursed his lips. "Mind if I take a look at them?"

"Erm..." now Fjell finally shook his head. "I'm afraid I won't be able to allow that," he said. "As long as we don't know what could have caused the ice age, we can't rule out alien intervention, which means that both of you will have to remain under supervision while you're on base, and can't be allowed to access the computer systems. Sorry."

"Look, it's not like you're prisoners!" his younger colleague added immediately, when Loki was already curiously somehow giving the impression of bristling hedgehog without actually having moved a muscle, "But you're still civilians on a military base. You can't stay here. We were planning to send you back to the capital with the next supply trek that leaves. You can try getting a space ship off the planet from there. Though I hear it's getting harder and harder to leave with the snowstorms..."

"Um, yeah. I think I'd prefer to salvage my own ship, but thanks anyway," the Doctor said. Fjell raised an eyebrow.

"Yer planning to get the wreckage of your ship out of that chasm? I don't mean to rain on your parade, boy, but that thing isn't coming out until the snow's melted and the Old Gods only know when that's going to happen."

"Do they, now?" the Doctor asked, with a quirk to his lips. "In that case, care for a guess, Loki?"

"Oh, hilarious," the Asgardian muttered and then stood up and turned to their host. "That drink is excellent, Master Fjell. Do you think I could have another one?"

"By all means, the big pot is on the stove. Help yourself," Fjell gestured over to the metal container standing atop a gas burner that people occasionally wandered to and dipped their mugs in. "If you're going, could you possibly get me a refill, too? And just call me Fjell."

"Of course," Loki said, "Would anyone else like another cup?" he asked the other soldiers with a polite smile, before taking the proffered mugs and walking over to the makeshift kitchen corner, giving off an aura of servile helpfulness every step of the way.

Needless to say, the Doctor suddenly had this irrevocable feeling of utter dread, but, in his defence, at that stage in Loki's plan this was already way too late anyhow.

To be continued...

Chapter Text

"You let the entire base fall asleep!"

"If you knew about it, you could have stopped me," Loki replied with a serenity he knew very well to be absolutely infuriating, all while sitting at the firepit and sipping the last remnants of his own nutriliq with a shrug.

Around them, the other inhabitants of the station were now mostly sleeping soundly, lying around like gently snoring cloth piles where they had sat down after taking even only a few sips from the mugs Loki had so cheerfully handed out.

"Oh, and how should I have done that?" The Doctor asked, peevishly. "If I had tried to prevent you from meddling with that pot, it would have looked suspicious."

"I don't meddle," Loki sniffed. "Meddling is for amateurs. I scheme."

"Trapped in an igloo, arguing semantics with a man who wears what looks like a musical instrument on his head," the Doctor muttered, running a hand over his face. "I swear, this never happened with any of the other companions..."

"Oh, as if you have never had the urge to wear a fancy hat," Loki snapped. "And besides," he added more calmly with a frown, "you wanted to have a look at their instruments. Now you can."

The Doctor was giving him an odd look now, his expression seeming like he was trying to work out what to make of Loki. The Asgardian kept his face carefully composed under the scrutiny, even if he himself wasn't sure what to feel right now. The other, this Doctor, seemed to be the strangest mixture of brilliant and...well, ditzy, piloting a space craft that could travel even further than the most ambitious reaches of Asgard and recognizing him as a Jotunn despite his near-perfect efforts, while at the same time causing an avalanche that nearly killed us both, Loki finished the thought in his head. He had certainly never met anybody like him on Asgard.

Certainly never anybody who did not care what your true heritage was. And still thought engaging you in banter like a friend would be fine idea...

Loki shut that train of thought down before it could even leave Tacit Bonding station. No. He needed the other because he seemed to know a great deal more about the universe outside the realms of Yggdrasil than Loki did. Simple as that.

"And you're sure they'll be alright?"

"Yes, yes," Loki waved him off. "It was a simple sleeping draught. They will wake up in a couple of hours with a part of their memory missing, it will be fine."

The Doctor frowned, still not looking particularly pleased with drugging their hosts, but apparently realizing that squabbling further about it would be a fruitless endeavour. He cocked his head. "So, when you passed a hand over our drinks earlier..."

Loki's face twitched briefly. Well. Ditzy or not, the other certainly had an uncanny ability never to miss nor forget anything. He waved a hand.

"A simple working in case there was poison in it."

The Doctor raised an eye brow. "...you're not exactly the trusting type, are you?"

xxx

The Time Lord then glanced down at his own mug somewhat doubtfully. "Also, you now apparently let a miniature rubber duck materialize in mine."

"An afterthought," Loki shrugged.

"It quacks."

"An amusing afterthought."

"Right..." the Doctor glanced down again at the little fowl, which seemed to be quite happily paddling around the perimeter of the mug. A potentially insanely powerful god, he reminded himself, who chose to put a rubber ducky in my drink. Right, then.

He stood up. "Let's have a look at their records, shall we?"

Xxx

"Yes," Loki also rose, trailing after the Doctor, intrigued. He had as of yet little experience with what Midgardians called computers, to which those here on Lakvit looked suspiciously similar. Usually, he could gather what knowledge he needed by simply prying into the minds of anybody who had the misfortune to come across an information-seeking God of Mischief, but when you needed large amounts of accurate, detailed data to recognize a pattern, it was easy to see that there was no way around written records – stored either in libraries or, as it seemed on other worlds, behind screens. Curious to see how his host intended to procure them without resorting to magic, Loki leaned against an ice wall, watching as the Doctor approached the console.

"Hm. Less advanced tech than they should have. Interesting," he commented, before then putting on a pair of glasses and extracting a small, pencil-like thing from his pocket, which Loki recognized as the same gadget that had been pointed at his person earlier. As it glowed and emanated its strange, whiny noise, the computer in front of them started to whirr and light up in response. Lines of text and diagrams started to whirl across its screen too fast for Loki to make sense of, but, he realized with a twinge of annoyance, apparently not too quick for the Doctor to absorb. The other was staring at the screen with a look of intense concentration.

"Hmm..."

"You keep using this device. What is it? A wand?" Loki asked, his curiosity seemingly overpowering his pride more and more often ever since he had started talking to the Time Lord.

"What, this?" the Doctor asked, holding the gadget in question aloft. "No, it's not a...wand," he said, while glancing at Loki as if he had just confirmed some theory the other had had about something. "It's my sonic screwdriver. Very handy in lots of situations."

"Apparently," Loki said. "Could you make anything of their records, then?"

"Not much," the Doctor said with a grimace. "Pretty much just what they said. Cumulus clouds are acting like they were the nimbostratus type, nimbostratus clouds are acting like they belonged to the cumulonimbus variant, and cumulonimbus clouds are...well, acting like they've ingested illegal substances, really. The weather patterns don't make sense, the temperature is far colder than it should be, and the snowfall is simply ridiculous. I think I could get a clearer picture of what is happening on this strange little planet if I could check the TARDIS' scanners, but..."

"For that we need to get your ship out of the fissure," Loki finished the thought. It suited him. He didn't particularly want to stay on what amounted to a planetary snow globe, and for that he needed the other's space craft.

"Exactly," the Doctor replied with a tilt to his mouth. He looked up to a small slit in the ice walls high overhead, which had been taped over with see-through foil of some kind, creating a make-shift window. By now it showed only darkness outside. "Though that might have to wait until tomorrow. Don't fancy going out during the night and not being able to see a thing. Can frost giants see in the dark?"

Once again, the question had been asked so casually, the Doctor obviously not even thinking before he said it, as if that was a normal thing to ask, that Loki felt like he had just experienced whiplash. He tried not to show it, scrambling for an answer.

"...better than humans, though I also see better by day." Unless I change into an owl or a snow fox, a voice in his head added, but Loki knew that at the moment, this was really not a viable option. The truth was, he was exhausted. Not five hours ago, Thor had all but wiped the Bifrost with him and before that, he had hardly found the time to sleep, either. Apparently, attempting to commit genocide of your own species really took it out of you. His worn-out magic hadn't thanked him for summoning it in a panic on the snowy slope, or forcing it in anger when faced with a potential enemy. By now, it was all Loki could do to keep from swaying on his feet.

"Hm," the Doctor said, rubbing his chin. "Right, then. Let's stay the night here and then look for her in the morning. How long are these people going to sleep for?"

"For another ten hours at least," Loki replied, torn between not wanting to stay in this world for a minute longer than necessary and also really feeling like collapsing anywhere at all. The Doctor was still fiddling with the console, eyes narrowed now.

"Okay," he said, pocketing his screwdriver again and straightening up. "Let's sort out some bedding then, I could also do with a kip. But we really shouldn't stay here too long."

"Is something the matter?" Loki asked, wary. Before, the other had seemed like he didn't mind at all that they had crashlanded in Winter-Wonder-Land, but now, he looked...different. Worried.

"Well. It's...strange," the Doctor replied, casting another glance at the cam-coloured console. "Something's wrong with this planet, and it's not just their climate. Their technology is all...out of synch."

Loki frowned. "That does not make sense. Out of synchronization with what?"

The Doctor cast him a glance. "With themselves, mostly. I can...see how things should be. How they should develop. And something's interfered with this civilization. They have satellite systems too far advanced for their still completely rudimentary computer network grid. Their energy generators use technology not available on Earth until the 31st century, but their igloo – their igloo! - is outfitted with lightbulbs you could buy at any Walmart!"

Loki blinked. "Where?"

"Okay, you have been to Earth, right?" the Doctor asked with a tilt of his head.

"I didn't exactly spend my time shopping," Loki replied with a touch of coolness.

"...right," the other nodded, but then went on. "Anyway, like I said. You've seen them. Some of them have guns, while others have axes. I saw one with a sword on his back. And they don't even seem to notice that it doesn't make sense!"

Loki pursed his lips. "Asgard uses both guns and swords. It is nothing special."

"Yeah, but your little space island is populated by Viking gods. Bound to be mad," the Doctor waved a hand, seemingly ignoring Loki who wasn't sure whether he should feel insulted or not, "But this is a world populated by humans. And whatever else they may do, they embrace new ideas like you wouldn't believe, forever falling in love with new thoughts, inventions and changes and promptly discarding the old," the Doctor spoke with a curious touch of fondness in his voice now, and Loki not for the first time wondered what it was that made this mortal race so special, why not only this Doctor but also Thor had taken to them so quickly. What it was that he hadn't seen in me.

The Doctor shook his head as he saw Loki's thoughtful expression, "No, this is nothing that humans would do. When they have satellite internet, they stop using dial-up. When they invent guns, they put down the swords. Well." He tilted his head. "Except for at Renaissance fairs, for some reason...anyway. Point stands. There's something very wrong here...and that's not even the worst of it." He paused dramatically for a moment and, when nothing happened, started to look at Loki expectantly.

The frost giant returned his gaze with a flat stare. "...you really only have people around so someone is asking the questions, don't you?"

The Doctor pulled a face. "Come on, work with me here!"

"...this is revenge for the sleeping draught, isn't it? Fine. Why, Doctor, what do you mean this is not the worst of it?" Loki asked, also favouring his travelling companion with wide innocent eyes, and at least had the satisfaction of the Doctor briefly looking slightly alarmed.

"Er. What I meant to say," he recovered himself, and then, expression once again becoming utterly serious and his tone sounding grim, "That there's also something else going on here. According to their records, they've lost soldiers every single expedition. All of them just vanished. And one of them said in their statements," the Doctor glanced again at the screen, "That there's something hiding in the snow storms..."

xxx

It was a little bit later that the Doctor and Loki were settling in to sleep, after (at the Doctor's insistence) also having the rest of the soldiers arranged on their beds and under blankets, so none of them would suffer any ill effects from the cold. They had checked that the base was as well secured as it could be, both eaten a little of the from the store of ration bars inside the kitchen, and finally switched off most of the lights, both for energy conservation and maybe making the base a little less attractive for any vaguely-hinted-at monsters that could potentially be lurking in the arctic wilderness.

They had both chosen cots in what were presumably the officers' quarters, which seemed a little bit more comfortable than the standard ones – and Loki had to acknowledge that what the Doctor had found in the records must have been right, because after they had shifted the rest of the soldiers into their sleeping quarters, there were over half of the beds empty still. It was a sort of foreboding atmosphere with the empty cots around them in the dark, the ice walls letting the place feel less like a base and more like a tomb with each unaturally silent minute that passed.

xxx

The Doctor had chosen the first bed that looked like it wouldn't contain ice bugs or something, and let himself fall down on it, also fairly wiped. He hadn't slept since the whole disaster with the Year That Wasn't, because you were afraid of what you would dream about, weren't you, and he distinctly didn't feel like taking on a planet with a severe case of global cold and schizo tech without at least having a lie-down beforehand. The Doctor exhaled slowly into the dark, cold air, watching the white cloud of his breath dissipate and tried not to listen to the memories in his head.

Instead, he shifted his gaze just a little bit to the right and looked at the quiet form of Loki, lying in the cot directly adjacent to his.

That had been a surprise alright.

Truthfully, the Doctor had expected his Asgardian companion to choose a cot further removed, or perhaps in a different quarter room alltogether - but Loki hadn't. Instead he had just wordlessly appeared in the room where the Doctor had alreay lain down, and then stalked silently over to the bed next to his, sliding into the odd mixture of furs and synthetic sleeping bag without even so much as a direct acknowledgement of the Time Lord's presence.

For a moment, the Doctor had wondered whether Loki had even looked a bit embarrassed.

He was still hard to read, that much was true. Prickly one moment, mischievious the next, haughty, then curious, then once again so cold and indifferent he could have been carved out of the same ice as the walls...once again, the Doctor could feel himself intrigued by the self-proclaimed god. Loki looked younger now that his features were relaxed in sleep, younger and so utterly tired as if a lot more than a simple crash landing had happened to him before he had fallen into the Doctor's swimming pool.

"What is it, Doctor? Having trouble falling asleep?"

Loki's calm expression hadn't changed, but now there was one sliver of surprisingly brilliant green eye quirked open and regarding him lazily. The Doctor snorted. He probably should have known.

"Yes," he replied truthfully. "You?"

"...perhaps," Loki replied after a pause. "I admit there are certain things I have been pondering."

"Oh?"

"When you introduced us and our realms of origin to our hosts," Loki said, carefully. "You lied."

The Doctor frowned. "No, I didn't. I know you are a Frost Giant, but you are from Asgard, not Jotunheim."

And at this, Loki finally turned his head to face him fully and let see a thin smile. "I didn't say you were lying about me."

The Doctor threw him a look. "Clever."

"I tend to be," the other replied with just a hint of amusement, before his gaze became once again curious. "So, Doctor. Where are you really from?"

There was a bit of a pause in the conversation. Loki looked at him, silently, and once again the Doctor felt just like back then, when the other had asked him to take him to the roots of Yggdrasil, wondering whether he would be trusted and at the same time looking almost like he was already expecting not to be ...

"Gallifrey," the Doctor said.

And, almost too subtle to see in the dark, the Asgardian's eyes seemed to light up the tiniest bit.

"Gallifrey," Loki repeated the name, speaking the word like a spell. "I do not think I ever heard of a world with that name."

"You wouldn't have," the Doctor said, quietly. "It burnt."

There was once again silence, but it felt...slightly different than before. No tension in it, just a bit of silent acknowledgement. Loki looked like he was puzzling out how to respond, something that seemed to be a fairly novel experience for him, judging by the slight frown on his features. He cast his eyes up at the ceiling again, steepling his fingers over his chest, and when he spoke, kept his tone carefully neutral.

"You...did not mention that I'm not human, either."

A topic change. The Doctor quirked an eye brow, wondering for a moment whether that was perhaps Loki's way of showing that he had understood the Doctor didn't fancy talking much about his past and respected it without saying as much. Which would have been quite the concession, a voice in the Doctor's head added, considering that before he showed as much tact as a sociophobic cactus.

"No," the Time Lord answered easily, and then tried a sort of lop-sided grin. "But they are. And you know humans – they don't really deal well with someone being different."

"Not just humans," Loki muttered quietly, but then he had already added a much louder 'Goodnight, Doctor', and turned around so abruptly, that the Time Lord wondered for a moment whether he had even imagined it – and, if not, whether Loki had meant those words to be heard.

To be continued...

Chapter Text

The Doctor woke up when it was still dark in the base. Despite the thick blanket and the fact that his core temperature was lower than a human's to start with, he felt stiff and cold. The way Loki's bed was already empty and he could hear the Asgardian banging about in the kitchen, presumably either trying to make breakfast or attempting to bring the igloo down on their heads, suggested that the frost giant was a lot more at home in this climate than he. The Doctor rose with a groan, and rubbed his arms in their suit sleeves, wondering not for the first time whether this was perhaps how that Noble woman had felt running around London during Christmas time in her wedding dress (and constantly complaining about it). Walking past the other cots, occupied by everyone else still sleeping the drought off, he ambled into the kitchen.

"Morning. What's that you're doing?"

Loki didn't even turn his head as he was rifling through the drawers. "Looking for food to take with us. And if possible, weapons."

"Stealing, huh?" the Doctor said, but then yawned again, finding he really couldn't be bothered with moralities this early in the morning. "Try to steal some coffee while you're at it."

"There is still some Nutriliq left."

"Ugh. What's wrong with tea, I ask you. Uncultured planet."

More awake now, the Doctor stalked into the kitchen, poking about a bit himself. His gaze fell onto an impressive pile of things Loki had apparently already declared ownership of, all of them arranged into a precarious miniature mountain on the kitchen counter.

"Right," the Time Lord said. "And how are you planning to carry that?"

"Please." So saying, Loki finally shot him a look, made a complicated-looking gesture with his hands and at the same time opened a sort of glowing...fold in spacetime, the Doctor supposed, into which he casually tossed the items on the table one after the other, and then let the whole thing disappear.

"Portable wormhole into my own private holding dimension," the frost giant stated matter-of-factly, and was seemingly already preparing to dig through the next cupboard, but apparently hadn't expected the other man to light up like a brown-suited Christmas tree.

"Pockets! Finally a man who appreciates them. Bet you wouldn't have any problems carrying stuff in a wedding dress. Er. I think that sounded better in my head," the Doctor mumbled with a frown, "But anyway. Yes. Brilliant handling there, own pocket dimension and all, I mean. Very impressive."

Loki stared. Part of it the Doctor supposed could be attributed to the slightly erratic crossdressing comment – although, this being *Loki*, a voice in his head added, that comment was probably spot-on, but the other part...again, the Time Lord had the odd sensation that the frost giant simply had no idea how to handle a compliment.

xxx

"...yes. I know," Loki finally said, clearing his throat and letting the pocket dimensional wormhole vanish again. "Are you ready to depart in search for your ship?"

The Doctor pursed his lips. "Me? Sure. You...seem energetic today."

"My m- energy has returned more quickly than I suspected."

"Has it," the Doctor replied, frowning now and Loki had the feeling that there was more going on behind those brown eyes than the other was saying. But then the Doctor had already turned around and was striding to the door.

"Very well, then. Allôns-y!"

Loki raised an eyebrow as the other had opened the door and was now apparently taking a deep breath as if it was a spring day outside and they couldn't wait for a stroll in the park.

"Do you even know where to go?" Loki asked flatly, a question born from long-suffering years of following after a certain oaf of a not-brother, who only always looked like he knew where he was going, but would usually only lead you and all the members of your party straight into the next celestial equivalent of a tavern brawl.

At the question, the Doctor shot him a look over his shoulder. "Of course I do. She's my ship. I can hear her," he explained, right before striding out into the snow.

Well, Loki thought, now I'm pretty certain I'm not the only non-human here.

After a while, he took a breath.

"I...am a shapeshifter."

"What?"

The Doctor stopped for a moment, waiting for Loki to come up at his side. The two of them had been trudging through the snow for a good quarter of an hour or so, a brilliant sun shining down on them and the ground covered by a pristine layer of freshly fallen snow. Their footprints of last night had long vanished in the wind and under the new flakes the night had brought, but the Doctor apparently hadn't been lying when he had said he would be able to find his ship.

"That is why I do not appear a frost giant," Loki ventured, carefully not looking at the Doctor. It was strange. The man had realized from the very beginning what he was, had seen through his magical disguise in an instant...and hadn't been bothered in the least by it. Loki had felt naked, to be exposed like this, have his inner nature laid bare, but at the same time it was...almost relieving. He couldn't even imagine talking so calmly about this part of his heritage with anyone else, but so far, nothing seemed to have upset the other.

Still, now that he had placed his bargaining chip on the table, time to go in for the kill.

"And what about you?"

"Me?" The Doctor cast him a quizzival glance.

"I am a shape-shifting frost giant monster from Asgard," Loki repeated calmly, "and what are you?"

xxx

The Doctor paused at the question. He wasn't sure he was comfortable with the derogatory way Loki kept referring to himself...or how he had just used the word 'what' instead of 'who'. He glanced back at the Asgardian, trying to let his answer come as natural as he usually introduced himself to a companion.

"I'm a Time Lord," the Doctor said. "From Gallifrey, as you know."

There was no flash of recognition in the other's eyes at either of the words, but the frost giant still raised a finely sculpted eye brow.

"A Time...Lord. Didn't you say you weren't a ruler?"

"It's just a name," the Doctor replied, not looking at Loki now because he didn't want to see how clearly the frost giant could tell that it was only half a lie.

"If you call yourself a Time Lord, why do you look Midgardian?"

At this, the Doctor couldn't help but give a small twitch of the lips, an amused snort fogging up the air in front of his face."If you call yourself an Asgardian, why do you look Time Lord?"

Loki regarded him for a moment, but then his own expression abruptly stretched into a sharp smile, and then the Doctor couldn't help but stare in fascination, because next it was his own face looking back at him, and his own voice that said,

"I look, Doctor, like anything I wish."

Brown eyes widened. "Blimey. Well, they do say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." He tried to give the other a grin. "Mind you, if you plan on keeping that face, I'm wanted in several galaxies, just so you know."

Now it was Loki's turn to look slightly taken aback, before he then abruptly shifted back into his Aesir appearance. There was a curious, thoughtful expression on his face  that let the Doctor feel like he had gained points somewhere - but then again, playing any points game with Loki at all was a bit like getting a Royal Flush as a hand, only to find out that you had actually been playing Snakes And Ladders the entire time. Striding forwards again, the Doctor found he couldn't help but grin. This was getting interesting!

xxx

They did find the TARDIS after a while, but it did not actually improve the situation.

"Well," Loki said, "Though I despise stating the obvious, that is a large ice cube."

"Yes," the Doctor admitted with a frown. Both of them were currently standing in front of a, well, large ice cube, which also held the familiar form of the blue wooden box inside. The ice cube was topped with snow, looked like it had been hewn out of a glacier, sparkled like a Christmas tree, and was also more than four feet thick on each side. The TARDIS seemed to float serenely inside it like a bug in amber, if said bug had been six feet tall and also shaped like a phone box. 

"This...shouldn't have happened." The Doctor frowned. "I topped up the anti-freezing liquid only last week."

When Loki mostly threw him a are-you-serious look, the Doctor rapidly waved a hand. "And anyway, the more important thing is that it shouldn't have frozen like this at all. I mean, it crashed down from there-" he pointed up at the top of the cliff where they had yesterday crash-landed on and today had walked down to the foot of - "and then fell down here and...how did it get frozen in ice like this? There isn't even any water here." The Doctor looked decidedly put out. "It's like someone's trying to sabotage me."

"Well, how do you suppose we get it out? More anti-freezing liquid?" Loki suggested dryly.

"Well, obviously we have to melt her out of that block." The Doctor shrugged. "But since we didn't bring a flame thrower, we-"

"Actually," the frost giant then cut in with a lazy drawl as he raised his hands, "Did I mention I'm also the god of fire?"

It was the second time the Doctor looked surprised this day, but then again, someone whose hands had just burst into flame might do that you.

Xxx

"You're a sorcerer!"

The statement was as inane as it was obvious – but still, Loki didn't think he'd ever heard it said with such a pleased smile behind it. He tried not to pay too much attention to how that made him feel.

"It is one of my talents," he said instead, trying to sound as lofty as possible – right before flinging his arms forward and blasting the block of ice with a jet stream of flame rivalling that of his Destroyer.

It was a bit unspectacular when nothing at all happened.

"Um..." the Doctor began, and Loki snapped,

"What?"

"It...doesn't appear to be melting." The Time Lord cocked his head toward the ice block that stood around as square-shaped as ever.

"It wouldn't," Loki replied with thin lips. "This ice isn't natural, but conjured in nature. That explains how it formed in this way around your ship."

The Doctor raised his eye brows. "You're saying this is...Magic Ice?"

(Loki at this point had no idea whether the Time Lord was actually a sorcerer himself, but the way the man took his words and made them sound utterly ridiculous, had to be some kind of supernatiral ability, he was sure.)

"Yes, magic ice, as you put it," he replied irritably, "Which also means that this winter is not natural. Someone is manipulating the seasons on this planet."

"Ah-ha! That explains the cloud patterns." The Doctor grinned. "Climate change on a global scale, then? Impressive."

"Child's play if you know what is required." Loki waved a hand dismissively, already digging through his memory if he could remember whether he had ever seen anything like this before-

"Is it?" The Doctor then actually interrupted him. "How does it work?"

Loki glanced up. "You're interested?"

The Doctor gave him a small grin in return. "Oh, I'm interested in everything. So, in your opinion, how does one go about freezing a planet, then?"

Loki paused for a second. Then:

"...have you got a pen and paper?"

Again, it was a little while later (after a lengthy explanation and several diagrams both on spare paper and in the snow, depicting various thaumaturgic formulas, spell designs, (and one game of tic-tac-toe when they had briefly veered off-course)) that the Doctor was now nodding thoughtfully while looking at his frozen ship and going 'Hmm' a lot. Loki, for his part, had to actually admit that the Time Lord hadn't been a bad audience at all – he had asked questions at the right times, had mostly nodded at others, (had in one instance even added something to a formula that technically no one outside of Asgard should know) and when they were done, Loki had the impression that the other had actually understood what he had been saying, and done so pretty damn well.

"I see," the Doctor said at this point, turning back around. "That seems to be pretty clever spellwork, then. And you worked out all that just by trying to melt the ice?"

"Yes. Well." Loki tried to look as haughty as he was able to for the moment and tried not to obviously preen.

Fortunately, the next remark made that only all too easy.

"But you still can't melt it."

"...no. I told you. It's -"

"Yes, magic," the Doctor waved him off. "So...that means you can't melt the ice with magic, because it is magic?" The Doctor cocked his head. "Isn't that kind of impractical?"

"You're welcome to try and screwdriver it away." Loki managed to pronounce the sentence without actually separating his teeth.

Immediately, the Doctor had raised both hands in a peace offering. "Point taken. Very well. So. Your suggestion to dealing with this problem would be...?"

"Well." Loki's expression darkened. "Find the sorcerer who is responsible and defeat them."

And the Doctor smiled. "That's what I wanted to hear! Allons-y!"

xxx

"Allfather?"

"Yes, Thor?"

"Heimdall just said 'This is either a good thing, or the worst event ever to happen'. I am, frankly, a little worried."

To be continued...

Chapter Text

Chapter 7: White Snow and the Huntsmen

About two hours later, Loki conceded that he may have been a bit too enthusiastic about his magic having returned to its full strength. As it was, teleporting still felt impossible and the working he had cast to locate the source of the magic that had tumbled this world into its eternal winter was constantly breaking down and apart, giving them at best a vague direction to stumble into, and not much of a clue yet what kind of spell or sorcerer they were about to quarrel with.

It didn’t help Loki’s concentration that his thoughts also kept drifting back to Thor’s face, his bro – not-brother’s expression as he had let go and fallen, blue eyes that should have been filled with fury wide with shock instead…Loki bared his teeth against the cold, sucking the frigid air into his lungs and turning his head toward his companion to distract himself from the world inside his head that was as desolate as the rolling snow plains in front of them.

“Are you not cold? Only an Aesir would have such resistance.”

“Me? Oh no, I’m fine – well, as long as we keep moving, anyway. Time Lords are a bit more cold-resistant than your average human,” the Doctor waved him off. “Still wouldn’t mind a hot chocolate at this point, though…”

“I can conjure you a cloak,” Loki said, surprised himself at the words that had just slipped out. But, he reasoned, being stuck on this planet with a corpse instead of a madman would not improve the situation.

“Oh. Oh no, thanks,” the Doctor shook his head. “I like to travel light, you know? Makes the running easier.”

“The running?” Loki repeated, a frown drawing his brows together as it always did at the enigmatic answers of the other. The Doctor looked at him.

“Oh, there’s a lot of running, believe me.”

It was at this point that there was a howl in the distance.

Then wolves erupted over the crest of the hill behind them.

Xxx

“Right,” Odin said, looking at Heimdall with a frown. “If these laughing fits of him persist, we may need to send him to the healers.”

xxx

“Run!”

“No, you fool! They will outpace us!” Loki grabbed the shoulder of the Doctor who (apparently out of habit), had been about to dash off but was now brought up short.

Up ahead, the wolves had started loping toward them, the pack separating to encircle and trap them. Loki could see how unkempt their coats were, how thin and ragged some of the pack looked. These were beasts that had not been able to feed properly in this eternal winter, it seemed.

However, Loki of Asgard shall not be your next meal.

Loki ignored the small sting at this old title of his so easily coming up in his mind and instead threw up his hands, trying to force the magic that was still reluctant to come, calling forth his battle armor out of instinct. 

“They are nearly twice the size that they should be,” the Doctor murmured next to his side, looking inappropriately interested for the occasion, “the fauna on Lakvit should be similar to that of Earth, but these aren’t normal wolves - they look almost large enough to ride…“

“Fascinating, Doctor,” Loki gritted out, trying to identify who the leader of the pack could be. He didn’t have much magic at his disposal, but if he could only scare or control that one…

“I’ll say. Technology and weather affected on this planet is one thing, but if it changes even the animals-“

And that was about as far as the Doctor came because it was at this point that Loki hurled a stream of fire at the largest, closest wolf. The beast howled.

“Huh.” The doctor blinked as the animal was thrown back like a ragdoll, the others of the pack also rearing backward, but only briefly. The animal had impacted into the snowbank in front of them, a charred, black thing consisting of remnants of pelt and burned flesh, but that barely deterred the others, hunger apparently having long since overtaken any caution or fear.

“Um,” the Doctor took another step backwards toward Loki, so that they were now back to back, each of them facing the slowly tightening circle of the pack around them. “So…how many more of these have you got?”

“A few,” Loki said, raising his spear again at the closest beast. His lips thinned. “Yet not enough.”

“Hmm. Thought so,” the Doctor nodded grimly.  He raised one of his hands to shield his eyes against the glare of the snow. “If it’s any consolation, I think I can see smoke rising in the distance. There might be an actual dwelling in sight that might find our remnants eventually.”

“I have no intent to die here, Doctor,” Loki growled. “I may be able to change shape into something more practical to fight in the snow,” he added, ignoring the sly, mocking voice in his head that whispered, A form more fitting for the cold, yes? I wonder what that could be, Loki Laufeyson, at the same time as another voice screamed NO, and before Loki could decide what to do, one of the beasts charged.

“LOKI!”

Loki’s blast of magic felled it only at arm’s length from the Doctor’s face.

“They’re getting bolder. Our time is fading fast,” Loki muttered, only a small part of him noting that though the wolf had leapt at the Doctor, the Time Lord had not ducked out of the way for the beast to tear into Loki’s back instead, only called out a warning for him to whirl and react in time. “Do you not have any defensive capabilities of your own?” he asked instead, the question How in the world did you survive this long? barely implied.

“Well,” the Doctor hedged, “Usually, it’s around this time that I come up with a brilliant plan of some sort – ”

“Do you?” Loki shot back, the tensing of the muscles in the nearest wolf sharpening his tone into an edge, “Well, in this case I should love to hear about i-”

“Hear! That’s it!” The Doctor shouted, at once reaching into his jacket and whipping out –

“Your screwdriver?” Loki couldn’t help but catch it out of the corner of his eye, a part of his brain wanting to snap What are you going to do, put up some shelves at them?! but the Doctor was already grinning and cutting him off.

“Close. It’s my sonic screwdriver.”  And then he held it high over their heads and it glowed the brightest blue.

Oh. Oh, a voice in Loki’s head (which, in his opinion, sounded unnecessarily impressed) supplied, just as the beasts around them started howling, shaking their heads and writhing on the floor. Some of them, the smarter ones or perhaps those with the most strength left, were already fleeing, their movements uncoordinated and half-blind. After only half a minute, only the two wolves Loki had attacked were still visible, one unmoving on the ground, the other the last one to limp away after its brethren.

For a moment, there was only silence again, the only sound that of the Doctor pocketing his screwdriver and the wind brushing over the snow. 

“…well fought,” Loki conceded with a short nod.

“Yeah,” the Doctor nodded, glancing over his shoulder at Loki with something almost like a smile, “You, t- oh, now someone shows up!”

Loki’s head whipped around to see where the Doctor was gesturing. From the direction of the smoke, a group of what seemed to be more humans were now appearing, perhaps three or four people approaching without a great hurry.

“Well, you’re in time,” the Doctor remarked with some sarcasm as they came into view, “We nearly got eaten alive – although,” he added, tone changing from affronted to slightly intrigued in moment, “Nevermind what I just said –  because you are in fact out of time, aren’t you?” he grinned at the group, triumphant. “Out of your time, to be precise.” 

“Doctor?” Loki shot a look at the Time Lord, but the other was already in full swing, gesturing excitedly at the new arrivals.

“No, no, no, look! They’re wearing leathers and furs! They’re carrying axes and bows! One of them has a bear’s head on his head, it’s brilliant!” He pointed at the indicated head on the head, grinning at Loki. “This planet’s timeline must be tied up in loops by now. I mean, what are you, 7^th century? 8^th?”

“Doctor,” Loki said again.

“I mean – primitives, and barely half a dozen miles from the research base. I think there must be pockets of disconnected time floating around, maybe –“

“Doctor.”

“What?”

“They are carrying wireless communication,” Loki pointed to the walkie-talkie-like device the leader (who was, in fact, wearing the bear’s head) had just pulled out and was now speaking into.

“Yeah, we’ve found a pair of two unidentified individuals. No, no idea how they aren’t dead yet. One of them is talking nonsense and the other is dressed like a musical instrument. I’m suspecting either hypothermia, or Nutriliq past its sell-by date, better get the medbay ready. Over and out.” Then he looked back up at the pair of them.

“Okay, you two oddballs. Mind explaining what the hell you’re doing out here?”

“I am Loki,” Loki said, keeping his voice calm and not at all miffed, “My companion is called the Doctor. We are looking for transport to the next city,” Loki said, ignoring the raised eye brow the Doctor gave him. “Our…vehicle broke down a few miles that way.”

“Loki and Thedoctor, hm? They aren’t names from around here.”

“Indeed, they are not. But that is not important,” Loki said, infusing his voice with just a touch of mesmer to change the topic. The leader frowned briefly (and the Doctor sharply looked at Loki, as if he had been able to tell something was off), but then the Lakvitian’s face smoothed again, almost as if his mind was already used to magic gently pushing it into the direction it should go. “And you would be…?” Loki prompted, swiftly initiating a different line of conversation while the other was off-balance.

“Lenord,” the leader said automatically. “I’m the town head of Letzterherd. One of our scouts noticed you getting attacked by the wolves.”

“You took your sweet time helping, though, didn’t you?” the Doctor piped up, looking peevish. Lenord didn’t seem phased by the accusatory tone.

“We weren’t sure whether you were blue-eyes. In that case, better let the wolves finish you off.”

“Blue…eyes...?” Both Doctor and Loki exchanged a glance, confused brown meeting frowning emerald green, but then the Doctor’s gaze snapped right back to Lenord.

“You have blue eyes,” he pointed out. In fact, most of the population of Lakvit they had come across so far had resembled the Skandinavian stereotype on Midgard – hair and beard colours often blonde (although there was some brown and black as well), their skin pale and white, their build tall and strong, and eyes…mostly blue. Loki was fairly certain that even before the unnatural temperature change this area would have been close to the polar region of this planet. The way the All-Speak translated their language for him, they even sounded like they had the same accent as people from the Midgard region of North England. At the Doctor’s observation, Lenord snorted, shaking his head.

“Not the kind of blue we’re talking about, lad.” Before either of them could prompt him further, he shook his head. “But anyway. This is no area to linger around in. Let’s get back to town. The medBay should check you out. You in particular,” he nodded toward the Doctor who indeed had started to shiver a little in his brown suit now that they weren’t moving any more. “Or maybe…you.” He raised an eyebrow at Loki. “How the hell aren’t you cold in that thin leather armour?”

“Pocket warmers,” Loki dead-panned, once again letting the last remnants of his magic curl through his syllables to stop that line of questioning in its tracks. “Let us go to Letzterherd.”

“Alright. Let’s be off,” Lenord agreed, waving to his men, most of whom were frowning a little as a consequence of Loki’s voice whispering in their subconscious, but turned to follow their leader and flank them easily enough. The Doctor fell into step beside him.

“You have to stop doing that,” he muttered under his breath.

Loki let his lips curl into a small, satisfied smile. “Would you not do that yourself if you could?”

“…beside the point,” the Doctor cleared his throat, also keeping his voice low enough to not be overheard. “Besides, I happen to be able to do my persuading the old-fashioned way: lots of annoying talking.”

“And occasional running, it seems,” Loki added, trying hard not to let any wry humour bleed into his voice. Banter was…not something he had been used to for a while now.

“Oh, always,” the Doctor nodded, a small smile tugging at his lips in turn. Loki refused to look at it too closely, and also staunchly kept his voice from sounding…impressed when he stated more than asked,

“So you noticed my little working, but it did not affect you.”

“Yup,” the Doctor agreed, popping the ‘p’ again. He threw his screwdriver in the air where it twirled and caught it to scan the surrounding area a little, but apparently didn’t find anything helpful.

Loki frowned. “Does this mean your race is impervious to mind control?”

At this, the Doctor finally threw him a glance again, voice somewhere between light conversation but also an undertone hinting at something much older and also much, much darker.

“You would find my mind a rather complicated thing to control, Loki of Asgard.”

“I’m not-“ 

“Whereas you should maybe watch out for yours,” the Doctor quipped and Loki blinked, almost embarrassed at how easy the other had gotten this rise out of him. The Doctor took a breath, then, sounding somewhat more conciliatory when he spoke next.

“It’s not impossible to control the mind of a Time Lord. In fact, we do have some telepathic abilities of our own, under the right circumstances. But what you have to understand about my race…” he gazed into the distance, where something, presumably the town of Letzterherd, was coming into view. “…I’m a Time Lord. I see all that was, all that is, all that ever could be, all the time. The last human who shared my mind almost died. A brain not used to the strain may simply…burn.”

“I see,” Loki replied, voice carefully neutral. There had been a shiver running down his spine, but if he tried hard enough he could almost convince himself that it had to be because of the frosty temperatures around him.

“So…what’s with the get-up, then?” the Doctor had caught up to their leader in two long strides, and now he was nodding at the clothing of Lakvitians around him. “The fellas at the research base were at least mixing styles, but you seem to have gone completely medieval. Shortage of Gore-tex parkas in your town?”

The man walking next to Lenord raised a bushy eyebrow at him. “We, like your friend if he gets some fur around him, are adequately dressed. You are the one running around in a suit-and-tie get-up at the outskirts of Wolfswald.” He gestured at Loki, who shifted in his clothes. He had instinctively summoned his full battle garb the moment the wolves had appeared and, unlike in the base yesterday, now it actually didn’t look too far out of place.

“Though it’s a bit garish,” someone from the back piped up, “You’d think with a helmet like his, he’d bonk it in doorframes a lot.”

“Stop. Laughing,” Loki grated under his breath, privately enjoying the vision of being able to lift Mjolnir just once, if only to let it land on the Doctor’s head.

“Yeah, sure, but I mean, what happened to your old clothes?” the Time Lord had managed to get his face straightened out again, trying to pick up his line of questioning once more. “You have walkie-talkies. Where is the rest of your tech? Where are your guns? Humans always seem to love those…”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. You do sound like a visit to the medbay would be advisable,” Lenord replied, shaking his head and throwing a glance at Loki. “Has he suffered from any concussions recently?”

“Unfortunately, no,” Loki replied conversationally. They seemed to have set foot into Letzterherd now, which was a small gathering of tightly built-together dwellings, the snow covering the low buildings too thoroughly to be sure of their exact shape. There had been a crude wooden fence erected around the dwelling, with two men posted as guards at an opening, nodding at Lenord as their small procession went through, both guards casting glances at the Doctor and him that seemed strangely opaque and made Loki feel vaguely uneasy, but he decided to ponder that later. Nothing at all had made sense about his life during the past 24 hours and it was getting increasingly difficult to separate which details were important enough to worry over.

Now he noted that there were only a few people around between the dwellings, all of them dressed in the same medieval garb as their ‘rescuers’, and shooting them curious glances. Much like the people, the dwelling looked far less modern than the research base. In fact, from the outside, it was hard to find any indications of modernity at all. Somewhere there were dogs barking in a kennel, their breed looking similar to Midgard huskies, Loki thought, but larger, appearing more feral. Behind them, there were sleds and harnesses, only slightly snowed in, which was probably the fastest way of transportation now. The entrances of the buildings they passed were mostly closed, the doors dark rectangles against the blinding white snow.  Two of the larger ones were slightly ajar, warm light spilling out of them, indicating that perhaps at least within, electricity was still working.

“If you are taking my…companion to the medbay, I was wondering whether I could have a look at your database for a moment?” Loki asked lightly, not even bothering to make the Mesmer in his voice subtle any more. At the Doctor’s glance, evidently torn between the disapproving and the unwillingly curious, he added under his breath, “Maps. I’m looking for maps. There are…certain landscapes and patterns of windflows that lend themselves particularly well to the kind of magic that bends weather and nature to its will like this. I might be able to track the origin of this winter spell more accurately if I can get an overview of the shape of this land.”

“Of…course,” said the younger man that had commented on his helmet earlier. “I could take you to the datacenter?” he asked, looking at Lenord, who shook his head.

“No, you take Thedoctor to the medbay, Kvorn. Take this for a recharge while you’re at it,” he said, tossing the walkie-talkie to the boy. “I’ll take Loki and get him a guest account. The rest of you, help fasten the gate for the night. Come,” he said, only waving briefly at Loki, who threw the Doctor a questioning glance.

The Time Lord shrugged, the universal gesture of ‘well, what’s the worst that could happen?’ before also turning to follow Kvorn, hands in the pockets of his suit and glancing around himself curiously. Loki stared after him for a moment before actually also feeling slightly exploratory and curious, turning to fall into step behind Lenord. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the Doctor being led further into the gathering of huts, while he followed Lenord into…

“…oh,” Loki said. “This is the…datacentre?”

xxx

“Interesting architecture, your town has,” the Doctor commented, walking after the young Lakvitian. By now he was actually getting slightly cold, if only because the sun was starting to sink behind the horizon again, Lakvitian winter days apparently as short as those on Earth. He lengthened his strides to catch up with his guide.

“Interesting architecture?” Kvorn looked at him, seeming slightly confused.

“Oh, yes. Essentially huts and igloos, but half of them built with hydroflex fibre walls. Expensive stuff. Usually not invented until the 31^st century in most civilisations. Great properties, though,” he stopped briefly, knocking at one frosted black wall. “Excellent for isolation against both cold and heat. Only drawback…” he sucked in some air through his teeth, “Usually they’re not moveable without some heavy equipment. How did you build this town again?” he glanced around the cluster of dwellings, pointedly devoid of anything resembling larger machinery.

The Lakvitian frowned at him. “I...don’t know. I can’t…” a strange expression came across him and he shook his head, “Sorry, what were you saying again?” 

“Nothing. Never mind,” the Doctor replied with a thoughtful look. “Is it far to the medbay?”

“No, we’re here,” Kvorn replied, opening the door to the building they had arrived at, outwardly little distinguishing it from the rest of the houses.

“Oh, the Doctor said, “This is the…medbay?”

Xxx

“Yes,” Lenord said, looking at Loki. “Is there something you didn’t expect?”

Loki glanced around the room. There was information here, certainly. The room was spacious and had several people working in it, entering and viewing data, definitely. There were the large metal cabinets he had seen countless times when having a look around the large server rooms of SHIELD and other organizations, each of them holding hundreds of harddrives and processing units, all humming quietly with cooling fans and spinning discs inside, cables slinking out their back like sleeping snakes. 

Only the cabinets in this room held nothing but books, scrolls, and crumbling parchments.

“I…” Loki looked at the workers at the desks, mostly engaged with poring over parchments in the light of the waxen candles mounted onto the surface, copying information from books with feather quills, one of them squinting at something written onto actual lambskin. Loki turned to Lenord.

“…you said you would get me an account?”

xxx

“Yes, this is the medbay. Welcome to my realm,” a voice greeted the Doctor and he blinked, his eyes only slowly getting used to the darkness in the room after the bright, snowy landscape outside. Inside it was only dimly lit, mostly by a sort of fireplace holding glowing coals, giving the air a smoky, stuffy quality. There were furs and leathers at his feet, some of them wolf, others he couldn’t quite place. He turned toward the person who had spoken, and it was testament to the 900 years he had already lived that his only reaction to the sight that greeted him were two slightly raised eye brows.

“…hello,” he managed to the gap-toothed, bone-necklace-wearing, wild-haired and fur-clad barefoot shaman woman standing in front of him. He smiled weakly. “You’re a fan of alternative medicine, then?”

Xxx

“Sure thing,” Lenord said. “Hey! Maester!” he called out, startling the man closest to them and bent over a parchment; he uprighted himself hastily and fumbled with his quill.

“…y-yes?”

“Our guest Loki here needs an account to use the datacentre. Set him up, will ya?”

“Sure. Sure,” The Maester nodded, bending over his desk again and grabbing a fresh piece of parchment, scribbling something onto it. “I’ll mail you your username and password. Make sure to logout correctly after a session or it freezes the whole system.” He finished, handing Loki the parchment. “Here. Also take care to archive that mail once you’ve read it. I swear, as an admin, half of my time is spent resetting people’s accounts after they’ve forgotten their logins,” he chuckled to himself.

Loki unfurled and stared at the parchment, containing indeed his name and a nonsensical string of eight numbers and symbols as a ‘password’. Then he looked back at Lenord, who had actually sat down at a table, grabbed the large sheet of parchment filled with some sort of table lying there and was now carefully writing his name at the top, next to countless other names that had already been written there in the exact same fashion, running into each other and covering each other up. And below his name, in the exact careful lettering, he then proceeded to draw exactly eight little stars, joining everybody else’s ‘username’ neatly paired with their password visible as ‘*******’.

“You,” Loki said with wonder, “are all barking mad.” 

xxx

“Alternative medicine? Excuse me?” the woman snorted at the Doctor. “I didn’t study for eight years at Norskvit MedU to give out homeopathic nonsense and practice crystal healing,” she said wryly. “Are you here for an examination?”

“Uh…well….” The Doctor hedged a bit. Truthfully, it never really went down well when any human doctors discovered that he had two hearts in his chest, a respiratory bypass system around his lungs and quite a few interesting extra bits of brain anatomy, so he wasn’t keen to repeat the experience.

“Lenord figures he’s hit his head, or has Nutriliq intoxication or frost fever or something. Either way, he’s saying some really weird things,” the teenager who had brought him here explained helpfully.

“Really? Almost wouldn’t have noticed,” the woman said, giving the Doctor a sharp look. “Anyway, let’s have a look at you. If you sit down, I’d like to listen to your chest.”

“Well, that’s really not-” the Doctor started to say as he was pushed down onto a stool by her, but then stopped as he saw the ‘stethoscope’ the woman had grabbed from the table.

If you could call a mushroom cap tied to a piece of string and connected to two acorns a stethoscope.

“Now take a couple of deep breaths for me,” the doctor said, putting the acorns in her ears and pulling his suit jacket aside to place the mushroom against his shirt and chest.

The Doctor took a long look at her. When he spoke, his voice was a lot quieter and a lot more sombre.

“You have been exposed to magic a long time, haven’t you.”

It wasn’t really a question, and the only response he got was a ‘shush! No talking!’ from the woman still moving the mushroom on his chest around. Then she leaned back.

“Alright, your heart and lungs sound in order. Not an infect, then. Lemme just jot that down…”

She turned away to a ‘desk’ in the corner of the cave-like dwelling, a broad stump of a tree, covered with pottery, an animal skull, feathers and debris. She took a feather quill and scribbled something onto a parchment.

“Kvorn?” The Doctor wasn’t actually looking at boy. “Could you hand me that walkie-talkie, please?”

“Uh, sure. It needs to be recharged, though, so it doesn’t have-“

“It’s fine,” the Doctor said, taking it and looking at it. Now that he held it, and saw it up close, it was fairly obvious that this was a painted block of wood, carefully carved and cut to look like a walkie-talkie from some distance. “It’s fine,” he Doctor repeated again, voice harder now and fingertips briefly pressing white against the nonsensical replica.

“Thank you,” the Doctor said, handing it back. He watched as the boy put it inside a stone cradle, looking very much as if somebody had tried to recreate a paleo-style phone charging station.

He stood up. “Right.” His face had darkened. “I think I have some things to take care of.”

“Excuse me?” the shaman woman looked at him in irritation. “You’re still my patient. I haven’t yet finished examining you. I need to look at your head.”

“Oh, my head is quite alright, I can promise you that,” the Doctor replied grimly. “And I’m going to leave now.”

“You are going to stay until I’ve finished my examination,” the doctor said sternly, taking a step toward him. “I have a suspicion you have sustained trauma to your head, and I’ll need to conduct some brain imaging to verify that. I would like to take an MRI of you.”

“An MRI?” the Doctor repeated. “You mean thin-slice images of neuroanatomical structures taken by magnetic resonance imaging of living tissue, yeah? Where’s your MRI tube, then? Let me guess, is it a big log you’ve hollowed out?” he snapped, taking a step forward abruptly. The shaman woman moved back instinctively, her expression wavering between slight alarm and annoyance, but perhaps also just the slightest touch…of uncertainty? The Doctor decided to pounce on that.

“Look at your surroundings, doctor,” he said, urgently, grabbing her by the shoulders. “Really look at them. This isn’t a medbay, this is a cave. This isn’t a stethoscope, this is…madness.” He had pitched his voice disbelievingly higher at the last bit, having grabbed the outlandish contraption from the table and shaking it. “Something has taken control of your mind, something is making you forget how things should be, something is making you regress.” He bared his teeth at her, snarling through them, imploring her. “Fight it, doctor! See what’s really in front of you!”

She stared at him, a frown creeping over her face, as if something was warring behind her eyes. “I…” she took a breath, “I…no, this isn’t…this shouldn’t be...” her face screwed up abruptly, like someone attacked by a migraine and she threw her head back. When she looked back at him, she was blinking heavily, tears beginning to glisten at the edges of her green eyes. “What…what is happening, I don’t understand-?”

“Yes!” the Doctor exclaimed, “Fight it! You’re fighting it already. You can win, doctor! Eight years at Norskvit MedU, ay? Ay?” He tried to grin at her. “You’re smart, you can do this!”

“Ahhh!” the doctor cried out again, throwing her head back again, only being held steady by his grip. Then she stilled in his arms, head lolling forward, panting.

“Doctor…?” the Doctor asked softly, his grip on her arms gentling.  He ducked his head, brown eyes searching for hers, looking for any sign, any signal of realization at all as the woman lifted her gaze again.

And then she stared at the Doctor with an irritated frown, just briefly shaking her head as if an annoying insect had just buzzed around it. She took a step back, slipping out of the Doctor’s grasp.

“What are you doing?” She asked, her forehead wrinkling in consternation. “I told you, to rule out a possible trauma, I need to get an image of your brain.”

The Doctor didn’t reply. He could feel the hope slipping from him, knowing that it left his expression hard and distant. “I’m sorry,” he said instead, and meant it. “I’m so, so sorry.”

The shaman woman huffed. “I don’t need you to be sorry, love, I just need you to have a lie down and we’ll have a look at you.”

“No.” The Doctor straightened up again. His voice was pained, but determined. “I’m going to leave now. But I swear I will find who did this to you.”

He turned around toward the exit, but then stopped.

Most notably because Kvorn had just stepped into his way.

“Kvorn? What are you doing?” he asked carefully, but Kvorn wasn’t even looking at him, instead glancing over the Doctor’s shoulder back at the shaman woman. The Doctor turned to swivel back at her, eyes narrowed. “What is this supposed to be, doctor? You’re not forgetting your Hippocratic oath, I hope?”

“I was afraid this might happen,” the doctor said, swallowing. “But my medical duty obligates me to examine your head if your behavior gives me reasonable cause to suspect you might be suffering from mental conditions that may endanger you or others.” Her expression turned slightly softer. “It’s just an MRI. It won’t hurt,” she said, and for a moment, indeed sounded like a modern medical doctor trying to soothe a patient as she held one hand outstretched in a friendly manner.

Then she raised the other one which held a knife and stepped forward.

“We just…have to cut your brain into thin slices...”

To be continued…

Chapter Text

It had to be said that the Doctor prided himself on being a planner. During the course of his days, he had, in fact, come up with some of the greatest plans most galaxies had ever seen. If you tried to count the number of plans he had already come up with, it would possibly be easier to count the number of stars in the universe. There was a reason why most intergalactic insurance companies not only had the exemption clause of ‘Acts of God’, but also ‘Plans of the Doctor’.

In some cases, though, it was easy to rely on a simple plan, but a good one.

“Oh my god!” The Doctor reared backwards, pointing at the shaman woman in horror. “Your eyes have turned blue, you’re one of them!”

“Excuse me? What are you-?” the village doctor only frowned at him, but behind the Time Lord, Kvorn in the doorway showed the exact reaction the Doctor had hoped for.

“Oh gods, really?!”

“Well, no. But I really needed you to be shocked and let me through. Ta!” The Doctor turned a brilliant smile to a startled Kvorn, right before shoving past him and dashing out the doorway into the village main street.

“Loki!” he shouted, “Where are you?! We need to-!”

“CATCH HIM!”

…was as far as he got before Loki already came tearing around the corner, the rest of the village hot on his heels.

“Way ahead of you, Doctor. Literally.” 

“Wait, how are you already-?! Oh bugger,” the Doctor muttered, right before scrambling around and charging after Loki, the shaman woman and Kvorn of course joining the horde of their pursuers immediately.

“Why are they chasing you?!” the Doctor shouted at Loki as they ran down the main street, only vaguely grateful that whatever was playing haywire with the technology on this planet had apparently already disabled any laser rifles their hunters may have had.

Loki threw him a sideways glance “You remember the maps I meant to peruse in the database?”

“Yes?”

“Turns out they were classified so I had to steal them and slightly overestimated the reach of my mesmer. In here!”

The Doctor barely managed to stifle a yelp as Loki grabbed his arm and yanked him with a strength far beyond human off their course and into the gap between two huts, immediately pressing them against the wall of one and making a broad, sweeping gesture over the two of them. Its meaning was fairly obvious when their pursuers poked their heads in the gap and then proceeded to stare straight at them, evidently confused.

“…wait where’d they go?!”

“They must have scrambled up onto the roofs! Climb after them! Surround the houses!”

“Careful. It’s soundproof, but they can still touch us.” Loki looked at the Doctor meaningfully as they both tried to flatten themselves as much as possible against the wall while some of the villagers ran past. “We need to find some means of transport,” he muttered. “Why are they chasing you?” the question sounded like Loki wasn’t quite sure whether he should be showing approval.

“Medical procedure gone massacre. The haywire magic making technology regress on this planet has mutilated the minds of these people until they think brain imaging means slicing someone’s head open,” the Doctor replied grimly as they edged out from the narrow alley and onto the main road again, carefully aware of their surroundings to avoid any collision with the people still running around searching for them.

“Hm. I figured it might be something like that. Though any spell affecting minds on this scale is far more advanced than a working merely influencing climate or technology," Loki nodded, eyes narrowed. “Now. Transport. We need to get somewhere safe so I can have a look at those maps and figure out the epicentre of the spell. I suppose the fastest means is-“

“The dog sleds,” the Doctor agreed, taking a right turn toward the pens they had seen earlier. “Let’s get one.” 

“There’s one already prepared,” Loki pointed to a sled that had obviously already been outfitted for the next expedition, eight of the large dogs harnessed in front of it, dozing but now slowly rousing as they seemed to become aware of the excitement around them. “But I will have to drop the shield to bewitch the animals to obey. We would be visible as soon as we set off.”

“Well,” the Doctor raised an eyebrow. “At least no one can accuse this adventure of being boring…” 

Xxx

“He has a what, now?” Odin asked, still looking baffled.

“A…popcorn machine, a couch and a refridgerator filled with uh, mead and midgard coca-cola,” Thor despairingly counted off on his fingers the items that Heimdall had recently moved into the observatory. “Also, he is still grinning like a complete loon and keeps telling me I am ‘missing out’, but he will not say on what.”  

xxx

“…there! At the sleds!”

“GET THEM!”

“Damn. YUSH!” Loki shouted, pushing his magic at the minds of the animals and thankfully the dogs harnessed in front of their sled at least raised their heads as one, before taking off in unison, charging toward the gate of the kennel that the doctor was pulling open. On the other side, the mob of the villagers had predictably spotted them as soon as the veil was gone and now there were people pouring from any nook and cranny in pursuit.

“Jump on!” Loki shouted as the sled shot past the Doctor at the gate and the Time Lord didn’t hesitate, leaping onto the sled behind Loki, one of his arms clamping around the chest of Loki like a vice as they veered to keep their balance.

“In front of you!” the Doctor shouted then, his free arm pointing at the path they were flying along and Loki cursed. There weren’t only villagers behind them. There was also a group running along a lane that would lead them into the street in front of them, charging at their trajectory with spears in hand. The dogs, eyes glazed over by Loki’s spell, charged on unconcernedly.

“Hel’s bells,” Loki’s words came pressed through his teeth. “I can barely keep the minds of these animals under control, I can’t hold them off, too. Do something!” Mortals, he cursed in his mind at the same time, clever they might be, but without magic, what was the *point* of having them-

“On it!” The Doctor shouted – and then swung himself around behind Loki, whipping out his screwdriver device to point it toward their charging enemies for the second time that day. The tell-tale whine pierced their ears as it glowed blue…

“What-?”

…was as far as Loki got, before it abruptly became obvious. In front of the group charging them, the snow abruptly shifted, gleamed and became noticeably flatter, leading to-

There was a distinct cacophony of screams and collisions as what was essentially a small mob of proto-vikings abruptly lost their collective footing and fell over each other on a large spot of immaculate ice just before they could have intercepted their path. Loki and the Doctor thundered past them on their commandeered sleigh, the mesmerized huskies entirely unconcerned for either their yelling and confused previous owners, or the rest of those yelling in fury in futile pursuit further behind.

“Ahahah!” the Doctor laughed as they rushed out of the village gate, waving his device triumphantly. “Subatomical re-arrangement of atom bonds via the simple means of applied vibrational waves! This is what science looks like when it works! And that’s how you combine magic and technology, ay, Loki?” he leaned forward to grin at him, face alight with the giddiness the escape the two of them had just managed and how seamless their teamwork had been. 

“Hmh,” Loki replied, carefully trying to keep his voice from conveying any of the more…impressed parts of his feelings, or any of the warmth that threatened to rise within him as some older memories came unbidden, of him, and…him off on foolish adventures and wild goose chases on other worlds, getting themselves in trouble and getting themselves out of it, sometimes just the two of them, laughing when they had finagled yet another impossible escape together…

Oh to Hel with it, Loki thought and let the warmth spread, let just the tiniest of genuine smiles pull at his lips. “Yes, Doctor. That is how it’s done.”

xxx

Night had fallen soon after Loki had slowed their initial dash, knowing he would have to take care the dogs didn’t kill themselves while he was controlling their minds to stop them from feeling pain and fatigue. Snow had started to fall, light but steadily, which was a good thing – resting for the night would be possible, then, with their sled’s tracks hidden underneath a renewed blanket of frost.

“There’s food rations here. For both us and the dogs. Quite a lot, actually,” the Doctor remarked as they had finally stopped near the edge of a wood (carefully not venturing too deep into it this time) and the Time Lord had started some exploratory rummaging in the supplies of their stolen sleigh.

“Good. Creating food with magic is next to impossible at the best of times,” Loki remarked. At a snap of his fingers, the reigns of the dogs fell off them, the animals shaking themselves in response and starting to wander around their campsite, curiously sniffing at things or simply trotting over to lay at the feet of the Doctor, making begging noises for food. It was obvious that the spell controlling their minds had been mostly dissolved, but still lingered enough for them to recognize Loki and the Doctor as their rightful owners now, not a small feat of fine-tuning to anyone who knew how magic worked. Loki made a gesture at the ground and conjured up a fire; with the other he made the same sweeping gesture over their heads as he had in the alley and in response, a silver sheen flickered through the air, solidifying as a dome around them and the dogs.

“I created a veil,” Loki said. “That way, the fire won’t be seen from afar. Both spells should hold until morning.”

“Keeping three spells alive at the same time,” the Doctor’s murmur sounded distinctly impressed. “I take it your magic is recovering, then?”

“There is…a lot of magic in the atmosphere,” Loki replied. “It helps with the recovery. If I rest, it should speed it up further.”

And perhaps it doesn’t hurt that for the first time there is someone around who actually appreciates what you do with it, a small voice in the back of his head suggested, but Loki ignored it.

“Good to know,” the Doctor nodded, then added, “Oh yes! Whatever spell is throwing their civilization back into the middle ages, it hasn’t gotten to the s’mores yet!” he reached into the furs and triumphantly brought out a plastic bag of marshmallows, individually wrapped chocolate bars and a packet of what was obviously this planet’s equivalent of digestive biscuits, the cheerful colours and cartoon characters of the packaging looking ridiculously incongruous against the backdrop of the animal hide and raw wood the sleigh was fashioned from.

 "There are sticks here! We can have campfire marshmallows!"

Loki rubbed the bridge of his nose at the other’s enthusiasm, fighting against the impulse of trying to smile, because this habit the Time Lord had, of being pleased at even the inanest little things, (like getting to see a genuine Frost Giant, that same voice suggested before it was violently crushed), it reminded him too much of…someone else, who I resolutely am not missing at all, Loki gave the mental equivalent of a snap at this mutinous part of his brain. Being happy about food while going up against a potentially deadly enemy mage was stupid.

“Just…make sure the dogs don’t eat any of the chocolate,” was what Loki managed, before sighing. “And then hand me one of those infernal sticks.”

xxx

Proper night had fallen soon after their dinner and the air had taken on that crystal-clear sheen of degrees so far below zero you had to search for them with a shovel. Snowflakes were drifting down around them, but somehow seemed to land more around their veil than on them. The fire was still merrily burning without any actual logs to sustain it, its shine and warmth basking their camp in a cosy glow. Loki had magicked up a fur to lie on, resting on it on his back with his hands folded over his chest, trying to concentrate on coaxing his magic back to its full strength and chasing memories away. After a while, he turned his head to glance over at the Doctor.

Time Lords seemed to be a species not requiring a lot of sleep, or at least the Doctor seemed not much concerned with getting some. He had scooted closer to the fire, wrapped himself in two furs and was sitting, leaning against the sleigh and appeared deeply engrossed in a book of some sort (an inquiry by Loki where on Asgard that thing had come from had only yielded the answer of ‘Time Lord pockets. Bigger on the inside’) and making occasional ‘ho-hum’ noises.

“Anything relevant to our current situation in that book of yours, Doctor?”

“Hmm? Oh, no. This is just a novel series I’ve been trying to finish,” the Doctor waved him off. “Did you know that on the planet Azlgarg they managed to write this series that is bizarrely similar to Harry Potter? Only this one has eight volumes, and because it’s Azlgarg, everyone’s sentient oysters,” he briefly showed the cover to Loki, which indeed, showed an oyster with a lightning-shaped scar somehow fighting another oyster in a magical duel. “Actually, Earth pop culture is quite popular on a lot of other planets, so I'm really not surprised that someone would try a rip-off - for good or for bad, humans have a lot of imagination. Care to have a read?”

“…no. Thank you. I was trying to sleep but maybe I’ll read some of my own instead.”  Loki concentrated briefly and reached into his own pocket of folded space, extracting the book he had been reading before…everything happened. By the norns, that seemed like years ago though it had barely been days. His own book, old and leatherbound, reassuringly solid and unchanged under his hands as he opened it, was a treatise on elemental magic, which, now that he thought about it, might actually even be of some use in their current predicament. It was written in one of the older dwarven tongues, which he could only decipher slowly and fighting against a tension headache. Still, even if he didn’t discover anything useful pertaining to their current situation, it might at least tire his mind enough that actual sleep could be forthcoming…

Loki looked at the book again and blinked.

“Doctor?”

“Hmm?” the Time Lord looked up, obviously having been rivetted by his maritime magic school novella.

“When I packed this book, it was written in Khûzdul. Now it’s in Asgardian script,” Loki pointed out. “Does your TARDIS have anything to do with that?”

“Oh. Oh yeah, she would do that. She not only translates spoken but also written communication to appear in anyone’s mothertongue.”

“A…useful tool,” Loki said, glancing down again at the pages that now gave up their contents easily for him; he likely would not even have noticed the Time Lord’s strange ship translating his or other’s speech – the All-Speak was a sort of elemental magic that all Aeasir were familiar with and employed instinctively abroad; a necessity for any space-faring race – but of course, no Aesir had ever considered that an All-read might have been helpful as well, mostly because nearly no-one ever bothered to actually pick up a damned book.

“Isn’t it?” the Doctor grinned at him. “You can go to sleep whenever you want, by the way. I can keep watch. Just started on the Half-Blood Shrimp, so I should be good for the night while you rest.”

“…thank you,” Loki managed with a slightly uncertain nod, before propping his book up on his chest and delving into some (marginally more useful, he liked to think) literature himself. There were actually some interesting theories in here, so that tomorrow, after a night spent gathering his energies and with the help of the maps, he should be able to use them to refine his tracking spell and find the lair of the sorcerer. And then...Loki’s fingers drummed on the page. Defeat them. Crush them. Lift their working from this planet and unfreeze the ship of the Doctor. And then…

Loki stared at the bleak winter sky for a moment, steady fall of the snow obscuring any light of the stars.

His eyes fastened on the page again. Well, he could deal with that when it came to it.

Right now he had to admit it was actually…surprisingly pleasant to be able to read next to someone else in comfortable silence.

When he later allowed his eyes to drift shut, even if he wasn’t planning on actually sleeping, it was strange to feel how a part of him, nonsensically, seemed to trust the Doctor enough to relax in his presence. That hadn’t happened in a while….

Xxx

“Loki. Loki.”

Loki’s eyes flew open, at once alert at the tone of the Doctor’s hiss and the firm grip of the Time Lord’s hand on his shoulder. He realized he hadn’t even noticed that he had fallen asleep, but he was too experienced to audibly startle at the shock, instead immediately casting his eyes around without moving instead.

There were figures moving outside the veil.

Loki rolled to his feet in an instant – the veil was still holding strong, they should be hidden from sight and their sound inaudible to anyone outside of the spell. Which was just as well, given that their dogs had already woken and were growling at the group outside, still completely oblivious to their camp.

Loki made a gesture and the dogs lay back down. He glanced at the Doctor. “They will not notice us unless we step out of the veil,” he murmured. “We are safe here.”

“That,” the Doctor said, “is almost never what I’m interested in.”

And he stepped right outside the veil.

“Oy! Who are you lot, then?”

xxx

The group startled with gasps and screams at the Time Lord’s appearance. It had been clear even from inside the veil that these were definitely not their pursuers from Letzterherd, but now that the spell was broken and the silver shimmer in the air gone, the differences became more pronounced.

These weren’t the half-scientist-half-fin-du-siècle-explorers they had encountered first; they weren’t even viking warrior-like men with a few sprinkled remnants of modernity like Lenord’s men had been. The people staring at them were dressed entirely in rags and furs, hair and beards visibly knotted and tangled, gaunt faces streaked with grime and dirt, the skin leathery and wrinkly in a way that meant no moisturizing cream had ever been so much as in the same room as them.  These were wild men.

And they also stared at the Doctor and Loki with the fear only the perceived supernatural can inspire in those who believe.

“Wh-wha-STAY BACK! Apparition!” one of the men finally shouted and screamed, waving a torch at them. He was slightly older than the rest of the group and might have been their de facto leader, if the rag-tag bunch of what looked like – Loki’s eyes briefly flitted over the weaponry of the group, which wasn’t much more than some farming tools and sticks – well, peasants had something that could be called a command structure.

“Oh no. Not until you tell me what you’re doing here,” the Doctor said, striding forward; the men at the front, including the man with the torch shrank back, casting panicky glances over their shoulders at the rest of the group.

Loki had to admit he was impressed against his will; he could command people by laying mesmer into his voice, Thor – he stumbled mentally only a little across the name – people obeyed Thor’s command because he shone like the sun and just looking at him was overwhelming; but the Doctor…his words were quiet and had echoes when he spoke like this, hinting at something ancient and terrible lurking just beneath the surface. It was a base instinct to obey them and he had to consciously stop a shiver running down his spine as the Doctor snatched the torch from the frightened peasant leader and held it aloft to see the rest of the group.

“Quick! Finish it before-!”

“Before what?” the Doctor snapped and then Loki heard him gasp. And then thunder.

“Do NOT touch that child!”

There was the frightened cry of a woman and Loki finally moved, waving one hand to make the dogs leap to their feet and growl savagely at the peasants, letting them stumble backwards and not hinder him from moving up to the Doctor. When he saw what the Doctor was looking at, however, he froze.

“Don’t. Touch. That. Child,” the Doctor snarled again, screwdriver pointing at a kneeling woman at the ground. She had raised her trembling hands holding a knife, its quivering point hovering over the head of a baby laying swathed in cloths on the snow. Its skin was already ashen grey from the cold and its head moved in discomfort, a mewling sound escaping from its mouth.

“What is this, then?” the Doctor asked, an icy fury running through his words. “A human sacrifice to bring back spring? A feud with another tribe? What is your reason to kill a helpless baby?”

“We are not killing it,” the leader of the peasant group finally said, trying to steady his voice over its trembling. “It has been dead since the New Moon three days ago.”

“What-?” the Doctor began to ask, but at this point the child on the floor opened its eyes, and they glowed the brightest unearthly blue. 

To be continued…

Chapter Text

"What happened to her?"

The Doctor was looking at the baby now that was staring at all of them, its bright blue eyes eerie points of light in the darkness, its pupils black, unmoving pin pricks within them.

"She's no longer human," the leader informed them, his voice hoarse. The Doctor's eyes briefly snapped toward him.

"Oh, and that's a reason to jump straight to killing her?"

"Please," the woman still holding the blade finally managed, her voice pleading. "We need to destroy it or else it will infect us, too."

There was a moment of silence in the night. The Doctor could feel his hold on the torch tighten. The people around him were frightened and the atmosphere was tense, growing more uncontrollable by the second. He could also hear the dogs growling, keeping the peasants in check, for now – Loki's doing, likely.

The Doctor turned his head to exchange a glance with his companion, who hadn't yet said anything since setting eyes on the child – but when he looked at Loki he realized the other's gaze was transfixed on the baby and he had gone nearly as white as the snow surrounding them.

And then the child turned its head to gaze at them, and there was – no other way to describe it – hunger in its eyes.

"Go," Loki said, tonelessly. "All of you, go. Leave the child."

"But-" the leader started to protest, but Loki all at once let his hands erupt into fire, his battle armour starting to shimmer around him as if it had half-materialized as an expression of his abrupt rage.

"I SAID, GO!"

The peasants gasped and stumbled backwards, obviously for a moment more frightened by the Norse God in their midst than the unearthly child.

"Leave," the Doctor agreed, "We will take care of it."

"You don't know what you're dealing with," the leader shook his head, but his fear of Loki appeared to be still greater, because he retreated, signalling to the others of his group they should, too. The woman dropped the knife into the snow next to the baby, stumbling to her feet.

"Please," she said. "This…this was my daughter. I don't want this for her. This…" she drew a rattling breath, "this unholy life. Please. End it." She looked up at them, tears gleaming in the shine of their fire, a mother's pain and despair apparently stronger than any bravado of the leader. "I swear I didn't want…didn't want this." And, quieter still, "She was my baby girl…"

"Yes, I imagine you didn't," Loki muttered, just as tonelessly as before, still standing before them with unreal green fire burning at his hands, torchlight gleaming off his golden pieces of armour like a vengeful, flame-clad angel - but the Doctor wondered whether he had imagined the slightest touch of softness in Loki's voice this time, wondered what the frost giant from Asgard was seeing when he looked at this human woman still gazing at her eldritch child with enough love to break a heart.

Then Loki cleared his throat. "Now go. We will see that no harm comes from her...or to her."

They watched as the group of peasants shuffled back into the night, the uncannily quiet baby girl still lying on the cold snow, staring at them with eyes no longer human. (The Doctor ready to admit that if that child so much as started crawling toward him, he was prepared to leap right onto the nearest tree).

When they were gone, Loki strode forward, sinking into a crouch next to the baby. "Sleep," he said almost softly, touching a finger to the baby's forehead and those blue eyes closed, the grey-skinned arms growing slack. Loki turned around.

"We should get back to resting. Tomorrow will be a long day."

"What about the child?" the Doctor asked quietly.

"She will sleep. The snows will cover and not harm her; she will wake when someone meaning her well finds her - when the spell affecting this planet and its creatures has been lifted."

"That is a…very elaborate spell," the Doctor replied cautiously, eyeing the frost giant carefully. Loki did not look at him directly when he replied.

"She seemed important enough to you that you would give up our place of hiding to protect her; I was merely granting you a favour." Then he finally met the Doctor's eyes, face carefully blank. "Why did you do that?"

"Why did I… - Loki, they tried killing her."

"Yes. Perhaps a wise choice. She wasn't of their kind anymore."

"And that is a reason to kill anyone, why?"

"Fear," Loki said and the Doctor wondered whether there was a touch of bitterness in the other's voice, though Loki seemed to try and disguise it with dryness. "She didn't even look human anymore. They might have been right to view her as a monster."

"Anyone who treats any child differently because it doesn't look like them is no friend of mine," the Doctor replied darkly, before regarding the baby girl again, now sleeping soundly, and he sighed. "But you were right that they were mainly scared of her. And sometimes fear is a superpower, mind you. But often it's just a terrible way to make judgements," he said, and he was aware of his own voice sounding bitter.

"…maybe so." Loki said after a long moment, once again regarding the doctor with a look the Time Lord didn't quite know what to make of. But then the other merely a short gesture, summoning another small, dome-like shield over the stone-still baby and then turned around, stalking back to their fire, sinking down in front of it with his fingers steepled in front of his face. "Well. At least now it is clear what they were referring to with the term 'blue-eyes'."

"Hmm." The Doctor nodded, sitting down as well. "And what happened at the research base."

At Loki's questioning glance, he added: "There were too many beds, remember? Now we know why they were empty. Someone is taking the people and turning them into…well, whatever she would have grown up to be. Something that's hiding in the snow storms…" the Doctor trailed off, looking at dark grey clouds gathering on the horizon where the dawn was supposed to break, only promising more snow to come and more snow after that.

"Yes." Loki nodded, frowning at the fire over the tips of his steepled fingers. "From what I understand by now of whatever entity is holding this world in its thrall, all their workings - meaning, those affecting the minds of this world's people as well as their belongings or their physical bodies - lead back to the same source. Also, what I could gather from the magic infused within the girl is that the body-changing sorcery might well be contagious – perhaps akin a virus to you," he said, glancing back at the Doctor at last.

"A…contagious, magical disease. Turning people into…ice zombies." The Doctor pulled a face. "Blimey, I've had nicer trips involving being in a conga line with Daleks. Or being stuck in a cargo hold with Jack Harkness..."

Loki gave him a long, slow look that indicated he didn't understand, nor did much care for the meaning of the quip. "I admit I have had…preferable outings, too," he did offer, though, which the Doctor counted as a victory, until –

"Although I must point out that it was still your driving that landed us in this predicament."

"What - now wait a minute, if you hadn't-!" The Doctor began, indignant, but just caught himself as he saw the slight glint in the eyes of the other, and it therefore turned into a sputter and then a laugh instead, also accompanied by Loki's mouth curling ever so slightly upwards at the edges, and the Doctor thought it wasn't just the other's conjured flames that made their campfire site feel ever so slightly warmer for a moment.

xxx

"Well," Loki said after the sun had risen somewhat higher over the horizon. They had moved a little further away from the spot where they had laid the grey-skinned child to rest beneath the snow and Loki had re-erected the veil above them. Now he was sitting in the snow, the maps and his notes spread out around them, as well as a spell reminiscent of an armillary sphere made of light shining and twirling in the air in front of him. The Doctor was a few feet away, using the fire that had been burning through the night to make tea and what looked like porridge, occasionally peering over at Loki studying the maps and refining his working. As Loki spoke, the Time Lord looked up.

"Hm? Did you say something?"

"Yes. I think I finally managed to pinpoint the origin of the spell, Doctor. With the dog sled we should be able to reach the area fairly quickly-no, Sif, down. Go away and bother Fandral or Volstagg," Loki interrupted himself, trying to push one of the huskies now enthusiastically trying to lick his face away. "This mage is not in the mood to play with you."

"Sif', huh?" the Doctor quirked an eye brow at the clambering sleigh dog. "You named them?"

"Only the most obnoxious four of them," Loki conceded, flatly and glowering at the happily panting husky. "Mostly because they reminded me of four other mindless pets I know."

"Do they, now." The second eye brow had now joined the first high up on the Doctor's forehead. He was fairly certain the original 'Sif' and 'Fandral' weren't actually pets, but perhaps it was a…positive sign that Loki had finally managed to mention anyone he knew at all. And while the tone he had used hadn't been…affectionate, as such, the Doctor thought it might perhaps have lacked some of the cold, brittle bitterness that had been there before. Tiny steps, then.

Tiny steps while they were also trying to keep this planet from freezing over completely. The Doctor cleared his throat.

"Anything else you can tell about about the spell yet? For example…" he paused. "Will it eventually affect either of us?"

(True, he hadn't been able to feel anything trying to tug at his mind so far, but that didn't have to mean anything. The really dangerous psychic fields (such as this planet seemed to be under) were always unnoticeable until it was too late…)

"I…don't know," Loki replied and the Doctor supposed it was a testament to how the frost giant seemed to trust him a bit more, because there was obvious frustration at his lack of knowing on his face and Loki let him see it. "It's a spell designed to affect human minds," he said, scratching something in the snow beside him as if he was still trying to work something out. "I don't know how well it works on either Time Lords or…beings like me."

Beings, the Doctor supposed. Well, it was a step up from 'creature' as a self-descriptor.

He tilted his head at Loki. "Well. If my Sonic Screwdriver turns into a stick and I'm still waving it around, at least you will know we have a problem."

At this, finally Loki raised his head and there was at least a wry smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Yes, Doctor. That is when we'll have a problem. Obviously, things as they are now are peachy-keen."

"Boundless enthusiasm. That's what I like about you," the Doctor grinned back at him, shamelessly. "But alright then, after breakfast, let's go on a sleigh ride…"

xxx

The landscape had been flying by for a while now, snow-covered valleys disappearing as easily underneath the paws of the bewitched huskies as barely recognizable pathways in frosted woods and along frozen rivers. They had stopped only twice, the Doctor scanning their surroundings with his screwdriver and Loki frowning at the maps and his tracking spell twisting in the air above them, working out if they were still on course and getting closer to the source of the spell. But the landscape around them was eerily quiet, the Doctor wondering if they were entering territories that were either too cold and too snowed-in for anyone or anything to thrive, or (the less comforting thought) the magic that was tearing the time-line of this planet apart did eventually turn deadly so close to its source.

It certainly got colder, the Doctor thought, watching his breath condense in the air as he scanned their surroundings. Time Lords were a very hardy species when it came to temperatures, but this had to be below minus twenty degrees Celsius, easily. If it became much colder that would turn into a problem even for him. For Loki, on the other hand…

The Doctor chanced a look over at his companion. Loki had the map stretched out on a rock, leaning over it and frowning. His bare hands were braced into the snow on either side, their colour still a healthy pale rose and causing him seemingly no discomfort.

Yet the snow around his hands didn't appear to be melting, either. The Doctor wasn't sure whether Loki was too distracted or simply less invested now to keep up the complete charade of being either Aesir or human in this wilderness. He did recall the other had reacted like his true nature of being a frost giant had been a touchy topic for him before, so maybe this was a…sign of relaxation around him? If so, the Doctor wondered, maybe he would be able to breach a question he had been wondering about a little…

"Loki?"

"Yes?" Loki didn't look up from the map. The Doctor absent-mindedly twirled his screwdriver once, briefly.

"Say…how old are you actually? In, let's say, Midgard years."

Now Loki did look up, albeit frowning. "Why?"

"Just out of curiosity. If you're wondering, I'm 903 years old – give or take a couple of paradoxa, anyway…"

"Indeed. Not as short-lived as a human, then," Loki commented, looking thoughtful. "Well, if you must know, my age is about…a millennium and a few decades in Midgardian terms, I suppose," he said after a brief pause that looked like he had been calculating.

"Ah." The doctor managed. "And um…does that make you an adult of your species, or…?"

"Excuse me?"

"Sorry! I was just wondering if you were, er, well..." the Doctor grimaced. "Considering you're a frost giant, so….if you were….still growing?"

And even if the size wasn't correct, the way Loki was staring utter icicles now at him was probably the last proof the doctor needed to determine that yes, he definitely was a frost giant.

"...ah." The Doctor managed. "You're as tall as you're gonna get, then?"

"Yes."

And then the Doctor was rather glad that at this point a mad, frozen, half-decayed corpse came screeching and hurtling out of the woods they were next to, making a lunging, hungry grasp for them right before a dozen more of its kind followed, mainly because it at least meant that both he and Loki were too distracted to continue that conversation as both of them were now fighting for their lives.

To be continued…

Chapter Text

Chapter 10: Fire and Ice

The Doctor didn’t even have time to react before Loki had already pushed him aside, full battle armour and a spear in his hand appearing instantly.

“Doctor! Stay back!” he snapped, thrusting the weapon clean through what remained of the ribcage of the undead creature. It gave another inhuman screech, struggling against it impalement until Loki loosened one hand and immolated its head with a blast of fire. At the destruction of the skull, the rest of it tore apart as Loki wrenched his spear back, bones still half-covered in human frozen flesh and pieces of rotten clothing falling onto the pristine snow.

But there were more coming, and unlike the wolves, they didn’t seem to be deterred in the least by the fate of their fallen comrade.

“Protect the maps. I’ll deal with the rest of them,” Loki only briefly threw a glance at the Doctor and the sleigh before immediately moving toward the largest group of roving corpses that had emerged from the woods.

“Right,” the Doctor muttered, turning toward their sled, hearts clenching when he saw some undead already doing the same. The dogs, still trapped in their harness, were alternately mindlessly panicking at what even they had to perceive as deeply, horribly wrong, or else trying to bark and growl wildly at the moving corpses, trying to defend their owners’ property. The result was a terrible mess of leather straps and yowling, none of the animals able to get where they wanted – until it was too late.

The first corpse reached the frontmost, loudest-growling husky – Sif – and fell down onto her to bite.

“No!“ the Doctor could hear his own hoarse scream strangled in his throat as the husky gave a gut-wrenching howl when the corpse fell upon her, sinking its teeth savagely into her neck, rearing back with torn, bloody flesh and vertebrae in its mouth. The dog collapsed with a yowl just as the Doctor arrived, swinging one of the logs from the fire hard enough to tear the zombie’s head from its shoulders. As soon as the skull had been severed, the corpse crumbled, spilling grace- and motionlessly onto the snow.

“Oh – oh, Sif – I’m so sorry,” the Doctor muttered as he dropped the log, casting a pained look at the mutilated husky lying on the ground, eyes staring sightlessly at the snow stained red by her blood. With a grimace, the Doctor averted his eyes and instead grabbed a knife from their eating utensils, starting to slash the bonds of the rest of the terrified sleigh dogs - that would at least enable them to fight or run away, instead of becoming hapless victims -  all while trying to keep an eye out for other roaming corpses about to approach them.

A quick glance at Loki told him he needn’t have worried, though.

(Or else, worried about something entirely different).

Loki was in the midst of an assault of undead, but mowing them down with the spear in a way that made it absolutely clear he wasn’t human – even if, the Doctor mused, he was probably fighting with the strength of a frost giant rather than that of an Aesir.

But whether it was one or the other didn’t seem to particularly matter. Loki blasted flames, hurled knives and cut down their ranks with spearwork like a deadly dervish, a fierce grin on his face and the magical fire reflecting in his eyes letting him appear like a wildmage, a joy inherent in the destruction of their enemies that the Doctor had seen too often in people’s faces - and in mirrors - to feel comfortable with.

And the undead, now that he was able to focus on them properly, certainly looked like they had once been the citizens of this planet; most of their clothes (or what remained of them) had regressed to the medieval peasants-and-warriors-look, pieces of torn leather, furs, and rough, brown fabrics covering damaged and necrotic flesh beneath…but some of them were also still wearing pieces of neon-bright anoraks, tool belts over exposed hip bones, or even snow goggles covering too-small faces that already had their lower jaw missing.

These were the people that had been taken. These were the people that had lost their lives because of someone tampering with this planet.

The Doctor could feel his grip on the knife tighten, a rage rising within him that felt like an oncoming storm as he stared at the savage, cruel, needless carnage before him, and he was about to do something, he didn’t know what yet, when suddenly, one of the other huskies leaped and sank their teeth into his suit jacket, whimpering and pulling at it desperately.

“What – no, it’s alright – see, none of them is coming to get you-“ he started, making an off-hand gesture behind himself, where the terrified huskies’ eyes were focused, before glancing over his shoulder himself – and froze.

Namely because he now realized that what the huskies were really staring at wasn’t any of the living corpses Loki was dealing with, but rather the body of their dead packmate, which was now once again rising from the snow; blood dripping and eyes glowing the brightest blue.

“Oh,” the Doctor managed. “Yeah, that might be a thing to be terrified about.”

The undead husky gave out a strange, unnatural growl, bright blue eyes focused on the Doctor, and then leapt forward, jaws wide open for attack. The Doctor managed to twist himself away from its leap, hand going for the screwdriver – it had worked on the wolves before, after all – but before he could reach it, there was a bark from behind him, and then one of the largest huskies pushed past him, growling at his fallen packmate.

“Oh no. Nononono. The last thing we need is more zombie dogs-“ the Doctor managed, even if part of him was a bit touched – those huskies, though terrified, were now trying to protect him as their human – but then it was already too late. What had once been Sif charged and the other husky intercepted, tackling her and taking her down in a ball of howls, bites and snaps. The other huskies soon joined their leader, leaping upon their former packmate to bite and tear at what less and less resembled a dog and more and more a flayed corpse, which nevertheless wouldn’t stop to try and sink its teeth into them in return. With no doubt as to what would happen if she managed it.

 Humans, the Doctor thought with a bit of a heartache, the only species to breed another one to be so loyal to them to be suicidal.

He cast a glance back at Loki as to how he was faring – he’d no doubt need to put the huskies into a magical sleep, too, lest they had been infected with the magical disease as well and would turn at any moment – and then all but could feel his hearts seize up, because right now one of the warrior corpses had managed to sneak up on Loki from behind, leapt and sunk its teeth deep into his neck.

“LOKI!”

Xxx

Loki…was actually enjoying himself.

Now, he probably wouldn’t have downright admitted this. But this….he skewered one animated abomination, eviscerated a second and immolated a third and laughed – this was one hell of a way to vent frustration.

And it would show that arrogant fool of a mage who had managed to leave him stuck here on this planet exactly what he thought of him. 

“Oh, you shall rue the day you angered me,” Loki murmured, using a swing of the spear to separate another corpse’s head from its body – and then heard the scream of the Doctor a second too late.

“LOKI!”

Loki only felt the impact of something against his back, and then there was white-cold agony shooting down his neck.

“Ngh!” Loki could feel an involuntary scream torn from his lungs, whirling around to blindly impale whatever had attacked him, but even then he could already feel something viscerally wrong with his body – but also something horribly familiar.

“No,” was all Loki could whisper in denial as already a searing cold started to spread from the wound in his neck where the creature had hurt him, blood in his veins turning to liquid ice as the change to his true nature was forced upon him, pale fingers in front of his face turning blue and ridged.

“NO!” Loki repeated, desperate horror washing through him as the world started to subtly change colour, the snow and ice in his vision becoming more differentiated, more beautiful and familiar, a world filtered through now blood-red eyes. Loki was aware of the last of the corpses moving in on him but couldn’t bring himself to move for a moment, the feeling of violation of having this change forced upon him too paralyzing. Involuntarily, his eyes flitted over to look at the Doctor, the Time Lord’s expression mirroring the exact same horror Loki was feeling, the natural fear and revulsion at his true form –

Next, Loki frowned only a little as suddenly, the Doctor’s face lit up like a solstice fire.

“Oh, that is – fantastic!”

“…what?” Loki managed to croak. One of the remaining corpses had been approaching him, but in his extremely confounded state, Loki found his body at least reacting upon reflex, felling the creature. “What?!” he managed more loudly.

“You're – you’re immune to the contagious magic! Your frost giant heritage is colder than any of this lot! Hah! Bet they didn’t expect that!” the Doctor was grinning at him wildly now, looking at Loki, at Loki in his Jotunn form like he was the best thing since warmed mead. “And you look absolutely brilliant!”

That last comment was finally absurd enough to shake Loki out of his trance. “…do I?” he heard himself ask, before abruptly shaking his head, all at once feeling able to move again, the sensation of being made of living ice suddenly not quite as disturbing any more. And then he whirled around again, summoning his magic that came to him just as easily as before, and tore into the last of their enemies, felling them like an oncoming winter storm.

Xxx

"That's...I think you got all of them. That was honestly quite impressive," the Doctor commented, hands in his pockets as he looked around at the carnage. All around them, the snow looked like a winter hurricane had torn through it, pieces of formerly human bodies, tattered clothing and crude weapons strewn about every which way.

And in the midst of it stood Loki, breathing heavily in full battle armor, skin the deepest Jotunn blue. His red eyes met the Doctor's, looking as if they were searching for...something. Now that the battle was over, Loki looked more lost than ever.

The Doctor started walking toward him. "The maps are safe," he said, gesturing back at the sleigh he had defended. "Though the huskies are...well, Sif turned blue-eyes after she was bitten and the others are currently tearing into her, so putting all of them to sleep might be a good-"

"Stop," Loki said, holding up a hand before the Doctor could come closer than two metres toward him.  The expression on his face seemed something between desperation and a splitting headache. The Doctor stopped. And cocked his head.

"Everything alright?"

"Everything-?!" Loki started, wildly, but then seemed to try and compose himself, breathing once, deeply, "No, Doctor, everything is obviously not alright." he grated out. "And I would suggest you do not approach any further. A frost giant burns with cold; touching me would see you suffer the same fate as them." Loki gestured to one of the destroyed corpses, frozen flesh splintered under the impact of his spear's blow.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," the Doctor held up his hands calmingly. "Trust me, I never touch dangerous things. Well. Almost never. Well-"

 "You - this form, this change doesn't shock you," Loki cut him off, looking at him with an expression hard to gage, somewhere between disbelief, mistrust and...maybe a faint glimmer of hope? The Doctor wondered. He shrugged.

"Nah, not really. Should it?  I told you, I've run into you lot before. Even been to Jotunheim, once."

xxx

"You have?" Loki blinked. A part of him was wondering whether the Time Lord was just talking so easily and unconcernedly to keep him calm, but even if he was, Loki felt like he couldn't even muster up the anger and resentment that such condescension should warrant; he was just too...pathetically grateful, because the greater part of his mind just wanted to fall apart, his entire body screaming its wrongness at him, his magic still too scattered to focus on turning himself back into his fake Aesir skin.

"Eyup," the Doctor replied, popping the 'p' again, "I think I needed some ice for a party at that time and the TARDIS turned out to be a bit...overly helpful. Mind you," he said, apparently shifting into thoughtful mode again, "Not that you lot were then helpful at all, but-"

"Really," Loki replied, voice a monotone. He didn't ask when that had been (or wonder what might have happened if the Doctor for some reason had taken him as a whelp before Odin had - not that that would have been possible even, with the Doctor being younger than him by a century anyway, he tried to remind himself).

"Oh yeah," the Doctor nodded. "Believe me. And you know, usually it's my friends who have to deal with me changing my face, so I...get it. Feeling off in a different form."  he gave Loki a lop-sided smile. "Sometimes it feels all wrong in a different skin, doesn't it?"

That made Loki blink. "…your race are shape-shifters as well?"

"Oh yes." the Doctor bared his teeth at him for a moment, also pointing at them unnecessarily. "Those teeth? Felt really weird for the first couple hours. And imagine my disappointment when I was still not ginger, again. Love the side-burns this time around, though." he gave Loki another smile, still looking as relaxed as no-one should be when faced with an abomination, a monster -

But even now, the horror seemed to be slowly fading away, the panic somehow unable to remain as acute in the midst of this bizarre conversation. Loki could feel himself frown, a familiar motion on an unfamiliar face. "...you are not able to control your shape, is that what you are saying?"

"That's about right, yeah," the Doctor nodded.  "Not like you can, anyway. Time Lords, we...change when our bodies get damaged beyond repair. Most bodies I've had, eh, there were good sides and bad sides. Quite like this one, actually. Don't know how long it will last, though, the last one...I didn't live long with that one." The Doctor's expression had shifted from jovial toward something more bittersweet at that last sentence, before he slowly breathed out.

"In the end, I suppose...I have to remember it's still me at the core and that's what counts." He smiled. "Always the Doctor."

Loki looked at him for a moment longer. Then he finally closed his eyes and when he reached for his magic this time, it came and was in order, no longer frazzled and spiked by his own turmoil. The familiar change washed over him, skin burning frost turning back into pale Aesir flesh. Loki opened his eyes again, knowing that they had returned to green.

xxx

"Wise words, Doctor." Loki's tone sounded controlled and wry, but the Doctor wondered whether there hadn't been something genuine in it. Next, the Asgardian had already turned and was now striding toward the dogs that had stopped their turned sister, but were now moving a bit strangely, shaking their heads and whining. Loki threw out a hand and they sank to the ground, eyes closing and muscles growing slack.

"There. That should take care of them. If they have been affected, they should sleep like the infant girl."

"Good," the Doctor nodded, looking at their sleeping former companions. Now that everything had gone still again, the fighting over, and snow lightly beginning to fall on the grim battlefield, the atmosphere began to shift toward more desolate, not even any dog noises in the background to suggest they weren't the only living creatures on this frozen planet.

The Doctor shivered involuntarily, placing his hands under his armpits. He squinted up into the grayish, darkening sky - night seemed like it would fall soon, the days apparently getting shorter the closer they got to the source of the magic. He stalked off toward Loki who was back at the sled, straightening the maps and checking them for damage.

"We should go. Unlikely that nobody noticed this," he said, coming up next to Loki, who nodded.

"Yes. I suggest setting up camp for the last night further on," Loki gestured with his head into the direction they had been travelling. "By my calculations we should reach the source of the spell tomorrow."

"Leave the sleigh here, then?" the Doctor asked, chancing a glance at the sleeping huskies - this way it was both safer for them as well as for the dogs, but it did mean that travelling on by sled would be impossible - he pulled a face. This adventure seemed to be making a habit of stealing his transport.

To his surprise, Loki only flashed him a smile and gestured again - to conjure up four new huskies (or at least, the Doctor suspected, convincing, solid illusions of them) and waving again to let the harness of the sleigh attach itself to the dogs.

"Fear not, Doctor. We shall travel in style."

The Doctor raised his eye brows. "Blimey. You are getting your magic back."

"I am," Loki confirmed. "The atmosphere around us is positively drenched with it. I am getting close to returning to my full strength." He gave a smile full of dark promise. "Which means this sorcerer shall regret meddling in my affairs."

 The Doctor exhaled slowly. He couldn't say he was exactly pleased about the vengeful tendencies his companion exhibited, but, considering the sheer amount of death and suffering the person responsible for this planet's plight had already caused, he also didn't find much sympathy in himself to attempt to rein those tendencies in again.  And if both Loki and him had been human, the Doctor thought, they likely would have already been sharing the peasants’ fate -and in front of his mind’s eye he could already see images of him and Loki both, grey-skinned, blue- and dead-eyed, clothes torn and ragged, marching through the snowscapes of a dying planet, without aim or purpose or life.

"…yeah, I suspect they will regret it," the Doctor forced himself to say, shaking off those dark thoughts before regarding the husky constructs Loki had conjured somewhat more closely. The magical creatures were standing eerily still and waiting for their master's command. The Doctor cocked his head.

"Loki?"

"Yes?"

"Those huskies have eight legs."

"Yes. Makes them twice as fast, which is why only four of them are necessary. Shall we?" Loki gestured toward the sleigh (and the Doctor had to admit you couldn't argue with that logic).

"Alright," the Doctor nodded, climbing aboard again. "Only..." he let his gaze wander across the destroyed corpses from their battle, and looked at Loki. "We might want to give them a proper burial."   

xxx

"Bestow funeral rites upon them?" Loki looked back at him, incredulously. "They are monsters, Doctor, and would have killed us if they could have."

"Yeah," the Doctor nodded. "But they were people, once."

"And now they're nothing but frozen flesh," Loki pointed out, feeling an irritation and uneasiness rising within himself that he couldn't even quite explain, putting a defensive edge in his voice that he didn't like.

And the Doctor, he realized with rising despair, was looking at him again with that unbearable mixture of sadness, and worse, pity, and, worst of all, understanding when he softly said, "A being is more than what they're made of, Loki," that Loki wanted to scream.

Instead he took a deep breath, managed at least a "Spare me," that sounded defeated even to his own ears and then weaved a quick working that let the snow and earth shift a little. The ground moved, gently taking the remains of the corpses in for their rest, creating soft mounds to mark their places, and Loki tried not to read too much into why he had done that.

Time Lords. Loki was beginning to see why someone would want to burn that species’ planet down.

“Well,” he said instead. “I suggest getting on that sleigh now, Doctor, because after this little altercation I suspect this night shall be dark and full of terrors...”

To be continued…

Chapter Text

Later on, when it was getting dark again, Loki's magicked huskies had already whisked them across the landscape at a respectable speed despite the steadily dropping temperatures.

Loki could feel them getting closer, could feel his blood starting to pump faster and hotter in anticipation of a fight, of revenge - but then, to his surprise, could feel that bloodlust instantly dropping away as he chanced a glance at the Doctor sitting on the sled in front of him. His figure was hunched over, and Loki realized that he had uncharacteristically not said much for the past half an hour at all.

The picture made something clench inside his chest for a godawful sudden moment, nudging at emotional places he thought he'd lost for good, and it took an effort to acknowledge the irrationality of it. Suppressing a feeling that he refused to acknowledge as being even remotely concern-like, Loki tried to clear his throat and sound normal.

"Everything alright, Doctor? I was about to suggest we might rest here for our final stop," he said, at the same time letting the huskies slow down at the edge of a forest to the right and a sheer cliff drop to the left - this forest was far too thick for any large number of foes to come through it noiselessly and the cliff meant they couldn't be encircled from behind.

"...ah. Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good," the Doctor said, stirring a moment after Loki had spoken, and again giving him a small smile that seemed far too knowing and let Loki wish they'd kept going after all. But then the Time Lord was already unfolding himself stiffly from the sleigh, a shudder running through his form as he stepped onto the new clearing.

"Huh. Blimey, temperature's been dropping. I wonder..." he reached into the pocket of his suit and pulled something out. He proceeded to look at it with his eye brows raised and a small 'Oh', but didn't really seem that surprised.

"What is it?" Loki asked, letting a camp fire spring into life with a snap of his fingers - by the Nine it felt good to feel his magic come back - and peered at the object the Doctor was holding.

"Well. Technically my screwdriver," the Doctor replied with a frown, "Only now it's actually just a screwdriver." He held out the half-wooden, half-metal tool, which Loki realized must have been the technical device he'd earlier suspected to be a wand. The Doctor pulled a grimasse. "Well, I guess at least now we have definite proof we're getting close to the source. Wonder if by tomorrow it'll have turned into a plain stick."

"Not if I have managed to turn our adversary into one first," Loki muttered, but the Doctor seemed scarcely to hear him, fumbling to get the tool back into his breast pocket, but his fingers apparently having trouble to grasp it. Finally, the Time Lord let out a loud sneeze and dropped the thing.

"Ah. Well, should have expected that. I don't think even Calufrax was that cold…" he muttered, at the same time shoving his fingers underneath his arm pits and letting another full body shiver run through his form. "If the temperature keeps dropping like this, I don't think I could have worked that screwdriver anyway. Think that sorcerer noticed us and is now trying to kill us like this?"

"Noticed us? Maybe. We should be on our guard against further attacks tonight," Loki said, who had also been thinking along those lines. "What do you mean you would not be able to use your tool?"

"Not all of us are frost giants here, mate." The Doctor gave him a wan smile, holding out a pale hand. "My fingers are turning stiff at this point. Mind turning up your magical fire a bit?"

"Your fingers…?" Loki asked, feeling a spike of worry somewhere that he tried his best to steadfastly ignore. "That is looking like frostbite."

The Doctor sucked some air to his teeth, looking at his fingers critically. "Yeeeah, it is, isn't it? Should heal as soon as we're done with this, though – Time Lord advantages and all that."

"You - why did you not tell me?" Loki heard himself say, at the same time impulsively reaching out and grabbing the Doctor's hand with one of his, using his other hand to push the sleeve of the Time Lord's captured arm up and wrapped his fingers around the Doctor's wrist. And then, before he could hesitate, made himself summon the memories of the heat of fire places, and the warmth of mulled mead and the feeling of baking hot golden stones of a palace in the midday sun.

He held them for just a moment, before interweaving them with magic and pushing them out of himself, right through the parts of his skin that were touching the Doctor. There was a glow flowing down his arms, sinking into the time Lord's wrist and palm and spreading from there, tendrils winding itself through the rest of the Doctor's body until the entire man seemed to be suffused with a golden glow for a moment before it faded.

Loki released his grip and the Doctor took a half-step back, wide-eyed.

"Oh. Oh wow," he breathed. "That is literally a lot better than before. Thank you."

"I repeat my earlier question," Loki said, though it was a lot harder now to keep his voice even and detached and not let some of the Doctor's appreciation of his magic buoy that same warm feeling which had ironically been growing ever since they had landed on this shock-frosted planet. The Doctor shrugged a little.

"Weeeelll…it wasn't that bad. And I figured any magic you had was best used for powering the tracking spell, so…" he gave a wave. "And, like I said, Time Lord. We don't die even if you freeze us solid – although we're not much use then until un-frozen, admittedly," he added a bit sheepishly.

"I…see," Loki nodded. "Well, the reservoir of my magic is getting less of a concern the closer we get to that mage's stronghold. Magic is getting heavier in the air and I'm recovering quickly. I should be able to keep you warm enough if I renew that spell every couple of hours."

"Really? That's brilliant, I should have you along on all ice planets. Muchas gracias," the Doctor replied, already striding over to their sled to get out the rest of their rations, throwing them behind him in the snow.

"…you're welcome," Loki replied after just a moment, even if he wasn't sure he wanted it to be heard.

Xxx

Sitting down on one of the furs after they had finished putting up their camp site (magical fire, sight-and-sound-proof magical dome, as well as some non-magical marshmallows for roasting) the Doctor leaned back on his hands reflexively for a moment – and withdrew them when the snow started to melt around his warm fingers.

The cold of the snow was now feeling merely refreshing but not biting – yet still soaking his suit sleeves if he left his hands in it. He glanced over at Loki, who was currently sitting opposite the flames, staring into the magical fire as if deep in thought. A wind picked lightly at his long black hair, but the Asgardian hardly seemed to notice the cold gust - the Doctor wondered for a moment whether it was his own magic keeping him warm or whether Loki was actually unable to feel cold at all, no matter whether he had once again assumed the form of an Aesir or not.

Speaking of which...

"You know, I think I'm actually pretty lucky to end up on a planet that has a thermostat problem with an actual frost giant," the Doctor said casually, duly noticing how Loki's expression immediately snapped to attention, wary now. Nevertheless, he continued.

"Also, by the way, I understand that you'd keep human appearance, it does make life easier to look like them. That species has spread remarkably wide through the universe, you never stand out anywhere. Also protects against their rampant xenophobia, of course, humans…" the Doctor paused, briefly, "…they can be so very brave, and then so easily frightened by what is different from what they know." He cocked his head.

"It's not much different on Asgard, is it."

"No." It hadn't been a question, but Loki answered anyway. Then his lips pulled into a trace of a sneer. "You would be the first one to call them afraid for it, though."

"Fear is usually what comes before hate, before you forget that that's what it was," the Doctor said quietly, tilting his head up and looking at the stars before glancing back at Loki.

"Just meant to say – I doubt we'll be running into many humans still alive from this point on, so you don't have to keep that…" he waved a hand at Loki's general appearance, "…form. Or glamour. Or whatever it is, up for me. I think blue suits you just fine – not many can pull it off, but ooooh, you manage," he said, giving Loki a grin.

For a moment, Loki's expression looked (well, frozen), but then, incredibly, he seemed to relax the tiniest bit, only giving a huff instead of becoming closed-off, hostile or frightened as soon as the Doctor mentioned his true nature.

Loki closed his eyes, but when he opened them, they were still green. "It's…not a glamour," he said. "Rather a true shapeshifting spell I have been wearing since childhood. If you cut me in this form, I will bleed Aesir blood," he said, before adding sharply, "though I would not recommend anyone to try."

"So…you prefer it to your frost giant form? Even on a snow planet where you'd fit right in?" the Doctor asked.

"Yes," Loki said, firmly, and the Doctor decided to maybe drop the subject for the moment. He felt like he had made some headway, at least.

xxx

Later on, quiet had settled over their campsite after the Doctor had thankfully dropped the topic that made Loki's thoughts by now feel jumbled and fumbling – wondering what it meant (if it meant something) if the Time Lord didn't recoil from his Jotunn form, if it meant the things he had learned were false - or at least, if some of them were...

Loki tried to firmly concentrate on his volume of Dwarven magic again, trying to find a hint of how to undo potentially planet-wide spells that had distorted the elements so. He also snuck a glance over to the Time Lord who had also pulled out another book from his own transdimensional pocket and seemed engrossed in it – it was a different one from last night, the cover not featuring magical molluscs this time, but instead looking old and leatherbound. The title stood out clearly in Asgardian script – Edda – but remained fairly meaningless to Loki.

As he watched, the Doctor winced as if he had just come across something particularly gruesome, which finally tipped Loki's curiosity over the edge.

"Not too pleasant, your bed-time literature, Doctor?"

"I, uh…well," the Doctor grimaced. "Actually…I was wondering…" he now seemed almost awkward. "Have you ever had your mouth sewn shut by dwarves?"

"…what?" Loki asked, now also perturbed. (Not that there hadn't been quite a few people who would have dearly wanted to, but…) "No, I have not."

"Really? Oh, good," the Doctor seemed relieved. "And…were you ever chained down and had a snake drip acid onto your face-?"

"Drip acid - by the Nine, what kind of book is this?" Loki asked, at the same time making a grab at the volume but the Time Lord shifted it just out of reach.

"Told you. Midgardian fanfic. I'm glad it's not true, then," the Doctor said, indeed looking a bit relieved in a way Loki thought shouldn't feel as touching as it did.

"Although the story where you got your brother to go as a crossdressing bride to get his hammer back was pretty hilarious," the Doctor then added with a broad grin, which immediately made that a lot easier.

"That…that did actually happen, yes," Loki said, a bit surprised and then could already feel a smile tugging at his lips at the memory (which had been hilarious, actually), unable not to answer the Doctor's grin for a moment.

Right before much more recent memories of Th- of his not-brother crashed into his mind and Loki sobered.

But now, he noticed, those memories seemed to have come already with a lot less anger and a lot more sadness instead.

Xxx

Contemplative, the Doctor closed the Edda gently and placed the finished book next to him. Loki had shut his own volume of magic a few minutes ago and laid back on his own fur, as if about to go to sleep, but was as of yet staring somewhat listlessly at the sky.

The Doctor drummed his fingers quietly on the back of the old book, thinking again. Loki had claimed that this night might be dark and full of terrors, but so far, it seemed to be turning out to be one of the few quiet moments they'd had ever since the Asgardian had come crashing into his TARDIS.

There likely wouldn't be any quiet moments after this, not when Loki had reckoned they'd arrive at the sorcerer's lair so soon tomorrow. And when they did…

The Doctor remembered the thirst for revenge he had seen in Loki's eyes, the hurt and the fury and the desperation when he'd first met him, and could feel his lips thin.

He made a decision.

"Loki?"

Green eyes shifted over to him. The Doctor hoped it was a good sign that Loki actually seemed a lot less tense than he had at the beginning.

"Yes?"

"What made you fall off the Bifrost?"

Xxx

Loki stared at the Time Lord. The question had come out of nowhere and had felt like a slap to the face.

"What?" he asked, tonelessly.

"You…mentioned you had fallen off when we met," the Doctor said, expression contemplative. As he spoke, another gust of wind swept past, barely registering to Loki, but letting the Doctor shudder for a brief moment – the breeze probably dropping his skin temperature for a second until the magic Loki had left inside him could compensate.

"So what happened to make you fall of?" the Time Lord asked, unblinking.

By now the cold had actually intensified enough that Loki figured the Doctor would be frozen solid before sunrise without the protection of Loki's magic, a vast army of microscopic bits of will in his blood that kept it at its usual temperature. Given the Time Lord's grasp of physics, Loki was quite certain the Doctor knew that, too – yet he seemed perfectly content and relaxed next to him, even though his life was currently entirely in Loki's hands and largely dependent on his good will.

Trust, a voice inside Loki whispered and he swallowed. This is what it feels like…

He made a decision.

"I…had a disagreement," Loki said. "With my," he paused again, wrestling with the words that still wouldn't come. "With someone I once called brother."

Loki didn't meet the Doctor's eyes as he said it. The earlier fight and prickliness had left him by now – in fact, he felt more exhausted than anything.

"A...disagreement," the Doctor said, and it sounded cautious, but not worried. Curious, even. "About what?"

"I tried to use the Bifrost to erase Jotunheim and the entire race of the frost giants from the face of Yggdrasil."

There was silence after this, the only sound the snow and the wind in the night. Loki had tried to lay sharpness into his words, to muster even a smidgen of bite to put behind them, use derision where any other emotion would have been too painful, made him feel too weak. But all there was was tiredness.

"Yes, Doctor. Maybe now I appear a monster to you, when my blue skin is not enough?" he asked, managing to make the words at least sound dry and cold, instead of raw and helpless. But when he raised his eyes to look at the Time Lord, there was just an expression of consternation - and something else Loki did not want to look too closely at.

The Doctor licked his lips. "You...tried?"

"Yes. I did not succeed," Loki answered the unspoken question, before deliberately adding, sharply, "Not for lack of trying, mind."

And he wondered what would happen now. But, realistically, what could the Doctor do? Even if he would despise Loki as a murderer now, he could scarcely leave him. Loki returned his gaze to the fire as he thought - without him, the Doctor would freeze on this forsaken planet. But still, he would likely want to turn from him, condemn him -

"Why?"

Loki's eyes snapped back up. The Doctor was looking at him, gaze still questioning, as if trying to understand. As if there were anything to understand.

"On Asgard..." Loki began, but then suddenly found it difficult to speak the next sentence aloud, something in his throat constricting. "On Asgard, you are taught they are beasts and vermin. Night terrors to frighten children," he finally managed, refusing to give in to the spasms. And he wondered whether the Doctor heard the truth underneath his words, about that feeling of wanting to claw out of your skin that badly you would be willing enough to kill anyone wearing it so you could prove you are not them.

And it hadn't even helped.

Loki returned to staring into the fire, careful to keep his face expressionless. No...nothing had helped with that miserable feeling, until..the memory flashed past his mind's eye just briefly, the first time he had come face to face with the Doctor, the Time Lord exclaiming 'You're a frost giant!' like the solstice had come early. Or how his face had lit up whenever Loki had practiced magic thereafter. Or...just a few hours ago, when he had changed right in front of him and the Doctor, inexplicably, still had reacted like Loki had just created a star in the sky.

"And are they?"

"What?" The Doctor had spoken so softly, Loki wasn't sure he had heard the question correctly. 

"Are they?" the Doctor repeated, earnestly. "Monsters. The frost giants, I mean."

"Yes," Loki replied almost immediately, then hesitated. "Or maybe not. I don't know what to trust anymore of Asgard's teachings," he said, his voice bitter, wondering whether the Doctor could guess just how all-encompassing that phrase was. He huffed. "Looking at them you would think it true."

"People can be monsters no matter what they look like," the Doctor said, and with such an utter conviction behind it that Loki felt a bark of laughter well up within that he had to bite off before it sounded desperate.

"Yes, well," he said. "I tried to destroy a world. I should not think any change in my appearance would make me less monstrous after this. I would not assume you to understand."

"Well," the Doctor replied, and something about his tone was strange enough that Loki's curiosity stirred, "I can't say I approve of the idea of exterminating a species," the Time Lord said, sounding unhappy, "But...I told you Gallifrey burned, didn't I."

"Yes," Loki nodded, unsure of where this was going.

The Doctor leaned his head backwards, staring at the stars above them as if he could possibly see his home planet from here.

"I didn't tell you I was the one who lit the flame."

Loki felt frozen in a way that had nothing to do with the cold. There was a bit of an instinctive recoil inside him, because he couldn't remember ever having looked in the eyes of another being who had wilfully committed genocide. Was he actually sharing the fire with an even bigger aberration than himself?

Yet almost as soon as the other had said it, Loki could also see the pain and guilt in the Doctor's eyes, pain and guilt that looked old enough to have been there a while (but which he knew was lurking fresh in his own mind, ready to devour as soon as he dared acknowledge it).

"…why?" Loki finally managed in turn, mouth dry.

"There was a war. With another race called the Daleks. It threatened to destroy the universe, so I…stopped it." The Doctor looked at him, steadily. "Forever."

"You erased both your enemies and your own people," Loki stated, not asked. The truth was written too plainly on the Doctor's face. "To prevent further destruction."

"Yes," the Doctor nodded, face hard.  "Wasn't that why you tried to do it, too?"

"Not...exactly," Loki could feel a smile tugging at the edge of his mouth that had nothing to do with humour. "I think..." I wanted to prove something. I wanted, just once, to make Father see what I could do. I wanted to show I'm not them.

"I'm afraid my reason was nothing as noble as yours, Doctor," he said instead, making an effort to let the last sentence sound wry instead of desperate. "Only foolish," he added after that, making that effort moot.

And yet, the damn man of course looked at him as if he had heard all the rest anyway.

"Oh believe me, there is nothing noble about obliterating a planet. Or a people. Ever," the Doctor said and it sounded for a moment just as tired as Loki felt.

"Not what Asgard would tell you - or would have used to tell you, anyway. I am not sure whether even the Allfather now would scorn mass slaughter, or whether it was just me to whom he did object," Loki said, staring into the flames again. Next to him, the Doctor 'hmmed' softly.

"Maybe I wouldn't listen to so much of what Asgard says. All sounds a bit...last millenium, don't you think?" the Doctor asked, pulling a face. Loki huffed, not sure whether he should be amused at this turn of phrase or not. He gathered a handful of snow into his palm, watching as crystals ran between his cold fingers.

"Maybe. But then what does that make us, Doctor?"

"Hah." The Doctor let out a breath. "I suppose...looking for redemption?"

Loki glanced over. The Doctor had a slight smile tugging at the edge of his lips, something that almost looked like a friendly expression, even after Loki's confession of his guilt. But the other seemed to be carrying their own burden and the smile...it reminded Loki for one brief moment of the feeling of looking at a shieldbrother before battle, a heartbeat of shared comradery before the challenge ahead. His throat constricted again.

Usually, you would use this, he tried to remind himself, remember this, file it away, so you could later wield it against them as a weapon, Loki Silvertongue, there is no secret that cannot become a bargaining chip at the table or a dagger in a back.

"That sounds like a...worthy goal," is what he heard himself say instead, and it didn't even taste like a lie.

"Hmm," the Doctor said, again, and it sounded approving. Then he suddenly cocked his head. "But, say, there was one other thing I was wondering...did your family know you were a frost giant, then?"

xxx

The Doctor was looking at Loki, his mind whirring as things were finally clicking into place. Loki's rejection of his other nature. The mistrust he screamed at the world. The bearing of someone who didn't have any place he could call home or any people he could call family. His plot to erase Jotunheim possibly the only logical course of action for someone whose sense of identity had to be a never-ending war inside and who had been raised in this so-incredibly-last-millenium-culture that mad little Asgard place was obviously practicing. He suspected there was better mental health counselling in the Sontaran Empire. 

Loki himself was staring at him now, obviously trying to work through what the Doctor had just told him.

"The...the Allfather did," he finally managed. "He took me from my homeworld when he found me, a discarded whelp. Cast out even then," he added, a cynical, ugly smile playing at the edge of his lips. "My then-brother only found out recently. As did I."

The Doctor winced. Suddenly finding out you were that what your people thought of as a monster…a beast to frighten children at night...

"And then…what? Then your own brother tried to push you off the Bifrost when he knew?"

xxx

Loki blinked. There had been anger in the Doctor's words.

Anger because he thinks someone faulted you. Anger on your behalf. Against Thor.

For a moment, that idea – that incredible, novel notion, that someone would rush to defend him, that someone thought he had been wronged – had come at him so unexpectedly that he didn't know what to say.

Of course, there was now the tempting notion of letting the Doctor believe that Asgard had cruelly mistreated him, maybe try and bring this avenging angel apparently capable of slaying entire worlds down on their heads...

But somehow that plan did not at all sound as appealing as it should have. 

Or, of course, that weary voice in his mind reminded him, you could tell him the truth.

Loki sighed.

"…no," he gritted his teeth. "He didn't push me. I...let myself fall."

There. He had said it. Admitted his willingness to commit even that shameful act, a coward's last retreat.

And, impossibly, the Doctor just nodded, sighed and rubbed a hand across his face. "...ah. Yeah. The Christmas before last I would have let myself drown in a cave-in with the Racnoss Queen if my friend hadn't been there. I know the feeling." He glanced over at Loki. "Of being lost."

And Loki felt like someone had simultaneously yanked the floor from under his feet but also made him weightless.

Who are you, he would have wanted to ask, but of course the other had already told him.

Always the Doctor.

Loki briefly wondered whether the Norns, in their endless spinning of the universe, had a sense of humour when they interweaved the fates of beings.

"So your…brother didn't shove you off the Bifrost?" the Time Lord then asked and Loki's mind snapped back to their conversation.

"Yes," Loki replied. Curiously, the words came a little easier, now. "For all I did, he…" he still loved me, his mind finished his sentence, but he would not, could not speak those words yet.

"He was not trying to kill me," he said instead. "It was actually I who attempted to…" and he paused again. What had he been attempting, even? Hurt Thor? Kill him? Loki felt like by now he wasn't even sure of this anymore.

"…the night will be over soon," he said curtly instead. "And I need to rest before our battle tomorrow. Feel free to read more of your Midgardian fanfic during your watch," he added, at once lying down and turning his back to the Doctor. He could basically feel the Time Lord staring holes into the back of his head, but Loki was too tired to care.

xxx

"…Doctor?"

"Hm? What is it?" the Doctor looked up from his book (now once more back to Harry Potter and the Deathly Halibuts), slightly surprised that Loki apparently was still awake.

During the last half an hour he had thought a lot about his current companion, and about memories he usually tried not to recall. When everyone thinks of you as a monster, how hard is it not to become one?

Pygmalion had had the right idea, the Doctor thought. But there was also always a choice, wasn't there, and be it Time Lords, humans, or runaway Asgardians and Frost Giants, everyone carried that privilege and burden to be able to decide what to do...

Tomorrow there would be another choice. The Doctor wondered which way Loki would go. And what he would have to decide in turn...

Right now, however, Loki was looking at him with a furrow in his brow.

"You told me of your own adventures. But I fail to see how you would even have navigated this one, were I not here to guide and protect you. How do you track and find your enemies when not accompanied by a wayward sorcerer?" Loki asked, a sardonic quirk to the edge of his mouth, maybe trying to get away from the heavy atmosphere of their previous talk.

"Ah. Well," the Doctor grimaced a little. "Usually my companions wander off and get themselves kidnapped. That works a lot of the time." He shot a side glance at Loki.

"...you don't feel like taking a stroll, do you?"

The reply was, of course, a flat stare, right before Loki turned around again and stayed like that for the rest of the night.

Of course, when Loki indeed did get kidnapped a few hours later, that statement turned out to be deeply ironic.

To be continued….

Chapter Text

“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 and, later on after noticing a brief shudder from the Doctor, had also mutely reached out and impatiently gestured for the Doctor's arm again, grasping it and muttering the heat-spell under his breath, demeanour somewhere between fussy, exasperated and very-not-a-morning-person, that the Doctor had found it hard not to find it a bit endearing. (Also, helpful - by his calculations, it meant that each renewal of Loki's spell should give him somewhere between 6-8 hours before he would inevitably freeze to death if he stayed here. That's how he liked his days to start.) 

Before that, their 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.

The frost giant was sitting on the other side of their magical 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 answer was probably 'yes'. 

“Well. I travel,” the Doctor therefore replied honestly. “Meet people. Sometimes take them along, too. Or at least…I used to.”

Loki studied 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, midgar- 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. “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, though.”

Silence stretched as Loki didn’t reply to that and the Doctor didn't care to elaborate and tell the stories of those who he had not able to help. (And who had instead hated him to the end.) He 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. I mean, most of them left on their own, eventually. When they'd travelled enough,” 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. Like Astrid who 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 to re-focus. Loki’s voice had sounded carefully neutral, the frost giant's face 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 again and the Doctor thought that perhaps this was it, but then -

“One could think you would benefit from keeping sturdier and more capable 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 that 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 himself 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. And gazed 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.

The Doctor’s eyes, in turn, narrowed. Wait.  Something about that creature rang familiar…

But before he could say anything, Loki had risen in a graceful instant, stepping 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, the movement stiff as if he himself were made of ice. His blue eyes were now focused entirely on Loki, their stare cold, assessing. 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, each word the embodiment of a grave covered by snow eternal, and the Doctor didn't think it had entered his head through his 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. AND I HAVE COME TO LAY YOU TO REST IN MY NIGHT.

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 decided 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 well 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.

In reply, he then let 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's tone was disdainful, 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 Hnefatafl, 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, 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.

“So, uh, 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?”

"Because," the Doctor said, "he and this whole thing is starting to remind me awfully of G-"

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 frightened 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."

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.

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 Winter King then briefly looked frustrated for the first time, but then drew a rather modern-looking gun from somewhere underneath his cloak, saying OH YEAH? and shot straight at Loki's face.

Before Loki could even react, the decidedly non-magic projectile tore through his shield and there was a stinging pain at the side of his neck. Loki barely had time for his hand to fly up and pull the red, plastic, dart-syringe out of his body 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…

Chapter Text

Where just minutes ago a fierce battle had been fought, silence had returned once more. The signs of devastation amid the forest clearing were obvious – the snow had been trampled by hooves and feet, remains of a small camp spilled everywhere, earth and trees marred by marks of wayward spells and spears carelessly hurled by powers far beyond human.

But now, the clearing was deserted – the only visible trace of the fighters a small drop of bright crimson blood next to a lone red plastic dart in the snow and an imprint where the body of a man had fallen. Footsteps in the snow led toward the figure, and a tracker paying attention would have easily been able to see that a body must have been dragged away – a slender rut in the snow leading up to a snowdrift at the edge of the woods, pausing there, then changing direction to head to the opening of the clearing leading back into the dark forest.

Now, faint drizzles of snowflakes were already falling again and it seemed like only a matter of hours until not a trace of any desperate battles would remain…

A brown-haired head burst out of the snowdrift and the Doctor gasped, drawing in huge breaths of icy air greedily.

He blinked, one hand coming up to clear the flakes clinging to his hair and eye lashes as he shook his head, surveying the empty clearing, taking in the evidence of the battle before him. His gaze snagged on the half-buried plastic dart and with some more digging, the last of the Time Lords also managed to emerge from the snow drift, shaking himself like an irritated meerkat. He quickly strode over to the plastic dart, contorting himself to get snow out from everywhere and then bent down to pick the projectile up.

Being the Doctor, he licked it.

"…right," he then muttered to no one in particular (that was the trouble with companions, once they were kidnapped you inevitably had no one to be clever at anymore) and dropped it. A wind picked up and he reflexively shuddered – that was right, he didn't have much time. Loki's spell had kept him from freezing underneath the snow drift, and the respiratory bypass system (which was another one of those handy Time Lord biology perks) had kept him from suffocating, but he wouldn't be able to keep going for a day alone out here.

He supposed those things were what had saved him from being speared by another one of those ice skewers after Loki evidently had lost the battle – the Doctor had wisely assumed if Loki had been the winner, he would have come to dig the Doctor out again. Now, looking at the tracks of the Winter King as he had been dragging Loki's sedated body, the sorcerer had apparently paused before the snow drift the Doctor had been under. He had probably contemplated thrusting another one of his ice spears into it – but then must have assumed the Doctor to be a human who would have run out of air by now or would freeze to death anyway.

"And now that, mate, is where you're wrong," the Doctor voiced under his breath (mostly to hear anything but this dead silence), and then straightened up. He should have a couple of hours before Loki's spell ran out and the snowfall was still barely noticeable.

The Doctor turned and followed the trail of the Winter King. There was a companion to rescue.

xxx

"Okay, are we even sure he is still, y'know, watching over all of the realms and looking out for threats toward Asgard?" Fandral asked.

"I do not know either," Thor replied, looking at the just-as non-plussed Warriors Three and Sif, all of them standing with a very distracted Heimdall in the Observatory. "He has stopped laughing now for a while, but he's still staring out into space, only now he's muttering about things being 'interesting' and 'meaningful character development, fascinating'." He looked at them helplessly. "But what does it mean?"

xxx

"…woah."

It was a soft sound, and more indicating slight surprise than complete astonishment; nevertheless, the Doctor had paused as he said it.

He had been walking for about two hours now, the track of the Winter King soon transformed from the rut of Loki's body being dragged through the snow into hoofprints; perhaps the sorcerer was able to summon a horse-construct like Loki conjuring up his eight-legged huskies. That mere fact was a bit of a consolation - if Loki was being transported after being sedated, it meant they wanted him alive. And so the Doctor still had time to find him. He didn't know what it would take to kill a frost giant or an Aesir, given that falling through space from the Bifrost apparently was not enough, but he wouldn't give them time to find out, either. The Doctor's face had set. Loki would not be one of those who did not return from travelling with him.

And so, he had followed, tracking the trail all the way through the deadly silent winter woods right to their edge.

Only now he was staring at a castle.

A castle, which looked a bit odd.

Oh, it was imposing, definitely. In front of the Doctor, the plateau the forest had been on now sloped downward more gently into a wider plain below. There was an impossibly tall rock wall rearing around one side of it, perhaps one or two miles to the Doctor's right, bordering the plain in the north. And in front of that wall stood the fortress, the jagged, frozen mountain range behind it a natural fortification for its backside. The castle itself was made, naturally, of opaque ice; four giant towers looming around it, tall, impenetrable walls connecting them and a moat filled with icy black water and shoals surrounding those. Guards with likely dead faces and soullessly glowing blue eyes stood watch atop the castle's walls and next to its gate, doubtlessly more within. The structure looked like it had been built to encase the heart of winter and last forever, to inspire hopelessness within even a Sontaran army who would dare assail it.

It just...also had a really, really large crowned skull with fangs built into its front wall, where the mouth of the thing was the opening for the drawbridge.

The Doctor narrowed his eyes a little.

"There is such a thing as overdoing it," he muttered. Then he took a step forward out of the woods and down towards the fortress.

There were those who said you couldn't just walk into Mordor, but they had clearly never met a certain Time Lord.

xxx

Loki came to himself with a wince. His head was hammering, like someone had attempted to split it into two. What had he been dosed with…? He tried to open his eyes, but his surroundings were too bright, searing light assaulting his senses and he winced reflexively, bringing up his hand to shield himself, assess damage –

…his hand landed in his face and something was wrong.

His face was too small. His hand was too small. Even his arm was too short, what…?!

Again, Loki tried to force his eyes open, gradually becoming aware of warmth, of the bright light being sunshine, of grainy sand underneath him, even though none of this could be right, he was on Lakvit, a world covered in ice and death, but now he could also hear high voices, jeering and laughing where was this-

"…no," he whispered and even his own voice was much too high, as high as it hadn't been for centuries.

Because in front of him stood Thor, tall and impressive even at fifteen, grinning down at Loki in brightly-burning triumph, holding the wooden training spear with which he had just struck Loki down with full force, the line of impact a fault of throbbing agony down across his forehead. Loki blinked. No. No, this didn't make sense. He hadn't…he hadn't fought with Thor, he had fought the Winter King and…

There were tears in his eyes, that was why everything was so blurry, but the figures in the background seemed clearer now, Volstagg, laughing and slapping his thighs, the other children of the court's warriors jeering and pointing, and Thor, so proud of himself of having struck Loki down when he had said he wouldn't go all out, because Loki had told him he was scared of training –

"Why…why did you do that?" Loki could hear himself force past the knot in his throat, the same way he had asked it before, but already things seemed to be slipping away from him, what 'before' did he even mean, this was now – no it wasn't, you're on Lakvit, you're here with a madman Doctor person – the thoughts tumbled away as he was staring, the bruise burning as fiercely as the humiliation in his stomach, looking up in Thor's bright blue eyes (blue eyes? Something with blue eyes, but what-)

"Why did I do that?" Thor asked, voice yet high but already hinting at the fuller, richer tone it was about to become. "Brother, why wouldn't I do that?" he bent down, blonde hair framing his face like a halo against the midday sun over the training arena, grinning at Loki. "That's what we do with monsters, we kill them."

And Loki could already feel the change coming over himself, could feel his hands turning ridged blue and then he was shouting, for his mother and for…someone, someone else whose name he didn't know anymore, and he couldn't remember why.

xxx

"Oy! You! Yeah, you! No, not you with the missing jaw, I'm talking to you with the sword in their ribcage – yeah that's right, look at me," the Doctor grinned as the two ice zombie guards turned their heads mutely into his direction, apparently at a loss at how to deal with the unarmed madman in a suit approaching their fortress much like their living counterparts usually were. The Doctor walked toward the drawbridge jauntily, reaching into his pocket and whisking out his psychic paper (which, as it turned out, had now also become his psychic parchment, now a scroll to be unrolled, but he supposed it didn't matter all that much.)

" Surprise solar system inspection coming through," he announced cheerfully. "And you are hereby charged with crimes against a Level-5 planet in the name of the Shadow Proclam-ah-hah! Don't like hearing that much, do you?!" the Doctor exclaimed, barely evading the swing of the guard's sword as it finally screeched and charged him; the other did as well, but their movements were clumsy and uncoordinated and the Doctor had had all of today's morning to work up a healthy portion of anger that made his movements swift and precise. He dodged past the charge of the two ice zombies and dashed across the bridge into the inner courtyard, glaring up at the guards on top of the walls and tilting his face toward the upper windows.

"Whoever lives here!" he shouted, his voice echoing off the castle walls, fury reverberating from every syllable, "Whoever has dared to brutalize this planet and its people! Show yourself!" He moved just in time for a guard to lunge for him from the top of the wall, shattering next to him on the icy floor like a particularly morbid Jenga tower. "You hide behind the people you have taken! You have killed hundreds, if not thousands. And I! Will! Stop! YOU!" he hollered, dodging sword and spear swings of the pursuing draw bridge guards with every word, and then turning just in time to see the Winter King before him, arm raised with what looked like a sphere of moving icy air in his palm, ready to –

"HALT!"

The new voice boomed through the castle courtyard, and the undead within it, even the Winter King, froze in their movement. The Doctor's head flew up to see that one window on the upper floor of what had to be the main keep had been opened, but whoever spoke was not close enough to it to be seen.

"Wait. You're that guy – guards!" the voice came again. "Bring him before me. I wish to have a look at him after all."

"Woah- hey! Careful!" The Doctor yelped as immediately, two ice zombies stepped forward and grabbed his upper arms, then started marching forward with him toward a gate in the wall of the main keep. Behind them, the Doctor could see the Winter King wordlessly falling into step, face expressionless.

"So you have a commanding officer, ey?" he asked, while trying to keep his feet under him on the slippery ice they walked across inside, no snow to give some traction any more. Luckily, the undead castle guards manhandling him didn't seem to have any such problems, their bare, half-decayed feet finding easy purchase and the Doctor didn't struggle against their grip.

After all, this was exactly what he had wanted – privately, he thought rebels and assassins and fighters all across the universe would be surprised if they knew that if you needed to get to the leader of any Evil League of Evil, simply marching through the front gate and starting to shout very angrily for the manager often did the trick.

The manager – which the 'Winter King' then very obviously was not. Now he wasn't even talking any more, just marching stoically, robotically behind them as they ascended a winding staircase – movements bereft of any of the grace he had shown while whirling through the snow at the clearing in his duel with Loki, more reminding the Doctor now of the monotone movements of Loki's magicked huskies, missing any of the fluid spark the live ones had had…

But before he could think any more about this, the guards holding his arms ungently yanked him around a corner and into a corridor, walking a few more steps and coming to a halt before a large, ornate door. As they stood, it opened.

"Hm," the Doctor commented, lip jutting out as he surveyed the throne room. The ceiling rose high above their heads and, in comparison to the spartan rest of the castle, this chamber was almost lavishly decorated. There was a huge fire place, the flames roaring in it presumably not more real than Loki's had been, but at least warming this room to a comfortable temperature. The floor beneath their feet was covered in thick, red-and-gold rugs, swords and shields hanging high on the walls, emblazoned with depictions of wolves, stags, lions and dragons and more; large bookcases made from dark wood, filled with…books looking slightly more modern than they should…? the Doctor's eyes briefly narrowed as they flitted across them, but then were already back on the centre piece of the room.

At approximately half the chamber's length, the floor rose in three steps, and in the center of that dais stood a giant, hulking iron throne, apparently made from a hundred if not more blades, at least a dozen sticking out of its back.

And in its seat sat a person, at last a live human, who basically screamed wizard, his face an amalgamation of Dumbledore, Gandalf and Merlin all rolled into one, grizzled beard, crimson-black robes and a golden sceptre with a glowing blue stone at its tip all battling for biggest-magic-tip-off in the room. The man rose from his throne of swords and stood, tall and foreboding, looking down at the Doctor.

"Blimey," the Doctor said, "Aren't the heating bills of this place just killing you?"

xxx

"Loki."

"What is it, Thor? Leave me alone," Loki snapped. He covered the spell book he had been studying with one arm as he twisted around in the seat of his writing desk – no need to see for Thor what he was looking at and ridicule him again. Seidr – magic – a craft of women, they said, never mind the fact that Odin also – Loki pinched the skin above the bridge of his nose, trying to concentrate again. No one here appreciated magic, the only one who ever had was his mother and…and…something felt wrong for a minute, something was not quite right, and he didn't know why he was suddenly feeling so cold, and like he should be somewhere else, entirely…?

"What do you want, brother?" Loki asked, wearily. Thor had grown tall throughout the last century, his shoulders and cloak now blocking out most of the light when he stood in Loki's doorway.

"Oh, nothing much," Thor said, easily. "I have just come to slay you for daring to defile Asgard, you monster."

And the last thing Loki thought, nonsensically, as Mjolnir rushed toward him was wait, no, he shouldn't even possess Mjolnir yet, this is not right- before the darkness once again swallowed it all.

xxx

The wizard didn't reply; the Doctor didn't mind. It gave him a couple more seconds to think after all, to observe the figure standing before him, and to try and wrack his brain what the surroundings, everything reminded him of –

"Of course, I don't think I'd mind the heating bills quite as much as having to sit on that thing, mind you," the Doctor let his mouth cheerfully babble, "Looks really uncomfortable, if you ask me. Do you make all your furniture from swords? Sword lamps? Sword night stands? I mean, if you really want to go all in-"

"Silence!"

The wizard's voice boomed again, old, but powerful and deep, and the Doctor let his nonsense filibuster break off, smile dropping and expression becoming as hard as his eyes. It wasn't just the décor that was off. Even the wizard himself didn't look quite right, something about what his eyes were telling him just didn't seem real, but without his sonic screwdriver to analyze what it was exactly, he was a bit stumped...

Well, no reason why he couldn't find out the old-fashioned way.

"You have tempered with the climate and the time line of a planet protected under the accords of the Shadow Proclamation granted to any and all sentient civilizations that are on the cusp of being fledgling members of the intergalactic community," the Doctor said, voice steady but underlined with fury as he gazed up at the throne. "Something you have stolen from them by trying to throw them right back into the Stone Age. Why?"

The wizard did not seem that impressed. He took a few steps toward him, descending the stairs as the Doctor tried to draw calming breaths in the grip of his captors. The man stroked his beard.

"Interesting. You seem to not be from around here if you know about the Proclamation. But you don't seem to be from any more advanced civilization either, given your lack of magic," he swept his staff over the Doctor once, oddly reminiscent of a TSA agent at a human airport (the security procedures of which the Doctor had had to go through once and immediately caused an incident). The wizard sniffed.

"What are you, then? The human pet of the alien mage? Did he take you on adventures in his magic ship to show you how much there was in the cosmos that you hadn't even dreamed about?"

The Doctor levelled a flat stare at the wizard, wondering if that was even worthy a reply. Then he chose his answer with care.

"Not quite. I am the Doctor."

There wasn't any sort of recognition flickering in the eyes of the wizard which was noteworthy in and of itself. As far the Doctor was concerned, nearly any entity that affected an air as well-travelled as that wizard should have come across at least a mention of him if they had been around the block for…he eyed the other again…maybe eighty or seventy years at least, if his species was human or aged as fast as humans, even more if he didn't. The Doctor blinked. Unless…

"What, his medical assistant, then? What kind of mage would need one of those?" the wizard asked, crossing his arms. "He seemed powerful, but if he needs you along, maybe he isn't that great after all. Pah," he huffed, shaking his head.

"Loki is capable of far more than you," the Doctor said, voice low. "But I'm not surprised you wouldn't see that."

"Uh-huh, yeah, right," the wizard scoffed. "Just didn't quite feel up to showing it today, then, yeah? Oh, and for your information?" he asked haughtily. "I'm throwing them back into the Middle Ages, not the Stone Age. Not that I'd expect someone as stupid as y- I mean, of your pathetic little intellect to understand."

The Doctor blinked very slowly.

"Sorry," he said, "But how old are you, exactly? Oh, I mean the beard is very convincing and all," he waved a hand cheerfully, ignoring the fact that his arm was still restrained, "and the voice, oouh, yeah, good timbre for an old and all-powerful wizard, but the bushy eyebrows? Really? Don't you think that's a bit overkill? I mean, I'm nearing my first millennium, but I at least take care not to let my side burns get all out of control…"

The old and all-powerful wizard immediately seemed to turn an entire shade redder.

"That…that isn't any of your business!" he shouted. "Guards! Take him away! Let him rot in the cells until he's had time to think about how to address his betters!"

Oh, hit a nerve, did I? the Doctor thought but didn't ask out loud, bracing himself for the abrupt yank from the guards still holding him captive. On the outside, he let his expression immediately turn from cocky to panicky.

"No, wait! You can't! Without Loki's magic keeping me warm, I'll freeze to death in your ice palace!" he cried out. "Where have you taken him?!"

"Oh, no worries, I'll let the guards take you straight to see him," the wizard said, sneering. "Only it won't do you much good, of course. But maybe he will see that I mean business when you have almost frozen to death in the cell with him. Might even work as something to ensure that he will help me with my plan, if you say he is that powerful."

"What plan?!" the Doctor shouted as he was dragged away, but of course, you couldn't win them all. He kept the scared expression on his face at any rate, mostly because when he looked at the Winter King…'that guy' the wizard had called him, even though he hadn't been anywhere near the Doctor yet…

"Where…where are you keeping Loki," the Doctor asked, letting his voice come out feebly, watching the Winter King more intently. And sure enough, now the face looked just slightly more animated than before, as he replied,

YOU WILL SEE. HE IS KEPT IN THE WORST PRISON IN THE WORLD.

To be continued…

Chapter Text

YOU WILL SEE, the Winter King said as he led their small procession toward the lower level dungeons. HE IS KEPT IN THE WORST PRISON IN THE WORLD.

Well. That did not sound great, but the Doctor suppressed any roiling sensations in his stomach and instead tried to memorize the way they were taking to the cells from the throne room. Because he would get them out of here.

They descended a staircase to the ground level, and then another one, the temperatures, impossibly, dropping even lower than before. The Doctor briefly wondered if it meant that Loki's spell might have a shorter life span if it had to keep him warm in colder surroundings and hoped that it didn't – because while he was fairly certain he could break them out eventually, he wasn't sure how long it would take…

"The worst prison in the world, ey?" he made himself ask. "And by that you don't mean maybe a comfortable suite in the ice palace, maybe with a mini bar…hot chocolate, vending machine…?"

NO, the Winter King replied, just as they came to a stop in a dark corridor, the air so frigid down here that the Doctor wondered whether it would crystallize his lungs on the spot if he breathed it in unprotected. One of the guards let go of his arm and took a key from its belt, opening the door to a cell – where Loki lay motionlessly on the floor.

AS YOU CAN SEE, HE IS TRAPPED IN THE MOST SECURE PLACE POSSIBLE FOR ANY MAGE, the Winter King said, just as the other guard shoved the Doctor and let him stumble into the cell. HIS OWN NIGHTMARES.

The Winter King began to close the door. NOW WATCH YOUR PROTECTOR SUFFER THROUGH THE LONG NIGHT AS YOU FREEZE, HUMAN PET.

The door swung shut with a grind of ice on ice as he spoke, and the Doctor was left alone in the dark and the cold, the only sound he could hear the retreating steps from the animated corpses outside and…a whimpering coming from the frost giant at his feet.

"Oh, Loki," the Doctor murmured as he dropped down and reached into his suit pocket, rummaging a bit before he could produce a box of matches, letting one flare into light. Loki didn't wake to the brightness, merely turning his head to the other side, mumbling something in his sleep, face drawn and pale. There was no warmth at all radiating from him anymore. As the Doctor watched, a single spot of liquid ran from the corner of his eye down the side of his face, freezing into a line of ice on his temple.

The Doctor's lips thinned.

When he was through with this planet and this wizard, he thought, Global Warming would be a joke compared to what he was planning to unleash.

Then he sighed, reaching down to at least upright Loki somewhat against a wall, the frost giant's head lolling to the side but his eyes remaining closed. His skin was still Aesir-pale, but now nearly as white as the snow outside, and through the leather of his robe it felt like he was burning with cold.

"Hey. Loki. Wake up," the Doctor tried, shaking his companion by the shoulder, but, as he had already guessed, it did absolutely nothing to wake him. Instead, the Doctor thought he saw something like a yellowish band of light flit across Loki's body in reaction to the movement. This was obviously no ordinary unconsciousness.

"Alright," the Doctor murmured, "I guess it's a good thing I meant to end up here, but I'm also sorry, because I'm guessing you really won't like the next stage of the plan…"

He carefully lowered himself down against the ice wall next to Loki, exhaling a breath that formed a white cloud in the air. He was starting to get a bit cold now. He just hoped his own body would hold out for this next bit.

Turning his head toward Loki, he angled his torso a little and then reached out for the frost giant's still face.

The Doctor had figured that someone as powerful as Loki probably would not have been able to be kept imprisoned when awake, thus he likely wasn't awake – which meant, if only the Doctor could get a metaphorical alarm clock going here, they'd be out of this cell in a heartbeat.

So, the only thing he had had to do was put up enough of a panicky effort that made it seem like his capture hadn't been part of a plan – the strange wizard had seemed a bit like a testy, mistrustful sorcerer definitely too full of himself at times, and boy, if the Doctor hadn't had experience with that during last week, then he didn't know what. And so they had caught him, confirmed that he had approximately zero magical ability, judged him to be Loki's incompetent human sidekick and thrown him in with the frost giant.

(And, to be fair, the sidekick bit had stung a bit, but the Doctor thought he'd live.)

Also, well, the wizard had been right about the Doctor having no magical ability.

"Right about that, maybe," the Doctor murmured as he turned Loki's face toward his own, scooting closer to him so that their shoulders were touching now. "But if you think I'm human, then you've made a grave mistake."

Then he sighed, tilting Loki's face toward his own and mentally prepared himself for what he was about to do.

"I guess you don't like it when somebody rummages around in there", the Doctor said softly. "But I'm also guessing that the alternative is worse."

Next, he pressed his forehead against the other's, and within a moment, the Doctor's body had slumped beside Loki's, now both as lifeless as two dolls.

xxx

A split second later, the Doctor was already twisting himself through mindspace, Loki's 1000-year-old consciousness vast, and dark and shining, and alien and familiar at once, knowledge and memory and feelings roaring as a neuron storm around the Doctor, flashing, dissolving into...

Another dungeon. For a moment the Doctor thought Loki's mind had rejected him, but then he immediately realized that no, this wasn't the dungeon they had just been in - this was a prison made of stone and also, the Doctor was outside of any cells, standing in the corridor alone.

"...fine predicament you have landed us in, brother. Again."

The Doctor froze at Loki's voice. It had come from a cell further up ahead, and though his first instinct was to call out to Loki, shake him out of whatever memory this was so he could wake up and do something about their imprisonment in reality, there was a sudden stirring of curiosity that he couldn't immediately shake.

And, well. Curiosity killed the cat, but usually never the Doctor.

He stalked forward as quietly as he could, past the empty cells and keeping to the shadows of the corridor, following where Loki's voice had come from.

"Well, I could not have known that this was such a fiendish trick, could I?" A second voice, this one rich and booming (but at the moment sounding rather plaintive) asked. The next sound was a rather familiar sigh from Loki.

"Thor, one of mother's goats would have been able to tell it was a trick. And now how will we get out of this prison, hm?"

"I suppose I could smash those chains with a mighty blow from Mjolnir-"

"Oh, that same Mjolnir you lost gambling which brought us into this mess in the first place?" Loki's voice asked, laced with almost subtle amusement and the other voice answered with a howl of frustration.

The Doctor paused in his movement. He had advanced along the far wall of the corridor, far enough that he could see into the cell now that held Loki - and who had to be his brother. Thor.

"Please, Loki, can you not think of something?"

The other man in the cell groaned, and the Doctor had to pause for a moment, feeling this was a memory he probably shouldn't watch without asking, but too fascinated to look away. Inside the cell a slightly younger, shorter-haired but already just about adult version of Loki was chained spreadeagled to a wall. Yet his face still looked more at ease, his eyes far less hard than during any time the Doctor had seen him. Indeed, he seemed to look at the other man in the cell even with a bit of well-hidden fondness... 

Thor, who had been chained to the wall opposite to him, looked slightly older than Loki, and far heavier and muscular. A blond and bearded warrior who strained against his chains even as he pleaded with his brother to help him. Despite his state, there was something regal and commanding about his presence that let the Doctor's hackles rise on instinct - the man's far more martial-looking armour compared to Loki's familiar robes also didn't endear him to the Time Lord any.

"Well," Loki said at that point languidly, neither of the pair having noticed the Doctor yet (the Doctor also wondering if he even was visible to them if he stepped into view) "The Swartalfar have us locked in unbreakable chains. No magic or weapon in this world could destroy them."

"But...but you have a plan, do you not?" Thor asked, and the look on his face was for a moment so trusting, and expectant as he gazed upon his already freely grinning younger brother, the Doctor for a moment felt as if he definitely had seen something he shouldn't have.

"You know me too well," Loki replied, and then, as the Doctor watched, suddenly started to change shape; his manacled hands and ankles began to shrink, his face to lengthen unnaturally - and before Thor could utter anything but a gasp of surprise, Loki had already changed into a large, gleaming, black and golden snake with brilliant green eyes. The reptile grinned as it dropped lengthwise to the floor, empty manacles dangling loose and uselessly from the stone above.

"Ha-HAH!" Thor gave a roaring and triumphant laugh as Loki transformed back, eyes gleaming as he sketched a bow. Then, with a murmur he placed his hand next to the spot where Thor's chains were embedded in the stone walls.

"I cannot break your chains. But I have a feeling I might be able to break the stone they're bound to."

And so saying, he did - the rock under Loki's hand began to dissolve, Thor abruptly yanking his arms free, chains still dangling from his wrist but apparently hardly a hindrance to him.

"Free at last!" Thor shouted, raising a fist in the air. "Now Algrim shall rue the day he took Mjolnir!"

"The day you lost Mjolnir to him in a card game, which was yesterday, you mean?" Loki asked, voice wry but mouth quirked in amusement. Thor deflated a little.

"Well...yes. I admit that was a foolish action. I should have listened to you. I am glad you still came along, though," Thor said, giving Loki a rueful smile that made him seem younger and the Doctor couldn't help but see how the edges of Loki's lips twitched in answer, his mocking expression not vanishing, but turning gentler and fonder -

Which was where everything started to go wrong. The Doctor noticed how a certain line of light suddenly swept over everything, flashing, the surroundings outwardly not changing at all, but still somehow suddenly looking colder, more eerie. In the cell, too, Thor's expression had changed, the smile still on his face, but eyes cold now.

"Mostly I'm glad," he said to Loki now, who suddenly looked faintly unbalanced, confused as if fighting something, "because this is a place where no one will ever find your bastard corpse."

"Loki!" The Doctor cried out before he could stop himself, this wasn't real, but this didn't make it any less horrifying to look at. In the cell, Thor suddenly held a large, silver-gleaming hammer, raising it above Loki's head who had stumbled back in terror and confusion, hands coming up to defend himself that were already turning blue.

"No-no-no-Thor, please-!" Loki stammered, right before the Doctor's cry cut through the dungeon and Loki's eyes locked straight onto him, an even more confused expression flitting across his face for just a second - right until Thor's hammer struck his chest and everything was swallowed up by darkness.

xxx

The Doctor came to himself in their original ice cell with a gasp, just as Loki next to him had screwed his face up as if in pain.

The worst prison in the world.

"Rassilon, psychic aliens are the pits," the Doctor muttered, then grabbed Loki's (so incredibly cold) face again and went right back in.

XXX

It took two more memories for him to reach Loki. None of which the Doctor was pleased to have to see and none of which, he suspected, Loki would have preferred anyone else to be privy to.

The first one seemed harmless enough, two boys who the Doctor assumed had to be Loki and his brother Thor, playing a game of tag, laughing - but then more children arriving and Thor haring off to run off with them, leaving Loki behind, unable to keep up. Then the strange lightning came again, and with it, Thor returning with the horde of other children to hunt Loki with spears.

The Doctor thought that this particular memory likely wouldn't even have needed the distortion to hurt. He was far too familiar with the scenario to think otherwise.

But in this memory he had not been able to help, his place of observation high up behind a window in a palace of some sort, watching the scene in a courtyard below. He cursed himself as everything faded to black and he was back in the cell again, his body heat fading fast. He should have acted more quickly the first time, when he had actually been close to Loki in the memory. He didn't know if he would survive many more trips in the frost giant's mind and how long it might take for the wizard upstairs to have the brilliant idea to look him up and realize that leaving the Doctor unattended in any cell was about the stupidest thing you could do.

"Come on, Loki," the Doctor muttered as he grasped the other's face again. "Take me where I can help you."

XXX

This time, he materialized in a thunderstorm.

(The Doctor briefly wondered if Loki perhaps rather wanted him dead for the intrusion.)

"I never wanted the throne! All I wanted was to be your equal!"

"I will NOT fight you, brother!"

The Doctor whipped around. He was standing on the Bifrost in space, he realized, a thunderstorm raging around him. Beneath his feet the rainbow bridge stretched toward distant Asgard on the one side (still giving off the general impression of being a space organ in the Doctor's opinion) and on the other, about two hundred yards away…

The Observatory, the Doctor's memory of a brief fly-by supplied, a golden, dome-shaped building where Heimdall, Watcher of the Universe controlled the energy of the Bifrost. The energy which was currently shooting out into space…

"I fell because tried to use the Bifrost to erase Jotunheim from the face of Yggdrasil," Loki's bitter, cutting voice commented in his memory "My brother disagreed."

And as if on cue, now there were screams, crashes and lightning emanating from it, and, the Doctor realized, the screaming voices also belonging to Loki and Thor.

"Loki, this is madness!"

The Doctor started running.

Before he had even taken the first couple of steps, a hole burst from the wall of the Observatory, both Loki and Thor exploding onto the Bifrost, as of yet completely unaware of him, engaged in a fight in Loki's memory that the Doctor didn't dare guess how often it had played out yet. Loki was dressed in the clothes he had worn when he crashed into the TARDIS, so this was definitely the battle that had to have been the immediate precursor to their meeting…

As the Doctor ran, Loki hit the Bifrost hard and tumbled over its edge, only barely caught by Thor's hand. The Doctor's two hearts nearly stopped, if Loki died again before he could reach him -

"Ha-hah!" Loki's laughter rang out as his dangling form suddenly disappeared and reformed behind his kneeling brother, throwing Thor onto the floor and then spreading into an army of laughing illusions of himself like he had during his fight against the Winter King.

"LOKI!" the Doctor yelled, but it was impossible to be heard over the howling of the Bifrost-turned-death-ray, the crashes and screams of Thor and Loki fighting with their strength so far beyond human.

This. This right here is why I prefer Earth and humans over immortal crazy half-gods, the Doctor thought fervently as the laughter of twenty Lokis rang through the air until Thor howled "ENOUGH!" and somehow summoned bloody lightning to his hammer.

The electricity blasted into Loki's illusions and sent the real one flying backwards, the resulting shockwave also nearly making the Doctor lose his footing. As he steadied himself, Loki once again had landed on his back on the bridge, his brother stepping over him and now placing his magical hammer on Loki's chest.

"Loki! Dammit!" the Doctor shouted, picking up his pace again, the wind still snatching the words from his mouth. He was almost there…almost there…! Thor seemed to be approaching the Observatory, the ray of the rainbow bridge still firing onto Jotunheim, but the energy emanating from the building seemed to be too intense even for him to get close. Loki was laughing now, but it sounded desperate and manic.

Until Thor summoned his hammer from Loki's chest and struck the Bifrost. Again. And again.

"No! What are you doing?!" Loki yelled, leaping to his feet, grabbing his spear and charging toward Thor, just as his brother shouted "Forgive me, Jane!" in what the Doctor was sure was some intense family drama happening here, but right now he was also really concerned with getting to Loki before this memory ended and he was expelled from Loki's head again. This memory had already lasted longer than most without some obvious change in it, indicating it was perhaps the most important one of all…

Thor's final blow struck the Bifrost.

As it did, it created an explosion so bright and searing, the Doctor wasn't sure he would have been able to survive this without regenerating if this hadn't all been in the mind. Light and force washed over him, knocking him off his feet and sending him flying, his body landing hard on the Bifrost, air driven from his lungs. The Doctor barely had time to be grateful Thor's destruction of the rainbow bridge had not knocked him straight into space. As he scrambled to his feet again, his eyes widened as he saw that a new arrival had joined the scene – up ahead, Loki and Thor were now both dangling from the broken end of the Bifrost, Loki barely holding on to the end of his spear Thor was clutching, hanging upside-down above his younger brother. And Thor himself had been caught by his ankle by an old, one-eyed Aesir standing on the edge of the destroyed bridge now, despite his age his strength more than enough to hold both armour-clad men.

There were no ravens. There was no eight-legged Sleipnir rearing next to him, nor hungry wolves Geki and Freki prowling around his heels. But the way he stood, the absolute power he radiated, the way his golden mantle shone even more brightly than the  Bifrost itself meant that the Doctor couldn't have mistaken Odin if the he tried. 

"Loki!" The Doctor finally gasped, stumbling to a stop beside the All-Father, clapping a hand on his shoulder in a gesture that was as much companionable as a needed support to catch his breath. "Hello there. I'd introduce myself more formally, but right now I really need to get Loki and me out of here, if you don't mind - mind, hah, that's a good one," the Doctor babbled, but then stilled as he realized none of the three Asgardians seemed to be able to see or hear him.

"…Loki?" he tried, but even Loki was looking right past him, staring up at his silent father, and somehow looking so young and desperate for one moment as he had scarcely ever seemed on Lakvit.

"I could have done it, Father!" Loki cried instead, looking up at Odin imploringly. "I could have done it! For you," he added, voice breaking and oh, the Doctor thought, oh.

And when Odin spoke...

"No, Loki."

...the Doctor thought he could basically see something break behind his Loki's eyes.

The way he basked in your praise. On Asgard you are taught they are monsters. The self-hate, the surprise he showed whenever you had a kind word for him…

The Doctor thought he could recognize the last pieces of a very, very dismal puzzle sliding into place. This memory had not been modified so far because it had not needed to be. And now, the expression on Loki's face was so clear, because even while Odin seemed oblivious, now Thor was begging "Loki, no," but he couldn't reach him to stop him from letting go, falling-

The Doctor leapt.

To be continued...

Chapter Text

“Don’t you DARE let go!”

“What-?!”

“Brother?!”

Both Loki and Thor gave shocked cries, the whole dangling chain of people shaking as another, brown-suited link had joined it. Loki’s hand had reflexively tightened around the spear again as the weight of the Doctor had crashed down onto him, the Time Lord now clinging to his shoulders like a very determined backpack with a tie as he shoved his forehead against Loki’s temple.

(The Doctor at this point was for once very glad that even in a dream Aesir and frost giants were far stronger than humans or Time Lords because otherwise they’d likely be falling off the cliff all four of them now.)

The moment his skin touched Loki’s, he could feel a connection finally opening up and he pushed at it, shouting Loki’s name straight into his consciousness, letting his own mind flare as brightly as he dared. Loki’s eyes went wide as he did, the frost giant gasping – and then Thor and Odin followed and from one moment to the next, finally, finally all three men were looking at him (even if only with various degrees of bafflement).

“Ah-hah! I knew contact would help!” The Doctor exclaimed in triumph. “Well. Almost knew. Was very confident, anyway. Well. Fairly confident. Well-“

“Brother, who is this man?!” Thor shouted in panicked confusion, above them. “Kick him off if he tries to kill you, I beg you!”

“Oy!” The Doctor yelled back, raising his head, “I’m not-! Oh, forget it, I’m just glad you can apparently all hear me. Loki,” he said instead, turning to look into Loki’s face. Loki himself hadn’t reacted at all yet, only staring at him like he wasn’t certain what he was seeing.

“Loki. Do you know who I am? Do you remember me?” the Doctor asked, voice intense as he searched the green eyes for recognition. “This isn’t real. This has already happened. You let go of this spear and you fell. You fell into my ship,” he said, willing the other to believe him. “We’re in your mind. The sorcerer who controls the Winter King has trapped us here. You need to wake up.”

“Wake…up…?” a faint frown appeared in between Loki’s eyebrows, emotions flickering across his face. Above him, Thor and Odin seemed to have fallen still, perhaps because there were no cues for them in this course the memory had taken, or perhaps Loki wasn’t currently thinking about them.

“Yes!” The Doctor insisted, more fervently now. “We’re…” and he paused, for a moment feeling like there was something dragging at his mind now, trying to block things from him, but he snarled and mentally lashed out at it, prying the words and his memories free. “We’re on Lakvit,” he insisted, pushing against what had to be the spell in his own mind now, trying to drag him off into his own world of dark memories and nightmare fantasies - the Master’s face staring back at him, lifeless. Gallifrey burning. Rose-

“…Doctor?”

Loki’s hesitant voice snapped the Doctor back into the present. And he could feel the broadest grin stretching across his face.

“Yes! You remembered!” he cheered, careful not to accidentally dislodge himself from his precarious hold around Loki’s neck and shoulders.

“I…do,” Loki said, hesitantly, then glancing around, as if increasingly confused by their surroundings. “Thor,” he croaked, his gaze becoming almost transfixed by his brother’s face above him. “Why are we…?”

“Don’t let yourself get distracted,” the Doctor warned. “This is all in your head. You know it is. Can’t you feel it pushing at your mind?” he asked, even if he had to consciously focus now, the feeling of whispering voices from the Academy, from Adric, from Astrid becoming stronger in his head, insisting there was guilt and darkness and that he was somewhere else, helpless…the Doctor shook his head violently; the power of mind manipulation this mage possessed was frightening up close like this, now that the spell in Loki’s head had noticed him. And beneath them the void still howled and the Doctor was praying that the change wouldn’t come and Thor would toss the two of them into it.

“I…yes,” Loki said, voice sounding stronger now, more certain. “I…remember. How do we-?”

And then something flickered across the memory again, a change washing over everything that made things wrong, the void below them almost sucking at them now, Thor’s frightened and worried face suddenly colder, Odin’s inscrutable expression now downright flat and disinterested.

“Loki. Why will you not make this easier on all of us and let go?  You are not of Asgard; and no use to me as a puppet king of the Jotnar if you try to destroy their world first,” Odin promptly said, cutting and disdainful.

Loki gave a small strangled sound, raising his head again to look at his family.

“N-No. Father-”

“You were always a disappointment, Loki. Compared to Thor.” Odin said. “Now you fail to even die correctly, too weak and scared to-”

“Oh will you shut up!”

(And that actually did work and the Doctor was grateful for it because, much like his last-ditch attempt during the London Blitz, those would have been terrible last words.)

As it was, now all three Asgardians were staring at him equally shocked, Odin and Thor perhaps mirroring Loki's feelings on the Time Lord's outburst. The Doctor tried to tighten his hold on Loki, quickly pushing on while he had the upper hand.   

“Oh, believe me, I know this part isn’t real, but some cheap manipulation of this memory,” the Doctor said, glaring at Odin, “But what you said before, what the real Odin said, wasn’t so much better. What were you thinking, treating your son like that?!”

"I...this...who are you to disrespect the King of Asgard?" Odin seemed taken aback for a moment, but then thundered in a way only literal godfathers could, seemingly growing taller and more menacing by the minute. The Doctor bared his teeth up at him.

"Me? Oh no one but the Lord of Time. And I've had it up to here with pompous self-proclaimed kings and wizards for today!" the Doctor snapped. “Your son. Loki," he continued. "He is smart. He is resourceful and clever and he evidently tried to please you and yet you have made him desperate enough to do this," the Doctor shouted, flinging one arm away from himself to indicate everything, the broken Bifrost, the destroyed Observatory-turned-death-ray, "despite all that! What is your high and mighty Asgard worth, if you can’t love your children?" He snarled. "What is it worth if you disregard an orphan boy for his race?”

Odin, for a moment, didn’t look phased. But this wasn’t about Odin. Odin wasn’t even here. The only things the King of Asgard was saying were what Loki, somewhere, was thinking. And now the Doctor was still clinging to the frost giant, the void howling beneath them, Loki's last memory of Asgard stretching, the spell fighting the reality of how it had gone back then...

“Thor." Odin finally spoke. "Let them fall.”

For a moment, the Doctor wanted to scream in frustration, out of instinct clamping onto Loki and screwing his eyes shut in anticipation of the void soon tearing into them, not knowing what would happen to his mind in this memory - 

But then he noticed they weren't actually falling.

"L...Loki?" he croaked, raising his head again and trying to get a glimpse of what was happening. Loki was looking up at his brother holding the other end of the spear above, green eyes wide and uncomprehending as to why Thor hadn't heeded their father's command yet...

Thor, whose face was suddenly an expression so desperate and frightened the Doctor was absolutely certain that this wasn't part of the spell.

"Th...Thor...?" Loki managed, voice hoarse, gaze darting between Odin's frozen, distant expression and Thor's blue eyes alight with a pain as if he were being ripped apart from within. But his older brother’s grip on the spear remained so tight they could see his nails whitening from here.

 "I...I will not let go, brother," Thor said, voice sounding raw and strained with something that could not have been the mere physical exertion of holding them.

"But..." Loki swallowed. "The Allfather said - so why would you-?"

"Oh," the Doctor said, quietly, mostly because he had only just realized it himself. "Because I think you believe he wouldn't."

Loki's head turned. Green eyes now stared at the Doctor, just as confused and non-understanding. "...what?"

"Because - like I said, this is your memory," the Doctor said, speech speeding up now that the puzzle pieces were sliding into place in his head. "All of this is in your mind, with the spell trying to distort your memories, turn them against you, make you feel powerless and alone," the Doctor let a grin hitch up one side of his mouth. "But now you're fighting it." 

Loki blinked, once again shooting a glance back up at Thor and then back to the Doctor. "But…I can't be. My magic was spent after this fight, you remember how you found me in your ship, I can’t-"

"No! Not with your magic, you’re not," the Doctor exclaimed, excitedly. "But I told you you’re more than that. Thor, Odin, all of the people in your memories, they do what you want them to. Or rather what you believe they'd do, or what the spell is trying to make you believe they'd do." The Doctor swallowed. "And until now I've seen you torturing yourself worse in your memories than any other ever could."

That made Loki's head snap around. "Wait. You mean - you saw-?"

The Doctor grimaced, glad that this world was under Loki’s mental control and confusion on his side evidently meant everything else ground to a halt. "Look, I didn't mean to, but I saw your memories when I went looking for you. Or rather what that spell was turning them into."

There was quite a mishmash of emotions battling for real estate on Loki's face for a moment, confusion, suspicion, wariness, shock (and, unsurprisingly, outrage for a heartbeat), but he didn't rip the Doctor from his back or do anything else rash, so that was promising. Instead, green eyes narrowed, Loki obviously trying to compute everything the Doctor had just told him. The Doctor pounced on the chance.

"But I also saw you and your brother in your older memories. And back on Lakvit you told me about this memory here. Your brother didn't push you back then." The Doctor's voice was low but determined. He took a breath.

"And I think deep down you know he never would."

Loki made a noise that was perhaps intended as a dismissive scoff, but, somehow came out more like a strangled choke, before rapidly looking away. The Doctor subtly shifted his hold, but wasn't about to stop pushing.

"You do, don't you?" he instead asked, quietly. "Otherwise he wouldn't still be holding you."

Loki didn't reply anything. His face was now entirely turned away from the Doctor and the Time Lord tried to tactfully pretend he couldn't hear the shaking breaths. Instead, he raised his gaze again and tried to let his voice sound a bit more casual.

"And I mean, look, your father at least isn't actively trying to kill us at the moment, either. So, I mean, it's not exactly A+ parenting here, but-"

"Doctor." Loki's voice sounded hoarse and more than a bit strangled.

"Yes?"

"Either you shut up for a minute now or I swear I will drop you."

"...point taken," the Doctor said, voice an octave higher than before. He let a few moments actually pass in silence, trying to give Loki as much privacy as he could while literally almost feeling every vertebra of the back he was currently clinging to. When Loki’s rhythm of breathing had calmed down just a bit (and the Doctor pretended not to notice a suspicious movement of Loki just briefly wiping his face on his forearm), he tried speaking again, quietly. 

“Loki...I know it must be complicated, but," the Doctor licked his lips. "You have a family. I had one. Don't throw them away."

Loki didn't reply directly, but the Doctor could see Thor's face above them, holding onto the spear with a face full of fear, strain, but, ultimately, a love so fierce his blue eyes seemed to be glowing with it, and that, the Doctor thought, had to be something the memory-warping spell had obviously utterly failed at distorting if you only reminded Loki where to look.

Then, after a few more moments, the Time Lord cleared his throat.

"Also, we're both actually inside an ice cell in the Winter King's dungeon, and I'm slowly freezing to death, so I would appreciate it if we could both leave your head before this is the last place my consciousness is existing."

At that, Loki finally raised his head. And though there was no trace of a smile, there were no tears or desperation visible anymore either, Loki's face now only consisting of determination - and, perhaps, just the tiniest hint of fondness in his eyes as he raised his gaze toward Thor.

"Very well. Pull us up -" Loki took a breath, then exhaled, "...brother."

Next, the Doctor mostly barely suppressed a pained yelp as Thor as a result heaved so enthusiastically and quickly, both of them were hurled upwards toward the Bifrost and both the Time Lord's shoulders nearly dislocated from the wrench. He landed painfully on the broken rainbow bridge for the second time that day, scrambling to his feet to see Loki of course having landed gracefully next to Odin who had now pulled Thor onto solid ground as well. Loki's older brother was already surging toward Loki, squeezing him into an embrace that looked strong enough to strangle a medium-aged oak tree.

"Loki!" Thor exclaimed. "I thought I had lost you."

"You, ah, did. For a while, at least," Loki amended, face screwed up as he was crushed in his bigger brother's arms. Thor shook his head.

"Whatever I did, I did not mean to drive a wedge between us, Loki. I truly wish the past few days could be undone."

"Yes, yes, fine," Loki growled. "Point taken. Apparently, my subconscious is willing to forgive you. And I know...it has not just been you who has behaved less than worthy." He closed his eyes and sighed in Thor's embrace, for a moment ceasing his struggling. When he opened his eyes again, his voice did sound at least a tad gentler as he added. "And you can let me go now." He glanced to the side, effectively everywhere but at the Doctor. "This is embarrassing, and I have...matters to attend to."

"Oh, I didn't think it was embarrassing," the Doctor piped up, grinning and sauntering back to the Asgardian family. He let his grin turn back into a gentler smile. "More...touching, really. And helpful, I think."

Loki managed a glare at him. "I will choose not to comment on this." He straightened his clothes again. "In any case, if you're in my head, I'm glad you're only a figment of my imagination. Although I'm surprised whatever remains of my sanity has chosen you of all things as an avatar of reason to help me break this spell."

"...ah. Figment of your imagination. Yes," the Doctor replied carefully. Maybe it was for the best Loki had decided he wasn't real for the moment and hadn't seen all this in his mind, at least until they had gotten back into the real world. "So, how about we say goodbye to your family and see about getting you back up and awake?"

"Say goodbye...?" Loki raised an eye brow at him, but then already gave a dismissive wave, the familiar gesture of any companion who had learned there were battles against the Doctor impossible to win.

"Oh, very well." He turned to Thor. "...Thor," he said, and his voice for a moment sounded just a bit rougher than it had a moment ago. "I have to leave now. I do not know whether I will return to Asgard for a while," he said, before letting just a touch of warmth enter his tone. "But I may not remember everything as bleak."  

Thor, for his part, returned a full smile, wistfulness naked on his face. “I'm glad to hear that. I could not bear it when you fell, Loki,” he said, before fading away slowly, leaving Loki to turn to the other Asgardian remaining. The frost giant's expression was noticeably cooler as he did, but at least nowhere near as desperate as before.

"All-Father," Loki said. "I will not pretend I believe you took me from Jotunheim without ulterior motive for your politics. But..." he hesitated. "My birthmother is dead, but your wife raised me with all the love a child could ask for." He swallowed. "This, at least, is something genuine you gave me. Perhaps I shall thank you one day."  

Odin didn't reply, mostly looked at Loki like he himself did not quite know what to say, but then also vanished like Thor had, finally leaving Loki and the Doctor alone on the silent Bifrost. Loki stared for a couple more moments into the air where Thor and Odin had turned into star dust, before abruptly whirling around and stalking back toward the Doctor.

"Right," he said, face once again neutral and eyes intent. "That's done. Now. I have a sorcerer to murder. How do you suggest I...wake up?"

"Hm,” the Doctor said, choosing to ignore the more worrying statements for now, “Technically, we're in your subconsciousness, so up would be the way to go-oh," the Doctor interrupted himself, craning his head backwards in thought, then raising his own eyebrows as he saw something above he had not immediately noticed - the sky above them was in fact closed off behind a sort of energy shield, a dome-like forcefield ceiling that covered the entire stretch of the memory.

"...the spell keeping me imprisoned in my mind," Loki supplied grimly, also staring up at it. Of course, both of them knew that nothing was really there, the barrier merely a visual representation of the spell by Loki's imagination, but this unfortunately didn't make it any less real of an obstacle. 

"Yeah," the Doctor agreed, absent-mindedly tapping the sonic screwdriver against his lower lip, frowning. Now, this by far wasn't the worst situation he had ever been in, although the fact that he thought he could now feel the temperature dropping even in this dream indicated that perhaps he was really running out of time, here -

"Doctor?" Loki's voice interrupted him. "You appear to be holding your screwdriver. Has it turned back into a tool, then?"

"Wha-oh!" The Doctor exclaimed. Loki was right, of course. In his hand rested his sonic screwdriver, looking just as fancy as before and not at all like some haywire time-displacement magic had turned it into a plain stick yesterday. Because for a moment he had forgotten it wasn't in his pocket and just thought about fidgeting a bit with it which meant...

"Well," The Doctor looked smug. "I don't think I could have managed this on my own, but now that you're back up and fighting, apparently -" he gestured. "Our friend the Winter King needs to learn a lot about my people and our ways to get in and out of places. Because when I visualize how I would get out of any place..." He turned around.

And there, just as he had hoped for, now stood the TARDIS, bright and blue and inviting in the middle of the rainbow bridge.

"Big fights?" the Doctor asked. "Not really my style. But a mental battlefield?" his face lit up. "Oooh, they never see me coming."

xxx

For Loki, it was just as strange as the end of any dream, in that you never were quite aware of it ending until you were suddenly back in your bed and it took a moment to realize that your surroundings now were real and before they hadn’t been.

Next, of course, memories and implications hit his mind with approximately the force of Mjolnir dropped from orbit.

Emotions were immediately rushing up inside of him in tidal waves, FURY at the Winter King for daring to touch him, sedate him, imprison him, torture him with his mind, violate him – and then shame came flooding over all this, for letting himself be defeated, letting himself be tormented by his own memories, the humiliation – and then he froze again as his gaze now fell on the Doctor slouched next to him, the Time Lord starting to open his eyes, lips parting but only managing a strangled, hoarse noise as he looked up at Loki, because now the third realization hit, which was that the Doctor hadn’t been a figment of his imagination, that he had been in Loki’s mind, uninvited, and he had seen everything-

Loki surged from his slumped position against the wall of the Winter King’s dungeon as if bitten by a snake, brutally shoving the Doctor into a helpless sprawl on the floor as he did, before whirling around like a caged tiger.

“You were in my head!” he shouted, aware of his own bared teeth, the entwined rage and embarrassment and fear within him, the Doctor had seen his patheticness, his desperate need for approval from a family who thought little better of him than a pet –

Loki stopped himself. Looking at the Doctor's wide-eyed face, he suddenly became acutely aware of their situation again - he was standing, towering over the other man sprawled on his back on the floor in front of him, skin as pale as possible, muscles too cold to let him speak properly, let alone move, wide, anxious brown eyes locked onto his as he was trying to say something but failing.

Sturdier than humans definitely, but now the sheer difference in raw physical power between him and Loki could not have been more pronounced, even without the Time Lord basically knocking at hypothermia’s door.

And still he came into your mind to rescue you. Loki swallowed, trying to draw one, two breaths to get his thoughts back under control. The Doctor had to have known it would pose severe risk to himself, what he lacked in physical strength he definitely made up for in terms of intelligence, and he had still done it, even if it would leave him helpless like this.

And he didn’t see you as pathetic, either, that voice continued, he defended you against the Allfather, he…made you realize…

“By the Nine, I am sorry,” Loki whispered, at the same time dropping onto a knee and reaching out to the Doctor’s cold neck and cheek, letting his magic flow down and into him, restoring the warmth and colour of the Time Lord’s skin. The Doctor gasped like he had been suffocating, abruptly sitting up and blinking before shaking his head and then turning toward Loki before giving him a tentative smile.

“Aaah, that’s a lot better. Thanks.” He pulled a slightly reproachful grimace. “Though I could have done without the shoving, mind you.”

“I know,” Loki replied. “And I…apologize,” he added, a part of him noting how much easier those words came to him now. He glanced away from the Doctor.  “I acted rashly. Please forgive my…misconduct.”

“Heh.” Now the Doctor sounded slightly amused again, brushing a few ice crystals off his suit and hair.  “It’s alright. No harm done. And I get that it’s not the most comfortable thing to have someone rummage through your head,” he said, a slightly sympathetic expression flitting across his face as Loki looked back up again. “If it’s any comfort…” he shifted, “I know the feeling of being the last one picked in sports.”

“Indeed. Somehow I doubt that happened in any discipline involving running,” Loki muttered, though he could feel the edge of his mouth wanting to curl upwards in answer to the Doctor’s smile. Instead, he reached out and down, pulling the Doctor to his feet with ease, the Time Lord’s grip on his wrist once again warm and strong.

“Well,” Loki said, at once feeling slightly flustered and therefore making a show of interlacing his fingers and then inverting and stretching them as if loosening his hands up for battle, looking around their cell. “Before we make our way out of here…and believe me, we will….” he said, letting menace curl like thorns through the last word, “Will you tell me what happened? The last instant I remember I had been shot and then…nothing until now.”

“Ah, well,” the Doctor rubbed the back of his head. What followed was a brief explanation of the events of the past few hours, including Loki being carried off, and the Doctor then following the trail of the horseman called the Winter King to the actual mage’s stronghold, a whose dungeon they now were in.  When the Doctor had finished, Loki couldn’t help but stare a bit blankly.    

“So. I was kidnapped and you…managed to find our enemy’s base thanks to that. By coming to my rescue.”

“Er. Yeah?” the Doctor ventured.

Loki closed his eyes and pinched the skin above his nose. “By the Norns, I am your companion.”  

“Oy! There’s worse things, you know!” the Doctor protested, sounding slightly offended.

But he had not denied the statement at all. And now, even here, as a prisoner and victim of their enemy, for just a moment Loki could not prevent his lips pulling into a slight smile (that he hoped looked a lot drier than it felt).

He cleared his throat. “Oh well. I suppose,” he said, at least managing to make that sound wry, and then deliberately turned around, raising his arms toward the door. “Then I think I should make myself useful.”

And then, nothing in the world could have felt as sweet as the pure and raw magic that surged up inside him. Loki had been forced into a slumber for hours at the heart of this castle pulsating with thaumaturgical energy, their enemy apparently a complete fool to not know what kind of effect that would have on an innate spellcaster such as himself. Now his Seiðr, refreshed and filling him to the brim, was rushing to meet his command and blasted out of his hands in a show of sheer and unadulterated force, completely obliterating the door and, indeed, the entire front wall of their cell with it. Loki gave a grin that was positively feral.

“Let me show that sorcerer what winter means.”

(“Oh boy,” the Doctor said.)

To be continued…

Chapter Text

"Loki!"

Loki could hear the Doctor calling after him as he strode through the wreckage of their former cell into the corridor, robe swirling around his steps, magic pulsing underneath his skin. Behind him, the Doctor made a noise that indicated he may not have been exactly on board with this new development but that, Loki thought, they could hash out later.

Preferably when standing in the absolute ruins of this castle.

xxx

"Loki! Oh for-!" The Doctor hurried after the Asgardian now striding toward the staircase, Loki's leather boots unfortunately finding far easier purchase on the icy floor than his own cream-coloured Chucks. As he still scrambled to catch up, Loki had already reached the top of the stairs, stepping into the corridor that led to the throne room doors. The Doctor was just high enough on the staircase to see the skeleton guards there rush at Loki, but the frost giant reached out almost absent-mindedly, grabbing one of them by its throat and then slamming it into the other one so hard, bones and limbs scattered through the corridor like the insides of a special variety of goth party pinata.

Not even acknowledging the demise of his enemies, Loki once again ignited flames in his left hand, reaching out with his right for the doors of the throne room -

"Loki wait!"

...and thankfully finally paused at the Doctor's third shout, chancing a glance back over his shoulder, eyes flashing with annoyed impatience.

"Yes? What is it now, Doctor?"

"Killing is not the answer, is what it is!" The Doctor gestured at the destroyed ice zombie guards and then at the throne room. "There has to be a...less murdery solution!"

Loki shot him a look.

Then: 

"...how have not any of your enemies strangled you on sight yet?"

xxx

When the Doctor only looked at him with the same 'I can see all of Time and Space and now I also have a toothache'-expression in response, Loki could feel himself give the mental equivalent of a curse. He lowered the hand with the fire in it.

"Fine. What do you suggest."

Relief flashed over the Time Lord's face almost too quick to catch, and Loki supposed it a small mercy that at least the Doctor didn't say anything to that regard. Instead, his expression quickly returned to earnestness. "I don't think that wizard is quite what he is pretending to be. I think-"

"WHAT THE-? GUARDS!" a booming voice drowned out whatever the Time Lord had meant to say next and Loki could feel a wash of magic pulsing outwards from the throne room. Clearly their moment of complete surprise was already lost, but if they could still corner the wizard before they called upon their wintry hordes they wouldn't be at a complete disadvantage.

"Well, whatever he is, we shall find out one way or another," Loki said, and then turned around, blasting the doors open and walking into throne room, power rolling off him in waves, every bit the Norse god Earth mythology made him out to be.

"Wizard," he said, "I shall make you rue the day you were born."

"H-How did you-?!" the winter sorcerer leapt up from a writing desk behind his throne, eyes wide and his voice a high squeak as he saw Loki and the Doctor in the throne room's entrance. He recovered remarkably quickly, though.

"I- I mean, Guards!" He pointed the golden staff at them, blue tip glowing as he ran around the throne. "Come in here and SEIZE HIM!"

"Mmh. I think not." Loki let the throne room's doors slam shut with a wave of his hand. "No more guards. No more puppets to fight for you." He took a step forward. "Nothing will save you from my wrath."

"Oh, oh, oh yeah?!" The wizard shot back, retreating a step backwards, but then obviously tried to steel himself and steadied his stance and voice again, ramming his staff into the floor in front of him to stop Loki's advance. "Well, maybe I have a surprise for you, because, because I'm not locked in here with you – you're locked in here with me!"

"Uh, yes." The Doctor frowned. "I mean, that's basically what you said in the first half of the sentence already."

"That's not what I - it's a – oh FORGET IT!" the wizard shouted, but at least apparently abandoned any attempt at witty conversation, and straight up levelled a blast of magical energy at them powerful enough to disintegrate them both.

xxx

Well. At this point Loki was quite glad that the Doctor at least seemed to have been in enough battles to keep his wits about him, even if he wasn't much use in an actual duel himself. Loki had managed to shove the Time Lord out of the way of the blast, then immediately drew the wizard's continuing fire onto himself by retaliating with a stream of flame and making himself the primary target. The Doctor, from what he could see out of the corner of his eye, was doing his best to be inconspicuous, creeping toward the writing desk in the back part of the throne room, taking care to keep furniture in between himself and the enemy wizard.

Good. Loki was fairly certain he would be able to deal with the mage if the other didn't get the bright idea to use the Doctor against him – indeed, he had the curious feeling that this wizard was a beginner, despite his age. Only the sheer power he wielded showed the years of experience and, if he had been able to use it more tactically, would have frightened Loki to his core. But luckily, the other did not seem to be able to use the same level of magic in a duel as he had used when subjugating an entire planet to his will…

Wait. Loki narrowed his eyes as he dodged another blast, shielded himself against a wave of freezing next and then retaliated by splitting himself into twenty different images and throwing a chair at the other's head. Was this actually the power of the sorcerer himself or...?

"Pathetic mortal!" Loki let the rest of his illusions vanish with a snap of his fingers, grinning as the wizard's beady eyes immediately focused on him, rage barely held back, "Look at you, clutching at your scepter like a mewling child at its mother's apron! Face me under your own power, I dare you!"

"I'm not a-!" the wizard screeched immediately (and Loki thought the Doctor, still creeping along in the background, had just thrown him a thumbs-up). Loki was already concentrating on suppressing a grin at the other's simple-mindedness, but then-

"…I, I mean, what do you think I am, stupid?!" the wizard cut himself off and laughed. "Who would be so daft to throw away their weapon just because it's more honourable or manly or whatever?"

Oh well.

"Oh, you'd be surprised," Loki replied instead, and then was already busy trying to land on his feet after a particularly powerful blast of the other had torn right through his shield and thrown him into the next wall. Two knives flung in quick succession even before he landed at least seemed to surprise the wizard a little but, Loki thought, as long as the other held onto that staff, this battle could take a while.

What kind of artefact could be this powerful?

xxx

The Doctor was so far actually quite pleased with his progress. Loki and the winter wizard were going at it with the fervor of two magical hellcats that just had their territory invaded, the throne room a firework of thunderous spells, streams of fire, blinding illusions and furniture flying about. Loki was moving through it all with the grace of an Asgardian warrior - and one who knew his power came from dexterity rather than strength, dodging nearly all of the blasts his shields couldn't stop. Yet few spells of Loki found their mark either, and that was also not completely due to the wizard s defensive magicks - the old man was leaping on top of tables, diving behind chests and generally running around the throne room as if he were a squirrel connected to a power socket.

But all of this meant that the wizard was far too distracted to notice a certain Time Lord sneaking up on the table behind the ridiculous throne made of swords, and getting to see exactly what –

The Doctor paused. And stared at what yes, clearly was an open laptop and a Kree energy drink sitting right among a dozen parchments and spell scrolls all scattered across the writing desk.

An open laptop, the screen clearly displaying…

"Physics homework?" the Doctor asked aloud.

Xxx

"Hah. You actually thought you could best me?!"

Loki raised his head again, staring balefully at the wizard, but refusing to deign the question with an answer. He had been flung across the throne room again, breath knocked out of him by one blow too many, the incredible force contained in the staff something he didn't think he had ever dealt with before. If not the man himself, then at least his scepter seemed ancient in its power. And now it was pointing straight down at Loki, about to kill him at any moment, when-

"Physics homework?" the Doctor asked aloud.

"Wha-?!"

The enemy wizard whirled around with a gasp, staring at the Doctor bent over the writing desk, now looking at the wizard disbelievingly.

"This is your physics homework, isn't it?" The Time Lord asked, face screwed up and now sounding almost accusatory. "And half of your answers are wrong."

"This- this isn't any of your business!" the wizard screamed, now sounding actually far too shrill for an old man, and far too inattentive to survive, Loki thought, back on his feet in a graceful instant, reaching for his magic spear to impale the back turned toward him –

"But thank you for bringing yourself to my attention," the wizard then drawled, before whirling around again before Loki could move to attack, once more levelling the scepter at him and giving him a smirk. "After all, I almost would have overlooked your weakness again, Asgardian."

"I have no-" Loki began, teeth bared, but before he could finish, the wizard had already waved the hand that wasn't holding his scepter. In response, the Doctor gave a yelp as he was yanked from behind the writing desk by an invisible force, whirled through the room and then slammed onto the seat of the iron throne. Bands of magic wrapped around his neck, wrists and ankles near instantly as the Time Lord gasped, bucking out of reflex, but uselessly.

"Don't you dare move, Aesir," the wizard said, narrowing his eyes at Loki, who was now standing again, heaving heavy breaths as he chanced a glance at the Doctor – there was not yet fear visible in the Time Lord's eyes, but Loki could feel his own heart beating faster in a way that had nothing to do with the negligible exhaustion of the battle. Right now, he was standing right before the three steps leading up to the wide dais on which the strange throne stood, the Doctor bound on it and facing him, the wizard standing next to the Time Lord, gaze still fixed on Loki and his scepter wavering between the two.

"Ah, paying proper attention and respect now, are you?" the wizard asked Loki, settling a hand on the seated Doctor's shoulder (and Loki noted with slight alarm how something in his chest made him want to lunge at the man at that).

"Let me just make sure that it stays that way. You see, my...project is not quite proceeding as I want it to. I think I may have some use for you," the wizard continued, then raised his scepter and let its tip wander, starting to near the Doctor's chest. Both Loki's as well as the Time Lord's eyes were fixed on it, the helplessness Loki felt in that particular moment almost tearing him apart.

The Doctor cleared his throat. "Wait," he began, tilting his head up at the wizard, licking his lips, "whatever it is, I'm sure I can also help you. If you're struggling with working out any physics problems, I can do that. You can let Loki go," he said, brown eyes looking at the wizard, imploring – but of course, the response was merely a snort from the old man.

"A human. Thinking he can help me," the wizard scoffed. "No, you will help me – as insurance," he grinned, before raising his staff again, chancing another look at Loki. "Do you see my scepter? As soon as I touch his heart with its tip, his will is mine, forever. And I can order him to kill you if you try to cross me. Or I can order him to kill himself. Wouldn't want that, now, would we?" the wizard smiled. "And now watch as I make him my servant…"

NO!  Loki would have wanted to scream as the scepter moved toward the bound Doctor, the Time Lord unable to evade the tip as it neared his heart, but screaming would be useless, Loki had simply failed at something, again-

The tip of the scepter touched down on the Doctor's chest, sinking into the thin fabric of his shirt right above his heart. And as soon as it did, the Time Lord's eyes glazed over, his features growing slack and dull, Loki almost feeling as if any energy had been drained out of his own limbs as he saw the previously so alive expression of the other now, dazed and empty.

This…this isn't supposed to happen, a voice at the back of his mind insisted, and, one much weaker added, It's not supposed to hurt like this.  

But it had and it did and this was exactly why he hadn't wanted to ever-

"Very well. Rise, servant," the wizard said, interrupting any of Loki's thought processes. The glowing magical bonds on the Doctor's limbs and neck dissolved at his words and the Time Lord stood up, standing next to the wizard, limbs and face lifeless like a doll's.

"And I think I already have an idea for a first order for you...Loki, was it?" the wizard continued, tone amused now. "Lower your head and kneel to me, Asgardian."

Loki stared at the wizard, expressionless. All of this was useless. It might be better to launch an assault now, a suicide maybe, but what else had his flinging himself off the Bifrost had been? This end to the last four days only was a further demonstration of how laughable his hopes were that there ever would be anybody who would see in him anything other than an abomination to be purged, or a tool to be used.

Not without paying a price like this for it. 

His hand tightened around the last of his hidden knives in his sleeve – yes. Better to die like this than endure an eternity of humiliation, perhaps give the Doctor a fighting chance to not stay a mind slave to this wizard when he would not be valuable as a hostage anymore. He deserved as much...

The first to ever look at your true face without flinching. The first to ever smile at what you were when they saw, Loki thought, remembering the only other times when he had transformed into his Jotunn skin before, Odin's pained guilt, Heimdall's-

Loki froze. 

Not only because he had just remembered something really important that had played a part in both those memories, buried until know because its remembrance had been too painful - but also because, just for a moment, he thought he had just seen the edge of one of the Doctor's eyes twitch.

"Well? I am waiting," the wizard grated, moving the tip of his scepter threateningly toward the Time Lord's still throat. "Don't make me do things you will regret. On your knees. Now."

"…very well." Loki forced himself to say, knowing that the trepidation he forced onto his face was not at all far from the truth. He swallowed. "I concede."

As the old man only smirked more broadly in response, Loki lowered his head and started to let himself sink to his knees – and then, just as he had hoped, there was suddenly a cry of 'HEY!"' from the wizard, and as Loki's head snapped back up again, there was the Doctor, eyes lit up and alive, having just snatched the scepter from the wizard and giving him the brightest grin.

"How-?!" the wizard sputtered, fruitlessly making a grab, but the taller Time Lord could keep the scepter out of his reach effortlessly.

"Heart magic, ey?" the Doctor asked, before slapping the right side of his chest with this other hand. "You left the job half done, mate!"

"I will not-! Give it BACK!" the wizard shouted, already stretching his hand out in a similar way as when he had performed the spell to hurl the Doctor onto the throne, but this time, Loki was quicker, a sheer wave of relief having exploded inside him as soon as he had heard the Doctor's voice, having blasted away the despair that had settled on his chest and shoulders. 

"You want winter?" he asked, rising to his feet again and there was something in his tone now that made the wizard pause, and Loki used that second of hesitation to open up and then reach into his private fold of space for what he had just remembered was still there.

It was his birthright, after all. 

And as soon as he touched it, he could feel the change, could feel winter surging up in his veins like ice at the point of absolute zero, opening eyes now turned a bloody red at the enemy mage. And it still felt…strange, not yet quite his own, but the self-hate and revulsion that had accompanied the transformation before now felt diminished, partially covered by cautious curiosity, by an excitement like that on the Doctor's face as he had looked at Loki's Jotunn skin for the very first time. The wizard was currently also staring at him, eyes wide and uncomprehending.

"B-b-blue skin? B-but you're not…you can't be-!"

Loki materialized the Casket of Ancient Winters fully between his hands and held it out toward the wizard. Blue lips pulled back from Jotunn teeth in what only a fool would have called a smile.

"I was born to rule a world of ice," Loki said. "I shall show you winter."

xxx

The blast of ice was colder and more violent than any blizzard or Antarctic storm the Doctor had ever felt. A cascade that felt like liquid nitrogen howled out of the artefact in Loki's hands, slamming into both the Doctor and the wizard with the force of a tidal wave made entirely of water cooled down so far below zero it had forgotten to freeze until it met your skin.

The Doctor gasped as he could feel Loki's magic flaring and burning up inside him, barely holding up against the onslaught, but holding – he briefly thought he caught Loki's eyes on the other side of the crystal storm, the look on the frost giant's face one of intense concentration as the magic inside the Doctor's veins seemed to briefly turn into lava against the claws of frost on his skin.

And then it was over.

The howling stopped and the Doctor let out a breath he had been holding, blinked frost crystals away from his eyelashes, shaking a coating of snowflakes from his hair and looked at the wizard next to him - who was now completely frozen solid. As he watched, the figure keeled over and fell onto the floor, remaining there motionlessly – and a couple of sounds from outside, sounding suspiciously like bones clattering to the floor, indicated that this might also have been true for the rest of his servants.

The Doctor turned back to Loki, who had just managed to let the artefact vanish again and was now breathing deeply, staring at the Time Lord.

"You think," Loki said, finally, "you could have told me about you having two of them?"

xxx

"Well, believe it or not, it doesn't actually come up very often," the Doctor defended himself. "But yup. One heart here and one here," he indicated the two sides of his chest. "And yeah, I know Time Lords are apparently the exception with that, but I'm honestly baffled how any species manages with just one." He pulled a face at Loki. "So inconvenient."

Loki suppressed a snort, the banter...easier than having to acknowledge anything else that had just happened (or almost happened). He didn't know yet how to deal with it, not with the Doctor all but offering his freedom to save Loki's, not with his own sheer, visceral reaction when he thought the Time Lord's mind had been lost forever...Loki took a deep breath. No time now. He would have to deal with that later.

"I assure you, one works just fine," he said instead, smoothly. "It was our luck our adversary never even considered you not to be human."

"Ah, they almost never do," the Doctor gave a shrug. "One advantage to appearing something else than you are, I suppose."

Loki gave a dismissive wave. "Any magic that targets the heart is among the most powerful possible, but only a complete amateur wouldn't know exactly about any and all peculiarities of an enemy's heart when he plans to use it," he scoffed.

"Hmm," the Doctor once again gave Loki a peculiar look (that Loki chose to ignore). Instead he focused on turning back into his Aesir form - even if it by now felt less exposed and wrong to wear his blue skin, it was still...strange and not something he cared to do for an extended time. 

Also, not freezing the Doctor solid if he accidentally brushed against him would be beneficial. 

"Well," Loki said, "seeing as we won…" he extended one hand toward the frozen figure of the wizard on the floor, aged face still staring at the both of them in mindless surprise. "I suppose shattering him would be an appropriate death?" 

The Doctor looked at him. "You know I can't let you do that," he said, quietly.  

Loki could feel his forehead drawing together in reaction, but the usual rush of indignancy at anyone for daring to suggest they could tell the prince of Asgard what to do was a lot weaker than usual. A part of Loki wondered if this was because yes, while there was a threat in the Doctor's voice, this underlying darkness that sometimes crept into his words and reminded you that this was a slayer of worlds, the last one of his race because he had murdered his people and more, there was also a...sadness there, a heartfelt wish for Loki to not do that because he didn't want to...lose Loki as a friend. 

Loki took a deep breath. And lowered his hand. 

"And I suppose pointing out how he tried to kill us, torture me and enslave you would not change your aggravatingly pacifist mind about this?" he asked instead, raising an eyebrow and giving the Doctor a flat stare. 

(And tried to refuse to acknowledge the warmth bubbling up inside him when once again the Doctor gave him a smile that was so irritatingly grateful and happy at Loki's tacit concession it made Loki tempted to shatter the wizard after all, if only out of principle.)  

"Nope," the Doctor gave Loki a brilliant grin,  "But also because now I'm really curious who this wizard really is – or how old."

"How old?" Loki repeated, once more thrown by the other's mercurial topic changes. "Why would that be important?"

"Because I think," the Doctor said, "we're dealing with something like a ten-year-old child, here."

"I'm…I'm almost eleven…"

"What the-?!"

"Grab the scepter!" Loki shouted, both him and the Doctor instantly scrambling for the wizard's staff leaning against the iron throne, and then staring disbelievingly at the ice that was already melting off the wizard's face. Loki was all ready to level the scepter at its former possessor, the Doctor's notions on morality be damned - but then both of them realized that actually, the wizard was mainly lying on the ground and groaning.

"I'm…sorry, you're what?" the Doctor cautiously asked, not quite yet taking a step closer to the wizard, but looking genuinely curious.

"I said, I'm almost eleven-!" the wizard snapped, now rolling over to face them – but then seemed to freeze, a little bit like someone who had just woken up and only now remembered where they were and why. Now the old man stared at Loki and the Doctor towering above them with wide eyes, gaze fixated on the tip of the scepter Loki was pointing at his head.

"Oh sugar," he whimpered.

Xxx

"By the Norns, why won't he tell me what is 'too good'?!" Thor was currently waving his arms about in frustration, obviously just back from another fruitless visit at Heimdall's.

Watching the Odinsson stomp past the open door of his rooms, Fandral raised an eye brow. "Whatever Heimdall is seeing has Thor obsessed," he observed. "I wonder why."

"Me, too." Sif crossed her arms, frowning. "It is not yet five days since Loki fell, I would have expected him to be…grieving."

"Indeed." Volstagg nodded. "Despite his brother's treacherous nature, Thor loved him. And he has had some wistful moments since his return from their battle on the Bifrost. But no sadness." He stroked his beard. "Could it be he finally admitted to himself Loki was beyond salvation? That his death was the only way his madness could be ended?"

"You mean…you have not heard?" Hogun asked, and all three of them looked up, surprised at the contribution by their usually silent comrade. Hogun returned their stares evenly.

"Thor does not believe Loki to be dead. In fact, he insists he is alive."

To be continued…

Chapter Text

Lightyears away (and entirely unaware why he had the sudden urge to sneeze) Loki stepped forward. 

“Reveal your true form, wizard. Or face my wrath again and know that this time, my hand will not be stayed,” he threatened, hoping that this would be enough. Starting a fight with the Doctor over this would not strengthen their position. 

To his slight surprise, nothing of the sort seemed to be necessary. 

“Okay, okay!” the wizard still looked genuinely frightened, raising his hands to protect himself from the wavering tip of the scepter – and then indeed started to change, his whole form shrinking, reforming into…

“Oh. Huh,” the Doctor said. 

“What?” the little, blue-skinned, pony-tailed girl in the far-too-large wizard robes snapped. 

“Truly? A child?” Loki asked, disbelieving (but also far too cautious to relinquish his grasp on the staff even in the slightest). He narrowed his eyes at the little redhead - there were no Jotun-like ridges on her skin, her entire shape suggesting a human or Aesir if not for her colour. “What race are you?” 

“Well, the level of their physics homework was an indication for their age,” the Doctor said, now curiously having donned a pair of glasses and dropping into a squat to look at the girl, squinting. “And you’re…Kree, aren’t you?” 

“Y-yes,” the girl nodded, her gaze flitting from Loki to the Doctor, expression now definitely shifting toward the nervous. If she was an actress, she was a good one. 

Still, Loki thought if the Doctor had one fault, it was that he was entirely too trusting. Really, how the man had survived until now screamed in the face of Darwinism (as Midgardians would call it). So he stepped forward, standing tall behind the crouching Time Lord, the implication to anyone who would attempt to harm him obvious, and levelled a cool stare at the girl.  

“No. You may look like a Kree, but that race has no magical abilities of their own. Even with the power in this staff, a being unable to cast any magic would not have been able to wield it.” Loki lowered the scepter again, pointing it over the Doctor's shoulder at her face. “I told you what would happen if you lie.” 

“No! Please!” the little girl wailed, at once throwing her hands up and curling up as small as she could, “I am Kree! I really am Kree! I am, I am…!” there was a sob in there, and then the words broke off entirely. 

Loki had to admit he wasn’t quite sure what to do here (somehow, the adventures Thor had dragged them into had never ended up in having to confront crying children, for the Norns’ sake) and he also thought it quite unfair as he Doctor then gently pushed the staff to the side, also glancing up at him with  a ‘Loki, really’ -look in the process. 

“Hey,” the Doctor said, moving closer to the girl again. Loki once again had this absurd (but depressingly more familiar) impulse to step in between them, protect the far more fragile Time Lord…yet by now he was also pretty sure that trying to keep the Doctor from approaching any potentially dangerous, maybe hostile creature in distress was an utterly doomed attempt from the start. 

(Loki also tried hard not to think about what it said about their own first meeting.)

So instead, he sighed, maintaining vigilance as the Doctor tried to tilt his head to make eye contact with the child, widening his eyes a little to appear less threatening, his voice softer than before as he spoke again.
“Hey. Maybe we got off to a bad start. How about you tell us your name?”

That at least got them a teary-eyed look again, the girl raising her head from its position between her knees. 
“Ver,” she said, swallowing. “My name is…Ver-Tego. And I’m really, really Kree, I swear-!” she repeated, a hint of panic creeping back into her last words before the Doctor cut her off. 

“Ver,” the Doctor repeated, nodding. “Good name. So, Ver, I think you probably understand that you’re in quite a predicament,” he said (and also ignored Loki’s disbelieving huff at that wording). “But you can help your position a lot if you tell us what you did and why. What did you do to this planet, Ver?” he asked, voice and face becoming a lot more serious at that last question, and the child looked at him with wide, frightened eyes. 

“I, I, I didn’t mean to do anything!” she scrambled, but then swallowed. “Only, I’ve been reading this alien book series and it wouldn’t get finished…”

“By the Nine,” Loki said, “You cannot be serious.”    

“Oh, travelling with me you’d better get used to that,” the Doctor murmured, wryly (and Loki was quite glad that he was able to keep the flip of his stomach at this casual admission from showing on his face). “An alien book series, hm?” he asked, once again glancing at the decorations of the throne room, shields and banners showing wolves, stags, lions and dragons, all surrounding an iron throne of swords. “I think I can guess which one." He cocked his head. “Didn’t they turn that into a finished TV series, though?” 

“Yes, and they got it all wrong and the ending was awful!” Ver snapped, angry for a second, but then was already hugging her knees again, biting her lower lip. “I just…I wanted to get it all right, to…to see how it ends…” 

“This does still not explain what you actually did or where you got this from,” Loki said, nodding his head toward the scepter in his hands. “Kree or not, this staff is far too old and too powerful to belong into the hands of a child.” 

“It’s…I got that from a space freighter,” Ver swallowed again. “A space freighter crashed one night where I lived and I was the first one there and found that in the wreckage. I don’t know where it came from.” She hugged her knees again, shrinking away from Loki's narrowed gaze. “But it…talked to me. It said, if I really wanted to know so badly how the story would end, I could…just make it happen myself.” 

The Doctor’s eyes snapped toward Loki, and Loki could guess what the Doctor was thinking. He hadn’t held the sceptre for long, but…tentatively, Loki reached out with his magic, tried to assess the source of the staff’s magic in its blue crystal. He blinked. 

“Yes,” he said, slowly, staring at the staff. “There is something approaching a mind in the scepter, except…,” he began, eyes narrowing. There had been the barest hint of a power rush, but also…a heady sensation, a whispering, that with this staff, any realm could be his and most of all, a suggestion that this was all really his own idea…

Loki let his gaze flit back toward the Doctor, feeling consciously pulled back from the other voice in his head. The Time Lord raised his eye brows.     
 
“So,” he then said, turning back to the girl. “You did…what, exactly?” 

“I went to the space port and used the staff to make someone take me to the nearest planet that nobody really cares for,” Ver said, quietly. “Everyone has to obey you when you touch the staff to their heart, you know? I mean, usually, it really works,” she swallowed, glancing from the Doctor to Loki, obviously still quite confused why the Time Lord hadn't turned into her thrall, but then continued on, “And then I made the climate different and tried to get the time period right and to make everybody forget that they were supposed to be modern. And then did the zombies and the other stuff.” 

“The other stuff,” said the Doctor carefully. 

“Well, the southern hemisphere of the planet should almost have fully-grown dragons now,” the girl said, plaintively. “I was so close!”

“What you did, Ver, was kill thousands, if not millions of people,” the Doctor said, tone now colder than before, and the girl’s green eyes widened in shock. "There are dead children outside, girls just like you. Younger than you. Was that what you wanted to be so close to?"  
 
“Wh-what? N-No!” she stammered. “I mean…I’ve only been here for two weeks, and I mean it's only a story, how…how would I – I didn’t mean to-!” she started to hyperventilate, staring at the Doctor in horror, tears welling up again and the Time Lord looked up at Loki, alarmed. 

“Loki? Could you put her out again? Preferably asleep, not frozen?” the Doctor warned and Loki had to suppress a huff. 

“Gladly,” he said, stepping forward and touching the forehead of the flinching girl, feeling relief as she immediately slumped over. He turned back toward the Doctor who was now rubbing his face, looking a bit tired. 

“How would you know about the Kree?” Loki asked, curious. “They’re not too far from Asgard’s jurisdiction, but I only read up on them when mindlessly browsing once. Their world is a backwater ditch of a planet, nothing especially important.” 

“Well,” the Doctor rubbed the back of his neck, having risen again and scrolling through the laptop now. “Actually, their civilization was about to become a giant, Kree-supremacist, militaristic empire at some point.  Subjugating other races like no tomorrow. Even abducting other species, performing experiments on them to turn them into super soldiers. And cannon fodder,” he added grimly. 

“…really?” Loki frowned. None of that had been in Asgard’s history books. “What happened?” he asked before he could stop himself – and then only shot the Doctor a very wry look as the Time Lord immediately lit up and shot him a bright grin. 

“Questions! You’re finally asking them!” 

“Yes, yes, we have made it quite clear that I am your companion,” Loki waved him off, keeping the annoyed expression on his face with effort. “So tell me already what happened to the Kree almost-empire before you tear something.”   

“Oh, at some point they tried to abduct humans from Earth and I found out about them,” the Doctor replied brightly, then returned scrolling through the laptop, irritatingly still too fast for Loki to keep up. "Hmmh," the Time Lord said, squinting. "I think I have an idea what may be going on here." 

"Really. And is it anything that will get us closer to unfreezing your ship?" Loki asked absent-mindedly, for his part more interested in the staff. There was something familiar about it, something that rang a bell...

"In time," the Doctor said, looking up from the laptop. “ But right now, do you know any spells to turn someone back into their true form? Because I have a theory about our supposedly Kree wizard...”  

xxx
 
"Is it...supposed to do that?" the Doctor asked, looking a bit queasy. 

"Yes," Loki grated back, watching the working he'd woven sink into the still sleeping child and her body starting to melt and bubble in response, different kinds of magic fighting each other and transforming her shape into their battlefield. He raised an eyebrow. "If your race are shapeshifters as well, surely this cannot be that upsetting to you?"  

"When Time Lords change shape, we mainly...just glow. And shoot light," the Doctor said, grimacing. "It's all a lot more civilized." 

"Really," Loki couldn't help but shoot the Doctor a grin. "Welcome to wild side of magic, then," he said, and pushed just a little bit more power into his spell to reveal their adversary's true shape after all. And then he blinked.  

The girl…now no longer looked Kree, or really humanoid at all. She was still child-sized, but now a…red-skinned, entirely hairless and blob-shaped creature, the lower half of her face adorned with tentacles like a Great Old One, her limbs three-fingered at the end and stumpy, as if one parent had been an elephant and the other a nuclear accident. Loki could feel his eyes widen as he took a step back. 

“That’s a…dire wraith.” 

 “Oh yeah,” the Doctor replied with an exhale, looking at the still sleeping alien with a consternated expression. “Evolutionary off-shoot of the Skrull, and able to use magic. Explains how she could wield the scepter.”

“And the shape-shifting ability,” Loki added, frowning. “But she insisted she was Kree. Do you believe she knows?”

“Why don’t we ask her,” the Doctor replied, lips thin. “Let’s wake her up again.” 

Xxx 

The first thing Ver did, upon waking, was starting to scream. 

“Ver,” the Doctor tried to calm her, but the alien only screamed louder, her voice now a scratchy howling coming out of her dire wraith throat. She tried to scramble backwards from them, fragments of ‘NO!” and ‘DON’T LOOK AT ME!” barely understandable through her screaming, and her form started to flash wildly, turning into a human girl, turning into the wizard again, briefly becoming a mishmash of everything that nearly let the Doctor’s stomach flip before it finally settled on her Kree form again, now hopelessly tangled in the half-torn robes still too large for her frame. 

“I’m Kree! I’m Kree! Please don’t kill me!” she screamed, once again holding up her hands as if that could shield her. 

“Hey,” the Doctor tried again. “Neither of us are Kree. We don’t care what you are. We just need you to talk to us.” 

"...about what?" Ver asked, still looking at them fearfully. "I'm sorry, I really am, I swear-" 

"I believe you are," the Doctor said, "but I need to know more. Why is it so important to you that we know you're Kree?" 

"Be-because anyone who isn't Kree is sc-sc-scum," Ver stammered, eyes filling with tears again. "My uncle says so and he hates when I do magic or look different-"

"It would appear the Kree supremacist part of their society is still in full swing," Loki murmured. The Doctor threw him a side-glance, grimacing.

"Yeaah, turns out fixing that part of a society is always harder than just stopping them from taking over a galaxy. Speaking of which, hey, Ver," he said, turning to the girl again. "Do you know where that space freighter with the staff was supposed to go?" 

"N-no." She shook her head. "I'm sorry, I just t-took it and ran." 

"From that space freighter that crashed at your feet where you were conveniently the only one there," Loki said, for the first time contributing to the conversation and Ver's head snapped toward him, eyes wide and anxious.

"But it really was like that, I swear!" she said, words tumbling from her mouth, "I was having to spend the night outside again and I was so hungry so I was looking for something to eat in the dumpsters and there it crashed, right at the edge of my uncle's property and then I went and looked-"  

"And when you found that thing your first thought was to recreate an unfinished Earth novel series? One I think you shouldn't even have been reading at your age?" the Doctor added the last question as a muttered aside, choosing to table some of the more alarming details from Ver's account for now, though they were rapidly fitting together into a rather dismal picture.  

"I...I'd found them in the school library, when I was hiding in there from the others," Ver said, swallowing. "And in there everyone was always so impressed with magic, so I thought...I thought..." 

("Norns," Loki muttered in the background here, but the Doctor ignored it). 

"If I...made a planet just like in the books, then I could see how it ended and be somewhere where they don't beat you if you do magic and nobody would miss me anyway or threaten to k-k-k-kill me if the neighbours find out what I am and in the books you can even make people come back to life again so I thought that maybe m-m-mom - that I could make mom -"

Her voice broke here as Ver started into another crying fit and the Doctor (who could feel a head- and heartache coming on) mostly muttered something like "She really couldn't have found Harry Potter instead, could she?"  while thankfully Loki stepped forward again to send her to sleep a second time.

xxx

"So this entire ordeal," Loki said, giving the Doctor a look a few moments later, "comes down to the escapist fantasy of a ten-year-old?" 

"'Almost eleven', don't forget," the Doctor corrected with weary humour, before sighing. "But you'd be surprised how many times far-reaching consequences and suffering spread so wide can be traced back to just a single, incredibly unhappy child," the Time Lord said, and it sounded tired. 

"From what I can gather from looking at the files from their planet - thankfully the satellite wi-fi in this castle is still working," he gestured at the laptop, "It sounds like she's telling the truth, at least. The brother of the man who is listed as her 'father' had apparently fallen in love with a dire wraith woman, stranded and living disguised as a Kree on their world. He married her, but when her identity was discovered, both of them were executed. Ver is probably their daughter, only they had registered her as the child of her uncle so she wouldn't be executed as well in case they got discovered. Which is exactly what happened." 

"And she knew," Loki said, taking care to let his face remain expressionless. "She said she was living with her uncle." 

"An uncle who, from what she's been saying, does not really deserve that title," the Doctor added, grimly. "Letting your niece scavenge in a dumpster?" 

"Having to care for a child that could mean your family executed as well if your neighbours discover you're keeping what they would call a monster. It is not exactly surprising he would not be the best of caregivers," Loki pointed out, a wry voice in his head adding, at least no one would have dared to rebel against *you* in that case, father, would they. 

"Really? And yet it always surprises me when people can't simply be better," the Doctor said, before straightening, running a hand through his hair. "Right. But even if that explains why Ver might have done this, it still does not quite explain how - and I don't mean the exact magical how," he cut Loki off before the Asgardian could answer. 

"I mean - even if dire wraiths mature slightly faster than humans, and we consider what she's been through, something like this," he gestured, a wave of his hand encompassing the ice palace and the snowed-in world beyond, "should be beyond even the most precocious 'almost-eleven'-year-old." His gaze travelled back to the staff in Loki's hands. "Which brings us back to..." 

“The staff," Loki said. "Yes. By now I am quite certain it is not merely a boost to one’s power." 

"No. You said it had a…mind inside?" The Doctor questioned, looking at the thing, one of his hands going for his breast pocket as if reaching for his screwdriver on reflex. 

“…well, an approximation of one,” Loki said. “As I said, it is ancient, and very powerful. There are strategic capabilities inside it, even creativity. It seems able to take on some of the characteristics of the one it comes into contact with and then…amplify their desires. Their recklessness to reach them. As the girl said, it will give you the ability to control the mind of anyone whose heart you touch, but…” Loki let his eyes trail once more over the scepter, listened to its whispers trying to sneak into his own thoughts, undetected. “I do not think she was quite aware that a part of it will also try to control you.”  

“Yeeeeah, don’t think I like the sound of that,” the Doctor said, eyes narrowing at the blue crystal. Then his gaze abruptly flicked up to meet Loki’s again. “That is, wait, you mean it’s also trying to control you right now?”  

“Well, trying is fortunately the right word,” Loki let his voice sound wry, covering a bit of the sheer awe he still felt at the power of the staff. “It is attempting to get past my mental defences, mix my mind with its own, until I would barely be able to tell which thought was originally mine or not.” He took a breath. “Fortunately, it is far from the first magical object with a mind of its own that I came into contact with – as a child, I once spent a week trapped in a cursed mirror after the blasted thing talked to me enough – so I do know how to recognize and defend against such things. But it is by far the most powerful I have seen.” 

“Really, so that does that mean – wait, hold on, you were once trapped in a mirror?”

Loki barely suppressed a smirk. “Hm, I think I can see why you enjoy having companions. The questions are entertaining.”

"What is it trying to tell you?" the Doctor asked and Loki's half-smirk faded. 

"...perhaps not so entertaining after all," he conceded. The half-formed images, inchoate whispers at the corners of his mind, talking of conquest, of the glory of slaughtering and subjugating a world just to finally impress everyone, leading an army to have an entire planet kneel to him was not something he wanted to share with the Doctor. 

Perhaps earlier you might have been able to tempt me, relic. But I am different now, he thought, and to his surprise, a part of him felt like he believed it. 

"Can I touch it?" the Doctor asked, reaching out with an expression of curiosity as soon as he said it and it took a lot of Loki's self-control not to slap the Time Lord's hand away out of reflex. 

"Oh for the-could you NOT endanger yourself for a minute?" Loki snapped, holding the scepter back out of reach from the frowning Doctor. "This is magic. My resort." 

"Oy, I once battled an artificial intelligence mind-controlling an entire planet, I think I can deal with a megalomaniac glowstick," the Doctor retorted, looking mildly offended, but at least made no further attempts to touch the staff. Instead he sighed, frowning at Loki. "So you're saying..."

"I believe that for all that girl did, it might" - Loki pulled a face -"not have been entirely her fault. I think...if you are that desperate and," Loki paused only briefly, "that young and that alone, more experienced magic users than her might have fallen under its influence." 

“Hmm,” the Doctor once again said, giving Loki a look but not adding anything. They both had felt its power when they had been trapped in Loki's mind, each knowing that if they hadn't had each other as an anchor, calling them back into the present when the magic of the scepter was luring them somewhere else... 

 "And I think I know what it is," Loki said, and the Doctor's gaze snapped back into focus. 

"Really?" he asked. "Without my screwdriver I couldn't make head or tail of it, so I thought we'd have to wait until we could put it under the TARDIS scanners..." he gave the sceptre another sharp look, then gazed back at Loki. "But you have an idea?" 

"Just something I read about, long ago," Loki said. He looked back at the Doctor. 

"Have you ever heard of the Infinity Stones?"   

To be continued... 

Chapter Text

"...the Infinity stones. Right." The Doctor nodded after Loki had finished his explanation. "You know, I think I read about them at some point, but there's always so much to deal with, you tend to forget things. And I thought they'd not been used or seen in centuries." The Doctor scratched his head. "Seems like someone is interested in them now. Interesting."

"True. But not pertinent to our current situation," Loki pointed out. "Presently, the spells affecting the climate and keeping your space ship trapped need to be reversed first." Then he hesitated. "...what would you do with the girl?"

"I don't know yet," the Doctor said, looking at Ver's sleeping form before returning his gaze to Loki, raising his eyebrows. "I'm a bit surprised you don't want your revenge any more."

Loki looked away before the Doctor could study his face too closely, crossing his arms. "She is a child, and one who was not even in possession of her own mind entirely when she did what she did. Revenge against her would ring hollow."

(Loki was also carefully not meeting the Doctor's eyes now, because he had a feeling the Time Lord was smiling at him, and Loki had some pride, thank you.)

"Hollow. Yeah, it would, wouldn't it," the Doctor nodded, then once again sidled closer to the frost giant. "Speaking of Ver not being in control of herself, I would like to take a look at the-"

"Doctor, no." Loki once again moved to block the Time Lord's move toward the sceptre, ignoring the annoyed 'Oh come on', from the Gallifreyan. "Scan it if you must, but do not touch."

(To be honest, the thought of the staff taking over the Doctor's mind, the mind of this Time Lord who had already slain civilizations and entire planets all on his own, was not something Loki wanted to contemplate.)

"Bossy. Why do I always take the bossy types along?" the Doctor huffed, seemingly muttering more to himself, but at least seemed to acquiesce. "Wish I at least had my screwdriver again, this way I won’t be able to scan the thing until we get it into the TARDIS..."

"Well. Wishful thinking aside, my question stands. What do you propose we do with...her," Loki asked, chancing another glance at the sleeping, blue-skinned girl, wishing something inside him didn’t feel as if it was tying itself into a knot when he did.

"Good question." The Doctor ran a hand through his hair, face sombering. "She has so many dead on her conscience. And she's not even old enough to really understand what she's done," he said, and it sounded tired.  

"That would not grant her a milder sentence on Asgard," Loki couldn't hold back the words, feeling their sharpness in his throat.  "Young age does not protect from punishment in the Allfather's eyes." 

"And I think I already told you what I think of Odin's justice, didn't I?" The Doctor said, still sounding weary. He rubbed his upper arms through his suit sleeves, gazing up at the icy ceiling of the throne room. "You'd think he especially would understand what happens when you always take an eye for an eye, but no."

"You're shivering. My spell inside you must be fading," Loki said after the silence had stretched for a moment, once again not quite able to quell the mixture of feelings coming up when someone else than him declared Odin unjust and fallible, and therefore tried to cover his lapse of control quickly with action. "Push up your sleeve, I need your wrist again."

"...yeeah, been meaning to ask, actually, why the wrist?" The Doctor asked curiously as he bared and then held out his arm for Loki to grasp and wrap his fingers around, letting the spell of heat seep into the Time Lord's body. 

"Any magic targeting your blood - if only to warm it - works better if it is applied where it flows closest to the surface. Wrist or neck therefore are best," Loki explained, carefully not mentioning how anyone on Asgard would also have thought the Doctor mad for offering such a vulnerable spot willingly to Loki.  He released the Time Lord and stepped back again. "There."

"Thank you," the Doctor gave him a grateful nod, adjusting his suit sleeve again before he sighed. "So. What to do with Ver. And what to do with this entire planet." He raised his eye brows at Loki. "Don't suppose you'd have a warming spell like this, only..." he sucked some air through his teeth, also making a gesture like he was trying to hold a large cheese-wheel. "...hemisphere-sized?"

Loki had to suppress a snort. "Well," he said, twisting the staff in his grip. "With access to the power of the stone, I am certain I will be able to reverse the spells of mind control, technological regression and environmental changes to this planet." He paused. "But there is no way to resurrect its dead."

"No," the Doctor said, quietly. "I didn't think so."

 "Except..." Loki could hear himself say, despite not having meant to - what did he care for the fate of this planet, the guilt of the girl?

…except, but for a moment, there had once again been this familiar pain in the eyes of the Time Lord, and - "There are some spells," he said, before he could think better of it. "Not for resurrection as such, but for...turning the time back on a life, before it was taken. But a spell like this, for an entire planet, you would need not only the power of an Infinity stone to cast it, but also a very specific one of them - namely, the Time Stone."

"The Time…Stone," the Doctor repeated, eyebrows once again rising. "Taking a wild guess that it can manipulate time?"

“Well, it is not called the Soup Stone,” Loki replied flatly. “But it also has not been heard of for centuries. And without it, manipulation of time is impossible, no matter the available power.”

This, for some reason, seemed to produce a very thoughtful look on the Doctor’s face.

xxx

“Ohhh, this is going to be great. Ooooh, this is going to be good,” Heimdall was saying at this point, though by now, Sif and the others had largely ceased trying to make sense of what he was seeing, if he wouldn’t bloody tell them.

For the moment, they were more mystified why Thor was still so sure that Loki was alive after the Allfather had said that he had fallen off the Bifrost to his death in the Void more than four days ago. Nor did they understand why the Prince still seemed to be in a sometimes strangely contemplative, but comparably good mood after the disastrous battle with his brother that had destroyed the rainbow bridge (for the moment haphazardly repaired with wood so at least the observatory was accessible again). 

“There is something Thor isn’t telling us,” Sif spoke out loud what they were all thinking. “But what…?”

xxx

Loki stared at the Doctor.

“Your ship can do what?”

“Well, I don’t generally go around telling that to companions on their very first day,” the Doctor defended himself. “If I do, it usually tends to lead to resurrection attempts for dead fathers, me being eaten by a pterodactyl and a time line tied up in loops.” He gave a guilty grimace.

“Well, if he were dead, you would not have had to worry about me resurrecting mine,” Loki said wryly, ignoring the second ‘Loki, seriously’ glance from the Doctor that day.

"It's impossible to go back on one's own timeline," the Time Lord said instead, "but time can be rewritten. If it's true that it's only been two weeks since she started changing this planet and only made everyone think this winter had lasted for three years, do you think...?"

"...that it is possible to use the power of the Infinity Stone and your TARDIS to revert this planet to two weeks ago? It might be," Loki said, thoughtfully. "The challenge would be interesting, at least."

"Brilliant!" the Doctor smiled. "Then let's-"

“But..." Loki hesitated again. If the Doctor had had to guess, it looked like there were different impulses fighting within him, even if the Asgardian tried hard to keep his face neutral. Finally, Loki seemed to steel himself. "She has all but slaughtered a people." Loki looked at the Doctor.  "What would it mean if we just erased that?”

The Doctor paused. It was strange - Loki was technically even a century older than he himself, he knew, and the Doctor also currently existed in a body outwardly as young as the frost giant, as always pretending to be a much younger man than he was. And Loki was clever and experienced, finishing the Doctor's thoughts and knowing far more about the universe and its different races and planets than any other companion ever had, wielding more power than any of them - so it was hard to remember that in some ways, he could be so much younger still.

“In the really grand scheme of things?" The Doctor managed to give a tired smile. "Probably nothing.”

Loki’s eyebrows drew together, as he was clearly trying to form a protest – a protest which the Doctor was intimately familiar with, because of course, this wasn’t about Ver at all, not really…or, at least, not entirely, he thought.

The Doctor drew a breath before Loki could speak.

“No, saving a single world…it won’t mean a thing where the universe is concerned. But for Ver…well, it’s one child saved from joining us,” he said, and he knew he felt the same sting Loki was trying to hide right now. The Doctor tried to force his face into a smile, even if he could feel the tired pain in every bone of his body.

“It’s a burden so heavy for shoulders so small, Loki. Let’s not have her carry it with us.”

Loki frowned at him. “…it will not make our load lighter.”

“No,” The Doctor shook his head. “But it does make it easier to carry, sometimes.” Then he tried a weary grin. “Ready to lift it together?” 

xxx

It was a little bit later that Loki looked at the TARDIS console.

Currently it had a clothes dryer wedged into its steering unit, aluminum foil wrapped around its strings, was topped with seven kitchen sieves welded into some sort of star-shaped antennae, there were several pieces of what looked like a disassembled bicycle hanging at what may have been strategic intervals, there was also an upended umbrella and then, of course, Christmas lights wrapped around everything. If Loki had known of more Midgardian institutions, he might have thought it looked like an IKEA and a junkyard had had a lovechild, and then that lovechild had also imploded.

The frost giant glanced back at the Doctor.

"And you're absolutely sure," he said.

It was now a few hours after their defeat of the “wizard”, their fourth (and hopefully last) day of Lakvit rapidly coming to an end, but at last they were now back inside the TARDIS, Loki not only having managed to teleport them there, but now also having been able to melt the ice surrounding it.

Inside, nothing had been damaged at all, and now the comforting hum of the machinery and warm golden light was surrounding them as they were preparing to repair a shock-frozen planet.

Ver, who they had brought with them without waking her while they still didn’t know what to do with her or whether even the first part of this plan was going to work,  was currently still slumbering peacefully on the car seats at the console. Loki and the Doctor had been working for the past few hours – the Doctor mainly on the console itself, wiring up a reverse flux-catalyst and installing magic-resistant overload buffers in his own words (which, yes, he’d made from said clothes-dryer and kitchen equipment, but looking fancy wasn’t the point, after all, thank you), while also fixing a quick portion of the console’s source code that would enable the TARDIS’ engines to work together with Loki’s spells.

Loki himself had been busy checking things in his books, painting what looked like a rather complicated circle on the floor of the TARDIS -

(“Oh, interesting,” the Doctor had commented.

“What?” Loki had looked up.

“She says that tickles.”)

- and had been arranging the scepter and several bowls of different substances at what probably were very important locations in his pentagram, the center point of which ended straight at the base of the console.

And now Loki had finally gotten back to his feet, regarded the Doctor’s handiwork and asked the question.

“What?” the Doctor, ripped from the calculations in his head, blinked at him owlishly.

“I said,” Loki repeated. “Are you absolutely sure this…” he gestured toward the contraption the Doctor had built, “…will help your TARDIS connect to my magic and enable us to reverse the spells and deaths?”

“Sure? Oh no, never, would take all the fun out of it,” the Doctor grinned at Loki (who predictably only responded to the quip with a flat stare of his own.)

But, even if his new companion – and no, the Doctor thought he would never be able to quite stop the happy double-thump of his hearts whenever someone had decided to travel with him, despite the danger, despite everything – didn’t seem entirely happy with the gung-ho nature of the Doctor’s preparation, Loki had still made no attempt to move from the circle he had drawn up, was still standing in his pentagram’s center waiting for the Doctor to tell him they could start.

The Doctor reached out to put his hand on the lever that would make the TARDIS tear the time vortex wide open for Loki to draw upon; would make her accept the magic woven by him and amplify it. On the scanners they could see Lakvit turning below, the TARDIS now high up in orbit around the planet. The Doctor looked at Loki.

“Ready?”

"Yes," Loki said and when he raised his hands, magic flared out and mingled with the time energy from the TARDIS console like a perfect storm of gold and green.

xxx

When the Doctor had met Loki, when his new, not-yet-companion had first crashed into the TARDIS like a suicidal wrecking ball, a hunted, sharp thing, talking to the Asgardian had felt a bit like dealing with the Master had - a brilliant mind, yes, but brilliant like a shattered mirror was brilliant, and reaching for it would end in blood.

But now, just four days later, here they were instead, saving a world and, just for once, letting everybody live, and the Doctor couldn't help but laugh as below them, the whiteness on the planet's northern continents was receding. The TARDIS soared in its orbit while time and magic wove an atmospheric net around Lakvit, detailed cities spreading again and spots on the darker half of the planet lighting up in a sea of artificial illumination. (The Doctor then also stopped laughing when Loki shot him a bit of a worried look, but the giddy feeling remained long after Lakvit was already turning in space, looking as if nothing had happened at all.)

xxx 

“…Doctor?”

The Doctor looked up. It was the first time Loki had spoken after almost having keeled over from the exertion of channeling both the energy of the scepter and the TARDIS, barely catching himself on his hands and knees as the spell was finally done. He had waved off any attempts of the Doctor to help him up – he wasn’t that exhausted any more, thank you – but had let himself drop onto the steps straight after, glad that nothing more was required of him.

“Are you feeling better? You just reverse-magicked an entire planet,” the Time Lord pointed out, lower lip jutting out as he gave an impressed nod.

“Yes. Well,” Loki said, as he tried not to preen too obviously. In fact, he was also very impressed with his own handiwork, but it really was nice if other people pointed out how amazing you were without prompting. (Or, well, pointed it out at all, he thought wryly.) Loki downed the last of his tea, then set the mug aside as he forced himself back to his feet.

Back inside the TARDIS he had changed his armor and sturdier leathers for the thinner green and black robes he had preferred for days spent in the palace, before. The Doctor had shown him the defence mechanisms of his bizarre ship and it was true that they seemed neigh-impenetrable – meaning, it was alright to feel safe here, for once.

“It was an…interesting exercise,” Loki said, tone deliberately lofty. He took a couple steps toward the TARDIS console where he had placed the scepter underneath a scanner to be examined. On the seats, Ver was still sleeping, young face relaxed in the slumber his spell had forced her into. After what she had done to him while wielding the scepter, Loki had felt a brief temptation to also give her a nightmare or two - but surprisingly, that desire had also been gone as quickly as it had come. In the end, he had said it himself – what satisfaction was there, really, to further torment a lonely child?

He turned from her toward the Doctor.

“Have you considered what to do with her yet?”

“Weeell,” the Doctor ran a hand through his hair, taking a breath and then blowing the air out of his mouth with both cheeks bulging. "Actually, I'm still working that one out." He chanced a glance at Loki, grimacing. "There isn't any school for mages at Asgard, maybe...?" 

"While practicing magic is seen as more of a women's craft and they have their guilds and teachers, I doubt Asgard would accept her," Loki shook his head, adding under his breath. "Certainly not if I tried to bring her there..." 

"Yeah, cancel that idea," the Doctor rubbed a hand over his face. "Dammit, if only there were a Hogwarts we could take her to. At this point I'd accept even the version with oysters." 

"Where you are assuming Mollusks would be in any way more accepting than her home planet, or Asgard, or nearly every society I have seen. Especially for a hybrid child," Loki said, and he knew his voice was cutting as he crossed his arms. "There is no place, Doctor, for children who are different. There never has been and there might not ever be. What?" he asked, as the Time Lord had just started staring at him after his second-to-last sentence. 

"That's it!" 

"I repeat my earlier question." 

"I know where we can take her," the Doctor grinned. "It's not Hogwarts, true, but I think that school I'm thinking of might be even better." 

"Really. On what planet?”

“Oh. Well. Earth, I suppose,” the Doctor winced. “See, I try not to bring too much alien interference to that place and yet-“

“A school on Midgard,” Loki repeated, tone again sharper than before, but not because he was still begrudging the Doctor’s request to not drop Loki off there when he had first fallen into the TARDIS. “Pardon me, Doctor, but in my opinion this would be the quickest way to turn her into an outcast yet again. This universe for some reason seems to have the Asgardian shape as default, with only various shades of white and brown allowed and everything else quickly viewed as aberration.”

"Ye-es. For…some reason,” the Doctor repeated suspiciously quickly. “I don't like that any more than you do, I promise," he added. "But no, last time I was at that place, they had more than enough interesting-looking students around. I think there was one who looked like a hedgehog? Ver should be fine.”

Loki briefly felt the need to massage his temples at this new information, but chose not to. “And you think they’ll just take her in?”

“Well, the last time I visited, I was there because I had to fix the Earth’s timeline after they completely shattered it, so they better.” The Doctor shot him a grin and reached for a lever on the console.

“Ready to try and surprise a telepath?”

To be concluded…

Chapter Text

They stepped out of the TARDIS. Loki’s first estimation of where they were was in an elaborate, old-fashioned office, filled with shelves of leather-bound books, an old, but very elegant-looking massive mahogany desk and a very surprised young man in a very fancy chair.

“Hello, hello,” the Doctor began, waving, “Look, I know I look a bit different, but I thought you’d recognize my TARDIS before calling your hordes-“

The bald man behind the desk continued to stare. He was dressed in a button-down and an expensive-looking tweed blazer, looking right at home in the old-English-style office if it weren’t for the sci-fi nature of his chair – which Loki now realized was a sort of wheelchair as the man finally blinked and then rolled out from behind the desk.

“…Doctor?” he asked, sounding a bit taken aback, just as he raised a hand toward his temple – and then winced. “…ah. It is you. Only your mind could be such a confusing mess.”

“Oy!” The Doctor protested. “But yeah.” He smiled. “Hello, Charles.”

“Hello,” the man returned the greeting, interestingly also speaking with a British accent, even though Loki’s internal system of coordinates had meanwhile worked out that they were in the US again. The Midgardian turned to Loki. "And you would be..."

As the man - Charles - looked at him, Loki felt something brush against his mind, and slammed down his mental defences in a panicked reflex. The human gave another little wince at this, but Loki had already bared his teeth, snarling.

"Do not dare to presume and invade my mind, mortal," he took a step forward, about to tower over the seated man (who still only gave him a mild frown, infuriatingly not looking intimidated at all) as the Doctor put a hand on Loki's shoulder.

"Loki. Charles. Simmer down," he said, looking from one to the other. "You two fighting is not very helpful to what we're trying to do, here. Also, Loki, I said that he’s a telepath, didn't I?" he added, using a tone much like someone trying to explain an eccentric tic of one of their friends at a party.

"You let him into your mind?" Loki asked, staring at the Doctor with disbelief. The Time Lord shrugged.

"Charles knows he's welcome to surface thoughts. It does make talking faster, you know." He gave Loki a small smile. "Don't worry. I keep the more important stuff under wraps." 

"Not like trying to look much further wouldn't result in a headache anyway," Charles said, giving a bit of a wry smile, before he turned back to Loki, looking up at him.

"I fear we may have gotten off to a bad start. My apologies. Please let me introduce myself properly." He stuck out a hand toward Loki. "My name is Charles Xavier and I am the headmaster of this school for…gifted people."

"Loki. Of Asgard," Loki replied, tentatively gripping the hand of Xavier, but shaking it. "Though I have a feeling you already gathered that."

"I did, yeah," Xavier gave a bit of a guilty grimace. "Sorry. It was just, I was really amazed that Asgard is a real place, apparently - telepathy can become a bad habit, I'm afraid."

Loki felt tempted to add that if Xavier attempted anything like this again, he’d take care the telepath would end another bad habit, namely breathing, but didn’t. He had to admit he was a bit curious to see which place the Doctor apparently saw fit for a scared and homeless alien mage-child, so, burning it to the ground now wouldn’t be very conducive. By now, Xavier had already turned to the Doctor again, anyway, tilting his head at him with a curious smile.

“You do look…different, old friend,” he said. “I’d even say younger if it weren’t for your mind. Please, have a seat,” he gestured to two chairs in front of the desk. 

“Yeeeah,” the Doctor briefly rolled his shoulders as they sat down. “Had a bit of a…Time War in between. Don’t look if you don’t want to see,” he added and his tone sounded warning. The brief flash of pain across Xavier’s face that let him seem older for a moment, indicated that perhaps the telepath hadn’t listened.

“I…I see,” Xavier said after a moment, apparently having recovered. “But this isn’t why you’re here now. You came because…ah.”  His eyes had become briefly unfocused, but then snapped back to clarity with a blink.

“See? Told you it’s faster than talking,” the Doctor muttered as an aside to Loki, before nodding at Xavier. “Yes. She’s currently in the TARDIS, still sleeping.”

“Right,” Xavier nodded, a slightly absent-minded look on his face suggesting that he was likely still sifting through the tale of their journey on Lakvit. Loki wasn’t quite sure whether he appreciated the telepath’s ability for indeed shortening tedious talks to get people up to speed or whether he found the idea of not being able to put his own spin on events rather irksome.

“Listen, I know it’s technically a school for mutants,” the Doctor said, “but she’s a Kree-Wraith hybrid – that should count as mutanous enough, shouldn’t it?”  He frowned. “Mutanous? Wait, is that a word? It sounds like a word.”

“Doctor-“ Xavier began, strained expression indicating that yes, he had known the Time Lord from before, because this was exactly the face of someone who was trying to cut him off from going on one of his sidetreks - but as it turned out, that wasn’t necessary. This time, the Doctor returned far more quickly to a more somber mood, leaning forward in his chair again.

 “Charles. She doesn’t have anywhere to go. Will you take her?”

“Ah,” Xavier, replied, looking hesitant for a moment, and Loki felt an unexpected surge of anger suddenly flaring up inside him. He didn’t even quite know why, he didn’t care for Ver, he was certain, but now looking at these two men just deciding over her fate, either one reluctant to have her at all, not asking her opinion, so we just hand her off an unwanted parcel, is that it, he thought sharply, and then immediately felt foolish.

What did any of this concern him, after all? She was just a random half-Kree girl, and it should be no wonder neither the Doctor nor Xavier would want a child who couldn’t even keep control over her own mind…

“Loki,” Xavier spoke, quietly, and Loki’s gaze snapped back up. For a moment he was alarmed, because he was sure none of his sentiments had shown on his face, he was far too practiced at that, but when he saw Xavier’s slightly guilty grimace, he already knew it hadn’t been his expression that had given him away. (Although his expression was rapidly changing now).

“I’m sorry,” Xavier spoke quickly in the face of Loki’s impending anger, “I honestly didn’t mean to. But thoughts with a lot of emotion behind them are basically shouting for a telepath. I couldn’t help but overhear,” he said with a bit of a wince. “But let me say this…” he took a breath, a bit of a sad smile on his face now. “Unfortunately, a lot of my students were unwanted at some point in their lives.” His expression then changed again, becoming warmer, more kind. “But I can assure you, here they are wanted. Very much.”

“And I can assure you, what you do with her is of little concern to me,” Loki replied icily, taking a bit of pleasure to basically bodyslam Xavier’s mental presence straight out of his head again and watching the Midgardian flinch. “But it did not seem like you were pleased at the thought on taking her in.”

“No. That wasn’t it,” Xavier shook his head, one hand of his now grasping at the side of it like someone who had just banged it against a cupboard. Loki almost had to admit to some grudging respect that the telepath still managed to remain outwardly polite, if strained. “I admit I was mainly concerned with whether we would be committing some kind of…interstellar offence taking in a child who clearly still has a legal guardian…?” he trailed off, looking at the Doctor.

“Believe me, that ‘legal guardian’ will not be too concerned looking for her,” Loki spoke again, surprising both Xavier and, truthfully, himself. But he had to concede that, in retrospect, for all that psychic abilities now unsettled him even more than before this adventure, Xavier’s mind brushing against his own had felt…curious rather than predatory, and his declaration that the children here were wanted…had sounded sincere.

“Loki is right,” the Doctor nodded. “You know I try not to bring too many aliens here that would put the Earth in danger, right?”

“Hm-hmm,” Xavier replied, also casting a glance at Loki that Loki didn’t dignify with a reply, but his expression held more faint amusement than worry now. Then he nodded. “Then yes. We will take her in. I know that as a non-human mutant she isn’t exactly the same as the rest of our students, but…” he smiled. “Here we do appreciate being different.”

Spare me, Loki thought again, but it was now once again as mostly empty of venom as it had been with the Doctor – clearly, the Time Lord liked to consort with equally irritatingly well-meaning people as himself.

“May I – may I see her?” Xavier asked, and Loki thought it was probably the hint of curiosity and hope that finally did him in.

“Of course-“ the Doctor began, but by then, Loki had already waved a hand and Ver appeared on the couch in Xavier’s office, still sleeping. Loki carefully watched Xavier’s face as he beheld her blue skin and copper-red hair, her magic robes so outlandish for this world, but if the telepath was aware of Loki’s scrutiny, he was a phenomenal actor.

“Amazing,” he breathed. “So she is a…Kree-Wraith hybrid, you said? The way she looks, she reminds me a bit of an old friend of mine…” 

“She’s a shape-changer,” the Doctor said. “When we first met her, she looked human. So far, this seems to be the form she seems to be most comfortable with.”

“Well,” Xavier ran a hand over his head, “She’s welcome to look like what she wishes. A lot of shape-changing students start out trying to look like their peers, until they find out it isn’t necessary, here.”

(At this, Loki suppressed a bit of a snort – clearly, the man had never been a teenager himself if he thought all young people were that forgiving of deviating looks, but he could also guess that this place was still probably a lot better than Asgard in that regard.)

“We…well, I, really – sort of blocked some of her memories. Namely, her almost committing accidental genocide,” the Doctor said. “Can you…?”

“Trust me, I have learned from the entire phoenix debacle,” Xavier nodded. “I will try and help her as much as possible. Prepare her to understand. Be as transparent as possible, too, so she can have her entire memory back when she’s older.”

“Good. Thank you,” the Doctor nodded. “Maybe just don’t give her unfinished fantasy book series to read, while you’re still at it.”

“Or perhaps do,” Loki suggested, wryly. “The results should be entertaining.”

Xavier shot him a sharp look. “You know, you do remind me of another old friend of mine, actually. Same prickly personality, for one thing,” he added, more under his breath, but then seemed to consciously relax and look at Loki earnestly again.  “Would you…wake her up?”

Xxx

“I cannot help but be surprised, Doctor,” Loki said, a few moments later as the two of them and the TARDIS were safely ensconced behind one of Loki’s perception filter shields, still standing in Charles’ office as Loki was preparing to let his magic forcing Ver into her sleep recede. Charles was sitting at her side, giving them a nod to proceed. Loki let one of his hands trails through the air, as if dispersing  some mist.

“Hmm?” the Doctor turned his head to look at his companion – truly, he was rather pleased with how the meeting had gone, Charles and Loki thankfully not getting off on the wrong foot too much. 

“Like you said, you do not generally choose to take ‘alien interference’ to Midgard if you can help it – why her?” he asked and turned his head to look at the Doctor, the why not me when I met you-addendum to his question obvious even if you weren’t a telepath.

“Well, yeah, I said that,” the Doctor hedged. “But this world…” he could feel his lips pull into a smile tinged only slightly with sadness. “It’s…good at adopting people. Especially ones who don’t have a family anymore.”

In response, Loki only gave him a longer stare, but then seemed to concentrate on his spell again. On the couch, Ver blinked awake for the third time that day.

“Hello, Ver,” Charles said to her with a smile. “My name is Charles Xavier and you’re here at my school. How are you feeling?”

“Maybe we should go now, Doctor,” Loki said and the Time Lord nodded. Loki seemed to hesitate for a moment, and then shot a glance at the Doctor before actually taking a step toward the TARDIS’ doors.

“Will she be safe here?”

“Oh, not remotely,” the Doctor replied cheerfully as Loki’s eye brows rose, but then hurriedly tried to explain. “Well. What I mean is this school basically gets attacked every two months, but the teachers here are also very protective of their students. Ver should be fine.”

Loki frowned, casting another glance at the small blue girl who had just started to sit up and look around the room, her gaze flitting over the TARDIS and the two of them behind Loki’s spell with no visible reaction. “Will she remember us?”

“In time. Perhaps,” the Doctor said, also watching Ver, who seemed confused and a bit anxious, but not straight-up fearful as Charles was talking to her gently, asking her for her full name and if she knew how she got here. “Right now, her adventure on Lakvit must seem like a dream to her. She’ll probably think that the space ship she commandeered crashed here on Earth, in time. Most people’s minds are good at making up these sorts of explanations to fill in gaps that don’t make sense.”

“They do tend to be, yes,” Loki said, as they both turned back toward the TARDIS, the Doctor reaching out to open it.  Loki crossed his arms, raising one eye brow.  “So. This is what you do. Without reward. Without even a witness, if she doesn’t regain her memories.”

“Well, not entirely without witness, I hope,” the Doctor tried a tentative smile. He opened the door of the TARDIS.

“…still want to travel with me?” 

xxx

After they had stepped back into the TARDIS, and the noise indicated their dematerialization from “Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters”, the Doctor was already bounding up the steps to the TARDIS console and starting to pull down levers and swinging around displays.

"Right," he said, "Now, I was thinking, maybe we could go see this really intriguing colony on Omicron Theta, or maybe we could go see some actual dragons – or do you want to give the roots of Yggdrasil another try…?" he trailed off, tilting his head at Loki in a curious expression.

Loki paused for a moment. The roots of Yggdrasil still held some fascination, yes, but…what he had kept thinking about ever since they had reversed the fate of Lakvit had been something else.

"If you would not mind," Loki took a breath, "if your ship can indeed traverse time as easily as space, I think there is one stop I would like to make first."

xxx

Loki had stepped out of the TARDIS a few minutes ago, her noise of disappearance afterward by now familiar.  The Doctor had said he wasn't always able to land her with pinpoint precision in regards to either space or time, but right now, Loki thought, he had managed to end up exactly where and when intended.

The Bifrost was as shattered as it had been, shards of the rainbow bridge scattered all across its brightness, but there was still a single, lone figure kneeling at its deserted edge. Odin had obviously long returned to the Palace.

Good. That would make things easier.

After a few more moments, the Void's winds whipping Loki's robes around his ankles, he finally managed to start walking toward him.

And paused as soon as he was only a few feet away. The figure at the edge hadn't moved, perhaps suspecting Loki's approach was only a guard or similar, sent to finally retrieve him and bid him back to Asgard. Loki paused. Took a breath.

And then summoned the strength to utter the word he had tried so hard to strike from his mind for the past few days until last night.

"...brother?"

As soon as he had said it, Thor was kneeling no longer, had whirled to his feet with Mjolnir at the ready, grace of a golden lion in every single limb and movement. Blue eyes stared at Loki, half-mad and disbelieving and...reddened at the rims-?

"Thor!" Loki yelled, blurting out the name before the Odinsson had been able to hurl Mjolnir at him out of reflex, raising his hands in a peace offering he prayed Thor would recognize and accept. "Stay your weapons! I wish to talk."

"To...to talk," Thor croaked, voice sounding ragged as if he had been howling for hours. Loki chose not to think about what that had to mean, but could feel the sting in his heart still.

"How could you talk, Loki, when you are dead? Have been dead for hours now," Thor rasped, blinking, his grip shifting on Mjolnir even if he wasn't raising it again for the moment. "Either this is a cruel illusion you left to torment me or I am truly going mad."

"Oh, come, Thor," Loki tried a smile, as ill-fitting as it felt. "It was a trick, that is all. An amusement to myself to make you all think I died, and what a great joke it was."

"No," Thor shook his head. "No, Loki. I saw your face when the Allfather spoke. When you let go of Gungnir even though I begged you not to. I know you outwitted me often, but I still know what true despair looks like on my brother's features." He shook his head. "I have not forgiven father for this, you know. But even I know that will not bring you back." He wiped across his face, briefly, before his expression settled into a sterner one, that Loki was far more familiar with, brows drawn and blue eyes narrowed, dangerous. "Now go back to where you came from, whatever shade or shadow of my brother you are."

"No!" Loki burst out, quickly before Thor could turn away from him, having to clear his throat before he could continue, because by now it somehow felt far more constricted than it should. "It's...no illusion, Thor. It is true I fell. It is true I wanted to fall." When Thor still squinted at him, uncomprehending, Loki tried to soften his expression the smallest bit. "I got better?"

Thor stared at him.

Then he picked up a shard of the Bifrost and threw it at Loki's face.

"Oh for –" Loki gave an annoyed gasp as he dodged to avoid the projectile, "Could you for once stop throwing things at me to see whether I am-?"

"Brother!" Thor's disbelieving, relieved shout drowned out the rest of his words, the God of Thunder rushing to him and crushing him against his chest, before staring at Loki with still-reddened eyes now newly shining. "It is you! I thought you a ghost, a spectre of my grief!"

"Yes, yes, I think we've established that," Loki tried to struggle against the embrace, feeling very much reminded of a similar scene that had played out in his mind earlier, thankful that this time he at least didn't have an audience.

"How did you...?" Thor began, stepping backwards with large hands settling on Loki's shoulders to hold him at arm's length without letting him get away again, eyes blinking against fresh moisture as he looked Loki up and down. "You look…somehow different than when you fell. What happened to you, brother?"

Loki took a breath. "I am Loki, Thor, but from days yet to come. I was saved when I fell into the void, but for me, some time has passed since our...altercation." He swallowed. "I learned to see some things differently."

"Did you," Thor asked, and once again there seemed to be a greater depth to his gaze that just occasionally suggested there was more going on in the Odinsson's head than what the immediate surface gave away. "You do not look as angry or sad as you did before," Thor said, and there were the beginnings of a smile on his face.  

Loki felt an answering tug on the edge of his own lips. "And indeed, I am not."

"That must have been some days you spent, then!" Thor said, wonderingly. "Truly, brother, whatever drove a wedge between us, I did not mean-!"

"I know," Loki cut him off, waving a hand with the little freedom Thor allowed him currently, "Believe it or not, Thor, this is a conversation I've had in my head with you already," he said, allowing himself a wry tone that he knew Thor wouldn't understand anyhow, but likely not care.

"I know now you did not intend to drive me away," Loki said. "And I know the part that the Allfather's machinations played in all of it, hiding my true heritage from me. Leading, in part, to me also...behaving less than honourable - even for my standards."

“Your…heritage. Yes.” His brother swallowed. “Father told me about it, after you…” he broke himself off. “I will not pretend it did not come as a shock to me, too, Loki," Thor said. "But if you for a moment believe it would make me think of you as less, love you less-"

"No," Loki cut him off again, quickly before the impact of the real Thor's words could choke him (apparently, having spent a few hours thinking your brother had died could make anyone more emotional than usual). Loki could feel the edge of his mouth pull into a brittle smile. "By now I can believe it would not."

"Then come!" Thor exclaimed, lighting up. "Let us head back to Asgard, to tell everyone the news! And I shall speak straight to the Allfather what I think of his misjudgement-!" Thor said, blue eyes blazing with earnestness -

"No."

Thor, who had just been about to drag Loki toward Asgard, one large hand still on his shoulder, paused.

"…no?"

"No," Loki said, but took care to soften the word with a gentler tone. "I fear Asgard may have grown too small for me, brother. I long to see more than the Nine, do things…where I may not stand in your shadow, but tall on my own." He held up a hand as Thor immediately tried to protest. "Don’t argue, Thor. It was part of what fueled my rage, and we both know it. But you don’t have to fear," he said, and then let the edge of his mouth transform into a sly grin, making it as sharp as his old ones.  "I will go, but I shall always come back before you become too full of yourself." 

"Hah!" Thor let out a guffaw, for one moment looking like he had before everything had turned sour between them, a trace of their earlier days when pranks had been light-hearted and insults like these with no sting in them. Blue eyes turned more earnest then, the realization that those carefree days were past, but also that tacit mending of the wounds that had replaced them might be possible, hanging between them like an unspoken thread.

Thor let go of Loki's shoulder and took a step back, expression softer now.  "So. You have found a place, then, brother?"

"Not yet." Loki shook his head, before he also allowed a gentler trace of a smile. "But I may have found a friend."

And with that, he let himself fall backwards again, enjoying Thor's surprised shout and couldn't help but grin upwards this time at his brother's wide-eyed face looking over the edge of the Bifrost.

Ever the dramatics for you, of course, a voice in his head commented wryly, but it was far from the hateful tone he had been used to hearing in his mind. There was almost a laugh bubbling up in his throat as he gave a last wave before gravity really took hold of him and he could feel himself tumbling down again, surrounded by nothing but cold and stars.

Yet this time, there was no despair or terror. No fear. If Loki hadn't known bettter, he'd said he was flying.

He closed his eyes.

"Want a lift?"

And then opened them again when he could feel a familiar hand close securely around his wrist.

"Seems like I caught a trickster,“ the Doctor was grinning up at him, one hand of his holding on to the edge of the doorframe of his ridiculous box ship he was standing in, golden light spilling out into the darkness around them, the menace of the Void's vortex below nothing but a background feature as long as you were enclosed in the TARDIS' forcefield.

Loki returned a wry smile of his own. "Seems like a trickster would not mind a ride."

And just for a moment, Loki couldn't help but enjoy the sensation - his hair and clothes were floating around him as if he were underwater, but breathing came easy in the air provided by the Doctor's ship, Asgard already so far away in the distance it had almost become just another star in the endless, silent sky.

"It's...peaceful." Loki could hear himself say, and felt surprised by how a part of him seemed to mean it.

The Doctor smiled up at him. "Wanna go somewhere more exciting?"

"By the norns, yes."

“Oh, good." The Time Lord grinned and with a yank had Loki back inside the TARDIS, before he was already bouncing back toward the console, looking at Loki with excitement.

"See, while you were visiting your family, I had some time to analyze that mind stone a bit and where it was supposed to be going and now I'm thinking of looking into a certain Titan a bit more…”

"Sounds intriguing," Loki smirked back. "Let's go."

And with that, the column in the center already started to move as the blue phonebox was off again, Time Lord and Trickster, two no longer lonely gods, on the way to their next adventure.

And if Heimdall was watching, he probably thought that the Norns should have mercy on the soul of anyone crazy enough to cross them.

Fin