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First: the endless moment of falling through the Void, knocked free of the Bifrost and oh this was familiar, the awful silence, the nothingness. No, Loki thought. Not this. Please, not this.
Second: the crash. Falling out of the Void and into somewhere else, toward something, and he hit ground hard and lay there gasping, dazed, and unutterably relieved.
Only third did he realize that there was a good foot and a half of sword sticking out of his body.
“Oh,” he said faintly, staring at it. His thoughts blurred and his hands fluttered around the blade, and now that he’d noticed he could feel the whole length of it piercing through him. In just to the left of his spine in his lower back. Crossing through and out just under his ribs.
The shock that had been shielding him very abruptly vanished, and Loki curled up into himself with a choked scream. Pain beat savagely against him, hammering at his brain, shoving all coherent thought away until all he could think about was how much he hurt. He needed it out, now, but when he tried to twist to grab the hilt he felt metal grind against bone, something ripping inside.
He collapsed back, gasping and fighting for control. Get up, he thought. Where are you, you need to find some kind of shelter-
He didn’t dare move. Could feel himself shaking.
Thor, he thought abruptly. Thor had been - right beside him. Unarmed. He could have been flung loose as well, or-
Or worse.
Footsteps were approaching. Loki held still, hoping he might go unnoticed. He wasn’t going to trust to the kindness of strangers. He groped for his magic and at last found it, though it flickered twice out of his reach, and held it close.
“Look there,” he heard. “I told you I saw something.”
“Looks dead,” said another one. “Might not be good anymore.”
“Better than nothing,” said still another. Loki held his breath, trying to judge, listen to how many there might be. Four, he thought. Maybe five?
He could manage that.
Are you sure? Like this?
“Still seems fresh,” said a voice, now very nearby. “Bit scrawny. But it’ll do for a bit of eating.”
Revulsion swamped him and Loki rolled over. Or tried. The sword shifted in him and he screamed, spots appearing in front of his eyes. The person standing over him stumbled back, then raised a weapon pointed at Loki’s head.
He lashed out blindly with the most savage curse he could think of, and their head tumbled from their shoulders. He lashed out again, and again, magic surging out of him wild and uncontrolled and something new tore, blood in the back of his throat but he wasn’t going to be butchered like livestock, not here - wherever here was.
When all was silent, except for periodic crashes of things falling from the portals dotting the sky, Loki was spitting blood on the ground, his core throbbing. He desperately wanted the sword out of his body. He knew it was probably one of the only things keeping him from bleeding to death.
Damn you, Loki thought, and wasn’t sure if he meant himself, or Hela, or the universe in general.
He was dying. Thor was probably already dead.
What a marvelous day this had been.
There was a heap of trash not far away with a bit of a hollow under what looked like a discarded half of a bed. Loki pushed himself to his knees. The sword caught on the ground when he tipped forward, shoving it further out his back, and Loki threw up for the pain and had to hold still, shaking, until it ebbed.
He managed to make it, though, and huddled in the small, stinking, shelter. He wasn’t seeing a lot of other options.
Loki came around to someone crouching in front of his meager shelter. He jerked back with a snarl, lunging for his magic, but it slipped out of reach. He felt weak, and cold, and recognized dimly that he was well on his way to the point of no return - and this time, he suspected, he wouldn’t be coming back.
“There’s six dead scavengers over there,” said a female voice. “Did you do that?”
Loki said nothing.
“Is that a sword you’ve got sticking out of you?”
“What do you think,” Loki said, his voice shaking.
“It definitely looks like one.” She grabbed him by one wrist and yanked him out. Loki tried to fight her, to jerk away, but he could barely even move without wanting to scream. His stomach muscles had locked up around the wound, shrieking when he tried to move.
She took one look at the blade and jerked back. “Where did you get this?” She asked. Loki stared at her.
“Someone stabbed me with it,” he said. She hissed out a breath.
“Someone,” she said. Loki couldn’t focus on her face very well, though he could make out white tattoos, brown skin. After a long moment she made a frustrated noise. “I should just - fucking leave you here,” she said, sounding distracted, and then more directly to him added, “I need to take that sword out.”
“You can’t keep it,” Loki said, baring his teeth at her. “It’s mine. And I need it.”
“If I’m going to move you it can’t stay,” she said.
Loki stared at her foggily. He wanted to crawl back into his makeshift shelter. If before he’d wanted it out - the intrusive, sickening feeling of metal caressing his entrails - now the idea of anyone touching the sword made him want to vomit. “No,” he said.
“Too bad,” she said. “I wasn’t really asking.” She rolled him to his side and grabbed the hilt. Loki panted, panic building.
“No,” he said again. “No, don’t-”
She yanked it out in one smooth movement. Loki’s vision exploded, his brain exploded, and unconsciousness came down on him like Mjolnir itself.
No, was his final thought, Mjolnir is shattered now. I’ll need a new metaphor.
Then nothing.
He resurfaced in a world of pain, his body burning. His mouth was full of the coppery taste of blood and the acid burn of vomit. At least he was on his side, because it still felt like something was stabbing through him.
The woman who’d - rescued? captured? him was pacing back and forth, holding the sword Hela had skewered him with.
He stared at her, trying to think of anything except for the fact that he hurt. Only that just left him thinking of the fact that Odin was dead and Thor was probably dead and he was on his own somewhere, he didn’t know, but where people had tried to eat him upon arriving.
Don’t think about any of that, either.
He made a faint croaking sound that he meant to be a request for water. She turned to look over at him, her expression hard.
“This sword,” she said. “Who stabbed you with it?”
I don’t think you can get another one, if that’s what you’re asking, Loki tried to say, but it just came out as a rasp. She grimaced, walked out of sight, and came back with a glass of what looked like water. Loki eyed it, decided he had very little to lose, and managed to push himself up enough against the screaming protests of his body to take a few sips.
“Where am I?” He asked.
“Sakaar,” she said. “Answer the question.”
Loki rasped a weak laugh and dropped his head down, closing his eyes. “My older sister.”
“Your-” she hissed out a breath through her teeth. “And where did she find it?”
“I get the feeling you recognize it,” Loki said weakly. She just looked at him, expression hard. “Fine, I’ll humor you. Hela stabbed me. Why, does that name mean something to you-”
He cut off abruptly when he felt the fine edge of a knife at his throat. He fought for a smile. “Not friends, then, I take it?”
The knife pressed closer. “What are you doing here? Where is she?”
“Presumably Asgard, by now,” Loki said wearily. Thor. Norns. He focused on the pain instead. “Though I don’t actually know what happened after she stabbed me and threw me into space.”
She turned on her heel and walked away, breathing hard.
“How do you know about her?” He asked.
“We go way back. You said she was your older sister.”
“Apparently. I wasn’t aware until recently.” Loki closed his eyes. “I don’t suppose you have anything to dull pain?” She said nothing, and Loki sighed, though it hitched halfway through. “I’m Loki. Odinson, I suppose. There’s probably no point denying it now, since the only people it mattered to are dead.”
Speaking those words aloud burned like a fresh sword through his chest. He suppressed that as hard as possible.
“Odin Borson is dead?” She said, half turning. Loki dipped his chin and she snorted. “Good riddance.”
Loki opened his eyes to stare at her, and then let out a harsh, startled laugh that broke off with a groan. “I can understand the feeling,” he said, when he thought he had his voice back, more or less. She said nothing, and Loki sunk back into the bed he supposed must be hers. “What are you going to do with me?”
“I’m still thinking about it,” she said tersely. Then turned around and walked away again. When she came back it was with two small pink capsules that she dropped in front of his face. “Take those. I don’t want to listen to you moaning.”
“Kind of you,” Loki mumbled. He dry-swallowed both, his fingers clumsy and weak. He was shivering again. It would be just his luck to take an infection from this. To die right here, on an alien planet in the bed of a woman whose name he didn’t even know.
“Who are you?” He asked, because at least maybe one of those things he could change.
“No one,” she said, and grimaced. “I should’ve left you there.”
Loki laughed shakily. “Probably,” he said. “It’s the kind of choice people usually regret.”
She made a disgusted noise. “Go ahead and pass out again,” she said. “Maybe I’ll have some better ideas when you wake up.”
“Good luck,” Loki mumbled, and let himself fade out.