Title: Between Worlds
author: infraredphaeton
summary: Loki discovered the secret of moving between world when he was very young. A way Heimdall didn't know, that his father couldn't see.
warnings: pretentious language, crazy theories, completely ignored comic canon
a/n: I just saw Thor. It was awesome! I kind of adored Loki, despite the rest of the movie. Um, Spah! readers, don't worry, I haven't gone off it- I'll update soonishly, hopefully!
Loki discovered the secret to slipping between worlds when he was very, very young.
A prince of Asgard was to be protected, trained and watched at all times, but Loki knew illusion, and doubletalk, and his doubles were lifelike until they were touched, so he spent a lot more time on his own than the trainers knew.
One day, he was looking over the Edge, down into the darkness of the void, when he slipped.
Loki fell into the void as a child, it is said, and when he fell, he heard it whisper its secrets.
He fell and fell, and thought he was dead, that he would never see Father, or Mother, or Brother (because at this time, before the competition really started, he still thought of Thor as ‘brother’, rather than ‘rival’) and fell.
He fell until he grew hungry, until the petrifying fear began to ebb, and he could almost enjoy the wild whip of the wind around his face, his hair lashing at his face as he fell.
He fell until he thought there was nowhere left to fall.
He fell, and fell, thirsty and hungry, and somebody should have noticed that the prince had left a double by now, surely. Eventually, he grew tired, and while he fell, he slept, curled into a ball, small and delicately pink in the blackness of the void.
He found out the secrets of the void, there at the end of all things.
He grew bored, too, of the stars and blackness, and tried to move, to direct his fall, and found when he fell towards a world, something pulled him close, in a little nearer, like a magnetic pull.
He landed on the world of his father, and having exhausted it, leaped again into the void that cradled him like a favoured child.
Loki found that if he was careful, he could get close enough to land upon a world. He ended up somewhere cold and barren and more like home than Asgard ever had been. He drew patterns in the frost, imagined flowers in illusion and waited- something told him to wait.
When he waited, he felt the pull of the void again, and didn’t fall, but dived off the Edge of the strange icy world.
Once again, he was at the top of Yggdrasil, and could fall until he found where he wanted to go.
Having tired of his exploration, Loki returned to Asgard with power unthought of by Odin, the Allfather, the knower of things.
At the top of the worlds, Loki could dive once more, and waited in Void, which was almost more comfortable than walking, now, he’d spent so long there (and yet it seemed as though time had not passed), and landed gently on the Edge, the tiny, precarious cranny of rock he’d been exploring.
Loki fell into the Void when he was a child, and learned there of its secrets.
Loki could do something Thor couldn’t, for once. Something useful, something amazing, not body doubles and fake flowers. He smiled, walking back to the castle.
(Thor could fly, but Loki could Fall, and Falling was so much better than soaring)