"You remember me."

"Yes…no…I...I don't know...I know you..." a confused Loki replied.

As if in a trance, Loki made his way to the phonograph to stand over it, staring down at the record on the turntable, "I gave you this."

"Yes...It will all come back to you in time," Fari responded, as Loki removed the record and crouched down, opening the cabinet beneath the turntable, returning the record to its slip cover and replacing it on the shelf, searching through the others stored there until finally selecting one.

Standing, Loki placed it on the turntable, sliding the brass switch of the turntable to the off position and winding the mechanism up once more, then switching it back on and moving the needle to the record. Once again staring down at the spinning record, he and Fari silent as Benny Goodman's orchestra played, Fari having crossed the room to stand behind him.

Loki turned from the phonograph, his eyes now falling on a mortal woman with reddish blond hair arranged in a style popular on Earth during the same era as the song, wearing a sage green, floral print mid 1930s era party dress accessorized with emerald earrings and the necklace with the green stone pendant. The interior of the cabin had been replaced with that of a dimly lit flat furnished and decorated in the style of the same time period as her dress. Reaching out she took his hand, the two beginning to slowly dance to the romantic yet sad tune before a female vocalist joined the orchestra.

"A cigarette that bears a lipstick's traces, an airline ticket to romantic places, a fairground's painted swing, these foolish things remind me of you…" Helen Ward's smooth voice sang, "A tinkling piano in the next apartment, those stumbling words that told you what my heart meant. Oh how the ghost of you clings! These foolish things remind me of you..."

"You loved this one from the first time I played it for you," Fari said as they danced.

"I was surprised to hear you play anything but Al Bowlly. I came to regret introducing you," Loki responded as the music came to an end, the two dancers separating, the flat fading around them replaced by the interior of the cabin, Fari's mortal guise and clothing returning to her true appearance.

"I knew you were jealous," Fari said with a smirk before a thought struck her, "Were you and he-"

"No...no," Loki interrupted, shaking his head, "I didn't know him all that well, a casual acquaintance, really. I doubt he'd have been interested. He mentioned his wife once, though I never met her. I suppose that didn't mean anything–" Loki said, now Fari's turn to interrupt.

"He was killed during the war…the Germans...a bomb exploded outside his flat," Fari said sadly, bowing her head, "I…I tried to save him. I had a vision. I went to his last show. He remembered me. He invited me to the party after. I begged him to stay instead of taking the last train back to London. I would have told him what was to happen, allowed him to see me as I am, but there were too many people, I couldn't get him alone. He was so adamant that he had to get back," Fari finished, a tear escaping her eye, sliding down her cheek.

"It's not your fault," Loki said, reaching out and placing a hand on her shoulder, "A mortal's lifespan is a blink of an eye, a heartbeat. He would be dead now in any event."

"Interdites' life spans are shorter than Asgardians. Did you view my life as of lesser value?"

"Only by five or six centuries. Do you honestly believe I would have risked everything–" Loki began to ask before falling silent, a disconcerted expression falling over his features before he swiftly turned from her, striding to the door.

"Loki?" Fari called to him as Loki reached it, throwing it open, "Loki! Where are you going?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Loki trudged along in the darkness, his right arm extended in front of him, a glowing green ball of magical light he had conjured in his upturned palm illuminating his path.

"This isn't real. It has to be a dream…it's all been a dream. I should have known...Father would never exile his golden boy," Loki said cynically as he trudged along in the chill darkness, "Me one of those monsters...it's absurd...Midgard, that dullard beast, the damn dark elves...that second rate sorcerer dressed like the Wizard of Oz and Dracula's love child. That's all it was, a dream. Now that I know it's a dream I'll wake up," Loki rambled to himself before raising his hand and slapping himself across the face, "Wake up!" he angrily commanded himself, coming to a sudden halt and slapping himself again, "Where the hell is Sif when I need her, damn it! Wake up, you idiot!"

"Loki! Come back!" he heard Fari call to him as she spotted the green glow in the distance.

Turning his head to look over his shoulder he saw the dull orange light of a candle lantern headed in his direction. Picking up his pace, he once again made his way forward until he could just make out what looked to be the tree line of a forest.

Loki entered the forest. Insects and various other small creatures chirped and croaked from the leafy canopy above. A large winged insect similar to a moth flew into his face, startling him for a moment, Loki shooing it away with his free hand. As he continued on his boot came down upon something soft and mushy as it made a sickening, squishing sound, a foul odor like rotting meat mixed with sewage assailing Loki's nostrils.

"Odin's beard!" Loki exclaimed in disgust, screwing up his face at the smell as he looked down at the fetid viscera under and around his boot illuminated by the green light.

Just as he went to lift his foot from it, Loki felt something grip his ankle, tightening around it before he was swiftly pulled off his feet to dangle in the air by one leg from the branch of a tree, yelping in surprise, his magical light going out, leaving him in darkness.

Loki hung upside down as the ocher glow of the candle lantern drew nearer, Fari coming to stand below him, staring up at him.

"Hoisted by your own petard," Fari said with a smirk, "Mine actually. A wynarg's been stalking this area for the last week. I've lost a goat and a sheep to it. I was hoping to capture it before it could get its claws on any more," she explained, "It's dangerous to be out here at night."

"Where is here, exactly?" Loki asked as Fari removed a knife from its sheath on her belt, moving to the trunk of the tree and began to saw at the rope attached to it.

"You don't recognize it? You paid a visit not all that long ago…with him. It was a short stay. You had other business to attend to…in Midgard." Fari told him as she continued to cut through the rope.

"Interdis?"

"My affinity for you had already made me a criminal. I had been banished here upon my return. They believed I told you. They would have killed me, the half he left alive, as many had wanted to do from the day I arrived home in chains, had my brother not finally divulged how the Mind Stone came into my grandmother's possession, how your father had relinquished it to her for safekeeping as it was too dangerous for two such relics to share the same realm."

Fari finished severing the rope, gripping it in one hand as she sheathed her knife before beginning to lower Loki to the ground just as a shrill, piercing screech came from behind her.

Before she could turn in the direction of the sound, two sets of claws fell upon her shoulders, tearing through the fabric of her chemise and digging into her flesh, Fari shrieking in shock and pain as she was pulled backward, losing her grip on the rope, Loki falling head first the last few feet to the ground.

"Fari!" Loki cried out as she continued to scream, frantically freeing his foot from the rope in the darkness before quickly rising from the ground, conjuring the magical light once again, this time in his left hand as he produced a dagger in his right, illuminating the scene as the velociraptoresque creature wrapped its scaly appendages around her and sank its teeth into her already wounded shoulder as she struggled for her knife.

As Loki charged at the wynarg it hissed, spitting venom as it released the bloodied Fari. Tackling the creature, Loki's magical light once again went out as he drove his dagger into its torso, the wynarg writhing as Loki withdrew his weapon, continuing to stab it until it lay dead. Rolling off the creature, Loki remained beside it on his back for a moment, recovering, still weakened by his previous ordeal and illness, before rising unsteadily to his feet.

"Fari?" Loki said as he once again conjured the light but far dimmer than before, searching for her, spying her sprawled face down in the detritus of the forest floor, her chemise shredded and stained with her blood. She groaned as he knelt beside her.

"I'll...I'll be all right..." Fari said, slowly sitting up, Loki assisting her to her feet, "There may be others...we have to go," she told him in a labored voice, unable to fully mask her agony, as she took a few stumbling steps forward to collect her lantern that had been knocked over during the attack, it's fragile flame snuffed out.

Using his magic to relight it, forgoing using it to produce his own light to conserve his strength, Loki wrapped an arm around her in support as they staggered toward the edge of the forest.