there is something, wherever you haven't looked

[thelostprince]

This door was interesting.

Instead of leading to another place in the hotel, he found himself somewhere altogether different. For a moment, Loki wondered if this was going to be another form of being stranded - that he was hopping from one universe to the next, cutting himself further and further away from the world he knew, and making his way back would be a long and arduous journey. This did occur to him. He shut the door behind him anyway, and did not bother to open it again.

He stood outside of what looked to be a storefront. Like everything else he had come across lately it was Midgardian in its smallness and style, yet that was the only thing boring about it. The world he looked upon was grey and dim, and there was that sound, near silent but pressing in on the ears, of falling snow. Of course, it wasn't snow, and had been the first thing to tug at his curiosity.

Stepping out from under the overhang, he held out his hand, which looked startlingly pale in the light, and touched the ash that landed in his palm. He smeared it slightly. It wasn't volcanic, he didn't think. While the world was cool and dim he could feel a heat burning, though he wasn't sure where from.

"I think I like this place," he decided aloud. Loki did not feel alone, instead sensed that there was someone in his blind spot, hovering. Wherever he did not look he was missing a secret, a hidden danger, and that alone thrilled him. Caution be damned; he was tired of it. He set off, leaving bootprints in the ash.

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[not_lost]

Fiona had planned on going home. She had a near-perfect track record getting to and from the Nexus—No key, no song and dance, just a moment's concentration and she got where she wanted to go, regardless of which door she used. Her assurance in this was so solid that for a brief moment, she didn't register that she'd ended up someplace she hadn't intended.

This was definitely not Chicago.

Despite being out in the open the place felt close, like it was pressing up around her on all sides, murky and dim. Her bare forearms tickled with the brush of falling snow, but there was no chill, no wet melt against her skin. Fiona blinked toward the sky and then brushed the flakes from her eyelashes, only to look down and see the smear of ash across her palm.

Yeah, she really did not need to be here.

Swallowing down a spike of anxiety, she turned back to the door she'd entered through and pulled it open again and again. She thought of home, thought of the Nexus, thought of anyplace else, to no avail: it only opened to a decrepit storefront. Now genuinely alarmed, she turned and squinted into the haze, her dark hair crowned in ashy white.

She spied a trail of fresh footprints and began haltingly after, calling, "Hello? Is anybody out there?"

[thelostprince]

Loki paused in his exploration, turning his head towards the sound of something lost, like a lamb in the woods. He had been to some very strange places before and, in addition to that, he had always been a tricky individual, aware of betrayals all around him. Any sad, lonely sound could be a trap, but he didn't care at the moment. If it was a trap he would walk right into it; and then he would walk back out again.

"I am here," he said. It didn't occur to him that to a lamb, he might be the wolf. Really, it was more that the voice sounded familiar, and that had his attention. A puff of ash flitted around him, and for a minute he thought of the desolation of Jotunheim, and how he had, undoubtedly, ruined that world even more with his actions.

[not_lost]

The returning call was buffered by the thick air but still there was something vaguely familiar about it, enough that Fiona continued forward, quick but watchful, eyes straining as she stepped hastily across gray, buckling asphalt. Ahead a figure finally emerged, a tall, dark smear against the ashy, pale haze. A few more steps and she recognized the silhouette.

"Loki?" she called, and closed the rest of the distance in a quick sprint. "What the hell are you—"

The deafening wail of an air raid siren began, cutting Fiona off with a startled jump. Eyes wide, she snapped her head around, stepping haltingly closer until she bumped up against Loki and took a hard hold of his arm.

[thelostprince]

Ah, it was Fiona. That was why it had sounded familiar, though her voice had been nearly unrecognizable from the cocky one he had first been accustomed to hearing. She was rushing up to him in a way he certainly wasn't used to, but he kept still.

He was surprised by her grip, both at its presence and at its strength as her fingers tightened hard around his arm. It didn't hurt, but it spoke volumes. "I was just taking a look around," he said, as if the sound of a siren hadn't just begun wailing through the sky. He glanced around. There was no sign of anything new, no calamity or activity, and that alone made it even more chilling.

Looking back at Fiona, who did not seem at all happy, he supposed some form of comfort might be in order. "Try not to worry, Fiona," he said. "Whatever happens will happen, whether you're frightened or not."

[not_lost]

As comfort went, Loki's advice was pretty shitty, but the dubious expression on Fiona's face was fleeting. Beneath the coldness of the statement was good sense, sense she'd probably have tried to apply without giving a name to it, if only because when shit hit the fan, people like Fiona didn't usually have much other choice.

"It's kind of an instinct," she hastily explained, and swallowed against the rapid pulse in her throat. "Not all of us can turn people into icicles with our pinkie."

Noting the clamp of her own hand against Loki's arm, she began to awkwardly loosen her grip as the siren stopped, only to immediately firm it again. The quality of the light began to change, the pale haze quickly giving way to inky darkness as the facades of the buildings around them began to crumble and peel away into ash.

[thelostprince]

Fear was not something he was a stranger to, but it was not a feeling that occurred to him all that often. He looked down at her hand on his arm, amused, but not letting it show on his face. It wasn't often that anyone ever clutched at him for support; as far as reliability went, most people did not consider him any more trustworthy than a rope bridge left to rot at the top of a mountain.

He knew very well he could have stepped into a world where even he, an immortal god, was weak and fragile. Formerly, good sense might have reigned, but he was tired of playing that role. Letting yourself plummet into nothingness and fully expecting to die did something to your self preservation.

Fiona was with him, though, and he sort of liked her. If she broke, he'd have to find a new toy, and thus far he had trouble finding ones that were fun to play with. "I can do more than that," he said, simply, by way of reassurance. Using her grip on his arm, he turned slightly, pressing her back a bit so that she was somewhat behind him.

[not_lost]

It felt strange to be the one protected when Fiona had spent so much of her life as the one stepping in front of others, but she went easily nevertheless, smart enough to recognize that she was fully out of her depth. Apart from her ability to run quickly she didn't have much going for her just now, so she'd happily stay behind the guy with the magical powers, thanks very much.

"What were you even doing here in the first place?" Fiona hissed in Loki's ear, pressed close now against his shoulder as she squinted into the darkness.

[thelostprince]

Loki shrugged. "I was curious," he said. "What were you doing here? Did you take a wrong turn on your way to the bar?"

He didn't bother shaking her off, figuring she would let go of him when she wanted to. He started moving forward, more interested than intimidated. The world seemed to be burning, that strange heat he had first sensed on arrival suddenly pressing in on him. While the fog had been quiet and passive, the world around them now seemed to bleed violence. His fingers itched.

[not_lost]

"Something like that," Fiona absently answered, uncertain whether she ought to feel comforted or irritated by how completely unworried Loki seemed. In any case, she kept close, one hand against his arm as they moved forward.

The street around them was difficult to make out, but what little she could see was beyond derelict, buildings and sidewalks falling in on themselves in a way that reminded her, distressingly, of pictures they'd shown in school of Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the bomb. Without warning Fiona darted out toward the crumbling remains of a car, returning a moment later with a long piece of metal in hand, perhaps an axle or steering rod, hefted in her hands with the confidence of someone used to wielding a bat with violent intent.

[thelostprince]

It was in his understanding that the addition of a weapon did one of two things - turned a capable person slightly more confident, or an incapable person more nervous. At the very least, Fiona looked more comfortable clutching a rusty piece of metal than not. And if she wasn't nervous with it, that meant she was less likely to accidentally hit him with it.

"Well," he said. "I hope you won't be late for your shift." What he really wanted to do was poke around, but he figured that would be easier if he could manage to deposit Fiona back in the hotel. However, he didn't know if that was possible, so he would just have to get used to her for the time being.

A touch of movement caught his eye, and without warning Loki grasped Fiona's elbow and hustled her off the street and ducking into an alley. There were people, clad head to toe in battered overalls and masks. He didn't fear them, but to him they seemed like a scouting party, which he knew a an interloper to always avoid, at least when you had baggae. "We should try a few doors," he said, his voice still even and calm.

[not_lost]

"You know, if there's any employer in the universe that's forgiving of lateness, it's probably the Nexus," Fiona quipped, for once in her life not fully focused on keeping her job. Nothing particularly menacing had happened to them yet, but she still got the impression that keeping her life was a higher priority, here.

A priority which Loki was apparently on board with despite his magical powers of unknown enormity, considering the way he hustled her off the street the moment other figures appeared from the dim. Fiona nodded silently in response to his suggestion, but there wasn't much to choose from in the alley they'd moved into. A door stood near the back of the slender space, but Fiona couldn't get it to budge, perhaps more because of its solid metal weight than some cosmic force barring her entry.

[thelostprince]

Loki let her give the door a try, but they certainly didn't have all day. When it was clear she couldn't open it herself, he moved to try himself, uncertain if it was a problem of force or simply one of those doors who would not open. Thankfully, it appeared to be the former, because one good shove had it opening with a shriek of rusted metal that was uncomfortably loud.

Instead of ushering her in, though, Loki made sure to step inside first, all of his senses on the alert. It was strangely warm in the building, like an underground heat. But at the moment, there was nothing to cause any threat towards them. For the time being, they were still more or less alone.

[not_lost]

"Jesus, it's like a sauna in here," Fiona muttered as she stepped in behind him, her palms already sweaty against the rough, rusted surface of her makeshift weapon. The space ahead of them was dark, darker than seemed possible, and every primitive, childhood monster-under-the-bed instinct within her screamed that should she allow herself to be swallowed by that dark, she'd never come back out. But the sound of the door had alerted their buddies back on the main street, and there seemed little choice once the clatter of running footsteps began to echo up the alleyway.

On instinct, adrenaline on high for reasons Fiona couldn't place, she heaved herself against the inside of the door, which scraped closed behind them with an agonizing screech. Pulse loud in her ears, Fiona leaned back against the door only to have an abrupt pounding on the other side startle her forward again, where she bumped into Loki and only barely contained her startled yelp.