So. I thought I was all finished with fanfiction, and then this little snippet happened as a gift for a friend. The original idea for it came from a hand-drawn comic I saw quite some time ago floating around on the interwebz; sadly, I can't recall the artist or the exact location. If I ever do find it, I'll be sure to post a link somewhere. :)

Falling.

Stars rushed past him, planets twinkled dimly in the distance, the void enveloped him. How would he die, in the end? Would he fall into a star, crash into a meteor, suffocate in a planet's atmosphere—or would he die slowly, his head light without oxygen, swooning into the cold arms of nothingness?

Whatever the cause, it mattered little. He would welcome death in any form.

The cry of his brother still rang in his ears, raw grief sounding through the galaxies.

"Loki, no!"

Cruel, cruel to drive him to the edge of pain only to chide him when he chose escape. What else could he have done? What other way lay open?

Darkness danced behind his eyes. He felt his breath leave him, his lips grow cold…no light anywhere, no feeling in his fingers…

…and then water. Bracing cold water swirled around him, filling his eyes and nose and ears. He gasped, choked, and went under.

When Loki came to he was lying on the floor of a brightly-coloured room, wrapped in a damp blanket. The room seemed to be tilting and weaving around him—whether the tilting was real or merely the holdover of an understandable dizziness on his part, he could not be sure. Footsteps sounded beside him, mingled with unintelligible voices and mysterious clangings. Warily he lifted himself onto his elbows.

"There, watch yourself," came a voice from behind him—a young man's voice, low and cautious. "You've taken quite a tumble."

"I'll say he has," piped up another voice. The speaker appeared in front of Loki, who was not too dazed to notice that she was very pretty with hair like hearth-flames. "And if he really is…Loki from the comics, I'll wager a fiver he's not accustomed to this sort of thing."

"Comics nothing," returned the other voice, building in enthusiasm. "This is Norse mythology we're talking about, Amy. An actual Norse god in the TARDIS."

Loki tried to say something, but the woman Amy took no notice of him. "There you are, Rory. Mythology. Mythology. Means he isn't real. Expecting Jupiter to appear next, are we?"

Rory remained undeterred. "That makes a fair bit more sense than comic-book characters springing to life. Besides, we've seen stranger things than this before, traveling with the Doctor."

"So you have," broke in the third occupant, who had previously been leaning in silence against the flashy wall. He came forward now, fingers twisting round one another, hazel eyes intent. "Don't ever forget, Pond, that what we call mythology is almost always based on some sort of fact. Now what we have here is definitely fact—and a rather cold, uncomfy fact he looks to be, too. Pardon me—Loki Odinson? Pleasure to meet you. I'm the Doctor. It is Loki Odinson, is it? So sorry—dreadful memory for names, all that—and I never really read the comics."

"Yes," said Loki shortly. He could have corrected the technicality of his last name, but he wasn't in the mood and it didn't matter, anyhow. Nothing mattered.

"You'll want something warmer to wrap up in," Rory said after a short pause. "And something hot to drink."

"Something strong and hot to drink," Amy added. "And perhaps you—I don't know—" she glanced, half-helpless, at the man who called himself the Doctor— "perhaps you'll want to be alone for a moment? I mean, there must have been a reason you were falling through space when we caught you, and it can't have been a good one."

She knows, Loki thought wearily. She knows and she's trying to spare my feelings, but that's no go… foolish feeling women with their transparent faces.

Aloud he said: "Please. You're very kind."

Several blurred moments later Loki sat alone on a quilt-covered bed, his dark head bowed over a steaming cup of something that tasted like wine, only sweeter and more coarse. "It might not be what you're accustomed to," the sandy-haired man had said, with a smile more sheepish than reassuring. "Ought to warm you up, though. Here's your cloak all dry."

He had never thought to ask where he had fallen to drench his clothes in the first place, but then that didn't exactly matter either.

What did matter, and what he had first to think about, was what to do next. He had not expected to find himself alive after falling to his death, but as he was alive he had no intention of repeating his mistake.

Thor had failed him, and—more importantly—so had his father. His father: the all-knowing, the benevolent, the just! How false, how fickle he had proved himself to be.

"All my life," Loki whispered, "I have done nothing but serve him to the best of my ability, and this is how he would repay me. This is how high he values my love. He wanted me to die." His last words came out in a snake-like hiss, sibilant and sour on his tongue. "He wanted me to die."

Well, then. Well. He had kept his hands from Earth for the sake of peace and justice, choosing instead to prove himself in an attack on their rightful enemies, and for that he had been harshly punished. Those rules were broken now, shattered to shards by his father's iron fist.

And he is not even my father, after all.

Loki felt suddenly exhausted, as if the whispered voice had sucked his blood. Trembling a little, he took another sip from his sweet strong drink. Good quaff, whatever it was. The surge of it steadied him.

He knew now what he must do. It would not be difficult to persuade that foolish-faced tinker who called himself the Doctor, nor the freckle-faced woman who spoke like a song, nor the kind-faced man who stumbled in his gentleness.

Begone, compassion. Away with you, charity. They called me a demon, so a demon I'll become. I'll tear Earth to pieces, as my soul was torn. No power in Hell or Heaven can stop me now.

Just watch me fall.