Author's Note: Hello, and welcome to my newest story! I've had this one planned for awhile now but wanted to focus on my other Avengers series first. Now that I'm a few chapters away from the ending of the fourth and (probably) penultimate in that series, I decided it was time to dive into new waters. This is a Loki/OC centric story that takes place right after Thor: The Dark World. It's not connected to my other series (yes, I know the title is similar), but please do take a look at my other stories! My Avengers series starts with A Game of Trust and is a Steve/OC story. Loki does make a few appearances.

I'm going to try to be good about updating this story, but you'll have to forgive me as work often gets in the way of my writing. After watching Thor: Ragnarok though, I'm very excited to write a Loki story. Please leave a review and let me know what you think!

A Game of Mischief

Prologue – November 15, 2013

Greenwich, England

Studying for finals was supposed to be the most stressful part of Kyra Winters's week not avoiding an alien invasion in the middle of her university's campus. Up until five minutes ago she'd been sitting at one of the tables in the library cramming for a final when the ground had begun to shake. Books were flying off the shelves and students were screaming, their notes and flashcards forgotten. Then the massive thing had come out of nowhere. She supposed it could be called a space ship. It was certainly not from this world. It appeared out of nowhere as if it had come straight from another dimension, and she thought she could see the air rippling around its dark form like waves. If it weren't for the other students reacting to this strange phenomenon, Kyra would have summed it up to needing a new prescription of meds, perhaps a stronger one. She'd seen strange things before during the times she'd rebelled and refused to take her pills. This wasn't some deluded hallucination though. This was very real and coming right at them. Kyra tended to freeze in situations like this – not that she'd ever seen a spaceship come crashing out of nowhere before. When it came to fight or flight, she simply froze. There was no fight, no flight, just a simple process of shutting down and failing to function at all. It was different in her self-defense classes. There she could pretend she was someone different altogether. She shed the layers of insecurity and fear and transformed into a better version of herself. It wasn't just a switch she could turn on and off though.

At one point she was aware of a group of people running through the library carrying equipment and shouting at the students to get away. A boy at the window said something about Thor, and Kyra didn't even blink. Why not? The world was getting flipped upside down anyway; why not throw in some Norse mythology? It wasn't until the windows shattered, sending showers of glass down on the students, that Kyra unfroze. She grabbed her bag and ran. Suddenly her feet couldn't carry her fast enough. Her heart was pounding and all she knew was that she needed to get out of there. None of her years of therapy sessions had prepared her for something like this. None of the years of self-defense lessons had disciplined her enough to deal with what was happening.

She burst out of the library and stopped short. There were alien creatures on the campus outside. They wore armor and silver masks with wide, black eye holes so she couldn't tell what they really looked like. Every one of them carried massive weapons, and Kyra watched as one of them fired. A car flew into the air in a burst of flames. Kyra yelped and then swore as the creatures caught sight of her. Then she was running again, dodging as they fired after her. Her flight sense had finally kicked in, and she had never run so fast in her life. Not since she was a child running from the demons in her head. She turned sharply around the corner of the building and found herself tripping over some rubble. She flew forward and suddenly she was falling. Something rippled around her and the ground vanished altogether. She screamed as she careened into a sandy landscape that had not been there a moment before. Before she had the chance to register the fact that she had fallen into another place entirely, a car came flying through whatever portal she had tripped into. She ducked, losing her footing and rolling down the hill she'd landed on. Then the ground fell away and she realized she had been dropped atop a mountain. The ground rushed to meet her, and she closed her eyes.

The pain never came. Her fingers brushed grass, and she opened her eyes to see that she was no longer in that horrid desert place. She wasn't in Greenwich either though. She was on a grassy hillock that overlooked – here Kyra had to rub her eyes – a city made of shining gold. She stared for several minutes and then pinched her arm to make sure she wasn't dead. This couldn't be an illusion. It felt too real. Even her craziest hallucinations hadn't been this solid, this…crazy. She tried to stand, legs a little shaky, and looked up. She could see the portal there, wavering in the air, becoming clearer by the second. A portal. She had fallen through a portal into another world. But how was she going to get back? It was high above her head, and she could hardly fly up to it. Shouts distracted her, and she looked over to see a row of armored men appear. They looked different from the aliens that had been attacking her university, but she made no mistake in thinking they were friendly.

"Halt!" one of them called to her. Instead of freezing which might have been the best thing to do at the moment, Kyra tried to run. A blast hit the ground right in front of her feet, and she tripped and fell, grass staining her hands and jeans green. She felt hands grasping her shoulders, pulling her up and restraining her arms.

"Bring her to the king," one of the guards said, and Kyra found herself being roughly pulled toward what was unmistakably a palace. The golden building gleamed in the sunlight, and Kyra felt awe even if it wasn't the right time to appreciate the architecture. Gold spires like giant pipes reached upwards to a peak, and it was like nothing she had ever seen before. Her heart was beating out a nervous tempo as she was pulled into a grand hallway leading up to a throne. There were clear signs of destruction here, but already workers were rebuilding and there was no doubting the magnificence of the hall. She wondered if the same creatures that had attacked her world had attacked this one as well. She'd seen the footage of New York last year; she knew that something more existed out in the universe. Seeing it on TV was one thing. Seeing it in person was quite another. The guards forced her to her knees before a set of steps carpeted in red rugs.

"What do we have here?" came a voice from above her. Her eyes climbed the stairs to the figure sitting in the throne. He was an old man though nothing about him spoke of frailty. His shoulders were proud and his one remaining eye held the hard glint of wisdom that came with having seen many dark times. His other eye was covered by a golden patch.

Kyra remained silent. She knew her voice would give away her fear if she spoke. A guard spoke for her, and she realized he hadn't been addressing her anyway. "We found her trying to flee. She is not of this world. She must have fallen through during the Convergence."

"Do you know where you are, child?" the king asked. For a split second she thought she saw his image flicker. She shook her head. When had she last taken her pills? She could feel them wearing off.

Misreading her gesture, he went on, "You are in Asgard. And I am Odin, its king." It might have been her imagination, but Kyra could have sworn his eye glinted green for a moment. She stared at him as his image wavered. She thought his voice had changed too; not so deep and wise but younger, sharper.

"Can you send me home?" she asked him. If home was there still. Last she had seen, her university was receiving a sound beating. Maybe she didn't want to go home just yet if the attack was still under way.

"It is not safe to travel through the Convergence portals right now," the king told her. "Tell me, did you see my son, Thor, during the battle?"

"Thor." She'd heard his name mentioned. She remembered one of the students in the library going on about him before the windows had shattered. "He was there," she said, "but I didn't see him." She didn't add that she'd been running away during most of the battle when she'd finally unfrozen.

It must be concern flashing across the king's face, but there was something like disappointment there too. "Then he still lives."

Kyra's head was beginning to throb, her vision blurring. Her pills were in her school bag which one of the guards now held. If she could just reach them… The king was swaying before her and when her vision cleared, a different person altogether sat in front of her, leaning so casually on the throne you might have thought it had been built just for him. Black hair framed a pale face though it was mostly hidden by a golden helmet. Reaching horns curved gracefully backwards atop the helmet. The man was dressed in green and black, holding onto a golden staff. Green eyes glimmered at her in an expression that could only be described as mischievous.

Kyra knew her face must have given away her surprise because he sat up straight in the throne, eyes going hard and distrustful. "Who are you?" she asked, unable to stop herself from asking.

"You can see me." It wasn't a question. The guards shuffled next to Kyra, confused by the exchange.

"Yes."

"I'm afraid the Convergence has addled her mortal mind," the man sitting atop the throne said. "Take her down to the dungeons so we can better assess whether or not she's a threat."

"Wait," Kyra pulled away from the guards. "Where's the king? What have you done to him?"

"Take her away now before she hurts herself," the man commanded, and the guards grabbed Kyra's arms, wrenching her backwards and away from the green-eyed man. She shook her head hard and before she was pulled from the hall, she looked up to see the one-eyed king staring back at her. It was not anger or fear on his face, she realized, but curiosity so keen that it sent chills down her spine. Something told her she would not be going home.