california 02 // loki's romanoff prelude

seven // humans and gas lights

He remembered Midgard as a child.

It had been cold. Dark. Dirty. Primitive. He couldn't remember much else.

He had come here to win, and nothing else.

When he opened his eyes, he saw stars.

He sat up.

It was warm in Midgard, warmer than Asgard and warmer than what he remembered. The sky was black, which meant it must be night. He got to his feet.

He was standing on something that resembled a wide racetrack, like the one back in Asgard. It was black, and painted with white and yellow lines, the surface very straight and even, like the sort carts rolled over.

On either side of him, fields of tall pale plants swayed in a soft breeze that he could barely feel. A farm? Did Midgard have farms?

He turned around. Looking, observing.

There was a shack, or a hut, some form of shelter, not one hundred yards from where he stood. It was bright white, and it shone with a fierceness that could only be electricity.

Did Midgard have electricity?

He walked towards it.

(He didn't think of the white corridor in his dreams.)

(He didn't think about the man in the chair.)

He kept walking.

The shelter didn't have walls. It had a roof supported by white square pillars, lots of bright lights, and multiple stacks of thick and brightly coloured wires.
He thought they were pretty. He reached out a hand to hold one when someone shouted.

'You there! What are you doing?'

Loki turned around to face a man who, in appearance, looked no different from an Asgardian. He was quite a bit shorter than Loki, not much bigger than Odin, and he had blond hair and eyes like holes in his face. His stomach bulged over the top of his belted trousers.

Loki liked the belt, though. It was black, with a golden buckle.

As Loki observed the man, the man must have observed Loki because his nose twitched and he said, 'Nice clothes. Now if you ain't buying gas, get out.'

Loki folded his arms. The man talked different from Asgardians - rough and shorter, with a wider mouth sound and lots of vowels. Loki was good at accents. He briefly wondered if he should imitate the man's accent, but decided against it.

'Where am I?' he asked the man.

'If you ain't buying gas,' said the man, more slowly, 'get out.'

'How much gas do I need to buy for you to tell me where I am?'

The man stared at him for a long while. 'You need a vehicle to buy gas, stupid,' he said. He turned away, and Loki distinctly heard him mutter, 'Fucking tourist.'

As if he was deaf. He watched as impassively as he could as the man forced a door open in a small shed at the far end of the big shelter and disappeared inside.

So the people of Midgard were slightly hostile. That was alright. The exhilaration of running away still clung to him, and he couldn't be upset. Or angry. He was on Midgard, and this place was pretty. He liked the open fields. He liked the wide track and the bright lights and the warm air. And the emptiness. One hostile Midgardian couldn't change that for him, because he was alive and this place felt more like home than Asgard ever could.

For a second, his mother crossed his mind. The cool feeling of her brush behind his ears.

You looked so beautiful, Loki.