Steel Meets Iron

Chapter 23

"It's so beautiful. I can't believe I'm actually on a moon."

Loki avoided the main realms for now, the Avengers should have discovered that not only was the tesseract missing, so was Raven. If the kidnapping had cleared the dullness from their minds then they would search outside of Midgard. If not they would scout their realm until they grew mad, either way he would amuse Raven. He did enjoy her thirst from knowledge, it was refreshing to have someone wanting to make themselves wiser instead of physically stronger. It was like having a little protege. There were few people with his skill on Asgard and many did not want him teaching anybody anything. Thor was more the favorite for that also. It was a shame that Raven had no magical ability of her own, she had the mind for it.

"A barren moon," he corrected. "Hardly bursting with life, but the view is something to behold."

"I've never been this close to the stars before." Her smile took an aged expression of serenity. "This is how Van Gogh must have felt."

"Who?"

She was a child again. "Vincent Van Gogh? The famous painter? He's Dutch?" Once convinced that Loki honestly had no idea who Van Gogh was she gasped. "You really don't know?" He said nothing staring down expectantly. "He's one of the greatest painters that ever lived!" She declared.

Again no reaction.

"He was a Post-Impressionist," she explained seriously. "They're like Impressionists expect they like the draw what they see, how they want to see it and not how everyone else does. They love the use bright colors and fancy textures."

"And why is he so important?" Loki wondered. Midgardians were so bizarre with their ideas of greatness but if Raven was so taken with the fellow he wanted to know why.

"He," she paused to gather her racing thoughts, "painted with feeling. His most famous painting is Starry Night. In it he painted the sky three different shades of blue, and he made the stars glow yellow like lanterns and the moon too!" She gestured to the sky above spreading her arms out wide as far as they could go. "He was the first person the paint the sky like that. With all these swirls and different tones."

"I see, and this made him famous?" Hardly a feat but Midgardians could only accomplish so much.

"No!" Raven shouted hearing the lack of impress in Loki's tone. "You don't get it at all! Vincent Van Gogh was the first person ever to see the sky as three different shades of blue! Everyone still thinks the sky is black at night! But he saw things differently! His whole town thought he was crazy, but he was just really sad," her tone softened. "He was a genius."

Loki stared at the sky, "And he became respected after this painting?"

"Nope. Only years and years after he died." Raven stared at the sky too. "He never knew how wonderful he was."

"I see."

"People today still think he's weird but I don't," she went on. "He was just a little different and saw things differently." She stared at Loki. "I wonder how he would have painted you."

That caught his attention. "Me?"

"You have really blue eyes," she observed. "But it's not all blue, it's kind of silvery too." Loki stared at the child partly fascinated with her turn of conversion and curious of what she saw. "Maybe he would have given you these metally eyes. Your hair's super black too, it's not flat like how Tony's is sometimes but it's really black. Like ink." Her eyes went to his hands, "You're really pale too, it'd be really hard to shade you just right. Maybe a watered down peach, cause you're not ugly pale."

Loki chuckled, "Well, you've given this some thought."

"Not really,"she shrugged.

Letting the subject drop with an impressed smile Loki pointed to the said stars, "Did you know that when a star falls you can catch it and make things with them?" Her face gaped like a fish. "Thor's hammer was forged in a fallen star."