Ystella stirred the stew slowly. In a soft undertone she sang, "Kiss me softly, kiss me sweet, and I will fall gently to sleep..."

  She danced over to the cupboard with an elegant twirl, her voice rising in volume as she want. "I know that you were never mine, I just want one last kiss goodbye..."

  "Should've seen it the first time, was standing right before my eyes..." She sprinkled a dash of something spicy into the food and lifted the pan carefully. "Shouldn't have stayed with you, 'cos I had everything to lose..."

  "You can sing, mortal, I'll give you that."

  Ystella nearly dropped the pan. She hadn't had a person in her home for three years, and that... That was not a good memory. She attempted to slow her breathing, fight back the panic that came back with the recollections of the past. "Loki."

  "I was aware of my name."  The man came closer. He was still wearing his strange green armour thing, but for some reason he suddenly had a helmet, golden with two massive horns.

  She put down the stew and looked at him inquisitively. "Where did that come from?"

  He looked at her blankly, clearly bewildered by the question.

  She gestured to her head. "The helmet-thingy."

  He understood and grinned again - the mischievous one, not the dark one. "I told you, mortal, magic." He looked at the stew cautiously, taking the wooden spoon from her hand and poking it with it. "Is this food?"

  "Yes, Loki," she said, exasperated. The name sounded strange on her tongue, foreign. "Now go away so I can dish it up." It wasn't just that he was getting in the way, he was in her personal space, and already she was struggling to keep her heart rate normal.

  He moved away slightly, but stood hovering at the doorway, watching as she served the rice and stew into two plates and grabbed cutlery from a drawer.  "I wasn't aware it was a custom for mortals to live in the forest by themselves."

  "That's because it isn't, immortal."

  Loki huffed; she couldn't see him from her position but she could hear his body shifting against the door frame. "Immortal?"

  She shrugged, offering him his meal and leaving the kitchen. "Well, you keep calling me mortal, so you must be the other one."

  He followed as she went through to another one, and he sat down cautiously on the strange soft-double-chair she called a sofa. Ystella started to eat, and after a pause, he imitated her movements, unsure about how to eat the strange food.  "This tastes weird. But good," he amended.

  "Glad you like it," she laughed softly. She stopped to turn on the TV and he gasped.

  "What is that?" he asked, seeming shocked. "Are you some kind of sorceress?"

  She looked at him. "You don't know what a TV is?"

  He shook his head, mesmerised by the moving image of a woman reading the news. "It looks one of Heimdall's projections, on some sort of screen."

  She decided to ignore that comment, since she had no idea what he was talking about. "That must mean who don't know who the Doctor is?"

  "Doctor who?" he asked, bemused.

  She laughed again. "Right. I think I have the best series here somewhere..."

*

Loki watched avidly.  "So he can travel through space and time?"

  "Yes," she sighed, "just like the other thousand times you've asked."

  His green eyes were amazed by the very idea, captivated by the television.  "And he never dies, he just..." He searched for the right word.

  "Regenerates," she supplied. "Yes." It wasn't like she had anything better to do with her time than watch Doctor Who these days.  She'd watched every single episode known to mankind, and had all the DVDs.

  The episode ended. "Next one, mortal."

*

As they watched yet another episode, she suddenly realised that he wouldn't get the reference she had just laughed at, and he probably thought she was crazy. She turned to explain it to him, but the words caught in her throat.

  He was asleep.

  "Loki?" she asked softly. "Immortal?"

  No response.

  She smiled and turned off the set, before creeping off to bed as quietly as she could. It was probably okay to leave him there. He wouldn't burn the house down. Probably.

  She shrugged to herself. Nevermind. The house could be replaced, and nobody would mind if she died. Least of all her.

Sorry, that was terrible! Kind of a filler. Next chapter is more interesting I promise.

Yes, I had to make her a Whovian. Don't judge.

The song at the start is the first two verses of Kiss Goodbye, which can be found on my Works in my profile.

Heil Loki,
ICTOAUN