somewhere deep in the dark, howling beasts hear us talk (джен)

The next time the woman appears, he manages to entrap her in a quick web of spellwork. As she struggles in the spells, he approaches with a dagger loose in his hand.
“Who are you?” he says. “How did you come to be in Thanos’s service?”
The woman goes still. She tilts her head at him. “Who's Thanos?”
Instead of going back to Asgard after nearly dying on Svartalfheim, Loki goes wandering. This is a far more dangerous choice, and Loki is stalked by agents of Thanos, looking to recapture him and return him to Sanctuary, to answer for his failures on Earth.
And a mysterious sorceress, who has a much more vested interest in his death than the others. Curious.
aka, Hela breaks out her prison a little earlier, and attempts to eliminate threats to her rule.