#‹‹ thor's adopted brother • visage ››

[cozy-the-overlord]

Hurt Feelings

Summary: After Loki awakens on Svartalfheim, inexplicably and frustratingly alive and without any sort of plan to speak of, he decides to pay his adoptive father a visit.

Word Count: 5,506

Pairing: N/A

A/N: A little while ago I made this edit because it had been living rent-free in my head since the day Halsey's new album dropped. And then I wrote this.

(Also -- I do want to make a point of saying that the stuff involving the Odinsleep in this fic is an idea I got from a Loki meta post I read years ago. For the life of me, I could not find the post to credit them, so if any of you know the post I'm talking about and can send it to me so I can credit them properly, I'd appreciate it!)

Thank you so much for reading!!

Warnings: Suicide/suicidal ideation (I interpret Loki's "death" in The Dark World as an intentional-but-unsuccessful attempt on his part), miscarriage/fertility issues, grief/loss

Tags: @lucywrites02 @gaitwae @whatafuckingdumbass @the-emo-asgardian @imnotrevealingmyname @electroma89 @lokislittlesigyn @moumouton4 @theredrenard @justdontmindmetm @lostgreekgod @naterson

If you want to be tagged, feel free to send an ask/message :)

Read it on Ao3!

The palace was in an uproar. He supposed that was to be expected, what with the aftermath of an invading attack that left a gaping hole in the side and destroyed half the military, not to mention the crown prince turning traitor and the queen … well, the picture was painted clear enough. The cause didn’t really matter as much as the effect – in the chaos of the moment, no one was paying attention to the rogue Einherjar, limping in from the mountains.

Loki felt slightly crazed as he hurried down the halls. More than slightly, perhaps. He passed a gaggle of serving girls dragging baskets of laundry behind them and fought the urge to cackle in their faces. Poor fools. They didn’t realize a madman was in their midst. Run run, little girls, save yourselves from the beast, the monster in prince’s garb. His chest throbbed beneath his tattered leathers.

He had screamed when he woke up on Svartalfheim, screamed until his throat tore and his mouth flooded with blood. It wasn’t fair. He had executed it so perfectly, Loki’s heroic end, saved his brother and avenged his mother in one fell swoop, tied up all the loose ends and then the curtains could fall, and he could let himself fade to black and finally know peace. Thor had even held him in the end, cradled him almost like a child, and for a moment he did feel like a child again, a little boy toddling after his big brother in some alternate reality where nothing ever went wrong and his love felt warm and safe instead of a guilty stab of betrayal through his weary beating heart. His fear bled out with the rest of him. He closed his eyes in his brother’s arms and felt something like happiness. The end of Loki Laufeyson. Perhaps when he opened them again, she’d be there, waiting.

But Valhalla had to spit him back out.

His boots should have clicked on the marble floor, but beneath the shining visage of his golden Einherjar armor was only soft leather soles. A band of guards rounded the corner, huffing beneath their helmets with the exhaustion of men run ragged through the night. Loki pressed his nails deeper into his palm as they passed. The staff he held was not truly there, the same trick of light and magic as his armor. But they said nothing as they hurried along, too absorbed in their own troubles to spare him a second glance. He stifled his chuckle. Truly, he was the only one in the palace who might have been capable of noticing something amiss.

Well, he and …

Loki swallowed. Best not to think of it.

He had no plan. What was there to do? He hadn’t expected to draw breath again, hadn’t bothered to hatch an escape. Once the sting of finding himself alive had worn off, Loki had stumbled to his feet in a sort of blurry haze. What to do? Where to go? What was the point?

I’ll tell Father what you did here today.

Of course. Of course.

It was all Odin’s fault. The thought sliced through the fog with a piercing clarity. Odin was behind it all – every miserable breath Loki had ever drawn came back to the All Father’s plotting. It had all started with him, perhaps it must end with him too. Loki stumbled back up the hill with new purpose. Thor’s stolen skiff lay abandoned where they had left it. Kin-slaying was a far cry from the heroic sacrifice he had envisioned, but then again it wasn’t proper kin-slaying, was it?

Your birthright was to die. If I had not taken you in, you would not be here now to hate me.

Such a benevolent god, his false father. How soon had he come to regret his self-serving benevolence, Loki wondered? Perhaps the moment he dumped a squalling Jotun babe in his wife’s arms and realized what it was that he had dragged home.

It mattered not. Loki was going to bring this tale to an end.

He recognized the Einherjar stationed outside Odin’s quarters – Ulric, a fixture on the king’s guard since Loki was a small boy, whisps of his greying hair peeping out from beneath his helmet. Loki puffed out his chest with a bit of Einherjar swagger.

“I must speak with the All Father.”

Ulric frowned down at him – the old goat had always been a bit of a sourpuss. “The All Father is not to be disturbed.”

“It’s urgent.”

The frown deepened. All at once Loki thought of a long-forgotten dinner, back when his feet still dangled in the air when he sat at the table, when he had whispered to Thor that Ulric looked like a bedraggled Nidavellian cat. His brother had laughed so hard that he spat his cider spat out through his nostrils. Loki pushed the memory away. It left him feeling cold.

“Leave your message with me, then,” Ulric was saying. “I’ll see that he gets it.”

“I’m sworn to deliver it myself.” An improvised detail, but Loki knew it was a good touch. He stepped forward, dropping his voice lower. “It involves the prince.”

Ulric was at a loss. Loki could see it in his eyes – he was a loyal man, and a devoted follower of Odin, one who would rather fall on his sword than disobey a command from his beloved All Father, but he held a man’s honor in the highest regard. A bit of a contradiction, that, but Loki rather felt the irony was lost on him.

“He’s not here …” he said at last. “He’s in the Queen’s chambers.”

Loki started a bit. “The Queen?”

“Yes. He asked not to be disturbed, but I know him to be desperate of news of Thor.”

Under normal circumstances, Loki might have bristled at the assumption that Thor was the prince of whom he spoke, but he felt too shaken to be annoyed. He forced himself to bow.

“Thank you, sir.”

His chest was aching again.

A confrontation in Frigga’s chambers was not what he had envisioned. Perhaps it would be best, though – after all, she was all there was standing between Odin and him by the end. There had to be something symbolic that their ending would come through hers, the final snap of thread holding it all together. Yes, that was it. This would be good. This would be closure. This would be what he needed. Loki wasn’t sure why he was trembling.

His feet carried him down the halls more by their own accord than at any direction from him. He knew this path well. How often had he sought out these rooms throughout his youth, in need of guidance or instruction or comfort or company? Loki had been a lonely child, after all. He hid behind his mother’s skirts for far longer than most found acceptable of a young boy. And she had always been happy to hide him.

You might want to take the stairs to the left.

It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter. That thing would never draw breath again. He avenged her. He avenged her.

It didn’t matter.

He passed another gaggle of giggling maids – what they were tittering about, he didn’t quite catch. There wasn’t exactly much worth tittering about, if you asked him, but Loki supposed he wouldn’t know. It seemed the maids where always a flurry over something. Like in the weeks leading up to Thor’s botched coronation, or those after Odin feasted the kings and queens of the other realms for nearly a month. Or … or when Frigga revealed she was pregnant with her third child. Loki’s blood turned to ice in his veins.

Different maids had tittered in the halls then, and Loki had been little – barely having begun his formal tutoring. The word “pregnant” had meant nothing. He hadn’t understood the significance of what they were telling him. It was by design, thanks to the web of falsehoods and half-truths his so-called parents had weaved around the Queen’s growing belly. No, all he was allowed to know was that Mama had a baby inside her, and when it came out it would be his little brother. Thor had been ecstatic when he learned the news, practically vibrating with questions as he bounced across the room.

“What’s his name? When will he get here? Does he like me? Will he look like Loki? Was I in your tummy, Mama? Was Loki?”

Norns, what had she said to that? Loki couldn’t remember. He wondered if he might have seen her discomfort, had he known to look for it. Did she glance at Odin, panic sparking in her eyes as her tongue reached for the lie? Had it been there in front of him the whole time? But he had been small – disgustingly small, too small to realize. He remembered the formal announcement in court, how the whole room had buzzed in anticipation when his father (for he was still his father then) declared that the Queen was with child. He remembered being confused. Hadn’t she already been with child? Children, in fact? She was with him, and with Thor – didn’t they count?

It was an upsetting ordeal all around. Loki did not like watching his mother’s belly expand, like it housed some horrible creature waiting to claw its way out. Frigga tried to help him adjust – she encouraged him to lay against her stomach as she read aloud during their nightly storytime, just as he always did, but the feeling of tiny limbs thrashing beneath her skin distressed him to tears, no matter how she tried to reassure him that it was only his baby brother saying hello.

“I don’t want a baby brother!” Loki had sobbed, clinging to her thighs like a vise. “Get rid of it! I don’t want it!”

He would get his wish.

Loki would never forget that dinner, how his mother’s fork had come clattering down to the plate as she lurched forward, the way she gasped his father’s name in a tight, smothered sort of voice that sounded nothing like her at all, how his father had yelled – no, screamed – for the guards and everything collapsed into chaos, how Loki’s body had seemed frozen to his seat when they dragged her away from the table and he realized with a lump in his throat that the front of her skirt was soaked through with crimson.

He hadn’t slept that night. The nursemaids had put his brother and him to bed with placating promises and consolations, but no amount of reassurance could erase the sight of his mother’s bloodless cheeks against the table, or the piercing sound of his father’s terror. Loki lay stiff as a board, breathing quickening as the darkness pressed in around him. Odin All Father was not supposed to be afraid of anything. What did it mean then, that he had screamed at the sight of Mama on the table? What happened to her? Was she … was she …

Eventually it had all become too much.

It was past bedtime, but Loki crept down the halls all the same, bare feet numb against the freezing marble. He had to go find Mama. He had to know she was alright.

But when he pushed open the heavy door to her quarters, he was shocked to find only his father, hunched over her writing desk like a statue, head buried in his hands. He only barely looked up when Loki toddled into the room.

“What are you doing up?” his voice was sharp, hoarse.

“I—” Loki felt petrified in place. He glanced towards the door to his mother’s bedroom, closed with no light behind the crack. “I can’t sleep …”

The sound was painfully small.

His father grunted, already looking away. He shifted in his seat and reached for something laying beside his foot – a bottle, Loki had realized dimly, empty in the flickering candlelight. “You need to stay in your room, Loki.”

“I’m sorry … I was just …” But an excuse never came to mind. He swallowed, glancing at the dark bedroom again.

“Is Mama going to be alright?” his voice came out in a rasp, like he was about to cry. Stupid baby …

Odin closed his eyes. Back then, he had still been in the prime of his life, but that night Loki remembered thinking he looked like a weary old man. He sighed. “Yes. Yes – your mother will be quite fine. She just needs to sleep. As do you.”

Loki recalled nodding out of instinct more than anything else. He stared at the fringed rug on the floor, shivering in his nightclothes. “Yes, sir …”

The rest was hazy. Odin hadn’t taken him back to bed – that much he was certain of. He must have called a servant or someone, perhaps ordered a light sleeping draught for him as well, to see that he slept through the night. All he remembered is that Odin wouldn’t look at him.

At the time, Loki had assumed it was because of what he had said about the baby. Odin wasn’t present when Loki had begged his mother to get rid of it, but he was certain Frigga must have told him what he said. He must have blamed him for it. In retrospect, this was likely just projection on his part. Loki had blamed himself for his mother’s miscarriage, spending the next several weeks wracked with guilt over his words, convinced that he had killed the baby and nearly killed his mother. No wonder Odin wanted nothing to do with him.

It hadn’t been until at least a month later that Frigga had taken him into her lap and told him a secret. “My womb is very sick,” she said, regarding him very seriously. “It doesn’t hold babies the way it should. Your little brother was the fourth baby I’ve lost like this. When I was pregnant with Thor, I nearly lost him too.”

Her voice never wavered – Norns, the strength that had to have taken, so soon after yet another horrific loss, to lay it bare in a child’s terms just so that he would understand that it was not his fault. But as with every moment of his childhood, her kindness was tempered with deceit.

“What about me?” he asked, looking up at her as he pressed his cheek to her chest. “Did you almost lose me too?”

Frigga pressed a kiss to the top of his head, so that he could not see his face. “You were my gift from the Norns,” she whispered against his curls. “Carrying you was the easiest thing I ever did.”

In front of him. The whole time. He was just too small to realize.

That had to be why Odin could not bear to look at him, though. How disgusted must he had been, drowning in grief for his lost trueborn child, when the little monstrosity he picked up as a glorified war prize came hobbling in seeking his comfort?

Your birthright was to die.

Loki huffed a laugh beneath his helmet. Bitter, old man? Angry that I lived instead of all your wretched little spares? You have no one to blame but yourself.

The door to his mother’s chambers was the same as it had always been. It was a warm oak, sparkling with little silver rivets that had always reminded him of the stars. Loki stared at it for a moment, paralyzed. It no longer loomed over him the way it had as a child, but it seemed to have grown far heavier.

If he closed his eyes, he could picture the light crackling into the hall as he heaved the door open, and she’d still be there, her honey curls cascading down her shoulder as she thumbed through some new spell-book, and she’d look up at him and smile, oh Loki, I was just thinking of you – here, come look at this, and he’d sink into the cushions next to her as she explained this new discovery she was fascinated with, and perhaps he might press his cheek against her shoulder as she did – remember when he used to do that? Or before, when he used to crawl into her lap and cling to her dress like an anxious little possum? The others would make fun of him, he remembered – are we to call you Loki Friggason? – but she always wrapped her arms around him just the same.

“Boys here grow up too fast,” she mused once, holding him beside the sparring pit as they watched Thor clunkily practice his lessons with a wooden stick. Odin had been there too, watching from the other side of the pit. Even in the earliest days, he always came to watch Thor practice. “Some days I fear I’ll blink and you’ll both be gone.”

Loki had been confused. “Gone where, Mama?”

“I don’t know. Far away from me.” There was a commotion in the pit – Thor’s practice sword, clattering to the ground as he lost his balance lunging at his instructor. Odin called out something that Loki couldn’t quite hear. She sighed. “But that’s a long way off yet, thankfully.”

He frowned. “I don’t want to go far away,” he declared, a desperate insistence beneath his voice. His eyes prickled with tears at just the thought. “I’m going to stay with you forever.”

Frigga exhaled a soft laugh. “That’s a lovely thought.”

Loki opened his eyes, and the voices faded back into memory. I’m going to stay with you forever. He wondered if she had thought of that promise the night on the Bifrost, the night he let go.

I suppose we were all lying about something.

The door stood, unchanging. Loki breathed in, then exhaled through his teeth. None of it had been real. No point in wasting tears on it now.

He dropped the illusion, exchanging his false spear for a dagger whose blade would not shatter on impact. Breathe. Breathe. The door was locked. No matter. The lock clicked beneath his spell. His heart was pounding in his chest. He took one last breath, then stepped into his mother’s room.

It still smelled like her. Norns, it smelled like her. Warm and fresh, like new sprouts in the garden on a pleasant spring day – it was her, it was like she was there. He could believe it, that perhaps she was just working in the back room, and would be out to greet him once she heard the door. The sofa was the same, as was her little writing desk in the corner with its wooden chair. Her bookshelves still lined the back wall, heavy with their papered fruits, spell-books ordered in the same organized chaos that she always left them. The only difference was the figure silently silhouetted at the window.

The king stood with his hands clasped behind his back, staring out at the smoking ruins of the garden below. He did not turn as Loki entered, didn’t even flinch. The door fell closed behind him with a heady thud. Loki stood in the foyer, stock-still as a statue. This was the moment, to rush him from behind and plunge the dagger in his spine before he had even bothered to look up, but for some reason Loki’s limbs wouldn’t move.  

“I wondered if you might come.”

Irritation startled him out of his stupor. “Did you now?”

Odin nodded. “We had to keep your cradle in here, you know,” he said. “You’d fuss through the night if you weren’t with her.”

Loki was rooted to the floor. His head was spinning. He had been prepared for fury and violence, biting words that tasted like poison on his lips, not … quiet reminiscing. The king continued blithely on. “I had feared that our story would not be believed, what with the suddenness of it all, but no one ever questioned that she was your mother.”

Am I not your mother?

There were tears pooling in the corner of his eyes, hot and angry.

You’re not.

Loki spat. “How convenient.”

“Perhaps it was.” Odin hummed. He stretched his shoulders back, grunting at the crackling of bones beneath his cloak. “The sleep is coming on again. I can feel it.” He huffed a sigh, shaking his head. “Twice in less than half a decade. Perhaps I am getting old.”

Loki scowled. “Do you want my pity, then? Is that it?” He stalked across the room, acid burning his tongue with every step. “Shall I pen an elegy? The mighty King Odin, collapsing under the weight of his failings—”

Odin was shaking his head. “You would not understand—”

“If all you intend is to speak down to me, at least do me the courtesy of facing me as you do.”

To his surprise, he did as he was asked. Loki started a bit when he turned – he had not seen his false-father since his sentencing. What was that, a year ago? Odin seemed to have aged several hundred in that time. Wane and weary, he regarded Loki with lifeless eyes. His gaze landed on his chest.

“… was that him?”

Loki didn’t need to ask who him was. His throat was suddenly very tight. He nodded.

“And he’s …?”

“Dead.”

Odin jerked his head, a brief nod. “Good.” Abandoning the window entirely, he made his way to the other side of the room, where Frigga’s writing desk sat abandoned across from her sofa. “One less failing to weigh me down.”

Loki swallowed. His mouth tasted bitter. “Don’t tell me you’re finally remorseful,” he snapped as he followed him. “Now, of all times?” Of course he would do this. Of course he would find a way to take Loki’s last chance at triumph and turn it into an opera on his own suffering. Loki ought to have stabbed him the back when he had the chance.

Pulling out the chair, Odin scoffed. “You think I haven’t always been remorseful? That I’m proud with what you became?”

Loki was seeing red. “What you turned me into, you mean?” he retorted. “Or what you always knew I was? Tell me, my liege, what was it you were hoping for? How might I have earned your pride?”

The king closed his eye, as if this was some nagging fly he was too tired to swat. “Must we do this now?”

Loki laughed humorlessly. “What else is there to do here?”

He huffed, a sound that under different circumstances Loki might have almost mistaken for a chuckle, but it faded as quickly as it appeared. Instead, he let out a sigh.

“I wish I had told you the truth,” he said, turning his eye back towards Loki. “Truly. I’ll wish that until the day I die.”

Loki tried to swallow the lump in his throat. He might have believed him, too, somewhere in another universe where the All Father was capable of sincerity. “But you didn’t.”

“I thought—”

“You thought I was a monster.”

Odin sighed again, pinching the bridge of his nose. Weary old man. He did look truly pitiful. “You’ll never believe me, will you? No matter what I do. If I had told you the truth from the beginning, perhaps then I could look at you and know that you believe me when I say I loved you truly as my son.”

“Perhaps.” Love. Loki wanted to spit the word, but he hadn’t the energy. He pictured a reality where he had known the truth, where the hands that clung to his mother’s skirts were blue and ridged. The thought was sickening. “But it wouldn’t have changed why you took me in the first place, would it? It wouldn’t have changed what I am.” Loki scoffed at  the idea. “What more would it have done, than eased your conscience?”

“What would you have had me do, then?” Odin snapped. The sound was a relief. “Left you to die?”

“YES!” he yelled, so loud that Odin jumped. He shook his head, smiling bitterly even as his vision went blurry. “Would that not have been better for us all?”

For the first time in his memory, the All Father appeared at a loss for words. He opened his mouth, only to close it again, crumbling back into the chair as if his legs had given out. The sight should have been more satisfying than it was. Instead, Loki only felt sick.

For a moment, the room was silent. When Odin finally looked up again, his voice was gravelly. “Why did you come back here?”

“I told myself I’d kill you.” His chest felt hollow.

A heartbeat passed.

“Then why haven’t you?”

Two heartbeats. Three.

“… I don’t know.” The words came out in barely a whisper. What was he doing here? What did he want? He sank down onto the sofa, letting the cushions engulf his thighs as they always did. It felt so much emptier alone.

Boys here grow up too fast.

Would he ever stop longing for the lie?

“When you first brought me back to her—” he wasn’t sure who was more surprised by the sound of his voice, Odin or himself. “… how did she respond?”

“Frigga?” Odin leaned back in the wooden chair, gaze distant. “She had been surprised, of course. You were … extremely unexpected. But she bonded with you very quickly. After all, only a year earlier she had had her third miscarriage. Neither of us expected she’d be able to have another child.”

Loki’s voice was flat. “So I was a replacement.” He supposed he had known that in his heart, ever since he learned the truth. Why else would Frigga have taken in some half-dead Jotun reject, unless she had been desperate to soothe her own grief?

But Odin was firm. “You were a gift,” he said, in a tone that left no room for argument. “She wholeheartedly believed she was meant to be your mother.”

You were my gift from the Norns.

Loki looked away. He felt his father’s gaze on him, and hated how small it left him feeling. Spare me your pity. When Odin spoke again, his voice was soft.

“To tell the truth, I’d often forget that you didn’t come from us. You’re so much like her.”

He hated that he was crying. He felt his face crumbling, felt the tears bubbling over and leaving slimy frigid tracks down his cheeks, and he hated it. He hated feeling everything.

Why can’t I just hate them?

He wished he had known. He wished he had never found out. He wished Odin had never laid eyes on him. He wished he could still call him father. Laufeyson. Odinson. Friggason. None of them fit, and yet he clung to each in some violent way. Pathetic.

 A cough startled him from his thoughts – across from him, Odin had gone very pale. He grunted, leaning forward with his hand pressed to his beard. “Damn it all.”

The realization hit him like the flat side of a sword. Despite everything, despite the tears still wet on his cheeks, Loki couldn’t help but laugh. “You can’t be serious.”

Odin heaved a breath, listing in his chair. “Frigga – then with Thor’s damned plotting—” he grunted again and grabbed at the chair arm. “It all sped it up, I imagine.”

It was too absurd. What were the odds? Loki shook his head, smile bitter on his lips. “It really does kill you to have to speak with me, doesn’t it?”

The king did not answer. Instead, he only gasped as he tipped forward, the chair creaking as it tipped with him – he would’ve fallen over had Loki not rushed to his side. His chest seared in pain as he propped the old man up. Why had he done that? Loki hadn’t the slightest idea. Some part of him, hovering above his body, laughed at the irony. You come here to kill him, and here you are cradling him. Some assassin you’d make.

Odin was mumbling to himself, words slurring together. “Can’t happen now – not now – with the realm in shambles—”

There was something satisfying about his distress. Childish, he knew, but Loki relished in it all the same. For once, he was not the one weeping and desperately clinging. “I’m afraid you reap what you sow, my king.”

Odin looked up at him. His pale eye was wide and frightened, almost pleading, and it seemed to cut right through him. “Loki—”

Loki shifted uncomfortably. “Well, I’m not sure what you want me to do about it. You condemned me, remember?”

But the king said nothing more. One last desperate exhale, and then his eyes were slipping closed, his head rolling back on his shoulders as his weight went slack and his body limp. Loki cursed, bracing himself against the floor to hold him up – damn, the old bastard was heavy – twisting his torso as the chair tipped over so he might lay the man down on the floor properly. Odin said nothing. Loki exhaled through his teeth, running his fingers back through his hair.

Well, now what?

If left here, alone and without the care and treatment of the healers, Odin could easily die. A perfect murder, one in which Loki could walk away from completely unimplicated. But walk away to where? It seemed he was meant to live now, as inconvenient as that reality was. He could disappear somewhere, melt into the folds of the galaxy at large, find safety hidden beneath a new name. But … could he really?

He looked up, at the tower of shelves and spell-books that loomed over the two of them, his mother’s pride and joy. Frigga’s presence seemed to loom with it. Loki sighed. She was not his mother, not really, but try as he might, he could not wrest the title from her ghost. Try as he might, he could not stop loving her as one.

And he could not leave her husband to die on her bedroom floor.

Loki huffed, pushing himself to his feet with more effort than it should have taken. He supposed he should go to the kingsguard. He could dawn the same mask he had worn when he arrived, go to Ulric in a frenzy and say that when he had gone to deliver his message he had found the All Father unresponsive on the carpet. Yes, that would have to do – he could slip away in the madness that would ensue upon the realization that the king had gone into Odinsleep so soon, with no heir to name regent. Loki exhaled a bitter laugh. Oh, how he wished he could stick around to witness that power grab.

Although … Loki paused. Perhaps he should stay. He looked to the window, at the bloodred sunset cutting through the sky. There were consequences to living, too – ones that he had known he would not have to face should he meet a heroic end.

There will be no realm, no barren moon, no crevice where he can’t find you.

He shivered.

Perhaps … they would not seek him out on Asgard, not if Asgard believed him to be dead. Even if they did not believe the tale of his demise, surely they would not think him fool enough to hide in such plain sight.

And with no heir to name regent … Loki’s eyes drifted back to Odin, still and peaceful in his slumber. He smirked.

Now there’s a thought.

…

Ulric breathed a sigh of relief when Odin strode back into the throne room, as cool and collected as ever. He had started to worry – the All Father had given him strict orders to be left undisturbed, but it had been several hours and given the state of things he had begun to fear that perhaps it was a mistake leave him alone and unguarded.  

“Your majesty—” The king silenced him with a brisk hand.

“Prince Loki is dead,” he said. “Killed in battle on Svartalfheim.”

Ulric felt his fellow Einherjar stiffen beside him. This was news indeed. Odin spoke very little of his fallen son, but they all could tell that the matter had always weighed heavily on his soul. And who could blame him? To have a child betray you so deeply … Ulric thought of his own young sons and shivered.

He tried again. “Your majesty—" but the king only brushed him off again.

“It’s of no matter,” he said, but clearly it was – he stood before the throne, staring at it as if it were some violent beast lay ready to strike. Ulric swallowed.

“What is to be done, my liege?”

Odin was silent, lost to the labyrinth of his thoughts. It was only a moment though before he came to, shaking his head and clearing his throat.

“We are to move forward,” he said finally, mounting the steps and taking his seat upon it. “After all, we cannot afford to wallow forever.”

[izunias-meme-hole]

Top 5 supervillains?

LOOK AT THIS DUDE ASKIN' ME FOR MY TOP 5 SUPERVILLAINS!

In all seriousness though, I'll be glad to indulge, though be forewarned that my top 5 consists of supervillains from Marvel and DC, so like if this seems basic forgive me but I am allowed to be cringe in this instance because I've been dragged back into full on purgatory.

Number 1. Doctor Doom -As I've said before, I've always respected Victor, but I've never been super crazy about him. His animated and game adaptations are good but not perfect, and the movies so far have failed to get his character across in a great way, so that might've been a part of why I wasn't a Doom Superfan. Though after getting back into the absurdity and impactfulslness of superhero comics, it soon hit me... Doctor Doom is a villain made for comics. He's overdramatic, grandiose, terrifying, bombastic, egotistical, pragmatic, powerful, absurd, nuanced, insecure, lonely, the whole package placed within a suit of armor and a green cloak. He's an arrogant, tyrannical, cold hearted technological and magical genius who embodies every inch of supervillainy you could imagine, while remaining a genuinely sophisticated, and honorable figure even with his history of pettiness. Overall Doom is just one big magnificent bastard.

Number 2. Loki - Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Larry Leibber making the norse God of Mischief, the Poetic Edda's best figure, a supervillain... wasn't a bad idea. The result of that however was a wannabe king in a silly little outfit with devil horns who also happens to be Odin's adoptive son and the brother of Thor. This is inaccurate as hell and shouldn't work, yet it somehow does. He's a delightful trickster at every turn with a lot of gears consistently turning in his head, and while in the comics he's not really a villain anymore and his (in)famous run in the MCU ended on a surprisingly high note, he's still fun. Am I overrating him? Maybe.

Number 3. Magneto - He's honestly on par with Joker in my honest opinion, and I'm saying this as someone who's been familiar with Erik for a LONG time thanks to the X-Men films and Evolution, and has gone through his history in the comics. Magneto is basically one of the most famous examples of a "Knight Templar" in fiction, a self-righteous figure fighting for a crusade that he deems noble at any cost. As for why he feels the need to do this? He's a holocaust survivor, it's as simple as that. The comics are the legit only piece of media that go into deeper details about Magneto's life in the concentration camps and the aftermath of that hell which only led into more hell, but that's the basic gist of what makes him tick. Magneto's lived in a world where innocent people got killed because of state approval, and he's not letting that happen again.

Number 4. The Joker - The Joker is a crook who fell into a vat of chemicals and got a clownish makeover, who ended up becoming the nemesis of Batman. While the other rouges have their particular danger levels, they all have some type of cause they're fighting for or they're purely out to benefit themselves. Joker just causes chaos, death, and suffering, for the sake of his twisted sense of humor. He is willing to kill and ruin lives in the most creative way possible, so long as he finds it funny. Yet despite how twisted he is, this evil ass clown actually can be funny. Not only that, but he's the most effective contrast to Batman, even more than the other rouges. Batman is a frightening figure with a semi-demonic visage who suffered one bad day in his youth, yet he is a hero dedicated to the cause of justice and protecting the innocent citizens of Gotham City. Joker is a colorful figure with a big 'ol grin on his face and a jovial demeanor, yet he is perfectly okay with causing as much unwarranted harm to others for the sake of artistic chaos. Ultimately, the Clown Prince of Crime is a villain that's managed to last for decades, despite the ever marching clock, for these exact reasons.

Number 5. Lex Luthor - Superman's biggest hater being a self-made millionaire that is the embodiment of the best and worst of humanity will never not be fitting. Though if I'm being honest, I don't feel like DC has gone far enough with Lex. Still he's genuinely a pretty good villain for the man of steel to face.

[writtenfangirl]

Pretty Words

I know, another Loki fluff but I just can't help it! I recently just finished rewatching Loki and the love I have for the man who plays him and the character himself is just unmatched.

I tried to make the insecurities as generic as possible so that everyone can relate to the story

It took a lot to phase someone as confident as Loki. Externally, he always prided himself in being the well-put-together brother. While Thor dressed in casual jeans and t-shirts whenever he visited Midgard, Loki was always impeccably dressed in a dashing and, most likely, expensive suit.

Y/N always figured it had something to do with his desire to one up his brother or perhaps because Loki always prided himself in his sense of style but Y/N would have never guessed it was because Loki has always been insecure.

Because deep down, Loki was still convinced of his status as a monster.

He was, after all, still a prince of Jotunheim. He was a frost giant, with dark blue skin and blood red eyes. He was the monster in Asgard’s cautionary tales, the wolf that would eat any misbehaving children.

In his true form, he looked nothing like his Asgardian brother who people were always in awe of, who always smelled like lavender, whose golden hair glimmered and shined in the sun. Loki may be good looking when he was in his Asgardian form but as a frost giant, he was hideous.

It was a form he will always hide and shelter. And if there was one thing Loki knew about relationships it’s that there are just some things that are meant to be hidden.

He had no intention of ever showing Y/N his true form nor does he ever want her to know about it. To her, Loki is simply Thor’s adopted Jotun brother who is still incredibly handsome despite his severe daddy issues.

And Y/N, well, she never pushed it. She knew Loki’s background, knew that Loki was an entirely different alien but she never tested Loki’s boundaries. After all, she wasn’t in any position to talk. Not when she had her own set of insecurities.

Y/N may have been an Avenger who’s helped save the world on several occasions but in her eyes, she was still wholly lacking, especially in the physical appearance department.

It especially didn’t help that she was surrounded by some of the most beautiful people in the universe. Natasha and Maria had already made her insecure back when she was just a lowly agent of SHIELD but meeting women like Wanda, Hope Van Dyne, Okoye and Gamora left her self-confidence diminished.

In her eyes, she will never have their fit figure, their womanly curves, their long flowing hair, their well structured cheekbones or their pretty pouty lips. In Y/N’s eyes, she will always be inadequate.

So she never cared that Loki hid some parts of himself from her because well, if she could hide the things about her that she didn’t like, she would.

“It must be nice being a shapeshifter,” Y/N sighed as she frowned at her body on the full-length mirror in her room at the compound. “You could just blink away huge thighs and belly fat.”

“You could,” Loki replied as he looked at her curiously. “But why would you want to?”

Y/N shrugged, tearing her eyes away from the mirror as she sullenly walked to where Loki laid on her bed. She pulled the covers up to her chin in an attempt to hide any visage of her body as a horrible feeling settled in her chest.

“My dearest, are you okay?” Loki asked with a frown and Y/N buried her face on his neck, breathing in his clean, minty scent.

“No,” Y/N replied sadly, her voice slightly muffled. “It’s just one of those days.”

“One of those days?”

Y/N pulled her face away from Loki’s neck, meeting his beautiful clear blue eyes. He looked at her with so much concern, it made Y/N’s heart ache. “You know, one of those days where I just feel unhappy about my body.”

Loki’s eyebrows crumpled in worry. “Why would you be unhappy about your body?”

“Why wouldn’t I be,” She snorted. “There are so many things about me that I don’t like, it would be easier to count the things I do.”

“But, darling, you are exquisite.” Loki said with so much confused sincerity, it was enough to make her smile.

“Loki, I love you, but you look like a literal god. You could walk down the street right now to buy a cup of coffee and be stopped by hundreds of girls and boys before you reach the cafe. If you were human, you would literally be a specimen of the human race. You wouldn’t understand how I feel.”

This time when Loki frowned, there was a hint of hurt in his eyes. “You forget, my darling, that I am not always like this. My true form is not something I am proud of.”

“Loki, I’ve said it once and I will say it again, you could look like the ugliest person in the planet and I would still choose you. There is no facet of you, no side of you, that I would ever run from.” She placed her hand on Loki’s cheek, feeling the radiant warmth of his skin.

He glanced away nervously. “You will not mind then, if I were to show you my true form?”

“No, I will not mind.”

Loki took a deep shuddering breath as his hand gripped Y/N’s. He placed a soft, loving kiss on the edge of her palm before he closed his eyes.

Y/N felt the transformation first before she saw it. Loki’s once warm hand turned cold, his body’s temperature dropping as if he’d spent hours outside in the snow with nothing but a t-shirt on. His skin shifted and turned into a deep blue as pale white markings etched itself on his skin, his face, his brow. When he finally opened his eyes, gone were the beautiful blues that Y/N loved, replaced by a deep red that reminded her of the moon in a lunar eclipse.

She let out a gasp as she felt the coldness of his hand on her own and a look of hurt flashed in Loki’s eyes.

“It is disgusting I know,” Loki said hastily before Y/N could say anything. “You are now terrified of me. I shouldn’t have—“

But before Loki could finish what he was saying, Y/N had already planted her lips on his. He felt cold but still familiar. Like coming home to the warmth of your home after a cold winter day.

Her hand cradled his face, lovingly running her thumbs around the markings on his face before they curled around his raven black hair.

When she pulled away and opened her eyes, she was just as breathless as she would have been if Loki was in his Asgardian form. In her eyes, Loki was absolutely perfect.

“You are not afraid of me?” Loki asked, his red eyes searching Y/N’s flushed face.

“Afraid of you? Why would I ever be afraid of you?“ Y/N asked as planted a soft kiss on his blue nose. “You can never do anything to make me afraid of you. You are absolutely exquisite, Loki, and I am lucky to have someone like you love someone like me despite all my flaws and insecurities.”

Loki smiled, a wide genuine smile that had Y/N’s heart fluttering in her chest. “No. I am the lucky one, to not only love you but to also be loved by you is a privilege I scarcely deserve.“

Y/N smiled at him. “Pretty words from a pretty man.”

“You think me pretty?” Loki gave her a sly grin as his finger traced the edges of her lips.

“Oh, yes. Definitely. Very pretty.”

“As I should be. I am in a relationship with one of the most beautiful woman in the whole universe.”

Y/N laughed at Loki’s words, causing him to chuckle. Her previous feelings of insecurities were gone, replaced by the deep love she had to for the man that held her in his cold arms.

“You should have told me that you were literally cold,” Y/N sighed as she sank into Loki’s embrace. “I always feel so hot and it turns out my boyfriend is literally a walking a/c. Ugh the advantages I could have claimed.”

“You would rather I stay in this form?”

Y/N’s eyes began to flutter shut as sleep began to lull her into its comforting arms. “I would rather you stay in whatever form makes you comfortable but I would never say no to not sweating through the sheets tonight.”

Loki chuckled before Y/N felt him plant a soft kiss on her temple. “As my lady commands then.”

Y/N was about to let sleep swallow her whole when Loki spoke again.

“Y/N?”

Y/N staved off her feeling of tiredness. “Hmm?”

Y/N could hear Loki’s heart beating in his chest, could feel the rising and falling of his torso in line with his breathing. For a moment, all Y/N could focus on was her feeling of contentment before Loki spoke. “As a shapeshifter, I want you to know that I do not believe in ugliness. I believe ugliness is a term created by those of us who cannot accept the flaws of others. There is beauty in everything no matter how odd they may first appear. And beauty is especially seen in those of us who see only beauty in others and you, my darling, are as beautiful as they come.”

Y/N looked up at Loki, letting a small tear of happiness fall from her eyes as she took Loki’s blue hand and gave it a kiss. “Pretty words from a pretty man.“

Loki chuckled as Y/N adjusted herself and gave Loki a kiss on his cheek. “I love you, Loki, until the universe itself falls apart.”

Loki pulled Y/N closed, enveloping her in a cold but pleasant embrace that had Y/N’s eyes fluttering shut. “I will love you even then, Y/N. I will love you even when the universe falls apart and a new one is reborn. And whatever life we may have after that, may it be new or the same as this one, I will love you.”

And just like that, any negative thought Y/N ever had about herself, her life, any insecurity she possessed seemed to vanish like smoke.

“Pretty words from a pretty man,” Y/N echoed again as sleep began to call for her again.

“Only for you, my darling. Only for you.”

[mjolnirchoscn]

@adarkenedshadeofblue

I assure you, brother, the sun will shine on us again. [x]

[mischief-and-tea-by-the-sea]

Angst Prompt: #3 and #33 (Your choice...or both lol)

Angst Prompts

from https://teadrinkingwolfgirl.tumblr.com/post/624914433076051968/angst-prompts

@scottxlogan: Angst Prompt: #3 and #33 (Your choice...or both lol)

 3. “Was any of it real?”

Scott let out a soft moan when Logan's mouth crushed onto his.  When the old mutant bit at his lips to coax them opened, when his tongue now glided across his, Scott whined and shifted from his space on the couch to sit astride Logan's hips.  He raked his fingers through Logan's hair and gave a throaty laugh when the man underneath him growled at having his trademarked style mussed.  

"Asshole," Logan snarked at Scott's laugh then gave in to the assault of his mouth by the other man.  

Whatever fury they unleashed on each other in the Danger Room

           ...and in the kitchen, and classroom, and hallways, and land surrounding the school...

...translated now into the bruises left on Scott's hips where Logan's fingers dug in, not to mention that coppery smear of blood on Logan's mouth where Scott's teeth bit a little too hard.  

At any moment, students or other teachers could walk in on them.  They were in the communal TV room, after all, the football game they were arguing over completely forgotten while Scott ground his hips onto Logan's.  With where this was going, if they didn't stand up and head upstairs to one of their rooms, they were going to leave a mess on the cushions.  

Scott moaned again and rasped, "Let's go...upstairs...upstairs...my room..."  

"Has ta be my room, Summers.  Someone else is in your bed," reminded Logan, and Scott pulled back to blink behind his shades.  Blink and blink and then close his eyes with a groan.  

Scott groaned and rolled onto his back, feeling the wrinkled sheet underneath his naked skin.  He opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling.  His heart pounded so loud in his chest that he almost missed the shallow breath next to him.  He felt overwhelming resignation flood his mind; resignation to being betrayed and shattered again.  

"Emma," he muttered and turned on his side in time to see his girlfriend rise from the bed.  "It was just a dream," Scott tried to explain.  

Emma looked over her shoulder, exhaustion weighing down her body and misery churning in her eyes.  

"I'm tired of competing, Scott.  Even with your fantasies.  I'm tired of never being enough," she told him and buried all of her emotions behind a wall of ice more deadly than her mind or diamond skin. She turned once more to walk away.

Scott sat up and started to go after her.  

"You don't have to compete.  It was just a dream...just a fantasy.  Nothing more." He reached out, but she was already stepping into the en suite. "It wasn't even real."  

Emma looked at him even as she was already closing the door.  

"It was real enough."  

Scott hung his head as the lock clicked, his forehead touching the door.  He could hear the faucet running, a failed attempt to mask her crying.  

33. “I thought it would help, but I just feel empty.”

The third time Thor's fist connected with his face, Loki heard the crunch of his nose.  He raised his hand there, and it came away covered with blood.  

He and Thor had been fighting since his adopted brother had revealed his illusion to the Asgardians in the garden.  Fair enough, the play had been horrible; the actors were talentless – save the one portraying Odin – and even Loki had been forced to pretend that it was an accurate portrayal of his 'death' on Svartalfheim.  

The fight had started out as a yelling match. Well, Thor was yelling, and Loki tried to explain to deaf, angry ears.  Their voices echoed through the palace until they were, at last, in the throne room.  Thor threw the first punch when Loki spun around to face him.  

What felt like a decade later, here he was, nose broken and bloodied, covered in bruises that even with his seiðr would take over a week to heal, by his inability to stand, his right ankle was likely shattered, and there were deep finger marks around one half of his throat, the deepest right at his windpipe where Thor's thumb had pressed the hardest.

Now Thor hauled him up to his feet, and the soft Ljossalfar-made tunic he wore began to rip as his brother shook him. Loki's head snapped back until his eyes focused on Thor's feral grin.  

"I should kill you, Lie-Smith," the elder prince snarled, and for a second, he was startled by the flash of eagerness in Loki's gaze.  "But I won't."  

His brother's disappointed visage brought the Thunder god's fist to his mouth, at the same time pummeling the Trickster backward to slam his shoulders into the throne before he was crumpled to the floor in front of it.  Slowly, Thor approached, fixed on the way Loki remained prone, staring up at the painted ceiling above him.

"Loki, why aren't you fighting back?  You could use your magic.  Why..."

But his words cut off before he could finish whatever new insult he was about to issue.  Thor was surprised to find fat tears rolling down Loki's cheeks until he was prompted to look at what gripped his brother with such a cruel hand that it wrenched such a rare response from the icy prince.  

"I thought letting you hurt me would help, Thor," Loki answered at last before wiping the blood from his bloody mouth. "I believed it might, at last, let me feel as if I'd been penitent long enough."  

Together, Thor and Loki stared up at the smiling visage of their mother.  The great Queen had loved them both equally in her own way, and Thor had, perhaps, never forgiven Loki for that, just as Loki had never forgiven him for the unequal love of their father.  Thor had thought Loki incapable of feeling this much regret and sadness over Frigga's death.  He parted his lips but not even breath would come.  

"But there is nothing but...emptiness where my heart once was.  Frigga took it with her to Valhalla...and it turned to ash in her hand before she could enter its gates."  

Thor reached a gentler hand toward Loki just as his brother dissolved into sobs that shook the ground of Asgard.  

[tarithenurse]

I see you - Ch. 7

Pairing: still promised Heimdal x fem!reader Warnings: fluff and pining. Little bit of tension. Then some fluff and pining. A/N: I guess I’m a sucker for slow burns ;)

Ch. 7 – Unwritten

At first, things were happening in a fog, obscuring facts and swallowing memories. More than once, you were told, you had insisted that your sister must be told that you were alive, and just as often you’d be comforted by Heimdal or Frigga telling you that it was sorted, and all you should worry about was getting better.

You spend more time asleep than you first had expected. Of course, it will take a lot of energy for your body to recover, not to mention that the Asgardian healers aren’t stingy with the painkillers that make you drowsy, but there’s something else that you can’t quite identify to begin with, and whatever it is, it makes you drift off mid-conversation without much warning.

As a result, it has taken you and Heimdal to get through the recent events back home (when you finally heard that it was Loki behind the attacks and that he was awaiting sentence in a prison, you tried to get out of bed to go and tell him off and possibly punch him – for obvious reasons that didn’t work out), and learning about the Asgardian culture was turning into a multi-chapter saga of it’s own.

“No but wait!” You were protesting to Heimdal’s heritage. “So, you really do have just one mom?”

“Yes…” catching the way you tilt your head, he continues curiously, “is this not common in Midgard?”

Of course, there are various family constellations depending on culture and personal preferences, so two dads and a mom isn’t that strange. The reason it makes you hesitate has to do with the myths in which it’s claimed that the Bridge-Keeper should have no fathers at all but eleven mothers. Does it make sense? No. But neither does a rainbow bridge or an eight-legged horse. Meeting Heimdal’s eyes, you feel your cheeks heat and you try not to focus on the growing smile as you stammering attempt to explain. His deep, rolling laughter when you’ve finished is contagious. It sweeps you up and carries you along on a great sea of warm comfort where ships with doubt and shyness sink, leaving room for an unconcerned happiness even when you end up laughing too much and the pain returns with a vengeance, silencing you and stealing your breath away.

“I’m sorry, my lady –“

“[Y/N]!” You’re trying to get him to use your first name only, but he’s reluctant.

Smiling crookedly, the god nods. “[Y/N].” The way he pronounces it, makes it sound like it has a deeper, richer meaning. “I didn’t mean to hurt you by laughing,” he explains, “yet…that particular story was born as a prank by a pair of young, mischievous princes. They stole their father’s horse and went to Midgard, this would’ve been nigh a thousand of your years ago, and those that recognized them as who they were…” A flicker of sadness crosses the handsome face, distancing the golden eyes.

For a moment the only sounds are from the world outside the windows. Out there, the sun’s getting low and its radiant colours are reflected off the snow on the mountain tops. I wonder if I’ll get to see more of Asgard before they send me home? Squinting, you find where the last trees on the steep, jagged sides and where a ravine has cleared a broad path across the lower growths above the treeline.

Turning back, you find Heimdal still lost in memory with his large hands clasped loosely between the knees and the urge to reach out overwhelms you. Your hand is small as your fingers close gently around his, startling him at first before returning the gesture and allowing your thumb to rub gentle patterns around his knuckles.

…

“Father, I must say that I agree with both Heimdal and mother on this matter.”

Looking towards Thor, it strikes the Keeper of Bifrost that the young prince has still to smile since his return to Asgard. What does he have to smile about? True, the battle has been won, however he lost his brother in the symbolic sense in the process, and to the older brother Loki was as a close friend and trustworthy companion once. Someone who was always there. The reasonable and calmer of the two. Now the adopted relative sits in a cell, refusing to see anyone or acknowledge the relations formerly shared, while Thor has acquired a wisdom vastly superior to the boy that he was a few years ago.

“You would grant her haven? For how long, my son?” Despite the kind moniker, Odin’s voice is cold, carrying the disinterest in the Midgardians whom he thinks of as lesser. “Until she’s well enough to be moved or maybe until she has healed completely? She will be a burden to us although we carry no responsibility for her or her realm.”

“Loki’s our responsibility, whether you want it or not.” Sighing deeply, there’s no challenge or anger in Thor. “The people of Midgard have been thrust into an infinitely larger reality than they were prepared for. They are frightened…lost. Without guidance, they will stumble and fall in their foolish naivety unless we show them a better way than they would choose on their own. Father, if we do not grant this girl the same honours as we would a hero, then we are no better than they are, and we do not deserve Midgard’s respect.”

Although Frigga doesn’t say a word, the troublemaker who has brought the foreigner in question to the Asgard can sense the queens pride and excitement at the direction the discussion is moving. A twinkle of a smile is in her eye even as she looks down to hide it, and it causes Heimdal to feel as though they are two children smirking over a well-played prank that a parent is defending, just as it had been once.

“Fine!” Tossing his hands in the air, Odin finally gives in. “She can stay for now and we will take up the matter once she has recovered.” A clear blue eye bores into a pair of amber. “I hold you responsible for her and any action of hers while she’s here. You will not return to your duties before she’s gone! Your only task is to make sure she stays out of trouble.”

Bowing deeply, Heimdal radiates calm. “Yes, your highness.”

…

The day arrives where you can move your feet and the good arm without paling from the agony. That’s the day where you ask what is going to happen, when you will be told to leave. Valhalla isn’t your home, as Odin so clearly had pointed out, and you know that you’re going to have to face the facts and leave even if you don’t really want to.

Frigga and a few healers are fluffing the pillows and adding more to guarantee enough support to sit up against them after they’ve helped wash and turn you to prevent bed sores.

“Queen Frigga,” you begin nervously, fiddling with the clean linen, “I’m very, very grateful for the kindness you’ve all shown me…for saving my life…”

When you don’t continue right away, she sinks down on the edge of the bed and takes your hands. “You can speak openly. Don’t worry, dear child.”

“I know, I’m not supposed to be here…what I mean to say is,” watching her slender hands rest effortlessly on the fur calms you enough to finish, “when will I have to leave?”

Don’t I want to leave? New York is your home. The first place you’ve felt free and safe after leaving your then-boyfriend. So what, if you’d only been there a few months, there were people you cared about and who, hopefully, cared about you. Like your new colleagues. And the old widower that always had his little folding chair out and sat by the corner to watch people walk by. The curious kid next door. Too often you wonder how they’re doing, until you remind yourself that there neither was nor is anything you can do about them right now, and that their lives will go on easily. Afterall…it was just three months since you moved to the city.

“If you wish, then we can bring you back to Midgard now…” the queen admits, “however, you’re welcome to stay as long as needed for your recovery.”

The smile on your face is not simply from the light feeling after a worry has been lifted of your shoulders, rather it’s from a warm glow within you at the thought of getting to spend more time with – Oh! Stop it! Scolding yourself doesn’t erase the visage in your mind of a man with eyes like liquid gold and skin the vibrant richness as mother earth would have.

“I trust you have found good company, but don’t hesitate to ask for anything.”

The slight smirk and playful glimmer in her eyes makes you suspect that she knows more than she says openly, which shouldn’t surprise you as that is exactly what the myths you used to read had said.

But what’s real and what’s just stories?

There’s so much still to figure out.