#medieval!loki x reader

[shreddedparchment]

The Garden Gate

Pairing: Medieval!Loki x Reader Word Count: 6,514

Warnings: smut, mentions of infidelity, language, bodily fluids, jealousy, Loki in a poofy shirt

A/N: Well, I haven't done this in a while. I had to go look for an old post to see how I used to do these openings. LUL Anywho, y'all can thank @darkficsyouneveraskedfor for this one. She sent me a picture and then I asked her for three characters and three scenarios and this one is the one that spoke to me the most. I did put my own spin on it but that's just me. Anywho, I'm not sure how many of my old readers will read this but I hope y'all like it. Anything y'all have to say about it is also greatly appreciated. xoxo

Please DO NOT repost my stories on any other sites or blogs!!

REBLOGS are always welcome!

Your family’s fall from grace had been nothing short of spectacular.

It had started first with the crumbling of respect from the men and heads of other houses. The gentry had taken offense to the shame of your father and eldest brother’s retreat at the battle for Carmine Valley, so named for the blush of trees that peppered the expanse of lush green and the strange but beautiful red waters of the central lake.

Had Lord Odinson’s own knights not been flanking from the western ridges, the valley would have fallen into the hands of the northern enemy forces. A great loss seeing as the valley was the largest producer of grain and vegetables in the kingdom.

The fallout had been catastrophic. Both your father and brother had been sent to the wild woods to the southernmost parts of the kingdom to work off their shame and languish in the dangerous labor camps where men were said to be torn into shreds by beasts as large as a carriage.

Even though you loved them very much, you couldn’t help the anger within your veins at their betrayal to not only the kingdom, but to your very family. The abandonment that their retreat meant. They knew what doing so would do to you, your mother, and younger brother.

If it were not for the King’s good nature, you’d have no doubt found yourself working in some brothel alongside your mother leaving your younger brother, at the tender age of seven, exposed to the worst parts of society.

The seediest brothels were not above selling children, you knew. No matter that the King had signed a death warrant for anyone known to sell or buy said company. It was the worst of sins and it breaks your heart to know that one man’s generosity saved all three of you from that life when he could have very well condemned it.

Knowing this–knowing how bad it could have been–doesn’t change the fact that your life now is still torture. Torture of a different kind, but torture all the same.

The King’s kindness came in the form of service. While your family was stripped of all titles and wealth, you’d also lost your beloved.

That is the true source of agony in your chest as you struggle with the bucket of waste water you’re holding, trying desperately not to slosh it around too hard. The last thing you want to do is to go to bed smelling of someone else’s bodily fluids.

The thick wool of your simple navy dress and the apron you keep tied over it are both great for absorbing disgusting materials. Already in need of a wash, the white ruffle along the neckline is frayed and yellowing despite the gown being only a few months old.

Edging along the courtyard wall, you try not to rush. The exhaustion in your body begs for sleep. Even months later the labor of working in the castle as a servant to former peers has not grown easier.

Wincing as the rough rope of the bucket burns the center of your palms, you almost sigh but instead freeze at the sight before you.

You’d know his silhouette anywhere.

The light is low here, a small lamp just beyond the open garden gate illuminates them from behind and hides their expressions but you don’t need to see to understand.

Her lips are parted, head pressed back against the door, hand braced against the warm brown and ornately carved wood. Her legs are parted a little too wide, a subtle motion of his left arm and the bunch of fabric around his forearm tell you enough of what you’ve stumbled upon.

You’re embarrassed and try to fade back into the darkness of the small courtyard behind you.

His shoulder length hair, black as a raven’s feather, is disheveled. You notice her hand gripping it tightly as his arm pumps.

A wispy, sultry moan slips through her parted lips and you stumble, gasping your own bit of surprise as you try not to spill the bucket’s contents.

A small splash, luckily away from you but the shuffle of feet and the rustle of fabric tells you that you’ve been noticed.

You look up, Lord Loki stands facing you, hands fisted as she hides behind him quickly adjusting her skirts.

“Oh, it’s you,” Lord Loki says, disdain in his voice.

Everyone here hates you. You already know this. Your father’s sins are your own. Nothing can change that.

“Finally where you belong,” the girl says and you recognize the voice with a small shock of pain in your chest. “You smell like piss.”

Lord Loki chuckles and you shrink just a little. More embarrassed by your own situation than catching them in the act. In fact, you’re disgusted by both of them, not only because of their audacity to do this at all, but because the woman whose fingers Lord Loki were just in is also your once beloved’s fiance.

Your former confidant. Lady Amora Antress. You’d once considered her your closest friend. Now here she stands, betrothed to one brother while fucking the other. The venom she spits at you is also unappreciated and painful to hear.

How long had she hated you before your downfall? How long had she waited before pursuing Thor?

“Aren’t you going to reply to her ladyship, servant?” Lord Loki asks, gleeful mirth in his voice as he takes a step towards you.

You bow your head even more, holding the bucket in your hands as still as you can while your hands struggle with the burn of the rope.

Amora scoff, “Pathetic. Leave her be, Loki. She’s where she deserves to be. She’s not worth the breath in our lungs.”

You don’t mean to cry. The utter betrayal of your once friend hurts more even than the loss of your once future husband.

“Are you crying?” Amora laughs, moving around Lord Loki, her shoes clicking against the brick of the courtyard. She stops in front of you, arms crossed over her ample bosom, still exposed more than it should be from what she and Lord Loki were just about to do. “You’re pathetic. The least you could do is be invisible while you serve.”

You say nothing, fist tightening around the rope. Pain shifts into rage at the cruelty in her words.

The wind blows and you can smell the scent of their near copulation. Luckily, it’s driven away by the vines of jasmine that creep along the tops of the brick wall.

She doesn’t deserve Thor. But you know that he never deserved you either. The rate at which he moved on…

Almost as if she’s sensing your thoughts, she takes a step closer and drops her voice to a whisper. You know Lord Loki will still be able to hear.

“Poor little flower, so careless and trusting.” She smiles. “You know it was so easy to seduce Thor. Even before your disgrace of a father betrayed his kingdom, Thor came to my bed often. Such a chaste little thing you were. You had no idea that every night after he whispered sweet promises in your ear of a happy future, he was burying his cock deep in my cunt, whispering how glorious I felt around him. Promising that even after you married, he would slip away and fuck me because no cunt could be as good as mine.”

Whore. Your heart shattered. Finally your eyes met hers.

She took a slight step back at whatever she saw in them. The hatred coursing through you set your teeth on edge. You wanted so much to rip her hair from its roots. If you could gouge her eyes out with your fingers without the consequence of a beheading, you would.

Perhaps she could see that promise of death in your eyes.

She scoffed, a reaction to whatever fear she felt in that moment.

“Now, now, ladies.” Lord Loki chastised, “Let’s keep things civil.”

“Civility? From a servant?” Amora looked at him then back at you, her hateful smirk twisting her pretty face into an ugly mask.

No…this is her true face. Her long blonde hair, pale skin, and green eyes might make her superficially beautiful, but you can see the true ugliness in her now.

“Trash knows no civility.” She spits.

Done with this encounter you make to move around her to finish your duties. You need rest. Body and now soul exhausted, the sanctuary of your quarters beckons like a beacon.

She steps in your way, smiling cruelly as she does.

You make to move around her again. She blocks you once more.

Body shaking with rage, you don’t bother stopping this time as she steps in front of you. Instead you let yourself fall against her, your bucket sloshing loudly as you angle the wide opening towards her.

The smell of piss and shit slices through the scent of sex and jasmine.

Amora screams, stepping back quickly until she bumps into Lord Loki who quickly pushes her away from himself, a wrinkle of disgust on his handsome face.

The green damask pattern of her silk gown grows slowly darker as the piss soaks into the fabric. A dark brown stain sets in towards the bottom.

“You probably should have moved out of my way, my lady.” The casual tone of your voice, the respect you can now fake like a professional grifter sounds so real that your taunt sounds like an apology.

“You bitch!” Amora growls.

Lord Loki catches her by the arm before she can move towards you.

“Perhaps, Lady Antress, you may want to go and change? If what you say is true and my brother will seek you out, I doubt very much he’d desire your company if you smell like shit and piss. No matter how delicious your cunt may be.” Lord Loki’s smirk gives away his delight at Amora’s distress.

Almost as soon as he’s grabbed her, he drops his hand and angles himself away from her slowly to avoid being soiled as well.

“Forgive me, my lady,” you curtsy, a perfect bow. “It was an accident.”

Amora glares at you then looks at Lord Loki who has taken to pressing the fingers of his right hand against his nose to shield from the smell, affixing her with a look of amused disgust.

Amora huffs, “Fuck you.” Then turns and stomps past you across the courtyard and disappears into the castle.

“That was nicely done,” Lord Loki says once you’re alone.

You give him a quick curtsy and move towards the gate to toss the remaining waste where it belongs in the river just past the far end of the large hedged garden.

Ignoring the sound of his following footsteps against the gravel and footstones, you wander through the fragrant rows of flowers.

“If anyone had been watching, no one would have doubted your sincerity with that apology.” He declares, hastening his footsteps to catch up with you, settling in to your right as he matches your pace. “I’m impressed. You never gave me the impression that you even knew how to lie let alone be deceptive.”

Grinding your teeth, you attempt to ignore him. You don’t engage.

He reaches out to grab your arm but you stop and twist away from him, disgust on your face as you stare at his left hand pointedly.

For a moment he looks confused and then laughs once in realization and takes his hand back.

“You won’t tell my brother, will you? About my…meeting with Lady Antress?” Lord Loki doesn’t sound like he actually cares.

You know that he and Thor never truly got along once they were of age. As children they had been inseparable. You’d followed them around and they’d welcomed you into their company as a playmate despite your gender.

Not until you also were of age did you realize that your parents and their parents had seen your friendship as an indicator of good fortune for a future marriage.

As the elder brother, Thor had been chosen. Your heart, having been devoted to Thor even as a girl, had been so full. Eagerly you’d thrown yourself into the arrangement of your marriage. Only now did you begin to realize that perhaps your heart had been the only one truly invested in the promises that Thor had made.

Agony cuts you again, tearing your heart apart a little more as the feeling of stupidity makes your eyes prick with tears again.

“Did you truly not know that Thor and Amora were fucking?” Lord Loki asks, voice devoid of anything but genuine curiosity.

A tear slips down along your cheek as you turn and resume your walk. Lord Loki follows.

“You wound me.” He says, voice low. “Were we not also friends before?”

Scoffing, you readjust the bucket and wince at the pain of the rope as you feel your skin break. You drop it, Lord Loki stepping back quickly but nothing splashes out this time. Most of the contents were currently soaking through Amara’s gown.

You lift your hand up, staring at the peel of skin and the slick of the pink muscle beneath as red begins to pool along the edges of the tear.

Just another wound. It’ll seal and heal and scar, joining the others on your once smooth hands.

The bite of pain gives you a reason to let your tears fall. You don’t hold them back as you sob quietly, uncaring of the audience to your humiliation.

“He’s an asshole,” Lord Loki states, stepping up in front of you. “Always has been. Arrogant, proud, and foolhardy. Thinks with his cock more than his brain.”

Again, you scoff. The irony of Lord Loki, whom you just caught fingering your former best friend in the garden, telling you that Thor thinks first with his cock does not escape you.

Lord Loki clears his throat, embarrassed?

“If I’d been your betrothed,” Lord Loki continues. “I’d have worshiped the ground you walk on.”

“You’re a liar, and just as susceptible to Amara’s games as he apparently is. Does it make you feel happy to sleep with your brother’s fiance? Does it give you pleasure to betray him?” You spit at him, angry at yourself, at Thor, at Amara, at your father and brother.

You’re just so angry. You’re always angry now. Even when you’re sad, you’re angry.

“Are you really worried about my betrayal against him when Amara just exposed him for the hypocrite he is?” Lord Loki demands, a little affronted by your ire.

Biting down hard on your lip, you squeeze around the wound on your hand.

“You’re all hypocrites. All of you deserve each other.” You realize and reach down to take the bucket again but are stopped by Lord Loki’s hand as it takes hold of the bucket for you.

He doesn’t wait for you to say anything and instead moves towards the gate at the end of the garden.

Quickly, you hurry after him, eager to take the bucket from him before anyone might look out onto the grounds and see him interfering with your duties. The punishment you’d receive would be painful.

“My Lord, please,” you finally beg, unable to really catch up with his long legged stride. “I’ll be punished if they find out.”

Lord Loki says nothing but strides out through the gate into the wooded expanse behind the garden.

Expertly, probably from the many hunts he’s gone on around the castle, he winds through the trees towards the rushing river whose roar you begin to hear.

“My Lord,” you hurry after him, nearly catching up but then he turns and disappears behind a tree only to emerge before another one. “Please,” you beg.

Taking a quick glance behind you towards the castle and its countless illuminated windows, you don’t see anyone watching but panic has begun to take hold.

He shifts and turns, stomping over the wild grass, the occasional crack of twig or fallen branch as he steps onto it, eaten by the rush of the water now louder.

You’re almost running now to keep up with him and still you lose sight of him when he turns around a particularly large tree. You stop beside it, scanning the area for him desperately.

The dungeons are so damp this time of year. You don’t want to get locked up if you can help it. Illness is something you don’t have much experience with and with your body weak and unhealthy now compared to the grace and flush of perfection you’d been with money and a constantly full belly, you might succumb to any serious illness.

You don’t want to die, despite the hardships you face.

With no sign of him, you move towards the section of river you always go to empty your buckets.

Minutes later you break through the treeline and spot Lord Loki crouched by the water, damp bucket set beside him now empty and rinsed.

Breathing heavily, you try to catch your breath and press your hand against your thundering heart, forgetting for a moment about the wound there and hiss.

Lord Loki rises, turning to look at you with a furrowed brow as he shakes the water from his hands and dries them on his dark emerald jerkin. He pulls down the puffed sleeves of his black shirt, fastening them around his wrists again but only finishes one before he’s holding his hand out for you.

“Come,” he orders. Not a request.

You don’t move, holding your wounded hand still as you watch him, pale skin nearly glowing in the light of the moon.

“Come here,” he orders again and this time you move towards him only a step. He steps towards you once, his hand held up again with more emphasis. “Shall I say please? Am I wrong? Were we not also friends?”

He smirks, amused by your hesitation for some reason.

Asshole. How dare he throw the past in your face. It’s coercion to remind you of your bond as children.

Unwilling to let him get the satisfaction of seeing you be defiant, you close the distance between you.

He takes your hand, holding it up close so that he can see it clearly. The moon is bright enough that he can and he pulls you towards the river’s edge. Squatting down again, he pulls you down with him.

You kneel, inching towards the edge as he pulls your hand into the water.

A hiss escapes your lips as the water coats the wound, tugging at the bit of skin still holding on until it tears free.

He holds it under the water for a minute then brings it back up to examine, pulling your arm so that you shift to face him and he does the same, kneeling before you.

“It’ll scar,” he realizes, but notes the other small scars that now cover your palm underneath the base of each finger.

You watch him as he traces each scar with his thumb, the golden emerald ring on his finger cool to the touch after being submerged in the cold river water for a bit. It feels nice against the heated skin of your palms. The friction of the rope burning them both.

“I remember when your hands were soft,” he notes.

Self conscious, you make to yank your hand from his grip but he tightens it and meets your eyes in silent order not to try that again.

Holding your gaze, he brings your palm up towards his mouth. Heart hammering against your chest, you try again to yank it from him but his lips close around the wound.

A strange tumble of knots in your stomach work their way up into your chest and constrict your heart.

More strange than that, a shift between your legs has your face and neck burning. Ears so hot that the breeze of the late spring air feels cold in comparison.

“Stop that,” you tell him, voice weak from shock at both his actions and your body’s reaction to it.

He does. Pulling your hand away from his mouth to look the wound over.

“The bleeding stopped,” he states, then reaches for your apron.

The tearing of fabric sends our heart seizing but more arousal pools between your legs. Embarrassed, you look away from him as he wraps your hand tightly. He must have dealt with many small injuries on his hunts because he ties the wrap around your palm securely and nothing save for cutting the fabric away will undo it.

“Do you have any idea what you do to me?” He asks, voice low and deep. Almost dark in the way it slithers across your skin in a sultry embrace.

“No.” You answer honestly. “And it’s probably only because I caught you and you didn’t get to stick it in Amara.”

He releases your hand as you pull against his grip but he reaches forward to place his hand on your cheek. His left hand.

You almost pull away but remember him drying his hands on his vest. He’d deliberately washed both hands. Why?

“I meant what I said,” he whispers. “I would have worshiped the ground you walk on. I still can, if you’ll let me.”

“I’m a servant,” you spit, turning to look at him with anger and betrayal. “Anything you do to me will be forced merely by the fact that I cannot deny you anything you might want.”

Lord Loki frowns.

“You think so badly of me?” He wonders, hurt in his green eyes.

Your mind flashes back to your childhood. You, Thor, and Lord Loki running to the stables of his estate. You fall. Both Thor and Lord Loki stop but it’s Lord Loki that rushes back to you, helping you up and dusting you off as you cry loudly.

Thor rushes away, laughing in his eagerness to mount his horse.

More memories of your childhood assault you with images of Lord Loki and his kindness. Frequent acts of compassion and what you might have once considered friendly love. Thor’s are fewer and mostly contained to the days after your betrothal had been agreed upon.

“You will never be a servant to me,” Lord Loki assures you.

“It is what I am,” you counter. “You cannot simply ignore it.”

Lord Loki sighs, “You’ve always been so stubborn.”

He lets his hand glide down along the side of your neck, over your shoulder, down along your arm, and then he settles it along the side of your waist, the shape stiff thanks to the corset underneath.

It’s almost unbearable that he’s here, in your shame of servitude. His touch is confusing. You almost ask him why it feels so strange but instead focus on what’s most important.

“Is it true?” you ask, voice wary and quiet.

“Is what true?” There are so many things you could mean, you realize.

Part of you almost doesn’t want to know. So you hesitate.

Something softens in Lord Loki’s eyes as if he suddenly knows what you’re going to ask.

“Were…did Thor and Amara…?” You shake your head, trying not to let the pain show.

“Yes,” he answers, voice firm. He wants you to know that it’s true. No hesitation in his answer. “A few times even with you nearby. You almost caught them a handful of times. Were you only a few moments earlier or later.”

Head falling, you can’t help the tears that spring forth. So much of your past had been a lie. The strength of your house. The friendships you held dear. Your betrothed hadn’t truly loved you. If he had, he would not have betrayed you.

“My brother paints a pretty picture. Despite what he wants others to think he is changeable. He is impatient. Clearly that was his undoing with you. He is rash and prideful. He doesn’t think about what he does before he does it and because he would be insulted by it, would it not be sweet revenge to dangle what he wanted most in the open for all to see?” His words are slow and sure.

The last bit of his speech is careful and calculated. You can hear the manipulation in his words even though he tries not to let you. You’ve known him too long. Lord Loki also changed when you were betrothed to Thor. A shift of his usual kindness had taken place and the sneering Lord had been born. Intent on his own machinations to pry forth the dreary truths of his life.

He’d never been cold and harsh but he became so after your engagement. Thor had called him a snake and even then you could see it. The skill with which Lord Loki had developed his manipulating tactics and the precision with which he enabled them are known to you.

So you know what he’s saying even if he won’t say it clearly.

He takes hold of your chin and slowly lifts your head until he can see your eyes. There’s a strange eagerness in his own greens as he tries to read you. There’s a question there, an uncertain probing as his hand at your waist grows tighter, wrapping around to rest on your back, arching your body towards him.

That strange feeling between your legs surges. It’s Amara’s sneering face that breaks down your defenses. It’s the pride in her words as she’d bragged about being with Thor while you were still betrothed to him that shatters your will.

You do want to get revenge. You want Thor to know that you don’t care anymore. That he means as little to you now as you did to him then.

And what better way to show him that than with the one person he’d hate it happening with the most?

He might overlook some random stablehand. He might ignore some merchant’s son, even if he were above your station.

With Lord Loki…the bite would be as harsh as the sting of Amara’s venom was to you.

“Loki…” you whisper and he surges forward.

His lips are over yours, moving and massaging as you at first merely take his kiss.

He hates it. He pulls back and tilts his head the other way, kissing you more enthusiastically, trying to draw some type of reaction from you.

It’s taking you longer to submit than you thought it would take.

He pulls back one final time and tilts his head back again before this time pressing his lips against your own slowly. He doesn’t move then but instead waits, puckering against yours as he tugs you towards him instead of shoving himself onto you.

Strong lithe arms wrap around your waist and pull you up onto your knees and against his chest. He holds you so close, so tight. It isn’t rough or demanding but needy. As if he can’t get you close enough to his own body and he can only draw you closer and closer in the hopes that it’ll fill something in him that needs filling.

You place your hands on his shoulder as you tilt your head back with his kiss.

Finally, you find the strength in your body and pucker your own lips and return this gentle kiss.

Shock flashes in his eyes as he opens them to look at you. You watch the confusion bloom in them but then shut your own and give in.

Loki’s lips part and envelop yours. It shocks you the way it sends those knots back into your stomach. In response you do the same, enveloping his lips with your own.

Loki’s hands splay out against your back and he groans as he opens his mouth and the tip of his tongue slides against the crease of your lip in question.

In answer, you open for him and welcome his searching tongue with your own. The taste of him, the scent of him, it overwhelms and you gasp as you lose yourself in the moment.

You feel his hands drift around to your front, his right sliding up along your bodice until he can cup your breast, a groan slipping through his lips as he breaks your kiss and traces wet open kisses along your jaw, neck, and shoulder.

“Loki…” you gasp without ever having given your mouth permission to speak.

He bites your neck when you say his name. You moan and he licks the spot to soothe it.

“Loki…” You whisper again.

He’s driven mad by it and before your mind can understand what is happening, he’s laying over you, hands moving wildly underneath your back, running along your sides, fumbling around until he finds where your dress is fastened and he pulls at the ties.

“Should I stop?” He asks, breathless and looking as if he would like nothing more than to keep going.

“No.”

“Mm,” he moans and kisses you again, tongue claiming your mouth as his own.

You can feel him tearing away your apron and then your dress. Too eager to pull it off you completely, he merely shoves it down so that he lays spread out along your waist.

He looks down at you, the corset you wear hiding very little of your breasts. He kisses them each in turn, the soft fleshy bits that pool up above your undergarment.

You shudder at the touch of his lips.

“Has anyone kissed you here before?” He wonders. You’re not sure if he wants  an answer or not but you shake your head anyway.

As he nuzzles the soft flesh, his hands work on the corset, pulling at strings blindly until it gives way and he pulls it off of you exposing you completely.

The cool air of the night perks your nipples more than his touch already has and he takes both breasts in his hands, pushing them together as he stares to the point of embarrassment.

Before you can cover yourself, he takes one into his mouth, suckling softly to draw soft moans from your open mouth.

He sees it, your gaping mouth, and seals it with his own, his tongue nearly in a frenzy as he devours your whimpers.

Cool air hits your suddenly exposed legs. You gasp sharply as he thrusts suddenly and the hard press of his cock rubs against you, shielded only by the fabric of his pants.

“Shall I stop?” He asks again, hands running down along your torso where he takes each breast in hand, massaging them slowly before rolling each of your nipples in slow deliberate circles.

“Don’t stop.”

It’s almost torture when he removes his hands from your overheated body. But you enjoy the sight as he removes his jerkin, followed shortly by his shirt. His body is sculpted but tight, not bulky. Lithe limbs hard and eager as he reaches down beneath your skirts in search of what he desires.

He hisses when his fingers touch you, soaking wet, and you reach down to hold his wrist not to stop but simply to hold on.

The thought crosses your mind that he’s already had someone else like this tonight and it almost makes you pull away. You’re so close to stopping but he sees the thought in your eyes and leans over you, removing his hand he leans over you, pressing his chest against yours and silencing your thoughts with a slow kiss.

It burns through you, the meaning clear.

“Shall I only touch you from now on, darling?” he whispers, kissing your chin then suckling along your throat.

He’ll leave marks…

“Tell me and I will only touch you.” He promises.

“Don’t make me promises you can’t keep, Loki.” You chastise him, mood nearly breaking again at the memory of the endless promises Thor had made you.

“I will never break a promise to you. Tell me to refrain and I will. I meant what I said,” he kisses his way up to your ear, licking the shell of it before hot breath sends your skin prickling. “I will worship the ground you walk on if you will only let me.”

He thrusts again. You shut your eyes, gasping at the cock straining for freedom.

“H-How do I know I can trust you?” You ask, unintentionally letting him see how desperate you are to do so.

He kisses you again, genuine and hungry for it.

“Give me a week and I shall truly prove it. Trust me until then and you shall see the depths of my willingness and devotion.”

He thrusts again and maybe you’re a fool for allowing yourself to consider this when he’s got you right where he wants you, but you nod.

“Only touch me,” you order him.

He smirks. He reaches down between your legs again and with one finger slowly strokes from the bottom of your cunt to the top, the lurid sounds of your wetness poignant despite the rushing river beside you.

“I’ll go slow,” he promises.

One finger. He uses only one finger and the pressure is intense. Sensations you’ve never felt before awaken every nerve ending in your body. His thumb presses against your clit and you nearly sit up with the shock of pleasure that rushes through you.

He adds a second finger, moving slowly as he pumps them in and out.

“Shall I stop, darling?”

“Never stop,” you gasp, still gripping his wrist.

Another smirk on that handsome face, his green eyes dazzling you as he shifts back to his knees.

He licks his lips as he pulls a tie free at the front of his trousers and slowly pushes them lower and lower until he can kick free of them completely.

The length of him is breathtaking. He reaches down and strokes his cock, slowly running his thumb along the shiny pink head before he scoots closer, your skirt blocking him from view.

He rubs himself against you, slicking himself with your own arousal.

There he waits, watching you as you brace your hands on the soft grass beneath you but open your legs wider.

Your eyes meet and both of you know that there will be no coming back from this choice. Nothing either of you do will ever erase this line you’ve nearly crossed completely.

He pushes in slowly, leaning over you as he gets deeper and deeper until he’s buried completely. Chest to chest. Face to face. He grunts deep, face twitching as he settles within you.

It’s so much pressure it’s painful. The feeling of him is so foreign. You’re not sure whether it feels good or not.

“Fuck,” he whispers and tenses then shudders. You feel a wave of heat within you, followed by the sensation of slow moving drippage. “You feel…”

He seems lost for words. Do you feel terrible?

He pulls his hips back just a bit and pushes back in.

You whimper, pushing against his chest to look down where your bodies connect.

“Loki,” you fret.

“I’ll go slow,” he promises. “Be calm my sweet. I will ease you into this.”

Each thrust into you, his pelvis pushes against your clit and each time you moan, wishing he’d do that more. The feeling of him is filling, strange, but not unpleasant. Just different.

As your body relaxes a bit more, Loki’s thrusts grow faster. You smile unintentionally as he presses against your clit more often.

“You like that?” he wonders, stopping as he pushes all the way in and then rolls his hips against you.

Your responding moan gives him confirmation and he settles himself over you fully.

As he thrusts he presses harder against you, lingering for a moment before doing it again and again. The slap of his skin against yours grows louder and he finds a rhythm that has you both breathless and moaning.

“Loki,” you plead, feeling the build up of tension within your body.

“Come for me, darlin,” he kisses you, subduing your voice as he pumps into you.

You’re unsure for certain what he means but your body seems to listen. You wrap your legs around him, holding him as close as you can as he continues to thrust into you. The sweat of his body glistens in the moonlight. The soft silk of his hair tickles your skin as he arches up slightly so that he can take your breast into his mouth again as he keeps pumping into you.

You feel it…so close.

“Loki,” you whimper, wanting to reach the end of this tightrope.

He growls once and brings his hand down between your connected bodies. His thumb presses against your clit firmly. He presses and presses, rolling it in small circles with such precise pressure.

Your body explodes into endless fuzzy light. You arch into him, trembling as his thumb continues to draw pleasure from you in spasms as he keeps moving his cock in and out.

“Fucking hell,” he grunts and thrusts one final time his whole body tight in its release as that same sensation of heat fills you again.

Both of you seem to have stars in your eyes as he collapses on top of you, kissing you slowly with his eyes wide open to watch the expression of pure bliss on your face.

“I think-” Loki says, pulling back as he slowly helps to pull your dress up a bit to cover your exposed breasts. He kisses each one before he does so. “-it goes without saying that I would appreciate it if I was the only one allowed to touch you.”

You’re floating, swathed in golden light, unable to process anything he’s saying because of the pure escape from and yet complete connection to your body Loki’s cock just gave you.

You hear him chuckle. He pinches your cheek, drawing your attention back to him.

“Agreed?”

“What?” You gasp breathlessly.

“No one may touch but me. And I will touch no one but you.” He declares. “Is that understood?”

The authority in his voice draws your legs wide as that throbbing from before is renewed.

Loki’s face twitches at the movement.

“Show me again,” you plead.

“Tell me no one else will touch you,” he orders.

“No one else will touch me,” you agree.

“If you betray me,” you begin.

Loki’s eyes soften. He leans down to press a kiss to your lips.

“I promised you that I would worship the ground you walk on.”

He kisses you again, slowly, feeling every inch of your mouth against his.

“One week, my darling. I’ll prove to you my devotion.” He promises.

The sincerity in his voice has your legs spreading again and he hisses as you shift. Inside you, you feel him harden.

“Show me…” you beg.

“You’re going to be insatiable.” He realizes.

And revenge against Thor aside, you realize that being with Loki might be the smartest thing you’ve ever done.

“Do you have any idea how long I have waited to make you mine?” Loki wonders, stroking your cheek.

“How long?” You wonder, reaching up to take hold of his hand.

“I’ll show you.”

There will be NO tags.

[chantsdemarins]

New Fic: Breath of the Æsir ⚔︎🏰 (Loki X Reader)

Formally (Collapsing in the Arms of Chaos) I changed the name. 😬 I know Medieval stories aren't everyone's fav but heck, I hope you like it! It has been brewing in the coffee pot that is in my head for over a year. I feel slightly self-conscious that after my first time with COVID, my brain is not the same. I hope I still have my ability to write! My last story published a few weeks ago was written while I was falling ill and I know it wasn't my best!

Thank you for reading!! If you want to comment I would be so happy and reblogs are like the most precious thing to me. All art is mine, it's a Photoshop-crazed situation.

Summary: Disenchanted with the Danes' misuse of Norse gods to sanction their brutality, Loki finds himself ostracized. Stripped of his divine powers and bearing a severe injury, he wanders into the realm of the conquered. By a twist of fate, he arrives at your manor, where you await your husband's return. However, destiny has other plans.

Warnings: Blood.

Words: 2,471

Smut rating: Not yet...but there sure will be!

Posting schedule: Every Saturday! I am going to stick to this!

Chapter 1 The Embroidery of Destiny Chapter 2 The Stranger Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5

@lokis-little-fawn @lcolumbia1988 @thesoftboiledegg @anukulee @mochie85 @lokisgoodgirl @lokischambermaid @nildespirandum @caffiend-queen @mochie85 @maple-seed @mischief2sarawr @kikster606 @thedistractedagglomeration @glitchquake@simplyholl @holdmytesseract @holymultiplefandomsbatman @wheredafandomat @fictive-sl0th @ijuststareatstuffhereok89 @muddyorbs @vickie5446 @trickster-maiden @grymrayven

Before your family settled again, you had been travelers, moving from one darkened patch of earth to the next. Soil on your boots muddied your paths, creating difficulties in finding a home. There were many things to see, some horrors, some things magical and unfounded. Shapes shifted in the forest where you camped at night. One day your father showed you where they lowered men into the bogs, decorated with bronze. These were not the ways of your people. They did not worship like that. It might have been too much for you to know where some ended up when they were no longer living, not in graves or on pyres. Something else.

By the time you reached the northern lands, your family had negotiated your belongings down to just what the pallid horses could carry. Your croft was built into the very earth you had struggled to cross, with bedrooms burrowed into the side of a hill. It was not built for so much rain. Buckets and sluices were not enough to keep out the floods.

So, when your husband came to marry you, you packed your things neatly, placed them in a pack, and left your parents’ home without drawing a breath. You walked a distance far greater than any you had as a child to his family's land, your new home. The way your family had negotiated the marriage remained a blind spot in your mind. You couldn't fathom it. From a croft to a manor.

Over time, nothing in your marriage seemed to flourish. The land, though beautiful, yielded nothing you sowed. Too sandy or too chelated, perhaps unfortunate timing. You became a wife in the loneliest ways. No spinning of yarn would produce a cloth finer than the wool you began with. Hours of practice composing embroidery resulted in nothing more than half completed sea escarpments, knots, and birds with no flight.

The elegant window that surveyed the tenants' labors only deepened your isolation. They carried on with their duties, and you retired to your quarters, curtains drawn. The chill from your childhood followed you here. The stone walls held a dampness no fire could dispel. You knew somewhere across the hills where your parents still sleeping too close to the earth. Rooms still flooded. Though your loyalty never wavered, even as your husband wandered afar, absent for days at a time, his pursuits as obscure as the horizon beyond your room filled with half-finished tasks.

In kindness or disappointment, he had ensured your education extended beyond your lowly beginnings. Through travels and courtly audiences, barons and other titled men and women recounted their lives' poetry over each glass of mead or wine. You listened for moments when they forgot their lines, most days this was more interesting than their images they wanted you to see.

Although had you not met Isolde of Easting, you would not have thought to plant the spiky yellow gorse along the manor's borders. When the proper conversation waned, you had discovered the titled people still spun tales of their lands. The places they had come or been uprooted from. In the best conversations, you gleaned knowledge of the plants, herbs, and tokens from the first peoples, their ways overshadowed by the new cultures but nonetheless seeming to flow from them to you during the quieter moments—the men away hunting, the embroidery thread running low, the teapot empty. These things were spoken of in hushed tones so the servants would not get ideas.

You spoke of the hawthorn tree, the ravens' work, the swords warriors cast into the cold estuary, found along all the lakes' shores. The Roman merchants who brought tales of Jesus and his cross. The god Woden came from the Angles, and Odin, from the North. Their wars and bloodshed filled the spaces between village homes and now the courts. If asked if you prayed to the Christian god, you couldn't say. You longed to speak of the place where they lowered men into the bogs, the place your father once showed you. Later, in the quiet of your room, you would pull out a relic from beneath the blankets in your chest, and it would look unrecognizable. It once held meaning, but that meaning didn't travel with it.

Sometimes when you were awake much too early, the nightingales still singing, you would dip your quill into the small pot of black soot. You would unroll a small piece of parchment, discarded by the cooks, and write down your dreams. Which had room in your sleep since they were so often unimpeded by the presence of your husband. You wrote in the lais of the Frankish people, counting eight sounds to the line, braiding your dreams with your words.

Had I found a small shell, not rope I would have held it to my ear The ocean's song would have come to me Instead, I was swallowed wholly

This was how things proceeded until the day they did not.

As you came to learn, in the void and closeness of life, nothing is reliable enough to expect its continuation the next day. You should allow for change to slip through the crevices of even the dampest chambers. It just had not happened in so long you almost did not recognize it when something remarkable unfolded at your manor.

On this day, as you sipped your tea, with half-finished yards of cloth draped across your lap, and the unopened book of hours on the small, worn table, your gaze was fixed on the wind billowing the emerald curtains—silk from an era long past, traded by hands unknown. Like much of the decor in the manor, these were vestiges of your husband's family's trade in finery, symbols of their stature akin to that of minor kings.

Elinor, your companion for the last 10 years, rapped on your door abruptly, breaking your contemplative gaze.

“My lady, please excuse me,” she croaked, as the door opened before you could arrange a pretext to delay her entry.

“What is it, Elinor?” you asked, not wishing to dwell on the trivialities of the manor that day. Clearing her throat, she reported urgently of a man in a bad way, injured and lying on the steps. She hastened to your window, the portal to the land beyond your manor, and pointed to the makeshift courtyard where a man lay seemingly lifeless if not for the faint moan you heard.

“Why have you not sought my husband or some other man of decisions?” you questioned with a twinge of fear edging into your refuge of solitude.

“Lady, your husband has traveled beyond into the land of the Scots, and the aldermen are not present either,” she informed you.

“A household of women only, then? How did I overlook such an event?” you pondered.

“Lady, you are often engrossed in your own pursuits within these walls. How could you have noticed your husband's departure?” Elinor reasoned, her words not easing the panic now fully upon you. The thought that your husband had left you unprotected added another layer of anguish.

“At such a time, Elinor, how shall we defend ourselves?” you barely articulated.

“I suspect he gave little thought to the matter,” Elinor replied, her head bowed even lower than her subdued voice.

“Then it falls to me to act in their absence,” you reasoned. Not wanting this conflict or the talk that may ensue you knew you must act quickly. This man perhaps knew your husband, or perhaps it was only a small political scuffle that may have resulted in his injuries. You thought of the many reasons he could have ended up at the steps of your manor of this day. None of them added up entirely.

As you navigated the long, narrow corridors, your thin morning jacket provided little relief from the chill as Elinor aided you with the heavy door. You both stood in awe of the man at your feet. Having seen men before, chiefly your husband. This man’s appearance was now shocking at close view. He was unlike your husband in all ways you could imagine.

“Holy Jesus save us,” Elinor yelled through her missing teeth.

“He will not assist with this, Elinor,” you responded, your eyes surveying the severe wound from his stomach to his chest, the dark blood pooling around his lean form.

The man’s hair was a shade darker than the darkest night. Had night possessed more depth, it would resemble the hue of his locks. His attire suggested nobility, which only intensified the chill you felt. He had clearly been bested in whatever skirmish he had come from, and with no healer at hand, it seemed likely that a burial might soon follow—until his eyes fluttered open.

A striking blue that drew your own darker gaze, hinting at his foreign language or origins. His hand reached out feebly before falling back to his side.

He whispered faintly, “Ásjá.”

“He's alive!” you declared, as if the statement itself could reverse his fate.

“Yes, lady, he lives, I told you. Now what shall we do?” Elinor asked, concern evident in her voice.

“We save him. It is the right thing to do,” you answered.

“But without a healer, we risk much by sheltering him,” Elinor’s voice trembled.

“Then we shall tend to his needs ourselves,” you declared, your courage unusual, unfounded, drawn from the same well that had seen men saved from death at a distance. An instinct came over you. You directed Elinor to gather wood, cloth, herbs, and other necessities that seemed more from your imagination than any practical experience. You quickly cut away his clothes, exposing the dire wound more fully.

“Lady, he may not survive this,” Elinor observed with a somber tone. The unhinged flesh flapping against the seemingly unended torrent of blood emerging from him. How could there be so much blood.

“Silence, Elinor,” you hushed her. Your hands, though failed in the art of tapestry, were adept with needle and thread. So much failure had given you courage.

“We must stem the bleeding before we can stitch him up,” you instructed, asking for a branch from the fire.

“Lady, you cannot—” Elinor began, but you had already pressed the smoldering wood to the wound. The man awoke suddenly, thrashing in pain.

“Hold him down!” you ordered. Elinor, small but determined, restrained his arms.

You envisioned repairing his injury as if it were the "Galley of the Titan’s Moons," a rare piece of embroidery from the northern lands.

“I shall map the night sky upon your body, sir,” you said, speaking into the silence as he drifted further from this world. You sensed the ancestors gather, ready to welcome him, but you were not ready to let him go.

“No, not yet” you whispered, a soft rebuke to the invisible presence.

Elinor looked at you, puzzled. To whom were you speaking?

You were determined. This man would not die. Though you had sent for a proper healer, your task was to keep him alive until they arrived, hoping they would be sober enough to be of use. Much worse would be a drunk priest should your help not find any healer available.

It was not until you had finished suturing his wound that you noticed how his body appeared in the dim light of the great room. Your loneliness resonated with the landscape of his injury. It was a peculiar reaction, but there was something else broken within this man, beyond the sword wound. It was something familiar to your own. You held you own stomach for a moment, it felt as if you were the one almost slain, not him.

Eventually, his bleeding ceased, and the healer arrived, tended to him with poultices and what looked like grain spirits. You wrapped your furs around his sleeping form. He did not pass away. The stranger in your home survived. You had been told he might still not make the night. You watched him for as long as your eyes could. His faint inhalations mirrored in your own. But the exhaustion took over, and before you could retreat to your own chamber, you found yourself lying at his side.

“How improper, Lady!” Elinor’s voice pierced the quiet as dawn crept in and your eyes, heavy with sleep, opened. You hadn’t realized you had fallen asleep beside the stranger. Startled, you rose, wrapping a blanket around yourself. Quickly finding a reason that you had slept at his side.

“He remains unconscious, Elinor. The healer was unsure if he would wake,” you confided in the servant who had been by your side for so many years. She looked briefly placated. Yet you knew her mind was racing. The healer would tell the burgh folk of this strange man. Your husband was nowhere to be known. Northman had recently been subdued with heavy piles of church silver, and that arrangement was delicate at best. They would be back and this time they would perhaps sack the village since you knew the last of the silver had been promised away to visiting bishops and clergy. The wealth had run its course.

“He must stay until he awakens, until he can speak for himself,” you quickly decided.

It was better to know who he was. He would surely tell you since you saved his life.

“But what if he is a demon, my lady? Have you considered that he may have come from Hell to bring us further misfortune?” Elinor ventured, instantly regretting her words as her face contorted with shame.

“I apologize. I did not mean to imply you are cursed,” she hastily added.

You felt pity for Elinor, she was not as traveled as you had become. Had not the stories you knew, but you also could not see beyond, you had no way to know if it was safe to keep him with you. If your husband should arrive back, there would be no way to convince him that this man had not abused you in some way, but you did know something of him. There was something you did recognize.

“This man is no curse, no demon,” you affirmed, your gaze fixed on his hair, as dark as the ink with which you wrote.

“How can you be certain?” she queried.

“He spoke in the old tongue, asking for aid. Did you not hear him, Elinor?” you questioned, your voice steady.

The woman stepped back, tossing another log onto the fire, her confusion apparent. “I did not recognize the language, nor do I understand how you did,” she admitted.

The language was familiar to you, it was the tongue of your people from so long ago. From the place of your birth. The place that was destroyed till there was nothing but darkness.

Chapter 2 below!

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

By the King’s Hand🐍XIX

Masterlist

Warnings: noncon/rape, violence/death, trauma, allusions to torture, gaslighting, pregnancy, birth, sickness, cheating.

This is dark!fic and explicit. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you. 18+ only.

Summary: Your isolation brings you close to disaster.

Note: I know it’s been a while. I forgot I even worked on this chapter so I figured I’d share with you before I start catching up on my slumber party.

Thank you. Love you guys!

As always, I would appreciate any feedback you have. Please reblog if you can and send an ask if you feel up to it. Love you all! Have a good day and take care of yourselves.

Vali babbled at the wooden figure of a knight gifted to him by Hal. The child was bright-eyed despite his infancy, he was pensive and observant, much like his father. The reminders of his sire irked you at times and worried you at others. You hoped he was unlike either of you; kinder than Loki and smarter than you.

Whatever he was, you wanted him safe more than anything. The fixation on him, the need to have him close, confounded you. Perhaps it was that his was the only companionship you had aside from Birger’s periodic visits. Those grew less and less, more often you sat in your overdressed prison and listened to the low drone of life on the other side of the wall.

Sinthia was a frequent hum on the outside. You learned her voice and it piqued a strange curiosity, one born of monotone and isolation. Her words were obscured by the barrier between you but you tried to imagine those which would match her tone. How odd she never sounded angry with her husband when he so easily riled all others.

She must have been kind and patient. Maybe timid and obedient. Much the opposite of you. You, the uncouth and unrefined peasant, the mother of a bastard, the dirty secret hidden in the closet.

That morning, the king and queen spoke rather loudly over the clink of dishes. They supped as your stomach growled wantingly. You would have to wait until the chamber was empty to break your fast. You had only the lukewarm wine to sate your hunger and it did little but set a burn in your gut.

The longer you were trapped in this chamber, the more forgotten you felt. Hal was busy with his duties as squire and you would not keep him from those. Birger only came upon necessity, and the king did not acknowledge you upon his visits. Only his child. You had nothing to say to him as it were, not since he reminded you of your worth.

You took out the bundle of paper hidden in the desk against the far wall. You were out of practice but remembered all the letters. Piecing them together was harder but distracted you from the listless solitary. You made little progress without Hal to guide you and Vali cried as soon as you found a semblance of comprehension.

Frustrated, you took the baby from his basket and out him to feed. You felt like cattle, there to be milked and kept waiting for the trough. The child was restless and fussed as you tried to latch him. The conversation without lulled as Vali began to bluster.

You cooed and shifted him in your arms, rocking him as you tried to calm him before he could erupt. You moved him to your nipple and smothered his displeasure with your tit. He drank, slipping several times as you tried to keep him suckling.

The sudden dearth of sound worried you. You no longer heard Loki’s silty deep timbre or Sinthia’s lilted responses. Perhaps the king had noticed the stirring and quickly distracted his queen. A cunning snake, ever he was.

Vali detached again and let out a horrid wail. You hushed him and turned, swaying him as you coaxed him. 

“Please, my baby,” you begged. These fits grew more often, more frustrating. All alone, your patience dwindled and your temper piqued. You loved the child, you did, but you felt clueless at how to handle him, “please, be quiet. You cannot be loud.”

He didn’t obey. How could he when he did not understand. You cradled his head, caressing him with your fingertips, “please, for your mother, be calm, be quiet,” you whispered to him, “listen to me Vall, my precious, listen, I was like you once. I was–”

He screamed and your ears ached, a pulsing at the base of your skull.

“Not very long ago. Before I met your father. I was unknowing. I was afraid. The fear remains, it is stronger now you are here, but I did not realise there were worse things than an empty belly or a sleepless night.”

You talked to him, you didn’t know why. Perhaps because you could not fathom what else to do. You paced with him in your arms.

“Before you were born, I was most scared. And now you are here… and that fear must be conquered–” You sighed and shook your head in exasperation, “I will tell you the story of me and your father. Not a romance, no princess and her bard.”

Your eyes welled as he only hollered louder, “I knew a girl, her name is Gilla, and I believed her to be my friend. Your father was being crowned. A king, but I was only a potter’s assistant. My uncle. Perhaps one day you can meet him. If ever a day I can leave these wretched walls.”

You hugged him to you and continued, “we climbed the Founder’s Tree. Fools, fools. And then we joined the feast for the peasants but Gilla snuck into the royal’s celebration and we were caught. Well, she ran faster than I, so truly, it was only me who was snared.

“The guards took me to a room–” You choked at the memory. It felt so long ago. That terror of the night returned to you, emotion you did not realise you still harboured for the occasion, “and I sat in the cold and waited. Your father came, and to be true, I did not expect him. Never expected to see the king so close, nor this. To hold his babe in my arms.

“I begged. It is what he wanted. It is what peasants like me must do. But you are a king’s son so take this story and learn from it. I begged and he took no mercy. And neither did I. I would not, for while I was poor and lowly, I had my pride. And I hope that you never let the same vice lead you to folly. Not as I or your father have.”

You stopped, realising the child was quiet. For how long, you could not say, so lost in your reveries that you did not notice. You smiled down at him and brought him closer. He squirmed and moved his lips as if to suck. You put him back to breast and let him feed.

Past the noise of his hunger, you heard something else. Something unsettling. A scratching at the other side of the wall. Then a clap, another, a knock which revealed the hollowness of the room. You stared, heart in your throat, at the door. That which could not be seen from the outside but which now shifted slightly from the investigation without.

You backed up until you hit the wall. You looked around, uncertain what to do. The panel that concealed the door jolted then pounded. Gods. You spun and held Vali close. You went to the tall armoire and opened the door. You crouched inside and kept the baby at your chest, adjusting him as you settled in the dark.

The slit between the doors offered a scant view of the chamber. The mechanism clicked and you held your breath. You felt Vali, his noisy feeding would give you away. But what could you do, if you stopped him, he would surely cry.

The long creak sent a shiver through you and the footfalls scuffed to a stop, a gasp punctuating it. You angled slightly as you saw the skirts ripple around careful steps. Around the child’s basket and the bed, pausing to look at the wooden knight.

The shadow loomed closer. Vali gurgled and you winced, embracing him as you waited for the inevitable. You knew it was her, but where was Loki?

She neared the wardrobe and you closed your eyes, cowering as you held Vali to you. You shielded him as the doors opened  and shakily raised your chin. You looked up at the woman. 

One could never mistake her for anything but what she was; a queen. Her amber skin and golden eyes shone brilliant beneath a head of thick, curly black locks. She had the stature and the height of her standing and her confusion was quickly shrouded behind the discipline of her crown.

She said nothing as she stared, as silent and dumbfounded as you. She looked at the child and dropped her hand from the door, retreating a step as she set her jaw. You shook and Vali began to whine again.

“Come,” she spoke at last, “there is some food left from our breakfast, you should eat so the child does not go hungry.”

Your lip trembled. You didn’t move. You couldn’t.

“I am queen and presumably you are one of my subjects, so do not expect me to repeat myself,” she girded and backed away.

As she turned on her heel, you emerged from the armoire. You pet Vali’s head as he continued his discontent. You followed the queen through the door and entered the king’s chamber. She sat and poured herself wine.

You approached her and made a bow. She put the urn down and raised the cup before her mouth. You knew not what to say and didn’t dare to try.

“Sit and feed your child before he starts again,” she commanded, “and eat something. I do hate to see food go to waste.”

You felt the steel in her tone. Unbendable but dangerous. You did as she said and switched Vali to the other side. He latched again and you glanced over the table. You took a grape and bit into it sheepishly.

“Your majesty, Queen Sinthia, yes?”

“Yes,” she drank and set the cup flat, “how old is the child?”

You swallowed, “I am not certain, your majesty. I have no way of keeping time.”

She nodded and closed her eyes. Her hand lingered on her cup as her lips maintained a straight line.

“Then I suppose,” she smoothed her skirts over her lap, “we shall wait and get the answer from my husband.”

You lowered your head and watched Vali. You knew what bastards inherited. Only wariness and hostility. Especially from queens.

“I’m sorry,” you uttered.

“No,” she dismissed, “eat.”

🐍

The silence was torment. Worse than any elaborate monologue Loki exposed you to. The queen said nothing. Each time Vali babbled you felt worse and were quick to quiet him.

Sinthia, tall and graceful, paced. The only betrayal of her impatience. You rocked your son until he slept, thankful at least for that. He could rest as you languished in the stifling silence of her repressed rage. For what wife would not be livid?

From the hall you heard shuffling and the doors opened at the king's will. You went rigid as the queen faced him, shoulders set for battle. You slumped and stared down at Vali.

Loki let out an audible breath as his sole scuffed to a halt. The silence extended as he considered you. You squirmed in the chair as Sinthia abruptly stormed towards him. The smack of flesh on flesh brought your head up as you flinched. 

"My king, my husband," the queen snarled, "I've found your mistress."

Loki’s jaw ticked as his green eyes watched the wall. You saw the flicker of fury, the insult, the shock, but not an inkling of shame. He stiffly turned his head and blinked, long and slow.

"You will not strike me again," he ordered, restrained. If it were you, he’d have you bent and begging. "And you will gather yourself before we proceed."

"I will act as I please. You are king but you cannot wield power over my emotions," she hissed, "tell me not to be offended by your slights. We are hardly wed and you have a bastard–"

"Pray you can deliver a son with rights," he snapped tritely, "and you needn't worry for the whelp."

"My father did not betroth me to a second son to be treated as a second wife–"

Sinthia exclaimed as the king’s knuckles cracked off her cheek and sent her staggering. There it was. Queen or not, he was the king. You did not bring up the misfortune of his birth or the very thought of his disgraced brother.

You stood and swayed. With your child in your arms, you were paralysed. If it was just you, you might have the courage to act. Or perhaps that was the reasoning of a coward.

"Sit, mouse," he pointed at you with a long finger, "need I repeat myself that you are not to be involved in my marriage."

"I did not–"

"It was the child that gave you away," Sinthia cradled her cheek, "the product of your ill deeds."

"My child," Loki reared on her, "regardless of his mother, he is of my blood. I chose honour, I chose to care for him–"

"And how do you know that whore did not get the child by another–"

"You don't know so much as you think you do of me, I'm certain that's clearer to you now," he growled, "and less of this woman."

"I can see she is a commoner," the queen retorted.

"I wouldn't deny that."

"You will send her away."

"I will do as I please–"

"No, I am your wife, your queen, I will not have her in this city, let alone behind that very wall," her voice rose as she gestured to the open door, "and you will not touch me ag–"

She gurgled as Loki grabbed her by the throat. Your heart leapt and you rushed forward, an arm under Vali as you reached for Loki. That woman did not deserve to suffer for your misdeed. 

"I shall do whatever I deem necessary. You are my wife, you will obey, and you will not order me about like one of your servants," he barked.

"L– your majesty," you tugged on his sleeve, "please–"

"Back away, mouse. You've my child in your arms, that is your priority," he sneered.

"She is right, you should send me away–"

"You know nothing. Neither of you. Women. Do not presume to know what is best for me. My wife will mind her tongue and her temper," he swung her around and threw her against the wall, "and you will recall that you would be a dead whore without me."

"Your majesty, this cannot–"

"Another word and you will not see that child again. Not a soul as I would banish you back to the cell I dragged you out of. So go back into your chamber and be a good mother."

You glared at him, lip twitching in anger and fear.

"He is yours too, you wouldn't–"

"He needn't a mother to become a man," he grit out, "do not make me show you the way."

You gulped and peered down at your son. You had little doubt on Loki’s threats. He'd proven himself little different than the cruel king who had you lashed. You were nothing to him but a vessel that had born its fruit.

You lowered your head and retreated. Anything else would only make the circumstance worse. Not only for you, but the queen, and your child. Vali would have few enough friends in his lifetime.

"My queen, lift your skirts," he followed you as he tossed the order over his shoulder, "you desire a true husband, then act as wife."

He caught your arm and ushered you into the hidden room. You stumbled in, careful not to jostle Vali and faced the door as he slammed it. The child murmured and you quickly worked at settling him.

You hushed him as you heard Sinthia's angry tones. You stepped forward and angled your ear towards the panel. A shrill yipe followed and the scrape of wood, Loki’s snakish slither cutting through the air. 

There was more crashing, more shifting, and the battle of voices, both horrified and enraged. You put your hand over Vali's ear and pressed his other to your chest. He could no doubt hear your heart. Let it soothe him as you sit and listen to the consequence of your existence.

🐍

The king did not see you again for days. Nor did you hear Sinthia visit him in his chamber. He sent Birger to you to deliver food and what comfort the physician could offer. You ate and said little. And him the same.

Not until that day.

"The queen is aware of you."

"Did the king say so?" You wondered as Vali slept in his basket.

"I guessed it and he affirmed it," he intoned, "I advised him that you should be moved."

"You did?" You chewed on a chunk of dry cheese.

"I think it wise. Queen's are notoriously vengeful and this one is no different than most."

"Do you truly believe so?" You peeked over at the dozing babe.

"I've heard tales of her years as princess and most are well aware of her parentage."

"I am not," you counter and pull apart the thick crust from the puffy middle of a slice of bread.

"Ah, and what does a potter need know of queens," he shrugged, "her mother, Queen Lucinda, she has had… many husbands. The first she despised. A betrothal by obligation. Her father chose the prince himself. It is said Lucinda refused his bed until he petitioned for annulment. Her father was aghast and was henceforth found poisoned and the marriage dissolved."

"And Lucinda was the culprit?"

"So many whisper," he smiled at Vali as he twitched in his sleep. "The second husband, Sinthia's father, was her true love, so she claims, but he did not live in marital bliss very long. Two years and he was found dead at the bottom of a flight of stone steps. Some allege another had already claimed the queen's affections.

"Her third husband, the previously rumoured cad, married her but could not claim kinghood for his lowly birth. He lasted nine months and was executed for pinching a kitchen maid's bottom. The maid met the blade in turn as well."

"Perhaps Sinthia might not be so bad…by comparison."

"It is the nature of royalty. Which is why I made my suggestion."

"Hm," you grumbled, "and Lucinda, did she have many more husbands?" 

"I believe she's on seven now," he said, "but I may very well be a paranoid old man who has spent much too long among the spoiled and ruthless."

"And what did Loki say? When you suggested I go?"

"He did as all those who wear a title do. He did not listen," he rubbed his cheeks, "but I shall persist. Regardless of the mess he's made of his marriage, it is a cruel fate to be kept in such quarters. You and your son need sunlight."

"And would you come with us?"

"I don't know he would allow it, but who else could he trust?" He sighed, "and who else would you trust, dear?"

You smiled, a weak uncertain smile. 

"It mightn’t be so bad," you said, "if the queen has a son of her own–"

"Yours will still be a threat," he interrupted and placed a hand on the edge of the basket, "to be a bastard is ever dangerous."

“I know, I know,” you pet Vali’s head, “even if he only reminds me of his father, I can’t help but treasure him.”

“He needs one person in this world on his side. A bastard often only has his mother. Not his father. His father will expect him to become a noble, by the grace of his kingly breadth. To face a court full of vipers that hiss of his true origin,” Birger sighed, “he will need a thick skin, but more significantly, he will need you. The only person in this world he could ever be vulnerable to.”

You were silent as you watched the child. You couldn’t see him as a grown man, not yet. He was so tiny, so helpless.

“When he is called to court, I won’t be invited with him,” you met Birger’s eyes.

“You are the only person I’ve ever seen defy the king effectively. When the time comes, you will figure it out,” he girded, “but for now, keep the child close and safe with you. Whispers travel fast and the snakes coil in their dens. The king has many enemies and he is foolish to make one of his own wife.”

You nod and touch your stomach, a flurry of uncertainty nestled within, “Birger, good sir, you’ve saved my life many times, and I ask of you one last thing... I will protect this child to the death, if he is left alone, without me...”

“I would proudly steal him away and see him raised as you would have him. Not as the king’s pet or the queen’s donkey,” he avowed, leaning over to touch your hand, “the king does push away his allies. Myself included.”

[smolvenger]

Could I Have The McOrgasm, Please? (Loki x fem! Reader Oneshot)

Summary: You love Loki, but he loves another. You must join Loki on his trip to get Sylvie back by going to the McDonald's she's working at. No matter how much it hurts you on the inside...

Warnings: SMUT AT THE END! NSFW! (Oral, fem receiving, inappropriate uses of Loki's shadow powers, dirty talk, p in v sex). Angst and unrequited (or is it?) love with eventual fluff. Being Anti-Slyki and Anti-Sylvie so if you like the character or pairing you have been warned. This is my indulgent coping method for not getting with a fictional character. Also, as this is published, I don't know what the eff is going to happen in season 2. I just want this out so I can escape to delulu land when canon disappoints me.

Word Count: >8K (phew)

Comments, reblogs, dms, and asks about my work are always appreciated!

Taglist: @evelyn-kingsley @jennyggggrrr @five-miles-over @fictive-sl0th @ladycamillewrites @villainousshakespeare @holdmytesseract (smut starts at the line "I want to have you, btw bestie) @eleniblue @twhxhck @lokisgoodgirl @lovelysizzlingbluebird @raqnarokr @holymultiplefandomsbatman @michelleleewise @wolfsmom1 @cheekyscamp @mochie85 @muddyorbsblr

A03//My Ko-Fi//My Etsy Shop//Masterlist//Wattpad

“Yes, she will be there,” Loki confirmed, looking at the restaurant.

You put your hands in your pockets. You were with Loki, Mobius, and a gentleman in a TVA jumpsuit at the McDonalds where Sylvie apparently worked. Just a hop, skip, and jump away. How much you took for granted-just traveling anywhere in space and time. Only, for this place and time was the one place you didn’t want to be. You wished you were anywhere else. A natural disaster, the poorest section of a medieval village, a gladiator tournament, a tuberculosis outbreak in London in the 1870’s-not this.

You didn’t want to watch as the man you loved went to pursue someone else. It was a peaceful place- just a McDonald's in the middle of a regular strip. The sun was gentle. Big clouds drifted in the sky. The birds were singing. You wanted to scream.

 You didn’t just like Loki as a friend. You loved Loki- him and only him. Loved him for a long time. Through the misadventures of life in the TVA, you helped him for long hours scouring over files. You ate lunch together. When the little capsules of pies arrived in the cafeteria for the lunch hour’s dessert options, you would pull out one for him and hand it with a smile. And when he cried over seeing what events were supposed to happen, you ran to embrace him.

Then one day he ran into the mysterious Loki variant- as it turned out her name was Sylvie. Just two days later he went missing with her. Then they reappeared. And then they vanished again. Then he reappeared and people were running in a panic. 

She left him. Kissed him, killed Kang, and then left him in the dust. But it didn’t occur to Loki that this was a betrayal he should be angry about. You remembered that day. He kept talking about her- until there was one phrase that hit you in the stomach.

“Please Y/N- I love her. Help me…help me find her and fix this!”

You would have preferred to be stabbed.

When he did say he loved her, you simply said “Oh, okay. I will.”

 You returned back to your room later that day. Forgetting the chaos and Mobius’s mysterious loss of memory. You sank onto the floor and cried. Cried so hard you couldn’t breathe. Cried so hard and curled up into a ball. Cried so hard you hardly slept for want of crying more.  

Even after what she did, he was still talking of her.  No. All he could talk of was Sylvie this and Slyvie that. Even with you. Why were you even doing this? 

“Uh…I don’t think I should be here…I think I should go back…” you murmured, taking a step back.

“You’re scared…of her? Y/N! You shouldn’t be! She’s incredible, you’ll love her! And you must- you’re the one who remembers what happened!” he insisted.

“What happened?” Mobius asked. The man in the jumpsuit only blinked.

“Y/N…please-I’m nervous…I need the support…” Loki begged at you. His mouth curled into a little frown and his eyes so big they shone like big stars.  You held in a breath. Those eyes. Damn, those eyes- like that of a kitten. You wanted to hug him and cuddle him- but you couldn’t. 

“Okay…” you voiced.

It was odd-not only being rejected, but being rejected for himself! How the hell would you explain that to a therapist?! The more you thought about it, the more it made you sick. The Spidermans in  New York apparently weren’t kissing each other, you heard. You shoved your arms to cross them and continued on. Perhaps if you walked quickly, you could get it over with. Holding your breath, you folded your arms and walked quickly in. Thinking of it like a vaccine- just a little pinch of pain for a brief bit, and then it would be over with. 

You stopped inside that bright, yellow building with its bright lights. There was a woman at the counter.

“Is that…” you asked.

Loki’s pale face turned a shade paler. “Yes.”

There you saw her. Not a glance- seeing her. Truly saw her up close. There were only glimpses when she ran around in the TVA. Here, her blonde hair was cut short beneath her cap and her eyes squinted in tired boredom. She smoothed her uniform. 

You noticed Loki see her. Frozen in his tracks, his mouth open.

“What are you waiting for?” you pressed. 

They kept looking at each other. With a shrug, she moved her eyes forward where a customer showed up to order a McFlurry. Loki blinked and turned to you.

“Does she recognize me?” he asked.

“Go ahead and find out. .” you replied.

“I…I feel like I can’t take another step…” Loki said, his chest falling in shallow breaths. 

Mobius waltzed up in front of you guys along with the variant man. 

“Well- I myself am starving hungry! Y/N-I bet you are too! Let’s order!” he churruped.

You followed them as Loki stayed a the door. Frozen in place. Mobius gestured to the counter. 

“Ladies first!” he chimed.

You stared at her as she finished the last order before you. Drinking in that now your invisible rival had a face. That “Sylvie” wasn’t a wisp of air, a pedestal you could never reach. But flesh and blood. That this was the woman Loki preferred. This was the woman who was Loki. Pale skin and short blonde hair. It seemed damp under her cap. Slender with a long, straight nose and pink lips. Sharp eyes like that of a falcon. Slight grace and ease with how she moved. And you knew from the hundreds of times how Loki boasted of how stupid Sylvie won some stupid fight with a stupid enemy in a stupidly easy manner. 

So many words were in there. You knew what she did. How miserable she really made him. After everything he did for her. And no matter if she felt the same or not, her actions did not account for it. What she did to him. The pure misery and despair on your beloved Loki’s face when she left him. The suffering she put him through even if he wasn’t aware of it. 

And envy. Yes, you were sick with envy. You hated yourself. You hated yourself because you weren’t her. And yet you hated her too. Only hate was swirling in her stomach. Your mouth stopped, for want of the thousands of things you could have said. The thousands of things you fantasized about saying, or doing. You took in a shaky breath, maybe to start one of them. To finally let it out. To scream at her. Yell in her face. They were there- words forming at you like grey clouds forming a thunderstorm. 

She beat you to it.

“Hello, welcome to McDonalds,” she said with a practiced smile. 

 She did not recognize you. She only gave you a nod and replied dutifully, like she repeated it 1,000 times every day.

“What would you like?” she asked, continuing on like she was an actor saying her lines.

To rip out all of your hair and scalp you until you’re screaming and bloody. You thought bitterly. But you did not say that.

“Could I have the-uh, Quarter pounder and small fries and a fountain drink, please?” you requested. 

She nodded with a small smile and tapped into the cash register. 

“My pleasure, coming up…” she said.

When you paid, she handed you the receipt. Then all you had to do was wait until the giant screen announced your order was ready. You felt dizzy as Mobius and the new guy ordered their food. 

Simple as that. Your motivation failed you. She didn’t know you. If you said or did anything, she would flee and get her manager. You would be known as “that” customer who made food service worker’s lives miserable. A story to be gasped or laughed about. And never showing you sympathetically. Or knowing the stories Loki would boast about her-whip out her own daggers and slice you into ribbons. 

You took a step back. Unable to peel her eyes off of her. Imagine her as he would describe- not in a uniform but in tight leather showing a perfect and beautiful slim body. A fighter who could defeat anyone in combat without blinking an eye and who could bring down the whole TVA. 

Could you do that? No- you weren’t some fierce, flawless, warrior goddess. No- you were afraid. Vulnerable. That was your curse-she was extraordinary. You were just ordinary.

You began to mentally list your personal insecurities. How could you even compare to her? No wonder Loki worshipped the ground she walked on after she used him as a punching bag. The screen announced your food and another worker handed you a tray with the burger, fries, and cup. That was a clear sign from the universe itself- might as well drown yourself in comfort food. 

You noticed Loki finally moved from his place. You couldn’t even watch- not even to get your drink. You grabbed your tray of food and fled to a far corner near the bathrooms. Where you couldn’t hear them, couldn’t see them. You wanted to huddle and hide and make yourself invisible.

Then you heard footsteps- rapidly walking around. You looked up to see who it was. It wasn’t Mobius. It wasn’t even the variant in the tracksuit- You could recognize that peachy ass in those brown office khakis anywhere. 

He turned his black curls everywhere as he turned his head to search. Loki went up to you, and then his shoulders relaxed. He even bent a little to meet eyes where you were sitting. 

“Y/N, all the way here?” he asked.

You were such a sucker for that face, especially how soft, how sweet he could look. How could you say no to his presence now? 

“Uh…yeah,” was all you could say. 

As he took a step forward to where you sat, he leaned down, his hands still in his jacket pockets. 

“Where were you- I got worried. Maybe someone had attacked you, or took you,” he fretted.

“I’m fine,” you lied as you took a bite of the burger. “Just wanted to sit here-more private.”

He then pulled up to the chair and sat across from you. 

“How’s the wedding planning?” you wanted to ask bitterly. You did not. You looked down at your food, then up at him. He sat so casually, so easily. He folded one leg over another and set an arm down. You pulled out your bag of fries. It was so piping hot it hurt a little- but that was how you liked it.

“I’m nervous too, Y/N. I have to tell you…I cried this morning…I know I have to face her. I’ve taken over cities, I’ve battled monsters, but this…this is different…” Loki confessed.

You chewed on a fry instead of replying. Tasting the crispy hot potato flavor. He let out a deep exhale, putting a hand lightly over his mouth. 

“What’s wrong with me, Y/N?” he asked.

You wiped the salt onto your pants. The words flowed out of you easily. Too easily. 

“Nothing is wrong with you, Loki! You’re the nicest, sweetest, bravest, sexiest being in the whole-”

“What was that last one?” he asked, tilting his head, his blue eyes squinting. 

You immediately froze, the fry you were about to eat hung in mid-air. You felt hot with embarrassment. 

“You’re the nicest, smartest being in the whole universe!” you said.

Before he could say anything else, you began digging further into those hot fries. “Mmph, These are so good. And just right-right when they’re out of the fryer.” You chatted on, desperate to change the subject after your little Freudian slip.

“Can I…try one?” he asked.

He held out his hand and you pressed a few fries into it. He chewed on them and then smiled as he tasted them.

“Not bad! Midgard food isn’t as pitiful as I thought!” he replied.

Mobius returned with his tray along with his companion. They ate and Mobius commented on how the Sweet and Sour sauce was his favorite. Loki looked at him, his smile dropping. Then he turned to you, his voice low. Mobius kept on chatting about everything to the variant. 

“He still doesn’t remember…It seems all who care about me just…either die or leave or hurt me…” he mourned.

“I don’t…and think of Thor. Yes, you two fight. But he loves you. And remember your own mother! They care about you. They always will…and so will I…” you assured him.

Your hand moved up to touch his, then froze and retreated. Then he turned to you.

“Y/N?”

“Mhhm?” you asked, a mouth full of food. 

“...You have salt on your chin…” he commented.

He reached out his hand to cup it. Your breath stopped at his touch- so gentle, so soft. His large thumb grazed over your chin slowly. Your mouth opened a little, feeling his light brush as his thumb swiped the bits of salt away. How small it seemed under his large hands. But he wasn’t hurting you in the slightest- it felt like a caress. A light kiss. Once his thumb went back to his hand, his eyes went to yours. Seeing his blueness, his large, dark pupils. As if something unspoken was exchanged between you. You saw him swallow hard. 

Taking in a deep breath after that, you retreated, putting your hands on your lap and looking down. The heaviness of sudden arousal from his touch had shocked your system. You reached for your drink to cool off but realized it was empty. You had eaten all of your meal. There wasn’t food you could use to hide now. You forced yourself to take deep breaths- in, two three four, out two three four. 

“There that’s…that’s better,” Loki said. 

“Thank you- it won’t be easy, but….one day, you won’t be sad about what happened. You won’t feel nervous or scared…you’ll get over it Loki, bit by bit,” you encouraged softly. 

He leaned forward in his chair, his hands folding on the table.

“Ah, tell me, my dear Y/N- Have you ever had your heart broken?”

The burger in your throat dried up. You took your napkin and bunched it into a ball in your hand. 

“Yes,” you answered plainly. Fighting back the urge to laugh.

“I never did! Never! None of that drama! I’ve never been more relieved!” Mobius sang out as he chewed on a nugget. His companion only kept tearing at his burger.

“Is it terrible?” Loki asked. His brows knotted in curiosity.

��Very. Still is,” you replied.

“How did you cope with it? You little mortals-going about your own lives and your own heartbreaks?” he asked generally.

You shoved aside the tray and folded your arms. Then you began to speak.

“Realizing that love shouldn’t be a prison.”

“A prison?” Loki repeated. He leaned forward. Staring right at you. Truly listening to you. You continued, though you felt your body tense up. Knowing what you said was honest- too honest. 

“I was…not with him in any way. He wasn’t my boyfriend or lover or hookup or whatever. This guy- I thought… he should be with whoever makes him happy….”

Even with someone who betrayed him, manipulated his feelings, and left him crying. 

“Love means letting go. It’s the right thing to do- it’s still hard though,” you finished. 

Loki registered nothing beneath the surface of that. He merely shrugged and raised his eyebrows. He looked at you, giving you a small smile. 

“I’m glad you’re alright and happy now, Y/N. I remembered the time you were about to fall off the TVA balcony right over those statues last month…”

“And you caught me-you saved my life!”

“To think…me…a hero for once…” he commented.

“That’s a Loki for you! A pure miracle for your kind!” Mobius commented. 

He took a long sip of his Sprite. 

 “Wow! Now this is a drink!” he exclaimed, inside the cup for the bubbly carbonation. 

“Well, Mobius, this isn’t fiction. No one is all good or all bad. And Loki, no one entirely bad does that…everyone’s a mix of good and bad,” you added on. 

“What’s your bad parts, Y/N? Any weaknesses” Loki asked curiously.

“I…get jealous…” you confessed. 

The god’s jaw lowered to the ground. His voice dared to raise a little bit from his surprise. 

“Jealous!? But…you’re…you’re so kind! I’m the jealous one!” he said. 

You continued on. The words poured out of you more quickly than you could register or control them. 

“It doesn’t mean I never feel jealous. Or am tempted to do things like take her face and smash it over the McDonad’s register.”

“What?!?!”

You stopped. A hand flew over your mouth to cover it. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, what the fuck was I thinking?!?! you cursed silently. Another slip. And this time, he heard it clearly. No hiding around it.

“Whose face are you talking about?” Loki asked further.

“I…Forget that…I didn’t say anything! Good luck with your meet-cute and reunion and all that. Have fun- bye!” you dismissed quickly. 

You grabbed your tray. 

“Y/N…wait…” he said.

“Where is she going?” Mobius asked, tilting his head. He then remembered he had more sweet and sour sauce with his McNuggets and began dipping into them with a childish glee.

He reached out and grabbed your arm. You pulled against him and he held you back.

“What’s going on!?” the god asked. 

“Don’t touch me- save it for her!” you hissed out. Yanking away from him- not even looking at his face. 

You looked right at the door and walked hurriedly. Momentum, panic, pulling you out of there. You kept your eyes on the exit as you dumped your trash into the bin. You walked to the outside of the McDonalds. It was sunny with the sun’s orange glow and a little chilly. You got the tempad from your pocket to return. But then you heard  Loki jog behind you. You kept walking down the pavement. Glad that there weren’t moving cars right now. If not, you wished a moving one would hit him and send him flying. But it didn’t. 

“Y/N, stop!” he insisted.

You stopped walking. But you turned around. You didn’t look at him- only at the rows of cars and empty parking spots in the strip. But you heard him behind you. 

“I’ve stopped. Now what?” you asked. At least you could hide behind sass and snark. It made the pain better. 

“Whose face were you talking about?” he asked. 

“I’ve got to go, Loki,” you urged.

“Y/N, wait!” he cried. 

You felt him grab you. He turned you around, his arms gripping you into place. His eyes were intense and his jaw lowered. He still looked so handsome- like a dream. His intensity, the feel of his bare hands on you making it more intense, making him more attractive. You were forced to face him. Your eyes were brimming with more tears. He almost shook you as he held you- so strong. His skin, his scent. Like he wouldn’t let go of that for the world. If only you could experience that for yourself. 

“Y/N….are you…jealous of Sylvie?” he asked.

“Yes. I’m sorry I said something about hurting her. I know it was wrong to-but yes. I’m jealous of her. Have been for a while. Isn’t it obvious?” you asked.

“Why?!”

You burst into tears. Your jaw tightened.

“I need to go, Loki…just let go, please,” you begged. 

As you moved he held his grip on you.

“No! You’re not going anywhere until you tell me why!” he demanded. 

You thought confessions like this should be done in moonlit gardens or sexy hotel suites or something. Not the parking lot of a fucking Mcdonald's. But here you were.

“Why? Because I love you, Loki. More than as my friend-much more.”

“You…love me?” he asked. His eyes were wide. His jaw dropped and then it closed back, his pink lips barely parted. 

Your words sputtered out. His grip relaxed on your arms. You had no choice but to look him in the eye and talk. 

“ I’ve always loved you…I’ve loved you every afternoon, on weekdays, on coffee breaks. I’ve admired and taken note of every one of your feats. I stayed by when you were sitting at the TVA crying when she opened the multiverse and left you. But…the thing with love…is that it means letting go…”

How handsome he looked. His jacket-how warm would it feel? Would it smell like him? And the shirt that hugged his body. You glanced down and felt twinges of lust mixed with your sadness. With a man as delectable as he, you couldn’t help it. How broad yet lean and strong he was. How his bare skin would feel against your bare skin. How many times have you fantasized nightly about having him in your bed? But there was only one being in these universes and timelines who would know. And it wasn’t you.

“What…Y/N…really…all this time…” Loki murmured. 

. You felt anger in your throat and venom in your voice. 

“If you think the best relationship you need is with a woman who is literally you with a vagina who you knew for three days and then left you in the dust for her own gain, then take it! Because…beacuase…”

You began to step away. Ready for him to be angry at your words about her. His eyebrows lowered and there was no anger- only his parted lips of shock. You began Crying again. You thought you saw him tear up too. 

“Because that’s what you want, what you choose…and I have to let you go…”

You turned on your heels and promptly left. Wiping your tears on your sleeve. Using the tempad, you returned to your home. You ran inside, fell on your bed, and sobbed.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

When Monday began, you were ready to work. You got in your nicer dress and cardigan for the day. The TVA office could get chilly. Right when you walked in, there was Loki. In his own work wear. You froze. What on earth were you going to say? What could you say?

“I was worried about you. How are you, Y/N? Feeling better?” he asked, putting his hands back in his pockets.

“You know…yes….yes I am…” you nodded.

He gave you a kind smile.  You waited for him to bring up what happened, what you said. He did not.

“How did…McDonalds go?” you asked.

“For your information, it went alright,” he informed you.

You felt a giant lump in your throat. You pulled your cardigan further over you-looking down on the floor as you spoke. 

“The reunion- did she-”

“She just wanted to focus on her job,” Loki answered before you could finish your statement.  He went up closer to you. “I hope your day at work goes well, my dear…if any supervisor gives you trouble, they’ll answer to me…wait- there’s a hair on your shirt,” he said.

He gently brushed it away on your shoulder.

“There you go- you look…you look nice today. The colors suit you,” he said.

“Oh, thank you.”

It was a normal, boring day. And the next day was a normal boring day- that was comforting. 

When you went into the cafeteria, you decided to buy lunch. After all, it was going to be the best meal they offered at the TVA- grilled ham and cheese with tomato soup-nice and warm. You counted your coins from your pocket to make up the total. It was cheap-but still eating at it every day could take a toll if you weren’t careful.

As you walked up with your change, the cafeteria lady shook her head in her hair net.

“Oh no- it’s on the house!” she said.

She gave you a smile as she brought a tray ready. Your own surprised face gleaming from the glass over the food.

“Really?!” you gasped incredulously. 

“Yes-your lunches are free from now on!” announced the cafeteria lady. 

“Oh…thank you!” you cried.

Smiling, she handed you a grilled ham and cheese and poured tomato soup into a bowl before handing it to you. They tasted especially warm and decadent. 

Loki appeared here and there. But he would ask after you. Talk to you. He never mentioned the warrior goddess version of himself to you. Not anymore, at least. But he didn’t bring up what he said. 

 As you got to your office desk on the fifth day, he was standing there- waiting for you. Your coworkers were watching with one eye from where they sat and worked. Some even stood up to see. 

“Hello, Y/N!” he greeted. 

 He walked forward and you gasped aloud when he turned. In his white hands was a glass vase full of fresh, beautiful flowers- your favorite kind. Bright and beautiful with a fragrance that sweetened the area that used to be full of the smell of crisp paper and old coffee. 

“I…I thought you might like this,” he offered, handing you the vase.

“I…I, uh…uh-thank you,” you said.

Why was he suddenly being nice? It then hit you- he still valued your friendship. Even if he didn’t feel the same, he didn’t want to let you go yet. Probably making peace. But you were in public, this wasn’t the time or place to discuss matters of the heart openly. But…that was better than a full friendship breakup. Of never seeing that mischievous, handsome god ever again.

You smelled the flowers and set them on your desk. He leaned against it, something glinting in his eyes. Something that made you feel fluttery and distracted you from the start of the day.  

“How’s the…Kang mission going?” you asked.

“Oh, it’s alright. If not well. A few bumps here and there- but things will probably be fine.  You have nothing to fear…but what about you? How is work?” he asked.

“It’s been downright slow the past few days. Then today it’s picked up, but…nothing I can’t handle.” you reported.

He leaned a little closer, the old trickster light beaming in his eyes. 

“Anyone being difficult? He asked. 

You couldn’t help but smile. 

“Some were in the past, but…but no.”

“Then…I hope you have a good day, Y/N. I will talk to you later. Don’t let them work you too hard, darling,” he said. 

He gave you a wink that sent butterflies into your stomach and then walked away.

How nice he was. Taking it so well. You always knew there was a little good in him. Even if all that was for someone who didn’t deserve him…

After work, you splurged on cheesecake and a bottle of wine.  You were going to need it.

After you got back home, you brought in your goods. You listened to sad music and cried to flush more of it out of your system.  Grieving Sylvie and Loki being a couple. Imagining them kissing and doing more than kissing by now a hundred times. You took a hot shower to cleanse every picture of it from yourself.  You changed into your pajama shirt and shorts. You sat on your chair in your room, ready to eat a generous helping of cheesecake and a generous glass of wine. 

You were going to go somewhere far from the TVA. You had to. Get a new job somewhere. Meet as many men as possible. Try other forms of dating. Or not just dating– just meet anyone. Forget him. Forget Loki. Forget his dark curls and blue eyes and sinful waist in those tight shirts and mischievous smile. Move on from him, move on from being rejected. Even if he was nice to you and wanted to still be friends. You were going to forget it all. Sacred timeline be damned. Your happiness and peace of mind was shattered.

Then it hit you…it was odd that out of nowhere you had free lunches at work. Why was that?

An answer hit you.

Could it…could it be…it was… No. It was bribery. Yes! All bribery because he needed help with some villain who lived in a mansion with purple robes and a flair for the dramatics. All being beside his perfect, flawless girlfriend. Having their love rubbed in your face. You wanted to spit. 

Right as you were about to take your first bite of cheesecake, There was a loud knock. 

“Y/N…please let me in…I have to talk with you,” a voice you knew too well asked from the door.

You gripped the seat of your chair.

“Loki?! Is that you?” you asked from where you sat. 

“Who else, darling?”

“Just use your magic and break into my place!” you replied.

“I’d rather enter with your permission…” he said. 

Not caring that you were in your sleepwear, you opened the door. Still in his jacket and TVA office wear, he stepped inside. Your hands curled into fists. He was beautiful as ever-jacket and cheekbones and all. You could have screamed at him. You could have punched him. You could have slammed the door in his face. 

But…you didn’t. You couldn’t.  You crossed your arms and took a step back, but you looked at him. 

“Loki…what are you doing here? What else can I say to you? Thanks for your gifts. I know you need help with Kang but…I can’t…I can’t do it…and you have someone waiting for you. Go to her. Go to who you love.” 

“But….I am with who I love…” he replied. 

A stone dropped into your stomach. Your whole body tightened. Your breath stopped and your throat ran dry.

He stepped inside. Then he cupped your face with both hands. 

“Y/N…I’ve been so blind…” he confessed.

Before another word was said, he kissed you on the lips. Deeply, sweetly. You smelled him- smelled popcorn and musk. Yet he tasted of cream on your lips, of froth. Like a dessert after dinner and twice as sweet. He held you so that your lips could stay together. Then he released, still holding your face. 

“Loki…what is this? What’s going on? Is this another…another of your tricks, then…” you asked, your voice only half of its strength. 

He kept you close. Looking right at you. His voice was so dulcet, so earnest. 

“It’s not. Y/N…I never realized how much you cared for me. How much you really did…and to think…I thought I was alone. But I wasn’t.  No one saw me…but you…and to think…all this time I was chasing after someone. A shadow. A dream. An illusion better than any I could conjure. An idea of her. Not realizing…that love, that sweetness I have wanted my whole life…was right in front of me…” he said softly.

“You finally came to your senses!” you cried.

Both of you let out a small laugh at that. 

“But…she’s with you to fight Kang- and you’re back together?” you asked.

“She doesn’t remember me. And she… wanted nothing to do with me. It struck me what she did…how she treated me. And then I thought of how you treated me…I kept thinking of you, thinking of you. I missed you. I looked for you. I…I didn’t want to cross paths with her…I realized…there was someone always there for me…yes-you…Oh, Y/N, I’ve been a fool,” he breathed. 

He held you and kissed you again and you almost gasped into it. Feeling him. You grabbed onto his jacket. Held him close-felt how close he was. His eyelashes. His tall cheekbones graze against your face. It made you shiver. He let go of the kiss, pressing his forehead onto yours.. Both of you closed your eyes and could hear his breathing fluttering.

“Y/N, my dear…can you forgive me?” he asked. 

“I can. Can you forgive me?” you asked. 

“I already have.”

He let go. He still kept his eyes on you as he reached his hand to the door and pushed it close. The momentum made it shut. His long finger made a swipe-out of it came a bit of green seidr. And you heard a click! The door locked in place.

“I wanted someone who loved me…who would take care of me…and it was you the whole time….it was you, Y/N…I…I don’t…” he muttered. 

He paused. Then he put his hands on his hips and looked down. He licked his lips and his eyes scattered, a blush on his cheeks. 

“I don’t…even know what to say now…how to put it…uh, Y/N…I…I, uh-”

“I love you too, Loki…and…I’m glad you’re okay now,” you breathed.

You were on him to kiss him again. He pulled you close. He moved a little tongue in. Your breath hitched from feeling him there. His hands on your back-keeping you pressed against him. Never wanting to let go. 

“Y/N…don’t let this end here. Let me stay…let me stay for tonight…” he whispered.

“You can stay,” you said with a nod. 

You felt his fingers dig into your skin. To leave his fingerprints on you. 

 He then moved on to kiss your neck. It tickled you a little. But he found a sensitive spot- a spot rarely kissed. He pressed his lips to it as he held you close. Then he used a bit of teeth. It elicited a groan from you. You felt him tense up as it escaped your lips. He sucked the area.

“Here…now you’ll never doubt that you are mine…and I am yours…”

 He made another bite, another mark. Arousal squirmed inside you, releasing out to your panties with his touch, his lips on your skin. He kissed you again and you melted into it. The friction between you was building up. He squared his hips to meet your own and you stifled a gasp. His hands wander down your body-exploring each curve and shape, hidden only by the thin cotton of your sleepwear. Feeling you like a discovery of forgotten land. Finding each nook and curve of your shape inside your clothes. But you did not move an inch away-but kept him there. You ran a hand up to feel his back-always so warm. Masculine even. 

“Loki…darling…” you moaned out as he kissed each bit of the sensitive skin between your neck and shoulder. His hands wrapped to be around your back.

He kissed you again. You reached your hand to rake through his dark curls- they had been washed and were so fresh and clean and soft-softer than the petals of the flowers on your desk. 

 You could feel something getting hard from his office pants. It brushed against the crotch of your own clothes and made you quench beneath.

“Y/N…my pet…I want…I want to have you…to have you now…will you let me?” he asked.

“Yes…yes, I do…I want you…” you agreed.

“Then… let's make up for lost time…” he growled.

He kept kissing you as he put his hands around your waist, grabbing you and taking you right to your bedroom. His hands moving back up to cup your face, to keep kissing you so close. He released and looked down at your clothes. He then touched your collar, seeing where it dipped, and showed a bit of your chest. He smiled as his hands went down, feeling the material. 

“If I knew this had any chance of happening, I would’ve worn something else…” you confessed.

“Does that really matter when the best part will always be beneath it?” he asked. 

With a flash of seidr from his fingers, the pajamas vanished and you were naked before him. You gasped at the cold. You fought the urge to cover yourself. It wasn’t that this was your first- but to show your body before Loki was a different matter. You have never wanted someone so bad, and you never felt more…vulnerable. Your arms flinched to cover your breasts then he caught you. 

“Ah-ah, Don’t hide your beauty from me, not anymore…” he said with a playful tone. 

He moved your arms aside to see you. He cupped one breast in his large, beautiful hand- thumb grazing the nipple, making you shiver. 

“Yes…that is the best part…” he said.

He kissed you again, his hand wandering down- feeling your bare back. Even grazing your bottom, then going up to your hips, your curves. He was feeling you- treasuring each inch of you. He kissed you again as you connected your hips to his. Electricity shooting through you. You let out a shuddering groan. He gave you another smile- it was so lustful, so devilisih, so him.  

“There’s something else I can do, my Y/N…would you like to try it?” he boasted quietly.

“Yes…show me what it is…”

“I can hold you back…tie you without any silk, any rope, any chains, any restraint…” he whispered. 

“How?” you pressed. 

There was a light flashing in his eyes-so light, so different. From the dim lights of your room out came shadows like his- with his horned helmets on them. The shadows lurched over and you almost gasped. Then they went down to the floor. 

“They can touch you- do you want to know what they feel like?” he asked.

“Yes…”

The shadows reached out their arms, traveling up. They felt like mist when they grazed your skin. But then one pulled up your first arm high- and it was strong. You couldn’t break out of it, no matter how you tugged. Then the other lifted your other arm up high. The light was still in Loki’s eyes, the shadows lifted you up before him. A prize free for his taking. He grinned as they wandered on how your position made your breasts dangle before him.

“Now…where were we…ah, yes…” he said.

The shadows were strong but gentle as they moved you over. You were floating-then they laid you on the bed. Your arms were lifted to remain high over your head as your back went over the duvet. Your arms were held over your head, laying over the pillow. 

“I…I like this power…”

He smirked, his hands still in his pockets.

“As do I…and I am bout to like them even more…”

More shadows appeared- they flicked across your legs.

“What pleasure is hidden between here- they can help show me, perhaps…”

They curled to your ankles and then gently opened your legs before him.-showing your dripping pussy before the god. He played cool. Only his quick breaths and the bulge in his pants hinted at his craving, his desire. Your breasts out and your legs opened- nothing hidden. Now the shadows had you out and open-something for him to devour, something out to be fucked.

He walked forward. He brought out a long finger. He touched your folds gently, sliding them down. You let out a gasp. 

“L-Loki…” you breathed out. It was so sinful, so filthy you couldn’t help but love it. 

“Why…this is quite the picture. If I could only paint it…but I only want this masterpiece for myself, and no one else.” he rasped. 

He walked over to the bed. Then he crawled so he was between your legs. The shadows keeping your legs open. His hand grazed over your inner thigh. 

“Here…you’ve been a good little angel Taking care of me. Shhhh-shhh- you don’t need to object, to think of my pleasure for now. You’ve worked so hard…now relax…let your god take care of you this time, darling.”

You were gasping and whimpering. He began to taste you- his tongue inside. He groaned as his tongue went further into your folds. His cold breath against your private wetness made public for him. Your arms flinched but the shadows held you tight. He flicked his tongue and you let out a small groan.

“L-L-Loki…yes…I-oh, oh god-yes…” you sputtered out.

His shadows lifted your hips so he could taste further. His tongue delved. It found your clit and you shuddered from it. He gave a few licks. He went up closer to where your clitoris was swollen and waiting for him. Then he stopped. 

“Now this…this tastes better than any of those Midgardian meal down there…This one is sweeter, with much more juices…and this one I can devour at no cost at all…”

You were whimpering-letting him lick your clit. Letting his tongue go through- each bit of you.  Explore you. Your own cries filled you up. But the shadows kept you wide open. 

“L-Loki…that…that feels so-so good…”

With a small gasp, you felt pleasure spiral in you. He licked a bit further-and soon it broke on you. Like the wings of a bird when it catches the wind and lifts up. The pleasure burst and you let out a gasp from your petit mort. 

Your heart was racing, and your blood coursing through you. Loki was smiling- his lips wet with your juices. And still fully clothed. 

“I hope they don’t replace me-I’ve yet to get my hands on you again, my pet.” 

He crawled on top of you. He kissed you so his tongue got into yours-another hole for him to claim. You could taste your own earthy scent and thick juices. Still restrained, he held you, grinding lightly onto you. Your hips lifted a little to meet his- no shadows needed. But you felt their cool touch curling around you. Touching all over you- he wanted to touch you, feel you, know you, devour you in every way. 

“Please…I want more…I want you…I want you inside of me, Loki…” you begged.

He smirked, a curl coming loose on his face. 

“Oh…my tongue was only to prepare you, my dear…I hope you are ready…”

“Yes…yes-please..I want you to fuck me, fuck me until I forget everything else…forget Kang, the TVA, timelines, all of it! I don’t care if it’s by your shadow’s cock or yours- I need you! All of you!” 

“You need only ask, my dove,” he purred.

The green seidr flashed with a tilt of his head, then down it went. It melted his clothes off.  He became naked. You underestimated how fit his body was. You forgot your words at this sight of his nakedness. How strong, muscled, and broad he was despite his leanness. His masculine hairs across his chest-his large, strong biceps. Abdominals and a very happy trail leading to his erect largeness. The shadows curled their grip around you. They pulled your legs to open wider. 

“I hope you’re ready for the love of a god,” he murmured. 

  He embraced you, kissing you as he began to sink in. Bit by slow bit. He got himself in, groaning. You let out a cry when all of him was inside. He was so big, you had to adjust. Your arms flinched again but they remained held back. His arms reached around you-keeping you close. He then held you- his own hands digging into your hips and thrusting into you. 

“Oh-oh, god!” you whimpered

“That’s- that’s what I like to- to hear-shall you try it again? Yes- yes-urgh- so-so tight, my love-yes-” he growled. 

He began to slowly thrust into you. He groaned into it- slow, but steady. Intruding your insides. He rolled with you, a gentle rolling of his body. Kissing you deeply. Then he kept at it. Your voice escaped you. His cock disappeared and reemerged. But he looked at your face, in your eyes as he fucked you into your bed. 

With a flick of his head, the shadows moved your legs so that your knees bent and you were angled deeper.

“Fuck! Oh-oh dear-Loki I-I-I can’t-shit-can’t believe this-this is-fuck- happening--happening right now-it’s-it’s-its-fuck!- too good to be true-” you breathed.

“Oh, it’s-it’s true darling…”

He thrust carefully, slowly. Then he picked up. His voice was like that of a hiss, right into your ear.

“And you’re-” Thrust. “-Mine.” Thrust.

He kept kissing you as he thrust, thrust, thrust. His shadows testing you, splaying you a little more open. Hearing each other's groans. Moaning your name, repeating it like a prayer of his own. A prayer only a god could give.  His own grunts were deep and guttural. He found the right pace. Painting with each thrust, thrust, thrust.

“Yes…yes, you’re-you’re mine and-yes-I will…I will be yours-we are at each other’s mercy…now…yes-”

His pace increased. His shadows holding you back bed hitting itself against the wall. Then the shadows moved so your legs flew right up by him. It was so wild, so fast. Then his long finger curled to your entrance. Finding the clit. Rubbing so hard- so much. Slam, slam, slam, slam. You gasped- it was the right, perfect place. You were going up, up in your pleasure. His finger tested your clit faster, harder with his thrusts. You felt his voice, his groans rising in pitch. And that bubbling, spinning feeling was going inside you, your toes clenching as your legs were up in the air. 

“Oh…oh gods…Loki…I’m going to cum again-I-I am…”

He held you close- this time his own flesh-his thrusts wilder, desperate. He was breathless, with every gasp, every taking in of pleasure, he urged you. His voice husky and to the point of breaking. 

“Yes-yes-go-there-I…I can’t—cum, darling, cum with me-your heat, your wetness-it’s going to-going to overwhelm me-I…I can’t I-yes-yes-cry out-cry out my name, darling…I-I-I-”

His thrusts were so wild, pounding you right into the bed. Nailing you there, completely taking you over. That sweet spot- thrust, thrust, thrust, thrust, thrust-when it hit like lightning that you let out what started as his name, and then you hit it, it became a shout. 

“L-Ah!”

It reverberated throughout your home. Whoever was next door or nearby would definitely hear it. With a strangled cry of his own, he arrived as well. 

His shadows retreated. He still wrapped his arms around you, nuzzling into you. His arms wrapping around you. He felt so warm- you could smell his sweat, feel how he had to catch his breath. Your heart was still reeling after that bout of pleasure. He hugged you close.

“Holy shit…” you breathed out.

He let out a small smile and you both laughed.

“To think I could’ve been enjoying…that all this time, my dear…” he said, he kissed you on the forehead. “And now…I hope you don’t mind that again….”

“Can it be every day?” you asked.

“Of course!” he laughed.

He sighed as you settled into each other.

“What are we going to tell Mobius…the TVA?” you wondered.

“We’ll think of something…” he said.

You sat up, wrapping the blanket around you. With a bit of magic, he conjured a large shirt over you-soft and comfortable. 

“I was going to get some wine and Cheesecake- would you like any?” you asked.

“Both Sounds lovely to me…but Y/N…I am genuinely sorry, I really am.” he said, his eyes wide and sweet. 

“And I genuinely forgive you…emotions make people do things-”

He grinned.

“Such as this,”

He pulled you to his lap. You hugged and kissed his cheek. Yes, you would figure out life as a couple in the TVA together. Life with some new villain back and on the rise. But for now…you had to just enjoy each other. This new, blossoming, new love. Yes- how good that word felt rumbling in your mind. It echoed as he joined you to get plates and glasses.

You both smiled as you had your first sips and ate your first bites. He thanked you with a kiss- tasting sweeter than any food, dessert or dinner- could ever taste to you.

[sytoran]

𝟒𝐊 𝐂𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐁𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 | milestone event

hey! to all followers new and old, thank you for your support in reblogging 💞 i've recently hit 4k followers, so i'll be having another milestone event celebration! if yall have stuck around since the previous 2k one, you'll know that we have a poll that will decide what fic i'm writing next!

as always, all fics will be dom!reader. i'll try to keep the fic as a oneshot, but things spiral out of control sometimes, and word count is subject to change.

poll will be up for one day only, so make your decision quick!

‧₊˚🖇️✩ ₊˚🎧 see: main m.list

── #01. knight!stark!reader x princess!rogers!wanda

a pair of star-crossed lovers meet at a ball. romeo and juliet, but make romeo a playboy knight lesbian who falls head over heels in love with the princess of her rivalled clan. a classic shakespearean tale, but make it sapphic literature + angsty love + horny queers + u-haul lesbians in medieval times.

── #02. mortal!reader x goddess of lust!natasha

the fifth instalment of the 'my divine goddess' universe. timelines and lifelines have torn you and natasha apart, but the two of you are bound by the child you have created. though subjected to earth, loki, god of mischief, dangles the possibility of a future with natasha by making you a god.

── #03. a kinktober fic - up for your decision!

there are quite a number of kinktober 2023 fics that i have left unfinished, and now is a chance for me to finally finishing writing them... but which one?? from hydra!reader to barbie!wanda, you guys can choose which tale i tell next. (if this is the most popular option, there will be another poll set up.)

[anika-ann]

Ochranuj me (Protect Me) - S.R. - part 1/2

Type: medieval/fantasy/fairy tale AU; a part of this pseudomedieval-fantasy AU

Pairing: knight Steve Rogers x reader   Word Count: 8,6k

Summary:  Your practice of magic is punishable by death. Your love is forbidden by law; and yet it has been blessed, more than he knows.

When the crown prince is poisoned, Knight Steven Rogers is faced with a choice: will he risk a war or the love of his life?

And what of you? If asked… shall you risk it all? For the lands where you live… for your knight?

Warnings: attempted murder, poisoning, blood, mentions of death, polytheism, mentions of pregnancy (reader/OFC), Slovak language ‘cause I can

A/N: Actual title is Ochraňuj mě (Protect Me) ...tumblr cannot handle a ň in their title 🙃 DIVIDER by @firefly-graphics; fits after the events of the previous instalments

A/N 2: This is one less smut and more plot, forgive me 🤭 I hope you'll enjoy anyway. Yes, the Merlin inspo is real here. Inspo also from Bílá laň by Vesna. For music, check it out here, for visuals here.

Chodila, chodila za tebou bílá laň lásky se napila navzdory všem přísahám. Prosila pány lesa ať ji pustí za tebou zažít si, jaké to je jít za srdce ozvěnou.

Tady je tvůj háj, tady je tvůj ráj, jinam nepatříš. Jako bílá laň svoji duši chraň, ať záři neztratíš.

Tady je tvůj háj, tady je tvůj ráj, jinam nepatříš. Tak ať nepotká tě kříž. (kříž, kříž, kříž) - Bílá laň by Vesna

Boisterous laugh. Wine poured in gallons painting cheeks nearly just as ruddy as the warmth of the torches illuminating the high halls of the Starkerbürg castle painted the walls. Rich aroma of butter, oils, meats and spices flowing in the air, clinking of the most precious silverware and a distant sound of flutes as the musicians tasked to raise the already high spirits could be barely heard over the noise of the feast.

Under the watchful eye of the gods or the only God it was now believed there was, a celebration of peace was raving, everything but peaceful and serene; loud and overwhelming instead, a whirlwind of emerald green threaded with gold welcomed by the steady colours of rich crimson and gold. An anniversary of the peace made between the kingdom of Asgard and Starkerbürg, a party led by Thor Odinson, the king of the lands, honouring the deal his late father King Odin had made right before his passing.

The high table with King Howard sitting at the centre, his son Anthony, the crown prince, by his right, along with the woman he was courting, Pepper of the Potts; on her right, King Howard’s daughter, Princess Morgana. On the king’s left, the guests of honour; King Thor, his wife Queen Jane, and his brother Prince Loki. Knights and warriors of the highest ranks, lords and ladies of nobility joining the celebrations, servants all but running around the hall to tend to everyone’s needs.

Then, a sound of a chalice hitting the stone floor, one that would have been met with more laughter, had it not fallen from Prince Anthony’s hand, suddenly scarily pale and trembling. Cold to touch too, a terrifying contrast to his burning forehead glistening with sweat. Body sliding down the chair, barely even faint frantic motions to his chest.

Brief, deafening silence.

The traitorous calm before a storm would hit and leave nothing but death and destruction in its wake.

Chaos.

Swords drawn.

A wave of threats of violence.

A thundering voice of the King of Starkerbürg himself.

Calls for the royal physician Banner.

Images of peace and joy shattered; a single inconspicuous calm face among the sea of others in the face of a tragedy in making.

“Poison. I cannot determine what kind as of yet. Carry His Royal Majesty to his chambers!” the physician called out, not bothered by the fact he was ordering around knights and other nobility. “At once! There is no time to spare!”

Knights practically tripping over each other to tend to their prince, to their future ruler, to their brother in arms even as by rank he stood high above them. Rustle and grunts; a whisper of skirts as the culprit slipped away in the midst of disarray and cries of fear for the prince and the future of both kingdoms alike.

To think that an attack at the crown happening during the presence of a party of another kingdom – one similarly strong – was but a coincidence, would have been foolishly naïve.

Oh there were no such coincidences; this was but the first step towards a war.

And the perpetrator would be treated with that in mind.

“Aconite, most likely,” sounded the verdict, the words solemn on the physician’s lips as he fearfully raised his gaze to the King hovering over his shoulder as he inspected the second most important patient of the kingdom at the royal chambers.

The dark note in Banner’s voice snapped Steven from the haze as he, Sir Barnes, Sir Barton and Sir Wilson stood along the walls of Anthony’s chambers, tall and menacing, but just as helpless as Prince Anthony’s betrothed seated in the corner.

Whatever poison the physician was talking about, it was not known to Steven; but the message written in Banner’s expression was clear as day and terrifying like a night to be spent in the woods with rumoured presence of ghouls.

Inevitable death.

It was true that King Howard Stark might have yet to comprehend, despite his long years of ruling his lands, that one might catch more flies with sugar than vinegar, gain more by threading his actions with kindness than by spitting threats of violence; but he was no fool. He perceived the solemnity of the announcement and received it with a shadow over his already distorted features.

“This… aconite, Banner. What kind of a poison is that?” he demanded, crossing his arms over his chest, but not bending. Not under the weight on the crown on his head, nor under the weight of the tidings he might be scared to receive. His face was but a mask of stern indifference; a silent warning to Banner to choose his next words carefully.

As if stating the patient’s condition was a choice, Steven thought darkly, his heart pounding painfully against his ribcage as he exchanged glances with his best friend standing by his side. When he looked back at the physician, he could see him swallow dryly even from the several feet distance. Yet, the brave man faced the King with his head held high and his expression filled with sorrow.

“A deadly kind, Your Royal Majesty,” Banner said slowly. Rage flashed on the King’s face, Steven’s stomach dropping at both the sight and the worst tidings brought. Death. “It is made from the nectar-filled blossoms or the tubers of the Aconitum lycoctonum flower. There is… no cure known to man.”

A sniffle sounded in the corner of the room, completely ignored except for Sir Barton’s compassionate glance towards the woman who was on the brink of despair at the mere thought of the man she had clearly already learned to love leaving this world forever.

The King beckoned to the guards standing by the door, making them instantly step forward with their spears ready, heading for Banner menacingly.

Steven’s feet twitched as he wanted to step forward to protect the physician, outrage rising at the injustice even as fear twisted his stomach.

Sir Barnes brushed his hand discreetly to stop him.

Steven gritted his teeth, but stayed put for now, watching the scene unfold with disdain.

Sir Barnes was correct in one thing: Anthony being poisoned and having his life hanging on a thread was horrible enough, and rash decisions and actions such as standing up to the King would only make it worse.

A raging man was an unwise man; and the King was only a man too, even as he compared himself to various deities and had nearly as much power as them – which only rendered him more dangerous. There was no point in scaring the physician to death or even hurting him, but such was the King’s power. Such was his God-given right to punish whoever as he pleased. It mattered little that Banner could barely be blamed for-

-for the crown prince’s impending death, apparently.

“Then I advise you, Banner, to find one fast,” King Howard sneered as the guards stood behind the physician now. “Otherwise, you shall meet the same fate as whoever of Asgard dared to try and rob me of my son.”

The guards grabbed the man’s shoulders and Steven’s hand instinctively went for his sword again; and he was not the only one. Still, the knights stood, hesitant to disobey their King even in the face of the glaring injustice, fighting an inner battle between honour and goodness of heart and the oath they had taken. Their loyalty was to the kingdom and the King represented it most of all, after all; even if he seemed to threaten it the most of all, too, at the moment.

Well, not on Steven’s watch.

“Wait!” he called out as he stepped forward, earning a hard glare from the King himself that should have told him to keep quiet and fall in line, but he could not. Not even for Bucky’s audible sigh behind him. Not when-

“Is there anything we can do for him as of now, is what we are trying to ask,” Sir Wilson spoke up before Steven could, moving to stand next to him.

Steven took a deep breath as his gaze flickered to his comrade, finding his face arranged in a carefully crafted humbleness – as it should be in the face of the ruler even when he was addressing the physician.

Banner’s words were kind, his voice firm and regretful.

“I am afraid there isn’t, good Sir.”

“The Royal Guard and all the knights have a clear mission given by the crown, Sir Wilson,” the King barked as he gestured for the physician to be dragged away, the poor man allowing it without a protest. King Howard’s gaze fell on his son’s pale face as he lied on the bed with nothing but soundless whimpers on his lips, before he snapped back to the four knights present. “Arrest all servants and nobility of Asgard. I shall have the King and his brother for myself. And should my son meet his forefathers, I shall have their heads on a spike by tomorrow.”

With those words, he turned on his heel and stepped out, his leave abruptly followed by Anthony’s wife-to-be rushing to her betrothed’s side, cheeks damp with tears.

Steven regarded the scene unfolding, frozen with horror and unease greater than anyone.

He feared the death of his friend, naturally, as they had just dragged the one single person with any chance of curing Anthony in the whole kingdom away from his bedside.

But Steven feared a lot more deaths too. Should Prince Anthony die, King Howard would unleash pure hell on Asgard and as a consequence, on all Starkerbürg as well.

All the knights knew that; everyone knew that. They all had a heavy feeling in their stomach at the mere thought, their feet slow and unwilling as they left the chambers one by one. Yet, Steven’s heart was heavier.

The thought had occurred to him when he had wondered what exactly the King was expecting from Banner.

To turn back time so the prince had never got poisoned?

To pray to the gods for a miracle?

To perform a miracle himself and cure what was considered uncurable?

The last idea had squeezed his heart in an icy fist, nausea clawing up his throat.

He knew someone who could achieve things as close to a miracle as possible in this realm. He had felt such miracle in his own blood, tissue and cells; he had felt the wonders strong magic was capable of when in the hands of the kind-hearted. He was still breathing solely because of it; and he knew the person who could achieve this closely, intimately even, mind, body and soul, the depth of the goodness of her heart.

Perhaps you would be able to replicate the feat of saving Steven from certain death.

Perhaps your magic was powerful enough to save thousands lives by saving one. Powerful enough to prevent a war.

But hope and miracles were not to be trifled with. Magic was not to be trifled with. Being seen practising magic meant a definite death sentence.

But would it? If it saved the future king’s life?

Surely, he couldn’t risk it; he couldn’t risk your life. Of all the things he had seen in his life, of all the things he had ever had the fortune to hold, you were the most precious one to him. If he brought you here, he could lose you. He could lose you, by his own hand no less, and that would be the highest price to pay for peace he did not even know would settle or not in the end.

No.

That was the one price he couldn’t pay. He’d much rather pay with his own life – but not yours. Gods, never yours.

But if you only could… knew a potion, could do anything at all…

As he marched with his comrades to arrest the innocent – for it could not be the work of all Asgardians at once – his jaw was tense, the dilemma occupying all his thoughts, feeling like it might tear him in half.

Until it hadn’t.

If he did nothing, the war was be inevitable. If he did nothing, he would lose you anyway.

A raging man was a dangerous man and King Stark would burn the world in the wake of his anger and grief, heedless of whoever would burn with it.

Steven stopped dead in his tracks, Sir Barnes nearly colliding with him as a result.

“Steve, what the-“

“I must go,” Steven said in a hushed voice, swiftly changing direction; or attempting to. Sir Barnes’ hand was quick to grab onto his elbow, stopping him, heedless of other knights continuing their path.

“Steve, what in heavens do you mean by that?”

“I must fetch someone. I believe she could help.”

Sir Barnes bewilderment would perhaps be almost comical had it not been for the dread pooling cold in Steven’s gut.

“…she? What—the woman you have been sneaking off to see?” Sir Barnes enquired, causing a startled and utterly confused expression to appear on Steven’s face, a small alarmed sound pushing past the man’s lips despite his effort to remain composed.

Hold on, hold on-- Bucky knew?!

The look Steven received back was unimpressed at best – of course Bucky knew. He knew Steven almost better than he knew himself.

“Save the surprise for another day. How could she possibly help? Is she a physician’s assistant? Or even an apprentice for some insane reason?”

Had Steve had the capacity, he’d glare at Bucky for the offensive tone with which he had asked the question; however, he did not have it and in the brief moment he spent pondering, he realized that Bucky was not opposed to the idea itself. It was simply the ways of Starkerbürg: to try and take a woman as a physician’s apprentice was insane indeed. King had the God-given right to appoint physicians – and King Howard would certainly never approve of a female one.

But that didn’t matter, because that was not who you were.

“She’s… she is a healer.”

“A healer?” Sir Barnes echoed pointedly, doubt colouring his words. “What does than even mean? We do not have time for this.”

Steven huffed, trying to tug his arm free from Sir Barnes’ grasp as his impatience grew along with the number of doubts whether it was ever a good idea to consider your aid; but there were no options. No time to search for them. No time to waste and no time for finesse. He needed to go and he needed Bucky to understand – and more than that.

“She saved my life, Bucky. Back when I fell from the crags into the river… when you thought I was dead-“

“You must have been lucky, fell into deep water. You had superficial injuries. This is a poison. One the best physician of the court claims to have no antidote for.”

Steven swallowed thickly, the heaviest of feelings in his stomach as he chose to reveal his greatest secret as to make a point and be released to act before it’d be too late. “Bucky, I had much more than superficial injuries. She… she helped then. She might be able to help now, but… I will need your help with protecting her should it come to it.”

Bucky looked at Steve as if he had just grown a second head, glancing around nervously as guards and knights alike kept passing them, casting strange looks at them for their stillness. Sir Barnes lowered his voice to a barely audible whisper.

“Are you saying you were wounded much worse and yet she was able to tend to you? In such short time that you were missing then? And that she might be able to help here, now, with a poison that has no known cure?” Sir Barnes demanded hastily, bewildered and clearly irritated. “Are you hearing yourself, Steven? What kind of a healer would she have to be to-“

The almost sardonic voice suddenly fell silent, all blood draining from Sir Barnes’ face when the horrifying realization finally dawned to him. His hand fell limp, finally releasing Steven’s arm.

“Steve, this is not a subject for joking.”

Steven swallowed heavily, heart thundering in his chest, blood pounding in his temples. He shouldn’t have told – but he had to. He had to, right? Bucky needed to understand-

He sighed quietly, whole body strung tight in expectation of his friend exploding in rage – rage he had no time for.

“I am not joking. And you are right, we are losing precious time, I should-”

The sudden grip on Steven’s his shoulder, appearing as to stop him from leaving, was much more brutal than the hold on his elbow had been, fingers digging into flesh even over the layers of clothing.

“You— have you been… lying with a--”

Steven’s voice was quiet, but as sharp and dangerous as the sword resting in the sheath on his hip. “Choose your words carefully, Bucky. That is the woman I love and owe my life to. I would die for her, and I would not have been standing here had she not healed me.”

“That could be exactly what she wants you to think!” Sir Barnes sputtered. Steven fought the urge to roll his eyes – the absurdity of such statement was glaring.

“Oh for heavens-- I might be a fool sometimes, but I am not an idiot-”

“Debatable!” Sir Barnes whispered as madly as if he was in fact yelling. “As you’re proving it this very moment!”

Steven shook his head, the feeling in his gut growing more gnawing by the second, every frantic beat of his heart feeling like a waste of precious time.

“Bucky, you said it yourself – we do not have time for this! I must go. I will get her, but… please. Help me protect her if the King is blind to the fact she uses--- it to do good.”

Sir Barnes simply stared back, the halls empty by now as much as his gaze, however inquiring.

The grip on Sir Rogers’ arm loosened.

Silence stretched. Precious second ticked by, grains of sand in hourglass no one could turn back falling; and with each and every one, Steve’s stomach tightened further with creeping horror.

Surely his most precious, most loyal friend, having been standing by his side since childhood, would not abandon him now? Surely he would not betray him in moments that might be deciding his fate, the fate of his beloved, of the whole kingdom?

“Bucky, please. I swear-- I’m begging you. I need to-- I need to protect her. At any cost.”

“What of your sword?” Sir Barnes asked dully, appearing indifferent to Steven’s desperate pleas.

What of your knighthood? Are you willing to give up that, if you are forced to leave in the darkness of the night and never return to bring your beloved to safety? Are you willing to leave the path of the honorary knight to become a lawless fugitive?

The smile which found its way to the corners of Steve’s lips was soft; sad and torn, for it was the greatest honour to serve, to protect, to help. He had been and always would be grateful for the rare chance he had got.

But there was no greater blessing of the gods themselves than you having entered his life and taking it by the most beautiful of storms. He loved you. He loved you more than anything and anyone in this world and that was what he would not even dream of giving up.

He didn’t respond with words; and yet, the exasperation on his closest friend’s face told him he did not have to. Sir Barnes understood from Steven’s expression alone. He always had.

“Gods, Steven Grant of Rogers, of all stunts you could have pulled to get yourself hanged, you truly had to go and chose the most foolish one. My God- Steven…”

Most foolish one? Echoed in Steven’s head, the words absurd. No. The most gorgeous one, the purest one, the most blessed, he allowed himself to muse. The most honourable one too, no? Love. Where was justice, if love, the purest emotions of all, was considered a crime? Did the new religious teachings not speak of love being kind, patient, knowing no dishonour and wrongs?

That was how he loved you. Wholly and entirely, kindly, patiently, even if passionately.

It was only then when Steven snapped from his haze and finally noticed a trace of hurt on Sir Barnes’ face when it occurred to him why Bucky had taken so long to respond. He was cross with Steven; but not as much for the alleged crime, but for having kept it a secret. Keeping you a secret; the one closest to his heart, his beloved, hidden from the one person he had always trusted with anything.

“I’m sorry, Bucky. No one could know. She’s-- she is too precious. I had to protect her,” he explained softly, urgently. “And I still do. I will, with your help or without it. But… please.”

Sir Barnes continued to regard him, stunned into silence still, expression unreadable.

Then, he shook his head; what might seem as disagreement however, Steve recognized as resignation. He had known Bucky for too long to not be able to decipher which shake of a head was a no and which was an expression of indignation and regret at his own choice of a best friend.

“Thank you, Bucky.”

And with those words, Steve took his hasty leave, his minute relief drowned in the sea of worry when he sneaked into the stables to rush through the gates of the castle, claiming to be running a King’s errand.

Seeking his closeness the pretty white doe having sipped at love all despite her oath, she begged the forest spirits to let her go to follow her heart and its eternal song.

Light breeze caressing your hair like the tender fingers of your lover, brushing away a lose strand from your face. Gentle September sunrays of a late afternoon warming your cheeks, long leaves of grass tickling your ankles and your hands as you gathered brownwort, thyme and lady’s mantle, the smell almost too much despite its pleasant notes. Your hand instinctively laying over your belly as the reminder of why you were gathering these particular herbs blossomed in your mind anew, a smile settling on your face. It was not just the time of year blessing people with abundance of these flowers, a nature’s reminder the time was coming to bath in the blessed lake on the Autumn equinox; it was the sweet secret humming under your heart too, growing stronger and more beautiful by day – and slightly bittersweet for for now, it was only yours to keep, your beloved knight none the wiser.

Steven.

The very reason, you suspected, for the heavy feeling in your heart; the reason why none of the kind offerings of mother nature seemed to sooth a jittery feeling you had woken with up from your restless sleep. Unease had been crawling over your skin; a solemnity’s shadows, despite the beautiful weather and the joyful morning realisation that a barely noticeable bump was now showing on your body, a testament to the blessings of love.

The sky was beginning to colour with sunset with no clouds in sight; and yet, you could feel a storm coming, one you did not feel would be of the refreshing purifying kind. The air did not smell of rain; if you breathed in deeply, it reeked of the very death the wind seemed to whisper about in the tallest of birch trees. A warning; a witch’s intuition tuned to the finest hints of the gods of nature and forest spirits. You had tried to sooth yourself, coaxing yourself into peace by wondering if it perhaps was but a new future mother’s anxiety.

Yet, an instinct as old as time whispered to you to know better.

Which was why the wild stomping of hooves nearing your cabin should have not taken you by surprise. But it did.

You rose from your crouch so fast your head span, gathered flowers falling from your hands at the brief faint sensation; you steadied yourself just as Steven’s horse came into view, slowing into a walk as not to startle you or crush all the blossoms on the meadow.

The silent thank you to the gods for seeing your love alive and well left your lips without prompting, followed by your spine tingling with a shudder of power at its base.

Almost as if the gods blessed you for your genuine gratitude and gifted you with strength. Strength you shall no doubt need, for Steven might be living and breathing, dismounting his mare in a thousand-times practised manner, breathtaking as ever, but the distress on his face and the tension of his wide shoulders told you those shoulders carried the weight of the world at the moment.

Feet waking with motion, you met him halfway as he rushed to you, his arms quick to embrace you lovingly but so tight all air left your ribcage for long moments. Steven’s heart thundered against your ear as you hid your face against his chest. Fresh air had washed his clothes of most smells, but sweat and wine and rich spices still enveloped your senses, a tell-tale signs of the feast which he had told you about being interrupted by something vicious.

Yet, you took precious moments of simply breathing your lover in, basking in the comfort his arms offered no matter the circumstance.

He nuzzled his face in your hair, his chest expanding with a generous inhale, a steadying breath which made his heart race faster, as if attempting to outrun the very storm you had felt arriving.

You ran your hands down his broad back, feeling your own heart leaping into your throat as the silence between you, often so sweet and comforting, stretched ominously.

“Steven… love,” you whispered, attempting to shift in his embrace, only achieving his hold growing firmer, his muscles almost shaking with effort not to let go.

Oh Steven… What a terrible feat had been laid upon him?

“What has happened?”

Finally releasing your body, his hands were quick to cradle your face instead, achingly gentle, even as his eyes roamed your face wordlessly, brimming with so much emotion it stirred your unease further.

“Rytier moj?”

Steven’s face softened minutely, thumbs stroking your cheekbones as tenderly as butterfly wings despite the power – or the lack of it – in his grip.

“My love…”

Lips curling in a tiny smile, you mirrored Steven’s affection, reaching to settle your palm against his cheek, fingers of your other hand carding through his hair; your heart fluttered when he leaned into your touch, a wavering breath escaping his lips before they pressed against your palm to sooth the scratch of his beard against your skin.

Despite the dulcet image he made, eyes fluttering close for a blissful moment of nothing but love shared, you felt his body pulse with anxious urgency seemingly seeping into yours through your fingertips.

“I did not sleep well…” you confessed, his already pursed lips turning down. “I had a heavy feeling in me. Now I know the gods had not warned me simply for their own whims. What’s happened?”

Steven opened his eyes again; with a single caress of the breeze, he straightened, his aura of a knight – a fierce protector, a loyal friend, a humble determined servant – returning with its full force as did his worry.

“I need your help.”

A simple plea.

A simple answer.

“Always, rytier moj. Anything,” you promised.

One would expect relief to fill your lover’s features; instead, dread twisted them into a frown of dismay. Almost as if he had been hoping for your rejection.

Why?

The whisper of death among the trees grew louder, haunting, sending such a shudder through your body not even your lover’s warmth could hope to protect you from it, another urgent question scratching at the back of your mind.

Death, the trees seemed to whisper.

Whose death?

“Oh bosorka moja…”

Not Steven’s. Never. Not on your watch. Not as long as you walked this realm.

And not your child’s. You’d claw a throat open with your bare hands had anyone tried to take them away. Take her away. You had dreamed two nights prior, dreamed of a girl with Steven’s beautiful eyes and your hair caressed by the wind, her laughter filling the air as he sat her on his shoulders and she placed the daisy crown on his head-

The image had been so full of hope, so bright, so full of promise; it battled the current scent of death fiercely, one blending into another, and it felt like you were stood in the middle.

Your choice. Your power.

Your victory; or your loss.

You gulped, your gentle hold on Steven’s face growing shaky; with fear or the weight of responsibility, you weren’t sure.

“What is it, love? You are worrying me… come in. Tell me what weights down your-“

“Prince Anthony has been poisoned,” he said at last.

The whisper of the wind seemed to turn into a screech of a gale, even as the tree leaves and grass barely rustled.

The Prince… was he the one whose death you felt impending? It must have been.

In a split second, it became so clear why Steven was so shaken.

An impending death of his brother in arms. Of someone whom he served and appreciated.

Of the future ruler; quite possibly caused by the attempts of the party of Asgard.

An act of war.

Should Prince Anthony die, there would be no stopping at one death. Devastating number of lives could be lost. Including Steven’s.

No. Not on your watch. Not as long as you walked this realm.

But could you stop it?

Stood in the middle. Your choice. Your power.

Could you prevent a war?

Your mind was set into a whirl, various herbs and remedies for different poisonings refreshed in your mind.

“Do you know which poison it was?” you asked urgently, dropping your hands; and confused as why Steven’s remained firmly on your face, his expression speaking of pain greater than before. “Steven, love. What are his troubles? I can send a potion, pass it as a remedy from a physician-”

“Burning feeling in his forehead, weakness of muscles, trembling, cold sweat… he fainted and could not be woken up, only for a brief moment. He had trouble speaking, began to shake, fainted again...” Steven listed slowly, his unease growing with every word.

And so did yours.

Determination bled out from your body drop by drop, replaced by dread, the very weakness your lover was talking about as if settling in your own muscles and bones.

“The physician believes it might have been... aconite?” he added.

You had figured as much, seemingly endless moments before Steven spoke the dreaded word.

Aconite.

The worst nightmare of all living things; the deadliest daydream of those who meant harm and would not stop until their enemy released their last breath.

Death, screeched the breeze in the crowns of the birch trees; the yew trees, the very symbol of passing, joining in.

Death. War. Death.

Your power. Your victory. Your loss.

Your voice shook more frantically than young aspen leaves in the wind.

“Steven… aconite is deadly. I have no potion or salve for this. There is no cure-”

“That is what physician Banner said.”

“But then what…”

Your voice trailed off, words stuck in your throat, air stolen from your chest. A lighting from clear skies could struck you at the very moment and you would barely take notice of such.

It all made sense now. You having lost sleep. The whispers of death. The assumed shiver of power you shall no doubt need. And at last, Steven’s almost palpable dismay when you had said you’d help. That you’d do anything.

He had hoped you’d help.

He was terrified of it all the same.

You could feel blood draining from your face, rushing past your ears; unspeakable horror and determination swept you like the non-existent gale in the tree crowns.

“Steven…”

His grip on your face grew firmer, unsteady but urgent, his forehead pressed against yours as his eyes slid shut, his whisper a frantic promise, a confession and a prayer at once.

“I know. Believe me, my love, I know, and I have never been more scared of anything in my whole life,” he said huskily, barely audible over the wild thundering of your heart, the shaky sound of your quick breaths, even as the rest of the world faded into background, all noise ceasing. Or perhaps even the sparrows forgot how to sing, struck by fear for their life.“I would have not asked this of you if I did not fear that Anthony’s death would unleash a war with Asgard and might destroy us all… and if I did not believe I could protect you.”

“Steven-“

A thumb over your lip, gently pressing to silence your protest, Steven guided you to look up to his eyes, every word falling from his lips an oath signed by his own blood.

“Bosorka moja… I shall protect you, no matter the cost. You must know I would lay my life for you. I will, should it come to it. As long as you are safe.”

Consumed by adoration and terror at once, you slipped from Steven’s hold, shaking your head.

He had not the slightest idea what he was speaking of, the reckless fool.

He had no idea.

And he had no idea whom he would be leaving should he deliver on his terrible promise.

“These words are not nearly as comforting as you believe them to be! How would we-- how would I live without you?” you lamented, feeling the fire of power and indignation burn inside of you, chasing the fear away for several beats of your heart. “And I-- I am not even sure I can heal him.”

“You healed me,” Steven offered kindly, encouraging, confusion and the softest trace of hurt at you having escaped his touch twisting his face. He had no idea. He had no idea at all. “You said I was at the brink of death myself-“

“You were,” you spat, not appreciating the reminder – not of his injuries, nor of your past recklessness, as grateful as you were for the latter, not a single regret in your mind for having risked it all to save the handsome stranger with goodness etched into his very soul, having shone so bright it had outshined your doubts and fear for your life. But this was different. So much circumstance had changed. “But I was… I had faith in your soul, saw your good heart. I believed to be safe from you should I be too weak to protect myself after I casted my spells, and for that, I was able to pour all my magic into the healing. And I-- I was much more careless with my power then… “

You made a pause, inhaling slowly, gathering courage in the face of Steven’s features twisting further with distress.

“But Steven… that was before. I-- before we-“

“What is it, bosorka moja? Before what?”

Your lower lip trembled, regret lacing the soft touch of your fingertips to his face.

This was not how you wished for him to find out. You had told him before, erased his memory to ease his conscience and to prepare for the right moment, a moment fit for such joyful tidings; but much like him, having rushed here asking for help despite the unspeakable risks, you had no other option.

You had no choice.

You had no time.

The deep-sea blue with a forest green shade of his irises brimmed with emotion, tenderness and silent question.

With a lump in your throat, you dropped your hands again, curling them around your middle as if to protect the secret and save it for a reverent moment your love and lover – and your child – would have deserved.

Steven regarded your stance with dread visibly climbing up his throat. You could see it in his eyes, the sudden uncertainty, the questions written in his eyes growing frantic and painful.

Why had you stepped back from him? Why had you evaded his touch? Why did you seem taken by sorrow? What secret had you been keeping from him? For you must have had some. You must have not told him something crucial – and in a dark time like this, it shall come to light.

You appeared so shaken; you appeared scared. Of something he had failed to protect you from?

Or of his reaction to the revelation?

You chose your words carefully, speaking them slowly, even though you could feel him hanging onto every syllable.

“It is not only me anymore who needs to be protected.”

Steven did not understand; that much was clear from his expression, from the step he took closer to you only for you to take a step back, etching his hurt deeper into his face.

“I… I do not understand, my love. Do you have—do you know of someone who could help you? Do they need protection too?”

The they tasted of poison much bitterer than aconite; disbelief and profound pain.

You could almost hear it, the absurd questions he seemed to be asking himself. Was there… was there someone else? Someone else who had earned your love more fiercely than he had? More deserving?

The way your love remained hidden, the distance he still had to keep, laid heavy in his mind, always, now feeding his doubt; his fear that someone else now occupied the space he had so selfishly taken up in your heart.

But had only been here mere days ago, yes? Surely you could have not--- you would have not… or had you? No. That wasn’t possible. You were the kindest most loving person he had ever met, loyal to a fault – and he was blessed to be yours, to be loved, unconditionally, more than he deserved for keeping you his little secret.

You could not read thoughts; but Steven’s always seemed to be laid bare in front of you to card through. Betrayal and resignation all at once, jaw tight to mask his hurt, to hide the very doubt you read so clearly. Doubt, but not of you; of him. He had always carried it with him, the guilt of not providing for you as he imagined he should for his beloved.

Doubt, crystal clear in his gaze. It was possible, was it not? The most wonderful woman he had ever met, finally fed up, the goblet of your patience finally having overflowed, deciding to find a man worthy of you, able to take care of you, truly, one you were willing to-

You could not bear his mind screaming anymore, even as you had not heard a single word, a single thought, all of it but achy questions expressed by his gaze alone.

“No, Steven, I do not--- I merely cannot only think of myself now,” you said softly, searching for words to reveal the secret at last, not, not wanting to and craving it all the same. “I… I need to protect us.”

His shoulders sagged, doubt and heartache erased at once, tenderness at your worry for him melting into his smile.

“Do not fret, bosorka moja. I can hold my own.”

The faint smile in the corner of your mouth hurt, tears burning in your eyes.

“I know, rytier moj… and yes, I meant us, but I--- I also meant us.”

The arm you had curled around your middle shifted. Your palm spread pointedly over your belly as you met his gaze with hesitance and silent hope; for as much as you dreaded revealing the source of your worst fear, the tidings were still joyful. And you hoped with the entirety of your heart that Steven would accept them as such, much like the first time.

But first, he had to comprehend them.

Several rushed beats of your heart it took him; but then he finally did.

Suddenly, it was his turn to stand still and rigid as if a lightning from the perfectly clear skies struck him. And it might have as well.

His voice was barely louder than a breath, hoarse, laced with careful hope despite the glaring truth.

“You—we- are we-?”

A crystal-clear memory of those being the very words he had spoken the first time entered your mind, a single tear spilling over; the awe and reverence on his face mirrored his expression all the same as you confirmed.

“Yes.”

“You are with a child? My child?”

It would have been amusing, the questions, if you hadn’t been on a brink of hysteria and hadn’t there been a metaphorical sword hanging above your heads while you indulged in revealing the sweetest secret there was between lovers.

“Yes.”

Countless grains of sand in hourglass fell, Steven simply observing you, his gaze feasting on the entirety of you with newfound emotion that touched your very soul and made it shiver with delight. He observed you with such adoration and devotion you could only imagine he would show to a deity descending to walk the Earth.

And then he was surging forward, falling on his knees in front you, one hand on your hip, the other wrapping around your lower back to keep you close as he laid his forehead on your belly, shaky, slow and careful; nothing short of reverent. Despite the circumstance, all the tears prickling in your eyes found their release – every inch of your body sang, feeling Steven’s love for both you and the life he had a generous hand in creating.

“Oh bosorka moja… láska moja,” he muttered into the fabric before he looked up, hesitant fingers slipping under, to feel the very bump you had only noticed today. His lips parted in mute awe, eyes turning glassy with sheer delight and wonder at the miracle.

You allowed yourself another moment of basking in his love; feeling the delight spreading through every vein, through every bone and nerve, all the way to your very core and source of power. Your hands found gentle purchase of Steven’s hair as his lips pressed to your belly.

But then, the inaudible crackle in the air brought you both from your reverie, the breeze screeching of death instead of new life returning.

There was no choice; dread filled your being along with a haunting whisper of opportunity from a voice speaking in tongues you barely understood and yet deciphered as guidance.

You must go. You must try. Despite the risks.

Stood in the middle. Your power. Your victory; your loss.

Your only hope and your possible doom.

“I shall try my best to help, even as I do not know if I will be able to. But Steven…” you addressed him softly, revealing one more piece, one more source of joy, “our little girl must remain safe at any cost.”

The hands sprawled around your middle twitched, a single tear escaping him as his eyes shone.

“Our--- a girl? How-“

“It is but a feeling,” you admitted, earning a brilliant smile which lasted too shortly.

You smiled tightly in return, a few more tears rolling down your cheeks as Steven’s hand softly caressed your barely-there bump again, butterflies seemingly to erupting in your stomach, your heart humming.

He rose to his feet with something in his eyes turning steely, his gentle voice once against taking on a heaviness of an oath.

“I will protect you both, even if it should be the last thing I will ever do.”

One wavering breath was all the luxury you granted yourself before springing into action, not allowing yourself to lament at the potential of death weaved into Steven’s promise. You could not afford any more distraction. The hourglass was unrelenting, rushing you.

“I know. We shall get going.”

You could feel his eyes on you, a mute confusion as you ruminated through the cabinets, the fire lit, a small pot placed on it, two handfuls of water, milk thistle, ginseng roots, and sprinkle of uncaria leaves added to the mix.

“You can sit down, love, I shall only complete the potion swiftly and we will be on our way,” you assured him, reaching for a pinch of turmeric to add.

Steven did not, in fact, sit down – if anything, you could feel him grow taller behind you, as if his growing bewilderment added an inch or two to his already impressive height. His stare was firmly set on you, a little burning and slightly insulting since you could almost hear his silent questioning of your sanity.

A potion? But you had said-

You looked over your shoulder briefly, your lover’s body nearer than expected, causing you to need to crane you neck a bit.

“No, there is no potion to neutralise the poison – but this remedy strengthens a body, aids it to fight off an infection and weakness,” you explained, expecting Steven’s face clearing, but not waiting for it do so, busying yourself with reading the mental list of ingredients, recalling every indispensable element. Milk thistle, ginseng, uncaria leaves, turmeric… ah. Yes. Where herbs were concerned, rare or common, that would be all. Only one last ingredient.

A gentle hand on your elbow stopped you as you were turning to the stack of knives, halting your movements tenderly but firmly. Blinking, you lifted your gaze to Steven’s face again, disconcerted by his unreadable expression.

“Is it… safe?”

Had it not been for the large distress he was in, the feeling oozing of him and adding to your own shakiness, had it not been for the tenderness of his touch, you’d feign a slap to chase his hand away at the almost silly question – and at the sudden doubt in your knowledge and power and your reign over it.

“Steven, love, my apologies for the bluntness, but Prince Anthony is on his deathbed, so I cannot very well hurt him further and I shall have you known that this very potion you have drunk yourself-”

“For you,” he clarified, two soft syllables in contrast to your slightly exasperated words, your voice falling silent as sweet worry reflected in his sky-blue irises. Despite the circumstance, your heart seared at the fussing, no matter how groundless and ironic. “I am asking whether it is safe for you and our… our child to prepare that. I know it may seem irrational given why I am here, but-“

It was, you had to admit. And yet. You spent a precious moment, precious grains of sand falling in the ominous hourglass above your heads, placing your palm over his hand, reassuring.

“It is perfectly safe, rytier moj… certainly no more dangerous than rushing to the castle, the very heart of the Kingdom, and attempt to save the prince using the most outlawed practice in these lands,” you added with an unsteady cheekiness, earning an exasperated glare; and a full body shudder he couldn’t hope to contain.

The same tremble ran through your body; and yet, the whisper for caution was overshadowed by a tingle of energy unknown, a wordless encouragement. Almost a haunting promise from the Fate itself that bravery shall be rewarded.

But if that were true, where would the ever-present whispers of death and upcoming end fit in the mosaic then?

Shaking your head as well as the overwhelmingly bewildering sensations off, you charmed a soft smile for your lover and love – for the father of your child, already caring so deeply for the life to be born out of your love – and let your hand fall, turning back to your work as stream began to fill the cabin.

One last ingredient; a life essence to help maintain life.

You cradled the handle of the blade carefully in your hand, turning your other palm against the tip; the knife was out of your hand before you could comprehend how, pressed flat to Steven’s thigh, shielded from your touch.

“I’m sorry. I--- is that necessary?” Steven asked with a painful edge to his voice, his continued concern causing your heart to tremble.

“Yes… it is but a drop of blood, my love, I promise. A speckle of life essence to maintain life.”

His frown deepened as you reached for the knife again, fingers brushing his soothingly as you grasped at the handle. So many emotions played over his features; hesitance, concern, guilt. He must have realised you had used your blood before to cure him before you had even learned his name, another sacrifice having been made aside from having left yourself completely vulnerable to him when you had drained your magic and body alike to bring him from the death’s doorstep where you had found him at.

Then, an almost shy question, as if he felt too bold to even suggest such heretic thought.

“Life essence… would mine suffice, then?”

Where his implication was shy – that his mere mortal, human blood could match yours, the blood of a born witch – his determination was not.

He met your eye, a brilliant satisfied sparkle lighting up his irises when he read the truth in your hesitant gaze.

“Yes… it would. But-“

Your knight offered his left palm outstretched, no further questions. The bottomless trust in his gesture and in his eyes caused a lump to grow in your throat; the mere idea of cutting him, even if it was to only be but a scratch, had ache sting deep within your ribcage.

“Are you cert-“

“Would you rather I lead the cut myself, love?” he asked, his voice tender upon your hesitance, understanding the action would cause you pain – as if you were to hurt yourself instead.

And you might as well.

Your hands were made to heal his wounds, not cause them; your hands were made to erase his aches, not bring them; your hands were made to love, not hurt.

Your read in his gentle gaze as he nearly read in yours: I despise the thought of hurting you, rytier moj; It is but alright, bosorka moja.

You shook your head.

“I-- no. I may do it. I apologize, we do not have time for-“

A hand grasping your jaw, soft lips silencing your apologies; your eyes fluttered close despite seeing right through the trick. You felt the pressure of his hand against the blade, the silent sound of protest earning you a deeper kiss, a softer caress of his lips against yours, tasting sweeter than summer breeze, so achingly tender.

“There you go, bosorka moja…”

With his retreat, Steven ran his thumb over your cheek, smiling; then, he moved his injured hand into yours, leading you above the pot.

Slightly dazed and exasperated still, you sighed and carefully squeezed his wound to indeed only spare a drop of his precious blood.

As you pressed your lips to his fingertips in a thank you, you let your healing power flow through your touch, closing the cut your body should have worn.

“This had better be the only blood spilled today,” you whispered; and prayed too. You met your Steven’s stormy gaze as the contents of the pot sizzled, sweet coppery aroma rising in the air.

“It will, bosorka moja. It will.”

He sealed the deal with a kiss, sweet and desperate and bruising.

And falling on deaf ears, whisper in the crowns of the birch trees, his and your words echoed the very same song.

Blood had better be spilled…

Today, today, today…It will, it will, it will…

Next part

Other headcanon and playlist

S.R. masterlist - contains other knight!Steve fics, independent of this universe

Complete masterlist

Endearments used: Rytier moj (My knight) Bosorka moja (Witch mine) Láska moja (Love mine)

I hope you liked this - let me know your thoughts!

May your November be sweet and cosy ✨

[jayden-killer]

Unforeseeable incident.

(Loki x fem!reader).

summary: you agreed with your best friend Thor to come to Asgard, expecting you could take well the interdimentional voyage. Well, you didn't. And now you're stuck in a certain prince's bed...

warnings: none. This is a LOKI AU!! This takes place in an universe where Loki was never traumatised by Odin and the events of the first Thor movie don't happen!!!

☆

Hot.

What I felt on my skin was a suffocating heat that left me no time to breathe.

I could feel the drops of sweat on my forehead, and my breathing was straining as I regained consciousness. Until I opened my eyes with a startle. As if I were drowning in the open sea my lungs filled with all the air possible; I inhaled, I exhaled. I did it a second, then a third time, until my breathing settled. My first thought, looking around the room decorated with antique ornaments, illuminated by the light fire from the fireplace, was that it was certainly not on Earth. Had I been abducted? By aliens? Perhaps I sounded tempting for dinner.

Definitely.

All the thoughts in my head distracted me from the slender figure and well dressed in green and golden armor. The raven hair was well combed backwards. And those aquamarine eyes that reminded me of the salty expanse that I loved so much. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw me awake.

"My apologies, young lady, I didn't mean to startle you" was his kind voice.

"I am.. where?" That’s all I could say in the throes of curiosity and fear. If I was kidnapped, I had to at least know the name of my kidnapper.

"I offer you my sincere apologies on behalf of Loki, God of Mischief, son of Odin, and Frigga, brother of Thor and future King of Asgard". He bent down at the bed foot, his face quite close to mine. I could see the delicate features of his face, his lips rosy and thin...

Wait a second. Asgard. Thor..

Oh.

Now my little neurons were connecting.

My hand hit my forehead hard, making the slap ring throughout the room. The raven-haired boy let out an amused laugh. "Your brother is an idiot if he thought I would survive the Bifrost trip," I said, rolling my eyes.

"My brother is many things. Among these, he do not have any sense". He smiled again. "Foolish brother..."

"Right.."

Sitting down, resting my head on the soft (royal) pillow, I still looked around the lost room. It was clear that Asgard, one of the worlds of the Nine Kingdoms, had just come out of a chapter of the ``Lord of the Rings``. Everything seemed so... medieval.

"Make me guess, Prince Loki..."

He raised a hand in dissent and laughed. "I do not approve of the use of real titles, I find them retrograde. We may also be a different people from you Midgardians, however..."

This time it was my turn to interrupt him. "Midgardians?"

"Ah, yes," he smiled. "Mortals. Humans. Earthlings. Which one do you prefer?"

"Every of them, as long as you don’t use earthlings. It looks like I'm talking to an alien." I shuddered at the idea and he couldn’t help but laugh. He moved to the edge of his large bed, standing beside me, while maintaining a distance between us. "I will never do it again, I swear to the gods."

"But you are a God," I pointed out.

"Ah, correct answer, but I am not a superior God."

My eyes shrunk into two small slits, confused. "Okay, go ahead."

"As I said, you mortals are not accustomed to the use of our means of transport. It was clear that you would not be able to pass out at the end of the journey. No wonder my bum-head brother didn’t show you the instructions".

Now I was more confused than before. "Are there any instructions on how to cross it?"

"We’re not barbarians!" he replied, offering me a mischievous smile from those who knew each other. Then he stood up, not looking away from mine. He kept his smile curved towards the corner of his cheek, turning the bed and walking towards the door. Meanwhile I remained on the bed, never breaking the visual contact between us. It was intense, a visual contact that implied that between us it would be a deep future connection.

"Your Asgardian clothes are resting on the chair at the bottom of the room," he said softly, keeping the gold-plated knob in his hand.

"I’m going to have a chat with my stupid brother. You, instead, take it easy, Midgardian."

I think he meant the change of clothes.

Before he could let me fight with my thoughts soft eyes turned towards my direction with a mixed look of curiosity and malice, saying with confidence: "I expect to see you take part in the annual welcome back ceremony of the eldest son tonight. Don’t be late, Odin doesn’t like to wait". With this, he closed the door behind him, and I swore on my life to hear him sniggering. I think it was the third or fourth time I turned to look at the room I was in, in a state of confusion. As much confusion when I wondered aloud if Thor, in another universe, had measured his boldness better.

[agent-tempest]

Loki x Fem!Reader recs list

oneshots

Dancing in the dark (with you between my arms) -@holymultiplefandomsbatman [Fluff, 3.6k, Light angst. Reader being self-conscious and having trouble accepting compliments. Swearing. Fluffity fluff, mutual pining, oblivious reader. Tony decides to throw another big party. The theme? Medieval ball. You’ve been cursed to perform a dance routine, together with Loki. Could the dance actually be a blessing in disguise?]

Bubbles- @lanadelreyscokewhor3 [1.5 k, Loki x Avenger!Fem!Reader, reader having a panic attack, reader having low self esteem, mentions of past trauma and tony stark being an asshole... ( i love u 3000 tony just not in this fic)]

Little dove- @absolutelyfizzing [1.9k, Loki acted so caring around you, more so than anyone else in his life. He loved to take care of you, especially when you had a long day, and he got teased by some of the team for it. Fem reader, cute loki and pet names, implications of gender fluid loki?, reader gets picked up, slight implications of a nsfw theme the night before]

Paper rings - @cherryrogers [Pure fluff. Loki and you take a nice walk down memory lane, reminiscing on your very first encounters with each other. Inspired by the song, ‘Paper Rings’ by Taylor Swift.]

Back in your arms- @sarahscribbles [starts angsty but happiest fluffiest ending. 2.8k. Loki arrives back at the compound, and back in your arms, after the battle with Thanos.]

series

What once was mine- @talesofesther [When watching what once was supposed to be the rest of his life, in an empty room in the TVA, Loki sees someone he can’t recognize; a girl who’s all tenderness and loose smiles, and most importantly, she was smiling at him.]

[holdmytesseract]

moodboard by @chennqingg <3

Rules To Break

Jotun!Prince!Loki Laufeyson x fem!Æsir!Princess!Reader

Summary: Prince Loki of Jotunheim - son of King Laufey and heir to the throne is assigned to train a bunch of Asgardian men, in order to turn them into warriors. What happens when Odin's daughter, Princess Y/N crosses his paths in ways he would've never expected? While the Prince is completely unaware, the Princess struggles to keep up her several masquerades...

Warnings for this Chapter: medieval rituals/topics - a.k.a mentions of virginity/loss of vitginity (again, no smut!), warrior things, daggers, blood, injury, wounds?, drama, angst?, Loki being a bit of an ass here...

Word Count: 2.2k

a/n: I love this chapter - but I'm also very insecure about it, honestly. Hope y'all like it... It's the last one before the grand finale!

Divider by the lovely @fictive-sl0th 💚

Tagging: (y'all in the comments again, 'cause this seems to work at least...😅)

Ice Flower Masterlist ❄ Masterlist

Chapter Three / Chapter Five

Chapter Four

A week passed. A week, in which you were haunted by different feelings and emotions. The events of that one evening not leaving your head. You could still feel his cool lips on yours and his sinful touch on your body. Hence, he had almost took your innocence! And you just didn't know how to feel about it. You didn't return to the lake either. Not once in this week. You couldn't bear to look him in the eyes. What were you supposed to say to him anyway? He was sure expecting an explanation. You felt ashamed and embarrassed. You should've never engaged with him in the first place. You should've left.

On the other hand, you missed him. His voice, his presence, the conversations you and him indulged in. You missed his touch and his lips - and that was what frightened you. You didn't understand it. Sure, you saw him every day, but it wasn't the same. Here you weren't the mysterious woman he met. Here you were Váli Ákison - a warrior. You were good at drawing the line between those two 'identities', but with the days passing, you felt how the lines became more and more blurred. You fought so hard to not mix things up, but you didn't know how long you were able to keep fighting. Every time you looked at the handsome prince, you got more and more lost; lacking concentration. It was only a matter of time before you were going to break. Unfortunately for you, the mask you had put up fell sooner than you anticipated. The cover you maintained for weeks now blew up - and your life threatened to crumble into shards. One inattentive moment was all it took...

It was the day in training, where Loki showed you all how to throw daggers. He was an absolute master in fighting with daggers. It was absolutely fascinating to watch him wield the sharp weapons, before throwing them at the human sized targets. The prince had you all split up in groups with a maximum of ten men. Your group was the last of the day. He showed everybody exactly what to do, since it wasn't exactly harmless to throw around daggers. After that, every man had a chance to practice - including you. Ten human sized targets stood in a perfect line; one for each to train. The problem? You just weren't able to pool all your focus and direct it on the task ahead. Loki was way too distracting. The way he instructed the others. How his biceps bulged, whenever he threw a dagger. How the muscles of his defined torso flexed with every move. Or was it how his cerulean skin reflected the sun light? You didn't know. Fact was, it was distracting you immensely. Today more than ever.

"Ákison, focus!" His deep voice suddenly so close to you ripped you out of your trance and caused you to throw the dagger nowhere near the centre of the target. If you had hit an enemy, you would've pierced his little toe with luck - nothing more. "Pathetic throw, soldier." Loki appeared in your field of view; arms crossed. "Have you learned nothing?" He asked, taking the dagger from your hands, "You're holding it wrong." and instructed you - once again - how to do it the right way, before he handed you the dagger back. "Banish whatever unimportant thing it is you got on your mind and focus." "Yes, Sir." You answered, giving him a short nod.

You tried to concentrate so hard, but it was no use. Your wandering mind just couldn't shut up - much to Loki's annoyance. Before you could make another attempt to throw a dagger, her took the weapon from you. "It's useless. Go and retrieve the thrown daggers, Ákison. Perhaps you're better at this." Great. Now you were degraded to being the ball boy. A frustrated groan left your lips, as you slumped towards the targets, in order to retrieve the daggers. You handed them over, before Loki send you with a nod back again. Defeated, you waited behind the safety of the wooden bodies of his command. It wasn't good, though. Having nothing to do for a few minutes was an even bigger invitation for your brain to think - which was fatal in the end. Because of your incompetence of staying concentrated, you didn't hear Loki's command to stay hidden. Working on autopilot, you heard that no daggers hit the wood and therefore you emerged from behind the targets to retrieve the weapons. Unfortunately, in the exact moment where Loki demonstrated the throw on the turn. He didn't see you. The others did, but before they could even react, it was already too late and the life-threatening weapon on its way.

You were still in thoughts and once you realised the dangerous situation you were in, it was - as well - too late. No chance of escaping. And so, it came how it had to come. The dagger hit you, bore itself through the flesh of your shoulder. With a painful hiss and groan your body slumped down and hit the grass with a thud. Loki recognised of course immediately what had happened and while the other men stood like frozen to the ground with their eyes directed on you, the prince was quickly at your side. "Oh for Norns sake, Ákison?!" He was hovering above you, while you looked up at him deliriously. "Can you hear me?!" You could, but his voice was far away and you weren't able to answer. The pain was taking over. "Don't just stand there!" Loki yelled at the other nine soldiers. "Get a healer!" Like headless chicken, the men ran around, searching for one of the healers. Now you were alone with Loki, smiling up at him deliriously. Due to the rapid and sudden blood loss, you could even think less straight. "L-Loki, I..." You started; felt the world getting dark around you, causing your manly voice to slip. "I didn't want to... to admit it, but... But I miss you." The last thing you saw, was the frown on Loki's handsome face.

Walking impatiently up and down beside the big tent, in which the healers currently patched you up, Loki's mind was racing. What were you talking about? Sure, your head was not in the right mind, but for the first time in all those weeks had the prince the feeling that you were being honest. He had always thought that there was something strange about you; about this meek wannabe soldier. Now, after what just had happened and what his ears had witnessed, the prince had a very bad feeling about this. He had an assumption - which he hoped by the holy roots of Yggdrasil that it wasn't the truth.

"Your highness?" One of the healers exited the tent, wiping his slightly bloody hands on a rug. Loki turned to face him, looking at the man expectantly. He could feel his heart hammering wildly against his chest. The healer gave him a nod, before he looked around, as if to check if nobody was in earshot. "We need to talk."

Loki swallowed; leading the man inside his tent. "The wound is patched up. It needs time to heal now." The Jotun nodded, knowing exactly that this wasn't the reason why they were talking in private now. "This isn't what you wanted to tell me, is it?" The man shook his head, swallowing. "In... In order to help, we needed to remove the armour and... We found out that your soldier is not a man, but a woman." The prince's jaw clenched. He knew it. But it got even worse. "And not just a woman, your highness... It is princess Y/N, daughter of Odin." Loki's heart almost stopped in that moment; all his facial features derailing. Princess Y/N?! "I beg your pardon, what? The princess?" The healer nodded, clinging to the rug in his hands. "Are you certain about this?" "Yes, your highness. Shall I send a guard to inform the king?" Loki shook his head. "No. I am going to inform the Allfather myself. But first, I'll have a talk with the princess. Until then... Not a word. To nobody." The healer took a bow. "Yes, prince Loki." "Leave now." The elder man took another bow, before he exited the tent. The moment the flap flew shut, everything came crashing down on the young prince. Realisation hit him with the force of his father's untamed wrath on a bad day. His brain had connected the dots. It was you. The mysterious woman at the lake. It had been you. All the time - and he was too blind to see it. By the Norns, he cursed. He had kissed you; touched your sacred body and almost took your innocence. He could've been executed for this!

A frustrated scream left Loki's lips, as he braced himself against the beautifully crafted table. Within seconds, everything was suddenly so complicated. The prince scoffed and left his tent on quick food; marching straight to the tent you were in. It was time to talk.

The first thing you noticed was soft rustling, followed by the sounds of birds, singing their songs. Was this heaven? Were you dead? For a short moment, you truly believed that - until you blinked your eyes slowly open. Your gaze was met with a moving ceiling? Frowning, you blinked again, before your brain managed to catch up. The training. Loki. The dagger which hit you instead of the target. You swallowed. A tent. You must be in a tent. "Welcome back." The sudden sound of Loki's voice cutting through the air almost gave you a heart attack. You couldn't remember what your last words were you said to Loki, so you slipped straight back into your role - like a habit. You sat up a bit with a wince, not even noticing, that your whole cover was gone, including the armour.

"You really scared me there, Sir." Loki, who stood in the corner of the tent rolled his eyes with a scoff and crossed his arms in front of his chest. "You can stop putting on your little show. Your cover is non-existent anymore, princess." The words stung in your ear, causing a shiver to run down your spine. Only now did you realise, that you weren't wearing your armour, but a loose tunic. Your hair was loose, barely reaching your shoulders. He was right. Your cover was non-existent anymore. With widened eyes, you met Loki's cold, hard gaze. He knew. He knew everything. "L-Loki, I-I-" "What in all the nine realms were you thinking, princess? Signing yourself up to this?! You don't belong here! This isn't a place for a woman!" He literally spat. The smug, gentle prince you had come to know was suddenly gone, replaced by a cold-hearted, harsh man. "I do belong here! I'm just as good as the other men, aren't I?! You said it yourself! I just wanted to-" Loki cut you off again, making a few threatening steps closer. "I don't care what your intentions were! Fact is, you shouldn't be here! I don't get to decide what happens now. All I know is, that I have to inform the king about this - and by Yggdrasil, I will." That send a wave of fear through your system. You knew Odin's wrath. You knew how angry and cruel your father could get. "N-No, please, Loki, no! I-I'm sorry, I swear, I am! I'll do anything you say! Just please... Please don't tell my father what I did! I beg of you!" He swallowed. You could literally see how the gears in his head turned. "Please..." You added, whimpering, looking at him with pleading eyes.

Unbeknownst to you, Loki couldn't stand this. Why? He asked himself. You should be angry at her, not pitying her! But somehow, something deep inside him extinguished that anger, just like water fire. Yet, he couldn't point out what it was.

The sad, broken look in your eyes almost broke him, so he averted his gaze. "I can't," Loki spoke through gritted teeth. "I can't. I have to tell him. There's no other choice." You frantically shook your head. "There's... There's always a choice!" "Not this time. If I do not inform him about this, it could be avenged as treason - and we both know what this means." He was staring into your eyes; ruby orbs literally piercing your soul, before he turned on his heels, ready to leave the tent, when your voice called out to him one last, desperate time.

"What about what happened at the lake?" You said, voice barely above a whisper. "Did that mean absolutely nothing to you?" Loki stopped dead in his tracks, before he slowly turned to face you once again. "A mistake. That is what it was. Nothing more." The words left his lips so effortlessly; hurting you deeper than you anticipated. It was like he had just rammed a knife straight through your heart, causing you to bleed to death. A strangled sob left your throat as the flap of the tent zipped shut behind him; tears starting to run down your face and dripping on the soft blanket which was covering you.

[shreddedparchment]

Unexpected

Synopsis: Your family has fallen from grace. Now you serve as a poor servant in the King's castle, picking up after those you once called friends. You've nearly adjusted to your new life when some shocking reveals dredge up old heartache and your once close friend Loki offers you a way to get even.

No tag list for this story.

Please DO NOT REPOST or translate any of my work onto any other blogs or sites!

Part 1

[chantsdemarins]

🏰Breath of the Æsir {Loki X Fem.Reader} Chapter 3: Stories Cannot Burn or Disappear

I am so sorry these chapters are taking me so long. I haven't been the same since Covid! I hope the quality is still good...Thank you for joining my crazy medieval AU Loki fever dream era.

There is a bit of Easter and eclipse magic wound up in this chapter!

Summary: Loki isn't the only one who thinks you are more than a human woman, which buys you time while you figure out how to keep your manor and tenants safe. However, the challenge of nursing a debilitated, power-stripped god adds a layer of complexity to your already daunting task, clouding your judgment when clarity is most needed.

Note to Reader: Yes, Hozier is now a character, your eyes aren't playing tricks on you 😭 But which character will he be? Guess and comment!

Passion and Romance Meter: Nothing explicit yet but hopefully you feel it boiling.

I hope these people don't mind being tagged! I thought you might want to be tagged! Please let me know if you don't want the tag or if you want to be tagged. Also comments and reblogs are healing and joyous for me!

@arcielee @ijuststareatstuffhereok89 @thomase1 @mcufan72 @caffiend-queen @fictive-sl0th @muddyorbsblr @anukulee @mischief2sarawr @mochie85 @sailorholly @lokisgoodgirl @shambelle97 @lokischambermaid @eleniblue @smolvenger @wheredafandomat @hiroyukinasukawa @meowmeow-motherfucker @latent-thoughts @buttercupcookies-blog @lcolumbia1988 @soulpiercing @wolfsmom1 @mysticmarvelfan

@holdmytesseract @superficialdomina @scrumptious-finicky-illusion @mjsthrillernp @arcielee @poetic-fiasco @gruftiela @thegodofnotknowing @thedistractedagglomeration @tallseaweed

@dangertoozmanykids101 @jennyggggrrr

The clay soil in your husband’s land hadn’t fully absorbed the blood of the Christian god. Not yet at least. The claustrophobic land was hemmed by bogs and marshes, lowlands with the familiar wooden gods made from branches poking out of the muddy banks. The tides to the east would fill the saturated earth till she could take no more before becoming a lake. This system of pooling respiration created a natural barrier for the people. The stillness of the water meant you didn’t stop for long, just enough time to plant your wooden god or light a beeswax candle, burn some leaves as an offering, and then find fast footing across the rickety log bridges built by people no one could remember.

In spring, a carpet of blue wood betony would appear. The town's folk's talk led you to forage it, keeping the blossoms and stems in dark Roman glass, tucked on the kitchen shelf next to the salt. Your husband never noticed your collection, or if he did, he never mentioned it as anything particular or strange. It was a relief to find plants that grew elsewhere, unlike the state of the manor land — high on a hill, flanked by rocky, sandy soil. Collecting plants often made you wonder if Christ might rise from the bogs. You'd just have to wait and see, you supposed, imagining Christ emerging naked from the thick peaty waters, stray herbs clinging to his torso.

Perhaps when Loki showed up, bleeding from his stomach, you'd envisioned something like that before. That desert man had a different name, Jesus of Nazareth. You blushed at the thought of any man, holy or common.

Yet, you didn't blush much while sewing Loki back up. Stitches plunged down his torso into places you'd only seen hinted at on the marble body of Jupiter in Eboracum. Your confident needlework proved itself. If your cheeks reddened, it wasn't from embarrassment but from lack of oxygen, struggling to breathe. Saving a life required haste, much different from the crafts of passing time.

The day the Northmen came you had been already struggling to breathe, you’d lost your air completely and found Loki’s form in front of you when your eyes finally opened again. His hair like ash from the hearth, his eyes the most peculiar color of blue, much like the betony in your waiting Roman jars. Just where had you gone when you’d lost your air? Loki had refused to confront the Danes, refused to fight them. He had handed you back his weapon, leaving you to confront the invaders yourself.

After all, you became a manor wife because your origins had burned in your village's fire, but not in the stories that followed. Stories cannot burn or disappear, especially when people fleeing tell them to the right people in the countryside. Your husband's family had heard your father's tales and believed him. Your hand in marriage was worth more than any dowry. It was all the more disappointing when you couldn't produce an heir or embroidery, and the manor lands remained sandy, rocky, and haunted. You hadn't known a husband should stay close or lie with his wife until Elinor finally told you. Your confidence to heal a stranger, to meet the Northmen at their boat, came from your father. He told you who you were, and like the manor people, you believed him — even if you didn't understand what you were.

The sky had darkened as you came to the mahogany longship anchored next to the wind-ravaged cliffs. You knew to avert your eyes from the mast, the Northern dragon guardian was designed to kill folk such as you. A provocation to your ancestors. There was confusion at their camp, what seemed like hundreds of men were pointing above and shaking their heads. A seer had cast the runes, and the chieftain seemed to not like what the seer had spoken. The rugged man looked up at the sky once more and sent what looked like an envoy to you. He blamed the Norns and you in yet another language you didn’t understand. He could not kill you because it would only curse them more.

Stunned, your trembling hands clutched Loki's blade in disbelief. You ran beneath the still darkening sky, which seemed poised for rain, though no clouds were visible. Looking up, you saw something unimaginable. A planet had fully eclipsed the sun. Your people knew of these events, but you had not witnessed one yourself. As you ran you wondered if the land's spirits had cast a powerful enough curse to scare the Northmen.

Returning home, you found only Loki in the makeshift courtyard, fever-ridden, slumped over the fence. Your heart sank, fearing he was actually dead this time. But the breath of the Æsir still moved through him, you could see his chest moving as you approached.

The village was silent, its people hiding. The only sound was the wind stirring the grain fields and the oak leaves in a dry, papery rhythm. Loki beckoned you inside but he was barely able to move to the porch, he was already worried you’d absorbed too much of the darkness. You fell into his arms, wincing from the feel of his fevered skin through your shift. Significantly taller, Loki's limbs resembled a freshly felled hawthorn. You dragged him closer to the front door, you both were exhausted in the strange day of night.

Your efforts paused for a moment, you readjusted your grip on the stranger. "Saturn is passing over the sun, an eclipse," Loki murmured, breaths faint and labored. How did he know this? Such knowledge was native only to your people. Still reeling from scaring off the Danes, you now faced an eclipse. Loki speculated on the Northmen's possible interpretation of the event. Since much of their knowledge came from his world, he felt he knew exactly what they must have felt seeing the sky darken as you approached.

"They saw the eclipse as a sign of your power. They recognize planetary transits. As you approached them, Saturn crossed the sun's path, a coincidence perhaps in your favor," Loki continued. "But they'll return, and we need to be ready," he cautioned, aware of your mutual defenselessness. He felt responsible for the deaths across these isles, seeking balance, an unfamiliar concept.

You had wanted him to stay long enough to know who he was but now it appeared like he wasn't well enough to be able to leave, even if that is what you both wanted. The truth was, part of you didn't want him to go at all. There was something about him. He knew some of the old ways and where ever he had come from, you suspected again, he had once held a high status.

Loki also continued to contemplate your shared fates. Did the Norns truly allow for this meeting between you as part of the path of the raven’s wingspan, his destiny as a god with no power. He dared to speak to you some of his true thoughts. He felt he owed you some kind of explanation for his resistance to fighting on your behalf.

“Lady, I wish I could help you but as you see I am unwell from my wounds. When I heal, I would like to help you defend your home as part of my thanks, I will find a way to do that does not involve fighting. We have the cosmos on our side it seems, so perhaps there is more luck for our coming together. This is of course if you will continue to have me.”

His pale face seemed even more ghastly, and he laid his body on the porch in a heap, looking very similar to how you first found him. You felt a tenderness stir. You’d felt it for him when you were saving him but now it was tinged with worry for both of your lives and everyone who depended on you.

“Loki I don't want to heal you twice, but it seems this is my fate. Let’s see what you have within you still and if your Gods are listening. I expect you will tell me why you refuse to fight or why you cannot. You owe me the truth. There is much you are not saying.”

He knew he would not be able to hide himself from you as you seemed unable to hide yourself from him. The circumstances unfolding seemed like the actions of reverse spells, instead of concealing they were revealing who you both were. This was vexing to you both.

Despite his sincere words to you, Loki was not sure this troubled land was his final destination. He wondered if he should try and leave as soon as he was able. He was speaking with two tongues. Perhaps he should venture south, go to the Midgard places where panther Gods and pyramids covered in gold existed. Those people were said to do the bidding of the gods with even more ferocity than the Northmen.

Instead, he was sick with fever and stuck with a mysterious, beautiful, and angry woman, whose husband could return at any moment and kill him for what it looked like was happening, even in the middle of a possible invasion. Suddenly his reverie broke as you lifted his shirt to inspect his wound. Your worry for his fever could wait no longer.

"Lady," he said as he batted your hand away.

You protested back, “I have seen you already, why would you be shy now stranger? I need to check your wound, you are feverish,” you continued to pull up his shirt. His gash had indeed become weeping and likely the source of his fever. Whether you liked it or not, you were healing him once again it seemed.

“Wood betony, that is what you need, you are lucky I have some. I’ll see to it Elinor makes you a poultice, and then I am putting you in one of the downstairs bedrooms.” Your eyes were worried even if your words were not. Loki placed his weakened hand on your shoulder, and spoke solemnly, “You know, we need to find your husband.”

You turned your face from him, you didn’t want Loki to notice even the smallest bit of feeling.

“Of course, that is a good idea, this is his manor and his people after all,” you replied. “We can leave when the fever breaks and you can walk without me carrying half your weight,” there was the slightest tinge of playfulness in your words to your surprise. You hoped he did not notice.

As the day was moving into evening, the villagers whispered their suspicions about the stranger you aided. The darkened sky had unsettled them as much as the Northmen. Loki was right, without your husband the manor would devolve into chaos and this would leave the village even more vulnerable.

You watched Loki slowly drag his body to the downstairs bedroom and close the thick doors behind him before you had the chance to redirect him or wish him a good night. You thought better to tell him that he had gone into your husband’s bedroom not the servant’s quarters you had intended for him to rest.

You felt your stomach twist in knots. If your husband came home tonight the wrong impression you worried you would make, would surely be inevitable. You would have to go and move Loki once you were done with your chores. A prospect that left you even more anxious.

Finally, when everyone had gone to sleep and Elinor had gone to her quarters, you stood alone in the empty house contemplating what you should do next. Sleep seemed an impossibility. The eclipse had only been five minutes, but it disturbed the entire day. Now it was nearly midnight and it felt like morning. All time had shifted somehow. Loki sleeping in your husband's bedroom loomed in your head.

To quiet your thoughts you found yourself in the kitchen, sometimes cooking felt relaxing even if you were not good at it. Instead tonight you eyed the row of bottles on your shelf. There was something else calling to you. You grabbed a jar of mistletoe berries, and held them in your hands. Their color was startling.

Suddenly you busying yourself muddling them with the mortar and pestle. If there was a recipe to follow you did not know it, you pulled a few more bottles off the shelf and added the ingredients. Mullein leaves and blackberry.

Pausing for a moment you felt that Loki’s knife was still around your body, you had placed it in a leather holder diagonally across your chest, and forgotten it was there. The knife passed over your breasts and you couldn’t help but touch the length of it.

You hadn't the time to have paid much attention to it before. You noticed the unusual, rich craftsmanship. The inlay was extraordinary. Garnets and chrysoprase. You then gently pulled it out of the holder and carefully pricked your finger with the impossibly sharp tip. This action surprised you.

You inhaled deeply. Crimson blood rolled down your finger and into the stone mixing bowl. You placed your still bleeding fingertip into your mouth hoping to quickly stem the bleeding, but the knife had been too sharp, or you cut yourself too deep.

Quickly, you sucked the wound, blood filling your mouth. You spat the excess into the bowl and placed it on the windowsill, intuitively sensing it needed the moonlight. Just then you heard a deep voice behind you. You were frozen in place, unable to turn around. It was Loki.

"I had no idea you were a seer, you could have told me that sooner and it would have cleared things up," his words rich with sleep and something else.

When you finally turned around you saw he was only wearing his leather trousers and the poultice. Your heart produced a wild, unfamiliar beat, and you steadied yourself against the kitchen table. You weren't a seer, but you could not explain what you were just doing or what you were now feeling.

Before you could stop him, Loki took your mixture from the sill and drank it. "My gods what have you done?" the startled words fell out of your mouth as he placed the now empty bowl back into your hands.

[nerdieforpedro]

Weekend Update 02/25/2024

Nerdie! You saw it right! He won! *hugs tightly*

Yes he did! 🥰 We're all so happy for him! Finally!

We're also buzzing about how he looks like he's on the cover of a romance novel. Maybe on a ranch, maybe in the 1800's. It's a pretty versatile look. He likes his deep V's....

As we all should. Also, I'm taking notes on that. *scribbles*

Anything new besides, well clearly pirate adventures?

Pirates have scurvy and Pedro is well nourished so none of that. Other ideas for his characters. Ezra and Pero might have scurvy though. I did manage to write some this week. It's been busy. 👀 Ugh...real life stuff. Nothing major. Just needs to be done.

Nerdie's fics:

Guiding Light (Ezra one shot - I was chatting with @lady-bess and had the idea for this. I always have Ezra in some crime. 😎)

Lunch is happening right? (Part two of my summer romance Javi G fic. Not sure how many parts.)

He told me his name (Din Djarin x plus size female reader) I wrote it after reading a new Din fic by @ramblers-lets-get-ramblin (will be listed below. I'd still call it moody because despite writing, I still have trouble with my vocabulary. 🤣 It is pretty though. I'm working on a follow-up since people asked 👀)

Can't win carino (Javi G one shot - for @i-own-loki because she gave me the idea and the moodboard so I ran with it.)

The Man Next Door (Jake Lockley one shot for @megamindsecretlair because she kinda asked, more like I asked her what she wanted in it. She asked for action and smut. I might try more action in fics later.)

Get a room you two and BONE (Part two of my Tim Rockford comedy series which now has romance? I binged too much B99, watched a bit of Castle and a few episodes of Kojak with my mom. The insanity will only increase with part three but maybe there might be some growth between Tim and Doc? Or a hippo.)

Nerdie I thought you said you were busy....that's six fics...

I was and some of them I had been working on for a while. I also had some insomnia (that lead to parts two and three of the Tim Rockford fic). Anyway, on to the main event! 😘

Nerdie's fic recommendations! or things I read this week. 😄

14 x kisses by @trulybetty (Jack Daniels x reader) Part of her 29 days of valentines for February.

Sorgan Girls Are Easy - Solo Din Djarin by @ramblers-lets-get-ramblin (the fic that inspired my Din - her Din has 100% more smut)

Half of you - chapter 3 by @foxilayde (Santiago Garcia x fem. reader) Slow burn series - love it and trying to read it slowly to savor it.

Falling for you by @toomanystoriessolittletime (Javi Pena x fem reader) A bittersweet read that had me wonder what was next but I was hopeful.

Sunday Naps by @javierpena-inatacvest (Frankie Morales x fem reader) More proof that cuddling with Frankie leads to wonderful things.

Poe Dameron falling in love with his shy best friend (GN reader) by @i-belong-to-the-stars What one hopes for if you're shy and you're in love with those curls...er Poe. 🫣

Mystery Strain by @rebel-held (Dieter Bravo x GN reader) All kinks are valid and who doesn't love Dieter with a belly? 😘

Bulletproof by @laurfilijames (Jax Teller x fem reader) She wrote poetic porn with feelings. I was overcome, titllated and confused.

A girl walks into a bookshop by @oonajaeadira (Ezra x fem reader) Soft Ezra with a bookshop, yes please! 😄

Beneath the mask by @saradika (Din Djarin x fem reader) A medieval knight Din...so where does one pick up the velvet dress?

Loneliness by @sirowsky (Pero Tovar x GN reader) Pondering Pero in your local Park? Highly recommended for Valentine's Day.

15 x cashmere by @trulybetty (Joel Miller x GN reader) What thread count was it that encouraged Joel to hop in bed in such a state? For my personal file. 👀

He sees you by @maggiemayhemnj (Joel Miller x reader) This writer will tell you she just loves words. I would argue that the words love her in a unique way that makes you see the things. 💜

16 x dance by @trulybetty (Tim Rockford x reader) I pictured him dancing with the reader in his trench coat. @secretelephanttattoo (El) is to the holsters as I am to the trench coat. 🤣 In my mind.

Quiet Moments Collection by @secretelephanttattoo (various Pedro characters x reader) It’s the small instances that you think don’t matter, that are the most meaningful.

Plus One by @always-andromeda (Frankie Morales x fem reader) Always a fan of two idiots in love, even with their spat.

A Strange Fate by @youandmeand5bucks (Silva x fem reader) Two people who came together because of life circumtances. Are they really satisfied?

A Beskar Valentine by @firstofficerwiggles (Din Djarin x female reader) Awesome username, it makes me giggle. Din will be ten steps ahead and still fifteen behind when it comes to matters of the heart. My guy is an overthinking champion.

Seven by @lokischocolatefountain (Javier Pena x reader) A simple discussion about children leads Javier to a drastic solution.

To be Explored Later by @legendary-pink-dot (Frankie Morales x fem reader x Santiago Garcia) aka Ms. Curls if ya nasty! 😘 Somehow I missed the gem of a sandwich. How the reader was able to think about anything is beyond me.

Red Light Glow by @missredherring (Lucian Flores x fem reader) This man has me and @rhoorl keeping track of his silk shirt and gold chain. We would accept his call. The guilt would go away too quickly if we felt it at all. 😌

Incarnadine by @iamskyereads (Pero Tovar x fem reader) This Pero has me swoon with his care toward the reader, his love of baths (I just want him to soak and relax - he's been earning coin!), and his word choice. This is another person that words appear to favor. 💜

Not like I fangirled over these writers this week or anything 👀

What on the docket for this week Nerdie?

Part three of the Javi G summer romance

Maybe...Roc & Doc part three I don't like sitting on finished parts but then I whine about having no motivation for the next part. 👀 I make no sense.

March is toward the end of the week so my March Spring Prompts will start! I scheduled the first six days I think. I got anxious about getting behind (which isn't the point of doing them but anxiety doesn't care) and did some in advance. I like how they're coming along and that they're short. Unlike this update. 🤣 They won't have summaries, but will have warnings, tags and notes.

And because I hear series and I think "I should start another one!" I decided to write an Ezra series. How did I happen upon our favorites prospector/scoundrel/reluctant father figure? I've been reading works by @morallyinept @maggiemayhemnj and @magpiepills

Ezra intimidated me because of his language, but actually, I think I'd get along with him because he puts on a persona with a great deal of performance. It's the audience's job to figure out if you're serious or not. Or at least that's how I approached him. 🤨 This could go badly. I stuck him on the bayou with an air boat and I want him to cook gumbo. *full delusional achievement unlocked*

Special shout-outs to @connectioneverywhere and @soft-girl-musings for sending me lovely asks this week.

Also to @inept-the-magnificent who called Tim Rockford her sidepiece and I am still very tickled. 🤣

This update was long 🤗 Hehe

Love Nerdie ❤️

[emmanuellececchi]

Writings list/ce que j'écris

Completed fanfiction / fanfics complétés:

Loki x Sif (Post Thor movie/Marvel) on AO3 in english :

Two of a kind

It has be elves...

FFXVI/FF16 on AO3 in english

Between a song and a book (Joshua x Reader)

A snowball fight (Joshua x Reader)

Autumn crocus in the meadows... (Joshua x Reader)

LOTR in english

A momentous Wedding : a collection of short stories, drabbles, prompt and so on. Independant chapters - more or less centered around Eowyn and Faramir's wedding (WIP - more chapters to come).

The white swan of Dol Amroth : a take on the romance between Eomer and Lothiriel. Short stories, multi-chapters and so on. Independant chapters (WIP - more chapters to come).

In dark time we sing : created for a fandome event. Who keeps the lore and knowledge alive in Rohan?

The end of Gimli son of Gloin : this is the story of what became of Gimli after the end of the war.

Absurd headcanon : LOTR and hobbit characters and cats

Original Tale - inspired by LOTR and people of tumblr

The last tale of the Woodland

Published work

La petite boule de Noël/ The little Christmas Ball : Christmas tale on amazon (.fr, .com, .ca) en français et/and in english.

Books review (In case you're curious)

WIP/travail en cours:

Original work

The Dark Lady by the sea : medieval romance - First draft, worldbuilding and editing - currently at 179K word count.

An Alberta romance story : modern romance - being edited - currently at 50K word count - summary /excerpts

Les Princesses et le dragon (the Princesses and the dragon) : a funny tale for chidlren - 2254 word count - Being prepared for eBook publication (french only for the moment) - excerpt

Le voyage de Lily (Lily's journey) : 22 k word count - Written as a tale for children - editing needed.

Fanfiction

Two Idiots in Love: FF16 Fanfic - Joshua x reader - first edit finish, second soon.

Following a dream : Fanfic FFXVI Joshua x OC - Finished/editing (65 k words)

Lots of other ideas : LOTR, FF16, FF14.

List of Not-yet-written fics

Looking for a beta-reader (français/english)? Don't hesitate to ask. I love reading and if I have time, I'll do it gladly! Fantasy, SF, LOTR, FF16, original or fanfiction - Comments, suggestions, continuity, worldbuilding... Et je peux aussi pour les textes en français ;)

[blackleatherjacketz]

Veritas

Loki x Female Reader

Summary: Loki's been watching you for some time now and he finally makes contact.

Warnings: Gay Bars, Kissing, Stalking, Face Holding, Alcohol, Trauma Bonding, Magic

Word Count: 1.3k+

Read the rest of the story HERE!

“You’ll break their hearts running off like that.” His chilly voice pierces the night like a dagger, forcing you to search every corner of the deserted patio as the door slams shut behind you.

“Excuse me?” Your shoulders jump up to your ears as you peer into the darkness, looking for anyone else he could be talking to as you squint in mild intoxication.

“They all want you in their own way, don’t they?” His pale cheekbones cut into the light as he steps out of the shadows, his slender frame draped in black. “Buying you drinks, paying you compliments in hopes to win your favor.” He takes his time walking around you, pointing in your direction with a glass half full of whiskey as if it were some kind of prop in his performance. “And you? Well, you’re beautiful, smart, charming, sure, but you’ve heard that all before, haven’t you?” He smiles as if he knows the secrets of every single person he’s ever met, including yours. “You’ve heard every line from every book they’ve used to try and chip away at that cold exterior of yours, but none of it really works, does it?”

“I, uhh,” you stare at him with your mouth wide open, wondering how someone so attractive could notice all these little things about you without you noticing them in return. This was the very first you've seen of this handsome stranger, at least that you can recall, anyways. Surely you'd remember someone so tragically beautiful that the angles of his face reminded you of a medieval painting you’d only be able to find in a museum.

He ignores your mindless stuttering and continues on with his lecture, circling in a little closer. “You let them believe they can have you for a moment, a day even, or maybe a little longer, knowing full well that you have no intention of giving them more than a glimpse of who you really are.”

“Do I know you from somewhere?” You realize only now that you've been walking backwards the whole time he’s been waltzing around you, your naked shoulders abruptly meeting the cool brick wall of the building.

“Not yet,” he smirks with a tilt of his head, “but I know you.” He stops his orbit around you as your back hits the wall, advancing forward after he empties the liquor from his glass. “I’ve been watching you, noticing how much energy you take from each little moment, saving up for when you’re finally in bed at night wondering why you’re all alone.”

What the hell? Did he just say that he’s been watching you? Is he trying to psychoanalyze your whole personality from just a few interactions he witnessed you in at the bar? Should you be worried about what’s in your drink? You glance down and cover it with your palm.

“Well, that’s one hell of a guess, Mister…” You try to play it cool as he gets closer.

“Loki,” he introduces himself finally, “Just Loki.”

“Loki?” Wait a minute, where have you heard that name before? “Not the ‘God of Mischief’, Loki?”

“None other.” He sets his drink down on the table behind him, lifting both hands up toward his chest in prideful presentation.

“Right.” You nod and takes one last sip of your drink, figuring he must be one of the new drag performers you just haven't seen yet. That would explain his accent at least, and maybe even his name. “Well, ‘Just Loki’, are we talking about me here, or are we talking about you? Because that seems oddly specific.”

He looks stunned for a moment, as if he wasn’t fully expecting you to fire back so quickly, but immediately shakes it off. “Oh, I could talk about you all night,” he redirects.

“Really?” You follow suit and set your drink on the table to your right, making a mental note not to drink from it again. “And why is that? What does a god like you want with a simple someone like me?”

“You’ve piqued my interest.” He pauses as he gets close enough for you to notice his scent, faintly reminiscent of freshly cut evergreens in the middle of winter.

“How lucky for me.” Your skepticism is your only defense against the connection you feel linking the two of you together; an irrefutable invisible line that continues to become more visible as he closes the gap between you.

“You and I aren’t that different, you know.” He stares at you with icy blue eyes, a deep sorrow weighing them down as they study every inch of your face.

“Cast aside, overlooked, underestimated until we finally speak up, demanding to be seen for who we truly are only to be pushed back down behind everyone else. So you come here, of all places, searching for that validation, longing to be chosen over and over again just so you can reject them before they do it to you. You toss your pearls at swine because it’s your only sense of control, the only way you can build that armor up around you so you never have to feel that way again.”

Jesus Christ, he’s right.

“Even now your armor’s on, knives out, ready for battle, but it doesn’t have to be.” The knob to the patio door twists open, unlatching just long enough to let the chorus of Britney Spears’ “Toxic” leak out into the air before he slams it shut with a mere wave of his hand.

“Did you just..?” You glance over at the door as the other patrons attempt to exit the building, their pounding on the heavy metal eventually dying down as they decide to give up their pursuit. He couldn’t have shut that door without even touching it, right? No, that’s not possible, that would be crazy. That would be magic, which would mean…

“These people are beneath you, you’ve always known that.” He ignores your inquiry.

“Have I?” You laugh, attempting to cover up just how right he continues to be, those eyes of his suddenly seeming to look straight into your soul. Maybe he actually is the god of mischief after all.

“You and I both know that’s why you always feel so alone in a room surrounded by people.” He places his hand on your cheek, the sudden act of intimacy freezing you in place. “Why you continue to feel hopelessly empty no matter what you do or where you go. You wouldn’t dare let any of them get close to you, not again, anyways. Because the last time you did that, every time you let someone see you… the real, raw and gentle you,” he leans in as if to kiss you, stopping just short of your lips as his words fade into a whisper. “They used it to hurt you, didn’t they?”

“Maybe.” You hold your breath as he brushes his mouth against yours, the warmth from his lips flushing your cheeks and fluttering down into your chest. How is he doing this? How is he reading you to absolute filth in the back of this random bar on a Thursday night?

Maybe you can suspend your disbelief for the time being and start believing in gods just for the night.

“Haven’t you ever wondered what it would feel like to meet someone without all that armor on? Someone who sees you for exactly who you are?” He tilts your chin up toward him as he finally parts your lips with his, the kiss softer than you imagined; his sharp words and features a mere façade for what truly lies beneath.

“Instead of what they want you to be?” You finish his thought for him as he breaks the kiss, his lips now venturing over your cheeks and forehead as they turn into a smile.

“There you are.”

[wheredafandomat]

MirrorMirror🪞🖤

Bucky x female reader and Loki x female reader

18+ | TW⚠️ This fic is a gothic romance and will contain dark themes including infidelity, deception and maybe some scary ghosts. Please do not read if these things may be triggering for you. Contains smut. Also this fic is technically Loki x reader just a lil Bucky at the beginning 😉

Chapter 2

You retrieved your speaker from the back of the van deciding to play music as you both got to work unpacking. You knew it’d take way over a day to get things in place but there was no harm in starting already. The further you ventured into your new home, the more discoveries you made. You gasped when you stumbled across a library. Entering, your eyes scanned the contents, finger tracing over the dusty spines of books.

“Gotta be worth a few bucks right.” Bucky spoke from the hallway causing you to jump startled.

“Not that we’ll ever know, I want to keep them.” You replied, turning around and facing Bucky who was holding a box labeled kitchen.

“Alright, now can you come help me with these instead of exploring.” He requested, gesturing to the box in his hands.

“I’ll take that one.” You smiled, kissing his cheek as you took the box from him before heading to the kitchen.

When you first walked into the kitchen, you were surprised to see that there were already appliances there regardless of how medieval they looked. There was a kitchen island littered with various pots and pans, some even resembling a cauldron. You assumed that the kitchen was made of some kind of stone judging by how the walls looked and felt. It was strange seeing a kitchen that looked prehistoric littered with electronics. Some of the cabinets had mirrors on them which you thought was unusual considering you had never seen a mirror in a kitchen but you dismissed that when you noticed how tired you looked. Stepping towards the mirror, you took in your appearance. These mirrors were extremely clear, truthful. Your eyes were sunken in, dark patches around them. Your hair was messy, stray strands shaping your face. You leaned closer towards it, your breath steaming up the glass as you sighed. You felt stupid, this was the first day of your new life, you had just been given a castle and yet you couldn’t find it in yourself to be overjoyed now that you were finally here. You blamed it on the tiredness as you pressed your cheek against the cold surface of the mirror. You glanced back in it, shrieking when you saw something move in the corner.

Spinning around, your eyes darted around the room as Bucky raced in, dropping the box he held.

“Y/n, y/n, are you alright, what’s happened?” He asked, holding your shoulders.

“I-I saw something.” You stuttered, pointing to the floor although you weren't sure exactly where you saw it or what it was. Bucky looked around the room quickly before returning to you.

“It was probably just a mouse, I’ll lay some traps down okay doll.” He assured, kissing the top of your head as you began to calm down.

“Y-yeah, you’re probably right.” You agreed, still feeling slightly unsettled.

“How about we get started on the bedroom? Christen the place.” Bucky suggested flirtatiously.

“Okay.” You smiled, standing on your tiptoes as you reached up to kiss him. Bucky’s hand found the small of your back as he deepened the kiss, his tongue moving against yours. Reaching down, he lifted one of your legs as he pushed you back against the kitchen island. “Carry on and we won’t make it to the bedroom.” You spoke against his lips.

“Maybe we should start by christening in here.” He answered, dropping your leg as he lifted you onto the counter. He stood between your thighs, kissing you as one of his hands traveled between your legs. He unbuttoned your jeans before sliding his hand underneath them, tugging the waistband of your panties from your body to venture beneath those too. Your arm wrapped around him as you felt his fingers against your clit. You moaned into the kiss as he drew lazy circles over it. You widened your legs slightly, needing him to enter you which he eventually did with two of his fingers. The kiss turned into an exchange of pants and moans as your hand found his hardening length. You freed his erection, fisting him as he fingered you. Your hips moved on their own accord, grinding against his hand as he pressed his thumb to your clit.

“I need you Bucky.” You whispered needily against his lips. Mere moments later he had pulled down your jeans as well as your panties as he dragged you to the edge of the counter before angling himself inside you. You sighed contently as he entered you. One of your arms wrapped around his back for stability as he fucked you, barely pulling out at each thrust. The sound of him grunting filled your ears as you pressed your face into the crook of his neck, silencing your own delight. Where you were positioned, the mirror was in front of you as you lifted your head, looking over Bucky’s shoulder. Your eyes met your own as you watched yourself getting fucked. Your jaw was slack, eyes hooded, brows furrowed as Bucky drove you to your climax. Watching yourself only fuelled your pleasure, your hidden voyeuristic nature reveling at the sight. Despite the only eyes on you being your own, you couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched by something or someone external.

You both eventually came before Bucky carried you up to the master bedroom. He had already unpacked bedding which was excellent considering how tired you were. You laid against the bed, your back against Bucky’s chest as he ran his hand up and down your arm. This was nice, welcomed. Bucky was usually either at work or sleeping before going to work, so moments like these ones were rare, almost stolen. He had booked a few days off for the move and you were going to take advantage of them.

Like most of the rooms you had seen, this one had a mirror too, it was a full body mirror that was positioned opposite you, you glanced at it, savoring the image of Bucky wrapped around you like he was before eventually falling asleep. You didn’t feel it when he got up and made his way to the en-suite. You didn’t hear when the shower turned on or how it was still running with Bucky inside when you felt the light stroke of hair being stroked out of your face.

🪞🖤

A/N: I promise this gets better!

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[a-dream-bookmark]

a dream bookmark presents: JAN 2024

mythology (noun)

the myths dealing with the gods, demigods, and legendary heroes of a particular people

Welcome to A Mythical Bookmark, our January 2024 recommendations list with a theme around mythology fics. From the start of the month of January, we have compiled a list of fics the community has given and prepared to give to you. We would like to provide our biggest appreciation to the people contributing to the making of this list. Thank you so much and we will post February 2024's list soon!

Do you want to know more about us? Check this out!

The list is below the cut!

MEMBER'S RECS

ATEEZ

|| When the Sea and the Mountain Met by @sanjoongie | requested by @writingmochi

This fic has dark/mature themes

Pairing: Njord! Prince! Jeong Yunho x Skaldi! Princess! Reader (f)

Genre: smut, angst (happy ending), fluff, Norse mythology au, njord and skaldi au, mythology retelling au, royal au, medieval au, historical au, strangers to lovers, opposites attract

Synopsis: upon your father's murder, a council allows you to choose a husband as recompense--based on what his hands look like. Yunho, a prince of the sea, and you, a princess of the mountains, are as opposite as you can get, so can you make the marriage work?

What they said about the fic: norse myth is so underrated tbh especially when you go past the whole spiel of thor, loki, odin, ragnarok, and valhala

ENHYPEN

|| Siren's Lament by @yyunari | requested by @writingmochi

This fic has dark/mature themes

Pairing: Kim Sunoo x Fem! Siren! Reader

Genre: Angst, fluff if you squint, greek mythology AU, highschool AU

Synopsis: From the day she got her powers, Y/N knew they were given to her because she was meant to use them to get what she wanted. After all, sirens were notorious in Greek Mythology for hypnotizing sailors and leading them to their deaths. She would be a fool to waste her abilities. If you were gifted like her, wouldn’t you do the same?

What they said about the fic: a greek myth creature set in a modern setting? let's go

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