#would like to formally apologize to loki though sorry sweet boy

[solvskrift]

fic: turn it all off (and put me under) (also on ao3)

Loki doesn't show up to be Asgard's savior. He doesn't even make it off Sakaar. At least, not on board the Statesman. Whumptober Prompt #23: You Break It, You Buy It | auction + pursuit

“Three hundred thousand, have I got three hundred?”

Loki stood perfectly still at the front of the hall, just as he had been told. His heartbeat pounded in his ears, nearly drowning out the words. He was barefoot and naked to the waist, hands bound behind his back. The Grandmaster had taken away the blue leather trousers that belonged to the set he’d had made for Loki all those weeks ago and replaced them with a pair of black ones, thinner and simpler in style. They were trimmed with green, and faint touches of gold to match the band around Loki’s throat.

“To bring out your – lovely features,” the Grandmaster had said as he traced a fingertip along the tender skin under Loki’s eye.

----

The Grandmaster slipped it on, reaching around the back of Loki’s neck to clasp it shut. “Now,” he said, running a soothing hand over Loki’s flank as though he were calming a spooked horse. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

Loki couldn’t answer from where he was pinned to the wall by the force of the ancient magic the Grandmaster wielded so effortlessly. His mouth felt like it had been sealed shut. He made himself shake his head, as much as he could.

“I don’t, uh, understand why you’re making such a big fuss about this, honey, I really don’t. You’re the one who tried to leave me, remember? There are worse things I could do, I’m sure you – um, realize that. Huh?”

Loki nodded automatically, knowing the response the Grandmaster required, while he reached desperately for his own magic. It would not answer. He could feel it churning inside of him, but it seemed to have forgotten how to break the surface.

The Grandmaster chuckled as if he knew full well what Loki was attempting to do, and ran a finger over the snug golden band. “Uh-uh-uh…sorry, sweetheart, I truly – truly am. But it just had to be done. You’re too much of a wild card, you know, you’ve proven that.” He stepped back and sighed fondly. “Now, you’re not gonna try to fight me again, are you?”

Ice pumped through Loki’s veins, and his mind sped off in a thousand different directions, examining every angle of his unfortunate situation, searching for some way – any way – out of it. Very slowly, he shook his head.

The force holding Loki against the wall disappeared. He straightened up cautiously, eyes trained on the Grandmaster.

“Good. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way – time for you to meet dear brother mine.”

----

Loki did not so much as allow himself to twitch as the auctioneer – a species he thought he recognized from the second quadrant of Muspelheim’s galaxy – slammed his giant fist on the metal podium. The young Xandarian woman who had just sold for half-a-million units was led, shaking, from the dais and taken through a side door. One of the Grandmaster's colorfully dressed guards poked Loki viciously in the back, and he stepped forward. He dug his nails into his palms behind his back, keeping his face utterly blank. He forced himself not to look in the direction of the Grandmaster, or his brother.

Carefully, so as to project profound disinterest instead of panic, Loki let his eyes roam over the room, instinctively looking for any possible escape route. There were none. He could try to run. But without his seiðr to help him, bound and surrounded by guards and a roomful of interested patrons as he was, it was a great deal more than hopeless. He would never make it to a door, and if he did he would certainly never make it off the ship.

Loki caught the Grandmaster making a gesture out of the corner of his eye, and the auctioneer spread his arms wide. He rattled off the Grandmaster’s pre-approved description of the – item for sale, Loki thought, his jaw clamping down savagely – and Loki tuned it out, only vaguely aware of increased murmuring at words like prince and shifter. And Jötunheim.

“Esteemed guests, we start the bidding at twenty million.”

----

The door opened, and Loki could not stop himself falling back a step.

“Lo-Lo, I’d like you to meet my brother – Taneleer Tivan.”

Loki knew very well who he was.

The Collector. The creature who stocked his display cases with rare objects and living beings alike. Loki stood rooted to the spot, and this time he did not need the Grandmaster’s power to make him stay. He might have been made out of solid marble for all his body wanted to obey his mind’s screams to flee.

Tivan hummed in a breathy sort of way. He took another step forward into Loki’s space and put a single finger to his jaw, turning his head this way and that. “Mmm, he is…pretty,” he began disinterestedly, “but I have no need of an – Asgardian.”

The Grandmaster blinked long and slow, grinning. “Oh, there’s much more to this one than meets the eye. Right, sweetheart?”

Loki swallowed. He commanded himself to throw off the Collector’s touch. To look around the quarters for a knife, for anything sharp enough to sever a couple of jugulars. He didn’t move.

“Loki here was, uh, adopted,” the Grandmaster went on. “He might smell like an Asgardian, but um – go ahead and jump a few species over.”

Tivan’s expression remained deceptively bored and his finger dropped away from Loki’s jaw, but his eyebrows rose towards his hairline.

The Grandmaster placed his palm flush to Loki’s neck. Loki knew what was going to happen, what he was going to do, and no longer knew if it was his own terror or an outside force keeping him nailed to the floor. He could feel the change spread across his skin – the air around him seemed to warm. He caught a glimpse of himself in one of the room’s mirrors, a stain of blue, a flash of red, and he slammed his eyes shut.

It took everything in him to wrench them back open, knowing even that small tell of discomfort was valuable information in the wrong hands.

The Grandmaster put a hand on his brother’s shoulder and leaned in close to his ear, lowering his voice to a stage whisper. “Fffrost giant.” His tongue tapped out the ‘t’s with extra emphasis.

Loki felt like he was going to vomit.

“A natural-born shapeshifter,” the Grandmaster explained with a lopsided leer. “Quite a talented one…”

Tivan’s shoulders shook in an approximation of a shudder. His dull eyes ranged over Loki again, from his toes to the top of his head.

The Grandmaster’s voice grew even quieter, hardly a whisper. “Not to mention a, um, powerful – ah – magic user.”

Tivan let out another one of those breathy hums. “Forty million units.”

The Grandmaster scoffed and clucked his tongue. “Tan. Tan, Tan, Tan, I’m just givin’ you the – the sneak peek! A little family perk.” He removed his hand from Loki’s neck, and Loki felt his skin shift back to pale white. Despite his terror, a grateful lump rose in the back of his throat. “But I know – I know! – you’ve got a lot more than that, you’ll have to duke it out with the rest of ‘em. Can’t let my sweet little Lo-Lo go for forty million.” He gave Loki a conspiratorial wink. “Even if you did help your brother and my champion escape and start a revolution.” Loki bit down on his tongue, though he burned to explain again that he hadn’t actually meant for any of that to happen. The Grandmaster wagged a finger at him, half-turning to his brother. “He’s the reason we’re on this ship, you know – well,” he broke off, flapping his hands. “He knows what he did, he knows what he did.”

Loki did know.

Loki knew, too, that he should have slain the Grandmaster in his sleep when he had the chance.

----

“Seventy-eight million, I have seventy-eight, do I hear eighty? Eighty million in the back, do we have eighty-five?”

The hulking being who raised his hand at eighty-five million had a brutal set to his face, and Loki felt perversely thankful when his selling price was driven higher in a different direction. The number climbed steadily. Loki tried for what seemed like the hundredth time to stretch out and grab hold of his seiðr, but it continued to elude him. It was a twisted sort of relief that his wrists were bound and he could not reach up and claw at the band around his throat. He did not know if he would have been able to stop himself otherwise. It only would have ended in punishment. The despair he had been choking down began to climb up through his chest, dragging the air out of his lungs.

Against his will, Loki’s eyes flicked over to the Collector sat not twenty feet away in the front row at the Grandmaster’s right side. As if this had been some sort of cue, the Collector raised a lazy hand into the air.

“Five hundred.”

The auctioneer paused, uncertain. “Five hundred…million?” he clarified.

The Collector gave a slow blink and inclined his chin. Beside him, the Grandmaster crossed his arms and legs and leaned back in his chair with a wide grin on his face, tongue between his teeth.

“We have five hundred million!”

The despair swelled and crashed over Loki in a great black flood as he realized there had never been any other possible outcome to this charade. It had simply been a game the Grandmaster had wanted to play, only another amusing way to torture Loki for costing him his champion, his games, his planet—

There was not a single soul who knew where Loki had ended up (or where he was going to end up) let alone any who would care in the least to come looking for him. His – elder sister – had certainly obliterated Thor and his company of rebel misfits by now. Who else, what else was left to him? There was no one coming to save him. There would be no rescue. Tivan sat up a bit straighter in his seat, the ghost of a smile brightening his perpetually bored expression, and Loki saw the fate that was carved into stone and laid before him as sharp and clear as a vision. Put on display in a glass cage, chained and stripped of his magic, reduced to a thing, a curiosity. A slave.

Loki would have gladly taken the dungeons of Asgard, or the Grandmaster’s bed, in place of the sentence he now faced.

The Collector’s lips twitched in satisfaction in the silence that followed his bid, and one final moment of clarity brought that black wave surging up to suffocate Loki at last, sealing him inside his ruin.

Taneleer Tivan, he recalled with the dying of his last ember of hope, presided over more than an eclectic assortment of the universe’s oddities. He had been entrusted, too, with the keeping of the Aether – and it would sing as a siren to the Mad Titan who listened closely to its call.

The hand came down, striking the metal podium with a clang that echoed around the hall. The sound of an axe Loki had expected long ago finally falling.

“Sold!”

[imagine-loki]

The Witch's Familiar

TITLE: The Witch’s Familiar CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Chapter 26/?

AUTHOR: nekoamamori ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine getting so attached to Lokitty early on that you insist on carrying him just about everywhere.  RATING: T (so far)

    You were still curled safely in your Lokitty’s arms when you woke again. He was purring softly, the half-purr that he usually only had when he was asleep. You smiled and thought about how you could very much get used to waking like this. “It is a most pleasant way to wake indeed,” Loki’s voice was husky with sleep when he spoke. He kissed your forehead and then kissed you lightly when you tilted your head up to look at him. “Put your shields back up, little sorceress,” he answered your unasked question of how he’d heard your thoughts. The nightmares had stripped your shielding away, which is how you’d been projecting your nightmare in the first place. The shielding kept your mind safe from intruders, and outsiders safe from your thoughts.

    “Sorry…” you murmured and concentrated for a moment to settle the shielding back in place.

    “I don’t mind, but there are others here who can hear thoughts as well. I do not trust them not to meddle, thinking a Midgardian an easy target,”

    “You still should have told me so you didn’t have to deal with me projecting all night,” you reminded him as you sat up and absently started petting Sera, who curled happily in your lap.

    “Darling, you were distraught enough last night without me bringing up your shielding. I was perfectly capable of protecting us both until you were feeling better. And don’t you dare apologize for having a nightmare,” he added quickly before you could do just that.

    “Bossy cat,” you grumbled good naturedly at him. He laughed in reply and gave you a Cheshire cat grin.

    “Hungry cat,” he corrected and stood from the bed. “Breakfast will be starting soon. Don’t worry, it’s less formal than dinner,” he added quickly at your discouraged look. You weren’t sure you were cut out for Asgardian court life. Loki insisted you were doing fine and making a good impression, but you didn’t believe him. He was a known liar after all.

    Loki offered you a hand and pulled you to your feet. “You must be hungry,” you teased as his magic shimmered over the pair of you so he was dressed in a green tunic and black pants (and sadly missing his adorable cat-ears again) and you were in a more casual, but still gorgeous floor length Asgardian gown. You smirked at him. “Very hungry cat,” you added dryly.

    He grinned. “That, and I am happy to be home, however briefly,” he reminded you warmly.

    “Right… Odin did send you to Midgard,” you remembered it wasn’t a volunteer mission like Thor’s trips. Which is why Loki had been a cat for months and refused to turn back. Earth wasn’t his home, no matter how much he seemed to like it there now.

    “I don’t mind anymore,” he reassured you quickly “but it is nice to visit home,”

    Breakfast was a much smaller affair than dinner. You sat at a big table with Thor and his warrior friends and they spent the meal telling stories of glorious battles as they devoured a entire table full of food. The others besides Thor and Loki kept trying to insist you needed to eat more. You, Thor, and Loki all had to convince them that Midgarians were not bottomless pits. It took convincing that you weren’t just being polite and shy.

    “So Loki, how old is your lovely mortal?” Fandral asked in Asgardian instead of Allspeak.

    “It is rude to inquire of a lady’s age, Fandral,” you replied in kind, teasing Thor’s silly warrior friend. You laughed at his shock that you understood their language, even though you’d been speaking it mostly exclusively since you’d been here. They weren’t expecting you to be able to and kept using Allspeak to try to make you feel included. It was thoughtful, though unnecessary. “However, I am not mortal, not in the sense you are referring, and I am 500 years old,” your Asgardian was a little formal, since you learned it for court setting, but Thor’s friends didn’t complain. Fandral just continued to stare. You turned to look at Loki. “I know my accent is atrocious, but did I say it wrong?” you asked, concerned that you weren’t as fluent as you thought you were.

    Loki laughed and shook his head while Fandral spluttered “500? But Midgardians only live to 100,”

    “Yes, Fandral, my lady is 500 years, still a young lady,” he told Fandral with a mischievous smirk and leaned over to kiss your cheek. “And your accent is fine, darling,” he told you warmly.

    “That’s sweet of you to say, but Thor is quite insistent that it’s awful, and you are a flatterer and a known liar,” you teased him.

    He inclined his head. “That may be, however, my brother is an idiot,” Loki reminded you with a grin at Thor. “He’s just grumpy that his accent is the one of the warriors and yours is of the court like mine,” he explained and your confused expression. That made sense, he would be grumbly that you sounded more royal than a prince of Asgard did.

    Fandral finally stopped looking shocked and looked intrigued instead, and like he was interested in stealing you away from Loki. Like that was going to happen. Hopefully he wasn’t stupid enough to make the attempt. Loki might kill him for the insult.

    Everyone at the table started to rise when the Queen walked into the room. She gestured at you all to remain in your seats. Loki stood anyway to offer her his place. Adorable Mama’s boy. She kissed his cheek. “Thank you darling, but I can’t stay. I’m actually on my way out to Asa Village. A rash of pox has popped up there. I will return by dinner, and I’m taking assistants and guards. Don’t fret, dear,” she bid Loki warmly. He was obviously preparing to fret over her safety. “Boys, your father wishes to see you after breakfast. He has business for you both while you’re home,” Frigga told both Loki and Thor. They both inclined their heads. Her messages delivered, she went around the table. Each of the warrior boys stood and kissed her hand and she kissed their cheeks in reply. She and Sif kissed each other’s cheeks. You had a feeling she had adopted Thor’s friends as her children too, based on her interactions with them. Thor hugged her warmly and kissed her cheek, not the least bit embarrassed to be kissing his mother’s cheek in front of all of his big strong warrior friends. You stood and dipped a curtsy when she reached you. There was no way in the seven layers of hell that you had already been adopted as one of her children. You’d met her officially yesterday. “No need for all of that,” she told you warmly. You rose from the curtsy shyly. You didn’t know how to deal with this gently formidable woman. You were shocked when she kissed your cheek as well. Maybe she just adopted everyone who wandered into her life. “Thank you for making my Loki so happy, darling,” her voice was warm and kind, but soft enough that the others couldn’t overhear. She turned to Thor’s warrior friends before you could reply. “Children, would you keep Y/N company while Loki is busy today?” she asked them. They were quick to agree. She said goodbye to her sons and headed off to her healing trip.

    Fandral started to step toward you, but Sif wrapped her arm around your shoulders before he could. “Want to see the practice yards?” she asked you kindly, but glared at Fandral, as if aware of what he was up to. “Some of the court ladies and the shield maidens should be practicing at this time of the morning,”

    “Sounds like fun,” you replied with a smile.

    She grinned. “Good, say goodbye to lover-boy. He’s got work to do, and we can see if you have any skill with a blade,” she teased and removed her arm from your shoulders. You turned back to Loki.

    “Darling, are you sure you’ll be alright?” he asked in English, concerned that he was leaving you alone. The others could understand, of course, but they would pretend the conversation was private since the change of language was a request for privacy.

    “Lokitty, I’ll be fine. Sif will keep me company while you’re busy. Even if she couldn’t, I would be ok. Besides, I have a dragon hanging out with me. You know her overprotective ass won’t let anything happen to me,” you teased him. He chuckled and gave you a soft kiss.

    “Very well, but call me if you need me,” he told you softly. You knew he meant either telepathically or through the magic pendant he’d given you.

    You thought for a moment, but hadn’t had a chance to prepare anything. So you steeled yourself and slipped the ring off the ring finger of your right hand and pressed it into his hand with a small charm on it. “Hold onto this for me?” you asked him softly. He raised an eyebrow. “In case I need to find you quickly?” He smiled warmly then, realizing what you were up to. You could find the item that was yours, the piece of your magic you’d placed on it and teleport directly to where it was.

    “Of course, darling.” The ring was obviously much too small for him, but he summoned a necklace-chain to slip the ring onto, clasped it quickly around his neck, and tucked the ring under his tunic. He’d wear it to make you both feel safer.

    “Please take care of it, it was mom’s,” you bid him. You would have…possibly…given him something else, but it was the best thing you had on short notice.

    “I promise,” he told you warmly and leaned down to kiss you. And kept kissing you until Thor huffed and grabbed his arm to drag him one way. Sif grabbed yours to drag you the other. You were both laughing when they broke you up.

    *

    Sif gave you a tour of the practice yards, while Fandral tried to follow along and make a nuisance of himself, but was politely denied entrance to the maidens’ practice court. “You can borrow a set of practice armor if you want to join us,” Sif suggested.

    You looked over her outfit of armor. “Is that what you typically wear?” you asked, gesturing to her. She nodded, looking at you suspiciously. You kept your eyes on her and used magic to change your dress to armor identical to hers but in the green of your Earthen battle costume instead of her red. “Look ok?” you asked her. She nodded with a bright smile.

    “Let’s see what you can do with a blade, sorceress,” she teased. You worked out with her for awhile. You weren’t the best at fighting physically, but you could hold your own and she seemed impressed.

    You spent the morning with Sif and the other maidens until guards ran up to Sif. “Lady Sif, there has been an attack on Asa Village. Your presence is required,” one of them told her. She nodded and the guards went on their way to gather whoever else they needed.

    Asa Village

    Asa-

    The Queen! You looked at Sif. “You’re riding out there, right?” you asked her quickly. She nodded as she rushed to the armory to grab her weapons. “I’ll go get Loki and Thor if I can find him. We’ll meet you at the stables,” you told her quickly.

    “You know where they are?” she demanded.

    “I know where Loki is,” you told her. She nodded.

    “Hurry!”

    You nodded and vanished, following the pull of your mother’s ring. You appeared inside of a council room, facing Odin, Thor, and Loki. They all looked up when you materialized in front of them. “What is this-?” Odin started to demand.

    You bowed, right fist over your heart as the warriors did. “I apologize for interrupting,” you told him calmly. “There has been an attack on Asa Village-” They all gasped and looked horrified. They all started to run from the room. You grabbed Loki’s arm then Thor’s as he tried to run past you. They both looked at you, glaring.

    “Where are the stables?” you demanded. Loki realized what you were asking faster than Thor.

    “Brother, take the Allfather’s arm,” Loki told him firmly while he ‘knocked’ on your mind’s shield. You let him past your outer shields so he could give you the image of the location. Once Thor was touching Odin, you teleported all of you to the stables, grateful your magic was back in full. Odin was in the saddle of an eight-legged horse in an instant.

    “Thor, Loki, gather the others, follow with the troops as soon as they are assembled,” Odin ordered. He galloped off without another word.

    Loki started to protest, heartbroken at being held behind. Thor clapped him on the shoulder. He was worried about Frigga too, but he would do his duty. Loki loved Frigga more than anything and being forced to stay behind was killing him. But you were under no such restrictions. You turned to him. “Give me something of Frigga’s,” you told him gently, but urgently.

    “But I- we-”

    “You’ll catch up. I can beat even an eight legged horse to the village,” you reminded him. He just stared at you hurt and confused. You lifted Sera off your shoulder. Thor opened his mouth to protest until you glared at him. “Time to shift, Sera. We have work to do,” you told her. She nodded and on unspoken agreement, you tossed her into the sky, giving her a boost to where she’d have room to shift. She shifted to her full dragon form as she soared upwards. You turned to Loki. “Trust me, Loki. I will find her,” you bid him.

    “You shouldn’t even be coming- You’re a guest and we brought you here to keep you safe-” he started to protest. Thor started to agree. You glared at them both.

    “You brought me here to keep me safe from witch hunters. Like I would stay behind when people need me, when you need me. Trust me, Loki. I’ll find her and I’ll keep her safe.” He hesitated, looking so scared, but summoned a hairbrush and handed it to you.

    “I will be right behind you,” he told you, still heartbroken that he couldn’t just go now.

    “I know. I’ll find her and keep her safe until you get there. I swear it.” You kissed him and saw the grateful look in his eyes when you broke the kiss. You summoned a glaive and strapped it to your back. If you were going alone into battle, you weren’t going to rely solely on magic. Sera swooped down and you swung onto her back, using the saddle that had somehow appeared there. You didn’t question it at the moment.

    “Y/N-” Loki’s eyes were haunted and heartbroken. Even he was tongue-tied by hurt and sorrow and a stupidly strong desire to break the rules, but even he could only disobey Odin to a certain extent and no more, especially with Thor here. Thor didn’t want to let you go either, but wouldn’t stop you, not with his mother’s safety on the line. He had fought alongside you more than Loki and knew your skills. He trusted you abilities.

    “I’ll find her, Loki,” you reminded him firmly, though nodded to Thor too. “I swear it. I will find her and I will keep her safe,” you turned your attention to Sera. Loki was too haunted and scared to even tell you to be careful. You didn’t blame him in the least. “Fly, Seraphina. Show me the meaning of haste.” She ran a few steps while you settled and held onto her tightly. Her wings pumped and you were in the air. You worked a quick locator spell using Frigga’s hairbrush and sped toward the village as fast as Sera could fly.

[thejokersenigma]

Loki Laufeyson x Reader - Slow Dance - Part 1

We interrupt our regularly scheduled Loki x Reader series, to give you this! The first part of a short 3 part series I came up with when I should have been sleeping last night!

It is based on the song ‘Slow Dance’ By Kelly Clarkson, so hopefully if you read this and listen to that you might work it out? Hopefully...

ANYWAY. I’ll try and get the other parts to it done today as well as they aren’t too long, but I am technically supposed to be revising... plus I want to get the next Match Made in Hel part started too... We’ll see what happens...

Summary: Reader was a childhood friend of Loki’s until she move to Vanaheimer for studies. She’s soon to be back in Asgard and attends a ball in hope of making connections for her future. She wasn’t expecting to catch the eye of her child friend who has certainly changed from the boy she used to know. Can she trust his words when he’s such a clear player? And why has he changed so much?

(shit summary sorry…)

If you want to be tagged in anything let me know

REQUESTS ALWAYS OPEN

MASTERLIST

[Y/N] watched the activity of the large hall from the safety of her place on the edge of the room. Beautifully gowned women swirled with men in their best ceremonial armour in the centre, and groups of people collected around the unmarked dance floor, with drinks in their hand and merry chat on their lips.

[Y/N] surveyed the room as she sipped her strong wine, looking for no one in particular, but keeping her eye out for any important connections she felt she ought to make. After all, that was the only reason she was here, her studies in Vanaheimr were almost over and that meant she would be soon be returning here to Asgard and she needed to make sure she had a future here.

That didn’t make socialising any more fun for her though.

As her eyes scanned the room once more, she saw a familiar figure just off from the main dance floor and she felt her eyes linger.

Tall, dark and handsome as always, with enough charm to make even the most frigid women fall into bed with him, the young Prince Loki seemed to be putting his skills to good use, currently with his head bowed over a young lady, whispering her ear. Whatever he said made her erupt into ridiculous girly giggles and her face turn a bright red.

[Y/N] rolled her eyes at the display, another naïve girl had fallen for the so-called God Mischief - what a surprise.

Nonetheless, [Y/N] continued to watch the couple until Loki murmured a final parting line to the girl which – judging from the look on the girl’s face – [Y/N] would have put good on money on being a promise to see her later that evening in a more secluded spot.

[Y/N]’s eyes followed Loki as he easily manoeuvred through the crowd of people - never seeming to touch people he didn’t expressively want to, despite the cramp conditions. His eyes roamed the hall - looking for his next victim no doubt – and his eyes momentarily caught hers.

A flicker of recognition crossed the man’s face and [Y/N] fought the urge to look away from the familiar piercing green eyes. Instead she just lifted a questioning, unimpressed eyebrow at his behaviour – sure he probably knew she’d seen it. He understood instantly made gave her a devilish grin. [Y/N] rolled her eyes again, turning from the man, leaving him to his games, and heading to a group of friends she had spotted on her left.

At least he recognised her, she supposed. That had to count for something right? – maybe a small amount of the boy she used to know still remained behind all the cunning charm.

Loki had always been handsome and charismatic – even as a child – but he had used it to earn an extra sweet roll after dinner - not to bed every woman in the realm.

[Y/N] shook the prince out of her head as she reached her friends, instead immersing herself fully into the conversation with the three girls in front of her who were merrily chatting about the difference in prices of cloth between the realms. [Y/N] was debating, quite heatedly, how much she thought silk should cost when she felt a cold hand on her waist, making her practically jump out of her skin. She snapped her head around to find Loki at her side, giving a slow easy smile to the group of women in front of him.

“My apologies, ladies, but would you mind if I borrowed Lady [Y/N] for a few moments?” The prince asked in a rather sultry voice next to her. [Y/N] could see the immediate effect Loki had on her friends – all of them now looking rather star struck and tripping over their words as they eagerly gushed that it was fine.

Great, [Y/n] thought, now she had no choice but to pulled away by the prince, leaving the safety of her companions behind her.

Loki’s hand slipped from her waist to the small of her back as he guided her across the room to a relatively empty space close to a large wooden table which had once offered a variety of drinks, but was now looking decidedly empty.

When they stopped, [Y/N] finally turned to the Prince, looking at him stonily. “Can I help you, my prince?” She asked rather sharply, though not forgetting her formalities - he was royalty after all.

“Straight to the point as usual…” Loki drawled with a grin, “You haven’t changed a bit in all the years you’ve been gone.”

“Yeah, well I wish I could say the same for you.” She scowled.

Loki just smirked, “Do you not approve of the new improved me then?” He asked, stepping back slightly, and raising his arms out to the side to allow her to see him completely. [Y/N] let her eyes rake him up and down, pursing her lips like she was seriously thinking it through.

“Not particularly, no.” She admitted with a shrug and shake of her head. Ok, so that was partially a lie - she couldn’t deny that the man was incredibly handsome -  truly getting the whole tall-dark-and-handsome-thing to a T - and it definitely didn’t surprise her how many girls threw themselves at him -  but that didn’t mean he had to agree to anything, and especially didn’t mean he had to encourage them.

Yet he did.

“You wound me, my lady.” Loki declared teasingly with a pout and look of hurt on his face.

“I’m sure you’ll survive.” [Y/N] muttered dryly. He grinned at her comment and she had to ignore how the smile made his face light up. She shook her head again “I’ll ask once more, my prince. What do you want?”

He raised an eyebrow at her rather brusque words, but he didn’t let it phase. “Why, my dear,” He said, his voice soft and alluring. “I would like to request the honour of your company as I take a turn around the gardens.” He bowed slightly at this and [Y/N] couldn’t help noticing he played the role of the polite gentleman very well, but she could also see that slight sparkle in his eyes.

“I’m afraid I must decline, your highness.” She said firmly. “I am all too aware of what awaits any women that walks out into those gardens with you.” She said, playfully jabbing a finger at his chest – though she doubted he could feel it through his armour – “and I do not wish to join that collection – despite the high status it seems to hold.”

Loki raised an amused eyebrow at her. “Oh, I’m sure you’d find you’d rather like it…” Loki teased almost huskily, taking a step toward her and his eyes seemed to have darkened somewhat as he gazed down at her.

[Y/N] ignored the sudden warmth his eyes seemed to create in her body, and eyed him unimpressed. “I’m afraid you’re wasting your time, your highness.” She said politely, but firmly, before she turned away from him in a sweep of her skirt.

Before she could walk off though, he had grabbed her forearm holding her in place. [Y/N] felt him step up behind her, not quite touching her, but only inches away. “Come now, [Y/N] …” He purred in her ear, “I just want to spend some time with an old friend…” He breathed, and his warm breath tickled her neck.

She turned to him face him then and he released her arm. She placed her hands on his chest, feeling the leather and metal beneath her fingers and she leaned into him as she slowly traced her fingers along the detailed straps that crossed over his torso. Loki seemed to hold absolutely still, silent for the first time in his life. “You really do know how to romance them don’t you…” [Y/N] purred, tilting my head to look up at him, her cheek only a breath away from resting on his chest between her hands. She fluttered her eyelids seductively up at him like one of his love-struck followers as she leant even more against him and she noticed how his seemed even darker now - almost completely black in the torch-lit room, the grin on his face promising sin. He looked almost proud of himself.

“Well, I can see right through you…, my prince.” [Y/N] sneered, dropping her act, eyes immediately stony again, and she shoved herself off his chest, spinning back around and disappearing into the crowd before he could grab her again.