Loki X Reader || Girl With The Gold Earring

7 | Snow In Summer

Anticipation—and, for the first time in a while, childish whimsy—play at the fringes of Y/N's mind.

While in the hallway, hiding behind her pot plant, she had been wondering which would be the best (and most amusing way) of revealing herself to her unexpecting prince.

Several schemes had presented themselves, all of which ended with Y/N tearing off her head scarf and yelling "HA!" (or, in the case of one scenario she particularly liked the look of: murmuring a seductive "guess who" and emerging from a dark corner–-sexily, or creepily—she hasn't decided yet).

Y/N takes a step over the threshold, and blinks in the unexpectedly low light.

Thin curtains are drawn across the long windows, dulling the white walls to a sombre grey.

There's not much in the room; a bed with no covers, a few chests of drawers, several ottomans and elegant settees. Each piece of furniture is arranged far apart and flecked with candles, vases, incense dishes—artificial clutter—as if someone had tried (and failed) to fill the gaping space.

It looks like a room from an inn, Y/N thinks.

To her left, the meal brought by the maid sits untouched on a sideboard, its steam upsetting dust particles hanging in the still air.

And then she sees him.

She hadn't before—her eyes skipping over the bundle of shadow propped limply against the far wall.

Perhaps because he's sitting in the darkest corner of the room.

Perhaps because he's the smallest she's ever seen him.

Loki sits, his legs stretched out on the floor, his head leaning back against the wall.

Y/N's plans of a playfully surprising him instantly dissolve.

His hair is longer than she remembers, mussed like a crow's plumage ruffled by bad weather. It seems as though he's just woken up, yet his eyes don't look like they've ever slept.

Quietly, Y/N steps all the way inside and nudges the door closed with her foot.

The Prince hadn't moved as Y/N had come into the room, but as the door handle clicks into place he turns to her, heavily lifting his head.

Words leave his mouth—a half-hearted question. The foreign, Vanirian syllables are unsettling coming from the lips Y/N knows so well.

Their words have too many 'S's, she thinks. It makes him sound as if the air is escaping his lungs.

On its own, Y/N's hand reaches out as if to do something; anything; run through his wiry hair, stroke his sunken cheeks, soothe his sallow skin. She can't tell if the clothes he's wearing are pyjamas.

"Loki?" the little word slips from her mouth.

His name—the rounded Asgardian letters—sparks something behind The Prince's eyes, and he sits up. 

His dark eyebrows pull together and he asks something else.

Y/N doesn't know how to answer. She wonders why he doesn't recognise her, and then remembers her head scarf. With weak hands, she reaches up and unwinds it, her skin muggy below the gauzy fabric.

The material slides away and Loki's jaw falls open.

Y/N worries for a second that she might have broken him.

He's motionless, and Y/N shifts her weight onto her other foot.

For the first time, she gets the feeling she shouldn't be here.