Loki X Reader || Girl With The Gold Earring

13 | Magic And Walnuts

Y/N's fingers scrunch into tight fists in her lap. She pictures the word she wants to send, each letter making its way across the small space, fluttering through the air like moths.

It had taken her a little while to decide on a word.

She'd wanted to send something funny; a joke or a dirty limerick—

—'There once was an elf from Alfheim,

Whose behind was simply sublime—'

—or something. She'd be able to tell Loki had heard it by a sly smile playing on his thin lips.

However, once she'd been at it for ten minutes and not even managed to send one letter, let alone a joke, she simply settled for 'hello'.

Before they'd begun, Loki had explained something called 'magic theory', which Y/N's parents would have just called 'book-learn'in'. He'd said the 'theory' part of magic is all the things people know—what it is, how it works, etcetera—and their guesses about the things they don't—whether they are in fact using it safely, and what exactly it can do.

As best she could, Y/N had listened carefully, trying to keep up with him as he led her down winding sentences, trying not to get too tangled up in the silky ribbons of his voice. She didn't understand all the information he was stacking up in her hands like a heap of dusty old encyclopaedias—

—but she figured that was okay. She had, after all, managed to conjure several spells already, all without knowing all the fancy terminology, or about quantum field theory—or whatever it was called.

The bitten slithers of her nails beginning to dig into her palms, the muscles in her jaw twinging with effort, Y/N peeks through the lids of one eye.

"Anything?"

Loki just shakes his head.

Sighing, Y/N allows herself to relax, something throbbing slightly at the back of her brain. Stretching the tension out of her arms:

"You try."

"I wouldn't know how," Loki waves her suggestion away. "I didn't even know telecommunication was possible until you did it."

Y/N feels her cheeks heat uncomfortably.

Loki has been practising the art of magic for the majority of his life just to conjure a simple projection. Yet she had managed to throw a few spells around on her first day, with no thought at all.

She chews her lip thoughtfully. "Maybe it isn't possible and we just imagined it?"

"I don't think so. It felt real, as if you were right there whispering into my ear."

"Well, if it is possible, it should be much easier for you than it is for me," Y/N presses. 

She wishes Loki practise his spells more often.

Back at The Palace, she'd pester him like an annoying child, begging him for magic tricks and illusions.

He'd roll his eyes, pretending to be irked, but always concede, the ghost of a smile just visible on his lips as he amused her with projections of deer picking their way carefully around the furniture, glittering fish swimming through their bath water, snow flurries and miniature rainbows contained within their bed canopy.

That feels like a lifetime ago.

"Your mother said you should practise." She meets his eyes. "...Have you been practising?"

Loki avoids her gaze. "No."

"You should. It will be difficult if you've forgotten how."

"I won't forget," he assures waving a finger in an arcing motion; as if it were a wand made from a sinewy twig.