Unbroken

Chapter 36

Several days past and Loki's head was finally feeling better, his headaches were becoming less severe and they occurred less often now, and he didn't get dizzy at all when he got up anymore. He'd been staying in his room since the accident, but now that he was feeling better, Thor suggested he leave the room and eat with them. He also suggested that Loki stop living in his room and get used to interacting with strangers and the other people in the palace, loki wasn't sure about the idea, but thor assured him that he would walk him through introductions, and he would make sure he didn't get bombarded with questions about his past. Thor also pointed out that no one in the palace (other than Odin and Frigga) have more authority than himself, so no one would be able to hurt Loki even if they wanted to. Loki was still reluctant, but eventually he agreed, he knew he'd have to face the rest of the people eventually, and he tried to keep in mind what Odin had said; that no one on Asgard had ever tried to hurt him.
"Oh, Trinity wants you to go back to the healing room after breakfast" Thor told Loki as they walked to the dinning room to eat. Loki wasn't sure why she wanted him to go, one of the other healers had checked him the day before and said he was fine, so why did she need him again?
"Alright.... why?" Loki asked. Thor shrugged a little bit.
"I don't know, she said she wanted to go over something with you, but I don't know what" Thor told him as they got to the dinning room and took their seats. Loki still felt odd having people serve him (especially meals), but he tried to act like it was normal to him.
Loki wasn't sure why Trinity wanted to see him, but for some reason he felt a little on edge about it.
"Relax Loki, she probably just wants to tell you to be careful, and that you still need time to fully recover, and all that stuff that no one listens to" Thor told him while clapping him on the back of his shoulder. Loki was getting more used to that, but he still tensed a bit whenever Thor did it, he wasn't used to being slapped in a way that wasn't meant to be painful.
Breakfast came and they all started eating, Loki stayed quiet as usual,
but he was wondering if Trinity would let him leave the palace for the day, he still intended to go find Sleipnir.
After breakfast was over Thor and Loki stood up, loki was going to go to the healing room as per Trinity's request.
"Do you want me to walk you there or do you remember the way?" Thor asked him, he had his own things to do, but he didn't want to leave Loki if he needed help. But Loki shook his head a little bit.
"I think I can make it" Loki told him, Thor nodded a bit, that was probably the first time loki volunteered to go somewhere alone without sounding nervous.
Loki left the room and headed to the healing room, it felt a bit odd to be walking around the palace alone, but he actually liked it a little bit. After a few minutes, he reached the healing room and went inside, there were several healers doing their work and when Loki came in,Trinity saw him.
"Hey, sit down over there, I'll be right with you" she said as she pointed to a healing table. Loki complied and sat down on the table and waited. After a moment,  Trinity came over to loki and smiled her warm smile at him.
"How are you feeling?" She asked. Loki shrugged a little bit.
"Fine... I was told that I'm recovered" he told her. She nodded.
"Good, I'm glad you're feeling better" she said "yes, you are, there's something else I wanted to go over with you though, this doesn't have anything to do with your head" she said as she pulled out a piece of paper with some writing on it. Obviously, Loki wasn't able to read it.
"I want you to start doing some physical exercises everyday" she said, which Loki was not expecting. Laufey often used the word 'exercise' when he gave Loki a nasty or painful job to do, so Loki wasn't sure what was going on here.
"Don't worry, it's not a big deal" Trinity said when she saw his confusion and slight concern "they're just some simple things to help you work your muscles" she explained as she handed him the paper with a list of exercises for him.
Loki didn't know what any of it said, but he took it anyway and pretended he understood it.
"I do- well, I did work all the time... why do I need this?" He asked, she said it was to work his muscles, but that's what he'd been doing his whole life and he was still skinny, so what's the point?
"You did a lot of work, but you didn't eat, so you never got any nutrients. So you'll have high endurance but your actual muscles are very underdeveloped" she explained "and I'm not picking on your physique, it's a health issue" she added quickly, realizing that he could easily think she was just mocking him, and she didn't want him to ever feel that way.
"Alright.... I'll start doing this stuff then" he said, he knew he'd have to go and have Thor tell him what it said. He had finally been able to memorize everything about the alphabet, and Thor had started teaching him basic word construction, so he was able to read a couple of the words on the paper Trinity had given him, but not enough to make any sense of it.
"Okay, well that's all I needed you for" Trinity said after a minute. Loki nodded and got to his feet again and shoved the paper into his pocket. He turned to leave but then remembered he had a question for her.
"Am I- um... is it safe for me to... leave?" He asked, he was getting his nervousness under control when talking to certain people, but sometimes he had trouble thinking of words, he'd been allowed to use so few words when he lived on Jotunhiem, so sometimes he couldn't get a full sentence out without thinking harder than normal.
"Yeah you should be fine... what do you plan to be doing? You want to be careful" she told him.
"I wanted to go hiking" he lied. She raised an eyebrow, he didn't seem like the type to go out hiking for no reason.
"Hiking? Why?" She asked.
"I lost something... I want to find it" he told her.
"Does that something happen to be a horse?" She asked. Loki didn't know she knew the kings horse was still missing.
Trinity could tell by the look on his face that she'd guessed right.
"The king and queen both said that they don't care about that horse. You don't need to bother to find it" she told him "but... I guess technically, yes. You're well enough to go hiking, just be careful" she added, she had a feeling he'd have gone no matter what she said.
"Thank you" Loki said with a slight nod. He didn't really care if it was safe or not, he was going to get that horse back.
=*****=
Loki didn't leave the palace right away, he knew Frigga would tell him to stay if she saw him leaving, so he waited until night when everyone else was asleep. Once he was sure everyone was asleep, he went to his closet and grabbed a coat, then quietly left his room. He was very afraid of getting caught, and he was sure that he wasn't the only one who could hear the very loud pounding of his heart as he snuck through the palace.
But thankfully no one woke up. He was able to get through the palace and get outside without anyone stopping him.
So he left the palace and headed in the direction of the forest.