Giftless

Chapter 6

You woke, hearing familiar lines spoken in an unfamiliar accent: "She was such a little girl that one did not expect to see such a look on her small face. It would have been an old look for a child of twelve, and Sara Crewe was only seven. The fact was, however, that she was always dreaming and thinking odd things and could not herself remember any time when she had not been thinking things about grown-up people and the world they belonged to. She felt as if she had lived a long, long time." The words were familiar, from one of your favorite books, A Little Princess. The voice reading them wasn't your parents' or even Uncle Tony's, though. It was a male voice, warm as honey with a British accent. You opened your eyes and looked over at the speaker, trying to think through the fog in your mind to determine who it was. You could finally see that it was Loki, sitting in the chair next to your infirmary bed. He paused his reading when he heard you move.

"Loki?" you asked, your voice a hoarse croak as you moved to sit up slowly, your body heavy and sluggish from whatever they'd given you for the pain. You saw the concern in his expression, in his eyes.

"Are you alright?" he asked gently. You nodded. He clearly wasn't convinced when he asked: "How are you really feeling?" he rephrased the question in order to get the truth out of you. God of lies, of course he could change the question to suit his needs.

"Like I flew across a room and hit a wall at full speed," you admitted with a groan. The pain meds were wearing off quickly now that you were awake.

"I did not mean to wake you. You should get more rest," he told you gently. With a quick glance around to look for onlookers, and a mischievous grin, he reached one glowing hand out to you and touched your cheek, the chain between his wrists still clanging at every movement.

You didn't know what he was doing at first, until the pain left you in a moment and you were filled with a warm honeyed feeling. His magic was drawing you back down to sleep no mater how much you struggled against it.

"Cheater," you murmured as your eyes were fighting to shut.

"Rest, love. You are safe and you need to heal," he told you gently as he helped you lie back down.

"Thought you couldn't do magic in chains," your voice was getting slurred as you fought to stay awake a little longer.

"So do they," he replied gently with his Cheshire cat grin. "Now rest." You eyes closed and you fell back into the depths of sleep.

*

It felt like hours later when you finally woke again. You sat up much more steadily this time and the pain didn't return immediately. Loki was still by your bedside, reading a book silently this time. One of the nurses came rushing over. "He refused to leave your side," she indicated Loki. "He wasn't doing any harm, so we didn't force the issue, but we can make him leave..." she offered. You shook your head.

"No, he can stay, but can I go back to my own room soon?" you hated hearing the whine in your voice, but you wanted to get out of this hospital environment. It reminded you too much of being in the actual hospital after you parents died.

"As soon as the doctor checks you out," she replied gently. She scurried off to go get the doctor in question, seeing the desperation in your eyes to get out of here.

You looked over to Loki when she had left and saw he had looked up from his book. "Has Uncle Tony come back?" you asked him, wondering why he was in the spot you expected Tony to be in. You also expected that their arguing would have woken you. The two clearly seemed to hate each other. You also couldn't imagine Tony staying away while you were hurt, especially when it had been his fault.

Loki shook his head. "Director Fury is keeping him away. I believe he is receiving some sort of punishment duty for what he did," he explained with a shrug. You felt bad for your uncle if that was the case, but you couldn't really be surprised. You could be surprised that Tony actually agreed to do the punishment duty. He didn't listen to anyone. Except Pepper. And apparently occasionally Fury.