The King and The Lionheart (Loki fanfic V:1)

The Edge of Glory Part 3

       "Lady Amril if you could just calm-" She tries to talk me out of being scared.

"What did you do to me?" I scream resisting the urge to throw something at her as I still need answers. Suddenly I hear someone running towards us and Loki bursts into the room. He seems ready to fight someone but as soon as he sees me he stops in his tracks and his eyes widen at my appearance.

"Amril?" He breathes in confusion and looks over to the healer hoping for some form of explanation.

"You had better pray to every single god there is that whatever you did to me is reversible!" I scream and feel my strange body begin to shake in anger. Well, maybe not anger, but it's much easier to be angry than scared. I put my hand to my throat as I realize that my voice is now a touch higher.

"Your majesty, please calm down," The healer tries to calm me down as Loki slowly positions himself in front of me.

"Calm down?" I seethe.

I look at Loki who seems to be at a loss for words but upon noticing my gaze turns to the healer, protectively keeping me half behind him. "What can be done to reverse this?" He demands glaring at the healer.

"Nothing can be done," They say I start to argue but they cut me off. "Nothing can be done because we didn't do anything to you. In fact by the looks of things, it seems that by you coming here something has been undone. A spell put on you since your infancy to hide your identity, your majesty," They bow low on one knee.

After a moment I let out a nervous laugh, but they don't laugh. "What?" I mumble, but it seems that they don't hear anything, or maybe they just choose not to answer. "Get out," They lift their head and I repeat myself. "Get out!" They scramble to their feet. "Get me someone who can actually give me some answers without treading on eggshells," I demand and they quickly leave.

"Amril," Loki whispers and softly holds my fingers with his. I quickly turn to him and he winces as if ready for me to pull away. I take a step closer to him and put my head on his chest. "Well, you smell the same," He mumbles.

I laugh heartily "Well thank the gods, there's at least one silver lining to this." He breathes a laugh and I feel his lips press to my forehead. I pull away quickly and my face turn as a red as a tomato. I stammer searching for something to say when someone interrupts us, causing us to jump away from each other. A man dressed like royalty waltzes into the room and eyes me up and down, clearly analyzing me. He bows low and waits for me to talk. "Get up," I sigh and he gets back up to his feet. "So why is it that the healer seems to think that I'm a royal?"

"We can't be sure that you are, indeed, the queen, testing must be done in order for you to be crowned," He says, bringing to my attention the fact that his voice is completely monotonous. "I am, Steg, the regent, I have been ruling this kingdom while we've waited for our true queen to come back to us one day. You will be subjected to physical tests, blood tests and the like, which should tell us your lineage."

"You haven't answered my question," I interrupt before he can go off on some other topic.

He exhales softly and I arch one of my eyebrows at his obvious distaste for my questions. "Our boundaries where created by the queen to keep us safe for while we wait for the true queen to come back. She put charms in place on her daughter for her and anyone accompanying her to be able to get through the, before mentioned boundaries. She also put an illusion charm on her spawn so that she wouldn't be recognized by anyone. This charm was so powerful that even those that were looking for signs of illusion wouldn't be able to tell that one was in place. An illusion charm fell off of you when you entered our city, which is another sign that you might be the true queen. Do you have any more questions?"

I'm too stunned to speak, I flop onto the chair that's behind me. "Amril?" Loki asks looking at me with concern.

"I'll take that as a no," Steg says. He bows stiffly and leaves us with the a thick tension thanks to this heavy reveal.

"There's no way," I quickly brush it aside. I stand abruptly causing Loki to stumble out of my way. I rush over to the window, looking for any excuse to hide my face and stop thinking about what Steg just said.

"Amril," His voice as sweet and smooth as honey. I feel him come up behind me and put his head on top of mine. He holds the top of my arms "You have to consider this possibility." I stubbornly shake my head and I feel him let out a breathy laugh against my back. I lean even closer onto his warm chest. I give him a look that asks "why?" I feel his arms snake around my waist and he hold me against his chest as we look out the large window down upon the small kingdom that seems to still be recovering form the war it faced all those years ago. A knock startles me but Loki doesn't even urn his head as if he knows who it is before they even enter, which they do without either of say that they can.

"Amril?" Thor asks startled by my appearance. I try to pull away from Loki, feeling like a teenager caught with her boyfriend by her mom, however he keeps his arms round me. Gently enough that if I were to insist I would have been able to pull away but hard enough to say that he didn't want me to leave him. Thor stares at Loki's arms around me, clearly not knowing how to react to our display of affection. "I was told what happened, but I couldn't imagine you not looking like, well... you. I'll... I'll just leave you two alone."

With that he walks out, I burst out laughing. Loki starts chuckling with me as I try to stop by putting my hand over my mouth. Our laughter dies out and my mind turns back to the matter at hand "So they can't change me back and they want to run tests on me to see if I am who I seem to be. To me that sounds like the opposite of laying low."

"Yes it sounds that way to me too," I feel his hand run down my back, along my scars, and i immediately pull away. I see a look of rejection cross his face as my face starts to flush at the contact.

"My back," I try to explain but the words get caught in my throat as a tear of shame threatens to roll down my cheek. His face lights up with realization before turning into a more somber expression. He whispers my name and suddenly I'm remember that I'm just holding a sheet over my body. He turn me back around slowly and I hear him kneel behind me. He moves the cloth aside so that he can see my back and nothing else.