Loki X Reader || Girl With The Gold Earring

4 | The Studio

Y/N couldn't even begin to guess where---or to what---the prince was taking her. When he'd said 'Come with me' she'd thought they'd at least leave his chambers. She half expected him to lead her on a long, mysterious trek to either a laboratory hidden under the palace full of half-complete experiments and vials of green liquid, or a picturesque spot he 'likes to take fine maidens to watch the sunset'. It could honestly go either way at this point.

That's why her eyebrows rose in mild surprise when the prince turned around and started walking further into his quarters rather than to the exit. Y/N had passionately cared for these rooms for the past however many months, she knew every inch of them. There couldn't possibly be anything new he could to show her.

Dutifully, Y/N followed Loki's bare feet---that were absolutely soundless on the hardwood floor---through the string of rooms. The rooms looked different with him in them, more alive, each item suddenly becoming interactive rather than an ornamental part of the surroundings. Loki always looks a little out of place in the vibrant, summery gardens of Asgard Palace, but, in here, surrounded by books and little trinkets collected over his youth, he appears quite at home.

He came to a halt at a door pushed into the very last wall in the chain of rooms, and suddenly Y/N understood. She hadn't cleaned every inch of Loki's chambers, there still remained one, that one that he'd asked her not to enter.

The study.

The door looked like all the other doors. You wouldn't be able to tell there's anything special about whatever lies inside were it not for the fact that Y/N had been asked specifically not to investigate it. Although thinking about it, she could have done if she wanted to, she's now realising. It's not locked. Loki just reached out with one well-practised hand and turned the doorknob slightly to the right, gave it a little pull, and it opened.

As if to add gravitas, or maybe just being a little bit of a showman, he then left it ajar, the thin stream of light able to escape being so meagre Y/N could tell nothing about the other side beside the fact that it must have a lot of windows. "I've never let anyone in here," Loki said quietly. It was as if he was giving the room an introduction, and---had Y/N not vowed to herself to treat him with more respect---she would have taken the breast of his thin cotton shirt and given him a little shake for being so dramatic.

Giving a small nod of her head to show that she understood the trust he was placing in her hands, or the privilege, or whatever, Y/N tried not to look too impatient or interested. Even though she really was.

"Even when I was a child I didn't let elders come in to tidy."

"I know." Y/N remembered last night's game of 'Let's Bet What Horrors Loki Keeps Locked Up In His Chambers' the staff had started at dinner. Some sickly, sour little part of Y/N's brain wondered if she was about to owe some of them money.

"You do?" The prince actually looked momentarily surprised. Did he not know he was a point of interest to basically the entire realm of Asgard, being a prince, and all?

He's not very good at the poker face expression the rest of his family have mastered so well, is he? Or maybe he is, just not around Y/N because he's wildly unprepared for a commoner to be so insolent and forward. Y/N treats him just like any other person, royal or not, and it seems to make his brain stop processing, getting jammed up like a wagon wheel with a stick lodged into it.

Why hadn't she curtsied? And how difficult is it to remember to call him 'Sir', at the very least? She's getting too relaxed, too friendly, and mentally scolded herself, although Loki didn't seem to mind.