Loki continues staring at me and I remove my had from my dagger's hilt.
"I must ask for your silence."
"Why should I?" He asked, seeming amused. Someone pounds on the door behind me.
"Without your help I will be caught and punished."
"Who are they?" Loki gestures to the door.
"Royal soldiers."
"Hmmm." He taps his chin thoughtfully. "Can't defy the law now can I." He says going and opening the doors.
"Loki," one of the guards greets stiffly.
"Well now, you are the first persons to drop by all week." Loki announces with sarcasm.
"We are looking for a person."
"What? And you think to find them here?" "Because of me?" The guard ignores the jab.
"They were wearing this." He holds up my tunic.
"What is he wanted for?"
"She." The guard corrects. "She is wanted for stealing armor, breaking into the royal training site and trespassing in the palace."
"Well there's no one here to match your description." Loki says waving his arm around the room.
"We'll see." Was all the guard said shoving past.
I was plainly exposed, in the open, no disguise. I braced myself to be grabbed and dragged to jail, but the guard only nodded towards me.
"Lady." I nodded stiffly back. Is he toying with me? I wondered. The guards poked into every closet, shredded a pillow or two, surveyed the balcony, searched the bedsheets and the curtains, they even looked under furniture.
"Are you done with your investigation or would you like to dismantle another pillow?" Loki asked holding up the only surviving pillow. With a sniff the guard turned and left. Loki tossed the pillow back on the bed and sat down on the couch. I began breathing again and only then noticed that my clothes had changed and so had my skin. Now I was wearing a green, satin robe. My skin was changed to a delicate milky-white completion. Loki was watching me. I strode over to the mirror to get a better look at myself. Blond hair. Ugh.
"Bad taste." I said fingering the straight, white-blond hair. Loki shrugged and immediately I was transformed back to my old self. "And – thank you." Loki reached for a piece of fruit and began tossing it.
"Wanted for trespassing, stealing armor…" He caught the apple and gave me a questioning look. "Tut, tut, I don't think violence suits you." While he had been speaking my twitchy hand had crept back to my dagger's hilt.