My brain is fried. My characterization feels faulty. I have exams this week. I left Thor at my house so I can't watch it until I go back home for break, I've hit a writing road block. Please, please, please. Kind words and reviews keep me going and I've, unfortunately, ran out of fuel.
Disclaimers apply.
X.
Vulnerable- Capable or susceptible to being wounded or hurt, as by a weapon; open to moral attack, criticism or temptation
You are weak. You are lost. You are a scared, wounded animal that wanders through the dark. Try to deny it all you want, you know it is true, you know what you are. Lonely, thin skinned, hurt, confused. These things sit even deeper inside of you than the rage and the envy and the pain that you cover them with because to be hateful and to be cutting is far easier than to be weak. To be weak is to be pathetic and that is something you won't be, ever.
Even when the words cut like knives, even when the laughter stings, even when the taunting breaks your very being, you will hold your head high and pretend that self-assurance is all you need and that you are the very opposite of inadequate.
Silly, foolish little boy.
Everyone knows you have a breaking point.
Three months. Three months have came and passed since Loki met Eira, since he discovered Galar's book, since the date for Thor's coronation had been set.
Three months, and someone decided it was time for another party.
Loki's level of patience for social gatherings like this has never been high, but has only decreased since stumbling onto that brilliant, tattered little book of spells. The most he can stand of anyone is a few hours with his parents or Thor or Eira a week, and even that tries him in the extreme.
His family, occasionally comes to call upon him, but he rarely responds with more than that he is busy. Loki has things to do, spells to cast, and fix, and alter so that Galar's failed attempts become successful at his hand. For a while, Eira tried to get his attention with more attempts at mischief, but seemed to catch on quickly that he was otherwise occupied and simply left him to his work. He hasn't made an effort to contact her, although, occasionally, when he is successful at trying a new spell, he thinks of her and how perhaps she could be his friend, and how perhaps he could trust her and how then he would have someone of a decent level of intellect to share his findings with, but usually, he closes himself off right after and buries himself back in his work.
Tonight though, is another one of those occasions that anyone who matters is going to be at. It is Thor's birthday, and although the god of thunder will have a true celebration with his closest friends a little later, today, they put on a façade and pretend they care about all of the members of the court, while they feast on the finest delicacies and drink only the most expensive wines.
None of those nuances have really been Thor's taste, however. He has little appreciation for the finest things in life and would easily take mediocrity any day, Loki thinks.
The god of mischief spends the bulk of his day cooped up inside of his room, pouring through the book, losing himself in it, opening up portals, venturing into even the darkest realms and coming back unscathed. The progress he has made is astounding, and once he opened that first portal to Jotunheim, the learning curve proved to be quite steep. At this rate, the things that he will accomplish by Thor's coronation will be enough to get him noticed and yes, even respected.
So, when he finally makes his way into the room that the party is hosted in, he does so with his head held high and a confident grin on his face.
Thor is usually the shining star, but tonight, Loki feels ablaze. Nothing can bring him down.
Oh, how wrong he is.
He looks for something to do, someone to busy himself with, a simple means to an end, and is surprised when he sees Eira at a table with Thor and his cohorts. A few are laughing nervously, but if the look on Volstagg's face says anything, she is making them a whole new level of uncomfortable. Still, she doesn't bother to walk away.
Something in his blood boils. So that must be why she dismissed him so easily. For all her talk of truth and making meaningful relationships, she lives a lie as much as anyone else does. He is about to stalk away, when she calls out his name. He looks over at her face, alight with recognition and pleasant surprise and sees Thor beaming too, and these two smiles are somehow enough to bring him over to the table.
He takes a seat as far away from Eira as possible, finding himself feeling foolish, because for some stupid reason, he believed her talk of honesty, and believed that it was him specifically that she was looking to be friends with. How wrong he was, this girl is scum, she wants nothing more than a seat on the king's council and will apparently stoop to any depth to achieve her goals.
Loki flinches because he begins to think that maybe, that is what everyone thinks of him. He looks at Eira a little softer now, noticing the confused look on her face when she returns his gaze. She looks hesitant too for a moment, but gestures with her head in one direction, as though to say "let's go over there for a moment", before excusing herself from the table. Loki follows after her, almost directly at her heels. He doesn't know when she plans on stopping, or if she even seems to know when she will, but they make their way out to the balcony and finally, she seems to decide that this is as good a destination as any other.
"Do you have something you want to say to me or was there something unpleasant underneath your nose while you were talking to me?" She begins and he frowns, furrowing his brow.
"You were the one who led me out here." He reminds her. She rolls her eyes.
"You looked upset with me, I wanted to know why." She tells him. Perhaps he should just avoid her, but something in his head tells him that it would be far crueler to call her out on the liar she really is.
"No reason whatsoever. Besides the fact that all your talk of truth and honesty, and searching for meaning was just some sort of elaborate lie." She gives him a look somewhere between hurt and confused, she goes to say something, but he cuts her off as quickly as he can. "What did you hope to accomplish, Eira? Did you think that befriending the brother of a future king would get you far? Did you think that I was actually your friend? Were you really so foolish as to believe—"
"I'm sorry I hurt you." He comes up short, mostly because he was hoping she wouldn't speak, but also, because she says it so genuinely, again and dammit, no he will not believe her. He snorts.
"You think you hurt me?" He scowls, she frowns.
"You wouldn't be this upset if I didn't. I didn't mean to. And I've never lied to you." He blinks twice, scoffs and looks away, getting ready to head back through the doors and into the palace when she grabs him by his wrist. Instinctively, he tears back and turns on her, eyes full of hate. She all but jumps back and her hand recoils into her form again. Even so, she struggles to muster up something that sounds competent. "I don't know why you think I have lied, but I'm sorry." She insists. He curls his hand into a tight fist and doesn't unclench it, even when his fingernails begin biting into his palm.
"You don't know why…" Her words taste so bitter in his mouth, and he hates her so much in that moment that he looks away. "You claim to search for meaning, but the second I stop wasting my time with you, you move on to the next royal you can find, just so that your goals are achieved." He snaps. This time, she comes up short. It takes her a few moments to actually process what he is saying in her head, and while she does this, her face contorts.
"Are you upset that I was talking to Thor?" She asks so incredulously that it sends his rage to the edge and Loki's hand clenches even tighter.
She has to keep reminding him that she, and everyone else in the world would choose Thor over him, doesn't she?
"Loki, I was making conversation with him, that does not automatically mean that we are friends." He snorts and rolls his eyes, still untrusting. She takes a step closer and he turns back to look at her, eyes still spitting venom, but this time, she does not step back. "You know I want a seat on the council more than anything else in the world, and yes, that is why I was consorting with your brother, but do not mistake my friendship with you for manipulation. If I were riding on your coattails toward success, I would have at least had the courtesy to let you know that the moment I first spoke to you." She snaps at him, this time bold and fearless, stepping on his toes and crossing the line, and not playing nice because someone asks her to. It is as though she has been trying to be patient with him for so long and is now fed up to the point where patience is nothing.
"Then why are you so adamant, why do you keep pushing for friendship when I leave you behind so often?" He snaps right back, expecting for her to pause and think, but she doesn't step back, and her response comes instantly.
"For someone so brilliant you really pay attention to so little! Have you not realized that I am a woman of the court? Do you not know what that means? It means that I have no more than a few years time before I am likely married off to someone, for some reason or another. It means that I have to get turned down every day and fight and scratch and claw to get what I want out of life. It means that I can't sit and let things pass me by, because in a short time, I will be expected to settle down and have a family with someone I don't even care about, and just once before then, I want something that means something! And yes, I might have to try so hard with you and even when I think I'm getting somewhere, you close up out of the blue, but I thought that if I tried hard enough, something good would come out of this, and there could be a genuine, meaningful friendship, but if I've thought wrong, then go ahead, tell me. Tell me and I won't waste a second more of your time." She shouts and when she finally backs down, she is breathing heavily and her face is flushed and she looks like she's just finished running a race. She looks so angry, so livid, so passionate, so raw.
She is stripped down to her barest form and for the first time, Loki feels like he is staring right through her, instead of the other way around.
Perhaps her motives are pure, perhaps she is being honest.
He swallows dryly and looks away from her again, lips still pulled into a frown, but after a moment, the frown begins to soften.
She is too irritated to notice though, she starts to move around him, ready to storm out, but he grabs her wrist, the way she grabbed his, and the second he does, she stops.
"Thank you." He stiffens up again, because she lets her guard down and that is something he isn't comfortable with by any means.
"This doesn't mean that we're friends." She stiffens and turns back to him, eyebrow lifted. "I told you I won't make this easy for you. But I suppose you're a half way intelligent person. You do seem to be able to hold your own when push comes to shove, I guess that must be respectable on some level." He says. She snorts, but doesn't make a sarcastic remark, which he supposes is a success in and of itself.
"Well then I suppose I'll have to show you that I'm more than simply tolerable to be around." She says, tone laced with determination and he smiles a little bit.
Having someone fight for him.
Now this is new.
It isn't that Eira is special or wonderful or everything he has ever wanted in a person, but she is offering this, and that is honestly sort of…nice.
The monster in him doesn't rear its head.
"I suppose you will." He takes a step back in and then, she has to go and pull him a step backward in her progress by thinking aloud.
"What has the world done to make you so untrusting?"