"Not to be rude…", Loki says one summer day as he disinterestedly pages through a dusty book that he's currently translating. I glance up from where I sit on a modestly sized book shelf, lazily flipping through literature that I can't read.

"I'm guessing that what you're about to say next is horribly cruel", I say flatly. "…But you could do with a bath. Perhaps throw some soap in there. Just a suggestion", he goes back to translating.

I slowly raise my head to stare blankly at him. "What are you trying to impress". "Nothing whatsoever. Just that your hair is slightly …pieced, and you don't exactly carry the aroma of a fresh spring day".

"I smell like a basket of fucking roses". He shakes his head and goes back to scritching on the parchment paper with a snow white quill.

"That's the upside of being dead", I stretch my arms up and lace my fingers behind my head, "No showers". He scoffs, but doesn't look up from his work as the quill loops and swirls in a really very beautiful way. I like to watch him write, sometimes. In fact, that's what I was doing up until two minutes ago, until he brought up baths.

"Besides, I like my hair like this", I nestle my face into my palms, but wince as I rub the gouge the wrong way. "How's that coming?", he says without glancing up from his writing, "Your hand, that is". "Good". "I meant it about the soap. I mean…", sudden darkness sweeps across his features, "It is getting hotter out, what with it being the middle of summer and all".

"I'm aware". He sighs and looks back to the book, "And are you aware of the fumes of a decaying carcass that's left to rot under the suns heat during the day?".

"Are you saying what you're giving me very good reason to think you're saying", I calmly shut my book and face the man/boy who I believe has just inferred that I smell like a dead animal. "You wouldn't have gleaned an accusation from that if you were truly devoid of being guilty of it", he says disinterestedly.

"But It was an accusation", I say dryly. "Only if it were true enough for you to be insulted by it". I can't say that I'm not hurt by his not so subtle insults, but he's right. I haven't showered in a while. Since before I died, so to speak.

A flash of blood and torn flesh flashed through my mind, and I'm suddenly staring at nothing. I gaze down at my palm, where the deep gash is far from healing or scarring over. It's just red and mean and I can see deep layers of meat and my ripped open muscle. It's still pretty tender.

"Give it here", Loki hums, his nose pointed to the book. "No", I snap. We've been having this debate for days. He'll casually ask to heal my hand, which he sliced open a couple nights ago, and I'll casually refuse, and from then on, it's a battle of pride.

But I suspect it's because he feels a nagging obligation for it. Not guilt, exactly, as I don't think he's actually capable of such an emotion. Simply put, he did me a wrong and wishes to wipe the slate clean. But he can't do that when I still have a wound made by his hands that he sees every day, impressing upon him that he owes me. Which isn't the case at all. It's just what obligation does to people.

On the flip side, It's not my design to have him fester in this matter of obligation. I have a reason to let my hand scar, just as he does for wanting to heal it. Out of all the things I've learned in my time here, the things I've seen, the blood and tears I've spilt, this is the most important thing. This tender red flesh is my memento, kind of, anchoring me to humanity.

It's the thing that makes me hope to remember everything about my human life, when all I remember of it is drowning rats and an old song. It makes me remember that there was so much more to my life than my death. That as it heals over and stops burning with pain, so will I.

Of course I'm too ashamed to admit this to him, as it's very a matter of extreme sentiment and he'll likely scoff and then I'll never hear the end of it. So I just refuse him without giving a reason.

"Just give it to me", he flips a page in the book. "Why", I say flatly. "Because it's ugly and I don't wish to see it ".

I laugh as the sun casts long shadows between the shelves.

We are two children spending the summer alone in the library.