Four days.
Maryn refused to leave Odin's bedside for four days and not even the Allmother could move her. She ignored Tora's attempts to talk her into leaving and barely touched the food Gaia or Kersin brought to her on trays. When she was alone, she cried herself to sleep on the small settee that sat in the corner of Frigga and Odin's large bedchamber. No word had come from Loki, and Frigga soon realised that speaking about her younger son only upset Maryn more.
The evening of the fourth day Maryn was brought out of her dark thoughts at the sound one of the chamber doors opening. She looked up as she brushed fresh tears from her cheeks to see Frigga, who was sitting on the opposite side of the bed, glance up at whoever had entered the room. Following the Allmother's gaze, Maryn tensed at the sight of Loki standing just inside the doorway. He wasn't wearing his helmet or dress armour, and Gungnir wasn't clasped in his hand. A stab of hurt reminded Maryn of what she had done and she turned her eyes back to Odin's impassive face, his eye still closed in sleep.
"I never get used to seeing him like this," Loki spoke quietly into the silence around them, stepping up to stand behind Maryn's chair, ignoring how she sat rigidly on the edge of her seat, her hands trembling where she clasped them tightly in her lap.
Frigga reached out to lay her hand on Odin's, "He's put it off for so long now that I fear…" she trailed off but Maryn felt her heart clench at the grief she could hear in the Allmother's voice.
"How long will it last?" Loki asked seeing Maryn lower her head as he spoke.
Frigga's voice was still hushed, "I don't know. This time it's different; we were unprepared." Frigga then lifted her gaze from her husband to her son, "You have not told her?"
Maryn looked up at the Allmother. She felt Loki move from behind her to her side, his hands folded behind his back and his gaze on his father's face.
"I didn't see the point," he sneered.
Confused by their conversation, Maryn stood, "Excuse me, mother." She moved to leave the room only to freeze at Frigga's next words.
"Tel her, Loki, she deserves to know. If you love her you will tell her the truth."
Maryn turned and was shocked to see the Trickster round on his mother, "If you had loved me you would have told me from the beginning!"
"Loki, please-," the Allmother began, only to have Loki talk over her.
"You speak of love, but if father had really loved me he would have told me the truth. So why did he lie?"
Taking a step forward, Maryn glanced between the two Aesir in confusion, her mind sluggish from lack of food.
"He kept the truth from you so that you would never feel different," Frigga leaned toward her son, trying to help him understand. "You are our son, Loki, and we your family." Heart pounding Maryn tried to make sense of what was happening, listening silently as Frigga continued, Loki blinking back tears, his face stoic, "We mustn't lose hope that your father will return to us, and your brother."
At the mention of Thor, Loki leaned forward, "What hope is there for Thor?"
"There's always a purpose to everything your father does," Frigga spoke with a half-smile.
Loki straightened, his lips thinning as he clenched his jaw.
Confused, dizzy, and still trying to understand what mother and son were speaking about, Maryn looked between them both, "I-I don't understand."
Frigga looked imploringly at her son and with a glare at nothing in particular, Loki stood and lifted his chin, straightening his shoulders. Maryn thought he looked as if he was readying himself to step into a battle and she wondered with a small shudder if he was about to break her heart.
"I was taken from Jotunheim as a babe; Odin is not my father and Frigga is not my mother…I am Laufey's son." He spoke dispassionately, his emerald gaze hard and his tone unflinching, but she noticed how his hands were clenched tightly by his sides.
Maryn looked away from his piercing gaze, shock rushing through her making the room spin. She lost her footing and wondered in a single clear moment how much it would hurt to fall to the flagstones beneath her feet, before a large, cool hand closed around her wrist and a strong arm wrapped around her waist. Loki clasped her to his chest, his expression still guarded when she looked up at him. "This is why you pushed me away?" she whispered, tears filling her eyes and sliding down her pale cheeks. "Why you wouldn't let me touch you, be near you…kiss you?"
Looking away, he tensed; ready to pull out of her touch, "It sickens you that I am one of them."
The tone he used when he said those words dragged her from her stunned state. Unable to think of any other way to show him her love, she pushed up onto tiptoe and pressed her lips to his, one hand flat to his chest and the other twisting into the dark hair at the nape of his neck. A heartbeat later, his arms wrapped tightly around her and he deepened the kiss.
With a soft whimper, Maryn pulled away and pressed her cheek to his chest, wrapping her arms around him. "I don't care about your parentage, Loki. I don't care who your father or mother are by blood. You are mine as I am yours and that is all that matters to me."
He seemed to be frozen in amazement at her words for a moment, before his arms wrapped impossibly tight around her and he pressed his face to her neck, his tears wetting her skin as his body shuddered with stifled sobs.
In the blink of an eye, Frigga had transported them to their chambers, no doubt to give them the privacy she knew they both needed. They stood in the middle of the bedchamber, locked in each other's arms, as Loki's weeping calmed to shudders, and then disappeared altogether.
He pulled away when he was calm and looked down into Maryn's red-rimmed eyes. "I'm sorry, sweet one," he murmured, tucking a stray lock of her hair behind her ear, "I had convinced myself you would never want me if I told you the truth. I should never have doubted you."
Maryn smiled, her fingers smoothing out the wrinkles in his tunic, "It doesn't matter, Loki. I just want to be in your arms."
They had lost too much precious time already and she didn't want to lose any more. "Take me to bed, my love."
He studied her for a moment before shaking his head, "First you must eat," he murmured but couldn't seem to stop himself from cupping the back of her head and tilting her head back to kiss her deeply once more.
When they broke apart, the Dark Prince and his princess settled on their bed, the door locking at the snap of Loki's fingers before a tray of fruit, bread and good, hard cheese appeared on the mattress beside them. Loki poured two goblets of sweet wine from the pitcher that also appeared next to them. Maryn sat between Loki's legs, her back to his chest as he leaned an elbow on one raised knee, his relaxed armour shimmering and morphing into a white linen shirt and black sleep pants, Maryn's dress also changing into a blue and black shift of the softest cotton.
Once they had eaten and drunk their fill, they settled back together, lying on the pillows facing each other. Maryn was on her back while Loki leaned on his elbow beside her.
She reached up and ran her fingers over his cheek where she had struck him. "I'm sorry," she murmured, running her fingertips along his cheekbone, "I should never have hit you, my love."
He caught her hand and took it from his cheek, pressing a kiss to her palm and then her wrist, "I should never have doubted that you would still love me, sweet one. Perhaps I deserved the slap."
The grin he sent her made him almost seem his old self, but there was still a niggling thought in the back of her mind that told her his anger was too deep-rooted for him to stop fighting for his power now. "You didn't deserve it, Loki. You would never deserve my hurting you."
He leaned down over her and brushed his lips against what he could reach of her collarbones before laying an open-mouthed kiss to her pulse-point, smirking when she gasped softly and arched into the press of his mouth. Pulling away, he sent her a closed-lipped smile before rolling her under his body and taking her so gently she thought she was in Valhalla.
Later, as they relaxed entwined under the furs and sheet of their bed, Maryn laid her head on his chest and drew patterns into his pale skin, "You're angry at Odin for keeping your true parentage from you."
Loki sighed but didn't pull away or stop carding his fingers through her hair, "Yes…it would have explained so much if I had known; why my looks differ from those of this world, why I have magic that surpasses even that of Frigga, or why I have always felt different in some way, incomplete."
"Your magic," Maryn gasped, sitting up a little more to look him in the eye when the thought occurred to her. At his questioning look she elaborated, "When we were in Jotunheim I felt their magic around us. It was cold and harsh, but there was something about it that was familiar, something I couldn't quite put my finger on. I understand now, it was familiar because it is part of the magic that lives in you, my love, the power that I have sensed through our link since the day we bound our magic." She looked away when he seemed to deliberate on her words, "The power that has felt muted since our trip to the Frost Giant's world."
Loki cupped her cheeks, drawing her up and over him so that he could kiss her gently. "I haven't broken our link if that's what you think, sweet one."
"Then what have you done, Loki, because I can't feel our bond as I once did?" tears filled her eyes for what felt like the hundredth time that week and Maryn angrily rubbed them from her cheeks with the heels of her hands.
Sitting up as she settled back on her heels, Loki kept his hands against her cheeks, "I dulled the connection before we left the Rainbow Bridge. If I was wounded or killed on Jotunheim, I did not want you to feel the effects. It was selfish of me, but I could not see you hurt again, Maryn, I refuse to watch you suffer because of our link. I have cast a spell which allows us to stay connected but keeps you from physical harm." He searched her eyes, "Do you understand, love?"
Nodding Maryn leaned in and kissed him, realising that she craved his touch and lips now more than ever before. They pulled away, keeping their foreheads pressed together and their eyes closed. Maryn reached up and wrapped her hands around his wrists as he continued to cradle her face between his palms. "Undo it," she whispered, her breath brushing over his lips.
Loki opened his eyes and pulled back slightly to look into her eyes, "It is safer for you this way," he refused, dropping his hands from her cheeks.
She pleaded with him, her tone completely serious, "Undo the spell, Loki, or I will do it myself." Seeing the stubborn set of his jaw at her words, she explained, "I would rather be wounded or killed then spend the next millennia without you at my side, my love." He turned his gaze away when she spoke of dying but she pressed on, "You said you couldn't bear to see me hurt, I feel the same way. Break the spell or pick up your knife and take my life now, those are the only two choices I see."
Anguish shone behind the deep emerald pools of his eyes, "I see another choice, Maryn." When she shook her head, refusing his words, he held her face in his hands again, "You will not die because of me," he spoke fiercely. "I have seen your life end too many times. I have had my fill of it and will never see that again."
"They were dreams, my love," she tried to sooth him, "Only dreams."
The look in his eyes was frantic as he tried to explain to her, "Dreams can become a reality. I will not let it happen, sweet one, never!"
Not once having seen him so distressed by something, let alone having that something be a dream, a figment of his mind, Maryn nodded quickly, seeing him relax minutely as she did.
He searched her face for a moment longer before pulling her into his arms, one hand on the back of her head as his other arm wrapped tightly around her. He pressed his face to her hair as he took deep breaths to remind himself that she was safe in his arms, her scent and the feel of her body filing his senses.
Wrapping a hand around his upper arm, Maryn closed her eyes tightly and curled into his embrace, searing the memory of the moment into her mind. She felt completely safe, Loki's scent and the small amount of warmth his body threw out encompassing her. However, there was something, call it intuition or the Sight, that had her holding onto him that little bit tighter, as if this was the last good memory she would ever have of him.