A/N: Don't own don't sue

So from some reviews I've received lately I can only assume that some readers believed I would write an entire original song for each chapter. Unfortunately I am not that talented and I apologise for any disappointment. I would just like to reiterate that each chapter of this fic will contain lyrics from a song that I have chosen to fit the story, a song that I have not written, do not claim credit for, have no affiliation with and do not seek to earn any money from. If you are offended by this, I would kindly request you find a different fic.

Lyrics at the beginning are from 'If I Knew' by Bruno Mars

Lyrics in the middle are from 'Footprints' by Sia

If I Knew

Chapter Six

I was a city boy
Right into danger's where I'd always run a boy who had his fun
But I wouldn't've done
All the things that I have done
If I knew one day you'd come

Loki was not having the best of days. His imprisonment was suddenly playing on his mind worse than ever for some inexplicable reason and yet he couldn't for the life of him find his familiar anger. His heart was heavy today. He stared at the book in his lap without seeing the words, the images swirling lazily on the open pages. His nightingale had not visited him for three days and there had been no other visitors to his fellow prisoners which meant no gossiping amongst the guards he could eavesdrop on. He raised his eyes to the ceiling of his cell. This is what it had come to? Hoping for some nonsense overheard court gossip, just to keep his mind ticking over. He looked at the book again, the words cold and uninteresting. He couldn't even choose which of the books in the Grand Library to read for himself.

His mother's form materialised in the corner of the room, her smile twisting slightly and her eyebrows lifting as she took in the image of her youngest son sprawled on his bed in shirt and trousers with bare feet and uncombed hair.

"Loki?"

He barely raised his gaze from the pages before him to acknowledge her. She crossed the cell towards him, all too aware that she couldn't sit beside him as she wanted to. Her poor boy.

"This is how you greet your mother?" She chastised lightly, a faint smile on her lips.

His mouth tightened slightly but he didn't respond and Frigga felt a tiny flicker of panic in her belly. Loki was never silent; he always had something to say regardless of the circumstances. She chattered vaguely, about the court and the war and other nonsense she knew did not interest him. Frigga knew he was listening carefully, whether he chose to show it or not.

"I believe you entertained for supper." She said suddenly, quashing a smirk when his fingers tightened involuntarily on the book in his hands.

"Comforting to find that the court gossip continues unabated." He said waspishly.

"Don't be foolish, dear." Frigga rolled one shoulder in an elegant shrug and plucked at a non-existent thread on the sleeve of her dress. "The court has no idea."

Loki bit back a retort.

"I must say, my Lady returned from your supper in much the same state of mind you are currently displaying." Frigga continued pleasantly, circling around the cell and examining the books piled haphazardly on his table.

"I'm not sure what you are implying, Mother." Loki said icily in his best warning tone.

"She's sulking, too." Frigga clarified sweetly.

Loki opened his mouth furiously but managed to keep his silence as he realised exactly what his mother was trying to do. He would not give her the satisfaction. Frigga sighed as he turned back to his book. She had somewhat successfully prised him out of his black mood and into a fit of irritation and she was well aware that she could do no more. She knew him well enough for that.

"She looked stunning, didn't she?" Frigga said casually, glancing over her shoulder at Loki.

In his mind's eye, Loki saw her looming above him in that hideous pink dress, her beautiful red hair knotted and twisted and strung with ribbons. He wanted desperately to laugh at the memory of the outrage on her face but he forced it down. Frigga continued to study him curiously for a moment before promising to visit later in the week and taking her leave.

Loki let his head fall back against the bedstead, staring up at the brilliantly lit ceiling of his cell. Whether in the way she'd intended or not, his mother had cheered him slightly. If only by reminding him of her humiliated anger. Thinking of her reminded him of her last question. He did not have an answer, at least not one he was willing to share or examine too closely. Her questions were curious. She didn't seem to be gaining anything from them, which meant she must have a different agenda. What could she be hoping to gain from him? She had surprised him with her side of their bargain, it had even occurred to him that she had figured it out. After all, what did you ask for from the God of lies and mischief? He pushed a hand through his hair, feeling his mouth quirk. It was quite simple really, but most people got caught up in the physical aspects of power. What did you ask for from the God of Lies? The truth.

Minutes later he heard steps approaching his cell, the faint shush of magic as she stepped through the barrier. He could smell her familiar scent, feel the warmth emanating from her body from across the cell. It was so odd how a real person could completely change the reality of his cell.

"Prince?"

She was looking at him with concern, her wicked green eyes widening slightly. Loki had not combed his hair that morning and was sitting in nothing but a loose-fitting shirt and trousers. His bare feet looked oddly vulnerable against the silk sheets of the bed.

"Sing me a song, nightingale." Loki murmured, still facing the ceiling, and she blinked at him in surprise. "I feel maudlin today."

She scrunched her forehead up thoughtfully, lifting the chair and placing it beside the bed.

"Are you doing this to avoid answering my last question?" She asked suspiciously.

Loki smiled faintly. The lack of response seemed to worry her, just as it had his mother. She continued to stare at him warily and he waited patiently for her choice.

"I've fallen through the floor again, crashed into the basement
Your pain was swallowing me
I was like a leper when I couldn't even get up towards
The lights from the door was swallowing me
Lord knows you can't trust your head
When you're standing on the edge
I'm breaking down
Lord knows you can't trust your head
When you're hanging by a thread
I was breaking down
And I saw only two footprints in the sand
Thought you'd abandoned me and
Let go of my hand
But you were carrying me
Carrying me to safety
Two footprints, your footprints in the sand
Two footprints, two footprints, your footprints in the sand
Two footprints, your footprints in the sand."

She caught her breath for a moment and then grinned at Loki.

"Maudlin enough for you?"

His mouth twisted and his teeth flashed. He was rather amused to find he had enjoyed the song, the flowing melody and the surprisingly high notes. He had watched her throat as she reached those piercing notes, fascinated by the muscles in her long slender neck working to produce those rather spine-tingling sounds.

"Are you alright, Prince?"

Loki looked at her steadily; her crimson hair coiling over one shoulder, her slender body straight-backed and elegant in her peach dress, her mouth pursed as she chewed on her lower lip. Her eyes were huge and earnest. She didn't seem to be wheedling for an advantage against him, she seemed genuinely concerned.

"The mask has slipped today, love." He sighed eventually.

Her lip slipped from between her teeth, reddened where she'd worried at it. She looked away briefly and then turned back to him, a faint flush on her cheekbones.

"Some days it's harder to pretend than others." She murmured.

Loki's eyes narrowed as he tried to determine if she was mocking him or not. He knew she would dare to mock him when so many others wouldn't. Eira wasn't afraid of him anymore, but she was not complacent and she was smart enough not to trust him. She was aware that he had the power and the will to snap her neck like a twig should he care to, but she also knew that should he want to kill her he would and there was very little she could do to stop it. So she chose to ignore it, and he chose to believe her concern was genuine.

Eira cocked her head, watching him warily. She was trying to decide if it was all a ploy, another game of his. He was staring listlessly at the ceiling, his long elegant fingers toying idly with the pages of the book he'd discarded. If he was playing a game, he was playing it very well. After a long moment of awkward silence, Eira stood and crossed the cell.

"Leaving so soon, nightingale?"

He'd tossed the question out lazily but he was sitting up and looking at her for the first time since she'd arrived. She took the book from the table and showed it to him as she crossed back to her chair. He watched her as she settled into the chair, toeing off her shoes from beneath her dress.

Eira lifted her feet and propped them, in a most unladylike fashion, on the edge of his bed and opened up the book. She could feel Loki watching her curiously as she forced herself to read the first page under his gaze. She couldn't explain it but she knew that he did not want their usual word games tonight, but neither did he want to return to his solitude. By the time she had reached the end of the first chapter he was still staring at her. She lifted her eyebrows questioningly.

"No question tonight?"

She smiled, turning the page noisily.

"Another one?"

Loki frowned, skimming over their sparse conversation in his mind. She was right. Technically she had asked him two questions, two minor questions that had barely even registered. He fought a smirk as she very deliberately returned to the book in her hands and continued reading.

She was dozing. He could see her eyelashes gliding against her cheeks at shorter and shorter intervals and the brilliant green of her eyes narrowing gradually. They had been reading in silence for hours. The lights had dimmed as the sun set, there would be another hour of the dim lights that mirrored candlelight before they would be extinguished and the prisoners expected to sleep. He had thrown up a minor glamour to hide her as the guards did their rounds. She was deeply ensconced in the book, her body curled in the chair and her feet propped delicately on the side of his bed. Her toenails glimmered with golden polish. Loki had alternated between reading the book he had little interest in, watching her devour the hefty tome in her lap and lapsing into deep thought.

He was slightly concerned by how soothing he was finding her silent presence. Maybe it was just the silent presence of another being in this cold cruel cell, a living warmth rather than the artificial he was surrounded by at all times. He felt oddly grateful to her for understanding what he needed without him having to wound his pride by asking. They had sat in companionable silence, sharing his meal when it was delivered with barely a word exchanged between them. If she had found the guards who delivered his evening meal ignoring her curious, she had not mentioned it.

It was probably a combination of the faint lighting and the soothing practice of reading but her head dropped against her shoulder and her fingers went limp on the book in her lap. She slept sweetly, her long lashes sweeping her cheekbones and her pretty mouth pursed slightly. He let her sleep, perusing his book idly as he tried to work out what he was going to do with her. He could hardly keep the glamour up all night and he had no way to get her back to her chambers without alerting the guards to her presence.

Eira woke several hours later in Loki's bed, the cell dark as night around her and panic fluttering in her chest as she tried to understand where she was. Gradually her eyes adjusted to the darkness. There was a faint light emanating from the barrier that cast an eerie glow over the cell. She presumed it was very early in the morning for the lights to still be out in the cells. Loki was sleeping in the chair, his long legs sprawled out and his neck twisted at what must have been an uncomfortable angle. His face was scrunched up as he dreamt, his mouth frowning and his brows drawn down over his twitching eyelids.

Poor Prince. Even in his dreams he didn't get any peace. She sat up slowly, unwilling to wake him. He must have moved her to the bed gently or she would have woken. Why had he taken her place in the chair? It was certainly not the most comfortable chair in the palace. It was most unlike him and the thought made her uneasy. He shifted slightly, grimaced, and opened his eyes. There was a fleeting moment where his eyes were remarkably soft and unguarded, before his mask slid back into place and he met her gaze coolly.

"You moved me to the bed." She said quietly, fiddling idly with the bedspread. "You should have woken me."

Loki gave her a thoroughly unconvincing humble shrug, trying and failing to conjure an earnest expression on his face.

"What kind of host would I be?"

She rolled her eyes.

"And here I thought chivalry was dead." She grinned.

Loki grimaced, rolling his shoulders and neck. He was moving stiffly and she felt a stab of guilt in her belly. He shouldn't have slept in that chair all night, he should have woken her. She edged across the bed towards him. He eyed her warily and she glared at him.

"Have I ever given you reason not to trust me, Prince?"

His mouth tightened as if he wanted to say something but she narrowed her eyes at him and he decided against it. She moved across the bed until she was directly beside the chair, then she indicated for him to turn around. Looking at her distrustfully and giving a martyred sigh as if he expected death to follow shortly, Loki rotated the chair so she was situated behind him. He managed not to flinch when she touched him, only by sheer will.

Tentatively at first, Eira's delicate fingers dug into the knots in his neck and shoulders. She massaged Frigga sometimes, when she had been using more complex magic than usual or when she had been training in the weapons yard. This felt different. Her heart was starting to thump rapidly against her ribcage and her mouth was dry. She tried to ignore the scent of him, overwhelming now she was so close to him, as she diligently worked at the painful knots sleeping in that ridiculous chair had given him.

Unused to being touched Loki squirmed slightly as her fingers touched the bare skin of his neck, her thumbs brushing under his hairline and raising the tiny hairs on his body. He shivered.

"Keep still." She ordered as he shifted again when her fingers reached a particularly painful knot at the base of his neck.

Loki was disturbed at how his body was reacting to her ministrations. It had been a long time since he had been with anyone but this, this was something different. He didn't just feel aroused as one would expect when a beautiful woman was easing the tensions of his body, he could feel intimacy stirring and that would simply not do. He leapt to his feet so quickly that she fell forwards in surprise and had to cling to the back chair to keep her balance. She stared at him in the semi-dark cell, the silence between them awkward and growing.

"You should return to your chambers before you are missed."

Eira almost thought she could detect a wobble in his voice but she dismissed it as fantasy almost immediately. He was right. Frigga would rise soon and some questions were best avoided. She slipped from the bed, grabbed her discarded shoes and exited the cell without a word.