Loki didn't take me to the dining hall - instead he took me to his rooms. A place I'd never been, obviously, and I tried to look unimpressed and unsurprised by the table that waited for us on the balcony.
"I thought," he murmured as he held my chair for me. "That perhaps a change of scenery would do nicely for our first lesson."
"You're teaching me Midgardian etiquette?" I glanced down at the table, thinking it looked no different from normal. Looking up, he was smiling and shaking his head. "What?" I didn't like feeling as though there was a joke that I wasn't privy to.
Loki took his seat and licked his lips, hungry too I supposed. "No, I'm not teaching you etiquette, Lady Sigyn." Our gazes met and I wondered why I never noticed how blue his eyes were - "First," he picked up the pitcher that had been waiting on the table for us and filled our goblets. "We eat. Then, I teach you how to make certain that NO ONE ever tries to do you harm."
I took a drink, my throat feeling so very dry. "You want to teach me combat?" A hum of confirmation. "Me? Combat?"
"Yes, you." He started to eat. "Eat up," he gestured to my own plate. "You're going to need your strength." I was sure of it, yet my stomach was twisting with uncertainty.
I couldn't - though I tried - make our meal last beyond what Loki deemed long enough. Picking at my food, taking small sips, none of it worked. He would give me a look and remind me that I was going to learn, whether we had natural light or he had to create light for us to use.
Finally, my stomach AND my prince, won out. I gave in and admitted I was finished.
"Good," he pushed away from the table and with a flourish it was gone. Damn it. "Now, come here." Standing, the chairs vanished as well, leaving us with a bare balcony. "I know you are reluctant, my lady," a small bow of his head made me sigh. "But, once you become competent in what I plan on showing you, you can wander wherever you wish."
"Alone?" I countered, chin up, green eyes locking on his blue orbs. A small nod was the answer I received. "Alright."
Holding his hands out, twin daggers appeared. "Now, do you trust me?" Trick question, I thought, I barely know you! Swallowing hard, I gave a half nod. "Liar." His smile grew. "You will, soon enough."
And so began my lessons with Loki for knife play - or combat - however you wish to call it, I suppose.
We worked for hours, until the next meal, which he also insisted on having on his balcony. My gown felt heavier than it was when I put it on that morning, and my hair? Piled high on my head, it weighed more than I did, I would argue.
The table reappeared with the chairs, and once again Loki held my chair for me. I all but fell into it. Pouring my drink for me, he also handed the goblet to me before taking his own seat.
"Are you alright?" I glanced up at him as I drank most of the contents of my glass. Was I alright? How could learning how to handle a dagger wear me so thin? It was a knife, for Odin's sake. "You look a bit -" he was smirking, and not the least bit flushed.
"You're enjoying this aren't you?" Squinting at him as I sat my goblet down, I wanted so badly to go back to my room, soak up to my neck in my bath and let my hair down. "How much more do I have to learn, my prince?"
His eyes almost glowed when I addressed him the way he teased that he preferred me to - his nostrils flared slightly. "Until it becomes as natural to you as your magic, my lady." And somehow I saw it before it came at me, as if I could read in his face what he was about to try - the dagger appeared in his left hand and was coming at me - and I caught it. And that caused his eyes to widen, I'd surprised him again.
"Like this, my prince?" I was holding his dagger in my hand, and as he'd taught me, I flipped it and handed it to him handle end first. "I believe this is yours."
"Eat," he nodded at my plate, taking his knife from me and stowing it again. "We'll discuss more after."
Another meal finished, but once we were the table didn't disappear, only our plates and utensils vanished. Loki refilled our drinks and sat back.
"Since you are such a natural at self protection," my lips curled around the rim of my goblet. "I thought we could go back to getting to know one another."
"Ah," perhaps I'd peaked too soon. "And what precisely should we focus on getting to know about one another, my prince?"
His own smile curved around his goblet rim. "Well, let's see -" studying me, I felt like fidgeting under the scrutiny. "You've been here since you were - how old again?"
"Ten," I'd lost count of how much time had truly passed by - only that so many had. "I left my home a child. And became a woman here." Melancholy and wistful, that's how I sounded.
"Has it truly been that terrible here?" Our eyes met and I shook my head. "Mother thinks of you as a daughter. She's never shown such preference for another pupil before."
"Frigga is very dear to me as well," far warmer than my own mother, but how could I admit to Loki that I didn't yearn for my family as much as I yearned for the PLACE of my birth? "Without her -" I sighed. "I'm very grateful for everything the Queen has done for me."
"Are you not curious about anything?" An open invitation to ask Loki a question - what a bounty.
"Why did you finally show yourself in the garden?" It slipped out, before I could actively choose one of the many questions buzzing around my head to ask him. "The first time?"
"To see if you'd show yourself," fair enough, I suppose. "You didn't. Why?"
I blushed which only made him more inquisitive and interested. "I thought -" my fingers were tracing the path of the condensation running down my goblet. "That perhaps you were meeting someone."
"Who would I be meeting in the garden that late at night, Lady Sigyn?" The way he asked it told me he was baiting me, wanting to see how red my face could get.
Fighting the feeling of residual embarrassment from the memory, I met his gaze across the table. "Clearly I assumed you were going to have a tryst, my prince."
"A tryst?" He looked both shocked, and scandalized - the liar. "And you were prepared to sit in the bushes and do what? Watch?"
A long sigh escaped and I shook my head, "It wasn't as if I could just vanish at will, my prince. I would have been a captive audience - but not on purpose."
"And who would this tryst have been with?" It wasn't even - I inhaled through my nose to fight down the urge to growl at him for pressing on matters that clearly bore no -
"Does it matter?" Loki didn't answer, expecting an answer. "One of the more than willing ladies that sigh and whimper whenever you walk by, obviously." I rolled my eyes.
His smirk returned. "Ladies sigh and whimper when I walk by?"
"I thought we were supposed to get to know one another, Loki, I wasn't aware that this was a mission to stroke your ego." The smirk grew into a grin. "If it grows any larger, I fear you may not fit through any of the doorways."
"Perhaps, Lady Sigyn, I'm not looking to have my ego stroked at all," my mouth went dry and I felt like the air had been sucked out of the - but we weren't inside so how could that even be? "Tell me about your childhood before you came to live here." The change of topic made my head spin, but I welcomed the reprieve, and shut my eyes to center myself and regain my composure.
"My home is -"
