Loki X Reader || Girl With The Gold Earring

27 | Sharpened Flagpoles

By Friday, Loki still had not declared the painting complete.

He spends less and less time on it, his long, lean body restless and antsy, as if the divan he sits at is lumpy and uncomfortable; which Y/N knows for a fact it is not. It is his mind that is uncomfortable---stewing in anxieties, no doubt, the whole thing churning away inside his skull.

Y/N almost wishes he would start another painting, just so he has something fresh to cleanse his thoughts.

Due to Loki's lack of ability to settle, the hours they would have spent crushing pigments, painting, and posing, are now empty---although the prince has yet to run out of things to fill it with.

They clean his chambers, mainly, frightening away the shadows with playful banter and raucous behaviour. Loki has tipped many buckets of water over the floor since the first time, some to clean it and others just to get on Y/N's nerves.

He likes getting on her nerves, and she likes him being on her nerves. Despite the fact that he's trying to rile them up, his sharp quips actually soothe them like ice pressed to a bruise.

She always gets her own back, anyway; by leaving 'T's out of words, and refusing to take the coins he attempts to press into her palms when she leaves each evening.

"Please, let me pay you."

"For what? Jesting and teasing you all day?"

"For making me smile."

"Loki, your smile is payment."

Their other activities mainly include helping Y/N with her sketches, consuming the various treats she brings back from Aasta's stall, and making use of the plethora of amusing gadgets the prince has collected over the years. Y/N remains fond of the telescope, and they have spent many hours spying on the unsuspecting people far below Loki's bay windows.

Despite enjoying their new pass times, the portrait still prods at Y/N's conscience like thorns caught in the knit of her clothes. She wonders if Loki will manage to complete it before he goes to the Vanir kingdom.

-- ❈ --

Y/N dislikes Fridays, and dreads them as most Asgardians dread the beginning of the week.

Well, Y/N dreads Friday evenings. They are the furthest point from her next trip to Loki's chambers, and, although she does manage to occupy herself over the weekend, she'd rather the familiar shape of the youngest son of Odin be there with her.

She'd like to take him to all the places she knows he has not been or can not go. Like the farms scattered at the foot of the hill, or the centre of the market, or the docks down by the bay. Places Frigga has not permitted him to explore should he sully his shoes, or places Odin has not permitted him to frequent should he sully his name.

Like The Tipsy Dragon. He would look amusingly out of place there, his serene, refined features contrasting starkly with the grubby, general stickiness of the squat little building, his silken voice crisp amongst drunken mumblings. He'd like it there, she thinks, at least for a little while, while its novel and new and novice. He'd ask Beca how she lost her eye, and she'd spin him some kind of yarn that might be true and might not.

She thinks he'd like the farms too, the cows with their broad, moist noses, the curious chickens, the endless patchwork quilt of swaying wheat. He'd probably see a beauty in the colours, or the texture of the grass.

If she could take him to the docks, she'd show him how to pick his way through the rivers of salty blood and scales until they get to the jetties leading out into the water. You can buy cockles and little creatures you slurp from a shell for a few coppers, or potatoes that have been cut and fried.