Unfettered (Loki x Reader)

Chapter 40 - Forest of Arden

"Warwickshire?" Thor repeats. "What is this place?"

"It's a city. Or a town...I think," you say. "I don't actually know. But Loki told me once that it was the inspiration for that stupid play he's been reading."

"A play?" Thor questions. "My brother has long been an avid patron of the arts, but...I don't understand what influence the theatre holds over him now."

You huff in exasperation, fingers tingling with the adrenaline born from the ticking clock in your head. You're taking too long. Thor isn't understanding fast enough. Loki might be in trouble, and you need to get to him. Before it's too late.

"I don't have time to explain it all right now," you say. "But there's a place Loki thinks of as ours. His and mine. I mean...we've never been there. But he talked about it all the time. If he's not in any of his usual places, maybe he's there," you urge.

Thor pauses to think, a tiny muscle in his forehead pulsing as he runs a hand through his hair. As he ponders the path forward, your own memories take you back to the evenings before Loki's release from the tower. To your almost nightly rendezvous with the raven-haired god. To one night in particular, when you were dancing in the space in-between awake and asleep in Loki's lap as he held a book in one hand, and used the other to alternate between carding through your hair, and letting his long fingers drift down the delicate skin of your neck.

"Are you asleep, darling?"

"Nuh-uh."

"Hmm, yes. Quite convincing."

"Not my fault, Loki. You've been reading for hours. I'm tired. And bored."

"Perhaps you'd care to join me?"

"Pass."

"Suit yourself."

"Why won't you ever watch TV with me?"

"Why won't you ever read with me?"

"Fine. What do you want me to read? And don't say you want me to read that stupid play again."

"Stupid play?! Darling, you really have no grasp for good literature."

"You've read it a hundred times."

"A hundred and three."

"Pick something else?"

"Not until I understand the ending."

"What are you talking about? You've already finished it. A hundred and three times, by your own count."

"I've read it, yes, but I don't yet understand it."

"What does that mean?"

"It means I find the mortal compulsion to forsake one's home, perhaps even die, for love quite insensible."

"I think that just means you haven't experienced real love yet."

"Oh? Is that what you think?"

"Well...have you?"

"You do realized that I have lived for over a thousand years, do you not? In my travels I have met an unfathomable number of men and women alike."

"That's not an answer."

"Is it not?"

"You're avoiding my question."

"Hush, darling. Now come closer. Let me read to you."

"All you do is read."

"And what else do you propose I do up here?"