Loki X Reader || Girl With The Gold Earring

36 | Blue

There was no sound as Frigga lifted her spell. 

For some reason, Y/N had expected a kind of noise; perhaps a flash of light, or a crackle of power, like lightning tearing up the sky? But there was nothing, only silence, and then the distant sound a few minutes later as the door to Loki's chambers slid shut.

Y/N didn't leave the studio right away. Partly because she wanted to make sure Frigga was well and truly gone, but mostly because she didn't know what she'd find on the other side of the door.

She knew it wouldn't matter what she found. Frigga had said Loki has no extra limbs or protrusions, but even if he did, Y/N would love them, she decided. She'd love anything that is part of him; vampiric fangs, twisting horns, a pensively flicking tail---she'd love them all, because they'd be his.

He doesn't have any of those things, though. 

When she did emerge--slowly, with tentative steps---what she found was...Loki. Just her Loki, with his pointed nose, his sharp chin, his black hair. Everything's the same---

---but his skin is the colour of the sky.

And he looks wretched. He's slumped on the sofa, hunched over as though sheltering from rain. 

He didn't look up as Y/N approached, but she could sense that he's coiled, waiting. Waiting for what she'd say next, what she'd do.

She doesn't really know what to...look at. Her eyes keep finding places to rest, then retreating again, like an animal that can't get comfortable. She doesn't want to stare---but it's hard not to stare.

He doesn't look like the ugly monsters history has told her of. 

Not at all. 

If this is a monster, they're unexpectedly beautiful.

Y/N has found somewhere to look, now. The closer she's getting, the more she's seeing. His skin varies in blue-ness. Some parts are lighter, soft swirling sort of patterns, like cirrus clouds, over his white bones, then darker over knots of muscle---

And he has patterns.

Y/N has seen tattoos before; on burly men and mysterious spiritual women. They're wonderful pictures pressed with a sharp needle deep into someone's skin. They can never be rubbed away, and don't even come off after a good scrubbing with carbolic soap.

Loki's patterns look like tattoos, Y/N thinks. Simple, minimalistic ones, softer blue than the rest of him so you can only tell they're there if you look very closely. They're brushed onto him in delicate lines; arcing over his brow and circling a few of his fingers like fine rings.

How did descriptions of frost giants manage to get so hideously warped?

"I love you," she said, meaning it---meaning it so much it's a wonder he can't see it, that flame in her chest burning just for him, always. She didn't really know what else to say. She wanted to tell him he's pretty, that it's okay that he's...this; but she didn't know if he'd believe her. Not yet. "Sorry. I should have left. I didn't mean to eavesdrop. Especially in a conversation so personal."

It felt wrong to talk. As though the room is filled with dust, and her words are butterflies with big beating wings that'll kick it all up.

"I didn't mind you listening." He still hasn't lifted his head, like it's too heavy to do so. He's probably supposed to be more blue, Y/N recons, but he isn't because he's sad. Like paint drained of its pigment. "I would have had to tell you at some point anyway."

Y/N is right in front of him now, and she hopes he doesn't push her away like he did when they'd thought he was cursed. Frigga had said he isn't dangerous, but thousands of years of stories say otherwise.