"Did the multiverse ever come up with a bigger annoyance than Odin? Because I don't think I can stand his nagging a day longer..."
Loki couldn't help but enjoy her carelessness. She didn't need to worry about the guards out there listening to every word she said, as if knowing her secrets gave them the power to call her out and give Odin a reason good enough to rid of her. Phoenix could say what Loki wanted to say. Knowing that she was giving Odin a hard time filled him with a joy he wouldn't even admit to himself.
It was a childish satisfaction, one he shouldn't necessarily entertain in the first place - but every little thing making life in this cell more enjoyable was worth it.
"Why do you help him then?"
Phoenix shook her head, as if he acted dumb on purpose.
"I'm only ever serving fate."
"What an interesting view you have sometimes, witch. You made it into the king's court, and I do not mean to insult, but that is a lot more than oracles normally dare dreaming of. A stable position in court and the protection of a king. What else do you want?", Loki asked, searching in her secretive smile for an answer she surely wouldn't give him in her words.
She put her hands away, considering his question for a moment.
"There must be more than that," her eyes lit up in a way that reminded Loki on their childhood together, "I want to see Jotunnheim. I want to see the sunsets of Vanaheim again, I miss them more than I thought I ever would. I want to stop the war and help the people on Jeifeel, I want to dance with Heimdall to music I don't know until we both forget what duties are. I want to walk the path of bones on Tesfighalee, feeding Cors. Did you know that their fur changes colour depending on how old the bones are that they eat? I want to see all these worlds," Phoenix explained, a wistful expression taking over her features.
Loki didn't expect an honest answer and he certainly didn't expect that. Maybe her hunger to see the multiverse could be used to his advantage...
"You are an oracle. All you do is see."
"No, all I do is foresee. Heimdall -", she couldn't help the smile plastering on her face, "Heimdall sees everything that's real. I see everything that could be real, which are two entirely different things," she said, wondering if someone like Loki could ever understand what she meant.
"Why do you not leave then?", he asked, nodding at the door of the cell.
A gruesome reminder for him, that he could not leave this cell. Ever. Eternity proved a valueless gift once you get to spend it rotting in chains - this cell was worse than death. While in his younger years, Loki never particularly cared about staying alive, he felt he had a duty now. Something - and he hated using that word - but something worth living for. Fighting for, dying for.
Worth standing up and not staying down on the floor in this small cell.
"Oh, I will leave," she said, her voice trailing off, looking at him with that ever so secretive glance in her eyes. As if she knew something nobody else did, something she shouldn't know.
"I'm just wearing different chains than you right now, princeling," she sighed, wondering if she could tell him.
If she should tell him, that the only two reasons she stayed, were the polar opposites of one another.
YOU ARE READING
The Villain
Fanfiction[second part of The Soldier] Maybe Tessa's place just stays the losing side. Left behind on Midgard, the former soldier has to deal with losing yet another person because she can't reach them in time. Finding no answers to any of her questions rega...
