Beauty and the Beast||Loki x Reader AU

Chapter 2

A/n: Hello everybody! Today is still June 6, 2021. I'm eating steak and typing this, as I clearly have nothing better to do now that school is over. Enjoy!

Y/n descends into to her father's dusty work room. Sunlight spotlights F/n hunched over his workspace. She quietly watches as he sings along with the music box theme playing from beside him. "How does a moment last forever? How can a story never die? It is love we must hold on to. Never easy -- but we try," he sings in a small and rickety voice.

F/n tinkers with gears on the box, which depicts an artist in a garret, painting his wife's portrait as she holds a red rose above their baby. "Sometimes our happiness is captured. Somehow a time and place stand still love lives on inside our heart, and always will," he finishes as the notes dwindles down.

He looks up, finally spotting his daughter. "Oh, good, Y/n, you're back. Can you please hand me the-"

Y/n places a screwdriver in his hand. "And the-"

Tweezers are also placed in his hand, as well as a small hammer. "No, no I don't need-" a spring popping off interuppts him. He stares at it. "Actually yes, that's exactly what I need." He goes back to his tinkering at Y/n gazes at other music boxes, each a small work of art, depicting famous landmarks from around the universe.

"Papa, do you think I'm odd?" She asks finally.

F/n pauses, looking up at her. "My daughter? Odd? Where did you get an idea like that?"

"I don't know," Y/n shrugs. "People talk."

"Oh. People. This village may be small, small-minded even, but small also means safe," F/n consoles. He sees this line of argument doesn't do much for his daughter. "Even back in Midgard, I knew a girl who was so different, so daring, so ahead of her time that people mocked her until the day they found themselves imitating her."

"Just tell me one more thing about her," she presses, eager to know more about her mother. F/n turns to the music box as if to change the subject, but looking back up to Y/n's eagerness, he relents.

"Your mother was... fearless. Fearless," he concludes, closing the music box. Outside, he carefully loads his music boxes onto his wagon as Y/n tends to the family's old glue horse, Fenrir. F/n climbs into the wagon, smiling down at his daughter. "What would you like me to bring you from the market?" He asks, preparing to ride to the true heart of Asgard, where the richer marketplaces will be holding an annual festival.

"A rose like the one in the painting," Y/n says hopefully, leaning her head against the wagon.

"You ask for that every year."

"And every year, you bring it."

"Then I shall bring you another. You have my word," F/n swears, cupping her chin before snapping the reins. "Come on, Fenrir!"

"I'll see you tomorrow!" Y/n calls out, waving goodbye.

"Tomorrow! With the rose!" He calls back before disappearing from view. Y/n's warmth gives way to concern.

"Stay safe..." she whispers.

\--/

Surrounded by design sketches, Y/n's workbench features a small model of her "washing machine" prototype. She places a miniature barrel in position, fastens a rope to a leather strap, shaves chips off a block of soap, collects the soap chips in a small sack, and rushes out.A young washer girl watches as Y/n tosses clothes and some soap chips into an empty barrel and rolls it into the fountain, watching as it bobs on its side. Tying the other end of the strap to the mule's harness, she sets him walking around the circular laverie.

"What are you doing?" The girl asks.

"The laundry." With a smile, Y/n points to the rotating barrel. She takes her book and quietly begins to read. After a moment, she looks up to find the washer girl staring at her, speechless. She waves for the girl to join her. "Come!"

They spend their time together with Y/n holding the book open, going through the alphabet and helping her sound out words that she points to in the book as the mule continues to wash the books. "The blue bird flies..." the girl struggles out.

"...Over the dark wood." They finish together.

"What on earth are you doing?" The Headmaster from earlier spits. He is joined by the fishmonger clothilde, both outraged. "Teaching another girl to read? Isn't one enough?"

Y/n locks eyes with the headmaster and glares at him, then turns back to the girl. The headmaster seethes. "We have to do something," the clothilde concludes as she marches over and hauls Y/n's washing machine out of the laverie, dumping its content on the ground. Her cheeks burning bright red, she collects her laundry from the dirt, trying to remain poised before the gawking crowd.

Dragging her clothes back to her cottage, Fandral follows her again. "Y/n! Heard you had a little trouble with the headmaster. He never liked me, either. Can I give you a little advice about the villagers, though? They're never going to trust the kind of change we're trying to bring." Pursuing her into her garden, he trampling cabbages.

"All I wanted was to teach a child to read," Y/n huffs."The only children you should concern yourself with are... your own," Fandral growls huskily, seizing up her midsection with his eyes. Y/n searches for a way out, not liking where this is going.

"I'm not ready to have children," she insists.

"Maybe you haven't met the right man."

"It's a small village, Fandral. I've met them all."

"Maybe you should take another look. Some of us have changed." She climbs the steps to her cottage door. He follows close behind.

"Fandral, we could never make each other happy. No one can change that much."

"Y/n, do you know what happens to spinsters in our village after their fathers die?" He motions to the street where a woman in her late 30s, dirty and homeless, rattles her cup at passerbys. "They beg for scraps, like poor Hapian. This is our world, Y/n. For simple folk like us, it doesn't get any better."

Y/n scoffs. "I might be a farm girl, but I'm not simple. I'm sorry, but I will never marry you, Fandral." She slams the door in his face, Fandral's gallant smile still plastered on his face. She watches from the window as he finally leaves. Opening the door, she walks across the porch, muttering to herself.

"Can you imagine? Me, the wife of that boorish, brainless..." She trails off, turning away from the home she fears she will never escape. "Madame Fandral, can't you just see it?! Madame Fandral, his little wife. No sir, not me, I guarantee it! I want much more than this provincial life..." she trails off, gazing at the forest just beyond the rim of the village. She races up to the hills past the outskirts, dashing through the bramble of lush wildflowers and reed grass. "Gods, I want adventure in the great wide somewhere! I want it more than I can tell! And for once it might be grand to have someone understand I want so much more than they've got planned."