Bibbidi Bobbidi Asgard: A Cinderella AU (Loki x F!Reader)

Chapter 10: The Plot Revealed

Warnings: threat, manipulation/blackmail, minor panic attack

  "You don't care about her," Cinderella hissed, barely concerned that Loki had a knife on her throat. She was acting as if this were something she experienced all the time. You, on the other hand, couldn't help but wince as you watched him pressed it harder against her skin, genuinely scared that Loki's control would snap and kill her where she stood.

"Do not speak of things you know nothing about. I care for Y/N immensely."

Taking advantage of Loki's momentary lapse of concentration, Cinderella whipped her own blade from beneath her skirt and had the tip against his rib cage before he could do anything to stop her. They stood completely still, gazes locked in anger, knowing that the slightest movement now would be capable of killing them both.

Since Cinderella rather wanted to avoid a slashed throat and Loki certainly preferred not to be stabbed in the heart, they silently came to a truce and stepped apart. Each gripped the handle of their weapon as if their life depended on it - which it sort of did - but neither made another move towards the other.

Brushing sections of the shrubbery from the folds of her skirt, Cinderella said in far too friendly a tone for the current situation, "Do her a favour, Loki. Ask yourself how much you really care for Y/N and then why you're stringing her along."

"If you're trying to make a point, please, do get on with it."

"We both know that Y/N deserves someone far better than you. You've managed to delude yourself into thinking that one day you might be able to run away together or maybe even be accepted here in the palace. But she's still a servant, Loki. No matter how much I dress her up - you're welcome for that, by the way - she will always be below you."

"Cinderella..." Loki practically growled, warning her to get to her point sooner rather than later.

"I'm just saying that you're wasting her time. You have been for months. I'm curious, though," she said, stretching out across a small stone bench and tilting her head to the side in a way you supposed was meant to be enticing. "The night of the ball..."

"Don't."

"Oh, come on. It's just us here. Would you have really introduced her to Odin? Told him that she was the one you chose to marry? Go on; just indulge me. If things had been different, if I hadn't interrupted the fairytale and all of this," she said, waving her arms vaguely in the air and gesturing between them. "Hadn't happened, would you truly have declared her the one you intended to marry?"

His silence said far more than any words ever could.

Cinderella raised an eyebrow then, instead of accepting her victory over the prince, kept pushing. "Can you see it now? By playing this game, pretending that you could ever be together, you are only going to break Y/N's fragile little heart. You should be grateful to me, really. If you hadn't followed me to the gardens that night, and had instead gathered the courage to actually do something for once, you would have made a fool of yourself and Y/N by asking Odin for his blessings. Just think how big a mess that would have made."

"This conversation is done," Loki said, a definite air of finality about it. "And if you lay another hand on Y/N..."

"You know that there's nothing you can do to me. Brynjar will not hesitate to treat you the same fate as the others if so much a hair on my head comes to harm. Face it, Loki. You aren't in control here; we are." Rising to her feet, Cinderella flung her beautiful golden locks over her shoulder and smiled - looking not unlike a predator that had finally cornered their prey. She took a few steps towards him and traced the line of his jaw with her finger, pushing him to meet her gaze.