Our Secret Garden (Loki X Reader)

Night One

I just kept walking. I didn't know where I was going, and my legs felt that they were going to give out at any moment. I regretted not taking the horse from the stable. Even though I barely knew how to ride, anything would have been better than walking. The same scene kept flowing through my mind, driving me farther and farther from my home.

My mother and father, standing arm and arm, introducing me to the man they had decided I would wed. I had tried to keep a smile on my face, but I was never any good at lying, and it continuously fell into a frown and tears stung my eyes. After our dinner, he had left, and I had cried in my mother's arms.

All she could do was tell me that she had ended up happy with my father, I would be happy too.

But as I strayed from the already nonexistent path, I hoped that I would become too lost to find my way back home. That I would never see them again. That I could, for once, make my own decision about my life. I didn't want to be forced into marriage, I didn't want to pretend to like someone, to love someone, for the rest of my life.

I wanted love. Real love. The kind of love that gets written about in novels, the kind that makes people crazy and obsessed, but in a good way. The kind of love that makes someone burn the world to the ground to get you back. The kind of love that makes you feel like you're on fire. The kind that is passionate.

That is caring.

That is forever.

The kind that is chosen, not forced onto you.

But I knew that before the sun would rise, I would be back, back at that house, and I would get through my day, get one step closer to a wedding that was only two months away.

But for now I would keep walking, deeper and deeper into this forest. The trees were getting taller and wider, the floor becoming more barren from the lack of sunlight. It had become so dark I could barely see three feet in front of myself. Roots became harder to see, and I kept tripping on them.

I hit my foot on one, and fell to the ground, catching myself with my hands. As I pushed myself up, I felt a trickle of blood run down my hand towards my elbow. I rubbed it on the old outfit that I had thrown on. It was one that I wore while gardening, so it wasn't out of place for it to have dirt and blood on it.

I had decided that it was probably time to head back, while I was still in one piece. I turned, starting to go back the way I had come, when I saw flashes of light through the trees, moving towards the right. In a moment of curiosity, I followed. As I got closer, I could see a clearing in the trees. It wasn't large, but big enough to where a few people could gather. I got to the edge of it, wanting to go out to the center and see where the light had gone.

But the stars distracted me.

Above, we're thousands of stars and swirls of color and light. With the glow of the city, it was hard to see this many at night from there, and I never was able to go this far out into the country. I had never seen so many, it was breathtaking. I laid down on my back, and stared at the sky for what seemed like hours. I hadn't noticed the man who sat at the other edge of the clearing, a small ball of light floating above his hand. But he didn't watch the stars. He stared at something he thought was infinitely more beautiful.