Cleave | Loki x Reader

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1865, Asgard

Loki

Mischief! It's me! Can you hear me?
I toss and I turn. My gaze fixed on her lips. I'm lost in a daze, longing for the sensation of them flush on mine once more.
You cannot be asleep right now, come on! Loki, listen to me!
Yngri hetja, I'm not asleep, merely entranced by the memory of your kiss, I intended to say, and perhaps I even did say the words, because in a flash, her skin seared mine and her lips were where I wanted them. But her heat just wouldn't envelop me quite enough. More. I need more.

Loki, just listen!

My tossing and turning had turned ferocious then, my body yearning to pull her closer, experience her as I had experienced her at our frozen pond. Alas, my efforts were in vain. Her frame blurred, and I reached for her, but she slipped from my grasp like violent violet smoke.

Mischief! Wake up!

My musings abruptly interrupted, a sharp sting cut across my cheek. Followed by a jolt of pain shooting up my left arm as it collided with the unforgiving stone of my bedroom floor. With my eyes steadily adjusting to the gloom, I began to scan the room in search of Y/n. Of course she wasn't there - these were my chambers after all; how could she ever be there?
Yet, there she clearly was - there, in my head.

I suppose you're finally awake now? What had you knocked out like that?
I intended to respond, Your lips on mine, but ultimately, the words were left unsaid. Instead, I sent something else down the link of our minds: Did you just mentally slap me awake?

Suppose I did.

But how in Hel's name did you?!

I thought it, and so I did it. Was worth a try.

Silence from her voice in my head followed, at least for a while as I was sorting through the irritation inside. It was supposed to be impossible for her to act inside my head without the touching of our skin.
Amidst my contemplation, the distant shuffling of feet caught my attention as though echoing from another realm.

You're right outside my chambers, aren't you?

Of course I am. How else would I be able to communicate with you?

Greater and more curious things have been achieved tonight, I thought to myself. Ignoring the shameless insolence she had taken to, and which she had clearly adopted from me, I asked, Couldn't sleep? Pining for me does have that effect on some. Or so I've heard.
Naturally, the answer to her insolence was bound to be met with nothing but an even greater amount of my own.

Of course, Mischief, why ever else.

I pictured her response in company of that insidious, sly wink and wicked smile of hers I had grown to adore. And there in the privacy of my chambers, unceremoniously so, I revelled in the warm sensation it had managed to rouse in the pit of my stomach.

Well, actually, I came to collect. You, for that matter. I have something planned for us, she revealed.

Wha- I was interrupted.

Get dressed and meet me in the halls. I'll explain everything then.

Then, the disconnect.
So, I did as I was told - rather peculiar of me, I'm aware - and threw on my robes.
There she stood, in the grand halls of Asgard Palace's left wing, right outside my chambers, in all her glory.
Waiting. For me.
The wicked smile I had conjured up in my mind mere moments earlier was now gracing her lips.
She was dressed in a simple off-shoulder dress of shining, sparkling onyx, complemented by a violet leather corset, embellished with accents of silver in perfect harmony with that brilliant lock of silver hair.
The instant my eyes had landed on that flash of silver, I found myself captivated by the mesmerizing mop of hair. The icy strand wound itself around her head in an intricate crescent, its arrowhead delicately attached to her temple. The Flétta af Hugrekki - the Light Elves' Braid of Courage.
As though conjured, a nine-year-old Y/n was now standing before me, in her little kyrtill, and brimming with all that wit and charisma. And yet she had resorted to that small braid to grant her the courage she thought she would need on her first day in Asgard. I remember her as a stranger in an even stranger land, a land she was destined to become the most important person of. Suddenly, I understood why she must have believed herself in desperate need of that courage.
Thinking back now, I only admire that little girl the more.