Our Secret Garden (Loki X Reader)

The Final Day

The last three days had been filled with nothing but waiting. Waiting for any word from Loki, which never came, and waiting for my wedding day. This day. This dreaded, awful, terrible day that made me want to take the swords that we would be exchanging and instead stab myself with it. I had found love with someone and now... Now they had left me alone and I had nothing to live for in this new life I was about to be thrust into.

Despite the tradition stating otherwise, my mother never helped prepare me for this day. She, along with the other married women in our family was supposed to help dress and prepare me starting at dawn. But she was too ashamed and didn't even walk through the hallway that held my preparation room. She almost even refused to give me her circlet, the one that she wore on her wedding day and was to be passed to me for my own, and then to my daughter for hers, and so on. But when my aunt had gone to retrieve it, my mother had held onto it so tightly that it had almost broken when my aunt had tried to break it from her hold.

She had come back soon after, demanding to know what had gotten into my mother. I tried to calmly explain everything that had happened, but it didn't come out without choked sobs.

"There was another man, auntie!" I started. "I don't want to go through with this. I tried to tell them but they won't listen!"

My aunt was the only one who was on my side, telling me of how she had been forced into marriage just like my mother. But unlike her sister, she had not been so lucky with the man she was to be with. She was sympathetic, but the preparations went on.

"It's just what we do, as women," She had said to me as she pulled my hair back. "And we don't cry about it after the makeup is on, so get it all out now."

I stood there wiping away the last of the tears, trying to dry my face so that one of the maids was able to start with the powder. I heard the door open and looked up, wondering who would be there. I knew it wasn't going to be my parents and I had given up hope that it was Loki. It met eyes with the same guard that had been trailing me since my parents found out I had snuck out. He was always silent and always watching. Always following my every move with his stupid green eyes that only reminded me of Loki. I turned away, not wanting to be reminded of him.

"Are you ready?" I heard my aunt's voice and it pulled me from my reverie.

"Already?!" I asked, panic overtaking my tone. I looked around franticly but there was no one else in the room besides that same guard.

"For your dress, yes." She chuckled as she held up the fabric in front of me. I eyed it suspiciously, not wanting to put on the very last thing that I needed. Once it was on, the wedding would soon start.

"Must I?" I asked as I reached for the soft dress. "Is there really no other option for me? Am I really trapped?" I fired of the questions at my aunt, not expecting any answer. I knew what she would say. I had never been able to really take control of my life and now... now I was going to be trapped longing for a man who I would never be able to have. "I love him, auntie. Not Ulf, never him. But the other man. I love him. And Now... now I'll never be able to even see him again. He said he wanted to marry me, that every day the women his father brought in... He wished one of these days one of them would be me."

I held my tears back, not wanting to waste the effort the kind maid had gone through to make my face pleasing. My body shook with the effort.

"Come now, honey. If he had wanted to be with you so badly, I'm sure he would have thought of something." My aunt said, trying to break any ties between the two of us. I knew she was trying to place doubt in my mind, but I had enough of it from myself and did not need her to add to it. "He would have gone to the All-Father if he felt so strongly."