Loki X Reader One Shots || 𝐹𝐿𝑈𝐹𝐹 + 𝑆𝑀𝑈𝑇

Loki's POV (third person) 'Girl With The Gold Earring' (Part 2)

Loki has meandered down two floors, the view from the fourteenth still high above the clouds.

He can already smell breakfast cooking, the scent of it making his nose wrinkle.

It's a pungent mixture of what seems to be bacon rashers, smoked fish, crepes, and fried dough. Individually, each dish grilling and boiling and sizzling away would be more than appetising, but together, all heaped on top of each other, they smell like the bucket of leftovers one might toss into a pig pen.

There will only be three diners at the table for breakfast—Loki thinks Thor is still taking care of his business on Midgard—yet the palace chefs will cook enough for a banquet.

They have done this since the beginning of time, and will presumably do it until the end.

Apparently, Thor and Loki are the first in their bloodline to develop Shame. Her Majesty Frigga might have too, when she married into the family, but she hasn't hassled her husband to put a stop to the tradition, so how ashamed could she be?

Both Thor and Loki developed different ways of dealing with their guilt emotionally; Thor's being to stuff his face with as much of each meal as possible to save it from the bin, and Loki's is to avoid the whole thing altogether.

Loki considers himself a scavenger. He lives mainly off of nuts, fruit, and sweet treats he can snaffle from the kitchen staff, which he hides in his rooms until such a time as he wishes to consume them.

Despite the smell, eating will give him something to do, so he follows the confusing scent to the kitchen.

There are several kitchens in The Palace. They grow off the dining hall like tumours, and each one serves a different purpose. This kitchen is for everyday meal-prep and is constantly oozing smells, ringing with clattering pans, and breathing steam and smoke from the fires and pots—like a beating heart, it never stops.

Presently, with barely several hours until breakfast is due to be laid out on the vast oak table, the kitchen is abuzz with activity. As Loki peeks around the door, he is invisible; men and women in white linen rush past hin carrying trays and bubbling pots and barking orders to each other.

On the other side of the room, her broad back to the door, the head chef is piping jam into little envelopes of pastry, her elbows protruding at two stiff angles.

Her name is Helga and she's perfectly nice, but she calls Loki 'Young Master Odinson' no matter how many times he asks her not to. He'll ask "How is the morning treating you, Helga?"

And she'll say "Most pleasantly, Master Odinson."

And he'll say "How are things amongst the servants, Helga?"

And she'll say "Perfectly well, master Odinson'."

That's not a conversation, is it?

That's the problem with servants. They'll all obey any order you give them, unless that order is to treat you like a person.

Loki is not awake enough yet to navigate small talk he creeps inside quietly, although there's really no need.

The sound of eggs frying in several different skillets is enough to mask his footsteps, and he approaches the trolley of heaped plates waiting to be sent out to the dining room.

They'll leave at six forty-five on the dot.

Helga has timed it perfectly, preparing the cold dishes first and leaving gaps for the hot dishes that will be placed down just before the cart is whisked out the door.

Already, there are pink and white, miniature cakes as teeny as a thumbnail, scotch eggs presented on beds of green leaves, a stack of fruit-stained parchment-thin, crispy tartlets—