A Whole Bunch of Loki's

Loner in Love - Chubby Young Loki

Loki pushed the glasses up the bridge of his nose once again, a move that was pointless as the second he lowered his gaze down to the book in his hands they slid down once again.

He swung his stubby legs as he sat on a large bench in the palace garden, minding his own business as other children ran past him, screaming and laughing merrily.

He had wanted to join in, but he found it hard to keep up with their energetic games and decided instead to sit to one side until another game was suggested.

This was what he always did, yet no one seemed to notice.

They were too busy playing happily with Thor, who would always take lead in what games would be played and when he decided he was bored then it was time to play a new game, another one of his choosing and understandably no one would argue.

Loki wouldn't mind so much, he was used to Thor being bossy, but his brother never picked a game that he could play for long.

He struggled to keep up with the others when playing chase.

Hide and seek had limited spaces for him to hide within the chosen area.

He was too self conscious to go and play in the near by river when they were allowed to stray further for a while.

So instead he would sit on the sidelines and watch them play whilst trying to distract himself with whatever book he was working his way through at the time.

No one ever seemed to notice that he didn't want to be sat by himself and he never had the courage to say that he wanted to join in, the fear of being pushed aside lingering in the back of his head.

It was easier for him to be wilfully lonely than forcefully isolated.

Loki had accepted the truth a while back.

The other children would rather hang out with Thor, the athletic, luxurious blond and boisterous one compared to the chubby, greasy dark haired and quiet bookworm that Loki was.

More often than not, whilst Thor was off being loud somewhere, he'd be reading away, imagining himself as the tall, brave and lean hero who would save the world and be loved by all.

No one had ever really mocked him about his appearance, at least not openly or to his face, although he deeply suspected that that was mostly due to him being one of the Princes of Asgard.

Though he'd grown accustomed to it and learned to enjoy his silence, he still yearned for companionship at times.

Even with this realisation and resignation in his life he was still startled when that day, that had started out as typically as any other, a young girl sat beside him on his usual bench.

A book was tucked neatly under her arm as her eyes followed the other children running around, a warm smile adorning her face and lighting up her features.

He glanced towards her unsurely, his eyes slowly scanning over her and taking in the details whilst his mind pondered about her reasons for sitting with him.

Loki knew he hadn't seen her before, maybe she was too uncertain about joining in with the other children's games and had decided that he was the best bet until she was more comfortable.

He started to debate internally with himself on whether to talk to her or not, spark up a conversation and see if maybe he could lure in a friend before Thor got there first again.

"You must be pretty angry at that book."

Loki flinched at his contemplation being broken and glanced towards her from the side of his eye.

"Pardon?" He almost whispered.

"You were glaring at your book," she giggled, "it must be making you angry."

"Oh," Loki mumbled, "no, I was thinking."

She made a long and drawn out noise of understanding and nodded her head, swinging her legs beneath the bench seat much like Loki had been.

"Why are you sat here by yourself?"

"I like being by myself."

"You don't want to play with the others?"

"I want to, but I can't."

"Oh," she paused and stared at him for a moment that felt much longer to him than it was, "why not?"

Loki looked at her like she was stupid, as if the answer was blatantly obvious even to her eleven year old mind.

"It's not like my clothes are padded," he snapped, sounding harsher than he had intended to.

He couldn't deny that he had jumped straight into a defensive attitude at being questioned, he had wanted someone to notice that he was lonely and yet he hadn't wanted them to throw questions at him.

She had only shrugged uncaringly and opened her own book, "I was just asking."

An awkward silence hung between them, though she didn't appear to show any notice of it.

Loki hadn't intended to snap, in truth he didn't really know why he got so defensive over nothing, it almost felt like an instinctual mechanism now.

No wonder he'd heard someone call him cold, it was only once and it was barely a throwaway comment, but at only eleven years old it had stuck with him.

His brows furrowed as he remembered the softly spoken words, this wasn't the first time he'd realised that perhaps there were some truth behind them and that it would need to be changed.

'No better time than the present I suppose,' he thought to himself.

Loki took a quick side glance towards her, or more towards her book.

"What are you reading?" He asked, his voice breaking a little at the beginning of his sentence.

She looks up from her book and at him with a smile, almost as if he hadn't just bitten her head off.

"It's a children's horror book," she grinned, "it's all about this scary, really twisted school full of monsters that normal people have to attend."

"That just sounds like when the realms have one of their big shared parties."

Loki was a little surprised, though also very pleased, when she let out a giddy laugh.

"Yeah, I guess it does!"

She looked at the cover of his book, evidently trying to see the title.

Loki tilted it up further for her, "It's a book on some illusion techniques," he claimed proudly, "I'm getting quite good at it."

Her eyes lit up with excitement and she moved closer, leaning over to look at the contents he had been reading over.

"You have to tell me," she demanded over excitedly.

Loki was a little surprised at her eagerness, but was happy to spend most of that afternoon demonstrating just how much he'd learnt during his lessons.