The Prince's Prisoner

Bird

Chapter 29 - Bird. Enjoy!

Aria dusted the flour off her sleeves, rolling them either further up her arms and wishing she had gone for the pastel pink, sleeveless dress instead of the faded orange she had on. The staff had been ordered out of the kitchen, their lunch pre-prepared and only needed to be arranged when they were ready. Loki had 'gone out', apparently, he had gone to find something for the ball.

"Fuck" she muttered as another spurt of that bothersome white powder flurried over the edge of the bowl. Cooking she could do. Tidy cooking was for the patient.

They were on day two. Their landing day was ground zero. Day one had been a lot of 'sleeping' while the staff arrived and settled into their homes, followed by sitting around in the library. Now day two was Aria battling with kitchen utensils.

She had hunted down a white apron, not that is helped, and she was tempted to just remove it. Taking a slower fold of the mixture, satisfied when everything stayed within the content of the bowl. The cooking was familiar, Aria moving onto do the same with the second bowl. She wasn't doing anything fancy, her baking was fairly amateur, as she warned Loki multiple times when he had mentioned eating whatever she made.

Pouring small amounts of each bowl into the three cake dishes, repeating until the trays were full and the bowls empty. Aria used the handle of the spoons to lightly blend the chocolate and vanilla colours until adequately marbled, before sticking them into the oven with satisfaction.

Leaning back, she finally removed the dreadful apron and wiped the rest of the flour off, before staring around the kitchen. While cooking relaxed her, it also made her feel docile. Aria was anything but docile. She felt like she was 'playing wife', something she certainly didn't want to condone too. But, she had no other options to spend her day.

Walking around the kitchen to grab a drink out the fridge, she sighed as the chain around her ankle hooked the edge of the island. Loki was annoyed she kept refusing to cook this morning out of panic he might actually eat it. When he reminded her she requested, she snapped that she requested a lot of things that never happened. This earned her a chain to the kitchen counter, forcing her to cook or sit around bored.

She was certain he didn't want her cooking that bad, but he continued to find inventive ways to both punish her and cure her boredom.

Aria sat waiting on the counter as the cake baked, scratching at a scab on her knee aimlessly, not even noticing when it started to bleed until she'd torn half the skin away.

"Fuck" she mumbled, seeing drops on the floor and nearly hitting her dress. Rummaging in all the cupboards, she finally found a plaster and patched herself up with a sigh before cleaning the floor.

It felt nice to actually sort her own injuries out, not have to wait for Loki to heal her or let them do their own thing, slowly and painfully.

An hour later, the cake was cool and iced, sitting perfectly on the island. Aria couldn't stop looking at the time, this was the only access she had had to seeing the time and being able to track it since being with Loki. She still had no idea what month or day it was and didn't dare ask.

With the cake done, Aria spent over an hour sitting in different sections of the kitchen, sorting out cupboards and tidying, before finally lying on top of the island and staring the wooden beams above her head.

The event two days away, Aria's apprehension of the night was becoming obsessive. Something was going to happen. Jason had sent her looks of news in the final few days, but they never found a reason to end up together. She thought he mouthed the word ball once, but he could have been saying anything. So, she had let her hope slide, especially as Loki clocked onto whenever her hope spiked, and knocked it out of her.