Midnight in the garden of mischief & mayhem

Chapter 18

I felt empty. Hollow. Like all of my insides had been torn out in one agonizing moment and now I was no more than a walking shell, a ghost of my former self.

The sobbing had stopped hours ago, crushing grief replaced by a strange numbness. 

As I laid there, lost in my own mind, my eyes found the necklace lying on my bedside table. 

Fresh hot tears rolled down my cheeks as I realized that the beautiful stone would never again flicker to life under my touch. The thought was enough to bring the grief roaring back with a vengeance, and I turned over as sobs wracked my chest. 

That night was the first of many that I cried myself to sleep and dreamt of Loki. Although, if I was being honest with myself, they weren't dreams so much as nightmares, painful reminders of the man I had fallen helplessly in love with so long ago.

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There was no body to burn, no boat to send into the stars. The people of Asgard shed no tears for my prince. At the palace a feast was held, as is customary. These meals are meant to be a celebration of life, a time for the family and friends of the deceased to comfort each other in their grief by sharing good memories. But seated around the large table, no one had anything to say. I didn't touch my food, and barely registered when the uncomfortable silence became conversations about anything but Loki. What did it matter anymore anyway?

My limbs felt heavy as I walked back to my room, as though even staying upright were a colossal effort, but the rest of me felt empty, a walking husk of a girl who once had breathed and smiled. I stopped at one of the windows along the hall, looking out. As I stared off into the expanse of water that rimmed the city, I felt nothing, saw nothing, thought nothing. It was safer this way. 

I shut the door to my chambers behind me and found I couldn't move my feet another step. The facade I had pasted on for tonight, which had until now been the only thing keeping me standing, fell away almost violently, tearing me back into the sick, hellish reality that was now my life. I collapsed to the floor and wept tears I thought long since dry.