Muffins - Loki & Ylva alternate universe stories

Muffins III

"What's on your mind?" Thor's voice startles Loki out of his pensive state.

"What's it to you?" he snaps.

His brother just shrugs. "You seem out of it the last couple of days. You're even more moody than normal. Might want to talk about it, get it out of your system."

Ah, yes, dear brother, Loki thinks to himself. I'm gonna tell you all about how I shifted into a cat and lay on a mortal girl's lap for almost two hours, purring so loudly I had a sore throat the other day. It was like he had been under a spell, he had not been able to think straight anymore. A mortal girl had bested him, the God of Mischief and Lies, a master of magic!
"It's nothing," Loki answers curtly.

"Whatever you say." Thor gives him a long look, though he says nothing after that.

Loki continues to stare out of the window. At the other side of the street is an apartment building just like theirs. On the floor level with him there's a cat lying in the window; a black and white cat, curled up to a ball and sleeping peacefully. He had fallen asleep at some point too, only to wake up and find her still half-cradling him against her stomach. The feeling he had at that moment could only be described as bliss. Pure bliss.

Ylva had gone back inside when it got too cold to sit outside up on the roof; with the bang of the metal door closing the spell had been broken. Loki came to his senses as he changed back to his usual form, sitting flat on his ass next to the red bench. It was all rather embarrassing.
He had tried to put the whole thing out of his mind, though when Thor had made pasta last night all he could think of was Ylva sharing her last meatball with him. Disgusting. Yet it had taken a lot of willpower to stay inside after dinner, to not go to a certain rooftop above a certain coffeeshop again. Maybe he should just return to Asgard, instead of hanging out on Midgard with Thor and those annoying Avengers. However, going back to live under Odin's scrutinizing gaze is not appealing either.

Suddenly, his suit jacket is thrown at him. "Get your moping ass out of that chair, brother. I'm taking you out for coffee."

Loki angrily refuses, but Thor just keeps staring at him until he gives in. "Fine," he grumbles, putting his jacket on. Outside, he soon takes it off again and dangles it over his shoulder. The weather is lovely, even his Frostgiant genes don't require wearing a jacket. He relaxes a little in the sun, actually enjoying walking next to his brother. He likes their stay on Midgard together, not that he would ever say it out loud. It is nice and uncomplicated, as long as he doesn't count that mortal girl and her magical antics.

"Thor?" he asks casually. "Have you ever encountered humans who could do magic?"

His brother thinks on that for a while. "Well... there are some. Dr. Strange, for instance."

"Ah yes, the one whose cloak has a mind of its own." Loki wrinkles his nose in disgust at the thought of the self-righteous wizard. "There are some witches too... They all seem to have two things in common."

"And those are?" Thor asks with a grin. It is a good trait of his oaf of a brother to be open to conversations about anything, at any time.

"A love of wearing capes and showing off," Loki states haughtily. "But that is actually not what I was talking about. I'm more interested in the ones who don't flaunt their magical abilities."

"What do you mean?" Thor pushes the button to request to cross the street without being overrun by cars.

"Everyone I ever encountered who could do magic, did so consciously and obviously," Loki explains. "You can always see or sense they're using magic. With some you have to look real close, but it can always be detected."