Muffins - Loki & Ylva alternate universe stories

Princess in the tower VIII

"Where's your shadow, Ylva?" Ulf calls out as he sees her coming into the common room. "Did your knight in shining armour finally let you of his sight?"

She immediately turns around to leave the room again. Coming here was a mistake. Clearly her brothers won't let her forget about yesterday. Maybe it's a good thing they don't know about last night. They don't, right?

Ulf has jumped up and grabs her arm before she can leave the room. "Sorry, sis, can't be helped. Some jokes need to be made," he says with a wide grin, turning her to walk with him as he slings an arm around her shoulder. "How was spending the night with your beau?"

"You know about that?!" Horror makes Ylva's eyes go wide.

Ulf gives her a squeeze. "That you slept in the infirmary because Loki would not let you go? Yeah, we know."

"What else do you know?"

The grin that sneaks on her brother's face could not be slyer. "Why? Did something happen?"

"No!"

"That translates as a big fat yes to me, sis," Brann pipes up from the sofa. Ylva is not sure if the menace in his voice is meant as a joke or not.

Thor is there too to add his little two cents. "Yeah, little quick on the denial there, princess." At least from him she knows for sure he is joking, the Asgardian prince is sporting a big toothy grin.

"We slept, all right?!" she grits through her teeth. "He slept. I slept. End of story."

"It better be," Brann states and now she definitely hears some anger in it.

Thor slaps her oldest brother on the shoulder. "Don't fret, Brann. Loki can be a bit of a snake... Ha! Maybe that's why the snake bit him!" The Asgardian prince laughs heartily from his own stupid joke. "Anyway, snake or not, I'm sure Loki has treated Ylva with respect."

"He wouldn't have walked out of that infirmary if he didn't," Ylva states firmly, fed up with everybody suggesting anything happened between her and Loki.

Even Loki with his messed up memory had known they didn't kiss. He was even happy about it. That had stung. Heck, it still stings now, several hours later.

Ylva lets herself be convinced to stay with her brothers and Thor in the common room. It's their sitting room, the one room in the palace they can call theirs, besides their bedrooms. When the boys continue their card game, Ylva goes in search of the book she was reading. She had left it here somewhere the other day, maybe one of the servants has put it away. The princess finds the book on a side table next to one of the large armchairs in front of the window. She curls up in the chair with the book, one that Loki picked out from the library earlier this week; he'd recommended it to her, casually dropping it in her hands when they scoured the shelves for something to read that night. It was one of the moments where that awkward feeling between them was gone for a bit. All the awkwardness had come crashing back this morning. And it's her fault.

It was her choice to sleep next to him. She could have used one of the other beds in the infirmary, then she would still be in the room in case he woke up. But no, she had happily snuggled up against the sleeping prince, foolishly continuing the hallucination even though the poison was being flushed out of his system.

This morning he had been his joking self when he woke up, though his apologies and questions had been sincere. She knows Loki meant her no harm and that he really is sorry for what he did when he wasn't himself. Yet... somewhere deep down she had hoped that he was himself; that there was some truth to his actions, despite his brain spacing out on snake poison. Turns out she was hallucinating as well yesterday...