When Darkness Falls - LOKI - Book One (Editing)

34. Insufferable

     Blood.

     A woman's screams.

     An infant crying.

     A figure clad in black with horns that stretched for the skies.

     All Athelia could to keep from going mad was try and close her eyes, but everytime she dared to drift she would be stirred violently by images she couldn't explain. She knew it was more than a dream if it had been, her mind would have moved on by now.

     So she lied awake, contemplating every choice she made since she had come to Asgard and everything she would have to do to get back home. She didn't belong here. She knew this as well as everyone else. She had always been on the verge of madness, but here on Asgard, made her question everything she thought was right about her.

     For years all she could think about was conquering and becoming queen. She knew no happiness except the rush of war and it faded with every moment she was here. She hated this place, but she was beginning to realize that it wasn't because of the gold and the roses, it was because she was becoming someone else. She was losing a part of herself that she always thought she knew and despite her unnerved demeanor, it was frightening her.

    She was having harder time controlling herself. Her outbursts. Her anger. The pain in her wrists grew everyday and she knew if she took the throne was a very good chance she would lose herself to the darkness forever and hurt those she had come to care about.

     Athelia groaned loudly and ripped her thick blanket off of her as she tossed her pillow across the room. It burst into a thousand flying feathers as it hit the wall and before she could change her mind, she began ripping through her cupboards trying to find the remainder of the brennavan.

     Dresses and unworn jewelry covered her bed in  small mountains. It didn't take her long to realize that Thor had taken it and she dropped to floor, sprawled out as she cursed his name yet again. She was doing everything she could to not burn this place to the ground, but with every spark that burned through her fingers, she held her breath even longer.

      She needed to empty her mind enough to sleep and she quickly managed to sneak past the guards at her door and made way towards Loki's room, only stopping to make sure that Thor was sleeping soundly next door.

     She beelined directly to the cupboard next to his bed, finding it surprisingly unlocked. A smile fell on her face as the thought of Thor leaving it unlocked for her sprinted through her mind, but she brushed it off as nothing more than a silly mistake. Her eyes glistened over the trinkets Loki kept locked away, but with no ability to care for anything more at the moment, she reached for a bottle and collapsed on his bed.

     She was consumed with his stale scent, but she didn't want to think about him.
She didn't want to think about anything other than the putrid liquid sliding down her throat, but as she leaned forward to open the bottle, her gaze landed on the leather bound book she had nearly forgotten about.

     She groaned, her sense of curiosity getting the better of her and set the bottle down before grabbing the book and relaxing into the mountain of dusty pillows. Her fingers traced the worn bind and she smiled as the smell of the pages flipping through her fingers wafted around her. Books had quickly become the most satisfying thing about Asgard, but even then she found the love tropes that cluttered the shelves particularly vial.

     Athelia's hand hovered over the ink stained page as she stared down in awe. The once empty pages were filled from corner to corner with drawings of her homeland. His sharp lines danced across the pages anxiously, as if he couldn't get the images out of his head fast enough. She was overwhelmed in the details that only a true Dorianite would know, like the view of the sea from her balcony. How the glassy sharp rocks shot into the foggy air from the Black Sea or the way the breakaway bridge looked as her father and his men made their way home at the end of the day.
    
    She knew there was no way he would have ever known the beauty of her dimlit world unless he had seen it himself and she had a feeling he saw more than what he claimed when he pulled her from the darkest corners of her mind.