Odin's Little Devil// Loki

Guilt

Nyx's mouth felt full of water and she swallowed hard to clear her throat. She felt her neck twitch, shifting her head from left to right ever so subtly. Then she pulled her eyelids open as wide as possible but it only allowed a slim view from between her thick eyelashes. She struggled to process what had happened. Her senses were slowly coming back to her one at a time. 

First it was her sense of taste. There was an overwhelming amount of liquid in her mouth or perhaps it was a sensitive function of realizing how wet her mouth normally was. Then came her sight, the rusty haze of the room making her uncomfortable, almost like she were placed in an unkind memory of her past. She automatically wanted to move from her position. Then her smell came to her in a wave of nauseousness. The smell of sanitizer was unnerving. Finally, she was able to move her neck to look around. 

She could numbly feel the silk sheets that lay upon her cold and oddly stiff body. She noticed a lamp of golden shade was lain beside the bed she was in and as her eyes darted around the room in panic, she knew she was in the infirmary. Why had she been there? She never needed to be admitted, she only knew of her surroundings because of her curious adolescence years of adventuring.

She swallowed again and sat up, fighting the urge to lie back down and close her heavy eyes. But she was stopped immediately by a heavy object pushing her back into the mattress. She winced and looked up to see what was keeping her to her quarters. 

"Are you in pain?" it was Loki staring down at her with knitted brows and a worry mark at the corner of his lip. He was still dressed in the clothes she saw him in earlier so she couldn't have been asleep for too long but he was worried enough to make anxiety knot in her stomach. 

"What happened?" her voice was soft and sincere. Loki eased at her words and sat at the edge of the bed. 

"Brynjar pronounced you urged for a sudden spare. But then you had drawn your sword through his abdomen and a dozen children witnessed blood pour from both your cores. I didn't hear about this until dusk" Loki explained slowly, fear riddled his words but Nyx wanted nothing more than to ease him. 

"I'm fine" she replied. "Brynjar," she addressed. "is he alright?". 

Loki smiled up at her with a sad smile, a gleam in his darkened eyes that made a sharp pain shoot through her heart at the sight. "He's in perfect condition despite the need for a new uniform" Loki's head tilted in a way Nyx was drawn out of her apprehensiveness and hyper focused on his perfectly carved face. His delicate pale skin that looked and felt so soft to the touch, his compassionate glowing eyes, finally, her eyes landing on the crimson color of his lips. 

"Why must you care so much of others" the tone in his voice sounded so unfortunate yet thoughtful. 

"What do you mean?" she tried shifting again but the stiffness at her abdomen stopped her from getting too far. 

"Please rest" he sounded like he was begging, his eyes were glued to hers in a need for her safety. "You endure this deranged competency you never asked for and still you see only the good of the people" he shook his head in disagreement. 

"I was raised in the mindset of you and Thor's rise to be King. This is a good thing, putting my people first" Nyx persisted, not fully understanding what it was Loki was so upset about. 

"If there is no need to be alive, why live? You are so indispensable so would you stop pretending you're just another warrior to be tossed into battle whenever one arises?" Loki spoke sternly now, avoiding her gaze in this vulnerable state. 

Nyx remained silent, carefully taking in his words as of they were hidden messages and her mere existence was to unwound a secret code. "I never meant for any of this to occur" she coward away.