Shadows and Lies

Chapter 28

"Hey, what do you think you're doing?" Thor walked Into Loki's room to see Loki leaving the bathroom, half dressed.
"I think I was taking a shower" Loki said, trying to dry off his upper half without hurting his burned skin. Loki had been laying in bed doing basically nothing for two days, as per Katarina's instruction, Thor was impressed with Loki actually obeying, and was annoyed that loki was now up and walking around.
"I meant why are you dressed" Thor went over and helped loki back to bed "If you want to shower fine, but you're staying in bed aside from that" Thor told him definitively.
"Wha- no, Katarina-" Loki's voice broke and he tried to clear his throat, which was still very sore. Thor handed him a glass of water and he drank before trying to talk again.
"Katarina told me I could leave the room" he said in a gravely voice that was painful to listen to.
"I don't believe you" Thor carefully put Loki's legs up on the bed and laid him back against the pillows, then put a blanket over him.
"Hey- why don't you believe me?" Loki asked, sounding quite offended.
"Because you're a notorious liar, and Katarina wouldn't suddenly say you can get up and walk around when she's had you confined to bed for the past two days" Thor checked Loki's eye to see if the swelling had gone down, then put some ice on it and his lip.
"Okay... that's fair..." Loki rasped "but she really did tell me that I could leave the room" it was even harder to understand him now that Thor had ice on his lip, but it was clear enough for Thor to understand.
"Yeah? Can you prove it?" Thor said more as a joke, but then Loki nodded.
"Yes, actually. She wrote a note" Loki  tried to sit up a bit but Thor pushed him back down.
"Where is it then?" He asked. Loki looked annoyed through all the bumps and bruises on his face.
"It's on the desk" Loki muttered. Thor went to the desk and surprisingly found a note in Katarina's handwriting. It said that Loki could leave the room as long as he didn't do too much walking and he didn't go somewhere where people couldn't find him if he got hurt.
Thor turned and gave Loki a look, to which Loki just shrugged a bit.
"Did you fake this?" Thor said accusingly. Loki huffed a bit.
"No. I didn't-" he cleared his throat again, even though it never really helped and just hurt more. "I didn't fake it, go ask her if you don't believe me" Thor looked skeptical for a minute, he would go check with Katarina, but he was afraid that Loki would run while he wasn't there.
"I just want to go to the lounge and read a book. Between being a captive and now my new injuries, I've been locked up in here for weeks, i won't do anything reckless" Thor hesitated for a minute.
"Fine, just be smart and don't push yourself" Thor said, not very confident that Loki would be careful not to cause himself further injury.
Loki was relieved that Thor was letting him go. He appreciated all the care he was getting from Thor and Katarina, but he was eagerly looking forward to being alone, Unwatched, and comfortable for a little while while he read a book.
"Great... now if you'll excuse me" he pulled himself up, groaning as he did, and went to finish getting dressed.
Thor didn't leave the room but he didn't bother Loki while he grabbed a shirt and tried to get dressed. He didn't think it would be that hard, but it was. His skin stung anytime he was touched, and his shoulders ached anytime he tried move his arms, so getting into a shirt was proving difficult.
"Do you need help?" Thor finally offered after a minute of watching Loki struggle.
"No, I do not need help" Loki snapped, clearly in need of help.
"Okay, stop" Thor said, grabbing the shirt out of Loki's hands "just wait here, I'll get you your robe and you don't have to bother with this, okay?" He didn't wait for Loki to respond, he just went to the closet.
"I could get my shirt on" Loki said after him, but Thor didn't really care what kind of hit Loki's pride was taking right now.
"Maybe. but you'd go read for an hour and then come back and have to take it off" he came back and helped Loki on with the robe and tied it "so save yourself some pain and aggravation and just skip it"
Loki didn't say anything, probably because of the pain in his throat, he just got up and took his book from the bedside table.
"can you actually walk or are you in pain with every step?"
Thor asked. Loki looked uncomfortable, but he was standing and wasn't leaning on anything for support.
"I'm in pain, but it's not too bad, I'll be fine" Loki replied. He'd already accepted a surprising about of help, and Thor didn't want to push him over the edge by smothering him with offers of assistance.
"Alright. I'll have someone send food to the lounge for you at lunch time. Let me know if you need anything else" Thor said as he headed for the door. Loki nodded a bit.
"Thanks" Loki said.
Thor smiled a bit and nodded, to which Loki rolled his eyes.
"Stop grinning every time I say thank you, it's a normal thing to say" he said in slight annoyance.
"It's not for you" Thor retorted.
"Well get over it. You're nice to me and I appreciate it, so stop being an idiot about it" Loki snapped back.
"Whatever you say. Be careful and don't do anything stupid" Thor left before look could argue any further, and Loki made it to the door shortly thereafter.
He started to make his way to the lounge, and quickly found that being up was tiring; walking didn't cause too much pain, he was in pain because of the sun burns, and his ribs ached, and it was hard to see because one of his eyes was still pretty swollen, and his throat felt like sandpaper, but that was all true when he was sitting down, and walking didn't add much to that pain. He realized that he was just still tired. It had been a few days and he thought he'd be rested up and recovered from the physical fatigue he'd been feeling, but he wasn't. Half way there he just wanted to sit down and stop moving, but he didn't, he made himself go all the way and eventually got the the lounge and mentally celebrated that no one else was there.
He sank down into one of the deep sofas and relaxed. The room was quiet and warmly lit, and for the first time in forever he was actually, genuinely alone; no one watching him or waiting for him, very few people even knew where he was. he had his freedom to do what he wanted, so he got as comfortable as possible and started reading his book.
He read for a good amount of time before his eyes started to hurt a bit, the light in the room was pretty dim and it had been a long time that he'd been straining his eyes to read, so he put the book down on the table in the center of the sofas and laid back for a moment. He didn't get much rest because as soon as he had laid back and started to doze off, he was woken up again by loud talking entering the room. He opened his good eye and sat up and saw that the talking was coming from a group of guards, one of whom was the guard that had tormented him his first day being beaten in the city center. He hated that guy, he hated his stupid smirk and irritating voice. He'd not only yanked Loki up so far that he'd been hanging all his weight from his shoulders, but then he put a canteen of water right next to him to taunt him, and now he was talking so loud that he'd woken Loki up.
"Shut up" Loki muttered in annoyance under his breath. He wanted to do something to make him mad, but it took too much effort to get up, and even if he was able to, he couldn't exactly pick a fight in his condition.
He leaned back again in announce and rubbed his sore wrists. He stopped, realizing something as he rubbed his wrists... his wrists that no longer had cuffs to prevent him from using magic. He looked at the guards who were still talking loudly, It had been a long time since he'd used magic of any kind, but it came right back to him. He held his hand flat and made a quick swipe, and the guard tripped over seemingly nothing and stumbled to the ground.
Loki smirked, pleased with himself for his petty revenge, and then sat back and picked up his book again.
"Hey!" Loki looked up toward the shouting and saw the guard getting up off the ground, looking extremely enraged. "What do you think you're doing?!" He yelled, storming over to where Loki was sitting.
"People keep asking me that" Loki said casually, going back to his book. He didn't think the guard would actually do anything, but he was wrong. Everything after that happened too fast for loki to process.
The guard smacked Loki's book out of his hand and knocked it to the ground.
"You think just because you got back on your brothers good side you're a prince again?!" Before Loki could react, the guard grabbed him by the collar of his robe and pulled him to his feet. He grabbed Loki's neck and was clearly going to hurt him, but before he could do anything else Fandral grabbed him and pulled him off of Loki.
"Are you out of your mind?!" Fandral yelled when the guard had let go of Loki. Loki didn't even see fandral approach while all of this was happening.
"This isn't your concern"  the guard said much more calmly. Loki was still a bit in shock and was just standing there with a hand on his throat, trying to let his brain catch up with what just happened.
"You attacked him, did you think you'd get away with that? Like it or not he's here, he's paid the price for his crimes, and he's Asgard's prince again" fandral said standing halfway between the guard and Loki so that he didn't try to attack again.
The guard realized that at this point attacking Loki was out of the question, he no longer had the advantage of surprise, and even if he was able to get to him he knew Fandral would have no reservation in telling Thor. Instead he turned to address Loki.
"You might be able to walk freely in the palace, and use your magic, but you're not Asgard's prince. At least you won't be for long" he said menacingly. Loki looked a bit confused.
"What's that supposed to mean?" The guard scoffed a bit.
"It means I'm not the only one who isn't celebrating your return. The people may be appeased now because they got to hurt you for a few days, but it won't be long before they start to realize that they've let a murderer back into society" Loki tightened his fist. He'd done a lot to get back, he worked hard at changing himself, he'd passed Thor's various tests of character, and he'd been cooperative during his punishment that the people agreed on. He earned his way back, and it made him angry that after all that he might still not be able to have a life.
"Get out" He said after a pause. His rough and gravely voice made him sound more dangerous than he probably was at the moment. "Get out of the palace, don't come back" he wanted to go off shouting and cursing at the guard, but he knew his throat couldn't take it so he just left it at that; an order to leave. The guard looked enraged and glared death at Loki, But Loki just glared back until he finally stormed out.
"The rest of you just get out of the room. and talk quietly" he snapped at the rest of the guards who had been standing nearby watching this all go down. They happily obliged and hurried out of the room.
"Just ignore him-" Fandral tried to say something to calm Loki down, but Loki interrupted.
"Is he right? Are the people still not satisfied?" He asked I'm frustration, sitting back down on the sofa.
"Of course he's not. Come on Loki, you know how mind games work, he's just tying to get into your head" Fandral sat down as well "he just wanted to mess with you before he was thrown out" Loki didn't really believe that, but he tried to. He readjusted his robe that had started to fall off a little bit, and then leaned back into his previous comfortable position on the sofa.
"What are you doing here then?" He didn't know why Fandral had been passing through in the first place, but he'd been enjoying his alone time and wanted him to leave.
Fandral gestured to the table where there was now a plate of food.
"Just bringing you some lunch. I'll be on my way" Fandral stood up again "do I need to call Katarina in here? That guy was about to mess you up" he offered. Loki shook his head.
"No, nothing major happened" Loki was already picking his book up off the floor again as he answered. Fandral didn't say anything else and just left the room.
Loki thought once he'd been alone for a little while and read a bit more of his book that he'd be able to stop thinking about what the guard had said, but he couldn't. Maybe things weren't over and he'd accepted peace too quickly.