When Darkness Falls - LOKI - Book One (Editing)

7. Exquisite ✓

     Athelia had sat in the stone tub until the water ran cold. Her mind wandered to Loki's last words, and she couldn't help but cringe as she watched the tear from Frigga's beautiful eyes fall. The broken Queen, hidden away in the shadows as she watched yet another son be cast away at the hands of Odin.

    Though it wasn't the Queen's sadness that left her in her current state. It was the fact Loki had been able to resist her when even her father, whose blood ran through her veins, could not. Odin himself had tempted her powers. And when he realized that he was no match for her, he claimed a stone for himself, only offering Dolcia's freedom to return to Dorian in return. 

    Of course, she was reluctant at first. 

    She had never given a stone to someone as undeserving as Odin, but watching Dolcia waste away within the palace walls was too much for her. One of them deserved to be happy, and it was her dear friend that made sure Athelia had escaped Dorian alive. So she traded the stone to release her friend and make sure that she still had an ally in her homeland. An ally she knew she would need if Thor decided to refuse her. 

     A soft knock rapt against the door to Athelia's room, and she shivered. The cold water had finally sent chills up her spine, yet she submerged herself once more and let the water wash away the last bit of rage that lingered on her skin. 

     "You may enter," she called as she stepped from the tub. She pulled the silk robe around her body, only to turn and see Thor standing with his back to her.

    "My apologies," he muttered. "I assumed you were decent." 

   She laughed, having no shame in others seeing her body. "There is no need for such shyness," she told Thor, wrapping the robe tightly around her body. "After all, if your father has his way, this will be the body that bares your children." 

     Thor only grimaced, not turning until she assured him she was covered. Though even then, he wouldn't look her in the eye. Instead, Thor studied her room - desperate to try and get a sense of who this woman really was. He wasn't sure what he had been expecting. Skulls on her dresser? Black sheets hanging from towering bedposts? A body or two in her wardrobe? But he was met with nothing more than a slept-in bed and her stripped nightgown on the floor.  

     Athelia observed him as he walked around slowly, taking in every bit of the emptiness. He made his way across the room to the collection of paintings and art stuffed into the corner of the room and picked one up with a somber smile. "You do not like art?"

     She narrowed her eyes at the golden towers in the painting and took it from his hands. 

     "Your home is beautiful, Thor, truly. The flowers, the buildings, and the clothes - it is exquisite." She handed him back the painting and smiled as she picked up an ornate-looking animal from the shelf of trinkets. She had no idea what it was or why it had been carved from a mound of gold, but it was useless to her. "I tend to find beauty in simplicity, and if I am quite honest, material objects such as these make me rather uncomfortable." 

     She set the small sculpture back on the cupboard, and she watched as he ran his thick fingers over the dusty top. Everything that had once shined with decadence had been collected in one spot, and he continued to pick through them, one by one until he turned his back with a sigh - finally realizing the room that had once been fit for a queen was now nothing more than a dimly lit shell. 

     "You do not like these things?" 

     She gave him a half-hearted smile and picked up a goblet made of gold and sparkling stones. "I appreciate what your family has done to try and make me feel welcome, but these things are just things," she told him.