When Darkness Falls - LOKI - Book One (Editing)

12. Peculiar ✓

     Athelia found herself in the spot she had sat every night for the last few weeks. She sat on the same two steps in the same big hall, surrounded by the same chaos that she thrived on from the moment she found a place of sanctuary. The dungeons were the only place she could think, and even though she sat in front of the very prince that would have slit her throat given a chance,  she never felt unease.

    Silence consumed them on most days, only swapping hateful gazes as they searched for a distraction from the thoughts that consumed them. He would read as she wrote, but each time she filled a page with angry scrawlings, she would slam it shut and find his gaze upon her - almost as if the frustrated scowl on her face had amused him. 

    And this night had been no different, but instead of a pen in her hand, she held a dagger that Loki couldn't keep his eyes off. He didn't dare move from his seat as his small desk, but he also couldn't pull his eyes away as she expertly flipped the small blade between her fingers as she made her way up and down the corridor - utterly ignorant to the tumultuous threats that emitted from every cell she had passed.

    "You look perplexed, princess."

    Athelia slowed her pace as she neared his cell, but instead of catching his gaze like she had thought she would, she found him staring at a book - his eyes moving quickly across the page as he consumed whatever Midgardian fiction his mother had brought him this day. 

     "I don't know why you continue to call me something I am not." 

     "You're the daughter of a dead king and the future wife of an Asgardian Prince," he told her, leaning back into his chair.  He folded his hands behind his greasy head and tilted back as a slight smirk pulled across his pale face. Getting the occasional rise out of the blood-thirsty blond was the only amusement he had anymore, and she could see the intrigue crawl across his face as she stepped closer to the barrier. 

    Her eyes met his, and the small dagger Thor had gifted her from his battle began to spin in the palm of her hand as she deliberated on taking the sour-mouthed man out of the picture.  

     "Am I too feel threatened?" He asked as he pulled himself from the chair and made his way towards her. His leather boots stopped only inches from the barrier, and if it hadn't been for the current keeping them apart, she would have been engulfed by his hot breath as he leaned in.  "Have you finally come to return the favor?" 

    Her hand instinctively went to the nape of her neck where he had drawn blood only weeks ago, and she pulled the dagger from the air. She held it tight between her fingers and matched his single-sided smirk with one of her own before finally meeting his desperate gaze. 

     She knew he needed this—the threat of an adrenaline-induced attack. 

     However, she also knew she couldn't, no matter how badly she wanted to. 

     "As much as I would love to shove this dagger in your throat Loki, I have more important things to worry about." She glared at him before returning her gaze to the inlaid ruby and finally took a seat on the small step below him - careful not to brush her skin against the cage that kept him safe. "So if you could please resist the urge to hear yourself speak, I would very much appreciate it."

     "And why should I care about what you would appreciate?" He asked, lowering himself so he could meet her eyes from her sat position. Though with no response, he continued his attempt to rid himself of her. "Wouldn't your chambers be better for such things?" 

     "You know just as well as the others, that I think better amongst the chaos," she said, as she watched as the dagger spun slowly in the air in front of her, her eyes carefully examining every etch and crease in the intricately carved handle.