The Man in the Iron Mask

Loki had ended up dragging me to his chambers. I might have been kicking and screaming, but I just couldn’t find it in me as I continued to cry my eyes out. I felt like a burden on him already.

“Sit down,” he said, patting his bed and pulling the sheets back. I couldn’t move from where he’d left me at the doorway to his bedroom, and wondered why I had to stay with him. Surely, they would have a spare room somewhere. I would have slept with the servants I’d seen about the place quicker than I could find the enjoyment in sharing yet another bed with Loki. It wasn’t that he snored or kicked or even stole the blankets in the night. I was used to sleeping alone, and rolling over onto someone else at 3AM was something I felt I’d never get used to.

“Please, Loki. Can I stay elsewhere?” He looked down abruptly, and my face contorted to show the questions I wanted to ask.

“Not exactly. We have to keep up a certain appearance,” Loki said slowly, looking back up to gage my reaction. “I told a bit of a… lie.”

“You… you what? What did you do, Loki? What did you do this time!?”

“I had to! If I hadn’t, we’d both still be in the stocks!” He gave me a moment to calm down, which I was only just able to do. At least I’d stopped my crying. “When you were unconscious, Thor had come down to speak with me. I’d told him something that had been the cause of us getting to Asgard in the first place and he needed to know if it were true.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I simply told him that I had fallen in love with you, as he once had with an Earth woman… and this seemed to please him. I remember he smiled,” Loki said, smiling himself at the memory. “He told me he was glad to see a change in me and would help Odin see I was to do no harm here if released.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, finally walking over to take that seat on his bed.

“Obviously, you’re nothing to me,” Loki scoffed, smiling and shaking his head as if it really were nothing. “But if you want to live a comfortable life here, you’ll have to keep up this lie as well as I must. I have no desire to spend the rest of my days in the stocks. Neither do you… do you?” His hopeful gaze met mine full of doubt and worry.

“I guess not… but I… this makes me uncomfortable, Loki. I don’t know you. You’re clearly using me… but what other choice do I have?” Those tears were back again as I took my choices and hated both.

“All I ask is that you see I’ve done my suffering for my crimes, and understand that I want some sort of… peace. For now. I can feel it in my heart. It’s true. This is no lie.” I wanted to smack Loki across the face for what he had done to my life, but I hadn’t the energy. On top of that, his words had hit a place in my heart and those scars on his face weren’t helping me forget what suffering he had endured. Instead, I got up and walked over to the lounge set by the window. It was there that I curled up, determined to close my eyes and not reopen them again for as long as I could manage. I needed to get away from him. In my dreams was perhaps the only place I would have for a while.