Loki's Apprentice: A Tale Retold

Chapter 35: The Past

Evelyn noticed that her sudden withdrawal had caused Loki to tense, his uncertainty clouding the air and hanging above them, only increasing the pang of guilt she felt by causing such insecurities to arise within him.

She knew that he was the kind of man to rarely choose to be vulnerable with many people. She feared that she caused him to barricade his heart again.

But she was relieved that when she timidly looked up to him, she saw understanding in his eyes, although it was mixed with confusion and hurt.

"You've heard plenty of my foolish childhood." She said lightheartedly, trying to dismiss the tension between them.

But she dropped her demeanor of ease as she looked up at him through her lashes, gingerly asking, "won't you share some stories of your own?"

He seemed a bit taken aback, his mouth hanging slightly agape, "My childhood?"

He considered her for a moment, as if to ask why she would wonder about such a thing.

"What?" She asked. Her heart pounding as she tried to decipher his silence.

He shook his head as if to dismiss something, laughing lightly to himself.

"That's just something I haven't thought about for a while. My thoughts in the last few years have been consumed by the future and what I wished to achieve." He sighed, as if it was a hard task to remember his past, before proposing, "Do you want the generic answer, or the truth?"

Evelyn scrungched her nose, "Generic?"

"It was the one that the Odin trained us to spit out to any nosy visitors who tried to pry any amount of information out of Thor and I."

Evelyn froze, raising her hands as her eyes rolled back in prophetic position, saying in a song-like voice, "I'm sensing years of harbored resentment, and maybe, oh yes!--angst."

He threw his head slightly back as he laughed, "Your prediction is quite true, sorceress!"

But his face became clouded as he continued honestly, "They were vermin among men. They always swarmed the palace when we hosted a ball."

Evelyn's interest peaked, she had always fantasized about the Asgardian balls with her sisters, hoping one day to see the beauty of the palace.

But that hope of ever seeing the city, much less the ball, dwindle when their fortune failed.

Nevertheless, that didn't stop her from imagining the beauty that the dancing hall would hold, and of course the princes, who were just shadows of her imagination, not quite fitting the true reality.

She never expected the young prince to be so drastically different from the stories of his brother. But then again, information was scarce when you lived so far from the city, so it wasn't surprising her notions were off.

"What did Odin tell you to say to these vermin among men?" She asked, holding back her frenzy of questions she yearned to have answered since childhood.

"I would explain life at the castle, mostly with our intellectual studies and training lessons in detail. I always excelled in our studies while Thor was more physically inclined— this, of course, I would not mention." He recounted, his back straightening as if out of habit, "The only way of surviving underneath their digging minds was to master the art of flattery and giving them as little knowledge of yourself as possible."

Evelyn frowned, "That doesn't sound very fun considering it's a ball."

Loki raised his brow in question, staring at her with inquiring eyes. "Are you implying balls are fun?"