Loki X Reader || Girl With The Gold Earring

4 | Leaving At Dawn

Y/N wakes early the next morning, so early the other women in her dorm still snore softly as she silently swings her feet onto the cold stone floor.

Careful not to make a sound, she pulls off her nightgown and tugs on a dress, then begins sifting through her belongings for little slips of green material. Quickly, she stashes them in her tote bag as if hastily picking flowers.

Checking the slumbering forms of her roommates one last time, Y/N sheaths Loki's dagger in her sock, then---clutching her tote bag against her chest---slips out the door.

--❈--

Over a rushed breakfast in the almost-empty mess hall, Y/N writes out a letter, pressing the envelope's seal extra tight.

On the back, she prints her parent's address in a clear, bold hand.

The envelope sits in her pocket like a stone as she follows the hill down to the centre of town.

At this time in the morning, the paths are still wet from the night, the sky saturated and sleepy. 

Y/N doesn't come across another person until she reaches the market.

Stall owners are already bustling about, arranging stock about their tables, their breath filling the tarpaulin overhead with mist.

Without the gaggle of eager shoppers to fill it out, Y/N almost feels as though she's walking through a corpse, the tables and poles propping up the roof empty and skeletal.

She's soon warmed, though, by the shop owner's greetings as she passes them, their smiles bright in the low dawn light.

Y/N is familiar with most of them by now, by face if not by name, and enjoys being able to see what they're selling properly for once; without crowds blocking her view or hurrying her along.

She keeps moving, weaving between unusually spacious isles until the faces she recognises become fewer and far between; Y/N knows which stall she has to go to first, and feels her palm become slick against the handle of her tote.

--❈--

There are many jewellery tables at the market, but Y/N doesn't stop at the first one, or even the third. She keeps going, to the end of the row, until she reaches a dining table sinking a little into the grass.

It's missing a leg.

The owner of the stall—a fair woman with hair the colour of embers—seems to have replaced the missing leg with several buckets stacked on top of each other. 

She's carefully arranging a necklace over a velvet cloth as Y/N approaches, her gnawed nails somewhat of a juxtaposition next to the perfect items she sells. 

When she raises her head, Y/N notices her ears are studded with a neat row of little metal hoops.

Y/N's hand almost rises to clutch her own ear, imagining that many thin, spiky needles prodding at her helix.

Y/N had heard that one could pawn things to this stall with the added bonus of not being asked where they attained the things they're selling.

Since Y/N has never had anything valuable to sell before, she's never gotten a proper look at the three-legged table that always seems to be surrounded by shifty-looking individuals; but she'd built an image of it up in her head.

Standing across from her now, Y/N realises this young woman currently giving her a toothy smile is not what she had been expecting:

She's less...grizzled than Y/N had imagined.