Your Majesty - Loki x OC

11: Magic Lessons

I shook my head, but followed after her. She's a handful.

Dinner passed by quickly. The entire cafeteria had been mostly emptied, everyone having already eaten. We sat at an empty table, and I shoved my food down my throat with great haste.

She studied me with amusement, fingers drumming on the table. "You realize you have teeth for a reason, right?"

"You realize you have a digestive system for a reason, right?" I shot back, disregarding my table manners as I spoke around a mouthful of steamed carrot. "Honestly, do you eat anything?"

"Yes. The hearts of my enemies." She replied coldly. "Carved from their chests with a steak knife."

I didn't say anything, instead returning quietly to my meal.

"So, I've been meaning to ask you this," Freyja broke the silence, leaning forward slightly. "But how much do you know about Odin? Strengths? Weaknesses? Things of that sort."

"A fair amount." I answered as I finished off my meal. "His strengths would be his army, Frigga, Thor and the support of the people."

She cocked an eyebrow. "And weaknesses?"

"What needs to be said? He's a senile old man who desperately wants to hold on to his power." I explained, somewhat impatiently. "Alone, he is helpless."

"And by some miracle he's managed to stay on the throne for thousands of years." She retorted, sitting up straight, elbows on the table.

Silence cast a heavy shadow over the two of us. I let my eyes trace the grain of the wooden table, thinking about what is to come. Midgard, then Jotenheim, then Odin.

It hadn't hit me yet, the fact that I had to kill my father.

No. I corrected myself. That man is not my father. He never was, he never will be.

"Do you still need to escort me around?" I asked absently. "Or can I go back to my room on my own?"

She scoffed. "In your dreams, Butter Knives. If you want to go back, I'll take you."

"If you insist, then yes." I rose gracefully to my feet. "I want to go back."

A few minutes and a short walk later, I was in my room, curled up by a small fire with a book in my lap. There was already a small charred spot on the floor from my previous fire, but I didn't think anyone would mind.

I ran my finger over the smooth leather cover, the texture and old smell bringing me comfort. Heat bathed my body from the dancing flames, and I gently poked the fire with a metal rod before opening my book and beginning to read.

Hours flew past me, and though sleep threatened to drag my eyelids closed, I stayed awake. I was dragged to a new world, lost in a story about a man and his child, who were both called to war but on opposite sides of the battlefield.

Ironic. I thought with a light chuckle, being currently in a war myself.

By the time the fire had died to embers, I had devoured the novel in my lap.

And it had the audacity. To end. On a cliffhanger.

I sat there in partial darkness, trying to absorb the fact that the child in the book just stabbed his father, but got captured by the enemy. Damn this author. They can't end it like this!

Then an idea surfaced in my mind. It was unlikely Freyja would still be awake, and I had a pile of other books I could read. I just really, really wanted to know what happened next. It's just a reader's problem, I suppose.