Hardest of Hearts (Thor/Avengers: Loki/OC )

Chapter 5

Hardest of Hearts

Chapter 5

It had been three weeks. Three weeks since /he/ had been the one to hug /her./ And still, he couldn’t stop thinking about how she had felt in his arms, or how she had fallen asleep lying against him. He knew it meant she trusted him, but was he truly worthy of that trust? He was known to be untrustworthy, but something about her made him drop all of his defenses whenever she was near.

Seeing her covered in blood had struck a cord within him, but he was still trying to figure out exactly which cord. But, Loki was not stupid, and he learned to understand his emotions at a young age, and so he knew he was feeling something more than friendship for Althea. Exactly what feeling, was something he didn’t know. At least not yet.

One idea was that he might be seeing her as a sort of sister, but every time the thought presented itself, he knew it was very, very wrong. So what else was there? He was determined to figure it out. And soon.

Her father was recovering nicely over the three weeks, and as he recovered she became happier with each day. Yesterday she had gone on and on about how her father was being sent home with a perfect health record. 

And of course, his mother, who loved to throw a party, persuaded Odin into having a celebratory feast and gathering to honour the departed soldiers, and celebrate the ones who had returned safely. And just to make it even better, he was being forced to participate in the festivities.

Well, Loki realized he should have expected it. It wasn’t often he was allowed to miss them, even though Frigga knew well that he hated them.

As he turned the corner to go into the alcove in the library, at the table where he usually met Althea, he received a surprise.

She was already sitting at the table, and was what looked like impatiently tapping her foot on the floor. But what was odd, was that she was here before he was. And he usual came an hour early.

As her eyes landed on him she quickly stood up and looked at him, “Loki!” She exclaimed smiling at him.

“Hello,” He greeted taking a seat at the table, watching as she did the same. “What are you doing here so early?” He asked her.

-----

Althea had made a decision. And it was made while she was surrounded by all the sick and injured in the healing ward as she visited her father.

While she did love the type of magic Loki was teaching her, she decided she wanted to focus her studies on learning magic to do with healing and life. She had always known she wanted to be a healer, but now she realized she wanted to be one so much more. She’d heard the healer when she’d said how long and how many of them it had taken to heal her father. It was ridiculous. All because magic was looked down upon, no one wanted to chance having or using more than was absolutely necessary, and because of it, lives were lost.

That was why she had left her home, and her father in the hands of the very capable Sif and gone to the library to make sure she caught Loki. She knew she was over an hour early, but she couldn’t wait any longer and had just gone anyways, knowing she would have to wait for him.

But she was pleasantly surprised when he had shown up not ten minutes after she herself had arrived. She stood up at his entrance, and then sat down again when he did.

“What are you doing here so early?” He asked her curiously.

“Loki, you must know, I have enjoyed learning all that you have been teaching me these past weeks, especially the illusion spell…” Althea trailed off, slightly losing her nerve but she knew Loki was the only one who could help her. "I would like to focus on spells having to do with healing and life. I want to be the first healer to use more than a little bit of magic, the first to be able to heal a person without the aid of five other healers!” She said, a hint of anger in the last statement.

She watched as Loki only stared at her before he slowly nodded, “Very well." He replied looking around the room. He stood up and walked over to his personal shelf, scanned the books, then plucking one off the shelf, returned to the table and handed it to her.

Slowly she took the book from him and set it in front of her, but it had no name.

“What is this book about?” Althea asked him, going to open it. But Loki’s hand on hers stilled her movements, causing her to look up at him.

“First, you have to understand that only you and I can see that shelf, because I made it so. And second, you have to realize that the contents of that book are…dangerous,” Loki explained to her slightly hesitantly.

“…Why?” She asked him curious and wary.

“Life is like one side of a coin, it is healing, it is light, it is all the good in the world. However, the other side is death, and sickness and darkness. To understand one, you must understand them both,” Loki explained, in what she could only guess was the simplest of ways.

All she could do was nod that she understood, but in truth she was still taking it in. She supposed it made sense. How could you have one without the other? For what is death without life? And what is life without death? Neither could truly exist without the other.

“Are you positive you truly want this?” Loki asked her, “This is not illusions and invisibility spells; this is magic that has consequences.”

Althea knew straight away what her answer was, and with no hesitation, she answered him, “Yes, I want this.”

-----

The next night, Loki found himself standing around the banquet hall among hundreds of other people dancing, laughing, talking and eating. He couldn’t wait for it to be over and he’d only been here for an hour.

He decided to walk around, make it look like he was having a good time or he’d have his mother coming over to him, introducing him to the daughters of lords in the hopes that he would take a liking to one of them. She didn’t seem to understand they only had eyes for Thor.

His eyes swept passed a very beautiful young woman, before he did a double take and realized it was Althea. She was dancing with a man older than herself, dressed in a beautiful floor length emerald green dress. But it was more like she made the dress look beautiful. Though one emotion he did feel was jealousy of the man she was dancing with. Didn’t that man understand how lucky he was? But for some reason it hurt him to watch her dance with that other person, though he knew he had no right to feel jealous, it wasn’t like they were courting.

Even so, Loki found it witihin himself to rescue her and walked over, tapping the man on the shoulder, “May I cut in?” He asked and the man gave no argument, nodding and stepping away from Althea.

Loki soon took his place and the two of them started dancing, Althea sighing in relief, then smiling up at him, as he was taller than her, “Thank you,” She said.

“My pleasure,” Loki replied, “Though it did look like you were having an interesting conversation.”

Althea laughed, “Well if you call talking about his prized horse interesting, then yes it was,” She told him shaking her head.

They soon lapsed into a comfortable silence, gently dancing to the music around them.

Around two songs later, Loki asked her something that had been on his mind, “I have been meaning to ask you, but who is Stigandr?”

He felt Althea tense slightly in his arms before sighing and looking away from him to their surroundings, “He is my brother,” She replied, shocking him.

“I wasn’t aware you had a brother,” Loki told her furrowing his brows.

“I suppose the correct term would be had, he died, along with my mother in childbirth,” Althea explained quietly.

“I’m very sorry for your loss,” Loki offered, wishing he hadn’t asked, feeling the drop in Althea’s mood.

“Thank you,” She replied, “Sif and I were only forty when it happened...but I remember watching my mother die, and being told that the brother we were looking forward to having was also gone…” She trailed off sadly.

Loki nodded, not sure what he could say to that.

“It’s why I never favored battle like Sif did,” She continued. “I wanted to help people, maybe save a woman that was in my mother’s position,” She explained to him, “That’s why I said yes to you yesterday in the library.”

“A powerful reason,” Loki told her, “It helps for there to be a drive behind your magic.”

Althea nodded before pulling away slightly, “Thank you for dancing with me, but I wish to be alone for awhile,” she told him as he nodded in acceptance, watching her walk away…

-----

Althea was glad she could tell Loki about her brother and mother, and although it made her sad to think and talk about, she didn’t mind Loki asking about it.

She was on her way out to the balconies when her arm was grabbed and she was pulled to the side. Her eyes widened in surprise, before she caught sight of the dark hair she was slowly growing accustomed to, and the similar blue eyes she and her sister shared, “Sif!” She called out in surprise, “What are you doing?”

“You’ve been around prince Loki a lot lately, why?” Sif asked her.

“Well, why not?” Althea challenged her.

“He’s dangerous,” Sif replied with conviction.

“He’s my friend,” Althea argued back.

She didn’t understand her sister’s problem with him. Sure, he’d chopped off all her hair, but it seemed like it was for the better. It taught her sister humility, something she was previously, and tragically lacking.

“You should end the friendship now,” Sif told her looking serious.

“And why should I do that? I can choose who I do and do not spend my time with,” Althea said getting slightly angry. “What’s your problem with him? I thought you were over the plight with the hair? And I will admit it wasn’t exactly called for, but he did go and get you new hair!”

“It’s not just about the hair! He has magic and everyone knows it! There is a reason he doesn’t train with us anymore sister!” Sif said raising her voice slightly, but not enough to draw a crowd.

“Well if this is the way you speak of him then he has a very good reason!” Althea replied before pushing Sif away from her and walking away, this time making it to the balcony with no interruptions.

She went and leaned against the banister, looking down at the streets and homes below her, then stretching her gaze further to the darkness, filled with stars to brighten it.

“I am sorry for bringing your brother up, I should never have asked,” Loki’s voice said form behind her.

Althea shook her head, “It’s not what you said Loki, it’s Sif, she doesn’t like that we’re friends,” She explained turning to face him.

“I see, she is still holding a grudge from the hair, but I still will not apologize to her, getting her new hair was an apology enough,” Loki replied walking closer to her.

“It’s not the hair. I believe she is over that now. She said something about a reason you no longer train with Thor and her, and the others..” Althea trailed off, leaving the sentence open.

Loki nodded, before he too walked over and leaned against the bannister, “Well, she is right, there is a reason…” he trailed off ,looking down at the city.

Slowly, Althea took her hand and set it on his shoulder, “It’s alright, you can tell me, I promise not to judge you,” She said to him.

"Don’t make promises you won’t be able to keep... but very well,” Loki agreed, “I once did train with my brother and his friends, but I have never been as muscular as they are, which I am sure you’ve noticed. I had to make up for it in other ways, which led to my discovery of magic. After a while of teaching myself, I started to become more confident. One afternoon, one of Thor’s friends challenged me to a sparring match, obviously trying to show off as he’d seen Thor beat me himself many a time. We’d been sparring for over twenty minutes and I was beginning to tire, but my opponent showed no sign of fatigue. He had me pinned down and I grew so angry,” Loki stopped to take a breath and she continued to listen to his story. “I don’t know what happened really, but one minute he was pinning me to the floor, and the next he was flying off me and into a stone column…” Loki trailed off.

“And?” Althea prompted him.

“And his back was broken...he was paralyzed,” Loki finished turning away from her.

Althea sucked in a breath, then turned him so he faced her, “You had no way of knowing what would happen Loki, and it’s unfair for them to judge you. It was an unfortunate incident, you’d only started practicing magic; you had no control,” Althea offered him as much assurance and comfort as she could.

“It doesn’t change anything, it still happened,” Loki said, and she could tell there was hurt and anger in his voice.

“We don’t have any control in what does or doesn’t happen. But I know because of that, you trained harder in magic, learned to control it faster than you would have otherwise!” Althea said to him, smiling slightly in his direction. “That’s why I care about you, because you understand what having power means.”

Loki nodded, “Thank you for your kind words,” He told her.

“That’s what friends are for,” Althea replied, “It’s time you start realizing that,” She told him before taking his hand and pulling him away from the balcony, “Now come along, I would like to get a few more dances in before the end of the party!”

“As you wish,” Loki replied smirking as they walked through the doors of the banquet hall to do as she wanted.