A Chance for Change [A Loki Fanfic]

Chapter 30

The next morning, I wake up early, unable to sleep with the memory of last night's kiss twirling around my brain... along with the intense urge to kiss Loki again. With fireworks in my stomach and a giant, probably idiotic-looking smile plastered to my face, I get up to open the curtains. Hazy light fills my room, glowing gently off the gold and marble and sending speckles of yellow and waves of white dancing over my walls.

I pull on some soft, slipper-like shoes, wrap myself in a robe, and exit my room. Outside the hall is quiet, allowing for never-before-heard sounds to make their way to my ears. In some place far away people move about, their distant footsteps reaching me in small clusters of five or six. I get a brief whiff of something cooking: breakfast, I assume. Other than that, however, there's silence, the kind that only sleeping people can create.

I turn right and begin to walk, not entirely sure where I'm headed. The always-emanating light matches the misty, morning-yellow that filters through the occasional windows. When I pass a tall, thin one, I peer outside. Despite the morning light, the plants and trees and pathways are all in shadow, as if whatever sun or star that rises and sets hasn't fully risen. Birds that look like huge cranes fly high overhead, silhouettes against the deep blue-lemon yellow gradient of the sky. A different bird, this one much smaller than those flying hundreds of feet above, darts from an unseen tree or roof and alights on a maple-like tree branch a few feet from the window. It's about the size of a robin, but is a stark white. As it hops around, I squint at it. For a second, I think I see it sparkle, but surely even Asgard couldn't produce sparkling animals. Probably. Then again...it does have crystalline flowers...and magic. So what do I know?

The bird jumps and flutters to a branch that's closer to the window. Now it's only a foot or so away, I can see that the sparkles I saw were caused by the sun hitting its feathers, which are shiny; some of them are silver. It pecks its way down the bark searching for food, looking more like a woodpecker than a robin now. Then suddenly it stops. But it doesn't just stop. The bird freezes, head down, beak against the wood. Then slowly, slower than a bird should move, it raises its head towards me and focuses its dark, golden eyes on mine. I jump away from the window, letting out a small cry of surprise that echoes loudly down the quiet hallway.

"What the hell," I whisper, creeping back up to the window. The bird hasn't moved. It is still staring at me. I crouch down a little in order to meet its gaze at eye level. And it blinks. Do birds blink? "What the hell?" I repeat, this time louder. The bird cocks its head at me, gold eyes shining in a way a normal bird's eyes shouldn't shine. It blinks again, seems to narrow its eyes at me, then flies away. I stare at the branch for a moment, wondering what I just witnessed.

Making a mental note to ask Loki if that's how Asgardian "white robin-peckers" normally act, I turn slowly from the window and carry on down the hall. I come to a bend in the hall and, after shooting one last glance at the window, I turn the corner.

From down different hallways come the sounds of voices. People are finally moving around, but I don't meet anyone until I'm in a part of the castle that has a lot of decorations all over the walls. It takes me a moment to realize that the decorations aren't the normal tapestries or elegant creations that hang elsewhere. These decorations are paintings, drawings and what look like prints, and some of them are not very good. In fact, the art gets gradually worse the farther I walk. It dawns on me where I must be when a little child rushes past me, carrying a brown fabric sack—from the pointed edges and the thumping, it has to be filled with books. Behind me, a door opens, framed with solidly mediocre (or really good, depending on how young the person who created them was) drawings of Asgardian shaped fruits and vegetables. A woman's voice echoes shrilly in Norse. The child yells back and I turn to watch him run past the woman and into a room full of other children who are sitting at tables.