Unforeseen

The Nightmares Return

Our kiss was interrupted by the vault doors being slowly pushed open.

"The changing of the guards." Loki muttered, hurriedly as he pulled away from me, taking my arm and linking it through his as he straightened up. In a flash of green and gold Loki transformed from his tall, dark, and handsome self that he'd faded back into as we kissed, the effects of him touching the casket wearing away, into the wrinkled, eye-patched king. Honestly, it was disconcerting to be kissing Loki one second, then the next be staring at the image of his wizened and greyed father.

I hurried to straighten myself up as well as the pair of guards that had let us into the vaults marched into the vault. I had to act as if I was merely being shown the vault, hiding the fact that the man beside me and I had been kissing just seconds before. That would've raised far too many questions.

I wondered, to my horror, if my lips were red or possibly swollen from the kiss. It had been a gentle, soulful kiss, but Loki's Jotun lips had been like living ice, making my lips feel almost numb from their cold touch. As he'd faded back into his Asgardian form they'd warmed a bit to his usual mere chilliness, which made it feel to me almost as if our kiss was melting him. I sucked my lips into my mouth a bit, trying to hide them as I put on an expression of vague discomfort, as if the arcane treasures in the dim vault were putting me on edge, which wasn't a falsehood in the least. Even now the weird eye-like artifact seemed to be watching Loki and me and the Tesseract glowed almost wickedly behind me, casting a light turquoise glow on the walls. Loki had been right, this chamber was filled with secrets, with dark stories about the origins of such relics the emitted such power and mystery.

The guards gave no indication of suspicion as they strode into the vault and through the hall on either side of us, bowing in respect to the Allfather as they made their rounds through the treasure vault. I watched them warily as Loki started leading me out of the vault. As we passed through the doors, the new set of guards bowed to us and the old set followed us out of the vault, their shift at guarding over. It seemed to me that they were almost escorting us out of the bowels of the palace, which unfortunately forced Loki to remain in the character of Odin, though he let his illusion drop for me so that I could see his form instead of the elderly king's.

Evening had truly set upon Asgard during the time Loki and I had been in the vault. As we passed through the halls, there was a light breeze as late sunset light streamed through the palace windows. Had it really been a full day already? It seemed only a short time ago when I'd woken up in that bed that was fit for a princess, discovering that I was indeed on Asgard and that I was indeed engaged to Loki. While my mind could hardly believe everything about today, my body sure did. Walking through the endless palace and grounds left my feet, legs, and lower back feeling sore and tired, like I'd been out hiking. Gosh, why did this palace have so many stairs? I suppose if I was going to live here, I'd have to get used to walking up and down them all the time. It'd be one of the many things I would have to learn and get used to.

Loki and I ended up taking our dinner in one of the palace's dining halls. It wasn't the grand one that he'd shown me earlier where celebratory feasts were held for days on end, but it was still a large dining table and it had a crackling fire in a long fireplace along the length of the table. Loki was seated at the head of the table with me placed at his right-hand side. The table seemed far to long for just the pair of us to be dining here, but I couldn't say that I minded having the room to ourselves. With the afterglow of sunset glowing from the windows and the orange light of the merry fire behind us, it made a bit of a romantic air in the room.

As we waited for our food to arrive, Loki started explaining Asgardian dining etiquette to me, talking about seating arrangements and courses, feasts and diplomatic dinners. When our dinner did arrive, I was amazed once more by its sumptuousness. Roasted boar, potatoes, carrots, and onions were served alongside a creamy soup of different kinds of vegetables. A light salad drizzled in some sort of vinegary dressing and still-steaming yeasty bread speckled with seeds accompanied the rich dishes. As we ate, I tried committing everything he said to memory, following suit as he explained everything.