Gifted

Chapter 22

You woke late the next morning. It was so nice to wake curled up with Loki with your head on his chest, that you didn't want to get out of bed. Even though you had things to do. You just didn't want to. At all. So you didn't. You listened to his heartbeat for awhile, reaching up and running your fingers through his hair while he continued to sleep.

"It is much harder to pretend to be asleep when you start playing with my hair," Loki commented with a chuckle. He didn't open his eyes, though, keeping the ruse that much at least.

"Shh, you're sleeping," you scolded him lightly, trying not to giggle as you did.

He laughed and kissed the top of your head. "I love you," was his only reply.

"I love you too," you smiled up at him and shifted enough that you could kiss him.

"Darling, much as I enjoy this, we do both have things we are supposed to do today," he reminded you after a few kisses.

You sighed and pouted. "But this is so much fun~" you whined, cuddling closer.

He laughed. "If you keep pouting like that you are going to end up with cat ears," he threatened.

"Fine, silly Trickster," you huffed, knowing it was just teasing and he thought the cat ears cute.

You both climbed out of bed, still laughing. You got dressed quickly for training that morning and looked over your pieces of jewelry, sighing as you had to leave them all behind, even your promise ring from Loki. You were training with the warriors that morning and couldn't bring jewelry. You didn't want it to get damaged anyway. Besides, on Asgard the soulbond marks were more than enough to tell everyone that you were in a very committed relationship.

Loki had work with Thor that morning in the audience chamber, so he wasn't going to be with you.

You braided your hair down your back out of the way. "Gorgeous as always, darling," Loki told you once you were dressed.

You smiled and gave him a kiss. "I'll see you later," you promised him as Astrid pounded on the suite's door. She was walking with you to training that morning. As one of the training leaders she was plenty guard enough. Even Loki agreed with that. You and Astrid walked down to the training yard together, chatting about light topics, mostly telling stories about the boys.

Training with the warriors was hard, but you held your own. They also did take it easier on you, both because you'd only been training for a year, but you were also human and just didn't have the same physique as they did. It was still difficult work, especially after a few hours of it. You focused on dagger work that day, since daggers were your primary weapon.

Astrid walked you back to your suite after the weapons practice. Loki wasn't back yet from his work. You weren't really surprised. Court took forever. So you got a shower to wash all the workout sweat off, dried your hair, and dressed in a simple casual blue halter dress. Dresses were so common on Asgard that you were getting really used to wearing them all the time. Before you made it back to your jewelry box, you remembered the soulbond tidbit Loki had been talking about the other day that you wanted to look up in the library and see if you could get more information on it. You still had plenty of time before dinner, so you left Loki a note in case he came back before you got back from the library and headed that way. You was even good and flagged down one of the guards to walk with you. Loki would be so proud.

You waved and smiled and made sure you were generally pleasant to the people you passed in the halls. You also worked really hard on standing tall and pretending to be a princess. The people at least seemed to like you, if only for the reason that Loki was so happy. They all saw a difference in him, you knew.

The guard opened the door to the library for you and scanned the inside for danger before he would let you pass. He held the door open so you could pass. You nodded to him and thanked him for his courtesy. He moved and his handkerchief or something dropped from his hand. You bent down automatically and picked it up, handing it back to him with a smile, only to have him blow some kind of powder in your face.

The world swam around you and turned black as your legs dropped out from under you.