Loki X Reader || Girl With The Gold Earring

7 | Amorphous Blobs Of Colour

They'd sat like that for several hours, Y/N crushing up colourful little rocks, and Loki mixing egg yolk into the resulting powder. Few words were passed across the small space between them---the prince didn't say much to Y/N, and Y/N was too afraid to say anything to him---but the silence was comfortable like a thick blanket draped over their shoulders.

Loki pointed out which colours he would like Y/N to grind up, explaining that they would only prepare what he intended to use within the next few days as the paint would quickly dry and become unworkable. The colours he would use later remained in their little wooden boxes stacked neatly along the other side of the table.

Had anyone else asked Y/N to sit for hours on end upon the floor, pressing rocks into a fine powder, she would have refused (or obeyed but grudgingly; depending on who had given the order). But, for some reason, she was more than happy to kneel next to the prince in silence, scraping crumbs of colour against the curved inside edge of a mortar. There was something therapeutic about it; soporific, almost. Drowsiness almost gripped Y/N several times; when the sun had begun to set, dowsing the quiet little studio in a soft hue somewhere between yellow and orange, long shadows falling across the floor in planks.

Luckily, small things kept her awake and focused; little metaphorical blades sharpening her senses:

The cool brush of Loki's fingers as she transferred the mortar of powder-fine pigment to his hands, or took it back once it had been emptied. The touch of his skin was like dipping the edge of your finger into a lake chilled by night air.

Every time he spoke. Y/N hungrily ate up each word he gave her, their meaning and their sound. He didn't seem to need to breathe in to push words from his lungs; they just slipped out effortlessly, his tone low and idle; as if he was always filled with coiled sentences and, as he opened his mouth, they unravelled, falling from his lips. They filled Y/N's ears easily, where others would have to pile hundreds of syllables, Loki needed only to use a few and Y/N found herself satisfied, content to digest what he'd said throughout the stretches of silence between each small conversation.

They hadn't talked about anything, really. Loki handed Y/N a few facts or instructions about painting or making paint every now and again, to which Y/N listened attentively, which he seemed to like. He inquired about how Y/N's trip to the market went, whether he had given her enough money for the pigments he needed---she said she enjoyed it, and yes, that had been more than enough. He asked after the health of Frode, to which Y/N replied that he seemed chipper and that she liked his kind eyes.

Mainly, though, they just quietly worked on the task at hand. That was something else that kept Y/N on her toes---so to speak---the innate fascination she had with what she was doing. Each colour was unmistakably beautiful, as if someone had taken the lush green of summer grass, the aquamarine hue of a curling wave, the electric yellow of a daffodil's petals, and made them into a workable, solid object to be manipulated at will. Converting these colours to a practical, malleable substance is, if you think about it, quite a surreal process.

-- ❈ --

It was half an hour before the realm fell into total darkness that their paint-making finally drew to a close. Neither Y/N or the prince seemed to have noticed that the sun had dripped down the horizon like a splash of orange juice, and was now pooling on the distant strip of ocean. Not until Y/N realised she could barely see the colour she was palpitating, and asked vacantly:

"Is this blue or purple?"

The prince's eyes had widened at this, and he took the box Y/N had been squinting at as if it was dangerous.