Hey guys it's me! I just want to make a disclaimer, the letter in this chapter is not my own work. It is that of Gerald Durrell, a letter he wrote to his future wife in July 1978. We have all heard Tom reading the beautiful letter on social media by now and I felt it was so appropriate for Loki's character. I couldn't not include it. I have changed a few little things in it to make it more fitting for the story. So I do hope you all enjoy. Confessions...
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If it had been Loki, he wasn't here anymore. I had searched high and low for him the past hour. Checking the gardens, the palace and all the little secret rooms he had shown me within it.
When I stopped to check his room I noticed that the letter was gone from his desk. So at least he had seen it...I hoped.
I was at the last place I could think of possibly finding him. The library.
I took a deep breath as I pushed the decorated door open and stepped inside.
Empty.
I sighed out exasperated. I flopped down onto the floor, leaning my head back against one of the bookcases.
"Son of a bitch...I give up." I groaned out, closing my eyes.
As I sat there for a little while, all of a sudden a book fell out and landed beside me with a gentle thud.
I stared at it for a moment in disbelief before blinking and looking around.
"Loki?"
Nothing.
I closed my eyes, reaching out.
Loki? Please. We need to talk.
Of course there was no answer.
I shook my head as I reached over and lifted the book up off the floor, running my hands over the weathered leather cover. I flicked it open carefully, looking through the pages of the book when out slipped an envelope.
'My Darling.'
Definitely Loki's handwriting.
I stood up this time and looked around the library. This couldn't be a coincidence, could it?
I took one final look around the library again weaving in and out of the bookshelves. But alas I was indeed the only inhabitant in the sea of beautiful books, so I slipped over to the plush chair by the window, tucking my legs below me to begin to read.
I opened the envelope gently and slipped out the pages within.
'Dear Y/N, my Darling,
You said that things seemed clearer when they were written down. Well, herewith is a very boring letter in which I will try and put everything down so that you may read and re-read it in horror at your folly in getting involved with me.
To begin with I love you with a depth and passion that I have felt for no one else in this life and if it astonishes you it astonishes me as well. Not I hasten to say, because you are not worth loving. Far from it. It's just that, first of all, I swore I would not get involved with another woman. Secondly, I have never had such a feeling before and it is almost frightening. Thirdly, I would never have thought it possible that another human being could occupy my waking (and sleeping) thoughts to the exclusion of almost everything else like you do.
Fourthly, I never thought that, even if one was in love — one could get so completely besotted with another person, so that a minute away from them felt like a thousand years.
Fifthly, I never hoped, aspired, dreamed that one could find everything one wanted in a person. I was not such an idiot as to believe this was possible. Yet in you I have found everything I want: you are beautiful, giving, gentle, idiotically and deliciously feminine, sexy, wonderfully intelligent and wonderfully silly as well. I want nothing else in this life than to be with you, to listen and watch you, to argue with you, to laugh with you, to show you things and share things with you. To explore your magnificent mind, to explore your wonderful body, to help you, protect you, serve you, and bash you on the head when I think you are wrong... which is quite a lot I will have you know! Not to put too fine a point on it I consider that I am the only God to have found the crock of gold at the rainbow's end.
But — having said all that — let us consider things in detail. Don't let this become public but... well, I have one or two faults as you well know. For example, I am inclined to be overbearing. I do it for the best possible motives (all tyrants say that) but I do tend (without thinking) to tread people underfoot. You must tell me when I am doing it to you, my sweet, because it can be a very bad thing in a marriage.'
Hold up marriage?
Had-had he actually considered marrying me?
My hands had become shaky as the thought of being married to Loki washed over me. I smiled to myself relishing in the butterflies that fluttered in my stomach before I dived right back in.
'Third and a very important and nasty blemish: jealousy. I don't think you know what jealousy is (thank the Gods) in the real sense of the word. I know you have felt jealousy over ladies watching or trying to flirt with me but this is what I call normal jealousy, and this, to my regret, is not what I've got. What I have got is a black monster that can pervert my good sense, my good humour and any goodness that you have helped me to discover. It is really a Jekyll and Hyde situation... my Hyde is stronger than my good sense and defeats me sometimes, hard though I try. As I told you, I have always known that this lurks within me, but I couldn't control it, and my monster slumbered and nothing happened to awake it. Then I met you and I felt my monster stir and become half awake when you told me of Jackson and others you have known, and those you know now, my monster came out of its lair, black, irrational, bigoted, stupid, evil, malevolent. You will never know how terribly corrosive jealousy is; it is a physical pain as though you had swallowed acid or red hot coals. It is the most terrible of feelings. But you can't help it — at least I can't, and Gods knows I've tried. I don't want any ex-boyfriends sitting in church when I marry you. On our wedding day, I want nothing but happiness, for both you and me, and I know I won't be happy if there is a church full of your ex-conquests. Or ones trying to steal you from me. When I marry you I will have no past, only a future: I don't want to drag my past into our future and I don't want you to do it either. Remember I am jealous of you because I love you. You are never jealous of someone you don't care about but OK, enough about jealousy.
Now, let me tell you something... I have seen a thousand sunsets and sunrises on many realms, on land where it floods forests and mountains with honey-coloured light, at sea where it rises and sets like a blood orange in a multi-coloured nest of cloud, slipping in and out of the vast ocean. I have seen a thousand moons: harvest moons like gold coins here on Asgard, winter moons in Jotumheim as white as ice chips, and new moons like baby swans' feathers on Midgard.
I have seen seas as smooth as if painted, coloured like shot silk or blue as a kingfisher or transparent as glass or black and crumpled with foam, moving ponderously and murderously.
I have felt winds straight from Niflheim, bleak and wailing like a lost child; winds as tender and warm as a lover's breath; winds that carried the astringent smell of salt and the death of seaweeds; winds that carried the moist rich smell of a forest floor, the smell of a million flowers. Fierce winds that churned and moved the sea like yeast, or winds that made the waters lap at the shore like a kitten.
I have known silence: the cold, earthy silence at the bottom of a newly dug well; the implacable stony silence of a deep cave; the hot, drugged midday silence when everything is hypnotized and stilled into silence by the eye of the sun; the silence when great music ends.
I have heard banshees cry so that the sound seems stitched into your bones. I have heard sirens in an orchestration as complicated as Bach singing in a forest lit by a million emerald fireflies. I have heard elks calling over grey glaciers that groaned to themselves like dying souls as they inched their way to the sea. I have heard the hoarse street vendor cries of the mating Fur seals as they sang to their sleek golden wives, the crisp staccato admonishment of the Rattlesnake, the cobweb squeak of the Bat and the belling roar of the Red deer knee-deep in purple heather. I have heard Wolves baying at a winter's moon, Red Howlers making the forest vibrate with their roaring cries. I have heard the squeak, purr and grunt of a hundred multi-coloured reef fishes.
I have seen hummingbirds flashing like opals round a tree of scarlet blooms, humming like a top. I have seen flying fish, skittering like quicksilver across the blue waves, drawing silver lines on the surface with their tails. I have seen Spoonbills flying home to roost like a scarlet banner across the sky. I have seen Whales, black as tar, cushioned on a cornflower blue sea, creating a Versailles of fountain with their breath. I have watched butterflies emerge and sit, trembling, while the sun irons their wings smooth. I have watched Tigers, like flames, mating in the long grass. I have been dive-bombed by an angry Raven, black and glossy as the Devil's hoof. I have lain in water warm as milk, soft as silk, while around me played a host of Dolphins. I have met a thousand animals and seen a thousand wonderful things... but –
All this I did without you. This was my loss.
All this I want to do with you. This will be my gain.
All this I would gladly have forgone for the sake of one minute of your company, for your laugh, your voice, your eyes, hair, lips, body, and above all for your sweet, ever surprising mind which is an enchanting quarry in which it is my privilege to delve.
I hope you can forgive me Darling, please.
Yours always, Loki. Xx'
A tear fell onto my hand as I read the final words of the letter. I wanted nothing more than to run to him, to be held in his embrace, tender yet protective. I wanted to inhale that all too familiar smell that had become home to me which was him. I wanted to hear him laugh at my silly jokes even when they weren't that funny. I wanted to go riding together out over the lands of Asgard and explore every corner of it with him.
I wanted him. Only him.
The sounds of footsteps startled me and I moved quickly to fold the letter and slip in into its envelope, hiding it below the skirt of my dress. Opening the book it had been hiding in and tried to compose myself.
Thor's voice made me look up from the book, "Little One?"
I smiled at him, wiping the last rogue tears away that had escaped my eyes, "Hi Thor."
He made his way over to me and slipped onto his knees in front of me, to study my tear stained face.
"Are you ok? What is wrong Little One?"
"Yeah...yeah I'm fine. I just. I wish this silly tiff was over is all. I miss him." My voice was quiet and I feared it may break as sobs threatened in my chest again.
Thor nodded, "It will be ok Little One. I have spoken to him."
I raised my eyebrows at him, "When?"
"Earlier today, he was here. In the Palace. He didn't stay long."
"Oh..." I was disappointed.
"He mentioned finding a note from you." Thor questioned.
"Yeah. I left him a note in hopes he might return to his bedroom while I was out."
"Out?"
"I met Idun."
"How? Who took you?"
"Tyr took me. I found out I won't live as long as the Aesir Gods can but I have a few thousand years ahead of me give or take." I smirked, nudging him, "more time to annoy you I'm afraid Big Guy!"
He chuckled at my response, "I'm surprised Tyr took you if I'm honest Little One, not many people get the privilege."
"Well then, I guess what is it you say? 'I'm worthy?'..." I teased and winked at him.
Thor shook his head, smiling, "How was training?"
"Good, Lady Sif is a great teacher. Fandral and Volstagg helped me too! I don't see how you haven't swept Sif off her feet yet Thor. I think it's obvious she fancies you." I teased.
"Oh Little One don't start trying to be a match maker now!" He stood holding his hand out for me to take.
I bit my lip slipping my hand to retrieve the letter from my skirt looking sheepishly at Thor.
"A letter, from Loki. I found." I felt the heat flood to my cheeks in embarrassment, "I didn't know who was coming in...I hid it just incase, you know?"
"You need not explain yourself Little One, now come, it's dinner time and you haven't been seen for a while now. Mother was starting to worry."
As if on queue my stomach let out a obscenely loud rumble, both of us looked down at it.
"Clearly food sounds good!" I laughed.
I took Thor's hand and he gently pulled me up off the chair. I slipped the letter into the book and slipped it under my arm.
"Can I leave this in Loki's room first?"
"Of course."
With that we headed to his room and I left it on the bed, before slipping back out and accompanying Thor to the hall to eat.
We chatted and laughed and I felt a little shard of hope in me that perhaps everything would be ok...or so I thought.