Login with:

Facebook

Twitter

Tumblr

Google

Yahoo

Aol.

Mibba

Your info will not be visible on the site. After logging in for the first time you'll be able to choose your display name.

Choices

Chapter 31

Chapter 31
(Four years later)
Cephera groaned and rolled over to find her face now buried into Loki's leg. Her eyes blinked wide as she looked up at her friend. "What are you doing here so early?" She groaned, rolling the other way away from him.
"I didn't know you sleep naked?" He commented.
"What?! Don't be a pervert!" She growled sitting up, keeping the blankets tightly around herself. "Don't you know it's rude to enter a woman's room without her permission." She told him huffing a little. She remembered having this conversation with him before, years ago.
"Well seeing as I'm your best friend, I assumed I had a life time pass." His grin made her stomach flutter and she willed it to go away. It had come and gone lately, those feelings inside her. Ever since she'd returned after her coming of age and they went on those couple of adventures with Thor, she'd experienced strange moments and flutters of feelings.
"Still should knock. What if I had no blankets to cover me?" She paused. "How do you know I'm naked?" She added quickly. Her tone was incredulous. She was fully covered, how did he even know? Loki laughed.
"Well when I snuck in here, your leg was hanging outside the sheets baring it up to your hip and as you lay on your stomach, the blankets had snaked all the way down to your lower back. Really, I saw very little." He assured her. "I even fixed the blankets so you could remain modestly covered if you moved."
"Thanks... I think. Why are you here again?"
"Boredom." He shrugged.
"What time is it?" She asked looking to the window.
"Four hours to sunrise," he said. Cephera glared at him.
"I hate you," she said and buried her head under a pillow.
"That's not true. But seriously I have something to show you." He nudged her hip but she didn't respond. She was trying to go back to sleep. "You can come quietly or I can pull those blankets off you now and force you to your feet." He threatened, his tone amused.
"You wouldn't," she said peeking out from under the pillow.
"Wouldn't I?" He questioned back. Cephera didn't want to test him. She knew him too well to challenge his word.
"Fine. Close your eyes. And so help me if you peek I'll be the last female you ever look at again." He smirked before lying back and taking her pillow to cover his face.
"You're so cranky this morning. Where's my usual whimsical songbird?" He asked below the pillow. Cephera was trying, as quickly as she could, to pull on a dress. She realized after, the one she had grabbed, laced up in the back.
"I'm only cranky when I'm woken on purpose at such a ridiculous hour." She told him. "Now lace me up." She ordered. Loki removed the pillow from his face and she stood near the edge of the bed.
"You know I'm more practiced with the untying part...," He teased.
"Don't want to hear it." She cut him off, knowing he was trying to get her to blush. He was in a teasing mood today. "This better be good."
"What? The manner in which I tie up your dress." Cephera turned and smacked him across the upper arm, pursing her lips together. Loki laughed.
"You know what I meant," she said.
"I'm not sure I like this Cephera." He noted out loud. "I'm afraid once we head outside the flowers will die, and the sun will fail to come up at the sight of your grouchy face."
"Don't be so melodramatic." She chided. Loki finished lacing her up and stood offering her his arm.
"Come on. I promise it will be worth your time. You can go back to bed afterward." Cephera sighed and took his arm to follow him out. They took his horse outside the palace walls, down through the market, and out toward the forest. They reached where they were headed before daylight. The dusky sky beginning to brighten ever so slowly. "Keep quiet." He warned, putting a finger to his lips. She nodded and she followed ducking under a brush of bushes and tress clustered together. He led her on foot through the prickly path.
The plants around them dug into her hands and legs as they tried to carefully move over them. They also made her itchy. She had a bad feeling about this. "Ow." She twitched he hand back hard.
"They weren't here yesterday. Must have sprouted to protect the Glenn." He told her. She didn't respond. At last he stopped, and moved aside a couple of leafy breaches. Cephera felt her breath hitch as she looked inside to see thousands of flowers covering the open Glenn's grass. A sparkling light emerging, and in only minutes the flowers opened and out of them flew pixies on all colours. Pixies could be violent little things, so Cephera stayed silent as Loki had told her to.
She watched the magical show displayed before her as the pixies celebrated their own birthing by flying about the Glenn in a beautiful array of lights and dust. Cephera knew she was squeezing Loki's hand, but she couldn't help it. It was the most awe struck thing she had ever seen off her own realm. They stayed silent and still until the suns lights sent the pixies flying off to find new homes.
"Okay. You're forgiven." Cephera told Loki turning her brightened smile on him.
"As I knew I would be." He grinned his cocky grin before tugging her to return to the path.
"See, now something like that is what you use to attract the ladies." Cephera teased getting up on the horse first. Since his ordeal years back with Sleipnir, woman were harder to attract. Whispers spoke of Loki as an animal lover, and not in a fond way.
"I don't need such things to attract the ladies." He replied rolling his eyes.
(Loki)
Loki growled in discomfort as the medics attended the welts that had formed from the prickly plants that had greeted them at the Glenn. Loki hadn't known this would happen. Both himself and Cephera were covered in these red welts and a healing salve was being applied. Cephera was sat on the opposite chair wearing only her thin underdress.
"Loki," she said and he looked over to her. "I hate you." She told him clenching her teeth to avoid scratching the sores.
"I hate me at the moment as well." He agreed shaking his head. Why couldn't any journey ever go right?
"Well the salve will help, but you might want to settle in a bath of milk to deter the itching. I can draw up one," the medic said to them both.
"Yes," they said in unison, the itching driving them both mad. The medic seemed to chuckle before leaving. They sat in silence until the medic returned and brought them into a room with a single bath. Loki had no problem stripping off what little clothes he still had on and getting in, but Cephera didn't look impressed.
"I can't." She insisted shaking her head.
"The milk is nowhere near translucent woman. I'll turn around as you get in." Loki rolled his eyes at her. Really, why couldn't she be more like her sister where things like this was concerned. She was his friend and he wasn't going to take advantage of her.
"Fine, but don't you dare look or...,"
"Or you'll be the last woman I ever get to see. Yes I know." Loki turned from her and heard her garments fall to the floor. The liquid he was submerged in rippled as she climbed in.
"You can turn now," she said. Loki did and tried not to laugh at the shade of red her face currently was coloured in. She really was a shy little thing. How she was this shy when she had a father like King Yorin was beyond Loki. Not to mentioned a sister like Seraphina. Must take after her mother.
Loki always wondered what her problem was. Why she didn't show any interest in men? He hadn't wanted to pry, but after all these years of being friends he wanted to know. He was going to ask now, but seeing as they were both naked, in the same bath, he didn't want her to get the wrong idea.
It wasn't that she wasn't good enough to court, but she was his friend. He didn't see her that way. Yes, he thought she'd become a beautiful woman and yes she was more than worthy, but she was Cephera! The thought of seeing her any other way felt alien to him and almost awkward. So he kept his questions to himself, perhaps he would find a chance to ask later.
(Cephera)
After their long morning of tending to their sore covered hands, legs and feet, Loki decided to take it easy. Cephera and him went back to her room for a game of cards. He won mostly, but every now and then she would get the better of him. It kept their minds off the itching.
She wasn't sure what made him ask, but she was shocked when Loki opened up a conversation he'd never broached before.
"What's the big deal with you and men?" Loki asked crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair, laying his hand of cards facedown on the table.
"You'll think I'm being silly." She muttered, her face flushing.
"I'm sure it's not that silly." He replied.
Cephera fiddled with her dress. "I'm waiting for the right guy. The one that feels right in my heart and in my mind. The one who catches my attention unlike any other." She replied. 'That's you Loki.' Her mind screamed it, but her voice was silent. She'd known now for some time what the feelings and emotions were that had invaded her body and mind these past years. It took her a while to accept them. She feared telling him about the budding feels she'd been having for a very long time now. She was afraid it would ruin their friendship. If he didn't feel the same way, she was frightened that some kind of awkward barrier would come between them.
"And how will you figure that out, if you won't give anyone a chance?" He raised a thin brow at her. Gosh, he was handsome.
"I do, sorta. When I talk to others I look for something. I want someone to want me no matter what I can't provide." Cephera glanced down, unable to look Loki in the face. She studied the cards in her hand although she wasn't really paying much mind to them.
"Can't provide?" He questioned.
Cephera took a deep breath. She knew one day she'd tell him, but she hadn't expected it to be today. She explained to him the hardships her people faced when attempting to have children. The low percentage of people who manage and their dying realm from too few newborns. "The man who wants me has to understand I may not provide him with children." She finished. It was her biggest fear, near everyone wants to carry on their family line.
"I suppose, that would be a snag." Loki agreed and Cephera's heart sank. "Leaving this world without children is something that does worry many people, but I'm sure out there, there is someone who would take the chance, after all, there is a chance you could have children, even if it is small."
'Would you?' She wanted to ask him, but again her voice stayed silent. Too much fear and agony making her tremble with fear of rejection. No! She couldn't tell him. One day she'd find someone else, she couldn't lose Loki's friendship, it meant to much to her to risk it.
"Chin up. I do believe there is someone out there for everyone." Cephera forced a smile and looked up. He returned the smile before stretching. "I'm heading to bed, it's getting late. Don't stress over it Songbird. Someday it'll happen." And with that he left her room.
"I already found him," she said out loud to no one, once he was long gone.

Notes

Comments

@fraychan
Then I have done my job well. :p

Yasumi Yasumi
6/15/15

Your cliff hangers wound me D:

fraychan fraychan
6/12/15

@fraychan
Keep that adrenaline pumping, still a lot to come.

Yasumi Yasumi
5/14/15

Oh god I can't even describe how happy this chapter made me. I'm feeling a slight adrenaline rush haha

fraychan fraychan
5/12/15

@fraychan
I agree, things have could been so much different if things had just come to light sooner.

Yasumi Yasumi
5/7/15