And my choice?
Another morning passes with fruitless efforts of leaving. Though you're met again with a walk in the early morning light after breakfast with Loki. He informs you with details on a typical breakfast with the court and actually smiles at you in laughter as you poke at his father's eating habits in response. After following the path back to your room, Loki initiates the goodbye bow to the one you offered him yesterday; his thumb lining your knuckles once more.
The next morning passes by waking in this world after hours spent trying to leave it. You rest each night in your bed only to wake and roam the halls of Asgard's palace. Thankfully finding most things where they tend to be, including the library. This leads to finding your favorite nook in the back corner of the library with the curved couch surrounded by curved walls, all lined with thickly bound books.
This is where Loki interrupts your reading with a small clearing of his throat. "Good afternoon, Goddess."
You smile and nod to him, "God." You set a thumb in between the pages of your book on your lap, "How does the day find you?"
"Very well, thank you." Loki steps into the area you sit, looking around and smiling only to himself. It's so small you only see the crease beside his eye to indicate it. "Have you found anything to your liking?"
You hum as you watch him start to circle the room, "Yes, I have found quite a collection of things I enjoy here."
"Good, good." He nods. "I was wondering, Goddess, if you would join me for tea?" Loki's eyes follow only the spines of the books rippling around the wall as he walks out from behind the couch where you sit.
"Today?" You question.
Loki hesitates slightly, "Yes, today."
You raise your eyebrow into a smirk as Loki finds a title to read instead of returning your gaze, "When?"
Loki's head looks forward as he explains to the shelf, "Now, if you'd like."
"Where?"
"Anywhere you'd like, Goddess." His finger traces a title he has been staring at for too long in an attempt to better comprehend three words as he waits for your response.
As you stand and close your book on a piece of ribbon you ask again, "Where shall we go for tea, God?"
Loki turns now to look at you, "My chambers."
You shallow an inhale to fight the surprise and exhale, choosing to nod once instead of a voice.
Your hand silently rests in the corner of where Loki's forearm meets his bicep for the silent sway from the library to his rooms. The only words exchanged for a few minutes are that of Loki to the staff outside of his room, requesting a tray to be brought in upon arrival.
The doors to his chamber are perfectly equal to that of yours, however opening them seems to lead to a different planet. The asgard behind this arch leads to a peace that seems nowhere else in the building, possibly the realm. Loki's chambers hold staples of simple-lined wooden furniture that are contained in their own places across the floor.
The far left corner holds a wide bed with the only intricate carving in the room, the dark wooden headboard with floral and winged-insect patterns you can't make out from your position. Just beside the carved bed is the wooden frame of the window that overlooks the garden, same as yours, with the doorway to the terrace to the right of the bed.
The right of the room holds one doorway closest to the outer edge of the building, right of which begins the bookshelves. There is next to none in terms of flat walls in Loki's chambers, you turn in place at the center as you take in the personal library he has collected. In the area left of the main entrance lies a span of flat wall only covered with paintings in thick brush strokes and fine lines. The art surrounds a desk scattered in papers and ink, feathers and teacups decorate its edges.
The deep green wallpaper peaks out from behind the frames of the art as Loki walks to his desk, interrupting your game of gaze.
"I tend to work better when I can see everything I must consider." He explains, "I would apologize but that would allow you to assume you would see this desk in any other state in the future, and that's simply not true." His hands cross behind his back as he looked at you, a test in his eyes.
You mimic his stance, "And what are you having to consider at the present moment?"
His eyes focus slightly on you, a refusal to look at the papers in front of him, "The mundane tasks of a court member, nothing of conversation."
"I see," you sigh, "how disappointing." You bite your cheek in a teasing smile and turn to the window of his room, walking towards the afternoon light.
As you stand at the window, Loki's bed to your right, you glance to the headboard to admire the details. A butterfly carved at the top of the wood follows in its carved path to the left side of the floral wood grain, its journey only stopped by the feeling of someone standing behind you.
Though he isn't close, you feel Loki has moved. He confirms his distance in a low question, "Would you like to sit outside on the terrace in the afternoon breeze," He pauses only for a second, "or in here away from the sun?"
Loki offers you an excuse for not wanting to be in his chambers unseen with him, though he also offers you an invitation for just that.
Your shoulders turn back to look at him, "The breeze may be nice."
Loki begins to move towards the door with a nod. Before he can continue, you cut him off, "Though, I drink my tea rather slowly and don't wish for it to become cold before I can finish."
His feet stop in their path, eyes snapping to yours, "I see." He nods, "Very well. We shall keep the drapes open to allow the sunlight to remain, then." His feet take him to the back of a red cushioned arm chair, pulling it out for you to sit.
As you sit, his knuckles brush your arms where he holds the back of the chair, he nearly pauses his breathing. In his last adjustment to the chair for you, his thoughts are interrupted by a rap on the door followed by the tray of tea he requested.
He sits in his own chair across from you as one of the kitchen staff sets the tray between you and exits quietly, the door shut behind her.
You set the cups and saucers out for yourself and Loki as he pours your tea, then his. The table you sit allows both of you a view of the garden though the glass plates of his door to the balcony. You watch as birds pass by and the wind dances in the vines of the plant spread across the railing outside. You pull your book from the empty space on the table in front of you while Loki scans the words of his own.
A chapter later, Loki breaks the silence, "May I ask you something, Goddess?"
"Of course." Your eyes leave the page and meet him.
"The night you came here, you made a comment which I've been perplexed by for quite some time." You tilt your head as he continues, "You said your interaction may be a small incidental we may forget, but I'm unsure how we would ever forget such moments; even those from your first night here."
You stare at Loki, searching for words behind a stoic face. You had meant to leave that night, taking with you the most impacted versions of that night. Dismissing him, you slip the ribbon into your book, "I simply meant it would be similar to another court member being filtered through. Quite insignificant."
"Other court members don't memory share as an explanation to why they have arrived." He counters.
"Yes, well," you pause to think, "you live very long lives here on Asgard. Those which are full of more exciting adventures than a random intruder."
Loki chuckles, "One that blinks Thor's weighty hammer back to him is quite exciting, is it not?"
"I suppose." You shorten your reply and sip your tea, gazing out to the garden once again.
"What I'm saying, Goddess, " Loki shifts slightly in his seat, "is I have led myself to believe you are capable of taking memories when you leave a universe." Your eyes find his, "Surely I am wrong, Goddess, surely you don't intend to strip us of our memories when you leave us."
You falter and allow your eyes to drop from his eyes to his right shoulder, unable to look at the anger you assume is beginning to sew his features in your silence. His voice is instead a soft, almost hurting call, in contrast to his very capable loud rage, "Goddess tell me you wouldn't." Loki inhales shallowly, "Tell me you haven't."
You're unable to find his gaze, your voice stolen from your throat by the knot that holds your vocal chords hostage with guilt. You watch his shoulders turn away as he raises, an inhale filling the space between you.
Finally, you find air when he is out of sight behind you, the knot untangling itself. "Not here, I've not taken anything here."
A sour laugh falls from Loki's lips, " 'Not here.' That's good." You hear him pace slowly to his desk, walk around it and stop. His voice bounces off the wall in front of him as he calls to you, "Goddess, where have you taken memories from?"
You inhale as you stand, turning to find Loki facing his collection of art. You walk towards him, stopping ten paces from the desk between you and Loki.
"No more than a handful of universes."
"And they have no idea you've stripped them of their lives," He inhales sharply, "of their own control?"
Your tongue ticks the back of your teeth, "That is not the same thing." You stand in silence as you watch his shoulders rise and fall, an attempt to control his breath fails as he spins around to face you.
A hand disrupts the delicate placement of papers on his desk, "Your mysterious ways are not welcomed here," his hair falls across his face as his head slightly shakes. He inhales, controlling the volume of his voice, "Tell me the truth, Goddess, tell me how many times you have entered my life only to remove my agency."
You blink and inhale, "Three.” Your shoulders straighten, “I've taken your memories three times, Loki."
His shoulders drop but his voice remains hard, "Why?" The question presents more as a statement.
"You chose it." The simple answer.
"I what?" Loki curves the word around his lips as he steps forward, almost hitting his legs on his desk.
"You chose to forget."
"Every time?" He huffs, "why?"
You shake your head, "I can't-"
"You won't." Loki interjects, "You are perfectly capable of telling me the truth yet choose for me that it is too much, that somehow it may hurt me. You take my choice away now; is that all you exist to do? To harbor control of those around you?"
Loki's words ring in your ears and in your chest as the memory they are, the first universe in which you had to strip him of his own experiences screaming to you. The first time you had to protect him, to hurt him, bleeds in your chest.
Your breath catches in your lungs. Turning away hides the wells of tears in their ducts but does not hide the pain in your voice, "You do not get to say those things to me," you choke out, "you know nothing of me, nothing of you."
"I know much of you, Goddess." He chides, "I know how you take your tea and the books you prefer." You hear him move out from behind his desk, "I know very well how your face moves when you tell a story. I know the pace at which you take leaving your chambers versus the one you stride to when returning to them." Loki stands paces behind you, "I know you, Goddess."
You laugh behind soft tears, "Oh, Loki. How very fairytale of you." You turn to face him, "Thoae things do not define me, you have simply used them as an outline to fill in the gaps with assumptions. You - the one who stands before me now - you have known me for a week, perhaps a few hours more? You know nothing of me," the words shoot from your mouth, "and I know nothing of you."
"I insist you tell me about the three,” Loki spits, “why did you take their memories?"
"I told you!" You snap, "They chose for their memories to be taken on my leave!"
"All three selected the same loss when offered a panel of fair and right choices?" He takes a step closer, your chin turning up to keep your eyes with his.
You hesitate and inhale hard, "No." Is the short reply; his step forward is mirrored towards him.
"Tell me," He demands, another stride towards you, “the truth."
Your eyes flick across his as your chests heave in sync; up and down in anger and tears as your turn to speak fills with nothing for a lifetime.
"I took it," your voice leaves as a whisper in anger, "I took his choice from him and he made me promise to allow the others their own paths. And they chose them." You exhale and harden your face to Loki's questioning glare, "The truth, God."
Loki watches you and tries to solve a puzzle behind his eyes. "I need more." He gruffs out and steps away from you, turning to the window.
And so you explain the story of your first universe, the first one you created. You explain to Loki how he was yours there, how you were completely devoted to each other after meeting in this universe where he is brought to Midgard by Thor. You laugh only to yourself in an explanation of why Thor would do such a thing, "A big raisin man was mean to you and you needed therapy, so he takes you to a bunch of other people who need therapy."
Although the joke goes unnoticed by the God now perched on his desk, you continue. You tell him through distant smiles how he allowed you to become his friend and how he taught you to use your powers. How you lived so very long together and helped people, mended the wounded and taught the masses. You tell him the way you didn't know that everything you felt would translate into this universe, how you didn't know what you were doing impacted real beings. You tell Loki about the journals with written interactions to base worlds off of, how those journals were supposed to be make-believe. You tell him you believed it was all a fairytale, and in some cases a nightmare, until you woke one morning in your world with a scar across your thigh from a blade thrown at you in battle.
Loki watches you explain, watches you sit in a chair and gaze into the sky while you tell him how in another universe you stripped him of his person when no other options were available. When the universe you created burned because of you, it was the only way you knew how to put out the fire.
"I didn't know this was real. It was just something I did to help me sleep." You half smile sadly, "I just wanted a bit of peace, but the dreams kept getting more and more vivid." You laugh softly, "Blamed it on lucid dreaming and apple juice before bed." You explain the dive into this world you had created and how this dive ruined your friend's life here, how it ruined his.
"I was doing more damage than I could fix. I was hurting everyone." You look at nothing outside, "And so I took them, stripped everyone of their memories yet somehow he pieced things back together.” Your head shakes with your words, eyes closing only to see the memories of that crisped world.
“I left everyone with a fraction of who I was so it wasn't a gap in memory, but just a passing guest.” You explain, “I spent so much time there, if I had completely taken all that time from them they would have gotten worse. But he knew I was more significant; I didn't know you kept a journal,” Loki’s gaze is behind you as you continue,”I didn't know to take those memories too."
You look at Loki as he sits in contemplation, staring at his bookshelves. "He made me promise to give others the choice; to not take away their choice after all they'd been through. So yes, the other two chose it.” Your throat is dry at the end of the monologue of sorrow, “In the end, he chose it again too. After I explained what I'd done, he chose it."
Loki's eyes almost haze over as he thinks, not speaking for moments. Silence sits ill in those moments, causing you to speak rather than surrender to the nausea built in your throat.
"Loki," He doesn't look at you, but does turn his gaze to the floor, "I also allow others to tell me when to leave. If I do not notice what I'm doing, if I do not realize that I am causing pain, a vote can cast me out.” Your cheek finds its way between your teeth, “However, if you are present you have the power to veto any decision." You swallow, "A veto to allow me to stay against another's wishes, or a veto for me to leave."
"To leave?" Loki finally speaks in a whisper.
"To never return." You confirm.
He looks at you and repeats to clarify, "to never return."
You nod and watch him. "Would you like me to leave, Loki?"