Thaw

"𝐢𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐚 𝐛𝐞𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐮𝐥 𝐟𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭. 𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐢𝐬."

❅

"What are you reading?"

Belle's question snaps Loki out of his trance, the frost giant quickly shutting his book and attempting to subtly put his arm over the cover in an attempt to hide the title.

"Nothing."

"You forgot to mark your place," Belle says, gesturing to the book as Loki sighs and removes his hand. "Guinevere and Lancelot," Belle reads, making her way over to sit on the snowy bench in the alcove next to Loki.

"Well, actually, King Arthur and the Round Table," Loki answers, still a bit embarrassed after being caught reading in his favorite place. "Knights and men and swords and things."

"Hmm," Belle laughs. "Still, it's a romance."

"All right," Loki scoffs.

A comfortable silence falls upon the pair, Belle admiring the blue roses around the alcove as Loki places his book to the side.

"I never thanked you for saving my life," Belle finally says, getting the courage to look him in his ruby red eyes.

"Well, I never thanked you for not leaving me to be eaten by wolves."

Belle laughs at Loki's remark as loud chattering echoes from inside the castle, most likely from one of Thor's jokes or Steve's inability to speak about anything besides when he fought in a war or his husband.

"They know how to have a good time," Belle says, pointing her chin towards where the laughter was radiating from.

"Yes," Loki agrees. "But when I enter a room, laughter dies."

"Me too," Belle nods, thinking back to her repetitive, cyclical routine in the village. "The villagers say that I'm a funny girl, but I'm not sure they mean it as a compliment."

"I'm sorry. Your village sounds terrible," Loki remarks bluntly, making Belle laugh at his forwardness.

"Yes," she agrees. "Almost as lonely as your castle."

"What do you say we run away?"

Belle watches as Loki searches one of the shelves of the library nearest the fireplace, humming in success as he locates the object of his search.

"Another 'gift' from the enchantress," Loki explains as he blows the dust off of the unused book before placing it down on the table in front of them. "A book that truly allows you to escape."

Belle gazes at the pages in front of her, a world map quite literally glowing with golden stands wrapping around the globe. "How amazing!"

"It was her cruelest trick of all," Loki shakes his head. "Just another curse. The outside world has no place for a creature like me...but it can for you."

Belle watches Loki as he reaches his hand out to hers and softly grasps it. The intricate designs running down his palm are made aware to Belle as Loki grasps her soft hand with his cold one, slowly bringing it to rest atop the page of the book.

"Think of the one place you've always wanted to see," Loki says, shifting his hand slightly so that it now laid on top of Belle's. "Find it in your mind's eye. Feel it in your heart."

Belle closes her eyes, Loki's cool touch remaining as her anchor to the world. She slowly pictures the place that her father had described to her as a young girl every night she couldn't sleep or awoke from a nightmare.

Not noticing the feeling of the book's page disappear from under her fingertips, Belle continues to conceive the small room of her family's cottage atop a small hill. Loki's hand brings her slowly back to reality, tracing small circles on her hand before removing it all together, prompting Belle to open her eyes.

"Where did you take us?" Loki questions, looking around the small, dark room covered in a thick layer of dust.

"Paris," Belle replies simply, not being able to formulate any other words as she examines the small room with a table set for two, a quaint, fireplace obviously unused by anyone for years, and a bed with thin sheets strewn atop it housed in the very corner of the room.

"Oh, I love Paris," Loki says gleefully, moving so he can peer out of the window to the city that lay below. "What would you like to see first? The Champs-Élysées? The Notre Dame?"

Belle only continues to look around the barren room, her face paling at the sight.

"No?" Loki asks in the midst of Belle's continues silence. "Too touristy?"

"Everything's so much smaller than I imagined," Belle finally says before her eyes catch on a pile of discarded drawings on the table.

Picking up the top image, Belle gasps as she sees the rough sketch of her as a baby traced on the wrinkled sheet of paper. Next to the stack of drawings lay a small vase holding two long-ago wilted roses.

"This is where my mother and father lived when I was born," Belle says, tracing a finger through the dust on the table before wiping it on her dress and gazing up at Loki. "I was too young to remember any of it."

Loki gazes around the room with a new air of softness and regard, taking in the small home.

"What happened to your mother?"

"It was the one story my father could never bring himself to tell," Belle says, gazing at the fireplace where the remains of charcoal served as the only evidence that anyone had ever been there. "I knew better than to ask."

Loki's eyes catch on a small object laying on the small chair next to the bed as he walks over to pick it up.

"Oh..."

Belle looks up from the fireplace, turning to see Loki cradling the object gingerly in his hands. "What is it?"

"A doctor's mask," Loki says quietly, looking up at Belle with sympathy. "Plague."

Suddenly, the slight disarray that the home was left in makes all the more sense to Belle. The long-forgotten drawings, the abandoned flowers, and the crumpled sheets atop the bed are now the only signs and memory of her mother left.

Belle walks over to the bed, crouching down and peering down at the last remaining indication of her mother's existence on the slightly creased pillowcase.

"I'm sorry that I ever called your father a thief," Loki says honestly as he looks at Belle's small frame hunched over the bed.

After a moment longer, Belle looks back up at Loki with tears in her eyes.

"Let's go home," she whispers faintly.

❅

"This is some storm, huh?" Lemar asks his companion, John, as they near the small tavern in the village. "At least we're not tied to a tree in the middle of nowhere surrounded by bloodthirsty wolves."

Lemar's remark is anything less than a speculation or coincidence, as that was just what he and John had just finished doing to Belle's father in the forest.

After hours of scouring every inch of the forest for a sign of that wretched castle or his beloved daughter, Phil had insisted to John and Lemar that what he had claimed was real despite the piling evidence to the contrary.

John, in typical John Walker fashion, had lost his temper at that and tied him to a tree, leaving him for the wolves.

Okay, screw this "unbiased narrator" shit. I really fucking hate John Walker.

"You know, it's not too late to turn back," Lemar continues, nervously picking at his fingernails as he and John finally enter the tavern. "It's just that every time I close my eyes, I picture Phil there--stranded, alone. And then, when I open them, he's..."

Lemar trails off as he scans the tavern, his eyes widening as he catches sight of a very familiar figure.

"Phil!" He exclaims, masking his horror with poorly-feigned relief and excitement. Phil, who is looking very much not-tied-to-a-tree snaps his head toward the pair of men.

The chatter in the pub dies off at once as all of the patrons turn towards John, who's face had suddenly gone very, very pale, as if he has just seen the ghost of Prince Philip himself.

"John," Zemo, the tavern owner, says, walking from his place from behind the bar to confront the man. "Did you try to kill Phil?"

"Phil!" John says, quickly gathering himself and putting on a mask of relief. "Thank heavens! I've spent the last five days trying to find you!"

"You tried to kill me," Phil spits back simply. "You left me to the wolves."

"Wolves?" John laughs. "it's one thing to rave about your delusions; it's another to accuse me of attempted murder."

"Phil," Vision says, standing up from his place at the table. "Do you have any proof of what you're saying?"

"Ask Hela!" Phil says at once, pointing to the woman leaning against the wall by the fireplace. "She rescued me!"

"Hela?" John repeats, laughing. "You'd really hang your accusations on the testimony of a filthy hag like her? No offense, Hela."

"Lemar," Phil says, walking towards John's right hand man who had, up to this point, been unusually quiet. "He was there. He saw it all."

"Me?" Lemar says, his voice cracking slightly as he looks up to meet Phil's eyes.

"You're right," John says, jumping in before Lemar can say anything else. "Don't take my word for it--Lemar! My dearest companion. Did I--your oldest friend and most loyal compatriot--try to kill the father of the only woman I've ever loved?"

Lemar does his best to swallow the rising bile in his throat, his eyes flashing from John to Phil and back to John.

"Well," he begins, his voice still slightly wavering, "it's a complicated question on a number of accounts...but, no. No he did not."

John smiles at his friend's words, gazing around the pub with an I-told-you-so expression.

"You mother fu-" Phil says, walking to John with his fist raised, but is quickly silenced as John grabs his hand and twists it behind his back.

"Phil..." John says with mock sympathy. "It pains me to say this, but you've become a danger to yourself and to others. No wonder Belle ran away. You need help, sir--a place to heal your troubled mind."

John nods to a few approaching townspeople, clutching Phil's shoulder in an embrace that would look to any onlooker as a reassuring motion, but is actually digging into the spot on Phil's shoulder that he knew housed an old injury from years ago.

"Everything is going to be fine, Phil," John consoles. "Just fine..."

❅❅❅