The Myriad Misadventures of a Midgardian Queen-In-Training || Loki x Reader

Chapter 30

Time seems to pass more quickly after that.

Mere weeks after you turn seventeen, Juliette and Li are sent home. One day, they're sitting with you at breakfast, and the next, they're not. There doesn't seem to be any particular reason for it - there are no further attacks on the palace, and neither of them fall ill or break any major rules. It just...happens.

Watching their homecoming footage with the other girls on Good Evening, America , you are struck with a strange mix of excitement and apprehension. The competitive side of you is, in an odd way, proud to have made it to the last five. The logical side knows it's likely due to your agreement of friendship from a month ago.

The imaginative side wonders if it's something more than that.

No matter. You have other things to worry about. Namely, the letter you just found on the ground outside the Ladies' Parlor.

My Addi,

I miss you still more than words can say. When will you be able to return home? I cannot bear to think of you locked up for months, hiding yourself from the world, all for my sake. I never should have let you make this sacrifice to begin with. It is for that reason that I write this letter.

Let me switch with you. I have spoken to Adrian, and he agrees - this is the right thing to do. I have done some research as to how it might be accomplished, and I have it enclosed. Reply soon with your answer.

Or, even better, please come home, Addi. Maybe you could ask? Feign some illness, perhaps.

I eagerly await your reply. Sending all my love,

The signature is unintelligible, more scrawl than script, and, after a year and counting in the palace, you're pretty confident the handwriting doesn't belong to anyone here that you know. But the name it's addressed to - Addi?

Perhaps it belongs to one of the staff , is the theory you settle on. Better to leave it, just in case.

But leaving it doesn't mean you can forget it. Even after you place the sheet of paper carefully back down, the words remain burned on the insides of your eyes for several days after, bumping against your thoughts every time you try to focus on another task. And there are many, many tasks to focus on. Lady Amara announces the next day that there will be another ball - but this time, the competitive aspect will differ. Instead of costume design, all five remaining contestants would have to perform a talent.

Yep, that's right. A freaking talent show.

The news shouldn't be stressing you out this much - you loved singing back home! Except this isn't a two-bar choir solo in front of a fifty-person church congregation. This was an actual competition, in front of hundreds of gossip-hungry party guests. And four potentially malicious Chosen ones.

And Loki.

If you were being completely honest, the thought of him seeing you sing is what unnerves you the most. Not because you're afraid of him, not anymore, but because you... you know. Like him. A little.

As a friend, you remind yourself. That's all. But it's still a problem. Because liking him, even as a friend , means you now care that much more about his opinion. It took you three years of friendship to feel comfortable singing in front of Steven. You've known Loki for less than two.

And besides, what the hell would you even sing? You have no Internet, no radio, and the sheet music collection in the castle library - that is, the selections that weren't written in some long-dead, unreadable tongue - is entirely made up of classical music and folk songs. Not that you are adamantly opposed to either of those genres, but they feel out of place here. Too simple. You're going to need something bigger if you're going to stand up to whatever it is the other girls had planned.

Your eyes flash open as inspiration strikes, and you nearly leap out of bed. The other girls.

That's it.