[ The following day brings new doubt nipping at his heels, but Wanda does him the courtesy of falling back to their normal routine and the whispers of suspicion fade just the more with every sunset. Neither party broaches the topic of what she witnessed in that dream. Loki isn't ungrateful, but the lack of resolution does gnaw at him. From the beginning, he'd assumed that all of his (known) faults had been exposed by Thor, but Wanda's lack of reaction to his jotun body called into question what she'd actually heard from Thor. Surely she would have been repulsed, if not by the image, then the history behind them.
So when, while waiting for Wanda to gather herself for a trip into the city, the sight of a tome on different worlds and races known intimately (and bitterly) to him catches his eye, his lips press into a thin line. He doesn't need to confirm what subject that ribbon is bookmarking, having revisited it several times himself. Of course she'd look into it -- and without him, at that. Still, it isn't betrayal he feels, but the ever-present bitterness associated with his ancestry and the sense of inevitability.
Yet he is the image of propriety when they depart, with a golden braid draped over one shoulder and an empty, woven bag over the other, and a polite smile fixed upon the slender face of Wanda Maximoff's handmaiden. As they pass beneath the last of the palace's arches, he asks, ] Have your tutors deemed you adequate enough to increase the pace, then?
no subject
So when, while waiting for Wanda to gather herself for a trip into the city, the sight of a tome on different worlds and races known intimately (and bitterly) to him catches his eye, his lips press into a thin line. He doesn't need to confirm what subject that ribbon is bookmarking, having revisited it several times himself. Of course she'd look into it -- and without him, at that. Still, it isn't betrayal he feels, but the ever-present bitterness associated with his ancestry and the sense of inevitability.
Yet he is the image of propriety when they depart, with a golden braid draped over one shoulder and an empty, woven bag over the other, and a polite smile fixed upon the slender face of Wanda Maximoff's handmaiden. As they pass beneath the last of the palace's arches, he asks, ] Have your tutors deemed you adequate enough to increase the pace, then?
[ His tone is light, almost teasing. ]