The Greatest Lie
Declaring their mutual love, Loki eagerly invited Verity to the gleaming city of New Asgard. Though he’d planned to bestow upon her a royal treatment worthy of a goddess, he’d also plotted to steal her away in the night and take her offworld where some means to grant her immortality (or something close to it) might be found. That evening, after a grand dinner in Verity’s honor, Thor pulled his brother aside and challenged the virtue of his supposed love for the mortal woman...
He’d had such lofty ideas of what their future would hold. With the assumption that, seeing as the universe owed him some kindness after all he had endured, he would find some way to keep her by his side through to eternity, he’d begun planning out where their lives might take them one, two thousand years from now. All the beautiful things he would show her, the grand adventures they would have together that would be immortalized in song...
“If this is some sort of trick, brother, it is the cruelest you have devised in a long while,“ Thor’s words echoed in his head.
“It’s no trick,“ Loki had answered, venom in each word but a certain amount of sincerity too. He’d resented the accusation but feared what Verity might think if she heard them - after all, he’d not told her everything. “I love her! I love her, can’t you see that? Be happy for me, Thor."
“You were the one who once warned me of the consequences of loving a mortal.“
“That’s different. She’s not Jane. Oh she is far superior! I would marry her, I would have her be my wife...“
“Does she know that?“
“We’ve not discussed it. You know how Humans think, they idle away their short lives with caution and uncertainty. I don’t want to scare her. But this is different, this is different than you and Jane.”
“How so?” Thor had asked, his patient tone driving Loki mad. Why couldn’t he understand? It wasn’t that hard to understand!
“Because I’m not about to let her slip away from me!“
“Loki, she doesn’t even know you... Have you told her?“
Have you told her you’re a monster? Thor hadn’t phrased it like that, but that was how it sounded to Loki’s ears. He’d told her, but what if she were to learn the one truth he’d been able to keep from her? What if she were to see his ridged blue skin, his red eyes more befitting a beast than a man? Thor was right, she didn’t know him. Now he stood, on the balcony of his chambers, unable to turn and look Verity in the eye. Dread over losing his deception and dread over keeping it was equally torturous. He blinked away tears, glad when they were carried away by fiercely cold Norwegian winds.
Just the night before, caught up in each other’s pleasure, he’d been so certain that this could work, so relieved that he’d found someone who could love him despite all his past sins. But now...
“I’m sending for the plane to take you back to New York tomorrow morning,“ Loki whispered, turning around to her and stepping back inside to where a cracking fireplace and pedestals of fire bit at the chilled air. Slowly, like a dog expecting a kick, he sat on the bed beside her. Thick velvet blankets bowed under him and he distracted himself for a moment with pushing the fibers back and forth. It was a good excuse not to meet her gaze. Maybe if he didn’t, she wouldn’t hear the lie in what he said next. For all the lies he’d ever told, he couldn’t bring himself to make this one sound anywhere convincing - not that it would make any difference. Perhaps it would sting enough. “You don’t belong here, look at you! The people will never accept their Prince taking an inked, crass mortal as his Mistress. You don’t know me,” now he was verging back into truth, glancing up to look at her and dying a little inside, “and you have no reason to love me.”
For @humanliedetectcr