His stomach churned the entire evening, there was no way he could eat or drink a thing. Not that handmaidens didn't try, at Odin's behest, to offer him goblets of mead and legs of mutton. There was a valiant attempt to draw Loki into the festivities but Loki knew this wasn't because anyone wanted to celebrate him.
They just wanted a reason to have a little bit of joy and he couldn't blame them for taking advantage of the moment when it came. Yes, they wanted to mourn those who had died, especially their queen, but if they could do so while raising a drinking horn they preferred it.
It was just that Loki's surfacing anxiety preferred he either hide or lose it completely out in the open. He could not have that and he could not have Jane see that.
It didn't surprise him to find she had left the feast before he could even gather himself. Thor appeared to be fluctuating between moody, kicked dog expressions and a faux glee when cornered by others. Loki had a mind to corner him too but his stomach churned again.
No. He needed to leave, to find solitude.
How long had she been here? Loki stood over where the midgardian laid curled up, surrounded on all sides by stacks of books and half-unrolled parchments. It was the first time since earlier that evening that his body didn't feel on edge, that his gut didn't feel like it wanted to rise up to his throat.
Jane sleeping so peacefully...
Loki lifted a hand as if he might stroke her hair but instead there flowed a plume of green smoke that fell across her body until it solidified into a true blanket, velvety and plush.
While she slept he took to the library much like she appeared to have done. There had to be a solution here but their problems were numerous and intertwined in ways even she couldn't understand.
And would she even believe him if he tried to explain? Loki had been reading the same line of the tome open before him at least over five times now and on the sixth attempt his head snapped up at the soft sound of Jane waking.
He waited quietly for her to rise, to see him.
"You looked peaceful," he explained before she could ask why he hadn't woke her.