@nihilistborn
it surprises loki that she's surprised by the size of the great leatherbound tome; in reflection it seems obvious it would be so large, to suit the hands that fill its pages. still, the idea of a book being half her own height seems ridiculous even when one considers it as an artist's canvas, and that in itself carries its own shock. too many things, unexpected, despite the fact that she has known them somewhere all along. loki always knows, always has, always will, whether she wishes to or not.
this, perhapsāshe wished to. her thievery of the book has been short-lived, she has only had it in her possession the better part of two days, yet the moment she opened the very first page she knew it was a worthy theft. who would think the hands of thanos that have wrought so much death, can also capture such beauty? a long-forgotten cityscape; the blinding shadowed contrast of the rip; the herald and the devourer; a portrait of lady death, and another, and another, and another, interspersed with monochrome renditions of the beauty of the cosmos, of destruction, of history.
by that alone loki would be enamored, yet she does not find the true reason she's stolen it until the pages come nearer the remaining blank expanse. the very last page is a yet unfinished sketch, and familiar: it's her.
loki recognizes the frame of the bed she's been given, the lazily-shaded jacquard of her blanket, the roundness of her own forearm half-shielding her face as she sleeps. as she sleeps? she had thought she would know if he had entered her room, she imagines him seated there beside her as she dreams, dutifully looking from his book to her to his book againāor perhaps he had only come to look, and had drawn her from memory. or even imagination.
no matter the method, the discovery sets a wicked glee in her, and loki has no care for whether the revelation will come with punishment or not. it'll be worth it, and there's pride in the way her feet carry her to thanos's rooms, absolute arrogance in her unbound hair and the thin white silk that hangs from her shoulders, gold dripping at her neck. she's won something for certain now, and the knock she places upon his door is the sole warning before she simply appears on the other side of it, triumph all over her face and the book opened in her hands to the page in question.
"seems a little more like fantasizing than just artistic appreciation to me," she says by way of announcement, practically purring, though the dusty snap of the great book closing is a sharper punctuation. "of course, if you'd like to watch me sleep, you could always just invite me to bed."
