#potoau

Your teachers had warned you against this. You were not to chase the things that lurked beyond knowledge, not to heed the whispers of the unknown. Stick to text, to the tasks that suited you, they had said. There was no need to search for power, no need to answer a call that would lead you astray. You had heard the cautionary tales—students who had followed voices like this before, only to return shattered, their minds lost in something they could never explain. Some never returned at all. But the warnings had done nothing to quell the yearning in your chest. Deep down, you knew—the pull had to be answered. There was no ignoring it. No denying that something here was meant for you.

Your steps echoed through the vast halls, the flickering green flames casting long, shifting shadows against the weathered stone. This place was old—older than Asgard itself, perhaps. Once, it had been a Jotun war outpost, long abandoned after the great wars that left Jotunheim a frozen wasteland. Now, it was nothing more than a skeleton of a battlefield, a fragment of history left to decay in the outskirts of Asgard.

Yet, as your fingers brushed against the icy stone, a shudder ran through you. It felt alive, pulsating beneath your touch, as though remnants of the past still lingered within its walls. The air was thick with a sense of something watching, something just beyond the veil of what you could see, but you sensed it. The presence that had been calling to you… leading you here. The voice that had started as a whisper in your dreams now seeped into your waking hours, threading itself into your thoughts like a slow, insidious poison.

A whisper curled against your ear, though no one was there. A chill followed, ghosting down your spine like a breath of winter air, raising goosebumps along your skin. The hairs on the back of your neck stood on end, an involuntary shiver rolling through you as if something unseen had traced fingers along your flesh.

"You wander, little one. Lost, searching… but I see your potential. Let me guide you.” The voice was rich, deep, its cadence curling around your thoughts like a velvet ribbon.

You spun, breath catching, but the ruined chamber was empty. Only silence remained, pressing against your ribs, seeping into your skin. Yet the presence lingered—a phantom caress against your senses, a pulse of warmth and chill interwoven.

I imagined it.

But the thought was hollow, unconvincing. The feeling didn’t fade.

Your fingers traced the spine of an ancient tome left open on a pedestal, the runes etched into its pages pulsing faintly as if breathing. Your pulse stuttered in response, an unspoken recognition coiling in your chest, irrational yet undeniable. The symbols were old. Magic and stories that had been lost, fallen out of memory, now etched into the stone like a lingering whisper of the past. A record of wars fought, of kings and warlords long buried beneath ice and time. But beneath it all, something more—an insistent, invisible pull, like a thread wrapped around your ribs, tugging you forward. It was not just knowledge waiting here. It was something alive, something watching, something calling for you.

A chuckle, low and knowing, echoed from the shadows.

"Patience. Or is it that you want to see me, little one? You want to know who calls to you in the dark?”

A shiver ran down your spine. You should have left. Should have turned back.

But you didn’t.

Hadn’t you dreamed of this? Of standing here, in this place, the air thick with the weight of something waiting? Or had those whispers been more than dreams, more than illusions conjured by a restless mind?

A flicker of movement in the corner of your eye—something just beyond comprehension. The presence was closer now, threading through the air like a tangible force, pressing into you, testing you. You swallowed hard, pulse skipping as you fought the illogical, the irrational, the undeniable pull toward the unknown.

A breeze, though no windows gaped open to the world beyond. The scent of frostbitten pine, of something rich and forbidden, curled into your lungs. The weight of unseen eyes caressed your skin, the air buzzing with a silent hum of something ancient, something patient.

The ruins weren’t empty. They were waiting—not for something long forgotten, nor for a presence to return, but for someone. For you? Or for the one that had called you here?  As though they had been holding their breath across centuries, expecting you to come, to find them again. You could feel it in the way the air thickened around you, in the way the shadows stretched, beckoning. Whatever force had once occupied this place had not truly left. It had been patient, expectant, lingering just beyond the veil of time, waiting for your arrival.. You could feel it in the way the air thickened around you, in the way the shadows stretched, beckoning. Whatever force had once occupied this place had not truly left. It was patient, expectant, lingering just beyond the veil of time, waiting for you.

A hush fell, an expectancy so thick it was nearly suffocating. The silence between heartbeats stretched longer, time distorting as though reality itself bent to accommodate this strange moment. The very air seemed to pulse with an unseen force, crackling with latent energy, pressing in on you, testing the boundaries of your will.

A whisper of fabric, a movement unseen but felt—closer now, just behind you. A shadow too deep in the periphery, shifting when you tried to focus. The sensation crawled up your spine, raising the fine hairs on the back of your neck.

You took a slow step forward, drawn deeper into the unknown. Your fingers brushed against the stone walls, smooth yet humming with hidden energy. The ruins were not dead. They were merely waiting.

A flicker of green shimmered in the distance, gone too quickly to be real. Yet something about it stirred a strange familiarity in your chest, a fleeting sense that you should know what it meant, who it belonged to. But you couldn’t grasp it—it was just beyond reach, slipping through your mind like mist. The recognition was there, buried deep, but no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t place it. The sight of it left you breathless, your heart stuttering as if it recognized something your mind had yet to recall. And yet, the feeling of being watched only grew stronger. A warm breath at your ear, ghostly, taunting.

"You’ve already started searching, little one. Why stop now?"

Your heart pounded. Logic screamed at you to turn away, but desire—curiosity—whispered louder. The walls pulsed again, not cold, not lifeless. The energy surrounding you was growing thicker, pressing into you like an unseen presence wrapping itself around you, drawing you deeper into its grasp.

Your lips parted as if to call out, but the words never came. Instead, the silence deepened, waiting, stretching, unraveling.

The shadows coiled closer, an unseen force curling its tendrils through your mind, drawing you in like a moth to flame.

Then, a whisper, softer this time, almost coaxing.

The forest had changed as you crossed into it. It had grown deeper, stranger. The trees had become older with every step, their trunks wide enough to cradle entire homes, their roots rising like the ribs of ancient beasts. Their silvered leaves had shimmered as if touched by frost or moonlight, catching the pale light like blades suspended in air. The sun had broken through less and less, until your path was lit more by filtered green-gold haze than by daylight. The air had cooled until it felt thick enough to swallow. Your skin had prickled, your breath slowed-each inhale deliberate, as if it no longer belonged wholly to you.

There had been something there, beneath the moss, behind the trunks, within the wind itself. The ground had thrummed beneath your boots with an unplaceable hum, like a forgotten lullaby or a pulse from something sleeping just below. You had felt it in the tension in your shoulders, in the way your fingers tingled when they brushed the leaves. Something older than memory had lived there-older than story.

The whispers that once haunted only your dreams had drifted on the breeze, curling into your thoughts like smoke. They hadn’t spoken words-but their intent had been clear. You’d felt the tug in your ribs, the insistent pull of magic threading through the air like a siren’s call.

They hadn’t dragged you. They had invited you. Welcomed you. Enticed you forward, like a secret you’d always known but never dared to touch.

And still, you had followed.

And then, the trees had parted.

Before you had stood the sanctuary.

Obsidian black stone, veined with gold and green, curved into an archway cloaked in thick ivy and wild moss. Its surface had shimmered with faint pulses of light, rhythmic, steady. Like the thudding of a heart long buried beneath the earth, now stirred awake. The archway hadn’t been just an entrance-it was a threshold. You had felt it. A liminal space between the world you’d always known and something older, darker, and more infinite. You had known it. You had dreamed of it. Walked it again and again in the shadows of your sleep. The angles of the structure, the weight of the silence, even the scent of the air-it had all been as it had been in those dreams, both sacred and terrifying.

You dismounted slowly, every movement deliberate and reverent. Boots had touched soft moss, sinking slightly into the chilled earth. The world had hushed. The air had tasted of storm-soaked stone and magic, metallic and ancient. You stepped forward, drawn like metal to a magnet. As your fingers brushed the obsidian, the runes had erupted beneath your skin-tendrils of green and gold light rippling outward in intricate, spiraling patterns. The magic hadn’t been passive. It had greeted you. Welcomed you. Recognized you.

Your own magic had answered in kind-surging up from deep within, a warm current that had tingled through your limbs and tightened in your chest. It hadn’t been just reaction-it had been recognition. The ruin had felt alive, and more than that, it had felt... receptive. Familiar. Like it had been waiting for you specifically.

You had expected fear. Disorientation. Resistance. Instead, you had felt something closer to welcome. A strange warmth had pressed behind your ribs. A sense of homecoming that had made no logical sense. You had never stepped foot inside those walls before-not truly-but your bones had told you otherwise.

This place knows you. Some voice within had whispered it. And you knew it.

Maybe it had been the magic. Maybe it had been the dreams. Or maybe it had been something older than both. But every part of you had ached with the certainty that you belonged there, like a puzzle piece sliding into a waiting shape.

You closed your eyes and let it move through you, let yourself belong-just for a moment longer before you had stepped inside.

The air inside the sanctuary had been colder, brushing against your skin like the ghost of something long dead. Yet it carried the scent of lilacs, frost, and ancient stone-a perfume of history and power so closely woven into the place, you couldn’t tell if it lived in the walls or your own blood. Every breath felt purposeful, as though the structure itself wanted you to inhale it, to be claimed by it.

The architecture had bent in impossible ways, as though Jotunheim and Asgard had been shattered and reassembled into something unholy-something designed to confuse and tempt all at once. The lines between illusion and reality had blurred with every turn.

Runes had crawled over the walls like living things, glowing faintly with your passing. Their light had pulsed in rhythm with your footsteps. Every one of them had echoed, sharp and deliberate in the silence. They had rung out too loud in the stillness, and yet somehow, they had been exactly what the place had seemed to expect.

You kept expecting fear to catch you, to slither down your spine and tighten your chest. This place should have terrified you. It should have felt wrong-foreign, dangerous. But the thrum beneath your skin had refused to allow it. Instead of dread, you had felt a quiet exhilaration. A steady pulse of power just beneath your fingertips.

The fires had flicked to life without command, casting soft amber shadows that had elongated unnaturally, stretching into corners where they hadn’t belonged. The deeper you had gone, the more those shadows had seemed to bend toward you, lean closer, whisper through their silence. Chamber after chamber awaited you, each arranged as if your arrival had already been written into the stone. Dark wood furniture carved with elegant Asgardian detailing had stood undisturbed in perfect stillness, as though the room had been sealed in the moment it was made, preserved like a shrine. Tapestries had lined the walls-some you had recognized from books, others from dreams.

And the light, led you. Floating lanterns had flared only when you had approached, then dimmed again behind you, as if the sanctuary itself had refused to waste energy on anyone else.

You had felt your own power hum back to life in response. It had snapped softly between your fingers like static, more alive then than it had ever been in your training halls. It had felt eager, volatile, hungry to stretch out, to test the air. That place hadn’t been suppressing it. It had been amplifying it.

No matter how many corridors you followed or thresholds you crossed, not a soul appeared. But you had never been alone. Not truly. Something had watched. Something had listened. Every shift of air, every click of your heel, every breath-it had echoed.

Your curiosity had stirred louder with each step. Where had he been? Where was the one who had called to you from the shadows of your dreams, the voice that had seduced you northward with promises of truth and power? Where was your teacher, the one who had claimed he would be waiting? He had said it so clearly: all you had to do was make it to him.

Where had your raven-haired ghost gone?

The lights had led you deeper, one by one, the lanterns igniting only as you had approached, guiding you through hall after hall, then down a wide, spiraling staircase carved straight into the stone. The temperature had dropped with each step, the air turning wetter, denser, as though the walls themselves had exhaled magic.

Eventually, the walls had fallen away.

You had entered a vast, cavernous chamber; hollowed from the heart of the earth. The ceiling had arched so high above it that it vanished into illusion, painted with starlight and shimmering constellations. Sunk deep into the stone floor had been a pool of glowing green and silver light, steam curling upward in elegant threads that promised warmth and reverence from the water.

It had felt sacred. Designed. Destined. And strangely, it had felt like it had always been meant for you.

The whispers had returned. Only one voice this time:

“Wash away the old.” For a moment, you had hesitated, eyes looking back towards the stairs, then to the pool. The command of the whisper still echoed in your mind-gentle, but firm. It hadn’t sounded like an order. It had sounded like an invitation. Still, your heart had quickened. There was a reverence in the air, a sense that crossing this threshold would leave part of you changed.

And yet, even with the weight of uncertainty coiling in your chest, you had obeyed.

You had undressed slowly, fingers moving slowly, as if you were peeling away more than cloth. The robe slipped from your shoulders like falling dusk, pooling at your feet in silence. Each layer that had shielded you from the cold, from the unknown, slid down your arms and hips like a whispered farewell-not just fabric, but every label you’d worn, every expectation they’d laced around your throat. Each fold pooled at your feet like a discarded mask, revealing not just your body, but the truth beneath it-not just to modesty, but to everything you had once been told to be.

It had felt like shedding skin.

Not your true self, but the version they had made you wear: obedient, small, contained. The version that kept your magic buried under shame, your voice dulled to a whisper, your hunger twisted into something to be hidden.

You had let it go. All of it. Stepping forward, bare and burning, into whatever came next. The air had kissed your bare skin, soft as breath, before you had stepped forward and placed your foot on the first carved stone step that descended into the water.

Warmth had risen in thick, curling tendrils of steam, and as you had stepped lower, you had felt the water lap eagerly at your calves, your knees, your thighs. It had clung to you, reverent and possessive, as if savouring each new inch of skin it touched. You had inhaled, deep and slow, letting the scented mist flood your lungs.

You hadn’t stopped. You stepped down and down until the water had hugged your hips, your waist, your chest. Your body had exhaled as the heat began to uncoil every knot buried in your muscles, a baptism of warmth and magic that had drawn you deeper, slower, into its embrace.

Finally, with a breath held just long enough to hesitate, you had slid beneath the surface completely. The water had closed over you, silent and heavy, washing the noise from your mind.  Your limbs had drifted. Your magic had shimmered faintly across your skin.

You stayed under until your lungs had burned, the weight of silence pressing against your ears like a spell. Only when the ache had become unbearable had you broken the surface, gasping for air and steam in the same breath. You had floated then, suspended between heat and weightlessness, your hair fanning out around you, your body loosened and heavy with surrender.

The first touch had startled you. A brush down your spine-too light to be real, yet too vivid to be imagined-had made you tense. You had spun in the water, heart hammering, searching for the source. But there had been no one. Just the still air and rippling surface, glowing faintly under the starlit ceiling.

Then had come another. A caress beneath the water, sliding across your hip with an intimacy that made your breath catch. A teasing flick across your ribs, deliberate and slow, like the trailing edge of a question. You had gasped, twisting sharply, your heart beating loud against your ribs as your gaze darted across the rippling surface. But there had been no one-only the stillness of the chamber, the illusion of stars above, and the steaming water lapping quietly around you.

The next touch had followed almost immediately. Another whisper-soft stroke beneath the surface, one that traced the inside of your thigh and vanished before you could flinch. Then another. A ghost of sensation down your back. You had turned again, the water sloshing gently with your movement. Still, nothing. No figure. No shadow. Only touch.

And then came the moment your mind caught up when you realized this wasn’t a single tease or stray enchantment. The touches didn’t stop. They crept closer, spreading in careful measure. And then the touches had multiplied.

Phantom fingers creeping over your skin, stroking along your thighs, ghosting over the swell of your breasts, brushing the dip of your lower back. Each one impossibly delicate, impossibly real. Each one coaxing you open with reverent patience.

Your body had begun to react before your mind could catch up. The warmth between your thighs intensified, unfurling like a tide. A moan had escaped your lips, unbidden and raw, as every nerve ending seemed to awaken all at once. Your hips had shifted of their own accord, slow and searching, your breath shortening as the water rippled with each languid movement.

The magic hadn’t simply touched you-it had known you. Known how to coax the tension from your shoulders, how to make your thighs twitch with need, how to keep you teetering just on the edge. You had felt yourself being pulled under-not by the water, but by sensation. By hunger. By something you hadn’t realized had lived so deep inside you for so long, caged and waiting.

Your hands had risen-half in defence, half in surrender-sliding over your own slick skin, brushing over your breasts, your stomach, your hips. Your fingers had tangled with the unseen ones, guiding them, meeting them stroke for stroke. You hadn’t known where you ended and the magic began. It hadn’t mattered. It had felt like you were being rewritten-reclaimed-moment by moment, breath by breath.

A whimper slipped from your lips before you realized it. Not pleading. Not afraid. Just a truth exhaled into air, heavy with meaning.

Runes had bloomed along your thighs, your arms, your ribs-glowing in time with the throb between your legs, in perfect synchrony with the slow unravelling of your restraint. The light reflected off the water, dancing across the ceiling like stars coming to life.

"You’re opening beautifully, little witch," the voice had whispered, velvet and pride. "Your power recognizes mine. It always has."

You had moaned.

You had trembled, body drawn tight, heart pounding like a drumbeat of surrender.

And just as your climax had neared, your mouth parted, breath breaking…..

Footstep

Real ones.

The sound had shattered the spell. It cracked through the heat and the haze, the illusion of safety torn away in a single echoing step. You had startled violently, a gasp catching in your throat as your body jerked upright in the water. The phantom touches vanished as if scalded away.

You had scrambled, limbs splashing, heart thundering. Panic chased desire from your veins as you retreated across the pool, your body cutting through the water until your back pressed against the cool stone at the far edge-away from the entrance. You had crossed your arms over your chest, pulled your knees in close, trying to cover the exposed parts of yourself. The water that had moments ago felt like silk now clung like shame.

Your hands shook-but it hadn’t been entirely from fear. Not entirely. Something else twisted in your belly, something hot and raw. A vulnerability that felt dangerous under his gaze.

You had watched the shadow beyond the mist grow longer, footsteps drawing closer.

And then, at last, he had stepped into view.

Not as a whisper. Not as a flicker behind your eyelids. But real. Flesh and shadow.

Your stomach had dropped the moment your mind caught up with your eyes-because it had to be him. It had always been him.

Loki.

The forsaken prince.

The one so many had believed lost after he’d been cast out. The one they whispered about in half-myths and warnings. The trickster. The traitor. The fallen god who had disappeared like smoke-never to return.

And yet here he stood, not as ruin, but as power remade. And he had called you here.

He had emerged through the rising steam like a memory rendered solid. Tall and sharp and silent, the curve of his shoulders and the sweep of his coat trailing behind him like he carried the storm itself. His raven hair had spilled across his shoulders in loose waves, damp at the ends. Runes faintly shimmered along the cuffs of his sleeves. But it was his eyes that held you-piercing, glacial, impossibly aware.

For a heartbeat, neither of you had moved. The water stilled around your body. The ache from the phantom touches remained, unspoken and unacknowledged-but not forgotten.

You had only seen him in fragments before-in dreams, in suggestions, in illusions. He had appeared in your inn room, half-wrapped in shadow and magic, a haunting smile, a fleeting presence. But this was different-more vivid, more real. This was so much more.

This was no echo.

This was him. In full.

He stood there as if he held the attention of time itself. The air thickened around him, the mist reluctant to part as he moved. And those eyes-those cold, bright eyes-had studied you like a puzzle he had already solved. Slowly, a sly smile had spread over his face, curling with recognition and something hungrier.

And even pressed to the far wall of the pool, your skin had remembered what it was to burn. Your lips had remembered the kiss as he'd pressed you into the bed in the inn.

His eyes hadn’t left you. Not once.

"Do I still scare you so that you'd hide from me even now?" he had said, voice low and velvet-dark, curved with amusement and something more ancient. "Curled against the farthest edge like the water might protect you. After all this time, you still doubt?"

He had tilted his head slightly, the smile lingering at the corners of his mouth as though it had always been meant for you. “Welcome, little witch,” he had added, his voice a mockery of warmth wrapped in silk and shadows. “To my domain.”

The cadence of his voice had wrapped around you like silk-dangerous and soft, with just enough truth to make you ache.

Loki had stepped closer to the edge of the water, the mist parting around him like it had been waiting for this moment just as long as you had. 

With a flick of his fingers, the air shimmered, and a robe of deep green had appeared in his hand, folds of fabric rich and warm. He had extended it toward you without stepping closer-an offering and a challenge all at once.

You had hesitated. The robe glowed softly in the dim light, but it was the weight of his gaze that pinned you. And slowly, carefully, you had begun to move-unfolding from your place at the far edge of the water. Every ripple you created felt too loud, too revealing.

You kept your arms crossed as you glided toward him, moving slowly and silently-as if even the water might betray your trembling. But it wasn’t just fear that lived in your bones. It was something else. Anticipation. Curiosity. The heat that still lived in your skin from the magic that had touched you, claimed you.

Loki had watched your approach without blinking. A cool, detached appraisal.  but that was before you started to rise from the water, feet finding the stone steps again. The steam rising around your frame, droplets cascading down your bare skin, his expression had not changed.

But his eyes-

You had seen it there.

Hunger.

And yet he had made no move to drape the robe around you. Instead, he had stood perfectly still, his eyes drinking you in, a silence stretching between you like a silk thread pulled taut. You had stayed rooted where you stood, bare and dripping, the warmth of the bathwater cooling too quickly on your skin under his gaze.

He had left you exposed for just a moment longer than you could bear, the silence stretching between you like a test you hadn’t agreed to take.

Then he had spoken again, softer this time, almost thoughtful. "So much fear for something that already knows you. You bathed in my sanctuary, wore my magic like a second skin… and now you tremble like it's the first time we've touched. I know you, you have no reason to hide from me." 

The words struck something in you-raw, exposed. You weren’t sure if the heat prickling beneath your skin was from shame or anticipation. Maybe both. He wasn’t wrong, and that truth made it worse. You had let yourself be claimed by the magic, let it fill the hollow places inside you, and now, under his gaze, that same craving roared to life again.

You had drawn a shaky breath, but no answer had formed-only the hollow certainty that none could be given.

With a whisper of motion, you had felt it-magic, soft and cool, rushing across your skin like a breeze made of thought. It had dried you without touch, caressing your limbs, sweeping through your hair until you were no longer damp-but still unbearably bare.

Only then had Loki stepped forward, and with a near-reverent motion, he had draped the robe around your shoulders himself. But he hadn't stopped there. His fingers had slid from your collarbone downward, a slow drag that dipped into the valley of your chest. They had lingered there, just for a moment-an echo of touch and promise-before continuing their path down your sternum.

You had frozen, breath shallow, as he tied the robe at your waist with measured care, each pull of the fabric deliberate, like he were sealing something in place.

All the while, you had watched his face-his unreadable expression, the way his eyes followed every inch of your skin. There had been hunger there, yes, but it had been tempered with something colder. Calculated. As if he were not simply admiring you, but evaluating you. Studying every flicker of your response.

Then his hand found yours, taking it it gently, fingers curling around your wrist, giving a firm but subtle tug.

Above you, tall spires pierced a violet sky, jagged and obsidian, silhouetted against moons you didn’t remember rising. Cold wind stirred your cloak, lifting your hair in lazy ribbons. You turned half-expecting to see nothing, half-hoping you would.

But something was always there. A breath behind your breath. A shadow within the shadow.

You never saw his face. Not fully. Just a shape behind the trees, a silhouette in the arch of a doorway, the curl of a mouth glimpsed when you blinked. You never caught more than a flicker- yet you knew him. Every cell in your body recognized the pull.

Eyes, impossibly blue, watching from the dark.

Hair like black silk, falling in waves around broad shoulders.

A voice- deep, velvet-wrapped, vibrating through the dream like a plucked string. Smooth and ancient. Both invitation and warning.

"Little Serpent.." it murmured, impossibly close. “You dream more beautifully with every night that passes.”

You turned, breath catching- his voice at your neck, his presence behind your shoulder. Nothing there. Yet your skin prickled as though he had touched you. Your body knew him, even if your eyes were denied the truth.

His fingers didn’t land, but they brushed you just the same. Phantom caresses gliding down your arms, tracing your spine, circling your wrists. The heat of breath warmed your ear, cool fingers made of starlight dancing along the edges of sensation.

“Look at you…” he whispered. “You feel it, don’t you? The power stirring beneath your skin?”

A surge rushed through you, pure and golden, coiling in your core. Magic. Yours. The power others had tried to keep from you, to subdue your talents. It responded to him like a lover, rising to meet his presence, emboldened now by his approval. You gasped, swaying as the dream shifted again, legs barely steady, as if the force of your own awakening might knock you from your feet.

The landscape changed- stone hallways laced with runes, vines of green light threading through the walls like veins. A forest swept in and vanished, the scent of pine and snow wrapping around your senses. Then velvet, soft and black beneath your bare feet. You trembled, hands curling at your sides, heart thundering.

Your pulse stuttered when he spoke again.

“My acolyte.”

The words sank into you like ink into parchment. You didn’t know what you were becoming, only that he saw it in you- called to it, stirred it awake. You were being sculpted in the dream, carved into something new beneath his unseen hands.

“My muse.”

His voice dropped like silk between your legs, a low purr that sent a ripple through your spine. You exhaled sharply, the heat pooling low in your belly spreading through every limb, curling your toes. It bloomed like fire under your skin, a slow burn made unbearable by its restraint. You were undone and untouched, your body answering him with every shallow breath.

Then- sensation. A mouth at your throat, not quite touching, but the press of breath was enough to burn. His lips hovered like a dare, promising without delivering, and still you arched into it. His hand curled around your waist, guiding without force, pulling you back against nothing. Though nothing was there, your body ached to respond, to press closer, to be filled. Magic rippled through you, building in the places his hands might have been, had he truly been there.

“You’re ready to be unmade,” he whispered, a smile in every syllable. The promise in his tone undid you more than any touch could. It was worship and wickedness entwined, dragging a sound from your throat you didn’t recognize.

And then he was everywhere, pulling you down, the dream melting into silk sheets, your nightdress thin, clinging to flushed skin. The bed was vast and endless, swallowed in darkness and heat. The press of phantom limbs tangled with yours, an illusion given weight by desire. Breathless moans escaped as your back arched, hips moving of their own will, guided by an invisible rhythm that pulsed between your thighs. Every movement was answered by his magic, coaxing you deeper, further. The bed rocked beneath you, air thick with enchantment and musk, with the heady scent of pine and rain and him.

You grasped at the sheets, at nothing. Clawed at the space where his shoulders should have been, fingers closing on empty air. Your name trembled on the edge of your tongue, his name buried in your bones, in the marrow of you, aching to be spoken.

Every gasp he drew from you was a surrender. Every phantom kiss a claim. Each touch without touch marked you- unseen and unforgettable.

You cried out for him, voice raw, but no name came. Only heat. Only hunger. Your body bowed like a drawn bowstring, vibrating with the tension of it, straining for release.

You came apart with his name buried in your throat- still unknown, still unspoken. A symphony of ache and rapture, stretched to the stars and pulled through you like constellations drawn in pain and pleasure.

And then, as always, you woke.

~#~#~#~#~

You sat up beneath your travel cloak, breath ragged, the dream clinging to your skin like sweat. The moons hung high above the trees, casting the glen in quiet silver. Damp leaves crinkled beneath your palms as you rose, limbs sore from the cold ground and something else, a deeper ache that no fire could warm. It settled low in your bones, a weight that thrummed with remembered pleasure and the ache of something unfulfilled.

The ruins felt a world away now. Whatever had started there hadn’t ended. It had only deepened, grown roots inside you. You could feel them now, winding through your chest, twining around your ribs. The pull you felt wasn’t just magic, it was longing. A call echoing in your blood, answering something ancient, something waiting.

You moved like someone caught between worlds, each step heavier than the last. You washed your face in the river nearby, hoping the icy water might chase away the heat still clinging to your skin. But it didn’t. Not the phantom brush of his fingers, nor the ghost of his breath at your throat. Not the taste of him that still lingered like a forbidden fruit on your tongue.

You stared into the water for a long while, watching your reflection ripple and blur. You hardly recognized the woman staring back- eyes darkened with something fierce, lips parted as if still gasping his name. It frightened you. It thrilled you.

The memory clung to you with every movement, every breath. You couldn’t tell where his magic ended and your yearning began. Perhaps they were the same now. Perhaps they had always been.

By dawn, your things were packed. The forest was quiet as you mounted your horse. Frost clung to the underbrush, sparkling in the early light. You pulled your cloak tighter, not against the cold, but against the memory that kept unraveling you.

You didn’t need direction. The way forward was written into your marrow.

You turned north.

Always north.

~#~#~#~#~

The journey became rhythm. Hoofbeats tapping like a heartbeat over packed earth, the steady sway of your body in the saddle becoming second nature. Trees blurred past in a wash of green and gold, their canopies whispering overhead like gossiping spirits. Birds scattered at your passing, and distant beasts stirred beyond the treeline, yet nothing came close. You followed no path you knew, no road marked on any map- just the pull beneath your ribs, steady and relentless, like a compass spun by enchantment.

You weren’t just being called.

You were being summoned.

He followed you, always. In your waking hours now, no longer content to linger only in dreams. He bled into the edges of your vision, his magic seeping into the seams of your reality.

A whisper when you leaned against a tree to drink, his voice curling like the steam where you filled your cup, telling you that you were close.

A flicker of movement behind your reflection in the river, his silhouette standing still while yours rippled.

The brush of something down your spine when no one was there, your breath catching, the echo of fingers that knew you better than your own.

You tried to tell yourself it was imagination, but the ache he left behind was too precise. Too intimate.

At the market in the next village, you felt him again. It felt like his eyes were on you as you paid for dried meat and apples, the weight of his gaze more familiar now than sunlight. A breath at your neck while you chewed in silence at the inn, staring into your cup of mead, heartbeat fluttering like you’d been kissed without warning.

You wandered the village in a haze, every shadow another possibility. The smithy’s forge flared green for a moment too long. The merchant’s daughter stared past you, eyes glassy as if she, too, had heard a whisper not meant for her.

When you climbed the stairs to your room, you didn’t look back. You didn’t need to. The shadow followed. You could feel it pressing at your heels, warm and coiled like smoke, like breath. Like fate catching up at last.

~#~#~#~#~

The room was small but warm, the fire dwindling into soft embers, casting soft flickers of light that danced across the wooden walls. You hadn’t slept in a real bed in days. It felt like a luxury, one you didn’t quite trust. The mattress was soft beneath your back, the weight of blankets grounding you, but there was no comfort. Not truly. Not when your body still thrummed with the phantom ache of dreams that never truly left you. 

You stretched beneath sways of blankets and furs, your shift clinging to your skin, damp from something more than heat. The dreams had never left you unmarked, and tonight was no different. Already your skin felt too tight, too alive, as though your very flesh remembered him better than your waking mind dared to. Your thighs ached from memory alone, an echo of touch, of want, of the pleasure he left behind like fingerprints on your soul.

You turned onto your back, breath quickening. The fire snapped in the hearth and your fingers ghosted over your hip, your stomach, down to the places that still pulsed from the ghost of him. You were raw with wanting, every nerve humming like it waited for a command only he could give. You clenched your legs together, trying to will it away. It didn’t work.

You could still feel him. The echo of his mouth. The press of his magic, woven into you, stitched into your skin like a spell. Every breath you took was touched by him. Every inch of you knew what it meant to be desired by something more than mortal, more than man.

Your hand dipped lower, no longer just searching- seeking. Needing. Your fingers found heat, slick and sensitive, the wetness there nearly constant now, ever-present each time your dreams returned to you. He had changed you. Claimed you. And your body betrayed your craving with every breath.

You circled slowly, a gasp catching in your throat as pleasure sparked to life, helpless beneath the memory of his voice, his touch. You pressed deeper, hips shifting under the furs. The tension rose so quickly it almost startled you.

"Do you ache for me?" the voice echoed in your mind, silk-soft and smug.

You whimpered aloud.

The fire hissed.

The air changed.

You froze.

He was here.

The shadows deepened, curling like smoke. A figure stepped forward, half-swallowed by the dark, but you knew him. You knew. Recognition flared through your chest like a second heartbeat, painful in its certainty. Every dream, every whisper, every phantom touch had led to this moment. He was no longer a specter or silhouette. He was real. Here. And impossibly, terribly close.

Eyes like moonlight on frost. Bright and cutting. Ancient. Hair tumbling over his shoulders in waves of inky black, the firelight catching on its edges like burnished silk. Power bled into the room with every step he took, thickening the air, filling your lungs with something sharp and electric. The room bent around him, shadows clinging to his form as if reluctant to let him go.

Your breath caught in your throat, your body frozen between reverence and fear, arousal and awe.

“Do not fear me,” he said, voice low, indulgent, curling into the corners of the room like smoke. “You called, and I came. I offer you freedom… a taste of the divine.”

He stopped at the edge of the bed, gaze burning through you. The fire lit only one side of his face, the other hidden in shadow, but you didn’t need to see more. It made him more dangerous. More beautiful. As if he’d been carved from night and flame.

“You’ve done so well, little witch,” he murmured. “To come this far.”

“Who are you?” you whispered.

His smile was slow, dangerous. “You will know me. And I will give you all that you need.”

He leaned down.

Lips met yours.

Soft at first. Almost reverent. The press of his mouth against yours was like warm velvet- tender, coaxing, drawing your breath into him as if he needed it to survive. Heat pulsed through your lips, spreading outward in waves that made your skin tingle and your core tighten with longing.

His lips moved against yours with a gentle pressure that made your toes curl, his breath sweet and cool, tinged with something faintly herbal, ancient. The taste of him was magic and shadow and starlight. You opened for him, willingly, helplessly.

His fingers brushed your cheek, slow and tender, before trailing along your jawline and curling beneath your chin. You gasped when his tongue slid into your mouth—slow, sinuous, tasting you like a promise. He drank you in like he’d been starving.

The kiss deepened. Grew hungry. Greedy. His lips claimed yours with a heat that made your head spin, his tongue twining with yours, tasting, teasing, commanding. You moaned into him, hands fisting into the sheets as your body responded, helpless to the fire he ignited.

One of his hands rose to cradle the side of your neck, thumb stroking over your racing pulse. The other slid down your side, fingers firm and exploring, finding the curve of your hip, the softness of your thigh. He mapped you like he’d done it a thousand times in dreams- and perhaps he had.

He cupped your breast through the thin shift, and the moan that left you was unbidden, instinctual. Your back arched into his palm, and he groaned into your mouth in response, the kiss turning feral, possessive. You could barely breathe, barely think.

Then he pushed you down into the mattress with his weight, his body pinning yours, the kiss leaving your lips bruised and parted, aching for more.

The kiss broke.

His tongue licked a path down your throat.

“You’re so close now, darling,” he murmured. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

Then- flash of green.

He vanished.

The only proof he had been there was the wet heat of his mouth on your skin- and the way your body ached where his hands had never truly touched.

The floor beneath your feet was etched with ancient knotwork, the very stone humming with a quiet pulse that mirrored your own. Every corner of the chamber was touched by something old, reverent, and watching. Shadows flickered, not with candlelight but with intention. This was no dining room. It was a stage.

Loki stood at the head of the table, watching you from the shadows beyond the chandeliers. He looked as though he had been waiting a very long time, carved into the moment like a figure from myth- both host and trap, both invitation and consequence. He didn’t move. He didn’t smile. He simply waited, like he knew you would come eventually, like this moment had already been written and you were only just catching up to it.

“Sit,” he said, calm as ever. “Eat.”

You hesitated. The robe he’d given you felt heavier than cloth had any right to be, cinched at the waist like a binding spell, still warm where his hands had lingered in the folds. Your skin still prickled from the ghost of his touch. The chamber was too quiet. The lighting too flattering. The wine too rich a color. The very air felt curated, like a scene conjured just for you.

Still, you sat, slowly, cautiously,  the act itself sealed something invisible and ancient around you. The chair embraced you like it had been expecting your weight. The velvet cushion moulded to your thighs, and when you reached for the edge of the table, it was already the perfect distance.

“You must be hungry,” Loki murmured, swirling his wine. “You’ve travelled an awfully long way to reach here.”

You glanced up at him, wary. “Is this another trick?”

He chuckled. “No trick. Just sustenance. You’ll need your strength.”

Your stomach clenched- not from fear, but from the quiet understanding beneath his words. There was always a cost, even when he smiled.

“I know what they told you,” Loki continued, eyes never leaving yours. “The teachers, the elders, the gatekeepers. That your magic needed walls. That your hunger made you dangerous.”

You reached for your own wine glass, fingers curling around the slender stem. The crystal was warm where the magic had touched it. You lifted it slowly, the rich liquid catching the firelight like garnet. It tasted of berries and bitterness- sweet, ancient, and sharp enough to anchor you in your skin. The flavor lingered on your tongue, coating your mouth like a whispered promise. You swallowed.

“They never understood what you could become. So they caged it. But I don’t fear you. I see you.”

His voice laced through you, warm and cold. You shifted in your chair, the robe suddenly feeling too tight. The food looked too bright. The room felt like it breathed with you.

“Eat, little witch,” he said, softer now. “Let your power breathe.”

You reached out, tentatively selecting something from the platter. A sliver of meat, glistening and strange. You placed it onto your plate, then lifted it slowly to your mouth. The heat of Loki’s gaze pressed against your skin, making the simple act of eating feel suddenly intimate.

Your lips parted. Your mouth closed around the bite.

The taste flooded your senses- rich, deep, spiced in ways you didn’t recognize. It melted like butter across your tongue, and something primal inside you sighed. Another bite followed. Fruit this time- soft, flushed, warm against your fingers. Juice burst over your tongue like flame and honey, running down the side of your hand. You licked it away without thinking.

Each swallow unraveled a knot in your chest. With every mouthful, the tension in your limbs lessened, but a different kind of pressure coiled deeper beneath your skin. You weren’t just being nourished, you were being noticed. Tended to. And that felt more dangerous than any enchantment he could weave.

But something else stirred, too. The food awakened more than appetite. It stirred memory. It sparked need.

The next bite was slower. Not because you doubted it but because you were too aware of how close he was watching.

“You’ve starved for too long, haven’t you?” Loki had said, pouring another glass. “In more ways than one.”

He had watched each bite you took with a hunger that wasn’t aimed at the food on the table. He observed you with a predator’s stillness, not out of malice, but precision. Measuring. Memorizing.

As the fire dimmed and the plates sat half-empty, Loki’s gaze stayed heavier. The space between you filled with something unspoken, thick and humming.

“You were meant for more than wandering. More than scraping meaning from books and scrolls,” he had murmured. “You were always more powerful than your teachers allowed you to be.”

How many times had you been clipped by the very people who claimed to guide you? How many scolding looks, how many carefully chosen words when you'd asked the wrong question, pushed too far, refused to dim the fire in your chest? You had grown used to the sting of correction disguised as care. And now, to hear him say it so plainly- so boldly- it landed like a blow wrapped in balm.

“They feared what they couldn’t control,” he had continued, voice low and smooth. “They saw your potential- raw, untamed- and they told you to suppress it. To shrink. But you were never meant to be small.”

He had leaned in, close enough that his voice wrapped around your spine.

“You didn’t have to hold back here. Not with me. Let it rise. Let it burn. That hunger in your blood- the craving for knowledge, for truth, for more- you didn’t have to be ashamed of it anymore.”

Something in you cracked open under their weight. Rooted in his words. You felt it shift, whatever dam you’d been holding, whatever leash you’d kept on your own want.

He drank from his wine, savoring each sip like it was part of some ancient rite; measured, unhurried, and too intentional to be casual.

“I don’t fear you. I see you.”

The words sank beneath your skin like heated glass pressed into velvet. You wanted to flinch from them, to reject how easily they found purchase. But you couldn’t. Not entirely. Because part of you- the part they had tried to silence- wanted so badly to be seen. To be named. To be recognized not as a threat, but as something whole.

You didn’t meet his gaze right away. Your fingers tightened around the stem of your glass, and you focused on the way the wine shifted, the way it clung to the sides. It felt safer than looking at him. Safer than acknowledging the way your heart twisted at the sound of those words spoken aloud, without shame or hesitation.

It shouldn’t have felt like relief. But it did.

His eyes had glittered like something ancient. You couldn’t look away.

He had studied you, gaze sliding over the curve of your shoulders, the furrow in your brow. “You came here,” he had said, “in pursuit of your deepest urge.”

He had leaned back in his chair, swirling the wine lazily. “In pursuit of that wish which, till now, had been silent.”

You had stared down at your plate, heart thundering. The food no longer tasted like anything. Your hands were too still. Something inside you trembled, not with fear, but recognition, hope?

“I can guide you,” his voice purred in offer “I will be what they never dared to be."

His offer hung in the air. The kind of promise that didn’t end at guidance, that didn’t stop at protection. “Be your teacher. Your anchor. Your path forward.”

You had blinked, stiffened. Those were words, they were your word.  Ones spoken years ago, some desperate wish you'd whispered into your pillow. Not even a prayer, just a plea to the dark. 

“How do you- ?”

“I listen,” he had said simply. “Even when you sleep.”

Your mouth had gone dry.

You hadn’t responded. What could you say? He hadn’t just heard the words. He had remembered them. How long had he been watching you? Calling to you?

The rest of the meal passed in a blur. You couldn’t recall the flavor of the final bite, or whether you had even thanked him. Your limbs moved, but your mind floated somewhere else- untethered, unsteady. It was like drifting through a half-dream.

You remembered the warmth of the fire. The weight of his gaze. The sound of your own heart thudding against your ribs.

He rose. Quiet and composed, the host to the very end. He didn’t offer his hand this time. He simply moved toward a door you hadn’t noticed before, and waited.

You followed, barefoot on cold stone. The silence between you was not empty; it thrummed with something heavy and unspoken.

He opened the door.

The room inside was not grand. It was not gilded. But it was beautiful- crafted with care, like a memory carved into stone and fabric. There was a bed layered in soft furs, a hearth that still glowed with fading embers, and shelves lined with books you had once dreamed of reading.

You stopped at the threshold. You weren’t sure why.

Loki paused too. His hand lingered on the edge of the doorframe. For the first time that night, he hesitated.

“You should rest,” he said softly. “Tomorrow, there’s so much I want to show you.”

There was something in his voice then- something that caught you off guard. It wasn’t the commanding tone he’d used at the table. It wasn’t seductive or coaxing. It was... eager. Genuinely pleased. Like your presence here had somehow completed something for him.

You didn’t reply.

You simply stepped into the room.

And that night, when you had lain beneath soft furs in a bed that wasn’t yours, in a room built from your longings, the words had repeated in your skull. 

Your anchor. Your path forward.

But because you still wanted them to be true.

~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~

That night, your sleep was slow to find you.

The sheets were soft, the fire crackled gently, and your body was heavy with food and exhaustion- but your mind refused to rest. Loki’s words coiled behind your eyes like smoke, phrases circling over and over, too warm to be shaken off. You turned. Shifted. Drifted.

What else had he seen? What else was he changing without your consent? If he could reach into your dreams like that, had he done more? Your dreams had once been messages- summons to the ruins, and then to this place, to him. But had he sent the other ones, too? The ones where the two of you were already entangled- his mouth on your throat, your hips grinding toward heat you couldn’t name- where your body curled into itself, waking breathless with that ache between your legs and in your chest, his name bleeding from your tongue before you even knew what it was?

You weren't sure when sleep had finally claimed you, but even in sleep your mind was still in turmoil. 

In this place the dream was colder. Dimmer. Velvet shadows curled across tall stone walls, their edges traced in glowing runes that pulsed with breathlike rhythm. They weren’t just etched into the walls now, they echoed faintly across your skin as well, luminous impressions along your forearms and throat, their warmth inescapable. Everything felt weighted, reverent, like a temple built of memory and silence, not of stone.

You knelt on the floor, silk pooling around your legs. Not the robe from before- something finer. Thinner. Decorative. It felt ceremonial, like you’d been dressed for a role you hadn’t agreed to play.

You didn’t remember choosing to kneel.

But you couldn’t rise, either. Your body felt heavy, molded to the marble beneath you like your presence had been carved in place.

Loki sat on a high-backed throne, draped in green and gold. His hair gleamed like obsidian glass under the flickering light, too perfect, too deliberate to be real. One hand rested on the armrest; the other held a silver goblet filled with something that steamed faintly in the cold air. He watched you with something between pride and possession; a sculptor admiring the shape he had coaxed from stone.

You lowered your head without thinking. And the moment your gaze dropped, the runes on your skin brightened in approval- an almost imperceptible flicker of light, like your obedience had pleased something beyond even him.

His voice echoed around the chamber when he spoke, low and commanding. "You look as you were always meant to."

You tried to speak, to ask why- why here, why like this- but your voice didn’t come. Your lips moved. No sound emerged. Your tongue felt heavy, your throat full of velvet and fog.

Your hands folded in your lap. Your back straightened. Your shoulders relaxed like you had rehearsed this pose a thousand times. A smile- soft, obedient- touched your mouth.

You didn’t place it there.

Your mind screamed at your body to move, to resist, to run. A frantic storm of thought slammed against the cage of your stillness but your limbs did not obey. Your spine held straight. Your knees pressed harder to the floor.

You couldn’t move.

And worse- you weren’t sure if part of you wanted to.

He stood. Approached. The goblet remained in his hand as he walked a slow circle around you. Each step echoed faintly in the marble, and with every movement, your magic pulsed under your skin- deep in your veins, as if being pulled in rhythm to his approach. It thudded in your chest like a second heartbeat, each thrum synced to his pace. You felt his presence behind you, the warmth of his magic blooming across your skin like breath. Like you were an instrument he already knew how to play.

“You’ve always belonged here,” he said. “You’ve only been waiting to remember it.”

He placed his hand on your head.

You shuddered.

Not from cold. Not from fear.

From recognition. Your head tilted into the touch like it had done so before, like it had been trained to seek that comfort. That claim.

The room shimmered at the edges. The velvet walls bled into smoke. Firelight turned to embers. And beyond the walls, outside the dream-chamber, something else burned.

The scent of smoke crept in through unseen windows, curling into your lungs, acrid and sharp. It clung to your skin, mixing with the perfume of incense and wine. And beneath the silence, you heard it: screaming. Wails that echoed from a distant place. Cries that didn’t belong in this temple but poured in anyway, seeping through the cracks like blood through a wound.

You didn’t know what was burning. The dream gave you no vision of it, only the sound of chaos, and the smell of charred wood, scorched flesh, crumbling mortar. But you felt it. You felt the terror beyond the walls. And somehow, you knew it was because of this. Because of you. Because of him.

You were the eye of the storm, kneeling in reverence while the world outside howled.

You inhaled, and the wine he drank was suddenly on your tongue- sweet, dark, and bitter as ash. It tasted like endings. He drank, and you tasted. He breathed, and you exhaled. Connected in everything, like there was no separation between where he ended and you began. He called, and you would answer. Not out of obedience- but because something inside you already had.

And then he said it:

“You’re mine.”

You woke gasping, drenched in sweat. The sheets were tangled around your legs. Your fingers clenched into the fur blankets like they might hold you steady. The fire in the hearth had died to glowing coals.

Your magic sparked under your skin, responding to something that was no longer there. Runes shimmered faintly across your arms and collarbone, glowing for a heartbeat before fading, like the dream had left fingerprints behind. The warmth pulsing beneath your flesh wasn’t fading- it was waiting.

Your throat burned. Not from fear. From smoke. From the word still clinging to the back of your tongue.

~#~#~#~#~#~#~

The dream had shaken you to your core.

The warmth of his hand on your head, the smile you hadn’t chosen, the word- mine- echoing in your ears even after waking. Your breath had caught and refused to come right. Your brain screamed that it was all a lie. A trick. A trap. Not guidance. Enslavement.

Loki didn’t want to teach you. He wanted to use you.

He hadn’t freed your power. He had lured it, baited it with affection, only to bind it to him. Everyone else had feared what you carried, and perhaps they had been right. Perhaps he would be the ruin they’d warned you about and you the weapon he would wield.

So you fled.

You hadn’t even dressed. Still in your thin sleep shift, your travel cloak barely clinging to your shoulders, no shoes on your feet. You didn’t feel the cold. You barely noticed the stone beneath your soles. You only knew that if you stayed, you would fall too deep to ever find the surface again.

You bolted from the bed, nearly tripping on the furs. Your heart was already racing before your feet hit the ground. The room felt too small, too quiet, the fire too low. You didn’t bother lighting a lamp. Your hands fumbled for the door, yanking it open.

You expected him to be there, in the hall, at the foot of your bed, in your shadow.

He wasn’t. But that didn’t settle you.

You ran barefoot down the stairs, cloak trailing behind you. The silence roared in your ears. You kept looking over your shoulder, certain that at any moment he would step from the shadows, that he would call your name.

But no voice came.

Only your own heartbeat, thundering in your chest. Only the slap of your feet against cold stone. Only your breathing, ragged and sharp.

The door didn’t stop you. It opened as if it had been waiting for this moment, offering escape with eerie ease.

The air outside was sharp, biting your skin. Your steps echoed in the empty corridor behind you like a warning. But you didn’t slow.

You tore through what must have once been gardens- though now, they were barely more than ruins cloaked in moss and moonlight. Statues long overtaken by vines stared with hollow eyes, and broken archways loomed like forgotten sentinels. If this place had ever been a sanctuary, it had long since given up the illusion.

Your head throbbed. Your skin tingled from cold and from panic. 

You vaulted over a low wall of crumbling stone, breath ragged, cloak snapping behind you. The grass beneath your feet gave way to soil and rot as you made for the trees- tall, black-barked things whose branches clawed at the sky. Their leaves shimmered silver where the moonlight broke through the shifting clouds, a light too delicate for the weight that pressed down on your chest.

You thought the forest would help. That maybe distance would give you clarity, maybe, away from his voice, you could remember who you were before he’d started rewriting you.

But the deeper you moved into the trees away from the sanctuary, the more the woods changed. The moon shifted in the sky- first left, then right- like it, too, had grown uncertain. The air thickened in your lungs, turning sharp, heavy, unnatural. The wind died as if it had been warned away.

You’d reached the edge of the world and found it folding inward.

Branches creaked overhead like bones grinding. Leaves whispered in a language you couldn’t understand. The trees narrowed around you, forcing you onto thinner, more twisted paths. They scraped your arms and snagged your cloak. One branch whipped across your cheek, slicing you with a sting that made your eyes water. Another lashed across your shin, and though you didn’t fall, your footing faltered.

The ground rose and fell beneath you, soft in some places, too firm in others, like the earth hadn’t made up its mind whether to hold you or swallow you whole.

Fog curled across the roots ahead of you like it was alive, like it had teeth. It slithered around your ankles, cold and wet, and something beneath it moved, something that shifted just out of sight.

You kept looking back, certain this time he would be there- Loki, stepping out of the mist with that smile and that voice and hands that never missed their mark. The deeper you fled, the more you felt it: eyes everywhere. Watching. Waiting. The hairs on the back of your neck stood up as if something was breathing just behind you. Every twisted tree became a sentinel. Every shifting shadow felt like it would birth his form. You expected him to emerge with every blink, his gaze heavy, his voice velvet, his will absolute.

But the only sound was your own breath and the slap of your bare feet on damp earth.

Your magic flared in your palms before you even realized you’d summoned it. Not shaped just present. Uneasy. Woken. It thrummed beneath your skin, wild and feral, as if it, too, had decided this place no longer welcomed you and that something was hunting you through the trees.

You stood frozen, squinting into the fog, trying to see through the shifting shadows. The trees whispered. The mist danced. You turned quickly, not wanting whatever was coming to be at your back.

Then you heard it:

A low growl. Wet. Heavy. Hungry.

And it stepped into view.

Not wolf. Not bear. Not anything you’d ever seen.

It was bone and shadow, fur matted with ash. It almost seemed to grow out of the fog, emerging in slow, monstrous stillness like the forest itself had breathed it to life. Its limbs bent wrong, the angles too sharp, too long. Eyes glowed ember-red beneath a crown of twisted antlers.

It smelled like death. Like rot and old blood and something older still- something that remembered you.

Its breath steamed in the cold air, huffing in slow, wet plumes that curled and rose like smoke. Drool thick as tar dripped from between long, yellowed teeth, sliding over its snarling lips and hitting the forest floor with an audible pat. The sound of it- wet and final- sent your stomach twisting.

It watched you.  One heart beat. Another. 

You ran.

You didn’t think. There was no plan, only panic. A scream still echoed in your bones- the scream you hadn’t been able to release in the dream. Your limbs moved faster than thought, driven by a desperation that had no words.

The forest tore at you as you fled. Stinging your cheeks, your arms and legs and drawing thin lines of blood that burned in the cold air. Vines caught at your ankles, roots rose beneath your feet. You tripped more than once, barely catching yourself on twisted bark or outstretched stone. Each heartbeat was too loud, too fast, as if your body was trying to outrun the memory as much as the beast.

Your cloak snapped behind you like a flag of retreat. The shift clung to your damp skin. You could still feel the heat of the dream on your neck, like a mark pressed there.

Behind you, the growl returned- closer. Wet and guttural. A sound not meant for this world.

You didn’t look back.

The beast gave chase. 

Terrfied and desperate you started throwing  magic behind you. Bolts of silver split the air, slicing through branches and bark. One blast struck the beast’s your heard the wet sound of flesh tearing. It snarled but didn’t stop. It moved faster.

You ran harder, your lungs burnt. Exploding  from the treeline into a clearing with no cover, no shadows to hide in. Just open space and fog.

It surged around you, thick and clinging, swallowing up the trees, the path, the sound. You couldn’t see. Couldn’t breathe. You stumbled, tripping over your own feet and stones, your hands scraping against damp earth. You crawled blindly, grass tangling in your fingers, the scent of moss and rot filling your lungs.

Behind you, the footsteps came. Heavy. Measured. Certain.

Fear boiled in your chest. Your vision blurred. Tears stung your eyes, unbidden and hot.

Then the clouds shifted.

Moonlight broke through, pale and cold and the creature stepped into its beam, casting its form in eerie silver. It looked too large now, too real. The antlers gleamed like blades.

You stumbled to your feet, hands already glowing with power. Your heart hammering, breath ragged. Your tattered cloak whipped against your legs. Your hands burned with magic you barely contained. Another pulse of power burst behind you, cracking the air.

The beast lunged.

You turned, screaming- not in fear, but fury.

Power surged from your core, wild and white-hot. Your hands flared, and light exploded from your palms.

The creature took the blast, its shoulder jerking back, but it didn't move -only growling. You couldn't tell it the sound was your own harsh breathing or from the creatures, it lunged again, barreling towards you. 

Green light burned your eyes.

It didn’t crackle but roared. A flash that tore the fog apart like paper, slicing through shadow with impossible force. The air warped with its heat. Trees groaned as the magic passed, their branches bowing in submission. It was not a beam. It was a command.

It seared the darkness like a blade.

The creature shrieked as something struck it mid-leap, tearing it from the air like a child’s toy. It slammed into the ground with a sound like breaking stone.

And there he was. You lowered your hand, barely able to register the magic still humming through your fingers.

Loki stood between you and where the beast had been. 

His cloak billowed in the stillness that followed. Power flared around him in silent waves. He turned looking at you, his chest heaving still. His eyes glowed like fire through frost. “You would run from me,” he said, his voice low and furious, “into that?”

You tried to rise. Your knees buckled, the trembling in your legs refusing to quiet. Magic still sparked at your fingertips- flickering, wild, uncontrollable. It stung, crawled up your arms like static, refusing to leave you even now.

Loki gaze never straying from yours. He didn’t glance at the ruined creature behind him. Its body had already begun to collapse in on itself, ember-pulses flickering like dying coals, limbs curling inward until it cracked, crumbled, and vanished into mist. He didn’t need to look.

“Do you have any idea what could’ve happened?” he asked. His voice wasn’t loud- but it was taut, iron-edged, the kind of quiet that cut. “Do you think you’re ready to wield that much power alone?”

You wanted to scream at him. You wanted to shout that this wasn’t about magic. That it had never just been about magic. That he didn’t understand or worse, that he understood exactly, and had still twisted it.

He stopped just in front of you.

Then, without asking, without a word, he pulled you to your feet.

Your body collided with his, chest to chest, your hands trapped between you. Your heart thundered against his ribs. His grip was tight, his arms a cage you hadn’t realized you needed until the cold air vanished between you.

You were still shaking. Still sparking. Still tasting ash on your tongue. But now you were held.

Now you were his. 

“Do not make me lose you,” he said, and his voice cracked- just slightly. “Not before I’ve even had you.”

~#~#~#~#~#~

You didn’t remember how you got back.

Your feet moved. The forest blurred. One moment you were in his arms, the next the sanctuary loomed ahead, taller, darker, and far less welcoming, cast in moonlight like something ancient that had been waiting for you. Loki’s hand never left your arm. His grip didn’t bruise, but it didn’t yield either. There was something in the way he held you, not just possession, but purpose. Determination.

You were too tired to fight. Too raw to speak. The magic inside you flickered and coiled like smoke, unstable, unspent.

The halls swallowed you both.

The air inside felt thicker now, the warmth from the earlier meal gone. This time, it was cold in the way only stone could be- unforgiving, absolute. The silence pressed down like velvet soaked in water.

Runes lit in your wake, the walls pulsing in rhythm with your uneven breaths. They didn’t glow gently now. They blazed, flickering in time with the erratic energy crackling just beneath your skin. You still smelled smoke- though whether it clung to your skin or your thoughts, you couldn’t tell. Your knees shook. The hem of your shift was soaked and torn. Your toes were numb.

Still, he said nothing.

Not until the chamber door closed behind you.

He turned. Slowly. Like a predator that already knew the cornered prey had nowhere left to go. His shoulders moved first, deliberate and languid, his head following just a beat too late. He didn’t speak. Just looked at you with that quiet, knowing intensity as though the walls themselves might lean in to hear what came next.

“You should not have run,” Loki said, voice quiet but taut. “Not from me.”

You backed away before you realized it, breath catching as if the walls themselves were closing in. The ache in your legs, the weight in your limbs- it all faded beneath the sharp edge of his voice.

You backed away before you realized it.

“I had to,” you said, your voice hoarse. “You- ”

“What?” he snapped, taking a step forward. “I frightened you?”

You flinched. Not just from the sound, but from the truth that echoed behind it.

Your mind raced. You wanted to shout back that it wasn’t fear, it was clarity. That the dream had shown you what you were really becoming under him. That it wasn’t guidance- it was slow erosion. That he'd made you want this, need this. That he’d seen every soft place in you and pressed his thumb there until you mistook it for warmth.

“I gave you sanctuary. Power. Truth. And you ran from it like a frightened girl.”  His eyes narrowed,  he sounded wounded calculation- like your fear had cut deeper than he'd expected. Always watching, yes, but no longer just measuring. Reacting. Wanting. Hurting. He looked at you like a man scorned by the very thing he had tried to cradle in his palms. Clenched too tightly. The hunger hadn’t left, but now it was threaded with something rawer. Something bruised.

“I’m not frightened,” you barked back, though that tremble in your voice didn’t leave.

“No,” he agreed, stepping closer. “You’re angry. You’re overwhelmed. And you’re finally starting to feel what your magic has always known.”

He reached for you.

You stepped back. The wall hit your spine.

He took another step, yet Loki didn’t touch you, he just stood in front of you, close enough that the air between your bodies buzzed.

“I saw what you did out there,” he said. Quieter. Approval dancing over his sharp features “I saw what you can become.”

You shook your head. “You saw what I was afraid of becoming.”

Loki smiled. Slowly. Darkly.

“You keep acting like it’s a curse,” he said, his voice darkening, “Like I want to chain you.”

There was pain threaded beneath the silk of his tone now, a flash of something bitter beneath the hunger in his eyes. Like your accusations didn’t just anger him, they wounded him. Like he had built this whole place for you and watched you turn from it, calling it a prison instead of a promise.

“Don’t you?”

“No.”

His voice came out in some warm purr as he leant in, his mouth next to your ear.

“I want to unleash you.”

“You don’t want to guide me,” you snapped pushing him back though he didn't move from the spot only straighten. “You want a puppet. Something you can mold and use.”

Loki tilted his head, that dark smile never slipping. “Use you?”

“You have no right,” you hissed. “No right to crawl into my dreams. No right to twist my magic. To demand my future.” He'd made it feel inevitable- his voice woven into the very fabric of your sleep, his promises laced between the runes you hadn’t asked to wear. Every whisper, every illusion, had guided you like a thread through a maze, only to trap you here.

“You fight me,” he murmured, stepping close, “but you’ve already begun to yield.”

He pressed you back to the wall, his body pinning yours, the heat of him chasing the cold from your skin. The pressure of him wasn’t just possessive- it was confident, certain, as though he’d already claimed the parts of you you’d tried to protect.

“All you have to do, witchling,” he whispered, breath ghosting your throat, “is drop those pesky defenses. Succumb- completely- to what we can be.”

His lips brushed your ear. A tremor raced down your spine.

“Remember, it was you that journeyed here. Left your own home without even a second thought. You came, to me. You’ve decided.”

You hated how true it sounded. How your skin answered even when your voice didn’t.

Your chest rose and fell with uneven breaths. “This was never a fair choice,” you whispered. “You made sure I never wanted to leave.”

“Say it then,” he breathed. “Say you don’t want this.”

You opened your mouth then closed it again. What could you even say? That you hate him? That you crave him? That you’re terrified of how right it all feels?

Your silence sealed it.

His mouth found yours- hungry, claiming, but you kissed him back. His kiss devoured every reason you had to say no- and for a moment, you didn’t want to remember any of them. The press of your lips matched his with frantic heat, your fingers curling into the fabric at his waist. Your body arched, answering him, desperate to close every breath of space he left between you.

His hands slid over your waist, down your hips, anchoring you to the stone. The rough surface scraped your back, but you didn’t care. You felt his body rock into yours, grinding heat up through your belly, and you moaned into his mouth, overwhelmed by the ache flooding your veins.

Your pulse roared in your ears, the rune-glow beneath your skin pulsing with every kiss, every drag of his tongue. It beat like a second heart inside you, driving heat and need through every nerve ending. The tingling magic stirred deeper, turning to something more electric, a burn and ache that echoed in time with your heartbeat. It prickled beneath your flesh- hungry, rising, impossible to ignore. Like it wanted him as much as you did.

"Argh!" 

The sound ripped from your throat as the magic pushed too far, too fast. The runes on your skin flared too brightly, scorching light bursting along your arms and chest. You gasped, tearing your mouth from his as your head tipped back against the wall. The room spun wildly.

It almost hurt, channelling like this, your body was a conduit too small to contain the force that swept through you It felt alive in you. The pleasure tangled with pain, burning hot and wild beneath your skin.

Loki caught you as your knees sagged, his hands steadying, no longer hungry- only careful. One hand slid around your back, the other pressing firmly to your chest, over the wild thrum of your heart.

"Easy," he murmured, as though coaxing something fragile and sacred back into stillness. "Breathe. Let me take it. Let me hold it for you."

You gasped against him as your skin flared hot beneath his touch, your body a live wire. But as his palm pressed against your sternum, the burn began to ebb, the unbearable current drawn away. He whispered as he held you, drawing the magic from you like poison from a wound.

Your body shuddered, still burning. He pressed his palm to your spine, grounding it, grounding you. You felt him take it, let it pass through him and into the stone of the floor.

When it was done, you were both left breathless.

Long, shaky exhales passed between you. His forehead rested against yours, his breath warm and steady, anchoring you. Your eyes fluttered closed for a moment, letting the weight of him and the soft quiet settle in your bones.

Then you felt cool fingers brush your cheek- tender, caring, your eyes opened, searching his.

You moved before you could think. You tilted your face toward his, lips parting, chasing that heat again. The thrum in your blood hadn’t faded. It still ached. Still wanted.

“Not yet, my darling,” he murmured. “When you’re ready… you’ll beg me.”

His thumb traced your lower lip- almost tender, as if savoring the moment just before release. Then he leaned in, his breath brushing your cheek as he pressed a lingering kiss to your temple. It wasn’t claiming. It wasn’t cruel. It was patient- almost reverent.

He unwound slowly, deliberately, like he was reminding you of every inch that separated his body from yours. His hands slid away last, reluctant in their departure. He stepped back with the grace of a man who knew you might collapse without his support and was ready to catch you if you did.

Your legs trembled beneath you. The wall at your back held firm, but it was his gaze that truly kept you upright.

“Rest while you can,” he said, voice low and knowing. “You’ll need your strength for what comes next.”

He left you in silence and heat, the air still pulsing where his hands had been- charged, trembling, thick with the echo of magic and want.