Proposition

And Life Goes On

No announcement had been made by the time I was halfway through my sixth month and by this point I was barely able to stand for long periods due to my size, sometimes walking from one end of the room to the other felt like a chore and my feet swelled tremendously and I got winded from what felt like the shortest amount of time spent stood up.

The weight of our baby was putting significant strain on my back and Loki had decided it best to send someone out to find a transportable chair for me, something to make it easy for me to be wheeled around the palace.

Thor knew of just the thing and after a quick trip to Midgard, he returned with a contraption he called a wheelchair which wasn't the most comfortable of seats, but it did help alleviate the weight from my ankles.

Loki grumbled that there were things just as viable in Asgard, but Thor had only smiled and said to consider it an aiding gift from a soon-to-be Uncle.

It had been decided only two weeks after the attack that it was best for me to move in with him permanently, something I was definitely grateful for now that things were getting harder the further along I got in my pregnancy.

Ezabella had been given a job as my personal carer, another finalised decision made by Loki to keep us close and to give us both a stable living condition in these trying times.

The thought of shifting positions so quickly was jarring.

We both had spent so long as travelling, odd-job women with varying income that the thought of settling down in a singular place that was more luxurious than our occasional treat tavern dinners that we would go out for when we had a spare bit of money was peculiar.

He'd arranged for our miniscule number of personal items to be brought from our small hut and I would be lying if I said that I hadn't cried at seeing my things intermixed with his own items in his, apparently now our, bedroom.

Oh, the joy of hormones.

Everything that was once Avena's had been removed, possibly even destroyed, and all traces of her had been scrubbed away.

That was including any enchantments that she had placed around the room, including on the mirror.

It was like a fresh start.

Over time Loki got progressively more open with me and displaying affection in front of others, never anything beyond an embrace, a caress of my stomach or a chaste kiss, but enough for others to pick up that we were considerably more serious than they had initially given us credit for.

There was something territorially nice about having others know that he was mine, this baby was his and we weren't going to be swayed.

I couldn't say that I hadn't had times where I'd worried that history would repeat itself.

What if we got married and the idea sparked to bring someone else in?

What if his eye wandered?

There were so many stunning women in Asgard and I was getting stretched further out of shape and covered in more marks by the week.

At times I felt ugly and insecure, especially when my dresses had to be altered once again to make room for my ever-expanding bump and hips or due to another bout of swelling in my already considerably heftier chest, but Loki had taken to letting me know just how much he loved it all.

It could sometimes come across as sexually aggressive, almost animalistic, but he would regularly hold me by my hips as he was buried inside of me and growl or pant words of admiration in my ear as he bucked wildly, like a desperate man deprived of sex.