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He’s so angry. Blotches of red at the top of his pale cheekbones, dark hair whipping in the wind. “Don’t lie to me!”
Her outstretched hand, “I’m not lying to you. Come here, come home.”
“I have no home, I never had.” Anger roiled within him, along with doubt, despair, and he couldn’t lie to himself, hurt, pain, grief. He had no family. He was not a Prince of Asgard, he was not even a person. He was a monster. A thing to be reviled, cast out.
“Yes, you do. Your mother loves you -”
“She’s not my mother,” he bit out, scraping a hand through his hair, pacing vehemently as far away from her as possible.
“She chose to be, just like I chose to be your fiance.” It hurts him to have that thrown in his face, how much he could have had. He turns away from her gaze, cut to the quick by her soft green eyes. His color, his no longer.
“I bet you wish you hadn’t picked the wrong brother in the first place,” his quavering voice betrayed him. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
“That is nonsense and you know it, I hadn’t even considered Thor. You were always the one, your wit, your artistry, your magic, your radiance. It has always been you for me.” His guts twisted. What he could have had and never would.
“I’m not a prince any more, I’m not even a citizen. You’ll never be royalty. You’ll never be happy,”
“You don’t know that. And it doesn’t matter either way. I love you, I always - “
“Stop lying!” he roared, the agony of her nearness unbearable. “You don’t really know what I am, you couldn’t stand the sight of me, I’m a MONSTER.” Shouting the last word, he let his glamor drop, revealing the mottled blue skin, inhuman ridges, the crimson red - blood red - eyes, without tear ducts or pupils. He had grown taller, but he never felts so small, so stupid. He had thought, all those years ago, after coming home in tears from cruel taunts, that things would be better if only he could know why he was different, weak, inferior. How wrong he had been.
“No, you are not,” she crossed over to him, her gaze unflinching and boring into him, he was terrified to hope, “You are my fiance and you will be my husband,” a slim hand cupped his cheek, the other wrapped around his waist, “And you are just perfect, just like this.”
He moaned. It was too good, too much to hope for, dread twisted low in his belly. “Don’t say it if you don’t mean it,” his voice was an unrecognizable rasp.
“I do mean it, I do,’ she pressed her lips to his, moved closer to bundle him in her arms, whispered that she loved him, she’ll always be his, he’ll always be hers and protect him.