Daniel's Daring

Since the moment the protective layer had disappeared from around him, Daniel knew that he was in fatal trouble. He'd silently retrieved an object from a corner drawer and had returned to his spot, being sure that there was no way in hell he could've escaped the room without Loki noticing it and instantly driving a knife through his heart.

'I have a gun,' Daniel said loudly.

As if Loki wasn't vexed enough with the boy for his stupid actions as it is, now he had the audacity to draw a weapon in his presence. Loki crisply walked towards him, his cape fluttering behind in the absence of flowing wind. Daniel stretched out both his hand which were holding the gun. Loki chuckled, yet halted several steps away from him.

'I am warning you!' Daniel said somewhat confidently, 'leave now! And do not come back! If you come near me, I will shoot you! This gun is fully loaded!'

Loki cackled mirthlessly. 'Did you not see everything that just happened back there?'

'Yes, but this gun is not the property of your planet! You can't snatch it away from me!' Daniel said confidently, proving his efficient listening skills.

Although, a large part of Loki felt like instantly snatching away his puny weapon, thereby rendering him stunned and baffled, but he had another genius idea, which was far better than his first one.

Loki nodded his head in agreement. 'Why don't you give it a shot?' he chuckled at his own pun, 'but, no, seriously. Shoot me, mortal. I won't even try to defend myself.'

Daniel blinked in confusion, but he had read about him! He was supposedly the god of trickery ergo he was trying to trick him! 'Look, man. I don't know what your problem is, but I am not going to shoot you without any reason! Just leave from here, go back to your home planet—'Loki pressed a finger at his own lips and silently shushed him.

Daniel's tongue glued itself to its roof. His eyes grew wider, but he still managed to emit a gasp of horror.

'Did you hear me say, will you please shoot me? No! Now…' Loki raised both his hands in front of him and gestured him to come at him by his four fingers, as thugs do. 'Shoot me, boy.'

Daniel got back the control of his tongue as soon as the trigger somehow pressed itself, sending the bullets plummeting towards Loki's chest. Daniel screamed along with every silenced gunshot.

The trigger pulled itself again, and again, and again, till all the bullets were emptied from the gun. A smiling Loki stood still, stretching his arms wider and raising his chin up as though embracing this moment wherein his chest was colliding with six bullets being shot at him under six seconds and under the proximity of six feet.

Daniel dropped the gun. His knees buckled and he hit the floor. He was shaking with disbelief and was sweating heavily. 'You – you – you are bullet-proof or are you wearing a bullet proof vest?'

Loki cackled, 'You dull mortal! I am a God! And now, it's my turn.' Loki covered the rest of the distance between them in three steps and halted in front of a kneeling Daniel. Loki grabbed the back of his neck, lifted him up at his own shoulder-length and began walking towards the rest of the living room.

'Jesus!' Daniel squeaked from mid-air, 'are you going to kill me?' he squinted sideways at Loki who was walking effortlessly as though he were holding a hollow, plastic toy in his one, slightly red hand.

'Instantly? No. Eventually? No doubt!' Loki stretched out his right hand and did a pulling gesture towards the couch-chair near sitting near the bed to make it come sliding towards them and halt in front of the sofa in a confrontational manner. Loki distractedly tossed Daniel on the opposite sofa as he simultaneously flicked his right hand to change the chair into a comfortable recliner.

Daniel scrambled and straightened his awkward face-first landing on the sofa. Loki was done redecorating his seat and was looking quite pleased with the chair's new appearance.

'Looks better, doesn't it?' he asked politely. He slid out two daggers in both his hands, but didn't threaten Daniel with them. Daniel watched through wide, cautious eyes as Loki clanked and rubbed the blades against each other, as people usually did for sharpening their tools before butchering a pig.

Loki sat down, lavishly rested his right foot over his left thigh, and finally looked at Daniel properly. He placed both his elbows on each side of the chair while holding the hilt of his daggers in front of him, the blades forming an X.

'I am glad that you witnessed everything that happened back there, because that will be the only reason for your future plight, and you will suffer for the pain you have caused today for the rest of your menial life,' Loki said calmly. He began twirling the daggers in his fingers like a pen as he spoke. 'Before Nevaeh arrived here, we were peacefully sitting inside her bedchambers, sorting through her belongings and magically packing her bags, like any normal couple of sorcerers.'

'Packing? Why? Where are you—'Daniel stopped mid-sentence and screamed loudly, clapping a hand over his eyes as a dagger soared towards him, halting its tip an inch away from his neck.

'You do not interrupt me while I speak!' spat Loki.

Daniel cursed under his breath. He was trembling with fear. The tip of the dagger prodded his neck once, but didn't cut him. Loki opened his palms in the air and the dagger soared into it, leaving Daniel's neck. He removed his shaking hands from his eyes to stare at a fuming with anger Loki.

He flipped the left dagger up in the air like a coin. As it fell down again, Loki stopped it gently by his index finger like a feather. The sharp tip of the blade stood on his fingertip and he flipped it again before calmly continuing, 'anyway, as I was saying, your lunatic, thoughtless actions led us back to square one! Lying and crying and duelling and fainting! Newfound revelations! Burnt hands! Treacherously misbehaving mystical stones! These two hours of pure anguish were a déjà vu of the night she cornered me in my palace! This was much shorter, thanks to my intellect. But that night eventually turned out to be a magical one, whereas today—'Loki paused to take a breath in order to calm himself. '—today, I had committed the most despicable act I could never even think of doing to her. BECAUSE OF YOU!

Loki didn't even bother to shoot the daggers at him. They left Loki's hands by themselves and gently glided towards Daniel's face as he spoke. The daggers sharply halted in front of each of Daniel's eyeballs as he squinted at them. As he stared at the sharp, lethal tip of their blades, Daniel couldn't help but feel that Loki's daggers were somehow personally offended by his acts as well. He couldn't even blink.

'I had to invade her mind and alter her memory. We leave tomorrow! It was the beginning of something pure, for me! Something that could both bring me peace as well as show me the path to glory! But how would I attain such peace now, huh? I would suffer a pang of guilt every time she gazes into my eyes after today!' The daggers were hovering an inch away from his pupils. Daniel could feel the metal of the blade on his eyelashes. He wanted to clap a hand on his eyes but he wasn't able to move since the moment Loki had fixed him in a stare.

'She proclaimed her love for me, and the next moment, I zapped her memory. That is too dark even for me!' Loki snarled. Despite the fact that two angry daggers were threatening to gauge out his eyeballs, Daniel managed to roll his eyes and scoff.

'Oh, poor you! The girl I love has fallen in love with you. The horror! You must be so devastated!' Daniel said scathingly.

Loki had to admire his guts to mock him, especially when he was utterly furious and had already proclaimed to kill him soon.

'Apologies,' Loki clapped a hand over his chest. 'I wasn't considerate of the fact that you were her former lover.'

"Lover," Daniel scoffed again. Loki frowned. The daggers were blocking Loki's view of Daniel's face for him to properly make out his expression. Loki ran a finger in the air to make the daggers leave his eyes and soar next to each of his ears. When he was sure the boy could see his face, Loki stared at him questioningly. 'I don't understand your – is it scepticism?' asked a genuinely confused Loki.

Daniel was glad that his eyes were perfectly intact and that there were no daggers trying to pierce his eyeballs anymore, even if it meant to stare at Loki's annoyingly handsome yet evil face frowning in front of him.

'Look, man. I don't know what Nev told you, but we were never "lovers", not in the conventional sense. We never did anything that would qualify as romance; never took a walk on the beach while holding hands, cuddled while seeing a movie, or spent a night together. Heck, when I saw her crying for you like that, I couldn't help but feel that she never really felt much for me,' he finished in a broken voice.

'Elaborate your last statement,' Loki ordered.

'The thing is, when we were dating, I used to constantly doubt her feelings for me, because it felt unreal that she genuinely wanted to be with me. I always argued that she claimed to be with me in order to keep the other boys at bay, who knew that she was committed to me for such a long time. Yet, there were times when some of them didn't care for the fact that she was my girlfriend and still used to approach her, but the number of them was staggeringly reduced as the years passed by in our relationship. I – I had a few statistical charts drawn of it to back up my arguments, but she burnt them about three years ago,' he finished exhaustedly.

'This was not an expected response when I told you to elaborate, but alright. I never curse extra knowledge,' Loki said in a matter-of-fact tone of voice.

One of the daggers was lightly prodding the side of the sofa, a few inches away from Daniel's neck and he kept squinting at it. 'I already knew that you are the only guy she ever dated. What I – I mean to ask –'Loki's voice faltered. He paused for a while. This was a somewhat personal enquiry, and Loki being his sociopathic, evil god-self, still had a high priority for manners and etiquettes.

Daniel laughed. 'I hear you. Look, I love her more than I have ever loved anyone in my entire life, but we were that weird kind of couple who were close buddies and were committed to seeing each other on a regular basis for the sole purpose of hanging out and smoking a few cigarettes over coffee,' he finished slowly.

'I – I don't mean to pry, but, she – she never,' Loki paused. 'She never said – never told you that – what—'

'Chill, dude,' Daniel laughed again. 'Yes, she never once told me that she loves me or anything. Seeing her say those words today was more hurtful than any hurt you could possibly place upon me. You know, it's confusing how shy you are at framing personal questions about us, but you don't seem to think twice before trying to kill someone,' Daniel said, but he was pretty sure that Loki hadn't even bothered to listen to his last statement. He was smiling with sheer joy.

'Boy, does this put a smile on my face,' Loki laughed lightly.

'How unpredictable!' Daniel said bitterly.

'You know, for providing me with this factoid, I might just spare your life,' Loki finished smilingly, pointing a finger at Daniel. The daggers vanished in thin air from around his head.

Daniel breathed a huge sigh of relief. 'Oh, thank god,' he gulped weakly, running a hand over his intact neck.

'You're welcome, mortal,' Loki said chirpily, showing all his neatly-aligned, bright-white teeth.