Chapter Text
It was very damp and it was extremely cold but that was barely the worst part. Loki had been locked in a dark Asgardian prison cell, on display for anyone to mock him. The small, dismal cell left barely any room for a bed and the stone walls and floor made the space seem even tinier. A thick, glass wall separated him from his freedom. He spent most days sitting on the uncomfortable bed, the chained shackles on his wrists preventing any movement around the cell. The tight metal restraints dug into his pale flesh even when he wasn't mobile.
For the first few weeks, Thor would show up every day at the glass wall and try to communicate with him. Loki would just stay seated with his chained hands in his lap and his head hanging low. He couldn't even look at Thor anymore; he felt truly ashamed for the first time in his life.
One day, as he dreadfully awaited for Thor’s daily visit, an unfamiliar silhouette approached the glass. He looked up to find one of the metal clad guards walking towards him while another stayed close behind.
“We have orders to take you to the main room of the palace,” he said flatly.
Confused as Loki was, he didn't show it as he casually shook his head and looked away. He didn't plan on fighting with them but he also didn't plan to go willingly. They would have to take him by force.
“I guess you didn't hear me,” the guard loudly demanded as he unlocked the large, metal door built into one of the stone walls.
The other guard followed him into the cell and they stood on either side of the God. The first one held his arms while the other quickly unlocked the shackles with a clank. They grabbed him under the arms and forced him to stand up without opposition. The first guard locked a more mobile set of shackles on Loki’s wrists behind his back and they led him out of the cell.
He dragged his feet as they firmly gripped under his arms and walked him briskly down the marble floor. The end of the long hall opened up into the great room of the palace where various assemblies were usually held. Here was where the Allfather’s throne stood; everything was glistening and gold. Odin sat upon his golden throne while Frigga stood just to the right of him. Thor was off to her right with the warriors three and Sif close by. A few random guards stood to the left of the throne, two of them had Loki’s son, Narfi, kneeling on the floor in front of them in the same kind of bonds as his father. A medium sized, grey wolf sat facing the guards, his stare unfaltering from the boy on the floor.
When Loki saw this, his heart sank, unsure of what they were to do to his son, not knowing the wolf was his other son, Vali. His face remained set in stone but his mind couldn't stop going over everything that could happen momentarily.
“Loki,” Odin boomed calmly, his face remaining expressionless, “the evidence has been reviewed in the death of Balder.” There was a short pause. “You stand guilty.”
Loki furrowed his eyebrows; the grandiosity of the battle in New York eclipsed everything he had done in the past and he had almost forgotten about the single act of murder he had committed. Once he had recalled those events, he smiled coyly; he never thought it would take this long for them to realize it was him.
Odin continued, “Since you are already serving time for your Midgardian rampage, we have chosen a different sentence for you.”
Oh great, Loki thought, Odin was known for being a ruthless judge and even more ruthless when it came to punishments. This wasn’t good.
“Before we go any farther, the first of your punishments shall be handed down to you. Guards?”
The two men holding on to Loki brutally forced him to the ground on his back while one of the others near Odin approached. Loki squirmed and thrashed, trying to free himself from their grip, to no avail. They held his head straight as the other guard leaned down holding a thick needle threaded with a dark black leather chord.
Loki’s eyes widened as the sudden realization of what was happening hit him. In one quick flick of the wrist, the guard poked the needle into Loki’s bottom lip then again through the top one and pulled the thread taut.
The pain only enraged Loki more but his body was betraying him. His traitorous eyes filled with tears that soon ran down the sides of his pale face. He tried to blink them away as the last stitch was tied but it only spread the tears more. They pulled him back up into a kneeling position, blood still dripping out of the fresh stitching.
“Now, since you cannot use your silver tongue to talk your way out of this, we move on to the next part.”
Loki pledged at that point that he was going to make Odin pay for this. No one puts the Liesmith through this kind of physical pain without consequences, not even the Allfather.
Odin motioned with one hand to the wolf that had been sitting still the whole time. It stood up and Loki could swear it bowed to the King before lurching forward toward Narfi. What happened next was something Loki wished he didn't have to see. The wolf gnawed at Narfi’s abdomen as he screamed in pain. Loki writhed in the guards’ arms, trying to help his defenseless son.
It didn't take long for Narfi to suddenly become eerily silent as the wolf ripped his innards out in one forceful pull. The guards holding him released their grip and his lifeless body slumped to the floor. When the deed was done, the wolf ran off and out of sight. The tears in Loki’s eyes began to pour out once again. Wrath and sorrow ripped simultaneously through his entire body as it decided if it wanted to collapse in heartbreak or explode in ferocity.
His wet eyes met Thor’s who look horrified at what had just happened. If it was an act or not, Loki did not know and hadn't the strength to figure it out.
Odin spoke again, “Take the entrails to the boulders, we will tie him up in due time.”
Loki knew that he meant him and that they were finally going to torture him as a punishment. Only the worst criminals on Asgard were sent to be tortured; it had happened very rarely. Wasn’t it torture enough to watch his son die right in front of him? Odin was a cruel man when he wanted to be.
“Loki, you will be strung up on several boulders by the entrails of your son. You will be placed under a snake whose venom will drip upon you. Only Ragnarok will free you from this punishment.”
Odin’s voice never wavered as he said these words; his speech gave no hint of emotion for his adopted son or the fact that he just had an innocent boy murdered.
Loki was now silently weeping with his head hanging down and his black stringy hair covering his face. He hated to show such weakness but there was only so much of a façade he could put on. There was no way he would allow them to tie him to those boulders and degrade him in that way; he had enough of that while in the cell. With his magic stripped of him though, his chances of escaping were slim to none.
The same guard that sewed his lips approached again holding out a long sword in front of him. Loki knew it was just another precaution to prevent him from doing anything stupid but it just added to the explosion of emotions he was feeling.
The guards pulled him up to a standing position and briefly let go, readying to take him to punishment already. If he was going to do something rash, he had to do it before they grabbed onto him again.
With a sudden lapse of judgment and an unplanned death wish, Loki ran toward the guard holding the sword, only stopping when the weapon reemerged out of his back.
The sword had pierced about an inch above his navel and went straight through his abdomen, the pointed end still sticking out of the flesh. Before the excruciating pain set in, his body went limp, only being propped up by the sword.
No one in the room knew what to do, not even Odin. None of them could have predicted that this confident god would resort to suicide to escape their arrangements.
The guard yanked the bloody sword out and Loki fell to his knees, still mostly conscious and grimacing as the blood poured out of the two wounds. The room fell silent as they watched to see what would happen to him next, still unsure if they should help him.
As if a gift from some unknown force, a sudden, massive explosion erupted in one of the vast gardens surrounding the palace. Everyone in the room, save for one guard, rushed to the area to see what had happened.
A very disoriented Loki knew this was his opportunity to escape, but he had to do it with his hands tied behind his back, without being able to speak, with no magic, and with a gaping hole in his abdomen. Just his luck.
The guard stood next to him, his knees almost at the heights of Loki’s head. This was his chance to fight back. He swung his head around and clocked the guard in the back of the knee, immediately sending him down to the floor in almost the same kneeling position as his prisoner.
With all of the force he could muster, Loki powerfully head butted the guard’s unprotected temple. The man was immediately knocked out cold. Loki struggled to lift himself off the ground and look for an escape. He knew of many passages out of Asgard but he would have to be quick and nearly unseen.
With the wound now throbbing, he started to wish he had waited a few minutes before deciding to injure himself that badly. Had he known a diversion would have presented itself, he wouldn't have needed to impale himself.
He took one last loving look at his son’s body and ran across the palace and out onto the opposite garden. His wound hurt like hell and running didn't help the bleeding but he had to continue. Thankfully, the explosion had come from one on the other sides of the building so none of the preoccupied people would see him.
Running until his legs burned and the impaled skin went numb, he finally reached the secluded forest where his only chance of running away lie. A passageway between realms sat hidden behind some brush, needing only a quick spoken spell to take the traveler to another plane.
There was one major problem with his not so brilliant escape plan, he couldn't speak the words with his mouth still sewn shut, and there was no way to free himself from the metal shackles.
Feeling utterly defeated and exhausted, he slid down onto the floor in front of the entrance and hoped no one would find him there. Before he knew it, he was out like a light; whether from blood loss or mental exhaustion, he didn't care. He was just happy to sleep somewhere other than that uncomfortable cell.