I'm really trying to get back into writing. Between mental health, jobs, moving, and middle age, it's been difficult to sit long enough to write. I've been working on this for some time and am ready to try and get back into the game, so please review and let me know if this is worth continuing. The more confirmation I get the more excited I'll be to write and get this story completed. I'm happy with it though.
What you need to know is the second Thor movie NEVER happened. This is years after the first movie, SHEILD has fallen and this will be a version of Jane you have probably never seen before. Enjoy.
The Path to Redemption
Prologue
Hell is yourself, and the only redemption is when a person puts aside himself to feel deeply for another."
The chains were deafening in his ears as they clattered together, echoing around him like mocking laugher. Now that the scepter wasn't near him and he's been locked away for what seemed like an eternity, he found his mind clear once more. The rage, the hate, the jealousy; everything that used to burn him from the inside out until he couldn't bare it anymore was now absent.
All that remained was bitter acceptance that this was what he was destined to be –a shell of a being he didn't know anymore. How pitiful, and yet the poetic, morbid twist wasn't lost on him.
Had he ever truly known who he was?
He was Loki, Prince of Asgard.
He was Loki, The God of Mischief and Lies.
He was Loki, The Frost Giant Bastard Child.
He was Loki, The Monster.
He supposed he was all of those things, at one time or another.
He was so foolish to think that the mind stone wasn't powerful enough to influence and manipulate him.
He was the rightful king of Asgard, the master manipulator!
Surely no such jewel would be powerful enough.
And yet he raved the words of a mad man, choosing brute force over careful planning and strategic maneuvers. He was no saint, but did they not see that he was not himself? He was not the type to be so honest and open about his motives.
They didn't know, they accepted his actions so easily, and so he didn't correct them.
Perhaps his half attempt to kill Thor when he was cast out so he could take over the throne was why they thought so little of him.
Only his mother seemed to know better, the only one that he couldn't break attachment with, not even in his own mind. She visited him and brought him books, even playing chess when she could spare the time. She didn't fear the punishment, that Queen or not, was promised to those that might try to help the King of Asgard's greatest disappoint.
Not even Thor came to see him despite his claims to love him like a brother still.
Of course, word in the prison cells is that Thor married Lady Sif and they're expecting.
He couldn't help but wonder about the mortal woman Thor claimed to be devoted to whom he obviously abandoned.
Loki could see a pattern there, and it was glaringly hypocritical.
As the guards pulled him to a brutal halt, the muzzle around his mouth cutting into his skin, he looked up to meet the foreboding eye of Odin, the All Father himself. Loki didn't flinch from his gaze as he once had as a child.
Odin, in all his wisdom, seemed taken back as if expecting Loki to shrivel at his feet like a peasant. He didn't blink, didn't shift his stance; he merely stood there shackled from head to toe, covered in dirt and grime, and looking worst for wear.
The other prisoners were treated better than he, getting fresh clothes every few days and decent meals, but he expected nothing less. He was mainly disregarded, only taken care of by the Queen against her husband's wishes.
Any desire he had for the All Fathers love and acceptance was long gone, replaced with indifference instead.
"Loki," Odin's deep voice boomed despite the soft tone, "I see you haven't lost your arrogance. Do you still blame me for your own monstrous actions? I'd hoped you'd gain some humility."
No response.
Loki would not give him the satisfaction of responding with his eyes as he would so often do in his younger years. Whereas his vibrant green orbs used to twinkle with secrets, a tell sign of the trouble in the horizon he was bound to cause, they were now cool and detached.
Apathetic.
Of all the words used to describe Loki that was never one of them.
Odin sighed and appeared to slump ever so slightly in his throne. Loki couldn't help but take in how weary and aged the King looked. It wouldn't be long before Thor took the throne.
Joy.
The muzzle on Loki's mouth evaporated, exposing the raw skin underneath that was already starting to heal itself. He straightened his posture, and narrowed his eyes as his quick mind realized that this time Odin wasn't toying with him.
Something was going to finally happen.
"Loki, do you truly feel no remorse for your actions? I hoped isolation from those who love you would do you some good. Only through remorse will you find redemption."
Loki could have laughed, but instead his lips turned up ever so slightly.
Those who claimed to love him knew nothing of him. It was draining and pointless. They would never understand or believe a word he said, so any declaration of love fell on deaf ears.
Loki stepped forward, his head cocked. "You speak of remorse, King of Asgard, but do you feel regret? Do you feel bone wrenching sorrow for the deaths at your weathered hands? Do you dream of the souls you took, seeing the light draining from their eyes as Death claimed them? Do you?"
Loki didn't plan to give Odin the satisfaction of a reaction, but if he was going to die than he wasn't going to go quietly.
His voice was calm, a cold furry that had Odin straightening in his seat at once. That was almost enough to make Loki smile.
"You speak as if you know me," he continued in a low tone, the storm brewing in his eyes making it all the more alarming, "but you don't know me any better than you know the servants that clean your quarters and make your meals. You so easily accepted me as a mass murderer without all the facts, as if relieved to be rid of me as your so called son. Save your judgments and get on with the meaning of me being here."
At this Odin stood and stepped down from his throne with unhurried measured steps. He stopped a foot from Loki and looked at him as if he was seeing him for the first time, his mouth slightly open and his one eye showing clear anguish.
"Loki," Odin nearly whispered, "regardless of the whys, you committed hideous crimes that will never be forgiven by the people of Asgard. You massacred thousands; I can't let that go without punishment. Please understand that."
Loki furrowed his brows. "You speak as if being treated like an animal in the bloody dungeons isn't my punishment. I go for days without food or water and haven't been allowed to bathe in weeks."
Odin didn't immediately respond, confirming Loki's previous suspicions. This time he did laugh. He had never heard a more broken sound.
"What is it then, am I to die?" He spat. "I can assure you that I am not afraid of Death."
Such was proven when Loki flung himself off the bifrost, Odin's rejection too much to bare for his bleeding and conflicted soul. That was the catalyst that led him to his fate.
The man Loki looked up to as a child merely shook his head, his one good eye full of pity and sorrow, but no regret.
"No Loki, your punishment is much worst. You will be powerless, like the ones you once compared to insects beneath your boot. You will be truly alone; damaged and vulnerable in a world you don't understand. You will truly suffer."
As if on cue the golden floors began to shake, the rattle almost enough to make Loki lose his footing.
"You will be cursed with an existence you can't break free from, not until you truly learn. Only then will the curse be broken and you may finally know peace."
Loki couldn't hide his terror as a bright blue light erupted from the floor beneath him, burning him like fire licking his skin. The chains seemed to melt right off him, vanishing into thin air. The scream that left his mouth was one of pure torment as he collapsed on the ground, gripping his chest which felt as if someone was carving into it with a dull knife.
Still, the pain was nothing compared to the storm that raged inside him day in and day out of his pathetic existence.
"Loki, you are hereby cast out of Asgard, never to return. You have put great shame on this family, and you are my greatest disappointment. Your name will not be uttered inside these walls, and one day you will be forgotten by those who once called you family or friend."
Loki wanted to block out Odin's words, but despite his screaming and thrashing on the ground, despite not being able to see anything but burning blue, he couldn't drown him out.
"But I shall leave you with a few words to hopefully guide you to your redemption. Until you feel what you've never felt, peace will not be granted to you. Goodbye."
With a bright flash of light Loki was gone, the room eerily quiet and somehow colder without him there.
Odin didn't remove his eye from the spot on the floor where Loki was only seconds ago, his youngest son's screams still echoing in his head and cutting deep wounds into his heart.
This was the price of being King.
"Do you think Mother will ever forgive us?"
Thor.
Already he was starting to bear the weight of what his title was soon to be.
Odin finally glanced at his oldest, taking in his sagged shoulders and tear stained face as he too stared at the spot Loki had once occupied. He watched…and Odin had let him.
He needed to know the burden of who they were. There was no better way to teach him than with his own brother.
"In time, perhaps," he mused softly, knowing full well his Frigga was never going to excuse him. She was compassionate at her best, a trait Thor picked up, and vengeful at her worst, a trait Loki unfortunately gained.
She was always softer on Loki, visiting him in his cell though Odin pretended not to know. She appeared to understand him much better than himself and Thor, but as long as he had her coddling him Loki was never going to truly be saved.
He thought himself at his lowest, but Odin saw in their brief interaction that Loki was far from redemption.
"Mother will loathe me when she knows it was my idea," Thor continued after a moment.
"She mustn't know my son. I will take the blame as it was I that decided this was the right actions to take. Go be with your wife. Lady Sif needs you and you must focus on her and your soon to be child."
Thor sighed and wiped his eyes before turning around and heading back the way he came, his shoulder rising for he knows better than to let others see his pain. Odin didn't turn to watch him go, instead keeping his eye on the floor where he could see a slightly darker spot staining the otherwise pristine gold.
He gave Loki the answer to being his own savior. He only hoped his youngest prevailed and was capable of doing what needed to be done before the suffering truly began.
He didn't think Loki was capable truth be told, and perhaps him agreeing to Thor's suggestion was truly cruel.
But Odin the All Father had never understood his adopted son. If he did than he'd have known that feeling remorse was not to be the key to Loki's redemption and self peace.
He may have been the All Father, but he wasn't all knowing.
Frigga however, who watched from her enchanted mirror relic her husband knew nothing of, knew what it was her son needed to be released from her husband's cruel game.
She was going to make sure he succeeds.
Loki had suffered enough.