Disclaimer: I do not the Avengers or Marvel in any way shape or form.
"I hope you live a life you're proud of. If not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again."
~F. Scott Fitzgerald
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
"When I am king, I'll hunt the monsters down and slay them all!"
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
"I thought we could unite our kingdoms one day. Bring about an alliance; bring about permanent peace…through you."
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
"I could have done it, Father! I could have done it! For you! For all of us!"
Breathe in.
"No Loki."
And then the mantra he's established for himself breaks, like a fragile bit of glass dropped carelessly upon the floor, as his mind brings forth his father's –'not-father's' his mind supplies bitterly – voice to the forefront, allowing it to overtake all other thoughts he may have had. Hot, bitter tears cascade down his cheeks, mingling with fresh blood as the stitches placed about his lips reopen wounds both recent and of days he had thought long past; days when he had lived up to his moniker, days that would forever draw forth a fear within him of the dwarves and their magic threads and needles; of their need for revenge.
He is cold and alone, sent adrift in what seems a realm of endless and impenetrable darkness, when in reality he knows it to be a chamber where small, beady, cruel eyes may peer in as often as they wish to watch him squirm and struggle like the insect he has become. His wrists ache from the constant friction and strain as a result of the manacles tightly encircling them, positioning his body into a forced kneel from which he cannot remove himself, his ankles bound in the same manner.
o—o—o—o
He had been drifting, farther and farther from the golden hues of Asgard, and farther still from the frigid lands of the Jotuϋn. The chasm, the rift between worlds pulled on him, it tore and shred, stretched him in the most painful of ways until at last, when he felt he could take no more, his limbs near the point of being forcefully ripped from his torso, after what felt like years, it stopped. A power far greater than that of his father ('not-father!') came from the in between and grasped him in its clutches. The world around him became a haze, colors of all kinds melting and converging with each other at an incomprehensible rater which dizzied his mind and scrambled his thoughts. He was dumped on what seemed a large, barren asteroid making its lonely trek about the stars.
Every bone ached within him, pulsing in time with the sluggish beat of his heart. After a time, his senses returned and he could feel past the pain to know that he was not alone. Dozens, no hundreds of eyes bore into his form, watching in silence from the outskirts of his vision. When those creatures, for lack of a better word, came forth, he could feel the quickening of his hearth, the once tired beat became a terrified staccato. A part of him wished to rise up and flee, to hide behind his mother's skirts and the all-seeing eyes of Heimdall, but the larger part of him that roared 'I am a prince of Asgard you insolent beings!' quelled such childish fears and instead commanded his weak form to stand like the warrior he had fought so hard to be, for a warrior must never show fear before the enemy. With this new found strength he managed to keep his head held high even though they pulled him up to his feet with enough strength to dislocate both shoulders from their sockets, he kept his face unreadable when clawed hands shackled and bound his magic by way of golden bands seared around his wrists, and he squared his shoulders as best he could against those hands which sunk clawed fingers in the flesh betwixt his shoulder blades and proceeded to lead him stumbling away.
Down they went, corridor after corridor, twisting this way and that way until he could no longer keep track of where they had gone and from whence they had come. A final turn was all that was needed until he found himself face to face with what could only be described as a nightmare. He remembered tales of such a beast from his childhood. The frightening power the being before him held, able to destroy solar systems with nothing more than the blink of an eye. He found it far easier to blame the quiver of his body on exhaustion and pain rather than on the fear that had taken root deep within his being as the one before him took the initiative to speak;
"Well, how fitting? Who else should stand before me but the God of the Silvertongue?"
The crowd about him broke into chortles and screeches of laughter, their jovial cries reminding him of similar crowds of blond haired, fair skinned, blue eyed children mocking him, a prince, a boy, of using such feminine learning as seiðr and he felt his heat harden at the sound.
"Why do you not cry for your Father, Mischief Maker? Or has he cast you out from his land like the monsters you bore and the monsters that bore you?"
He wanted to scream and cry, to sling insults all the while heaving a worded web in order to enable his escape, but found his tongue had become like lead in his mouth, his urges further diminished when a hand likely large enough to crush his head in a single squeeze, wraped around his neck, crushing the delicate windpipe beneath. Out of instinct he'd been sent gasping and prying at the great hand depriving him of air. All his thrashing achieved was to cause the hand to tighten its grip until he could do little more than hand limp like a maiden's blood soaked rag.
A cruel smile grew on the fright's mouth as he had been sent crashing to the ground, his body in a fight to attain much needed oxygen.
"Will you pledge allegiance, Mother of Monsters?"
Still though he lay, at the whim of the devil himself, he took from Thor's defiance and yelled as loudly as his lungs would allow:
"Not if my life were at stake!"
He had felt victorious and proud and arrogant and all other emotions associated with such an action. He couldn't stop himself from wondering whether the All-Father would be proud, but frowned as soon as he realized that the room was silent, save for the deep chuckling that resonated throughout the chamber which elicited a reaction from himself similar to a deranged, vicious beast, teeth bared and a low ferocious growl emitting from deep within . And when the laughter stopped not even he Loki, Weaver of False Truths, could successfully deny that his blood had gone to ice.
"So be it."