Loki wasn't sure which was worse,the white shining walls confining him or the wall spanning golden window, nearly invisible barrier between himself and freedom. Even before the attack the whiteness of the place had been deafening, and still he had had it surprisingly good, all things considering. Odin hadn't executed him even if he would have had all the reasons to. Instead he had been put to this cell and due to his former status given almost bearable surroundings. It didn't mean he wasn't any less just another specimen for any passerby to glare at, though in the palace dungeons that merely meant the guards, but at least he could have had pretended that instead it was he who was looking at them, inspecting their daily behavior or idly ignoring them as if it wasn't painfully obvious he was seen at all times. He had feared his idiot ex-brother would have graced him with his visits but thankfully that had not been the case. The one who had visited him instead, even if in image only, had been Frigga, perhaps the only person in the world he couldn't have ever imagined to hurt.

A sudden surge of emotion sent the pieces of furniture in the room flying around him, some of them scratching his skin. He didn't care anymore though. The floor was covered in red stains, his foot was a bloody mess and he didn't even remember how he had hurt it. He only remembered the scream with the pain. Probably he had stepped on some sharp shred of wood. Everything in his cell was destroyed now, except miraculously the pile of books Frigga had got for him. A precious memory of a person whose soothing words he could never hear again. A precious person he had inadvertently helped to kill. When she had been around he had had at least a semblance of hope but now the only thing he had left was his crumbling pride. When even that would be gone they might as well have executed him.

When the masked prisoner had been brought in, it had piqued his interest already. Soon after things had calmed down it had done some monstrous transformation and broken through the barrier of its cell and started to break other cells as well. Loki had seen this as one chance of freedom but when the beast had approached his cell, after a brief look it had just passed him. Either it had deemed him too weak to be of use, or too strong to let loose, Loki liked to think it was the latter, but probably it had been just that he looked local. Nonetheless Loki had helped it by pointing a better route out of the dungeons. There hadn't been any particular reason to, nothing for him to gain from it. Maybe to make the work of the guards and his insufferable ex-brother that much harder. After all he had been perfectly safe behind the barrier if the only force around there strong enough to break it had decided to leave him alone.

In due time all the escaped prisoners had been apprehended and moved to the unbroken cells further down the corridor. Loki hadn't though much about his help to the beast. Maybe it had given it a longer time to sow chaos in the palace but as was to be expected the attack had been quenched. Only when the guard had approached him to tell the news, that the rest of the city was standing in vigil for those who had perished in the attack, among them Frigga, the only person he had ever considered his mother, he found out the true extent of his latest mischief. Had he not helped the beast it would have been stopped earlier and likely Frigga would still have been alive. When the guard had left he had let his anger lash out destroying everything around him without a care if he hurt himself or not. Only the shreds of his pride kept him from showing it to outside, keeping up the illusion of everything being as it had been.

Loki heard steps from the corridor heading towards his cell, different than the ones he had gotten used to from the guards. Maybe it was that Odin had found out his part in the beasts escape. And even if he wasn't, maybe he would be executed now that there was not her hand staying his anymore. Would he have earned it? While he didn't bear much guilt towards the acts that had first landed him here, he wasn't sure if he bothered to defend himself anymore. It turned out however that the incomer was Thor, acting as shady as in their youth when he had come to beg Loki to mask his absence when he went to one of his unapproved treks to the city. Loki didn't have strength or interest to deal with him now so he just waited to shoo him away with the indifference of his illusion.


Will be continued when I have got a chance to see the movie again.