Summary: After Loki is taken back to Asgard the ruling council has decided on his punishments. This story is told through the eyes of the Allfather.
Skip my ramblings if you like…
I know there are many many versions of this story out there, however I hope this one is different enough to warrant a read. There is no Loki torture in it – sorry. The whole story is about Loki and he is the main character however it is told from the eyes of Odin, who I was really disappointed with in the last movie. (Thor 2 spoiler) Who tells their child that their birth right was to die? Especially a child you adopted! I have a friend who was adopted, her father told her that they choose to be her parents – they choose her! Odin chose to raise Loki, unless he was a bastard and really the only reason he had taken Loki was for a reason then there is nothing I can do about it, except shame on you – you all powerful god! And there are so many stories out there when he is a bastard. So in this one he is not.
I don't own anything – if I did the movie would have been called 'Loki'
If you are not aware of my style of writing, I write a lot of thought and explanations and not a lot of dialog – in this story there will not be a great deal of dialog and even when there is it will show up in later chapters. Please give it a try!
I don't have a beta sooooo if there is anyone out there that is interested… therefore all the mistakes belong to me.
Chapter 1 - The Sentence
Odin was sitting on his personal balcony on a fine Asgardian morning. He often sat outside in the mornings and went over the official papers from the day before that needed his seal and most times his charm. He also planned what was to be done for the day. Right now he was lost in his thoughts as he gazed out over the beautiful gardens of the palace without seeing its beauty. In his hand he held the official papers that gave the details of what his youngest had done and the sentence. It was waiting for Odin's seal before it became official and could be carried out.
The sentence for Loki's crimes against Jotunheim and Midgard were decided by the Asgardian council and read out in court the day before. Contrary to popular belief Asgard was not run by the king but the 'Council of Nine', also known as the 'court'. They were the governing force behind Asgard. The king held a seat in the council and could veto certain things and make quick judgments in times of need but it was the council that decided the fate of the kingdom. One of the many reasons Odin had been very angry at Thor for going to Jotunheim by himself. He was to have been king that day, he had been standing in the council chambers for the last six centuries, he should have known what he could and couldn't do.
Considering what Loki had done Odin thought the council had gone easy on him, it wasn't by any means a light sentence but it wasn't the harshest the council had handed out. He was to have his magic stripped, the standard Asgardian punishment for mages who misused their magic. It was disappointing for a mage who showed so much promise in the magical arts but they kept their magicians in line with the threat of losing their magic and it was a very big deferrer for those who were inclined to study the art. It kept those with the power to move planets on their whim, cover an entire world in goo or create new life forms in line.
Odin had watched his son carefully as the sentence was read out, he had shown disappointment but Odin was pleased that he had not made a fuss. He had known what was at stake and handled himself as the prince he was. Actually Odin had been watching him since the moment he was brought back. Throughout the whole procedure Loki had been uncharacteristically quiet. Odin had been expecting threats and curses. However Loki looked like he was listening to an inner voice than to those around him. Sometimes he seemed to be able to focus on here and now but most of the time he looked like he was not even here. Odin also noticed that Loki's inattention also annoyed many of the council. Odin was sure that the reason for the silence was the shame of losing however Loki had held himself up well, and if Odin wasn't so pissed off at him he would tell him so.
After the removal of his magic Loki would be sentenced to a 100 years of hard labor in the mines, not even royalty could get away from some of Asgard's punishments for causing mayhem. After his time in the mines he was to be reevaluated and Odin then as king would decide what was to be done with him, whether to give him more hard labor or move him into more light sentences around Asgard which inevitably would lead to Loki once again joining the local population as a normal citizen or the second prince as he had not yet forsaken his son.
Loki would not be the first royal family member who played around with Asgard or with other realms so none of the ruling council of Asgard was surprised that Odin hadn't forsaken him. Loki was still considered young by their standards; if this had happened a hundred years earlier then it would have been Loki's parents and mentors who would have been blamed as they should have been watching him. Loki had just come into age 46 years ago when he turned a 1000, he was barely an adult in their eyes. So despite trying to destroy one realm and sublimate another they were rather easy on him.
The court was used to royal members who popped up once every millennium who thought they were better than the rest of the universe, pretty understanding under the circumstances, as they raised their royalty to rule the universe and be worshiped as gods. There was always one that let the power go to their heads. A hundred years of working in the mines in dark and horrible conditions, then a couple of more centuries working on the farms, stables or even the palace kitchens would cure Loki of any motion of superiority. A few hundred years of hard labor was nothing to a person who was just 1046 and would live into his 5th millennia. It was not something to ignore however it would not the defining thing in Loki's life.
Odin had made the conscious decision of leaving his sons true origins a secret from everyone as well as the little mischief at Thor coronation. He had thought that was exactly what Loki was aiming at: mischief. Odin himself knew that Thor hadn't been ready however he thought that he would learn on the job. He hadn't just realized how unready Thor was until the weapons vault.
If things hadn't gone sour he would have had a long talk with his youngest about letting his king know about his concerns. It was also a reflection on his part, had he become that inaccessible to his youngest that instead of talking with him about his concerns he had come up with an elaborative plan to stop the coronation? If only Loki had talked to him, he would have told him that despite Thor getting the crown, the whole council had known that Thor was not ready, it was meant to be a learn on the job kind of thing.
On further reflection knew that in the last three centuries he had been spending all his free time with Thor but Thor had needed him. Loki on the other hand had always been so collected almost never needed his or his mothers help to achieve anything. He never needed extra tutoring in his schooling or in diplomatic relations or even in etiquette whereas they had to help Thor in every single thing besides warfare. Although Loki chose not to work with a sword or an axe he knew his way around them and even if he wasn't the greatest warrior no one could out think him in tactics.
And no one could surpass his skills with a dagger. Odin had encouraged the dagger. He knew there were worlds out there where mages were not allowed to carry anything but a dagger to even the playing field against warriors. He had thought that Loki knew these things. When they travelled off word, he only took his daggers so there were never any problems that had come back to him about Asgard over arming a mage. Had it just been coincidence? Had no one explained to Loki that as a mage there were times and places that he wasn't supposed to be even armed?
Odin had planned that once Thor had settled down as king he would have all the time to spend with Loki. Make up for all the time he had lost with his son. He had planned to take Loki around with him when he went on a tour of all the realms, teach him about the magic of the Yggdrasil that was passed down from his ancestors to him. Magical knowledge that wasn't ever written down and was passed down through word of mouth to family. He had even plans to take Loki to Jötunheim. To show him the realm his grandmother was from and then he had ideas about maybe telling his son about his origins depending how it went. Now these were all just dreams and half made plans.
The court had gone easy on the second son of the king however they would demand his sons head if they knew what he was. Odin, despite all his son had done did not want his son to die, especially if the difference between an Asgardian and Jötunn was death. He would welcome him back when he had learned his lessons. It would not be the first time that Asgard forgave a royal family member who went berserk on other worlds and as long as they didn't do it to Asgard. In the councils eyes he had not had much, after all it was them that handed the throne to Loki knowing he was not destined for it and even less ready for it than Thor. For Loki to come back to his place as the second son, Loki's true parentage must remain secret.
Removing someone of their magic was simpler than many imagined. Through the eons the Asgardian healers working along with mages had perfected the art of removing every scrap of magic from a person. It wasn't even a painful procedure, a potion to drink to loosen the magical core on the body and then court mages with the careful eye of the healers drained the magic from a person's body. They then redistributed the magic into the realm, making Asgard even more powerful. There were even people who were willing to have the procedure done because they did not wish to be magical. This saddened Odin as every year there were more and more young people after realizing they were magical wrote in a request wanting to give up their magic. It had become something of an honor, giving up your magic for the good of Asgard and becoming a soldier.
It saddened the court as they lost possible magicians they needed mages to keep Asgard going. Asgard was a magical realm, it relied on magic to keep it going. It had been a group of mages who had saved Asgard many millennia ago from destruction. Asgard was a planet like any other when war and ill treatment had pulled the planet apart at the seams. The end had been near and the people had known it was matter of time before Asgard was no more. Many had fled to other planets when the most powerful magical beings of Asgard had gotten together for one last desperate attempt and pulled of one last trick, they had saved a part of Asgard, only a small part but still a part.
They had peeled away the capital city and its surrounding lands, lakes, mountains etc. away from the planet's surface and wrapped it around magic putting it on a magical cloud. Everything in Asgard was magic. The sea that ran off the end magically got back into the core and even the air that they breathed. The atmosphere was kept through the careful maintenance of its mages whose numbers were decreasing every year. Asgard still orbited the sun it had for eons however even daylight and night time was controlled by magic as Asgard always faced up.
Every 100 years the mages got together to recast the spells kept Asgard going. It took at least 100 magical beings to recast the spells and all would be exhausted for a few years after the casting. But Asgard's most protected time would be upon them once the spells were recast; Asgard became impenetrable, a time of peace as there were no threats or any adventures to other realms without mages. Odin all his life used up a great deal of his own magic. The royal house had a main representative to the spell casting and it had been Odin from a very young age. The casting had always left drained for at least a year afterwards but over the last 700 years he had been given a respite as his son had taken up the royal families responsibilities in keeping Asgard afloat.
There were only a handful that knew that Loki could alone cast the spells that would keep Asgard going. Even Loki wasn't told, Aegir the chief mage of the court, who was also Loki's teacher and mentor in all magical things, was adamant that Loki would not be told as the power might go to his head. And he had been proven right with all that happened in the past two years. Also Aegir believed that should Loki accept the responsibility of doing it alone it would be too much for the young mage who needed to travel and experience life. They knew that one day Loki would have taken over watching over Asgard, however these were now also pointless dreams.
Beside the ruling council there was a magical council that many did not know about. They were not a secret council, however they were forgotten. Seven sat on this council and Odin also had a seat in it as well as his wife. It wasn't a council seat where you got the position by family or by politics, you simply got it because you were one of the most powerful magical beings in the realm. The head of the council, who at the time was the most powerful magical being in the realm, that was Aegir at the moment, also sat on the ruling council so the voice of magic could be heard.
Loki had been destined for the head of this council. Odin had figured that he would have been offered a seat into the council in his second millennia, unheard of to join so young but he had been growing powerful as each day passed. He would eventually grow powerful enough to lead the council, therefore having a seat in the ruling council. Many in the court's ruling council had been nervous. With Loki as the head of the mages council and Thor as the king the realm would truly ruled by the House of Odin as they would hold the two most powerful positions in Asgard.
Odin now thought that he should have told his younger son more about what he was to be destined for. He hadn't even known Loki was this magical when he chose to take him from Jötunheim. When he had comforted his son in the weapons vaults, Odin had gotten up from the edge of Odin's sleep to stop him. He had been too late. Loki had already picked up the casket; he asked him 'you took me for a purpose, what was it?' He had thought, let's start with the truth and go on from there.
When he had seen the son of Laufley in the temple he had taken him for the sole purpose of politics. He had thought that he would raise him as his ward with the full knowledge of who he was. He had known that despite Loki's size Laufley wouldn't have let the insult stand. He had brought Loki to his wife to keep hidden for a few days until things settled down. Then he would reveal his plan.
Loki hadn't really cooperated with his plans with staying quiet. He hadn't stopped crying. They weren't sure if it was because they were not his parents or he was reacting to the weather or to Asgard, he and Frigga weren't sure. But just in a few days they had found out that keeping Loki close calmed him. He enjoyed physical contact. Carrying him settled him when he was in a full blown 'someone is trying to murder me' crying. Frigga spent most of the days walking up and down their chambers with him on her shoulder. Odin had gotten up at night when Loki had woken giving his wife a rest and seen to Loki.
He had spent most of the nights walking and bouncing Loki on his shoulder, running gentle circles on his back telling him all about what was happening in Asgard, stories he knew and just talking in a soothing voice until Loki's crying had died down to hiccups and finally exhausted sleep. Then Odin would place him in bed between his wife and would place a hand on his back to keep him warm, which they found out that despite Loki being an Jötunn he enjoed being warm. It had worked on some occasions, Loki would awaken and all Odin would have to do was ran warm circles on his back and whisper soothing words and sometimes that would get him to go back to sleep. If not he started the whole routine again.
When a couple of days of sorting out the end of a war had turned into 19 days, it was time to reveal what he had done, however when the morning came to reveal Loki, Odin had found out that he would rather start another 1000 year old war rather than give up what he came to consider his own. Loki was his and Frigga's that was it. He had decided that he was going to raise Loki as his own.
'But those plans no longer matter,' he had said that day in the vault, he at that moment was back a 1000 years and telling himself that his plans no longer mattered. There was so much more he wanted to tell his son, he couldn't, he literally couldn't as he had fallen deeper and deeper into sleep and he remembered his all too collected son screaming at him but he had been unable to reach him. When he had woken everything had gone to hell. His son was lost. Lost when he was destined for so much more then what he had believed himself to be.
Thor was destined to be king, to protect the people of the realm. Loki was destined to be protector of the realm. In some ways the head of the magical council was more powerful then the king himself. The king had one vote in the ruling council and in theory so did the head of the magical council. However the ruling council usually had to bend to the will of the magical council because at the end of the day you did as they said because they controlled the air you breathed.
The house of Odin had a seat in the magical council because since the foundation there had been a member of the house hold who was magical enough to be offered a seat on the council. However for the first time since the beginning the House of Odin would rule both. Odin had heard the whispers; he had taken a Vanir witch wife for this purpose. He was hoping for a powerful magical offspring. When he had heard the whispers he had wanted to laugh out loud and now how he wished his son would have heard them. It would have given him a sense of belonging to know that the reason the people of the court hadn't liked him was because they were afraid of him and the power he would one day wield.
Odin knew that the removal of his son magic was also a political move by the council as they did not want the House of Odin to hold both positions of power. Loki was powerful, more powerful than many, even more than he himself knew. Over the years every time Loki joined in the spell casting there had been a few interesting incidents as Loki had over powered the spells and once they were left with hundreds of magical butterflies flying around the place for several weeks or there was the time the sun wouldn't set for days or the year that flowers that had grown from every surface.
People had accepted the explanation that it was the mistake of a young mage learning the spells, even Loki was given this explanation and looking back Odin had known he was disappointed in himself, he had thought that he had lacked control over his magic.
His friends had teased him, even Thor had teased him for getting it wrong, but they couldn't tell him it was happening because he was too powerful. Now Odin wished he had handled the whole thing differently. He had actually sat his son down and explained to him to him what was happening.
The handful with the deeper knowledge had known that the flowers that were growing everywhere were actually Asgard's actual flowers. Flowers that hadn't grown since they were a planet, they had answered Loki's call for life to the rock they were on. Odin wondered what would have happened if he had shown his real pleasure in Loki's magical talents, instead of the faint disappointment he had faked so people would not suspect his sons power. Would things now be different? If his son knew how proud Odin had been to call Loki his own?
Loki had been just a child, barely 4, when Odin had cast the 100 year spell with him standing between his legs for the very first time. He hadn't done anything, Odin had just let him feel the magic that he was wielding, it was unheard of one so young to be involved but Aegir had encouraged it. They had known that Loki was magical and it was a good idea for a magical child to feel Asgard's magic early. Odin had been so proud, he had beamed for at least a week afterwards at the weirdest things. People had whispered about it for weeks afterwards.
It had snowed that year.
Again a first as Asgard's weather was also controlled with magic and no mage since the beginning had been able to figure out how to change the seasons. It was always spring time in Asgard, flowers always bloomed. The farms always fruitful, the trees would lose their fruit only to bloom with flowers again.
Odin had known that his little Jötunn son's magic had caused the winter however people who had never seen snow and only heard about it in stories were delighted and believed it to be a sign that the 1000 year old war with Jotunheim was finally over and that they had won. It had continued to snow every year, Asgard having for the first time all its seasons. Odin wondered if they would lose the winter now as Loki would no longer be part of the casting and how people would react.
By stripping Loki of his magic they would be losing the young mages power. Odin wanted to protest, first he couldn't because of his position, and anyway Aegir had done enough shouting on the matter. He was against Loki's removal of magic, he agreed that Loki needed to be punished but he wasn't meant to lose his magic.
Then and more importantly was if they left Loki's magic to him he might grow to be more dangerous. In time when he realized just how much power he commanded then they might not be able to stop him next time. Loki could bring Midgard to its knees just by himself without the need of an army. Destroy other worlds just with his anger without the need of a Biforst.
Odin had to think like a king and not a father, this decision was for the best, Loki's formidable powers would be released to Asgard and make it stronger and Loki would just have to learn to live life as a normal none magical citizen of Asgard.
With that thought Odin put the paper down on the table in front of him and signed his name on it, he whispered a little charm to the deed to make it official and put it on the finished pile and with a heavy heart reached for the next document that demanded his attention.
