Short and sweet. Companion piece to An Appropriate Punishment.
I do not own Marvel or Marvel's Loki or Odin. I do not profit from the writing of this short, short . . . short piece.
He stared at the walls of his prison, his expression carefully schooled to remain neutral, to not show anything to the guards who patrolled the passageways. Loki could tell by their expressions what they thought of him and his actions – traitor to Asgård and all the Nine, not deserving of such a light punishment.
A snort nearly escaped him.
Light punishment? As if!
No, Loki mused. Odin was far too cunning for that. Yes, he'd expected to be executed for his crimes. Despite his bravado and his apparent lack of care for the Midgardians, Loki knew better. Huginn and Muninn traveled throughout the Nine Realms. Daily. Faster than what anyone could blink. The Allfather knew everything that happened in each and every realm.
Not to mention the old man still walked amongst the mortals. Oh, he might say they were beneath Asgård's notice, but . . . there was something about humans that just fascinated Odin. He not only walked amongst them, he taught them. He taught them runelore, whispered to a select few about the doings of the Asa and Vanir alike. Loki knew because he'd sensed his father's presence in the Midgardian city of New York. He'd sensed Odin's handiwork in those who stood up to him and fought, not just in the Avengers, his brother's allies-in-arms, but in several women on the streets. They weren't lovers, either, for the old man. No. He was far too loyal to Frigga for that.
They're his daughters.
Loki blinked at the realization. The women on the streets, either fighting or sheltering those from the attacks, they were shieldmaidens of their own sort.
Interesting. But pointless.
He tried to steer his thoughts away from his father's-not-father's actions and words.
Except that he couldn't. Odin baffled him. Odin claimed it was only because of Frigga that Loki's life had been spared in the first place, yet the trickster saw relief in the old man's eye. Relief! What an absurd (yet touching) notion.
And his brutal honesty mingled with the pain of having to say such harsh words? Well, Loki appreciated it at the same time his bitterness towards Odin grew.
Trying to make up for the lie he told. Or so Loki wanted to believe. Still was going to accomplish nothing. There were . . . things he didn't dare tell Odin, couldn't tell the Allfather while he longed to at the same time. A small amount of fear kept him from doing so, the threat of Thanos so near . . . he didn't trust that the connection between him and the Other had been severed. The last thing he wanted was to tip them off about his current sentencing.
He inhaled a deep breath to settle the fires beginning to burn in his blood. Yes, Odin had undoubtedly found an appropriate punishment for Loki. To be locked away, never to see or feel sunshine on his face again, to be confined into one space . . . He'd been in his damned cell for barely a week, and already he wanted to claw his eyes out from his boredom. He longed to travel, to be out there and to be doing something, anything, other than rotting in a cell. To be confined, contained . . . it was . . . highly appropriate, on Odin's part.
He knows me better than I gave him credit for, Loki mused.
A guard approached his cell. Loki did his best to not tense. Some of the guards liked to taunt him, at least a little, but Odin had not denounced him as his son. There were lines they still could not cross, but that didn't stop them from demeaning him.
Nothing came. Instead, the man stared at him, almost . . . remorsefully?
Loki kept his expression neutral, though the muscles in his face twitched somewhat.
The soldier stood there for a moment or so longer, simply staring. Without a word, he strode down the hallway. Puzzled, Loki watched him go. The hunched shoulders . . .
"Well played, Odin," he murmured. "Well-played, indeed."
So, here we are, at the end of the companion piece to An Appropriate Punishment. I had originally wanted to write that particular story from Loki's PoV, but Odin rather beckoned on that one.
As with An Appropriate Punishment, this story IS complete. It's a one-shot, a slice of character life and all that good stuff.
That said, well, I've been under a great deal of stress lately, putting some burdens onto my shoulders that could have become insurmountable and allowed my emotional state to do a bunch of dictating to me, much like it had during my Inuyasha heyday. My frustrations needed to be worked out, sadly, in a way that was not befitting for me. I have a bad tendency for self-sabotage at some point, something I've been trying to avoid desperately for some time now. I am only human, after all. No excuses, really, but there we go.
This was whipped up quickly in an effort to help distract me some from my current stress of house-hunting and eventual job-hunting in my new home. I hope everyone enjoys it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Finally! A Loki perspective! :D
All errors are mine. Not been proofread.