Nothing within Loki's vast imagination had prepared him for how torturous the punishment for his crimes on Midgard would be. He had expected to be sentenced to a lengthy period of confinement in the dungeons, perhaps even stripped of his royal status. All of that he could handle with his trademark sneer and impervious attitude. It wasn't as though Loki needed the company or esteem of people whom he hated, anyway.

What Odin had done was so much worse. Such a simple instrument – a needle and length of thread immersed in heavy sealing magic. Ten stitches across his lips, binding his silver tongue and marring his face with a horrific emblem of shame and silence.

He had tried pulling, cutting, and using what small portion of his magic was left to him to overcome the charms on the thread. It was all to no avail. He was trapped like this, unable to speak or even open his mouth to breathe. He could make stifled guttural noises, which were next to useless when it came to communication. He could drink through a tiny, hollow reed that he forced through a gap between the threads. He could not eat anything, and hunger had become a primary attribute of his existence. Most infuriating, he could do nothing to escape the discomfort of his enforced silence. The wounds on his lips stung constantly, and his jaws ached from being forced together for so long. The stitches were so tight that they even interfered with his ability to make basic facial expressions. His silky lies, enticing stories, and sharp-tongued wit were all taken from him. If not for Thor, he would have been completely stuck inside his own head, unable to relay any of his frustration and rage to the world.

If not for Thor. What a joke that was. If not for Thor, Loki wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. He would be ruling Midgard as a benevolent god, as was his birthright. Instead he was confined to his chambers in the palace, guarded night and day, and chained on the few occasions when he was allowed to venture outside. His chambers had been stripped down to their barest state, all the lavish comforts he was used to replaced with ugly, Spartan furnishings. Apart from his family, he could receive no visitors, though Loki knew full well there was no one who wished to pay him a visit. In the beginning, he had been allowed to keep a few of his servants to tend his rooms, but Loki couldn't stand the way they looked at him. The disdain in their voices, the mockery in their eyes. They knew he was unworthy. One by one, he drove them off with violence until he languished alone in his prison. At least this way, no one could set their eyes on him and see how far he had fallen. There was no reprieve from the endless misery of his existence. Even sleep only brought with it nightmares of falling from the Bifrost, unable to scream in fear.

Now six months had passed in Asgard. The wounds on his lips were mostly healed, though they still bled occasionally when he pulled at the stitches. Odin never came to see him, and Frigga had gradually stopped visiting since she could not bear to see her son in such misery. However, no matter how strenuously he rejected him, Thor continued to insist on invading Loki's rooms several times a week and trying to talk to him. It was maddening because there were so many things Loki wanted to say, or rather shout at his idiot brother, but he couldn't speak a single word. Occasionally Thor brought him parchment and a quill so he could express his pent-up frustration, which made him feel slightly better, but this was the only mercy he was allowed to receive. His rooms had fallen into a state of disarray, and sometimes he was alone in them for so long that he felt he would break under the heavy silence. That was when he started tearing and smashing anything he could get his hands on, just to hear something that wasn't his own stifled breathing. Now most of his chambers' furnishings lay broken around him, and the wallpaper hung in tattered ribbons that stirred occasionally in the wind.

Loki knew he was in a state of ruin. He also knew that, for the first time in his existence, he couldn't see a way out. At the end of each day, the only pleasant thought he had to cling to was the fervent hope that he could fall asleep without dreams and never awaken again.