AN: This is my first Thor story, and I'm only a fan of the movies, so, as a warning, there are probably discrepancies between what I have written and things in the comic world. I hope you enjoy it regardless.

The swift footfalls of six-year old Loki Odinson were nothing but a soft pitter-patter in the prodigious halls of the palace as if he were merely tiptoeing instead of running. However, the sniffles he desperately attempted to muffle with the sleeve of his tunic seemed to reverberate throughout the entire realm of Asgard.

With his head down, he dashed his usual course through the corridors to his bedroom, but the sudden appearance of a servant at the end of the hall caused him to choke on a startled gasp and duck behind a nearby pillar. The young prince held his breath while looking for a place to hide and took notice of a hallway that would provide a most satisfying escape route. Darting through the passageway, he paid little heed to where his feet carried him and only when a feeling of unfamiliarity registered within him did he slow his pace enough to take notice of his surroundings.

He was in a dark, rather cold passage and by squinting he could scarcely make out the silhouette of two guards on either side of an opening at the end standing motionless with giant spear-like staffs.

"I heard it's a deep, dark cellar guarded by the fiercest warriors of Asgard and the prisoners are worse than the Frost Giants!" A schoolmate of Loki's illustrated the Asgard prison with extravagant hand gestures and a daring smirk to his two accompanying friends standing in the schoolyard.

Loki shook the memories of moments ago from his mind and swallowed thickly. Placing one foot behind him in preparation to turn back the other way, the recollection of events from that day's recess assaulted him once more.

A chuckle spread around the group as they turned their attention back to the young prince sitting at their feet leaned against the base of a tree with a book between his hands. The God of Mischief stared blankly at the printed words on the pages as they continued to pester him, his excessive practice of disregard making it easy. Even so, a sneakered foot nudged his leg with enough force to cause him to cover the smarting spot with one of his small hands and look up at his classmates. "I bet Prince Loki," one sneered his title, "is too scared to go down there and face the prisoners like a king!"

The jibe earned another laugh at the small boy's expense causing him to stand. "It is forbidden. So, you've never been down there either."

"But we are not princes, Loki. Asgard can't have a scaredy-cat as King!" A rather plump, much taller boy taunted, followed by a, "Yeah! We're lucky the AllFather has prince Thor as a son so he doesn't have to give the realm to you, you weird little kid," from the shortest one that still towered over Loki's straightened form.

Loki dug his teeth into his wavering bottom lip and roughly swiped his sleeved forearm across his eyes at the recollection. I am not afraid, I am not! He swallowed the bile in his throat at the silent reassurance he gave himself and puffed his chest out as he had seen his older brother, Thor, do countless times while preparing for his training lessons, or while on one of their adventures that the blonde-haired prince had persisted that Loki accompany him on. He knew what he had to do.

Recalling and conjuring up a spell that would enable him to dodge the guards took a considerable amount of time, but once he had summoned up the perfect trick a roguish smile twisted his thin, pale lips.

Loki watched from around the corner of the corridor as an illusion of his schoolmate that had kicked him caught the attention of the guards at the entrance to the prison. With the two sentinels on a wild goose chase down the opposite passageway, Loki formed a second illusion after dropping the first. This time, a scraggly, eerie, elderly man that Loki had seen in the pages of one of the books in the library that his mother had told him not to read walked into the entrance of the prison causing quite the commotion for the remaining watchmen of the holding cells.

Loki's grinned widened with self-regard, before he took the perfect opportunity to smuggle himself inside the prison of Asgard.

His footfalls were nearly silent as he cautiously edged himself along the walkway of the jailhouse. He could feel his heart pound a fearful rhythm in his chest, but his breaths of air were almost elated with it all. The glow of a light source up ahead lit his path and he made his way towards it with prudent anticipation.

He came upon a room with voluminous windows on either side displaying virgin-white rooms with little to no furnishings. The first two were vacant so he continued to sidle along with his slender hands held behind his back. However, he paused at the next two, for one was a perfect match to the first two, but the other had a corner of darkness as if the space just vanished in that particular area. The young God of Mischief was intrigued by the peculiar difference and stepped towards the window. The change of proximity had done nothing to ease his curiosity because he was still unable examine the dark spot enough to earn an understanding. He made to cup his hands around his eyes and press them against the window, but when he was mere centimeters from touching what he assumed was glass, a frost giant suddenly leapt from the darkness and slammed into the window with spine-chilling snarls at the young boy.

Loki, with his breath caught in his throat, was unable to scream out, but he clumsily clambered backwards, trying to escape the terrifying monster. He tripped on the few steps behind him that led up to the vacant cell across the way, but he kept going, wanting to get as far away as possible. He could feel his magic surge through his body preparing for a defensive attack, but continued to propel himself backwards waiting until his back touched the glass of the other window. However, all he felt was a small pressure instead and an extra surge of energy run through him as he fell through the window into the cell.

Still delirious with panic and with eyes that never left the snarling, imprisoned frost giant, he scrambled to his feet and attempted to exit the cell the same way he had fallen through, but his efforts were met with heart-shattering failure as he found himself locked inside the cell as if he to were a monstrous frost giant.

He tried screaming for help, but even he knew his small voice wouldn't carry through the momentarily abandoned prison. His tiny fists pummeled into the cell but with no avail, as his magic even failed him.

"Pathetic prince." The frost giant scorned while watching the small boy's desperate attempts of escape.

Loki suddenly froze as the voice reached his ears and every night terror he had ever had flooded his already frantic, terrified mind. With no hope of escaping on his own accord, the young prince darted to the back corner furthest away from the monster in front of him and curled into the tiniest ball he could manage while desperately pleading for Thor to save him.

Thor was practicing his newly learned battle moves from his session the previous day while standing in the great room with Frigga and Odin, anxiously waiting for his brother walk in so he could show him.

He was unaware of his mother's impatience and growing worry, not to mention his father's, but a servant's appearance suddenly brought it to his attention.

"My King! Loki has been found in the Asgard prison! He's in one of the cells!"

Thor felt a wave of panic roll through him, though he would never, in all of his future years, address such a feeling, before his feet were caring him towards the prison, with his mother and father's words drowned out by the sound of roaring thunder.

The blonde-haired prince managed to shove and shoulder his way through the alarmed prison guards surrounding the cell he could only assume his younger brother to be in, but a part him, upon reaching the entrapment and seeing the huddled, shaking form of Loki, wished that he had let his father reach the younger prince first. However, at the sight of a guard reaching out to gently touch Loki's shoulder and hearing the boy cry out while curling further in on himself than deemed possible, Thor puffed his chest out and entered the cell, despite the protests of the sentinels.

Thor barely registered the voice of Odin ordering everyone to stand down and give his sons space as he, rather uncharacteristically, made his movements gentle as he knelt down in front of his brother, blocking him from the audience outside.

"Brother."

Loki instantly recognized the voice of Thor, but in spite of the softness in which he spoke, the youngest prince couldn't help the small flinch that jerked his muscles. Even with his head buried in his arms, he knew his reaction warranted a troubling expression on Thor's face because his next sentence was lacking the assurance that his older brother usually bestowed upon him after night terrors plagued him. "Come now, Brother. It's... alright. We've found you and you are no longer entrapped here." Although the words were offered as comforting, they were only received as conformation that Loki wasn't in one of his fevered dreams that he could shakily and sweatily wake up screaming from. Instead, the frost giant was real, the prison cell was real, the many guards he didn't know were real, and last but not least, his brother was real.

Uncurling himself faster than an uncoiling snake ready to strike its prey, Loki launched himself at his brother, small hands fisting the front of the thunder god's tunic and a tearful face burying in the spot between them.

He felt the soft, surprised chuckle in his brother's chest against his face and relaxed at small movement it caused followed by the rumble of his voice as he spoke softly so that only the raven-haired prince could hear, "Loki, I know nothing of how you managed to end up here, but lets not speak with Father about the particulars until we've come up with a convincible excuse that lessens the punishment"

Loki tensed at thought of more penance than the hellish one he'd gotten himself into, but managed a grin he halfway succeeded in feeling until a thought came to him. "You're...you're not angry with me, Brother?"

"Angry? Why would I be?"

Loki could feel that Thor had wanted to hold him at arms length to look at him, but relished in the small victory that his brother hadn't dared to move him as he tried to voice his deep hidden worry.

"For not being brave, and for...not being like you and Father."

His little brother's worry reached his ears with a saddening question of where Loki's simple, little heart had gone in such short, six years, but he partially knew the answer to be that it had been chased away by menacing classmates at Loki's school that Thor had more than once threatened and followed through with it. He wrapped his arms around the small boy even more and replied, "I think a boy that has the ability to pummel a kid that is teasing him, yet chooses not to, is good evidence of bravery, at least stubbornness and that, my dear brother, is much like Father and I."

Suddenly Loki pulled his head away and turned watery eyes up to his. "Do you...really think so?", he asked.

Thor grinned widely as he ruffled his little brother's raven hair, "I know so, Loki, and anyone who says differently will be reminded of it."

Although Loki was forbidden to study or use magic for the foreseeable future, upon recess on the following day, he stood beside his brother proudly, as he delightfully listened to the thunder god tell the boys, who had teased him yesterday, about one of their adventures and slightly dramatized Loki's part in defeating an enemy they had come across, before leaning in close to them and saying, "So the next time you decide to tease my brother, I'd be careful, because if he doesn't do something to you, I will."

But it wasn't until his brother threw his arm around his shoulders and left the quivering-kneed boys standing fearful in the schoolyard that Loki allowed himself to grin.

"Father will not be pleased when he receives word of another complaint about your threats at school, Brother."

"Loki, need I remind you again? They are not threats. They are more like...guidelines, rules! And when I'm king, everyone in all the Nine Realms will know that no one messes with my little brother," Thor grinned proudly.

"Well if you plan on following through with them, it appears as if the entire population of Asgard will have been beaten senseless by then." Loki scoffed.

"You must give our people a bit more credit! They'll surely catch on after the first few!" The blonde laughed.

"That's also what Mother said of you and your daft adventures that keep putting us in the healing rooms, but you seem as dense as all the other Asgardians, Brother." Loki shot back, promptly ducking out from under Thor's arm before the older boy could get him in a hold to wrestle him and quickly raced his brother back home.

AN: Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think!