Five chains are required to work the spell of binding. One on each ankle. One on each wrist. One around the neck.
They are slender chains, delicate, little more than a thread of twining gold. Alone, each one may be easily snapped with no more than a finger's strength. Together, with the binding spell woven through them, they are as strong as the fabric of the universe and just as unbreakable.
The chains, when fastened to the body of a prisoner, will dissolve all power. Their victim is left without strength, without stamina, and without hope. He is no longer counted among the Aesir. He becomes, in essence, human.
My chains are fastened by Forseti under Odin's watchful eye. I do not disgrace myself by struggling and clawing at my last receding shards of freedom like a wild beast; I would rather salvage what dignity I still retain. I keep my gaze fixed on Odin as the final chain is draped around my neck. He does not flinch away from seeing my punishment fulfilled. There is no mercy in his face, only maddening conviction that this is justice served.
"Loki," he says in a voice stern and even. "You have been tried and found guilty of crimes against the peace of the Nine Realms. For this, I order you stripped of both power and title. No longer will you live among the righteous folk of Asgard, but will be considered our prisoner, ever bound in dishonor. This I order, and may my word be never undone."
He nods, tilting his chin with a grave finality. I feel Forseti's hands at the back of my neck.
"Thank you, father," I spit, "for this gracious mercy."
"It is nothing you have not brought upon yourself," he softly replies.
I am prepared to feel some form of deflating weakness as Forseti links the chain, forever binding it around my neck. I am not prepared for the blinding agony that rips through my body like fire. A jagged bolt of pain, a white-hot whip, flaying skin from bone. Blood rushes to the surface, but I do not know if I am bleeding because I can no longer see. My vision is clouded with burnt red.
I think I fall to the floor. I think I am screaming as I do, howling and writhing like the animal I promised myself I would not become. But then, this might be a fevered dream, because the pain slowly segues into hazy nightmares of panic and anxiety, where I crawl through endless black tunnels to escape the pursuit of an unseen enemy. It seems to last an eternity.
ooo
When I wake, my body still aches with the remnants of the binding spell's torture. My head pounds and I struggle to breath under some invisible weight bearing down on my chest. It takes all my strength merely to sit, and when I do, my raw throat clenches with the urge to vomit. I hold it back, though barely.
I am starving, but the thought of food turns my stomach. I am thirstier than I have ever been in my life. Once, Thor told me that humans must eat and drink several times each day. Am I now cursed with such bodily demands?
No.
I will never be like them. There is always a choice.
I ease down onto my bed again and try not to hiss at the residual pain that slices through my shoulders. Across the room, on a table directly in my line of site, is a tray with bread and fruit and a pitcher of water. I turn my back on it.
That is how I spend the first day: lying to myself that I am above my body's base needs.
On the second day, I find that I am crawling across the floor to the water, hating myself as I do.
On the third day, I eat and drink everything I am given like a dutiful little prisoner. It makes me feel a little better, and feeling better makes me realize that I am furious enough to want to live, if only to see revenge.
ooo
My prison could be much worse. It could be a dank stone cell buried in some forgotten corner of a mountain. It could be a mile-deep pit scarcely wide enough for me to lie down. Instead, I have been given a spacious and well-furnished suite of rooms atop a tower. The bedroom has a comfortable bed, several chairs, a table, and a wardrobe. Numerous windows in the wall opposite the bed overlook Odin's palace in the distance. A single door in one wall opens into a small bathing chamber, and a double door in another opens into a large sitting room with more chairs and tables. The sitting room has a balcony. Unprotected.
However, as I remind myself, it needs no protection now. If I were to jump, I would not survive. Odin surely gave me this balcony as a torment, to show me how close I can be to freedom without ever having the means to take it.
A second set of double doors, which I am surprised to find unlocked, leads out to a corridor that ends in a staircase. There are no guards. There is only a strange mist of shimmering white that fills the corridor in a filmy wall from floor to ceiling. If I touch it, my hand feels unpleasant, as if it is being pricked with a million tiny needles. If I stand too close, my head begins to spin and my stomach lurches, making me dizzy and sick. If I run at it in an attempt to break through, my legs give way after only a step and I collapse like a wounded animal, retching on the floor until I can scramble my way back to my own side.
Each time I try to force my way through the mist, the sickness takes longer and longer to dispel. But this does not stop me from trying.
There are no guards. There is no one to whom I might speak, which I am certain is a deliberate arrangement. I am alone with the mist and my thoughts. The mist I could do without. My thoughts, though, are the only thing I have for entertainment in this place. (Once I grow weary of trying to claw my way through the mist, that is.) The chains have had no effect on my mind. It is both a blessing and a curse: a blessing that I am not forced to drown in the sluggish ignorance of a human brain, and a curse in that the lack of all other distraction leads me to spend far too much time simply thinking. It could drive one mad to have the presence of mind to think of so many plots, so many possibilities for escape and revenge, while having no physical hope of ever attaining them.
I will probably go mad in here. I must make a pact with myself to leap from the balcony if I ever consider trying to organize an army out of the chairs.
Forseti told me before the chains were linked that Odin has agreed to allow me visitors after nine days in solitude. On the sixth day, I am so bored that I begin to think that any visitor would be a pleasant diversion. Even Thor with his newfound, heavy-handed morality. Listening to him lecture me with crude metaphors might be preferable to pacing my rooms and holding one-sided debates with imaginary foes.
On the eighth day, it occurs to me that perhaps Odin's concession was not meant for my benefit, but rather to present others with the opportunity to mock my sorry fate. Who would come to see me out of sympathy? Mother. Thor. Perhaps Thor's friends, grudgingly, at his insistence. And who would come to gawk at the spectacle of Loki caged?
Half of Asgard, no doubt. And then I begin to dread the dawn of the tenth day.
ooo
I make a bet with myself as to who will be my first visitor. Option one is Thor. Option two is Mother. Option three is a massive, jeering crowd. As it turns out, I am wrong on all counts and lose to myself three times over.
My first visitors to this prison are Sif and Sigyn.
Sif pounds on the door while I am standing on the balcony, wondering what would happen if I were to jump. (Would I lose consciousness as I fell, or would I still be awake as my body shattered on the ground?) I, foolishly assuming it is Thor, throw the door open and prepare to snarl at him to leave. Instead, Sif, with her chin held high and nostrils flaring, stars at me with a look that could stop a rampaging boar in its tracks.
"Oh," I say. What else can I say? Of all the people in Asgard, she is among the last I would expect to see here so soon. There has always been a prickly, uneasy distance gaping between us, even when we played at friendship for Thor's sake. She never trusted me. I never had any use for her.
"Do not look so confused," she growls. "I did not come of my own accord." With that, she jerks her head to the side in a gesture to something just out of sight, and I lean out to peer around the doorframe.
Sigyn, looking every bit as drained and broken as Sif is resolutely tough, stands in Sif's shadow with her hands clasped and fingers knotted. Her skin is oddly pale and her eyes red. She has been weeping. As she looks at me, her lip trembles.
"Oh, Loki..."
And then she breaks down in tears, falling onto Sif's shoulder while sobs wrack her body. Sif wraps a protective arm around her and glares at me, as if this pathetic display is entirely my fault.
"Come inside," I offer, turning my back on them. I have no interest in watching that. "Would you care for some wine? Sweets?"
Sif follows me into the sitting room but keeps her distance, staying along the walls and leading Sigyn to a chair near the balcony. "No."
"Good, because I am in prison and have neither. There's a pitcher of water on the table. Serve yourself if you grow thirsty."
She does not cease her glaring as I sit opposite Sigyn. Nor does she join us in the chairs.
I fold my hands together over my knees. "So. My ladies Sif and Sigyn. What brings you to this dismal place on such a fine morning?"
Sigyn glances quickly up at Sif, as if asking for permission before speaking. "We... we heard what happened to you. The chains... the binding spell... We thought it harsh and cruel."
Sif clears her throat with excess force, almost growling. "My dear friend Sigyn was distraught," she says, stressing the name to distance herself.
"Yes, Sigyn has always been so kind-hearted and sensitive," I reply, smiling at Sif. "Would that more women were like her!"
That one misdirected compliment is enough to stop Sigyn's weeping. She leans suddenly forward, placing her hand lightly atop mine, and looks at me with wide, shining eyes. "I spoke for you, Loki," she says in a low, fierce whisper. "At the trial, once they had taken you away, Forseti asked if there were any present who would speak on your behalf. Your brother spoke, but only to ask that your sentence be more lenient than what others demanded. So then I stood because... because... I could not believe the things they said of you. I told them you would not act so. I said you had always been very fair to me and were a good man at heart. You did not deserve to be treated like a criminal for doing what you thought best."
Behind her, Sif huffs and snorts while scuffing her feet against the floor. Like an impatient horse. I have never had any use for Sif, sharp-minded and suspicious as she is, dangerously loyal to Thor. But Sigyn... Sigyn is different. Kind. Soft. Trusting. Naïve.
"Thank you, Sigyn," I murmur, taking her hand in mine. "That was most thoughtful of you."
I can use trusting and naïve.