Loki could feel Odin coming even before he heard his angry footfalls. The King had a very strong presence, and when he entered the room it was nearly suffocating.
"How many times have I told you not to cause trouble, especially during meal times?" Odin began angrily.
"Six hundred seventy-eight thousand nine hundred thirty-four." Loki answered immediately.
Odin glared down at him.
"I'm sorry, was that supposed to be a rhetorical question?" Loki asked innocently.
"Loki, you need to stop this mischief. It is unacceptable from a Prince of Asgard. You can't be going around and make the guards look like idiots all the time!"
"But they are idiots, father," Loki replied.
"DON'T YOU EVER TALK BACK TO YOUR KING!" Odin yelled furiously.
Loki raised his eyebrows and hugged his knees closer to his chest, hoping his face showed a convincing amount of fear.
"You are constantly causing trouble, and I have to clean up your messes," Odin said, "You need to learn to behave yourself lad! Your tricks may seem harmless now, but they will do you ill. I cannot hand over my throne to somebody who does not think about what his childish actions will cause."
Loki internally seethed at how blind Odin was. Thor was the one who aspired to the throne, and Thor was the one who got angry and lashed out without thinking.
Loki was very meticulous in his tricks.
But he just dug his nails into his the palms of his hands till they bled, in order to bring tears to his eyes. He kept his head down until he could feel the tears running down his cheeks, then he looked up at Odin with his large green eyes, with the expression he knew got Odin every single time.
Odin sighed, his gaze softening slightly.
"I-I'm sorry father," Loki mumbled, "I was just so bored."
"Surely you can behave yourself until you're excused from the table," Odin said exasperatedly.
Loki's shoulders began shaking, from what Odin supposed were sobs.
"Nevertheless," the Allfather said, "you're behavior this morning was unacceptable, and your are to be grounded to your room for the next three days, in order that you should think on your actions."
Loki's breath caught, and Odin turned and walked out of the room, closing the door firmly behind him. Loki heard the lock click.
As soon as he was sure his father was out of earshot, Loki collapsed on the bed in a fit of angry giggles. Odin didn't understand anything. Locking Loki in his room for three days, the boy who can't even stand to sit at the table for a few minutes without needing to come up with some sort of prank in order to keep his mind from going crazy? Does that really sound like a good idea? Odin was just asking for trouble.
Loki didn't have a problem with being grounded to his room, since he had all his magic books hidden in various places where nobody but him would find them.
His father had said to think about his actions, and so Loki did.
He went over the whole thing in his mind, pinpointing the all things he did right and the things he did wrong, so he would not make the same mistakes again.
He would need to work on keeping focus of his spells and not laughing. And he should probably have used a levitation spell so he could dump the ale on the guards head from his seat beside Thor. But he had been so tired of sitting down at the table, and he always got a thrill when walking around invisible. Not that it made much of a difference, since people hardly noticed him anyway. But it was still fun, and it was useful for not getting blamed.
But he got blamed for almost everything that went wrong anyway, even though it wasn't always his fault.
Just most of the time.
Loki sprang up and got out his books, lying down on is bed and beginning to study. He should be able to greatly improve his skills in three days with hardly any interruptions. And nobody would be able to blame him, because he was stuck in his room. A devilish smirk began to creep its way across Loki's face. This would be fun.