A/N I'm completely ignoring Thor: The Dark World.

Loki: 1196 years old (15.99 years old)

Thor: 1415 years old (18.9 years old)

Strika: an old Norse form of measurement, which equals to about one meter

There was inky black emptiness all around him.

"You think you know pain?"

Loki remembered landing on that barren rock, with as only hope for survival the creatures living there.

"If you fail..."

He had agreed, he'd gone down to earth and there was something so so familiar about the Tessarect's energy. He'd located it immediately, and then-

Nothing. He did not remember anything after that.

So where was he now? What had become of the Tessarect?

"...not overly fond of what follows."

Was that his voice? What-

"I thought you dead."

"Did you mourn?"

Thor... What was his brother...?

Suddenly Loki remembered. The Mad Titan Thanos- right after locating the Tessarect- had decided he was planning to turn and sabotage his plans.

Something had taken over his body?

Loki's next realization terrified him to the core.

Not just something. Thanos had taken over his body.

Not directly, maybe, one of his minions perhaps, but that did not differentiate from the fact that he was being forced he was being sacrificed- used.

"-in the shade of your greatness. I remember you tossing me into an abyss, I who was and should be king!"

Anger welled up in Loki. White-hot rage that dimmed everything else. This parasite had not only taken over Loki's body, he was pretending to be Loki and doing a horrible job at it. Surely someone would notice, Thor would notice that something was amiss-

"You give up the Tessarect, you give up this poisonous dream! You come home."

Home, Loki thought bitterly. I have no home.

That was the last thing he heard before being pulled into dark unawareness again.

The next times Loki was aware of something it was brief. A flash of destruction, a cry of pain before him mind was repressed again.

The boiling hate in those moments for the being that had done this to him was only fueled by the potent nausea that came with having his mind violated, sifted through and used like a rag.

And then- after some amount of time that was impossible to measure- he felt the entity leave his mind.

The hope, the absolute relief from a pressure Loki did not know was there left him shaking. The entity had discarded him because he was of no more use and left him with a tattered body and fragmented mind.

Not a moment was wasted for Loki to delve into his mind- his mind, it was his again- and surround his misused and shattered magic with everything he had. That violation, the blatant misuse and abuse had left it broken and the feeling made Loki want to be sick.

It was a horrible empty hopeless feeling and he wanted to scream at the pain of it.

Unconsciously, more and more mental guards were elected around his mind and his magic. Walls to keep out impossible forces. Velvet to soothe the once beautiful and pure and whole magic.

Only when he could not take the sight of the holes anymore did he notice that he was on the ground. He was shaking, shivering in pain and regret and there was something wet on his cheeks.

He manged to wring open his eyes, terrified at how strange having a real body again felt. He had not realized it but he had not felt anything for so, so long.

There was white, a lot of it. The brightness of the walls and floor and even the ceiling hurt his eyes, even as he remembered white happy home wi-

What...? What had he been thinking just now?

Loki dismissed it and looked around, taking in the contours of the room and the windows edged with golden spells to reinforce them. His heart clenched as he recognized the hall on the other side.

He had been locked up in a special cell in Asgard, he one reserved for enemies of the throne and prisoners that were to be executed.

Loki did not know which of those he was. He may have been both, even. But silently, he wished for the trial of death.

He did not want to live in a cell, locked up for eternity with tattered and broken magic and a violated mind.

Over time, Loki knew, his mind would mostly restore itself. The memory and the feeling of used and useless and the violation would fade into the ages.

But his magic, the very core of his being, it would not be restored. He could never go back to what it had been before this. There was no coming back from the destruction and misuse of magic. It would stay in fragments, darkened robbed of its beauty, which it would never regain.

"Loki."

He did not startle, having felt the illusion come to life in the back of his mind even as he paid it no attention. He simply turned to the figure of Queen Frigga of Asgard, who was looking down at his place on the floor with concern.

"...Mother." He greeted calmly, not finding the energy to put on any more extravagant act.

"How have you been?" She inquired, moving her eyes over his form and lingering on bruises and cuts Loki didn't know were there.

He considered for a moment. Lying would be pointless and ineffective. "I have been better."

Loki pushed himself off the floor to stand opposite to his mother- well, her illusion. "How is Asgard faring?"

He could not care less about Asgard, but he did want to hear his mother's voice and see her face, if only for a little while.

He listened as she talked about the gardens, the balls, the dances. He soaked in her words I'd only to find something, some reassurance that everything would be alright.

Frigga did not mention the reason for Loki's imprisonment. She did not ask him anything or accuse him. She only spoke of better days and starry nights skies, of servants tending to the golden halls and the new young warriors. She spoke of the life, here, that Loki had lived too, once.

He absorbed it all, the words like a gentle melody to him. Eventually, long after he'd sat down against one of the walls and closed his eyes, the lullaby of stories and adventures greater than this faded into the sweet embrace of sleep.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

Loki's days in the prison were spent lonely, empty, with as only solace the occasional visit from Mother's illusionary form and as only divertion from the routine a single instance of him collapsing.

Loki had noticed that over the years, the attacks were still the same intensity of pain as they had always been. Painful, but they did not get worse. And every time, without fail, Loki collapsed and fainted.

But even now, locked in a few square stika and his magic still nigh unusable, no one ever saw him collapsing. Nobody looked.

Loki used to be visited every other day by Mother, but she had been coming less and less, finding other things that needed attending. Loki was silently glad for it, though, as she looked happy when he did see her.

Between the eternal brightness and sporadic moments of fitful sleep, Loki did not have awareness of how much time had passed before something changed.

Another one of Mother's illusions entered his cell while he was sitting against a wall. Instead of beginning to make small talk she kept silent for a moment, before asking, "Why do you not make this room more comfortable?"

Loki did not know what to say to that, so she continued. "The bindings are magic resistant, but the room is not. You must know that."

He did not answer.

The illusion of Frigga crouched down to his height and looked him in the eyes. "Loki," she began softly, "why do I not feel your magic anymore?"

Loki couldn't surpress a flinch at that and Frigga reeled back as if that movement confirmed something, horror in her eyes. "...Loki?"

He did not say a word. His magic was not gone, not as Mother thought it was, but in the state it had been left in it might as well have been.

When Frigga finally left it was with regret in her eyes and silence ringing in her ears.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

The next time something of note happened was an immeasurable time afterward. Weeks, maybe. Loki could do nothing more but stare out of the cell, eyes dull and lifeless, alone with his thoughts. Frigging had not visited since she first started asking questions.

Then, with no warning or indication the shields that he had unconsciously built around the broken core of his being began to fray at the edges.

Wide-eyed, Loki had frozen, caught between bewildered panic and exhilaration. He knew what this meant, he'd felt it before, but it shouldn't have been possible-

The pressure on the shields. Had it come from outside his cell, pushing in, it would doubtlessly have been an enemy trying to incapacitate Loki not that his mind was weak and shattered. But this did not come from external forces, this was his magic pushing against the shields, unraveling them, wanting out.

His magic should not- no, could not be strong enough, orginized enough to do that.

The shields collapsed easily, not constructed to face against this force. For a moment Loki was sightless, awareness of senses all but discarded in favor of the magic and power rushing through his veins, at his fingertips again.

When the power faded away, leaving behind a tingling that reassured Loki of its presence regardless, he took a deep, unsteady breath and let it out again.

His magic, his very core was stable again, no signs left of anything that had transpired. It was impossible- a fragmented mind could be fixed, but a wounded core, it should not be able to be repaired.

Except his was, somehow. By some glorious, unforseen miracle Loki's hands and words held power and every fibre of his being was vibrating with magic once more.

Loki laughed, a disbelieving, awed sound that rang through the white chamber. There was no greater feeling than regaining that which you had thought lost forever.

For a moment, it did not matter he was imprisoned in a world that he had once thought of as home. It did not matter that he might never be free. It did not matter because Loki had found a purpose to his life again, a path to follow.

In that moment, he promised himself, he swore to himself one single vow.

I will never be controlled again, I will never be used again.