I had passed out about two seconds after the bifrost scooped us up, and woke up lying in an extravagantly golden room.
The last thing I could remember was Thor's frantic insistence that under no circumstances could his father find out I was there which required keeping me entirely hidden at all times, so I slipped out of bed as quickly as possible and slid up against the nearest wall.
"You don't exactly blend in my dear," a woman who exuded both warmth and nobility was standing across the room and nodding to my jeans and black t-shirt.
I considered pretending to pass out or insisting that I was Odin's special guest and was not to be disturbed or playing the part of an Asgardian spy who had just returned from earth, but ultimately I just made a mad dash for the door. They couldn't tie me to Thor if they couldn't find me after all.
The door closed all on its own before I could even reach it.
"Violet please," the woman put her hands up when I spun around. "Thor asked me to help you. I'm his mother, Frigga."
"You're Loki's mom?" It's not all that surprising that's where my mind ended up.
"I am." She stood up straighter and held her head higher then, the stature of a woman all too used to defending her close relationship with a monster.
"Then he's destroyed you too," I muttered, suddenly wondering why exactly I had come.
"The only person that can destroy you is yourself," she countered. "We may fool ourselves into thinking that life is about what happens to us, but really it's only about how we react to it."
"And how have you chosen to react to it?" I imagined that the person who had created him had to have been feeling some semblance of the guilt I was, but she smiled softly.
"I choose to see through my son and love him for what I know he can be," she was nothing if not honest.
"Yeah I tried the whole 'seeing the good in everyone' thing and, I gotta say, it didn't work out so well for me," I mumbled.
"How can you be sure?" she asked. "Do you know the end of this path you're on?"
I did, in fact, know how my journey was going to end, but that wasn't anything I intended to tell her, or anyone for that matter.
"I guess there's only one way to find out," I said instead.
"You're quite right," she smiled, holding up her hands as a purple gown with gold beading appeared out of thin air. "Why don't you throw this on? And if anyone asks, you're Sara Chanuson, a childhood friend of Loki's."
…..
It turns out when you're walking around with a queen, no one really stops you to ask any questions. Plus a queen knows how to avoid the king.
We were only stopped when we reached the top of a steep descending staircase.
"My Queen," the guard recognized, bowing his head respectively.
"This is Lady Sara," her whole essence making her position of power known. "She is to be given tier two access."
I had been told this meant I was free to roam outside of the prisoner's cells, but was in no way allowed access inside.
"This is as far as I go," she regarded me, and a moment of her deep sadness slipped through. "Remember, don't take other's words as promise. Trust only what you yourself know to be true."
And then she was gliding back the way we had come, and I was realizing that the guard was under the impression that I knew entirely what I was doing.
"Right, well, thank you," I muttered to him before scurrying down the stairs.
I couldn't help but pause at the site that laid before me. I'm not really sure what I even expected of the Asgardian dungeons but it certainly wasn't cells made of shimmery gold frames with clear walls of energy that made the whole place look practically elegant.
The single row seemed to go on for as far as the eye could see, and I just knew the god of mischief would be at the end of it.
Whether surprisingly or not, I had never been in an earth prison, but I had seen enough TV to know what to expect from the inmates as I walked the path between them. So I kept my eyes straight forward and simply let the slurs roll off my back. When I did not provide their expected reaction, the verbal attacks quickly escalated even further, but funnily enough it's rather easy to steer clear of emotions like offense or embarrassment when you view yourself as even lower than they do.
I know I should have felt some sort of dread in the pit of my stomach as I got closer, but truely all I felt was empty.
And then there he was.
Staring absentmindedly at the ceiling, his arms folded under his head, his feet kicked up.
He had no doubt heard the ruckus that trailed after me, but made no move to acknowledge I was there.
I opened my mouth and it was only then that I paused.
What could I have possibly said to him?
Instead, I suddenly found myself sitting with my back against the wall at the end of the row, and settling for simply staring at him.
The god of mischief however, had all the time in the world and I had none at all, so it was I who eventually broke after what must have been hours of contemplation.
"When were you born?" A slight quirk of one eyebrow was his only reaction to the strange question.
"I must say, it is quite curious that you managed to get onto Asgard," was all he said.
But if he wasn't going to bite than neither would I.
"Answer the question," I put as much gusto into my voice as I could manage but he lazily stretched in response.
"Why?" I could already tell he had a way of asking questions as though he was declaring a dare.
"What have you got to lose," I determined.
That's when he finally sat up and looked me in the eyes.
"No no," he practically drawled. "The question is, what do you have to gain?"
I didn't even pause.
"Redemption."
Call me crazy but I chose the tactic of honesty, with a mostly desperate hope that he might, at some point, reciprocate.
For better or worse, that got his full attention.
"Ah yes your hero complex," he practically spat the word.
"Contrary to your messed up beliefs, the desire to be a good person is generally considered a positive goal," I defended.
"You think you wish to be a good person?" He laughed but it was entirely devoid of happiness. "Call me what you will, but it can never be said that I am unaware of who or what I am."
"What is that supposed to mean?" I don't quite remember why I was engaging, perhaps just to keep him talking.
"You've disillusioned your own mind into thinking that you live your life for everyone else, but it is all self-glorification," he growled, rising to his full height to tower over where I rested on the floor. "You act and react to achieve the outcome in which you can look kindly upon yourself. Look at yourself now! You claim to be so distraught over the slaughter of your race, yet here you are solely consumed with your own pain."
"I do know who I am," I hissed, jabbing a finger in his direction. "That is exactly the problem. I know exactly who you turned me into, who I turned myself into."
"Do you?" He didn't bother to hide his blatant curiosity.
"I am the ant you mistakenly believe my whole race to be," I admitted disgustedly. "I am a person who deserves no redemption."
"And what do you feel you deserve?" he was studying me.
"You and I?" I sighed, allowing my exhaustion to write itself across my face. "We deserve a special place in hell."
To this day I'm still not quite sure what caused him to pause, calmly sit back down, and mutter, "1,400 years give or take."
"What?" I squinted at him.
"I'm a bit over 1,400 years old," he snapped in reply.
I had just stared at him blankly and then rolled my eyes sighing.
"Come on," I had muttered. "That's not even amusing."
Loki had looked at me a bit like I was out of my mind, a look which I am now quite familiar with.
"And exactly what age would you find to be amusing?"
"I don't know, perhaps one that's a tad more believable," I threw back.
"You don't believe me," he did look amused then.
"Are you really so bored that convincing me you're somehow over a thousand years old would bring you excitement?" I scoffed.
"My," his destain was back. "You are far more ignorant than I myself would have even anticipated."
He seemed almost disappointed when I showed no evidence of offense.
"You do realize I was just called words way worse than that on the way in here, right?"
He shrugged. "And yet that does not make it any less true."
"You're one to talk about truth old man," okay, I know, I do, I was just exhausted.
"Do you mean to tell me you just witnessed a full alien invasion of your planet and are now on another planet speaking to a god but my being centuries old is where you draw the line?"
I had to admit, his argument was fairly logical, but I still just shrugged.
"You are aware of how I view your significance, or lack thereof," he sighed. "It would not be worth my time to even bother spinning some untruth."
"Fair enough." It was then that I began realizing that there was a lot a didn't know about life. "So 1,400 years. You were born here then?"
He sucked in a quick, almost unnoticeable breath, and then simply waved his hand as though he was shooing me.
"Go away now," he commanded before lying back down in the position I'd found him.
Only the Queen had yet to come back, and I was fairly certain that wandering through the castle wouldn't be the wisest plan of action.
"I'll just stay here then," I snapped, but he gave no acknowledgement.
At some point I felt my eyes began to slip shut and made the decision that I didn't really care.
….
When I awoke, Loki was standing at the edge of the cell, his hands folded neatly behind his back, staring at me.
He seemed to wait almost patiently as I pulled my sore limbs into a sitting position and felt the past day's events come back to me.
I was about to make some quip about how creepy he was when I met his eyeline. The intensity I found there was otherworldly and made me freeze.
He took his sweet time, clearly exerting the dominance he still held even from within a cage.
"Do you fear me?"
It was a dare if I ever heard one, but I couldn't really be bothered to lie to him either.
"No."
An honest answer but not for the reason he assumed.
I waited for anger or an attempt to force me to fear him, but the man, or god rather, defies logic.
He just grinned.
