Hi, guys! I'm gonna just post the next chapter pretty soon because it's the final chapter, and my dad is taking me on a big trip before I leave for college, so I won't be available for the next Update Saturday. And I don't want to leave you guys hanging again. Leaving you all on the highly emotional note of chapter 12...that was mean. Anyways, hope you all enjoy chapter 14...if you can...
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Chapter Fourteen
A few more days passed before the guards returned. They barged into the cell and took out long, thick chains with multiple manacles. I didn't fight them as they bound me around the ankles, wrist and neck. They forced me forwards and stationed guards at my left and right as they held my chains and led me up the stairs on the left, taking me up to the main part of the palace. They led me through the halls until they brought me to the throne room where Odin waited, leaning back in his throne with a guarded, blank expression.
"Loki," a voice called from the edge of the room. I instantly recognised it. I had longed to hear it again since I broke the hold the scepter had over me.
"Hello, Mother." I turned as best as I was able to look at her. "Have I made you proud?" I mockingly questioned. She had always said that nothing I ever did could make her ashamed of me, that she was always as proud of me as anyone could be, but surely that had changed.
She took a deep breath before quietly asking, "Please, don't make this worse."
"Define worse." I couldn't make it any worse than I already have.
"Enough!" Odin ordered, getting me to look up to him on the throne. "I will speak to the prisoner alone."
Prisoner. Not son. I never was-and never will be-his son.
My mother glanced at me before turning and walking off. I took a few more steps closer to Odin and gave him a mocking salute reminiscent of that he demanded from his troops whenever they addressed him.
If it couldn't get any worse, it was probably best to play it off, convince Odin and others that what the scepter, Thanos and the Other made me do wasn't a big deal. I had overheard the guards saying that the Avengers and SHIELD had contained the damage and were beginning to rebuilt the city. There were only memories and few recordings of the Chitauri invasion. I forced myself to laugh and said, "I really don't see what all the fuss is about."
"Do you truly not feel the gravity of your crimes?" Odin asked. "Wherever you go there is war, ruin and death."
"I went down to Midgard to rule the people of Earth as a benevolent king. Just like you," I countered. At the time, I hadn't meant harm. I wanted to spite Thor and Odin, but I hadn't planned on ruling through fear.
"We are not above them. We are born. We live. We die. Just as humans do," Odin reminded.
I shrugged. "Give or take five thousand years."
"All this because Loki desires a throne," Odin muttered.
"It is my birthright."
"Your birthright," he leaned forward in his throne, spitting every word, "was to die! As a child."
What? He said he found me, but he never said I was condemned.
"Cast out onto a frozen rock," he continued. "If I had not taken you in, you would not be here, now, to hate me."
I took a few steps forward, cutting off whatever he was going to say next. I couldn't hear any more. "If I'm for the axe than for mercy's sake just swing it." Odin stared at me, his expression a mixture of shock and anger. "It's not that I don't love our little talks, it's just that...I don't love them."
I never want to feel the way I did when I let go of the staff in Thor's again. I think that's the reason I gave into the scepter so easily. I've been fighting to keep myself from slipping back into that darkness again, but his words were slowly forcing me down again. I could already feel that darkness pressing in on me at every corner, making breathing even more difficult than the chain around my neck was making it.
"Frigga is the only reason you're still alive, and you will never see her again," Odin pointed out. "You will spend the rest of your days in the dungeon."
The guards pulled on my chains, taking me back a few steps, but I resisted them. "And what of Thor? You'll make that witless oaf king while I rot in chains?" I can't go back into that cell again.
"Thor must strive to undo the damage you have done, he will bring order to the Nine Realms and then, yes. He will be king," Odin answered.
The guards pulled me further along the hall. I was glad to be rid of Odin, but I didn't want to go back. I never minded being alone before, but there was something about that cell that enhanced the oppressive darkness clawing inside of me. The guards forced me back down the stairs and into the dungeon. The gold-yellow walls reasserted themselves, and the guards left me alone.
I didn't know for sure how long had passed. I assumed that every three meals that were delivered was a day, so it must have been about a month. I quickly grew crushed by the space of the cell that seemed to get smaller by the day. I had paced the length of it more times than I can count. I watched the other prisoners through the filter of the magic containing walls, and they watched me through theirs. More and more prisoners from various worlds were marched in, and each and every one of them glared at me with suspicion, as if they were sizing me up.
One day, a few guards came in. Two of them cornered me and stared me down while the others delivered placed a large bed against the one stone wall of the cell. After that, they walked back out. One said that it was from my mother but nothing bed brought some level of warmth to the hard cell, though it caused the others in the dungeon to glare at me with hatred rather than a kind of hungry mistrust. I could sleep comfortably and it stopped reminding me of where Thanos and the Other kept me, but even with the bed, my sleep was always restless. I kept revisiting the destruction I had caused in New York. I woke up in a hot sweat, the moment I killed the possessed, blue-eyed version of me playing over and over again in my mind. It wasn't every day that one saw their own dead body, and the moment wouldn't leave me. Frigga would send me gifts of better meals and books, tables with pencils and paper, but none of it could keep everything from my mind for long enough.
I turned to my magic for distraction. I cast illusion after illusion, making the cell feel bigger than it really was. They lasted long enough to make me forget it all. Forget about the scepter and the dreams it gave me, the destruction of New York City and Thor's desperate pleas for reason. Forget about my heart that was steadily sinking lower and lower.
The crowd roared as I ascended the stairs. Lady Sif and the Warriors Three bowed to me. I turned to face the people once I arrived at the top of the stage, and they cheered even louder. I put my hand out, Miljoner flew towards me, and I caught it with ease. I raised the Hammer, proving that I was the rightful ruler here, and the people grew impossibly louder.
"Loki," a voice called. I turned to find Frigga standing with her arms crossed gently. "What are you doing?"
"I'm giving the people what they want," I laughed.
"Does all this make you feel better?" she asked.
I sighed before turning back towards her, the real world creeping in on me again. "It certainly doesn't make me feel worse."
Frigga took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Cast enough illusions, and you'll risk forgetting what's real," she said quietly.
"Precisely," I muttered, letting the illusion drop. I wanted nothing more than to forget everything, to imagine-just for a moment-that everything was slightly better than normal.
Once the image and noise of the illusion faded, and the real world came back, I noticed a parade of people from various worlds being marched down the prison hall, surrounded by guards. "Odin continues to bring me new friends," I breathed. "How thoughtful."
"The books I sent," Frigga reminded, "do they not interest you?"
"Is that how I am to while away eternity? Reading?" I responded, feeling only half of the amusement the thick sarcasm in my words implied.
"I've done everything in my power to make you comfortable, Loki."
"Have you?" I wondered, leaning over the table she sent me. "Does Odin share your concern?" Frigga raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Does Thor? It must be so inconvenient, them asking after me day and night."
"You know full well that it is your actions that brought you here," she reprimanded.
"My actions?" It was the scepter's actions. It was Thanos and the Other's actions. Not mine. I might have given in, but it was they who destroyed New York City. Still, no one could know. "I was merely giving truth to the lie I've been fed my entire life," I sighed, turning my back to Frigga as I lied. She could always see through my illusions, whether they were done with magic or not. "That I was born to be a king."
"A king?" Frigga wondered as I turned to face her. "A true king admits his faults. What of the lives you took on Earth?"
Please don't remind me. "A mere handful compared to the number that Odin has taken himself," I justified, pacing back towards the golden wall.
"Your father-"
"He's not my father!" I snapped, my entire being flaring with anger and frustration at the mention of him.
Frigga froze and stared back at me. "Am I not your mother?"
Every part of me said that she was my mother and that I was her son. She taught me and looked after me, but that was all just another lie created by Odin. "You are not," I muttered.
Frigga smiled gently and shook her head, giving a small, amused laugh. "Always so perceptive," she said, coming closer to me, "about everyone but yourself."
We looked at each other for a while, but it was time for her to go. Mother was the only one to ever visit me down here, and it always made this cold cell seem a little larger and a little warmer, but I couldn't have any more of our talk.
Mother held her hands out and I shook my head, reaching for her out of habit, and my hand slid straight through the projection. She visited me down here every now and then, but even that was an illusion. We couldn't ever touch. We weren't really seeing each other, but it still made me feel better, distracting me just enough. Her form evaporated before my eyes, and I was left alone again.
See you guys super soon for the final chapter!