Loki's sentencing by Odin was fast, though merciful; he fully expected to be condemned to death. Perhaps the old man was sentimental in his old age... or perhaps his mother deserved all the credit – she did have the old king's ears and heart, after all.
"Loki," she whispered.
He turned around in his blinding white cell to face his mother, Frigga, concern etched on her features and tears in her eyes. Her curly blonde hair was done up beautifully with ribbons and a metal comb, her emerald dress trimmed with golden lace and adorned with a white brooch. Loki supposed she wore green to offer him some sort of sign of unity, but he was not so easily swayed. Still, a visitor for even a small time was a welcome distraction from the thousands of years of captivity ahead of him.
"I thought Odin forbade you from visiting? Forbade anyone from visiting?"
"Odin does not see everything," she said with a smile. "As far as he knows, I am in my study, practicing my magic. Which, truly, I am."
Loki smirked.
"An illusion, mother? And people wonder where I learned it from."
She smiled again and her image appeared to sit on the bed.
"Are you comfortable?" she asked, trying to make small talk.
"Comfortable enough," he muttered, looking back outside his cell.
"Do you really miss her?" she asked him softly. "Truly?"
Loki froze in a whirlwind of emotions. Murderous anger was the first to rise inside of him, followed by sadness, then loneliness, and finally defeat. It had been only days since his capture and sentencing, and those were mere trifles of time considering his lifespan, but it felt as though he had been apart from Lyanne for centuries already. He was not sure how to answer his mother.
"Yes," he said haltingly. "I do."
"Do you wish to see her again?" Frigga asked.
Loki whirled around quickly in anticipation and hope, but it was only to see his mother's illusion wave her hand and make an image of Lyanne, standing in place, unsmiling. He felt something inside of him akin to a knife in his chest and snarled, turning away.
"I'm sick of your presence," he seethed. "Leave me."
He heard Frigga sigh sadly behind him before her image vanished and he was once again alone. Well, he considered, not truly...
He conjured an image of himself sleeping in his cell to trick the guards, but behind that was another illusion, one no one but he could see and enjoy. A vision of Lyanne, smiling and bouncing on the balls of her feet, leaning in for a kiss. He leaned forward, but as soon as his lips touched hers, the image vanished and he was once again in solitude.
Eternal solitude.
Lyanne awoke with an unthinkable headache, a goose egg lump in the back of her head where a soldier had struck her, and only a vague recollection of what had transpired. She was captured... so was Loki... the gems were in Odin's possession, and no doubt scattered once more, this time more carefully. She was utterly, utterly alone, and helpless.
"Lyanne," came a smooth voice from behind her.
She turned around in her small (though heavily barred and protected) cell to face a middle-aged man in a laboratory coat. He looked smug, but reverent – it was an odd combination and Lyanne immediately distrusted him. She bared her teeth, but realized that since she was in her human form she probably looked like an idiot. Relaxing her snarl to a scowl, she watched the stranger intently.
"Where am I?" she asked. "What are you going to do to me?"
"You're where you belong," the man answered softly, still smiling.
"And where is that?" she nearly whispered.
The man merely kept smirking his unsettling smirk, but glanced around at their surroundings, subconsciously prompting Lyanne to do the same. She examined her bare, tight cage, the guards, shuffling scientists, the dim lighting, the computers, walls...
Wait.
She squinted through the near-darkness to look more closely, where an unfamiliar symbol was hanging on the wall. It looked vaguely like a skull and something else, but it was unsettling and she turned back to the man.
"You don't recognize us?" he asked, pretending to be hurt. "After all that we've done for you."
"Done for me?" she asked, suddenly hopeful. "Are you bringing me to Asgard?"
"NO!" the man laughed, "Don't be stupid."
Lyanne frowned more deeply and the strange man approached her cage as closely as possible without being within her reaching distance.
"Still don't get it?" he whispered menacingly.
Lyanne shook her head and wrapped her arms about herself. The man tsked and began walking away from her, gesturing to the small, lab-like room her cage was enclosed in.
"We made you who you are, Miss Brooks," he said with a grin. The other scientists in the room examined her from afar. "We are your mother, your father, your life-givers – at least, we have been these past few months. Figuratively speaking, of course."
He approached her cell once more.
"It was us who gave you that elixir – the shot in your arm. We are the ones that created you. Who made you all that you have become – humanity, improved and nearly perfected. The dawn of a new age of man – we are unstoppable, undefeatable, and undetectable – cut off a head, and two more grow back."
Lyanne's eyes opened wide in horror as he leaned in and whispered...
"Hail HYDRA."