A/N: Maybe this is getting a bit longer than I thought. Thank you so much for your reviews and your thoughts, and thanks for reading!
It's only later that Loki learns that his release is not without condition. He is to be fettered at his wrists the moment they step out of Asgard, bound laughably by a pathetic band of rare metal that is strengthened in addition by an invisible ring of Odin's restraining power. Even deep in Odin-sleep, the All-father's power still cages him.
It is yet another slight that joins the rest of Odin's wrongdoings.
As they walk through the great hall, no one meets his eyes nor pays him any attention. Where there was once open distrust and suspicious looks, there is now a veil of mourning. At least until their dead have been sent off to the halls of Valhalla before order and routine are restored in Asgard's gleaming great hall.
Yet it's not as though Loki cares, because he doesn't.
Being a prisoner of Odin's magic in Asgard's dungeons has given him world enough and time to come to the terms with the fact that he will always be an outsider on the fringes looking in, a Jotunn runt who has played dress-up in a prince's clothing for millennia. Even though his magical abilities far surpass the physical might of Thor, it has always been and will always be looked on with disdain by the warrior ranks that swell Asgard's hallways.
Or perhaps it was him who had been blind all along not to have discerned it all, when all he'd lived and seen was a life of entitlement and privilege. But no amount of regret or wishing can reverse time, or change the type of blood that courses through his veins.
Loki walks on, with his head held high. Foolish sentiment, after all, is not one of his better indulgences.
To the left of the throne room are his personal chambers, left untouched since he fell from the Bifrost and somehow, strangely undamaged from the siege of Asgard. Its familiarity provides no comfort as he simply sees it as a utility to facilitate what he needs to do.
Shutting his eyes, Loki finally allows his magic to unspool around his thin frame.
When he emerges from his chambers, he's back in his armour, already focusing at the task that awaits them in Svartalfheim and ignoring the looks of amazement that Thor's little party tries to hide.
He looks different in his leathers and he knows it. Taller, more imposing, more formidable. It is his second skin, a flimsy, physical layer of protection that plays its bit part in shielding hurt and resentment long enough so that he can channel them into destructive anger that he's all too willing to allow to course through his veins again.
Then he sees a flash of burnished metal in front of him and tightens his jaw.
The damned bindings await him, the only condition of his release that is guaranteed to cut him straight to the core.
Stoically, Loki raises his hands and lets Thor place them on him. They tighten on their own until they are snug around his wrists, and then it is as though a large reservoir of strength leaves him. Instantly, he knows that his magic so briefly returned to him is gone again, absorbed into the deceptively thin band that is of the same make as Mjolnir and Gungnir, forged in the heart of a dying star and imbued with Odin's own brand of sorcery. Suddenly, the deep well of feeling he's used to nursing is strangely muted and for a moment, he feels sheer relief that the voices crying for justice are silenced. How long has it been since he had been able to think and move without the ever-present spectre of pain and inferiority hanging over his head?
But as much as he appreciates that strange peace, the magical restraints also envelop him within a disorienting web of undefined silence and he finds that the pulsing adrenaline of pending battle lies frustratingly – and alarmingly – beyond sight and perception.
Knowing the futility of what he's about to do, Loki tests the strength of the Uru in his bindings, sending out a brush of his own weakened magic into the core of the metal. The effect is jarring and instantaneous as the metal pushes back, a manifestation of the powerful Odin-force that swirls within its boundaries.
He restrains himself from snarling in frustration. Apart from the humiliation of being led around like a chained animal, his senses are dangerously dulled and utterly ineffective against any ambush of the enemy. There are some things he can do, yet they are petty tasks that would do nothing except to keep himself barely comfortable.
His magic is necessary if they were to survive the oncoming onslaught.
But no one in this farce of a travelling party seems to possess the knowledge of breaking these bonds. And that, he thinks, is yet another presumptuous decision of Odin All-father that's severely lacking in foresight, the price of which might in the end, prove too high for Asgard to pay.