A/N: So, instead of judgment at Odin's hands... this time, Loki finds himself in Federal court in New York. A little bit of Law & Order knowledge is probably close enough to enable visualization here. Let me know what you think!
Also, in this story I imagine Loki having the power to read mortal minds at least to some degree. Dunno why.
The first time he was dragged before a Midgard judge Loki had no idea what was going on. They dumped him in a small cage near the great hall (courtroom, he learned by probing the mind of the bored guard who was sitting outside his cage) and told him to wait his turn; there was another criminal ahead of him who had to go first.
He was mildly offended that he wasn't considered important enough to skip the line, but on the other hand, the sooner he was judged the sooner he would be punished. Waiting was probably a good thing, on the balance.
To occupy himself while he waited Loki looked around. There was another prisoner there too, in a different cage, and there were some worrying things in his angry little mind. One was the stray thought, aimed in Loki's direction: Pretty boy like that, he'll be somebody's girlfriend aright. That seemed worth following up on, so Loki ransacked the mind of the guard and discovered that it was not entirely uncommon – though not officially condoned – for prisoners to rape one another for purposes of sex or dominance. The best protections were gang affiliation, which he did not yet have, and brawn, which he did not have and never would. Wonderful. Well, he would think of something.
Just when he was starting to wonder how they planned to cram a rapist into this tiny cell with him, guards came to fetch him and bring him into the courtroom. He was sat down at a table beside a woman who tried to whisper to him and shake his hand, but she didn't look like an enemy and Loki was much more concerned with the people who did. There was a quick little man in a suit whose job was to accuse him, and guards who stood around ready to subdue him if he misbehaved. Not that there was much he could do, mortal and unarmed… but he found the presence of the guards gratifying. There were spectators, too, sitting in benches at the back. Many of them appeared very angry, but there was a short wooden barrier keeping them away, and for some unfathomable reason they seemed unwilling to storm it. Perhaps it was electrified?
Everyone clambered to their feet as the judge entered the room, and once things had settled again the audience started. The judge spoke into a microphone. "United States versus Loki Laufeyson."
He wondered whether he could get the judge to repeat the announcement minus Laufeyson; he didn't much like it and United States versus Loki had a marvelous ring to it. But before he could ask, the procedure moved on. The woman next to him stood and introduced herself to the judge as appearing on behalf of the defendant, and Loki laughed aloud when he realized that the poor thing was meant to be championing him.
He tugged on her sleeve and whispered: "Please tell me this is not a trial by combat."
The look she gave him was quite expressive, so he dug into her mind and discovered that trial by combat had gone out of fashion everywhere that was considered civilized. Who knew.
"This isn't your trial at all," the woman said at last, once she was seated again. "This is just arraignment, just... just the beginning of your case. Okay? Now there's no way in hell you're getting bail, so what happens after this is they take you over to the MCC – that's the jail. And then I come visit you, and we plan a strategy for your defense. Okay?"
Loki was frankly curious about what kind of strategy could be employed to defend him. He nodded.
Soon it was the turn of the quick little man in a suit to talk, and he did a very poor job in Loki's opinion, as he sounded bored and perfunctory, and there was no discussion at all of punishment, unless remand was a new type of Midgardian execution he had never heard of.
The judge made some noises, no one except the spectators exhibited any anger, and then the hearing was over. He was led away by guards in suits. They were courteous to him but still he couldn't help but notice that they wore telephone earpieces, but no armor. Was it more important for guards to stay in communication than to stay alive?
The cell they brought him to was in a different building and was rather like a small room, much larger than the holding cage he had waited for courtroom in. When he arrived the room was empty; he was told that his cellmate had a lawyer visit and would not return for half an hour or more. Bars and mesh made the window quite depressing, and anyway there was only the grey side of a building to look at, so Loki looked for entertainment elsewhere.
There was a book on the cellmate's bed which appeared to be a self-help manual for criminals preparing to stand trial. Since knowledge could only help him, Loki picked it up and started reading.
Some time later he heard footsteps and clanking, and he put the book down. Time to meet his new best friend or worst enemy.
The man was enormous. Tall and heavy, with hair down past his shoulders in ratty braids, sleeves pushed up to reveal forearms easily as thick as Loki's neck.
They stood staring at each other for a moment, and then Loki's nerves frayed and he said, all in one breath: "I should inform you I have received penetrative sex from a stallion the size of a bus and so if you're hoping to intimidate me with whatever pathetic little tool you've got hidden in those ugly trousers there I'm afraid you're going to be disappointed, because I can assure you I will not be impressed."
The prisoner's forehead creased. "Huh?" he said at last.
Loki dove into his mind to learn the style of his thoughts, and tailored his message accordingly. "I once fucked a horse. So if you show me your cock I'm only going to laugh at it."
A long minute passed. Finally the man snapped: "Where you went to college at."
Loki's turn to stare in stupid confusion. "What?"
The man heaved a sigh and rolled his eyes. "Where. Did you go. To college?" he enunciated carefully, and this time Loki understood that it was meant to be a question.
"Oh. Beg pardon." He mind-read from a guard down the hall to find an institution that was prestigious, because he deserved it, and also foreign, in order to explain why he didn't know the first thing about the city around him. "Oxford."
"Yeah. Aight." He was nodding, apparently very satisfied.
"My name's Loki."
"Low-Key? How you doin Low-Key. I'm Efony."
Didn't sound like any name Loki had ever heard before, but then, he supposed he was rather out of touch with modern names anyway. "Hello... Efony."
Another eye-roll. "Ayn-fuh-nee. Wit a T-H."
"Ah, sorry, of course. Anthony."
"You wanna help me wit a motion? I'm wri'en it myself, I got it all wrote out aready, but I know I ain't write it real..." He groped for a word. "It ain't..."
"Coherent?" Loki could not for the life of him understand why Anthony spoke as if he had marbles in his mouth; his thoughts were not so strangely accented. "Certainly," he said, and jumped down from the bunk. "I'm an excellent writer and I'd be happy to look over your work. But – forgive me, but isn't that something your lawyer is supposed to do?" The defense manual was proving useful already.
Anthony shook his head, laughing softly. "Man, you new. You gotta protect y'self, man. These lawyers... they do what they gotta do, an you gotta do what you gotta do."
Loki touched his mind again. Anthony had been in prison several times before, and had dodged prison several times in addition to that. He could be a valuable source of information, even more so if Loki could get freely at what he knew instead of having to dig around for fragments of it in his drug-addled head.
"Anthony, how about this. Let's make a deal," he proposed. "I'll help you with whatever you're writing, and then, we'll talk about my case and you tell me what you think I should be doing to protect myself. How does that sound?"
A slow, ponderous nod. "Aight."
The End.
I kind of think Loki would do just fine in our criminal justice system. It's pretty much as crazy as he is. In fact, this story is dedicated to a couple of defendants I've known for whose behavior there is absolutely no better explanation than that the God of Chaos was whispering in their ear all along.
And, I don't really think I'm going to continue this, even though I do think that an attorney-client visit with Loki would be gallons of fun. I just have no idea where the story would be going and it would likely descend very quickly into crack, so this is it unless sudden inspiration strikes.
Let me know what you think! Next I'm contemplating one where Odin comes down pretty squarely on Loki's side. I usually write a pretty harsh Odin and I want a change.