Chapter Text
The trip had been in silence. Utter silence. It was as if the moment that the metallic piece had been so roughly wrapped around his mouth, Loki lost the sense of all other sounds that life could make. He didn't bother to make so much as a mumble or moan beneath the mask, it clinging over his lips and biting at his tongue. He knew that his older brother wouldn't so much as glare at him if he even attempted a sound. In fact, Thor hadn't seemed to acknowledge Loki's simple existence.
Not after what had happened; Thor would never look at him the same way, nobody ever would. Loki was sure that he was as good as dead the moment he stepped back home, back to THOR'S home. Loki couldn't consider such a place as Asgard his home anymore. He wasn't an Asgardian, so why need he bother? He wasn't going to get a warm welcome, or pulled into the happy arms of a weeping, worried mother like Thor was, so was there anything to bother for in such a horrid, miserable sentiment? It was something that Loki didn't want to feel anyways; it would have only added emotional baggage that he had long since taught himself to hate, manage to drag him into even greater throes of anger.
The demigod tried to keep his mind from the clinking of the shackles around his wrists, rubbing his skin raw and painfully red the more he tried to move, or his taking step after step down the hallways of the main throne to their-
Thor's…father. Loki could feel the gaze upon his body as he approached the throne, boring deep into his very soul. He could feel the judgment pressing down upon him, the air getting thick and hard to swallow.
Loki didn't even try to deny anything as Odin told him of his war accusations, listing them one after another in growing tension of the room, of the few who had heard whispers of his (shameful) return to Asgard and wanted to hear of his fate firsthand. Would Odin sentence his own son to death? The odds were certainly there, placed again him like any other war criminal that had been tried in centuries past before. But would he place such a severe punishment upon his own son?
No. Not his son. Loki doubted that the All-Father even dared to think such a thing anymore, let alone any other soul in the room with the three of them. Through what had happened over the past few years, it would have been a surprise if Odin still saw Loki as anything other than a criminal, an outcast. Assuredly, Loki was little more than that pitiful little baby he had taken so many years ago, the son of his enemy growing up in his own household.
Loki tried to ignore all the looks of worry and joy that fell upon the man accompanying him. Thor was washed in the arms of his friends and family, while Loki was only cast to stand all alone, his arms bound and his mouth covered with a rough, painful metal mask to keep him silent. He tried to push it all out, the sounds, the joy, the happiness.
All the smiles and tears and hugs and shouts and laughter and-
The man gasps in a breath of air as the memory, still vivid and fresh, begins to fade from his vision.
He's still in his cell, staring down upon the cold floor with lifeless eyes, even as the memory plays over and over again. The mask is still painfully wrapped over his mouth, though Loki has gotten a tad bit more used to how it seemed to cut into his cheeks, the leather strap at least positioned low enough then that it doesn't pull as badly anymore upon the metal.
Loki sighs and blinks, unable to think anything further than Thor's face as he left him in the cell, the thunder god watching as Loki stumbled helplessly into the room after being so roughly pushed in. The door had then shut loudly just before the younger had fallen onto the floor, like the final crack of the whip against the already bloody and battered back that was his fate. That was it. There was-and still is- nothing that Loki could/can hope to do in order to help himself.
Magic is useless. Loki has tried, failing each time, to conjure something or another that will get him free from the hopeless prison he resides in. Nothing works. He cannot break the shackles over his wrists, for they merely seem to drain him of any energy he musters up against them. The mouth piece is even harder, almost as if it was created from the power of All-Father himself. Let the entire universe be damned then, Loki probably wouldn't have cared any less.
Why wasn't he dead yet? All-Father certainly should have come to a conclusion by now, the painfully obvious conclusion that the monster he had once lied to call a son was worth nothing more than the sentence of death. He should have already mused upon that horribly biased mind of his, thinking of the perfect way to rid Asgard and beyond of the tyranny that had been Loki.
Surely that was how things were working; surely that was how things would always be.
Loki looks towards death with nothing but blank, unfocusing eyes. Staring down the mere knowledge that death was soon to befall upon him, soon to take him clean from the world and its cold betrayal against him and everything he tried to stand for; he had tried to fix and appeal for the smallest sense of belonging, and even that had failed with (mostly) meaningless bloodshed and pain.
He can already see the counsel of warriors and elders Odin has surely called upon, letting their minds all think of the oh so colorful ways that they could push the lesser god into a painful death.
They will slice his head off (But then Loki reprimands his thoughts; that is much too merciful). Maybe they will take their time in ripping out his heart muscle by muscle, letting the blood drip down his pale skin and color the floor with the undying sin he fully knew that he had committed. Then that idea dies as well, proving to be far too messy than what Odin would seemingly ever want for. Will they starve him? Will they cut him, little by little, until his body could take not another painful tear of skin so much that he was positively red and blistering with the open, infected sores of every life he had taken?
What will they do?
Loki presses the thoughts from his brain, no matter how much he truly deserved to have them plaguing his mind so relentlessly. They are like flies, buzzing just next to his ear in such a way that he cannot shake them away. He can ignore them and continue trying to stare upon the wall opposite him within the darkened room, but they do not leave him. Death. His death. It is too much to think about, too much to ponder and muse upon.
He lays a gentle hand down upon his belly, faintly wincing upon the sting that befalls around his wrist at the protest and jaunting of the metal cuff around it. The skin is almost broken from where he had pulled at the restraints, instead simply a purple mess of bruises ringing around where the metal sits. But the god pays little attention to the pain in his limbs as he does the pain at against his bottom lip. He's biting it, his teeth clamping down so hard against the flesh that it almost breaks through the very skin.
His belly.
He absently rubs his thumbs against it, feeling the gentle rumble of something in return. There is but a small simmer of magic, the gentle thrum of life burning inside of him. Ah yes, he is getting closer, day by day, closer to what he knew would never really come.
It would never get a moment to see the sunshine, never a moment to breath in the fresh, clear air of the world.
It's not his life that he's most worried about, and that alone is the most surprising to the trickster. There was a time when Loki was truly selfish, caring only for himself and his own revenge upon those who wronged him. But…but now, it is different. Because it is no longer about his own life. He couldn't afford to be so selfish when there was something so innocent, so beautiful growing within him.
He recalled the cold, dreadful loneliness. He remembered being ready to finish it all, even if it had to come to his own end.
So close…on the brink of death, of… darkness.
Then he was promised with the power, the septor, everything he needed to seek the vengeful hate he craved, the angry dispute of anger and rage that still numbly battles within the god's heart. It was all for what had happened. Betrayal still courses through his veins to the very moment, cursing Loki into a neverending portal of darkness. And yet, despite the abyss of blood, death and sin that Loki had carved for his own soul, he knew he could not give up, roll over, and die.
He'd be killing his baby.
The only one he wants as much as a mother should have. He craves and yearns to hold it within his gentle arms, no matter if its birth will most likely be in a dark, cramped cell. He only wants to love his child. Only wants it to live, even if he has to die.
That's all Loki wants now. Well, all that his mind can bare to hope for. Everything else is mere childish prayer, something one was always told so they would be good and behaved, but always ripped clean from their very hands until they were bloodied with reality and truth.
So, to keep his heart from breaking any further than it already was, Loki hopes to keep his child safe at the very least. Maybe Odin will have mercy upon the child.
Yes. Mercy. While he himself is a monster in every way, the child is innocent. Not even Odin would sentence an unborn child to death at the expense of his parent's crimes.
Loki leans back against the cold wall and sighs deeply, unable to keep his eyes open for very much longer. It was getting so tiresome to sit there and think of nothing but his death. He decides that he'll ask the next guard to enter the room (in whatever way he can, mouth still covered by the metal piece) if by some streak of mercy, he may have an audience with Odin.
It was going to be shameful, going to be the end of any bit of dignity that Loki still manages to keep with himself, but Loki wasn't about to kill his child for the sake of mere pride alone. Not this child, the one that….meant far too much to him to allow to die.
Loki loves it far too much, and it is barely a little fetus yet. Yes, so tiny, so fragile…. It brings a sudden stream of tears down Loki's face as he thinks further on the subject. No. NO. NO!
He cannot think of it. Cannot. Loki didn't want to be pressed into a broken, sobbing mess yet again that night. The past is just that, the past. Nobody can change what has happened. Though, quite frankly, Loki isn't even sure that he wants to change what has occurred in the past. It is both a horrible curse, but is also the most wonderful blessing he has ever felt before. And it proves to make his emotions run that much more in his growing agony.
Loki barely recalls falling into a fitful sleep, his hand rubbing still upon his belly before succumbing to the constant nightmares of wailing death and lost memories.
He would fight his emotions and mistakes on yet another day.