Loving Loki

Prisoner

My head was pounding. It was so dark. Those were the first thoughts to enter my mind. They were followed by, my back hurts. I forced my eyes opened and winced. My head felt as though someone had cracked it in two and tried to sew it together. I groaned a bit. As my eyes became accustomed to the dim lighting, I began to notice my surroundings.

I was lying on something soft, a couch or a bed perhaps. I tried to move my head to see, but my vision swam and my head throbbed as I moved. The ceiling was glass. Odd. Two of the walls surrounding me were gold and see through. They were fence like and shimmered. The other two walls were stone. Green. It was the theme of the room.

Then it hit me. Well, it should have hit me sooner, but my brain felt like it had been through a strainer. I sat up. Too soon. My back cracked and my head pounded. I felt dizzy, spots were forming in my vision. Breathing was difficult. Somehow I managed to sit back against the pillows that I had been laying on. I wasn't exactly laying down, but I was supported. My head slowly began to clear.

Loki was watching me with faint interest from a chair across the cramped cell. The silence began to feel wrong. I cleared my throat. We had been staring at each other for several moments. It took that long for me to remember everything. It came back a piece at a time and I slowly waited for it to all fit together while I observed Loki. When the last puzzle piece clicked, I felt my eyes grow wide.

" What happened?" I asked in hushed and awed tones.

Loki stared a moment longer before talking in an emotionless voice.

" After your tumble, your friend, Lawrence I believe, went a bit crazy. He took off and ran to the castle apparently. The Allfather is currently away negotiating peace in the surrounding realms, leaving the captain of the guard in charge. According to the fool of a guard that locked you in here, Lawrence told everyone everything. They came to investigate and found you on the ground. After making sure you weren't dead, the captain decided that the best course of action was to lock you in here as well, thus making it impossible for you to tell anyone of my whereabouts. If they put you in the dungeon, you might tell someone and a guard may over hear it and before you know, not a single person DOESN'T know of my whereabouts. They plan to keep you here until the Allfather returns. The captain cannot determine the punishment for you without the Allfather's approval. They locked Lawrence up in an insane asylum. His talk of finding Loki in a cave, shall not arouse curiosity as most people in his state talk of things of that nature." He finished and returned to the book which he had placed on his lap when I awoke.

I tried to process it all. I was locked in here for a indefinite amount of time. When I was released, it would be to face certain punishment of the worst kind. Probably execution. But what frightened me was my mother. She would go insane trying to find me. She wouldn't rest until she found me. That was what was scary. She was so weak. She would die. It was a certainty. She was susceptible to any sort of diseases. She would scour all of Asgard for me, likely looking in every street. I knew that was exactly what she would do. She wouldn't know I was here.

My mind went through all the steps she would take to find me. I let out a strangled, choked sob, earning me a look from Loki. He put the book down and began to observe me. I couldn't stay. I had to escape, even if it was for a moment. She had to know I was safe. My mother was selfless and she loved me more then gold. She had told me herself more then once. She once told me that if I was ever to be lost, she would always find me. As cliche as it sounded, that was always her promise.

I stood up, waiting a moment for my vision to clear. Then I rammed into the golden wall. It pushed all my force back on me. I fell back several feet. I got up and tried again, my body shuddering with the impact. The third time, I was stopped by a pair of surprisingly strong arms. I looked up and saw the emerald green eyes that I had always loved to draw. They had a slightly worried look in them. Loki's eyebrows were furrowed and he had a stern grimace on his lips. He walked me over to a chair, his hands firmly on my shoulders, directing me. He pushed me down until I sat.

He placed his hands on the handles of the chair and looked down on me, his eyes searching mine. I edged back, his stance making me uncomfortable. He straightened himself back up into a standing position, after having stared at me for several moments.

" You cannot escape. You are only injuring yourself by ramming your insignificant body into a wall made to resist much more then what you can do. I have tried and failed. If I could not do it, you most certainly cannot." He said with a dominating, bossy tone.

I stared down at the floor, my chest heaving with anger at the people who put me in here and the sadness that blossomed within me. Tears slipped rebelliously down my cheeks. I let them go. I swallowed and leaned my head back, closing my eyes.

" Is it truly so awful to be in here with me?" A broken hollow voice asked.

My eyes flashed open, for a moment thinking someone had come in. Then I realized Loki was the one who spoke. He was still standing before me and on instinct I stood up and touched him. He rippled before disappearing entirely. Where the image had been, Loki sat, the look in his eyes nearly as broken as my own. I realized I was looking at the real him.

He wasn't a hero. He wasn't a villain. He was a human. And he was broken. Just like everyone else was. I knelt down and placed my hands on either side of his face, lifting his head to look into my eyes. His eyes hid secrets and a painful rage that slowly destroyed him. I traced one finger over his eyes and he closed them.

" Loki." I whispered. I couldn't say anything else. It was awful to be in here because I wasn't free to save my mother, but at the same time, in this moment, in this small universe of a second, I felt as though anywhere else would be wrong.

I felt his arms, once so strong, weakly wrap around me. He pressed his face into my dress front. I stroked his hair lightly. He cared about me, about my happiness. He was heartbroken because he couldn't be my happiness. I felt all this in a moment and I wondered absently if he had placed the thought in my mind. I allowed my tears to fall lightly onto his hair.

I wondered what had broken down his wall. If it was my hopeless desperation or the willingness to try even though it was useless. It didn't matter. He needed me and I had to be strong for him, if not myself. All I had left in me was love and I gave it freely to him, for no one else could. I gave him my heart that moment. He may never know, may never see. But I gave it freely.

I crooned softly, singing a lullaby that my mother sang to me when I had a bad dream. We sat there, me singing with broken tears and Loki, holding on for dear life, as though I was his anchor. And in a way, I was.