Whumptober 2023 ~ Marvel Edition

'Don't Move.' - Brodinsons

Day 21:

"See the chains around my feet."
Vows | Restraint | "Don't move."

~~~

The only noise in the hall was made from the clanking of the metal chains at Loki's feet and wrists.

Even if the guards were allowed to speak freely, he sincerely doubted they would make the effort. Why would they, anyway? He was not their prince anymore, no; now he was just their prisoner. Some war criminal whom they would toss away in the dungeons and never have a second thought about again. Oh, how the mighty had fallen.

Loki was almost to the end of the hallway when the awful silence was finally broken by the sound of Thor's voice.

"Stop," he boomed to the guards. Loki rolled his eyes and came to a halt along with the rest of his group. "I wish to speak to the prisoner alone."

"But the King said he is to go straight to the dungeons," one of the guards tried to speak up.

"And your prince is telling you to hold on a moment," he replied. "You may wait directly outside the door, and I will return him to you as soon as we are done, but you will let me speak to him alone, is that understood?"

"Yes, my prince," the guard said as he bowed his head, then turned to leave, along with the others.

The guards left, and the room became silent once again.

"Why?" Thor asked, breaking that silence.

Loki rolled his eyes. "Why what?"

"Why didn't you fight for your freedom?" Thor asked.

"What would be the point?" Loki asked. "No matter what I could have said, I am the villain in Odin's eyes. I would have just been wasting my breath."

"Loki, as much as Odin is mad right now, he is also your father. He may not be able to show that right now because of his duty as king to this realm, but he wants to be on your side. All you would have had to do is give him a reason to come to your defense, but you gave him nothing to work with. You showed no remorse, you gave him no reasonable explanation for your actions; you gave him no choice but to treat you like a criminal, because you decided to portray yourself as one."

"Did you ever stop to think that perhaps I am just that?" Loki asked. "That I showed no remorse because I have none? That I gave him no reasoning for my actions because I have none other than to get what was rightfully mine?"

"I don't believe that," Thor insisted. "I do not know why you insist on putting up this facade, and I am sure that some of what you speak is true to a certain level, but I know you, brother - perhaps better than you do yourself, sometimes."

"Is that so?" Loki asked. "If you know me so well, then you tell me why I did what I did - if you're so insistent that there is some alternative reasoning for my actions."

Loki smiled while he waited for an answer that he knew would never come.

"If I knew that, I wouldn't be asking you," Thor replied. "What I do know is that you are unwell, brother. You may try your best to hide it, and perhaps you can fool everyone else, but you cannot fool me. When I first saw you on Midgard, your eyes were sunken in, your skin paler than usual, and when we talked, you spoke of things differently than I had recalled them. I don't know what happened to you in the year we were apart, but I do know that you are not yourself."

Loki scoffed. "That tends to happen when you find out that your whole life was built on one giant lie."

"What, that you are Jotun?" Thor asked. Loki cringed at the use of the name in regards to himself. "I agree that it was something that Mother and Father should have told you sooner, but that fact does not make you any less my brother, or their son."