Loki Misses the Asgardian Prison System

Chapter 191

Knock knock knock.

"Go away," Loki mumbles into his pillow. He is so tired of saying this. Why can they not just take the hint? Why must he say it over and over and over again? Why will they not just listen?

"Loki, darling," a very pleasant, very familiar voice says, "it's just me."

That changes a lot.

At some point during his nap, Snowflake seems to have migrated off of him, so he has no problem sitting up – which then answers the question of where Snowflake went: she's lying on top of his blanket, which has somehow landed on the floor. That would definitely be a normal Snowflakey place for her to be.

Loki walks over and opens the door, and, just as he'd known he would be, he's greeted by the beautiful face of his mother. He gives her a small smile. This is a nice surprise – with a very strong emphasis on surprise.

"What are you doing here?" Loki asks her. "Is Thor here?" She never comes without Thor.

She shakes her head. "Unfortunately not," she says. "He's been offworld for quite a while now. I don't know when he'll come back."

Loki frowns. "Is he alright?" He'd always assumed Asgard knew everything his brother did. Should he be concerned that they don't?

"Oh, yes, Heimdall says that he's perfectly fine," Frigga assures him. "Just busy – fighting his battles; you know how he is."

Loki forces a smile. There was a time he would have been told what battles he was fighting. In fact, there was a time when he would have been fighting them along with him, though that has had to change for obvious reasons. He misses those days. They were awful, of course. Everything about his life has always been awful. But at least he was allowed to know what was happening, which is far more than he can say now.

"Heimdall told me you've been asking for him," Frigga tells her son. "He thought you might like to see me, where Thor's not here."

Admittedly, Loki really did want to see Thor specifically. He lives here – part-time, at least. He knows this place; he knows these people. He would understand in a way that she can't.

But he knows his mother, and he knows that she'll do the best she can. She'll try to understand, maybe even more than Thor would. She'll give him advice; she'll give him a hug. It's not what he wanted, exactly, but it's enough.

So Loki steps back and lets her into his room, closing the door behind her. He doesn't expect anybody to bother him while she's here, but he doesn't want to take that risk. He offers her a seat on his bed – where they usually sit; the most comfortable seat in his room – and she takes it, sitting beside him and taking his hand in hers. Even just that is comforting. Even just that is enough to know that he's making the right choice by talking to her.

"What's wrong, my dear?" Frigga asks softly.

Loki lets out a long breath. He doesn't even know where to begin.

"Has Heimdall told you anything that's happened since Thor left?" That really is when it all went wrong. It went wrong after Thor left. It went wrong when Thor trusted the Avengers alone – and it went wrong when Loki made that same mistake.

Frigga shakes her head. "He told me today that you've been asking to see Thor, but that's all I've heard."

That's probably for the best. He wouldn't want her to have an incomplete – or worse, incorrect – understanding of what's happened, although he has to admit, he really was hoping that he wouldn't have to repeat it all aloud. But he has to, if he wants her to understand what's upset him, so he does.