The Last Shifter (a Loki romance)

Chapter 77

We landed in the Bifrost sphere, where an armed party was waiting. As soon as the light of the Tesseract dimmed and faded, guards came forward and violently grabbed Loki by the shoulders and marched off. The guard that remained led forward a pair of horses, one was a white stallion I had never seen before and the other was Apollo. Loki's steed. He also tried to take the Tesseract, but I pulled it away.

"My mission on Midgard was to retrieve this and deliver it to Odin and that is exactly what I'm going to do."

Astride our mounts, we caught up with Loki and then passed him with ease. I would've stayed with him, but I had to do some yelling at Odin before the 'trial' began.

The rainbow bridge ran straight to the palace. There was a giant golden wall that would block any adversary from getting in, if they managed to get past Heimdal that is. Fortunately, I was not an enemy, so the large, impenetrable doors swung open and let me in. From there, Apollo galloped up to the main entrance. I felt like I had no time, adrenaline was rushing through my veins. I swung off the black stallion and gave him a shove over towards the stables. The guards manning the doors scurried to open them in time. Once inside, I all but sprinted to the throne room. Odin looked more than surprised when I came bolting into the throne room. I didn't bother bowing or showing any sort of respect to him, I marched right up to his glorified chair and hurled the Tesseract container at him.

"There's your prize. I hope you know what I went through to get it."

"Asgard thanks you for your service."

"Bullshit. Now screw the formalities. You can show me your gratefulness for my toil to get you your intergalactic transporter's battery back by not sentencing Loki to prison, or death. But you weren't going to do the latter anyway."

"You know better than most why I cannot do that. The people will see it as a favoring of the privileged."

"Since when have you ever cared about what the 'people' think? Besides, I can prove that Loki isn't responsible for his actions on Midgard."

"And how is that?"

"When he fell in the Void. He was picked up by Thanos."

"It does not matter. He still acted of his own free will."

"No, he didn't! Thanos had the Mind Stone, he used it to take over his mind. When I found him, he was an entirely different person! I was able to give him some free will, but I couldn't break the bond."

"And with this free will, he committed these crimes?"

"He stopped himself from making it worse! He could've taken over the mind of a second Avenger! That would've changed the outcome of the final battle!"

"But it was his free will!"

"NO! Thanos has punishments in place is he was not obeyed to the 'best' of Loki's abilities. Mental pain."

"This does not excuse–"

"Yes it does! He had no choice but to do what he did, because if he didn't, he would be subjected to mind-crushing pain!" The doors to the throne room opened again, and I could hear the thuds of many footsteps, as well as the clinking of chains. I knew that the court was now officially in session, but I decided to test my luck.

"I hope you know what you're doing."

"SILENCE, Shifter! You have no voice here."

"I AM HIS WIFE! I HAVE MORE OF A VOICE THAN YOU!" He had no response to that, and granted me the last word. I moved to the side of the room to where Frigga was as Loki was walked right up to the foot of the throne, but he stopped for a moment in front of us.