Adverse Effects

Chapter 1

The man with green eyes stared up at the blank, white ceiling stretching above him, gleaming dimly in the dark of the room.

“Rise and shine, you miserable wretches! Half an hour until lights up!”

Sighing with tired acceptance, the fallen Prince began to rise, listening to the sounds of his fellow captives stirring in the cells beyond his own. He hadn't slept much, contemplating his imprisonment and endlessly scheming about escape routes. Now he sat on the edge of his bed, opulent for a gaol but fitting of his social status, and rubbed his eyes, mentally drained.

He rose, pulling on the black breeches and green overshirt he had discarded on the back of his chair the night before.

Last night. His first of many within these walls. Last night, when he had been viciously thrown into his shiny, white cage, smiling back at his guards maniacally. Last night, turning to laugh at his oaf of a brother before the light extinguished and all was dark.

Pulling on his boots, he walked over to the shimmering window of magic that kept him apart from the world outside. He peered out, straining to see something, anything of the dungeons and it's other inhabitants but, until the lights rose, he knew he would be unable to. Even in prison, some vestige of privacy was respected.

At least he would try and have some fun.

He leant against the wall next to him with his forearm, hand balled into a tight fist and glared out into the gloom. While he couldn't use magic here, he could still certainly use his powers of intimidation and, merely to stave off sheer boredom, the miserable occupant of the opposite cell was going to feel the full force of his menace.

A smug expression on his face, he waited, imagining the jolt of fear that would run through their eyes. Probably a dark elf or fire demon. Or one of the marauders that tore apart Vanaheim. Ugly brutes, but no match for the pressure he could convey with his piercing gaze.

With a metallic whirr, the power flared up and light poured into the cells.

He struggled for a few seconds to focus, the brightness disorientating his retinas. The blurred shape before him walked slowly about it's hold. As the thing that faced him became clear, his bravado fell and an intake of breath surged unconsciously into him.

Whatever he was expecting, it was not this. No indeed.

Loki's 'neighbour', was a woman.