Cool metal clung to his jaws, bidding them stay together as he was flung into his chambers, forced to stay there and without his magic until judgement was passed by the All-Father. There were no bonds placed upon him spare one; the muzzle. It pained him constantly; with each movement under the metal jail something stuck in him, or pulled his jaws back tight. Slender fingers played with the gag, tracing the scabbed over bits of skin he had inflicted on himself while trying to pry the dreadful contraption from his jaws. The skin started peeling again, refreshing the newly scabbed skin with bulbs of blood that bloomed up over the already wounded features.

The marks of him trying to claw his way free would scar his features most likely without chance of even magic restoring his fine skin.

He could barely think in this state of near constant agony, it was such an awful thing to wear. He wanted to leave; he felt as though he had to leave, or else do something to ease the pain some. His magic had most likely been taken from him, and it was why he hadn't so much as bothered trying to escape...

Growling under his mask, Loki attempted to teleport using his hands to form the spell; hoping and praying to the Norns that he would feel his body ripple and fade into nothingness on this plain, escaping to another... Instead of finding himself in the garden of some Midgardian family, his head and body filled with searing, blinding, crippling pain. It felt as though thick, long shards of glass penetrated every millimetre of his body, and he could do nothing to cease the pain. He cried out to no avail under his muzzle, wishing for nothing more than to have his mouth move freely again.

This was the lowest form of torture, to remove the trickster's dignity as the Asgardians were doing... An unforgivable punishment; he would have rather died than live without meaning or voice. He needed to escape, or find his way onto Odin's better side, or find someone to spend his time without a voice with...

I will kill them... I'll have their heads for this... They can't do this to me! I am a prince of Asgard. I... I will slaughter them all for this. Every damned Asgardian I lay eyes upon will suffer my wrath for this torture... I will kill them all, and then I will rule Asgard myself! What are a few more bodies than already haunt me?

"Loki?" A small, almost timid voice called out into his bedchamber from the thick double doors blocking him in.

No...

The possessor of those soft tones slipped through the doors, her rich dress trailing the floor behind her, barely escaping entrapment as the entrance shut once more.  She was adorned in golds, both hanging around her neck and woven into the fabrics of her cream dress; her hair, greying slightly, had been tied up with plaits around her head; the woman looked frighteningly familiar...

She bolted forward upon seeing the blood on Loki's face, and the muzzle that stopped him speaking. Her hands delicately working to unlock it, to let him speak to her. The woman had not seen him since the day he fell from the Bifrost, and by the Norns, she would be damned to Helheimr before she allowed herself to let Loki suffer alone as he was.

A click, and the muzzle dropped to the ground, a clatter sounding as it collided with the golden floors of the trickster's chambers.

"What are you doing here?" He started, shocked she had come to see him. Loki's shock soon turned to suspicion, "do you not hate me as the rest of them do? As even the All-Father does?"

There was no sound spare a flurry of movement, fabrics sliding across the floor with speed and grace, and then she was holding him fast in her arms, sitting herself down on the edge of his bed and bringing the trickster closer into her; "My son! Of course I have come to see you, my son. You are Loki, and my child. I do not care who your father or birth mother is! I raised you and you are my son! I will not lose you to this madness. I love you, Loki."

He wasn't sure how long his face had been wet with tears, only that it was, and fresh ones rolled down Loki's cheeks to merge with his mother's dress. Frigga had him held in a tight, vice-like hold, her body shuddering slightly as she too wept silently, glad of her boy's return. They remained like that, relatively still and tranquil as they could be, for minutes, before Frigga's hold loosened, and Loki's head came to rest on her lap as he weeped.

"I am sorry, mother!" he sobbed into her legs, gripping onto whatever he could to hold her to him. Whenever the trickster inhaled, his breath was shattered by a heart-wrenching, aching sob that forced him further into the folds of fabric on her lap. "I'm sorry! I never... I only wanted to make you proud! I... I'm so sorry!"

His mother said nothing, merely hushed him and started humming sweetly to him, stroking the dark hair of Loki's head. Frigga let him sob and weep and dampen her dress with his relentless tears. Her son had needed this; someone to listen, to say nothing as he cried, to accept his whole being. Still, Loki continued:

"Y-you shouldn't be here! I-I never... Never want... I never wanted you to see me like this! I... I shouldn't be crying so! I am not so w-weak as this!"

"Sweet boy, no... You are not weak!" She purred, "my son, you are strong as any king! Peasants weep, lords and ladies too, Kings, yes... Even gods must shed their tears from time to time... Even your father cries, Loki, my dear boy..."

Whimpers and sobs were all Loki had in reply. He had not the strength to speak, in fear of blubbering his way into looking a foolish boy. Instead he clung harder, tightening his hold on his mother.

Frigga smiled once more, a sad, pitying, understanding smile. One of a mother looking at her beloved, distraught, lonely son; "Shh, now, my son... I will not lose faith in you... You are my son, and I am proud of you. You have done wrong, and you know s-"

"It hurts, mother!" He finally burst, shrill and pained, "I can see their faces, screaming and begging me for mercy! I didn't want to, I swear! Those people... Those humans, they screamed terribly! I wish they had been silent, and now I am only tormented by their terror... Make it stop, mother... Please! I cannot bear it, what I did to them! I slaughtered them! I can feel the blood dripping from my hands, mother! I can feel how dirty with the blood of dead innocents I am!"

His begging and pleading tore into her. Loki's mother pulled him to stand before her, her eyes filled so far with tears they blurred his gorgeous, childish image, but still she could make out the redness about his eyes, the crumpled expression as he cried loudly, like a child who had seen a long dead puppy; "Loki, look at me... You have wronged, and you must live with that, my son. You have seen more death than Thor, and that could either make you greater, or it could make you feeble... Which would you rather? Rise with your brother, as I wish, or let yourself go down to Helheim? To visit Hela herself?"

Another sob; "I just want it to be alright again! I want everything to be alright!"
"It will be, Loki," Frigga stood to meet him, pulling his head down so Loki's forehead could meet her lips; "I will protect you as best I can... But you must promise me something, yes?"

"Wh... What?" Bloodshot, stinging eyes watched his mother carefully, with a trembling lip and still more tears .

"Be my son again, Loki. You aren't the one I knew... I want him back. I need my child back... Will you give him to me?"

A long pause, before eventually:

"I can try... Mother."



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