Chapter Text
Her golden dress flowed behind her as she descended the stairway, a river of tranquillity that brushed the tiles of the palace floor with a quiet hush wherever she went. The goddess placed her palm upon her youngest son's bowed head and waited silently for her next command. Behind them, at the top of the stairway before a throne as gold as the threads of hair on his wife's head, the Allfather looked over the crowd with his all-seeing eye. With a grand gesture of his staff impacting the ground, he drew all the world's attention to the punishment he delivered.
"For these crimes against the Allfather and for the peril placed upon the people of Asgard, may you be banished to Midgard and stripped of your Seithr-" a gasp from the crowd, a rise in the King's voice and a shudder from the son knelt before the queen "-until you learn true compassion, humility and respect for creatures you deemed below you. Let it be known that Loki Odinson, Prince of Asgard, will never return nor be pardoned of his crimes until such a day," he said, his one eye burning into his son's two green eyes hidden by a veil of loose, wild, black hair, "if ever, comes to fruition."
The King slowly sat upon the throne and looked down toward his wife, Frigga and their youngest son. With a solomn moment of eye contact between himself and his wife, he said, "begin the enchantment and I will prepare the energy required for his journey."
The Queen, with a sorrowful expression, looked down to her son who she had raised for over a millennia. Her hand settled against the coal black head of hair and combed through the strands with a practiced ease.
"Forgive me my son, my precious child, and remember I obey with love in my soul for your return. Come home soon, my darling boy."
Loki could not bring his eyes to pair with Frigga's as he prepared himself for what was to come. His fists were shaking by his side as he closed his eyes.
A terrible scream filled the court as the Prince convulsed and retched where he knelt, a golden glow of magic surrounding his entire being. The Queen turned her eyes to the ceiling as she worked her Seithr to bind her son's to the enchantment, tearing it away from his grasp and locking it away. Loki panted and twitched and cried out, the court filled with onlookers to his shame and pain. His anger at the King grew as he held himself upright against his body's desire to sleep away the agony of being cut from the magic his mother taught him to control many, many years before. It was his sunshine he could summon any time of the night, his mischief he could manipulate into forms beyond imagining to the common Asgardian, his guiding light from the shadows of his brother and father's tall, broad backs as they walked to a different future from his own.
His brother was quiet and terribly pained by the sight of Loki's agony but as the King's eldest, Thor could do nothing beyond what he had already begged from the Allfather, to spare Loki's life despite his heavy crimes. Thor felt the guilt like a chain around his neck and it pulled his posture toward his feet in shame. His only joy was inthe fact that Midgard's people were capable of many surprising things, and had he not been banished there himself he would be disbelieving to any who told him as much. As soon as his duties as Prince were fulfilled and the bifrost reconstructed, he vowed he would return to Earth himself to find Loki as well as his own newfound friends.
When Loki could bare it no more, his body fell sideways to the cold floor of the court at his mother's feet. He watched with heavy breaths as Thor stepped towards him to support his body but was stopped by Odin rising from throne. Through heavy eyes Loki pierced his gaze through Odin's equally fiery eye and then found himself in darkness.