It was cold. It was quiet. It was torture. Which, of course, was what it was supposed to be… torture. Loki was no fool, he knew that he was meant to endure this until the very end in punishment for his part in Baldr’s death and his inability to keep his mouth shut at that feast Aegir had. He couldn’t help it. Alcohol always had the effect of loosening his tongue. Combined with the bitterness surrounding the fact that Hod had to die in vengeance for his part in Baldr’s death –he had been the one actually holding the mistletoe dart after all, Loki couldn’t restrain himself. He had been silent too long on certain matters.
So, this was expected to be punishment. But that, however, was not what kept Loki mostly quiet now. He felt guilt, yes, a supreme and crushing guilt that had him internalizing everything he thought and felt... but not for the reasons the Aesir would anticipate. At least not most of them.
Hod’s death had tugged at his heart. Partly because it pained him to watch Frigg openly weep for Baldr but not seeming to shed a tear or even remember that Hod was her son too. And Hod had been a good boy. Mostly, though, it was because he had sort of taken the boy under his wing toward the end and treated him as one of his own. Which, considering his own relationship with Odin, it wouldn’t have seemed odd for him to bond with his blood-brother’s son as he did.
Loki should have suffered, not Hod. Baldr’s dark twin had reason for his part in the scheme to kill his little pretty-boy brother. Reason that Loki shared with no one. Not even his own wife. That was a confidence shared between himself and Hod, and the Trickster thought it was a great disservice done to Hod by all those that assumed the blind god had no idea what was going on when he had Loki help him cast the dart. The boy was smart and not without a cunning mind all his own. No son of Odin was a complete fool. Not even Thor.
So it pained him. He had been hurting so much when he drank all that ale and stumbled into Aegir’s feast that he didn’t know what to do with himself. Loki never would have dreamed of leaving his forced exile, killing one of Aegir’s servants to get the Aesir’s attention or flyting those in attendance. He should have stayed home with Sigyn and their boys… in their home out of Asgard.
Their boys.
That had very near killed him. Had the Aesir not pushed... not scared them so, Vali probably wouldn’t have transformed –a skill not even Loki knew his son had. Being forced to watch Narvi die... he just gave up.
Other than Skadhi, he was pretty sure it wasn’t their intention to kill the boys. No, that fault lay with himself. If he’d have stayed home... if he would have kept his mouth shut… none of this would have happened. His wife wouldn’t be condemning herself to his fate. She wouldn’t be hurting. And he knew she was hurting. It was hard to miss the shifting of position, the sighs and the emptiness in her eyes. She was hurting for her boys… she was hurting physically. It was never Loki’s intention to hurt her.
But he was hurting too. Mentally. Physically. The rocks were cold, sharp and unyielding. As they were meant to be. The cold didn't bother him as much as the damp. The constant cold dampness. For a fire giant, who was nearly always warm, even that chilled him to the bone. And his binding… all that was left of their son, kept him from shifting position very much at all for fear he might damage what remained of Narvi. Vali... they’d never see again.
He played it over and over in his head, every single day. There was very little he said to Sigyn. What could he say? Nothing would make it right.
“Something has to change.” It wasn’t until she spoke those words that Loki even realized he had been looking in her direction. Not at her as much as through her. He still couldn’t bring himself to meet her eyes.
His head turned away from Sigyn and in a low voice, gravely from lack of use, he answered her. “You can go... if you want... I understand... This is my burden to bear.”