Unbroken

Chapter 3

Chapter 3
"wake up!"
Laufeys son was pulled from his miserable sleep by one of laufeys guards kicking him hard in his already broken ribs. He cried out in pain when he felt his bones crack and spilt all over again. But he knew that was a mistake.
"Now don't tell me you forgot the rules about making noise" The guard barked mockingly "you make Noise you get a beating!" He yelled as he took out a metal rod and beat him with it several times. All the young frost giant could do was curl up and wait for the beating to end.
As you can tell, the life of laufeys son was not at all like the life of Odin's son.
The word 'abuse' does not even begin to cover the way laufey treated his son. His son received his first beating when he was two years old when he dared to start crying because he was cold. He quickly learned that he was not allowed to speak or make one sound without permission, and he certainly wasn't allowed to 'complain'. If he ever said he was cold he'd be whipped, if he said he was hungry he was beaten with rods, if he said he was tired he was burned with hot irons, if he made too much noise during a beating the severity and length of the beating increased. It could start as a simple whipping, but if he made a sound that laufey didn't like it could soon become having red hot chainmail laid across his bare back, frying his skin, but a single scream from him would just make it worse again. Not a day went by that some form of excruciating pain wasn't inflicted upon him. He had quickly learned that pain was simply a fact of life. He will always be cold, hungry, weak, and hurt. He had learned this at an early age, and now his life was nothing but a living hell that he couldn't escape.
After several minutes of laufeys guard beating him with a rod he finally stopped, laufeys son was still curled up on the cold stone ground where he had been sleeping a few minutes ago, but it was now spotted with blood.
"Get up" the guard ordered "the king has a lot of work for you today" he added. As he got down and grabbed his hair, yanking his head back so they were looking at each other.
"He's in a bad mood today and you're already late, if you don't do your jobs perfectly today there will be some hot tar in store for you later" the guard told him with a sinister pleasure in his face. The guards loved it when laufey came up with new ways to torture his son, and because laufey found a sick pleasure in causing the young jotun pain the list of ways to torture him seemed to never end.
Laufeys son looked up at the guard and nodded, he didn't want to get beaten again for speaking out of turn.
The guard dropped him and he hit his head hard on the ground, he then felt the cold of a metal collar around his neck.
"Come on runt" the guard said as he yanked up on the chain connected to the collar and forced laufeys son to his feet. Oh yes, runt, well laufeys son was very small for a frost giant, he was a little over six feet tall, which seems tall to a human and an average hight for an asgardian, but for a frost giant he was small, so no one ever called him by any kind of real name, they typically just referred to him as 'runt' because he was so small, skinny, and very very weak. Well who wouldn't be weak after a thousand years of torture and unrelenting abuse? Laufey was able to keep him on the verge of death without actually letting him die, but he was constantly hungry, dehydrated, walking on several broken bones, and in dire need of decent rest.
The guard dragged him along by the neck and brought him to the throne room, laufey was on the throne and terror filled his sons face as he was brought inside.
"He was sleeping" the guard said as he kicked in the young frost Giants knee and sent him stumbling to the ground at laufeys feet. Laufey stood up and then kneeled down, towering over his terrified son. His sons breathing was uneven and slightly panicked as he did his best not to move away or cower, any action that indicated he was trying to get away would result in a flogging and a trip to the lower dungeon (we'll talk more about the lower dungeon later). Laufeys lips curled into a wicked grin.
"Are You scared?" He asked, putting a hand over his sons throat. The young jotuns breathing became more frantic as he nodded.
"Use words" laufey barked, his grin vanishing.
"Y- yes" his son replied with a very dry raspy voice.
"Good. I'll punish you tonight, right now you have work to do" he said as he grabbed the collar and forced him to his feet.
The young frost giant tried to stay standing, thankfully he had gotten good at keeping himself upright even when a lot of his bones are broken or cracked. Like right now.
"The asgardian king and queen are coming tomorrow. You have until midnight to make the palace ready for them" he said "don't make a mistake, you're already going to be loosing several hours of sleep tonight" he said as he waved him away. The guard jabbed his shoulder with the same rod he had beaten him with and pushed him out of the room. By now the young jotun was shaking all over but he forced himself to get to work, he knew he'd receive a massive beating tonight, that was now unavoidable, but he might at least. Be able to minimize it.
The work laufey had given him was overwhelming, he had to prepare the entire palace in one day, a team of five or six men might be able to do it, but one small, weak, starving young man? There was no way. His physical capability was forever being pushed to the limit, and often being pushed far past it. Today it was being pushed far past the limit. =*****=
By the end of the day he had been able to prepare everything in the palace except for two rooms,
his hands were raw, his stomach was empty, every muscle in his body ached and he was seeing spots in his eyes from the amount of non stop hard work he'd been doing. But his time was up now. One of the servants came into the room where the young jotun was doing his work, he knew what was coming and he wished he could just vanish- well, he always wished that.
"Time's up runt" the guard said as he grabbed him by the metal collar and pulled him to his feet "Time to talk to laufey" he said. Laufeys son shuddered in fear as he was dragged to the throne room and thrown down at laufeys feet.
Laufey sat up when they brought him in.
"I hope you finished" he said, his son was silent. Laufey knelt down and forced his son to make eye contact. "Did you finish?" He asked again in a low growl that sent chills down his sons spine. Laufey still received no reply, he was now angry that he wasn't being answered, he took out a knife and cut his son across the side of his face "did you finish?!" He shouted in his face.
"N-no" the young jotun finally said as he winced in pain from the cut on his cheek. "B-but I only have-" laufey cut him off by but locking his hands around his neck.
"I don't want to hear your excuses!" He shouted. He threw him Back down and stood up.
"Take him back to his cage and begin with him. I'll be there shortly" he said as he grabbed The young jotun and shoved him at the guards. The guards grinned and dragged laufeys son back to the dungeon where he slept- well, he didn't ever actually get much sleep. His nights were spent swallowing his own screams as he was beaten and broken over and over again.