thirty five
"growth"
Casia, despite prior warnings not to hesitate, hesitated as she watched Lusine advance towards the four Dark Elves that opposed her.
This was beyond anything Casia had ever experienced and, no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't conjure that fire inside of her through the freeze of fear that had overcome her senses. Like she'd been stumped at the source, the fire would not come to her battle cry this time. It sat silently, blinking, unmoving.
All she could do was witness as Lusine bit off more than she could chew.
The first was taken down with ease. Lusine moved in a collected manner. Appeared completely submerged in that killing calm she wore with the ease of a trophy wife in silk. It lulled the enemy into a false sense of superiority over a woman armed with only two daggers, her magic in a faraway place to regrow into at least shade of its former self.
When the bolder of the four took a swing, Lusine swung back and carved the dagger through its throat in lightning speed.
The first collapsed to its knees beneath her; fell forwards into the dust where its bones would remain for centuries to come. Forgotten.
The remaining three advanced at once. They understood the threat before them would not die easy. Would not die without leaving a legacy behind to live on in her name.
Though the flames roared in her ears, Casia was a statue of witness to the third near death of Lusine Volkov.
The second elf was dispatched, but not quite so easily as the first. Her breathing was visibly laboured and the remaining two did not relent attacks when their brother fell.
Lusine drove the daggers in and pushed the body back into the floor, both her and the dying elf gasped for air. Though she was quick even in her fatigue, the other two enemies were quicker.
As she turned to deal with them, they dealt with her. Their blades were driven through her simultaneously. One through the side, one through the shoulder.
That moment, the trauma reared its head, panic set in and seized control of her limbs, and rendered her nothing but a doll to play with.
Lusine's eyes went wide and her body unmoving as they drew the weapons from her flesh and drove them in again. This time, she fell back into the dust, lungs tight, breathing rasped and struggled to gather the life force to keep her ticking over as they pinned her down with their blades.
Casia's cheeks were wet beneath her hands as she covered her mouth in horror at the sight of Lusine unable to defend herself. The crime set her in motion. Thawed the frozen cogs of her machine and sent her, at last, moving.
Despite her beginnings of an attack, much too late, she found she wasn't needed as the Dark Elves were efficiently, though undeniably desperately, torn away by the adept fight of Loki Laufeyson.
She wiped her eyes and turned away as soon as she knew her mentor was saved from her fate. For now, she would fend off any remaining Dark Elves from getting anywhere close to those she cared about, as she should have done in the first place.
That ache inside of her wasn't the flames, as it often was in those hours of the night where she was left to stare at the ceiling and wait for the taunting to die down enough for sleep to reach her. It was guilt. Guilt that she hadn't been there to defend Lusine's back.
What would she have felt if Lusine had died right there and then? What would she have done if Loki hadn't rushed to her rescue?
Those thoughts were unhelpful.
Regret was misguiding. Yes, it could lead you onto a path, but that path would not be one that could ever lead to joy. Another route would be more beneficial. Would lead her to overcoming binding fear to become a better woman.
There was no time like the present to begin along that journey.
Now, she would not hesitate in slaughtering each and every Dark Elf in sight. To char them to the bone and watch them crumple into dust at her feet.
This is what she was made for, though the glee of the phoenix inside still rattled the nerve.
-
-
When her body had fallen back, all she'd seen before her was the seething face of her mother.
Selene Kella grinning with the blade in her daughter's stomach, glowing as she shoved her into the king's throne and asked her if this was all she'd ever wanted, hissing as Lusine was held on the throne by her trusted hand, and joyous as she ruined beauty with the swipe of a dagger.
That face.
That mother's face contorted by grief and hate. It haunted her in every hour, daylight or midnight. Never left. No, never. It never could. How could a child forget the smile their mother wore in the midst of murder? The murder of the child, nonetheless.
On that day, Princess Lusine Volkov died in the throne of her father at the hand of the queen lost in revenge.
The pain would always remain. A fact of the scars that marred her skin. Married to the flesh like a radiant bride to the prince of nightmares.
In the present, she was Lusine and she was dying once again. With every blade that tore through her flesh, her tether to the physical world grew weaker. Until, all at once, the threat was gone, though her body still sank into the dust like a corpse after the final blade was pulled, exhausted through the attack panic had undergone on her.
Above her swam the ever-lovely face of Loki Laufeyson, though his handsome nature was warped with concern as he knelt at her side.
"You saved my life?" Lusine breathed out, lifting a hand to touch the wound in her front. Her fingers came back red. That colour was quickly becoming too familiar of a shade upon her skin these days.
"Yes," He replied, his hand slipped beneath her head to support her as she peered at him with silver lined eyes, shifting lilac before his gaze.
"Well," She laughed airily, but the act pained her and caused her to wince, "thank you, but you have more pressing matters than me."
"Do I?" He questioned as he used his free hand to brush the hair that had stuck to her face through the toxic mix of sweat and blood that drenched her.
"I'm not going to die here. You should help your brother." Shakily she reached a crimson hand up to him and just held his cheek tenderly, leaving a smudge upon his paled skin. "It's never too late to become who you want to be, Loki, never."
Thickly, he swallowed and rose from her reach to his feet. With a nod, he left her side and stalked into the battle once more, those words of hers reverberating inside his skull.
-
-
Their fight had its rise and its fall, but sometimes honour isn't enough to win. To pull the victory in close and kiss its brow like an old lover.
Thor's fight against Algrim was one of honour, though he was eventually beaten down to a man, bloodied and bruised, rather than a beloved god of lightning.
Casia stuck by Jane's side, ready to defend her should she need it, at Thor's request while he dealt with the threat of Algrim, who towered above them all with a superiority complex.
Now, however, it seemed this superiority was more than a complex. With every move that made that seem truer, Casia found herself debating leaving Jane to fend for herself so that she may aid Thor in his fight, though she wasn't sure how much help she'd really be.
Beside her, Lusine had managed to sit up, but nothing about the aura she gave off was comforting. From the way she swayed and had to steady herself to the words muttered under her breath, Lusine was not up for joining the fight again.
"You hesitated." Lusine pushed her hands into her hair, dragged her own blood into her locks. "You hesitated," She repeated, "and I almost died for it. Maybe you're not as ready as we thought you were. You hesitated! I should never have let you come here." Lusine's hands dropped into her lap, head bowed low. "You should have stayed on Midgard."
Casia lowered her eyes. "I'm sorry for hesitating. I was afraid," She admit.
"This isn't the time for being controlled by fear. You should know that." The flood of anger and disappointment filled Lusine with enough strength to stand, though she steadied herself on Casia's shoulder.
"I'm sorry," Casia reiterated. "I just froze up. I couldn't move."
Lusine smiled thinly and removed her hand from the woman. "If that had been you," she said, "I would've done anything to save you." A solo trickle of blood ran from the corner of her mouth and, as she spoke, Casia could see her tongue stained crimson with ichor.
"No!" Thor's voice cried out, calling them both from their confrontation and focused their attention instead on the nightmare that was Loki impaled on the blade meant to kill Algrim.
"Loki..." Lusine breathed out, every drop of air inside of her escaping with his name.
"See you in hell, monster!" Loki shouted as Algrim's own cortex weapon exploded before anything more can happen, and the monster is destroyed, though not without costs.
There's always a price to pay for a little taste of victory.
Thor rushed to Loki's side in disbelief of the sight of his brother dying right before his eyes for the second time.
Lusine pushed away from Casia, their minor argument already forgotten in place of a much greater event and hurried past bodies to fall to her knees at his side, even as her wounds wept.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry," were some of the last words he spoke as Thor comforted his dying brother.
Lusine found herself abruptly out of place but couldn't let him go without being there to tell him he was valued more than he could ever let himself know.
To think she'd once declared him an enemy was a hilarity now.
Nothing needed to be said. Her presence was enough. He knew she loved him, no matter what her words may have told him in the past. She folded a hand over his, her thumb rubbed circles on the back, but frowned at the touch.
"I'm sorry," He repeated, though his voice was strained through the pain.
"It's okay," Thor told him, nodded his head as if to convince himself too. Lusine reached across the body between them and placed a hand of comfort on his shoulder. The boy who'd lost his mother was now losing his brother. "It's alright. I'll tell father what you did here today."
"I didn't do it for him," Loki replied weakly and, at last, he was released to peace as his eyes closed and life escaped him.
The illusion of Asgardian skin faded to the blue hue of a Frost Giant and, along with it, Lusine's composure shattered. Tears streamed down her face as Thor cried out in anguish for the life lost on that day.
The universe would not allow a moment of mourning as a storm approached, kicking up dust in its wake as it rushed to flush them out of its home.
Thor and Lusine met eyes, both of their visions blurred by tears.
"Go with them," Lusine told him, "I can take his... I can take Loki back to Asgard."
Thor nodded, numb to anything else as he stood. "Thank you," he said, unable to find any words beyond those to express the grief that flooded him.
And yet he would wade through the tide to stop the great evils, despite the need for mourning, because that was the hand he'd been dealt in life. He was a defender. A god with a great weight of responsibility upon his shoulders.
Lusine pitied him. Knew it would be the death of him, in more than one way. But, perhaps death would be the only hour in which he could truly feel freedom from the chains of life holding him down to the ocean floor.
Until that time came, he would drown amongst the currents pulling him in different directions, all of which ending in the sea bed.
A watery grave for a god of the skies was an unfit fate, it seemed, but the ocean could be peaceful. Beneath the waves, noise grew muffled and, at last, one would find themselves alone to drift into the afterlife with a little peace and quiet for once.
A little peace and quiet sounded delightful to Lusine as the storm bounded in upon the surface of Svartalfheim.
The beat of its wings was powerful as Lusine glanced down at the body, dry eyed, and said, "You can get up now."
-
2233 words
7.8.18
note: I added more dark elves to the battle-esk portion before Thor and Jane go to Earth again because I wanted it to be more like a battle rather than a brief fight. It had to have lessons come from it, including casia seeing how her fear could affect other people negatively, showing how Lusine is still not okay and that she's got a lot of trauma left over from when she was almost killed, and more.
anyway, that triple loki gif is everything to me ok bye