20| A FABRICTATION OF HER IMAGINATION INDUCED BY HER INSANITY

It was the day of Thor's coronation. To Lusine, it was Loki and her's day where the chaos would finally shine through as bright as a flame in the blackest, gloomiest of nights where her ironic friend known as the moon did not decide to show its pale face.

Today, Lusine wore forest green. It made her feel as if she were back at home, sauntering and laughing her way through the woods with her brother as they fought with sticks of fir wood. Remembering her brother was key. He could die any day now and she did not want to seem as heartless as she really was in front of all the Asgardians. The only one she needed to seem heartless in front of was Selene, but she had already succeeded in that aspect of her aim.

Beside her stands Loki with his head held high and his lips pressed thin as if he were about to explode and the only thing containing him were those lips. Lusine felt herself staring at him again. It was a growing bad habit of hers that she just couldn't seem to shake, no matter how hard she tried to.

His arm rests around her waist, his fingers swirling patterns onto her side as they stand in waiting for the coronation to begin. She scans the crowd in search of her family. Her mother and her father stand side by side. The bags under their eyes tell her that they hadn't slept in peace and that's what she finds pathetic. They'd been hovering around her brother's bed side, she was willing to bet her life on it. But, not once had they been to see how she was handling everything. Her own brother had tried to kill her after everything they'd been through together and now she was paying the price for his inability to heed her warnings. Even her neutral father was not so kind as to pay her a visit, but he did not know the truth of the tale.

Their minds will have been twisted and distorted by Lycus. He would feed them lies of her intentions and they would believe him because it was not in his nature to attack her, but it was in hers to attack him.

Despite the roars of cheers as Thor enters the great hall, Lusine is deaf to the noise. Her eyes lock forward, staring into the crowd with wide blue eyes. Loki clenches his jaw, oblivious to the haunting that Lusine was enduring. She stared into the crowd to meet eyes with her past love, Regina, stood with the bouncing curls of hair that Lusine adored pulling her fingers through as they looked upon each other with young loving eyes, not knowing that they were to be torn apart.

Lusine did not know whether what she was seeing was real. Was it merely a fabrication of her imagination induced by her insanity? Or was it a ghost? Come to haunt her for her dastardly deeds of crime and murder. Perhaps it was reality and Regina's death had been a fraud, cultivated by her mother's deviance.

She could not tear her eyes away. Seeing Regina again made her heart glow warmly. It was as if not a day had passed since she had been wrapped up in her arms, her head on Regina's chest and their limbs tangled together.

As Loki's thumb runs along her hip she is jolted back to reality. Her eyes snap up to look at Loki. She offers him a comforting smile that quivers upon her red painted lips. He returns it without question. As soon as the exchange is over with her eyes shoot back to where Regina had been standing in her ghostly aura.

But she was no where to be seen.

Letting her eyes flicker closed, Lusine lets a ghost of a smile slip onto her expression as she realises she had just been imagining the form of her past lover.

It was not real.

But, when she opens her eyes her, relief is overcome with fear for she is met with the disturbing image of Regina who was grinning devilishly before her with hauntingly cold eyes staring deep into Lusine's darkened soul. But not even Lusine's soul was as dark as the eyes of Regina Morales.

Her voice was just as ghostly and drained, nothing compared to the sweet sound Lusine had adored all those years ago. "You failed me, Lusine Volkov. You failed to protect me and now you have done the same to poor Cloris," She shakes her head, but her grin doesn't fade. "Poor, sweet, innocent Cloris. You will do the same to all those you love." Her eyes glaze over as she stares Lusine straight in the eyes. "You will love them to ruins."

Lusine says nothing. She swallows her fear, but it does not reside.

Regina's thin, bony arm lifts up and her fingers coil to point at Loki, who stands beside Lusine oblivious. "He's next," She said softly, under her breath. "You will love him to ruins."

Lusine's head whips to the side to look at Loki as if she feared he was going to dematerialise in her arms. As if feeling her stare he turns his head, peering at her as he gives her another one of his reassuring smiles. But, before he can whisper to her Odin's whisper fills her ears.

"Frost Giants." The end of his golden staff hits the floor, disrupting the ceremony.

Loki looks down at Lusine, a hint of a smile on his lips show her he knows what's happening. It's he chaos he'd promised and she was more than ready for it.

-

The gardens seemed like the only place Lusine could come to find herself some peace of mind. In her room someone would always come to her. The room held too many memories, too many tear stains, too much blood shed. The trees hid her presence and the wind blew through her. Peace was not so easily found theses days, but the gardens seemed to calm her ever so slightly.

Her wolves spent their time in the gardens. They bound over to her, their tongues lolling in the breeze as they race one another for Lusine's affection. As they meet her she runs her hands over their backs, smoothing down their wintry fur. She lets her eyes close, feeling the bliss that came with being together with her wolves.

But the ghostly aura returns along with her strike of fear. Opening her eyes to face the ghost before her was not favourable, but it was not avoidable. However, nothing could have prepared her for the sight before her wide eyes.

Regina and Cloris were stood side by side. From their sliced necks runs thick, red blood that ran down in rivers of haunted crimson to the pure white dresses which hung off their fragile skeleton like bodies. They were not real, but it was as if Lusine could smell the blood.

"Change your ways Lusine Volkov," Regina says, her warm breath visible in the air around them. Lusine's lips part, the oxygen leaves her lungs but none returns. She could feel the beat of her heart hammering against her chest, begging for an escape. But there was no escape from the truth. "Change your ways or the darkness shall consume you and all those you hold dear to your vile black heart." The smile at her lips unsettles Lusine.

She grips at the fur of her wolf, wishing for it not to be true. There was no possible way for them to be standing before her. Cloris nods her head to agree with Regina and Lusine's blood runs cold. The creepy, distant smile at her pale plump lips was something Lusine would never forget witnessing.

Cloris was pure, not a demon spirit sent from hell to torture Lusine.

Lusine looks between her two blood stained past lovers and then to her wolves. She had not noticed their growling and snarling before. They could see them too, or sense them at the very least, but the duo knew that whatever was before them was causing Lusine distress. Therefore, it needed to be eliminated.

"Haunting me won't make me any better!" She cries out hopelessly. Lai and Lieve snarl viciously at the visions who do not seem at all phased by the large wolves who would tear them to shreds if they were real. "Haunting me will make me more... More insane."

"This is the only way we can get our message to you, Lusine," Cloris says softly. Her tone was just as it had always been; as delicate as a rose petal. "It is the most direct route to your conscious being. If we entered your dreams you would be able to convince yourself that what we were telling you was merely a fabrication. You would not follow our guidance."

Lusine shakes her head firmly. "There's no way I can be yanked from the grip of darkness now. I'm afraid not even two ghosts can do that job."

She raises her hand. Lieve and Lai go bounding forward, eager to rip the already cut throats out of the ghosts.

Cloris gives Lusine a sad smile before her and Regina disappear into thin air. The vision was over, but its effects remained.

She lowers her head into her hands and rubs her eyes, not believing that she'd seen advice giving visions before her on this day. She was truly insane now. She was seeing dead people now. How could it possibly get any worse?

She would have to speak with her father about this, but the thought of having to go to him after everything she'd done in the last couple of long, hard days made her feel sick to her stomach. There was no way she would ever place such trust in her family again, not after finding out her mother was planning to have her killed.

Lusine would not be killed by her mother. She would get to her first with a knife in hand and a smile on her face she would slash her in two. In making this plan Lusine had managed to convince herself even further that she was a dark soul who could not be saved. Truly believing she was doing the right thing she stands straighter and holds her head high.

Now she must be strong. She must be unbreakable.

With the images of her mother dying at her hands pleases her. A smile breaks out on her lips as she strides back toward the palace to find Loki. He needed to know everything.

-

1790 words

this will probably be the last update until I get back from paris on Wednesday. I hope you enjoyed it!

do you think Lusine will actually kill her mum?

i'll see you when I get back from paris!

see ya, suckers

love, lau