fifteen
"i know; i've known for years"
-

Lusine didn't often attend the evening meals.

She didn't like the social aspect, nor did she like eating in the company of others when she could be enjoying solitude, lounging.

If she can't sit in the comfortable loneliness of her own chamber, she'll refuse to sit with her family. For one, her mother wants her dead. it's clear to her now. It has little to do with Lusine's tendency for the dramatic and more to do with reality.

So, as she sinks down in the tall wooden seat beside Loki she sends her mother a deathly glare. Loki turns his gaze to her, placing a hand on her upper thigh.

Selene, in her anxious fear, glances to her husband. To him, the terror is clear as day in her eyes. Bright and wild. He knew that if he can see it, so can Lusine.

"Does she know what I have planned?" She questions in a hushed whisper, mouth barely lifting from the wine glass.

"Of course, she does. She's the goddess of chaos. You cannot hide it from her, nor can you play her at her own game." He gazes casually over to his daughter. "You may be older than her and believe yourself to be wiser for to your years, but she is imbued with power that is thousands and thousands of years old."

Selene can't help but look over to her daughter with undeniable fear shooting through her system, ice cold and going straight for the heart. Her daughter has power. Power that she doesn't have.

Power she needs to acquire if she means to survive.

Lusine looks up, steak knife in hand. Her eyes glimmer completely black, the white engulfed by the void, as she turns the knife around in her hand and stabs it into the table top. The grin at her lips is unsettling, to say the least. Her intention is to strike fear into her newfound, blood related enemy.

The goal is achieved with ultimate ease.

Selene reaches to her side, grabbing at her son's arm in clawing motions and clamping down tight. "Lycus, dear," she begins, licking her lips and ripping her gaze away from the knife sunken deep into the table, "I'm going to need you to promise me something. Promise me that when your sister comes for me, you'll protect me even if it means taking her life."

Lycus nods his head slowly, though he knows their father won't let it come to that, would he? "I swear I'll protect you." His anxiety that he shall actually have to act upon his promises sets in deep. Would Lusine's chaotic wrath come so close to insanity, so close to putting his family into harm's way? He hopes not.

"Thank you," She says as she presses a proud kiss to his temple. "You're destined for greatness, my son, I've always known it."

Lycus does not respond to his mother.

He looks back to his sister, wanting to see her before her darkness got too much for her system. He knows what iss happening to her. Bulan had told him the power that surged through her and it struck him with fear.

Now a new kind of fear rises within him in parallel to the former.

The fear of potentially having to fight his sister, his best friend, to the death. Only one would walk away with the battle scars and burden of having killed their sibling.

But he realises it's inevitable as he watches her beside Loki, him whispering his silver lined whispers directly into her mind, turning her heart black little by little.

And in that moment Lycus' fear dissolves into rage.

He feels the urge and the sensation to rip the mischievous god's head from his shoulders. He turns his head away before he can sink into the darkness anymore.

-

Lusine has been watching her mother and her brother converse whilst Loki speaks to her.

Her distance from him doesn't go unnoticed, but she can't help but watch her mother's plea for protection from her brother. Selene thinks Lusine won't harm her brother and, in truth, she wouldn't have a couple of months ago, but things change.

Lusine Volkov is not the same person she was.

Darkness has gotten a grip of her. It's holding her tight within its warm embrace, its loving embrace and refusing to let go. She lets it be her everything, she lets it kiss her good morning and goodnight. She lets it run its icy fingers along her skin, she lets it draw her in.

In seeing the distant expression on Lusine's face, Loki soothes his thumb along her inner thigh, coming close enough to jolt her back into the now. "What's wrong, Lusine?"

"Another complication has arisen that I'm going to need to take care of," She tells him dismissively and, before he can begin to question her, she questions him. "And I know you're up to something. I can see it in your face. You haven't looked quite this devious since the noon you asked me to save you a dance."

An elegant smirk drifts onto his face. An expression she absolutely adores and can do nothing but strive to see. She takes pride in being one of the few to bring that genuine amusement out of him.

"Something is going to happen in the next few days that will turn everything upside down, but upside down for the better," He whispers, lifting his fingertips to her hair and brushing a loose strand back behind her ear.

Grinning, Lusine takes his hands in hers. "Tell me what you're planning."

He does not get the chance to answer for Odin cuts in, his voice booming and bouncing off every wall. "Tomorrow, Thor shall reach the final stages of becoming King and succeeding me," He announces and is followed by cries of joy from the surrounding men and women. Thor raises his hammer in her air, Lusine rolls her eyes at his arrogance.

When she looks to Loki he looks ready to kill. She gives him a smile and runs her thumb along the back of his hand. Loki appears to smile back, much to Lusine's surprise, but it does not go unnoticed by Thor. The exchange causes his own happy smile in seeing the newly struck love between his brother and the Volkov Princess.

Not knowing she is being watched, Lusine leans her lips to his ear, mouth intentionally brushing his skin, and asks, "Is your plan as chaotic as I wish it to be?"

Loki sits up in his chair, bringing the wine to his mouth, but speaking before he takes a sip. "Have you learnt nothing about me in all the time we've spent together? Of course it's going to be chaotic."

"Good, I wouldn't want it to be any other way. But, what are you to gain from all this? What am I to gain from it if I help you?" She wonders. Loki knew that she would do what he asked without payment. The connection between them allowed him this.

"I shall be King of Asgard and you, my Queen." His promise causes Lusine to grow a grin across her face immediately.

She turns her head sharply to the side, pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth, missing his lips in her impulsive reaction, born of anticipation.

She has always wanted to be a queen ever since she was little. Her mother had tried to find her a prince to marry so that she could become a queen, but to no avail.

They never accepted Lusine.

She will never be Queen of Wolf Moon either.

Her brother will be the one to take the crown as he's the only male and the one her father has named out of the two. She suspects her mother had a part in this.

As long as Selene and Lycus lived, she would never be Queen of Wolf Moon.

But with Loki she can now have legitimate power and authority, besides her magic for manipulation.

"You promised my happy ending and now it looks as if your promise is coming true. And you're going to be a part of it, Lusine." The light in his green eyes is brilliantly bright and full of mischief. Just the way she likes it.

Thor can't help himself after watching them exchange whispers for a time. He has to cut in. "Excuse me, Princess Lusine, but are you my brother's lover?" The pair turn to him and the rest of those at their table.

Lusine's eyes widen as she glances around the table at everyone waiting eagerly to hear her response. Most people around Asgard knew they were often together, thanks to the gossiping maids who often found them curled up together beneath the covers more often than not. Most found it sweet.

"Perhaps, yes." She responds quickly.

Referring to what they have as love was out of the question for Lusine, despite Loki just confirming that she would be his queen.

Her eyes dip to the half-eaten meal before her, ignoring those wonderous green eyes now burning into the side of her head with spitting rage.

Beneath the table, Loki's hands curl into fists as he imagines Thor thinking that he was being used by this enchanting woman. It was quite the opposite. Lusine couldn't possibly live without him.

She'd made him look weak.

She'd made him look a fool.

And it will not stand.

He takes his hands from hers and folds them across his lap without saying a word to her.

Lusine's eyes snap to him, taking in his angered expression. She flickers over his every feature before scoffing and turning away from him, unaware of what she'd just caused with only two words.

Analysing her hands, she finds herself deep into thought. She thinks about how Loki dismissed her when she responded to Thor.

Was she nothing to him?

Perhaps he didn't consider her his lover or him to be her lover.

Maybe their entire escapade was simply nothing more than a sexual encounter with mischief that flings them deeper into chaos and void.

Her attachment to Loki may have been as a result of losing her brother as her long-time partner in crime. So, when Loki's interest became very apparent to her, she hooked him swiftly and so began the crumble.

Now it dawns on her that she has no idea what he feels about her.

In this realisation there is another. She has no idea of how she feels about him. Love is too strong of a word to describe their current relationship.

Sometimes she wants to strangle the living daylight out of him, but, the majority of the time, all she wants to do was crawl into his dark embrace and press her lips to his until the end of time.

When she manages to steel herself to gaze to him again, she glances at his eyes and at his lips as she wonders whether she is just a tool to him. Something to play with to get his anger out, to get his mind off things.

She will not be a toy; she will be a legacy.

-

1726 words

the gif at the top is of his reaction to her answering Thor's question.

basically they're both questioning each other's intentions and feelings but Lusine is kinda like I really really like you but I also really really hate you and lowkey want to murder you so either kiss me or i'll stick this knife through your gut.

anyway, on that note I leave you!

love, lau <3

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edited: 22.6.19
new word count: 1869