thirty four
"iron fist, iron price"

They had their plan. Now, as they began to move into the next phase of said plan, Lady Sif flicked out her blade as swift as a pouncing lioness as she sunk her teeth into her prey.

The tip of her sword poked precariously at Loki's chin. Despite knowing Sif wouldn't slit his throat there and then, Lusine still could do little to prevent her machine beginning to whirr inside at the threat to his life.

"Betray him," Sif all-but-growled, "and I'll kill you."

Loki chuckled lowly, the emptiness of it echoing in his throat. "It's good to see you too, Sif," He said, his eyes flitted across to meet Lusine's, but she simply turned and began to walk to join Thor and the others upon the ship they meant to escape upon. As the blade was removed from his neck, he followed.

"You think you could be victorious in a duel against Sif?" Loki questioned, genuinely curious, but also revitalised by Lusine's obvious distaste for the woman and her threats.

"Oh," Lusine smiled thinly, "she would be no match for me. Perhaps she would be better suited to yourself. She seems eager to harm you, but only holds back because it would displease the one she loves."

"Yes," he replied, turning his attention forward as they approach the crashed ship, "it seems my brother has acquired a fair few admirers."

At the similar threat of Volstagg, Lusine is not so closely on edge. This threat was not one made out of the same adoration that radiated from Lady Sif. This was closer to loyalty and friendship than a love alike to that of the sun and the moon.

"You wouldn't need my help to fend that oaf off," Lusine quipped to him as the group entered the ship and was pleased to see that he found her comment somewhat amusing as he slunk off to pester his brother while Lusine kept an eye on the Midgardians.

To hear the brothers bickering once more wasn't such a horrible thing.

"Casia," Lusine regarded the woman coolly as her face moulded into a calmness oceans away from the jokes and jests she'd been sharing with Loki only moments prior, "you must not forget a single thing I've taught you. This isn't training anymore. If you tread wrong, the consequences could be fatal."

At last, the ship began to rise and fly, although they seemed to be hitting into anything and everything, which Loki was delighted to comment upon right into the ear of his brother.

"You say that as if I haven't been an agent my entire adult life. I know how to keep calm during a mission," Casia replied, her arms crossed across her chest in a defence mechanism Lusine wished to snap clean in half.

"Oh, quell your false arrogance and listen to me. These aren't just a few bad men making bad decisions. This is evil. This is an attempt at destroying everything. If you let that ignorance win over you, you might find your grave upon Svartalfheim," Lusine scolded, though the words came from a good place, not the venomous pit where her words often came from.

"I understand," Casia said woodenly.

"Good." Lusine managed to smile uneasily, though both women whipped around at the sound of a body crumbling to the floor.

"Oh, dear. Is she dead?" Loki questioned, though he did not appear to care either way from the lack of distress upon his expression.

"Jane?" Thor called over, clearly the more worried brother.

Casia took a step back while Lusine knelt at the woman's side to brush hair from her face.

Though, to her credit, Jane lifted her head and replied, "I'm okay."

Lusine tucked more of Jane's hair behind her ears and removed her cloak to fold for a makeshift pillow. If this woman were to die, let it be in comfort, not agony.

The bickering had been a blur in the background, but when they blur halted, Lusine rose to her feet to find that Loki had been pushed from the ship and Thor was making his way to Jane, who he lifted from the ground with ease. Lusine quickly picked up her cloak and pulled it around herself as she and Casia followed Thor from the ship, jumped down into the next one to continue their mission.

"That was horrible," Casia complained, sinking down onto the floor. "Please, never make me do that again."

"I thought you'd been on missions before," Lusine jested, standing over her, dark hair and black cloak rushing in the winds as they flew.

"Not like this," Casia replied, "never like this."

-

-

This was unlike anything Casia had ever experienced in her life. This wasn't anything like a S.H.I.E.L.D. mission. This was madness.

She knew it to be true as Loki flew them directly at the mountain and proclaimed that "if it were easy everyone would do it", but, still, her distrust of him brought fear into her throat to block breath and any sound of terror she might involuntarily make.

And, yet, Lusine stood right at his side, unflinching for their current direction. Even to see her smile and whisper a few words to Loki was an oddity. This woman had misplaced trust in a man who could not be trusted and perhaps it would be her downfall. A naivety to believe through all the alarms that nothing could go wrong again.

Perhaps that was not a misplacement, but, if it was, there may not be any coming back from a betrayal this time.

Casia may be a fool in her fear, but she wasn't blind to the tragic state of Lusine Volkov.

As they blinked through the portal into Svartalfheim, Loki had the nerve to shout, "Ta-da!"

Lusine smacked him on the arm, but only lightly through the smile she attempted to suppress at his smugness.

Casia slumped back in relief at their lives being preserved, but was no stranger to hurt as Thor walked straight past her to cover Jane over where she lay passed out from what consumed her.

Jealously was an ugly shade of green and yet Casia found herself painting the walls of her home with it as she watched Thor regard Jane with such care and love.

Never in her life had she ever been cared for in such a way. To be the one thought of in the first light of the morning, kissed good morning, kissed good night with varying degrees of passion depending upon the eve's story, or even told that she was loved and adored, that she was the most beautiful woman ever to be beheld.

For years, she'd been a woman satisfied by lovers of a single night who graced her bed sheets with their presence and then abandoned ship the next morning before she'd even awoken.

But, for the first time since she were younger, Casia found herself feeling very close to love. A love that would be forever unrequited as long as Jane Foster remained in the picture, hogging the spotlight and focus of Thor.

There wasn't a speck of blame to be placed upon Jane. Casia found that she had more distaste for him than her. The memory of his kiss had not, and would not, leave her.

Though he had told of his dedication to Jane, that moment betrayed those words. If he was truly in love with the woman he now fought to save, would he have put his mouth upon hers beneath the branches of the willow in her weakest hour?

Casia thought not. Yet, she bit her tongue for, if Jane was to be lost, she didn't want to be the reason their last moments together were tainted.

So, her tongue wept blood into her mouth as she bit harder and harder for every act of love displayed right before her eyes.

-

Moments later, Casia was swept from thought by a grave faced Lusine who shook her shoulders. She blinked up at the Asgardian.

"Come on, we need to get moving," She said and extended a hand to bring her to her feet.

In moments of weakness, Lusine was forever the only one left to bring a little slice of comfort to her life. Again and again, she was there.

Casia's stomach churned for the thought she'd been cruel to the woman who, through all the tales of her deviance, had been kind to her. Had made more than enough amends for the damage she'd done to Casia in that initial meeting where she was not herself.

Even now, she was not herself and yet Casia had struck that down time and time again through her own scrambling fear. She clambered to be saved, but in doing do trod upon the extended hand of Lusine, sending it home.

Home was not kind to Lusine Volkov.

Casia took the extended hand and rose to her feet. She dusted off the fitted trousers she'd briskly pulled on upon awaking from her nap and followed Lusine.

-

-

There was no luxury of time to waste with pointless conversation. To herself, Casia kept her thoughts and worries as they stood upon the dead earthen hill. Made no attempts to spur talk on between herself and Lusine or Jane, who she still found sour taste for despite ultimately finding that she was a lovely woman.

That was the worst part. Jane Foster was extremely agreeable. A woman of great intellect, discovered from the way she spoke and from the way she conducted herself.

"You still don't trust me, brother?" Came Loki's question, though likening itself more to an accusation of court than a curiosity of the mind.

"Would you?" Thor's replying question was uttered as he removed the handcuffs binding Loki.

Lusine tensed beside her.

All at once, a firm grip latched onto her arm. A vice, tightening when she attempted to pull herself free.

"No, I wouldn't," Loki said and, without hesitation at the mark, took the dagger from its shadows and stabbed it into Thor with little appearance of remorse.

"Stop struggling," Lusine hissed. Her chewed nails dug into her arm as she pulled Casia in front of herself and drew the  dagger from her pocket, a twin of that now embedded in Thor's flesh, with a distinct flair.

One that could not be mistaken. There was no denying the rigorous training the princess had endured as a result of a hostile home land.

"What're you doing?" Casia continued to struggle, not fearful of the dagger at her throat. More fearful of what should happen to Thor once he reached the foot of the hill he currently rolled down.

She had been in worse situations. From prison cells teeming with rats to dangling above vats of acid, a knife at the jugular was no real qualm.

"Trust me on this, Radcliffe," She was told, the spitting mouth of the viper at her ear as not to alert the enemy to the true nature of her words. "Follow Loki's lead. You'll know when to strike and, when you do, don't hesitate."

Casia nodded. Though she would never find it in her heart to place trust in the man who had caused the lives of many innocents to end before their time, perhaps in this one moment she would take Lusine's word for it.

In a strange way, she'd grown to trust the woman who now held that blade to her throat with a pseudo promise of swift death should she challenge the hold.

As a hostage, Casia was brought down the hill to witness the events that should transpire on that day. To have a front row seat to Loki's speech as he lashed that silver tongue of his once more.

If she had not had Lusine to whisper the truth in her ear, she would have believed every word he said and more.

"You really think I cared about Frigga, about any of you?" He questioned with enough venom to kill ten men as he kicked Thor in the stomach. "All I ever wanted was you and Odin dead at my feet!"

Thor, in an act of valour, raised his hand in an attempt so summon the hammer who had destroyed a great many evils to bring invaluable peace to the Nine Realms, but his heroes cry is short lived as Loki slices his hand at the wrist. The cry becomes one of pain rather than gallant.

Casia gasped and balled her fists at her sides as her internal temperature soared at the sight, even if she knew it to be a work of fiction. It was not missed that Lusine held her back a little tighter, clearly aware of the stirring volcano inside of the woman at knife-point.

Where Casia couldn't move, Jane did. She rushed to Thor, but Loki was quicker as he grabbed her and turned to Malekith and his dark elf companions.

"Malekith, I am Loki of Jotunheim and I bring you a gift!" Loki announced and threw Jane at his feet, into the dust, as if she were nothing to him. Perhaps she was, in fact, nothing to him. A mere mortal Midgardian who had managed to collect his brother's affections. This was no cause for his grief. "I ask only one thing in return, a good seat from which myself and my lady may watch Asgard burn."

At his mention, Casia felt his 'lady' tense behind her and mutter a few curses to herself, though they were indecipherable.

"Yes, that would be quite satisfactory," Lusine added as she forced herself into the role of Loki's object once more, though the concept made her throat dry more than she would've wished it to. "Asgard in flames has long been a wish of mine."

Casia twisted in her arms, but Lusine held her tight with a strength she could not hope to match no matter how much training she endured alongside Clint and Natasha.

"You monster," Casia hissed, playing her role through the guilt that arose through her fabricated insult.

Lusine pressed the dagger a little firmer, dared to draw a little of that precious half-breed blood with just the sharpened tip. Casia gasped in shock; Lusine lessened her grip, but only slightly.

With ebony eyes locked on Malekith, Lusine lowly seethed into her ear, "If you seek a monster, a monster you shall find, Agent Radcliffe."

A chill shuddered down her spine and rendered her incapable of saying more as the blood trickled down her neck.

Algrim spoke at last to Malekith. "He is an enemy of Asgard. He was locked in a cell. Though her, I am not certain of."

Lusine met his challenging stare and seemed to pass whatever test he'd set out for her to fail.

Malekith said nothing on the matter. Instead, he stalked forward as a ghostly predator towards where Thor lay squirming in pain within the grime of centuries.

"Look at me," He demanded and used his foot to turn Thor over as if he were simply flipping a pebble on the beach. Then, in an act straight out of horror, he lifts Jane in to the air above his head and extracts the Aether from her in twisting warps of crimson who danced in delight of use through the air between the breathing corpse and the Dark Elf.

Jane Foster crashed to the ground, unmoving.

Wordlessly, Lusine removed the dagger from Casia's neck and pulled another from her sleeve. It had been a long time since she'd fought without magic. She was rusty, but nothing a little elven blood couldn't fix.

Casia glanced to her uncertainly, but confusion was pushed away with Thor's cry.

"Loki, now!"

The illusion shatters and Thor's once amputated hand was untouched. In a flash, he summoned Mjolnir and shot his infamous lightning at the Aether in an attempt to bring it to its knees for good.

Failure had not been calculated. Yet, it still arrived as Malekith absorbed the Aether nonetheless and, without a whisper, turned to board his ship and depart while his lackeys fended off the opposition.

"Remember what I said?" Lusine questioned as the group of Dark Elves advanced.

"No hesitating," Casia replied, wishing her pulse would settle so that she could hear her own thoughts.

"Good," Lusine said as she flipped the daggers in her hands as she and her twin had learned to do together. Had raced to be the first to succeed. Battle often reminded her of dear Lycus. "You're learning."

-

3043 words
2.8.28

i just realised how soon part 3 is gonna  be over and i feel like i need more time for casia and thor so maybe ill write a part 4 just for them?? who knows honestly