thirty one
"shadows of the lost like mirrors"

Lusine had been sat in the same place for almost two hours writing and rewriting the same letter to the same Midgardian, but still found herself unable to be satisfied by her words. Nothing sounded right. There wasn't a single word upon the page she felt was adequate and suitable to be sent away as an informant of her recent tragedies.

"I think you've spent long enough on that letter to call it a novel at this point," Olea joked as she peered at her cousin from over the top of her book she'd perched on her thighs, knees pulled up. "Who could possibly be this important that they deserve this lengthy letter?"

Lusine brushed her fingers over the dried ink and met her eyes with a softness Olea had never witnessed prior to that bitter noon. That look made her skin glow and flood with a brightness unheard of.

"His name is Steve Rogers," Lusine said, admired the taste of his name upon her tongue. "He is of Midgard."

Olea closed the book. "So, he's the reason you believe Midgard will welcome you?" She questioned as she drew her conclusions from the gentle tone of the brutalised woman hunched over the glass table.

"He is the reason I wish to go to Midgard. If not for him, I would perhaps venture elsewhere. Vanaheim, Alfheim, perhaps even would have confined myself to Hel. It was on Midgard where I was, for the first time in my life, accepted as a hero of the tale, not the villain to bring down," She explained, knew every word she spoke to be as true as the night was black.

Olea traced a finger over the embellished rose upon the front of the book and smiled sweetly. "Then," she said, "I do wish for the day to come where you can introduce me to those people who were there for you when no one else was. I should thank them for that."

"I would very much like that," Lusine replied genuinely.

Her love of the cousin she had always seen as the weak branch of the family tree grew more and more each day as she came to realise that strength did not just come in how well someone could swing a sword. Olea was one of the strongest people she knew and, at the same time, was one of the few she knew who had never lifted a finger against another living being.

"Although," she added, "there are probably a few I would rather you did not meet."

Olea frowned quizzically. "How so? I thought these people were the ones you trusted?"

"As with every realm, there are the good and there are the bad. One of the bad ones just seems to have slipped through the cracks." Lusine shrugged her shoulders and turned to continue the little she had written on her tenth edition of the same letter.

The nib had barely touched the page before the rumbling, crashing noise erupted through the halls. When Lusine glanced up in annoyance, it quickly faded to horror as the sight of the ships rushing in came into view.

"Olea," She said, not turning from the window as she rose from her chair and leaned against the window, one hand on the stone wall, to get a better look, "I would very much advise that you remain in my chambers until this... battle is over."

"What battle?" Olea asked with alarm. She shot from the comfort in a flash and was at Lusine's side. She stared through the window in absolute dread. "Oh," She breathed. Her eyes flickered between ships, already calculating casualties.

"Please lock the door after I'm gone and do not open it for anyone but me," Lusine commanded, already making her way to the door.

Olea grabbed her back. "But you're unarmed, unarmoured and your magic... it's..." She trailed off, eyes searching.

"Significantly depleted? Yes. But not entirely gone. Perhaps a little chaos will bring it back with a vengeance." She forced a smile that was utterly flawless in its facade. "Father made sure I was not unarmed before he departed this world for the next."

Lusine held out a hand lined with scars of a woman who had been through too much in too short of a life. Within her palm, the magic shuddered and trembled, but, with time, held firm. From that white magic did not emerge the infamous spear she'd slain many with, but instead a scythe fit for the reaper himself.

Curved to a point sharp enough to slice a man clean in two, the weapon was an ancient one of the Volkov family and had not been wielded for many, many years. Until now. Until the day the Dark Elves came to Asgard.

Lusine held the black staff with a power that thrummed through her veins in a new light. More light than dark, though the weapon was of grim.

"Stay here," She repeated as Olea's hand dropped from her arm and she turned from her cousin to exit the chamber.

When she heard the locks had slid into place, she let herself free fall into that familiar killing calm as she emerged into the Asgardian halls turned into the battle field for the day, awash with bodies and blood.

With the scythe over her shoulder, Lusine rounded the corner and took a look at the bodies upon the floor, a mixture of Asgardians and Dark Elves all fallen for a defining cause.

The sound of approaching beings snapped her gaze up and she locked herself away to let the warrior emerge. A group of three dark elves rounded the corner at the opposing end of the hall. For a brief moment in time, the enemies stared at one another, undecided. Neither moved.

Until Lusine drew in a deep breath and readied her weapon for its first taste of blood in years.

The opponents seemed to take this as their signal to charge as the woman in their way made herself known as a foe. Their masks were a smart move. Rendered them unreadable through many features warriors often used as tell-tale signs of attack.

The elves raised their weapons and fired. Red beams shot past Lusine as she dodged to the side. One tore across her calf, leaving behind a raw, blistering mark. She hissed in pain and cursed herself under her breath for not being lighter on her toes.

Now she knew what to expect, the duel was in full swing as she brought the reach of the scythe around with a grunt to decapitate the leader of the trio who dared challenge the goddess of chaos.

His head thudded to the floor and rolled to the feet of his fellows.

There was not a flavour of anguish for their fallen soldier as they simply stepped over his beheaded corpse and continued their march, blank faces concealed by blank masks.

-

-

Casia didn't know what was going on but she knew it was far from saintly.

This was an attack. She was on an alien planet in the middle of a battle between two realms and she aligned with neither, as a wild card at the bottom of the pile, tucked beneath the queen of hearts.

Unsure whether to remain in her room was suicide if the enemy washed through, Casia decided to pull on her boots and emerge.

She didn't know what drew her to the battle, but her feet moved one after the other until her heart thrummed in time with the coalescing power.

What she'd been expecting was unknown as her mouth dried at the sight of the Dark Elves. If she'd known they'd be works of nightmares, maybe she would never have left her bed.

Empty round eyes as black as night, devoid of starlight to redeem the harrowing expression of the ivory masks they donned. The moons in the dark, but far from a thing of beauty, far from the mother the wolves howled to on their nightly hunt.

Closer to calamitous than benevolent.

"Come on, Cas," She whispered to herself as the dastardly duo strode up the corridor towards her, closing in fast, "you can do this."

Hand raised, the trapdoor opened and the flames bounded out, tongues lolling from the mouths of the hellhounds with every inch they grew closer. The power pressed from beneath her skin, greeted her with a grin of Cheshire rivalry.

As one of the dark elves pulled what appeared to be a hand grenade from his side, Casia extended her fingers and the flames surged. In an instant, they were consumed. Reduced as their flesh burned away and bones crumbled to the floor, charred amongst the ashes.

Casia contained the power as she stumbled, back pressed against the wall as her shoulders heaved and brow beaded with sweat.

But she'd done it. She'd controlled the hell hounds in their march and rallied them to her use. That feat made her proud, even as she heaved up her lunch at the potent stench of burnt flesh.

After she wiped her mouth on her sleeve and picked herself up again, she'd heard more footsteps and groaned. More of them come to back up their fellow soldiers, she assumed, and readied herself to yank open the door to the volcano bubbling away inside.

But it was not a Dark Elf who rounded the corner.

It was Lusine. She stopped dead in her tracks at the sight of the charred bodies and her eyes ran over them as if she had no disgust for the cause of death.

"You did what needed to be done," Lusine told her in comfort of the horror scene Casia perceived her personal battle as. "And that's all there is to it. These Dark Elves are evil and have killed many Asgardians on this day. Innocent Asgardians."

"I burnt them alive," Casia responded, even the sight of the bodies made her stomach flip. "But I know that their death means survival of those who deserve life. They do not deserve to live if they're only going to bring pain to the world."

After a moment to reattach herself to duty, Casia narrowed her eyes at Lusine and her mouth dropped.

"Where the hell did you get a scythe?" She questioned exasperated at the sight. Truly, Lusine had taken on the image of a death bringer. Where she walked, chaos would follow.

"It was a gift," Lusine said innocently, the corner of her mouth turned into a smile in loving memory. Her expression appeared to then dissolve into one of concern as she stepped over the corpses towards Casia. "You can await the end of the battle in my chambers, if you wish? Olea is currently in there so you wouldn't be alone."

"No," Casia said, "I'm fine. I want to help."

Lusine's head tilted as she took a moment to consider the woman before her in her element. She was an agent. This is what she was trained for: combat. She unsheathed a dagger from her belt and held it out to Casia.

"Magic is not your only weapon, Radcliffe," She reminded as Casia took the dagger from her and closed her fingers around it in agreement. "Looks like you got your melee lesson after all." Lusine even managed to smile.

The chaos sunk into her skin, even if she detested its source. There was nothing she could do about the magnetism between her and it. The chaos was always drawn to her, would always be the energiser to her energy source.

An endless cycle, an ouroboros.

"Fight to your strengths, not your weaknesses. Let them come to you, give yourself time," Lusine rattled off the basic lessons as they strode through the corridor, stepping over decapitated bodies, fallen heads and severed limbs. "This is unlike any gun fight you've ever been in. This is dog eat dog, this had no honour. You turn your back, you've earned that blade in your spine."

"So keep them in front of me at all times?" Casia asked, attempting to commit every lesson to memory while her other senses worked tirelessly to be in a constant state of alert.

"Yes, exactly," Lusine confirmed, pleased at the receptiveness.

Perhaps being thrown into the deep ocean was exactly what she'd needed to kick her into gear.

"But what am I supposed to do with a dagger against a gun?"

"The possibilities are endless, especially when you've got someone to watch your back. Make a risky move and throw it, dodge until they're close enough for you to bury that blade in their throat, tease them into security and then strike like the viper when they grow comfortable."

There was an unsteady glint in her eyes as she spoke of all the lessons she'd learnt as a girl, a child. But she had been royalty at threat of assassination twenty-four hours a day. She'd needed to know how to defend herself; always would.

A squadron of five Dark Elves careened through the open door, battered in by them on their way in, and turned to the two women in chilling unison.

Lusine brought her scythe from upon her shoulder, the chaos like a flower as it bloomed beneath her nose, and lowly uttered, "Let us begin."

-

2266 words
11.7.18
Finally, part 3 is into Thor: the dark world & it's all gonna kick off