twenty three
"hands scarred from murder"

Just as Lusine was unwinding after a morning of amusement in the form of Casia being scared out of her mind, a rapid knock came at her door. It was full of impatience, not wanting to wait to share whatever urgent news budded on the pink of their tongue.

A bundle of grapes in hand, Lusine swung the door open and raised a single, dark eyebrow at her little cousin stood there. 

Olea was alone, fingers twitching around the letter she held in her hands, eyes bloodshot and lined with deep kohl smudged where she'd rubbed them either in fatigue or in response to whatever the contents of that letter was. 

"You look a state," Lusine commented, but there was no cruelty to her tone. The woman stood at her door did not deserve to cry. "Come in and take a seat than we can discuss whatever is quite clearly bothering you to the point of tears."

"Thank you," Olea replied quietly, her rosy bottom lip wobbling even as she smiled gently, as dainty as a four leaf clover. She was definitely the runt of the wolf pack and yet it was impossible to shun her for such weakness.  

The two of them disappeared into the confines of Lusine's chambers, taking a seat at the little glass table she'd pulled to be able wine and dine in the golden hour the evening sun had blessed them with before the cloak of dusk drew in. 

In the simplest gesture, Lusine poured her cousin a glass of water and set it on the table before her. A quiet smile was the thank you she received from an unusually subdued Olea Kella.

When Lusine settled into the seat across from her, she slid the letter across the table. Retracted her hand to bite at the stubs of fingernails she was left with after years of stress and worry nibbling right back at her.

Lusine lifted the letter, reading the scrawling of her cousin's name.

"This is not addressed to me," She said, though that fact was quite obvious. It was more of a statement to encourage explanation than to express what was quite clearly true.

"I know," Olea responded, fidgeting in her seat, "but I still believe that you should read its contents as they concern you more than they do myself and Kyrie."

A quizzical expression came over Lusine as she pulled open the envelop crested with the wax seal of her family, unfolded the letter and began to read. With every sentence, her jaw wound a little tighter. Olea watched in worry, fingernails clicking between her teeth as she chewed.

"So," Lusine began in a calm and collected manner, though her grinding jaw told another story, "that's her move? To poison her own husband so that she may rule as sole sovereign?"

"You think this was her doing?" Olea questioned meekly, words muffled by the hand at her mouth. Perhaps she would have been bolder if she hadn't considered the exact conclusion herself, though Kyrie had warned her away from such treasonous thought.

"I do not doubt it for a heartbeat," Lusine replied. "If she thinks for even one second that I am going to lie back and watch her saunter around with the crown atop her head, she has got a hell of a storm coming."

"You mean to challenge her for the throne," Olea concluded, her eyebrows knitting together and her hand dropping into her lap as thought consumed her.

"Do you intend to stop me?" Lusine dared her to oppose. To stand up to her at last.

"No, no, it's just that, if you can find conclusive evidence that your father has been poisoned and is not naturally sick... well, you could dethrone her without looking the tyrant that they believe you would be," Olea said, but her throat tightened as she realised what she had just called Lusine.

Before she could retract it, Lusine seemed to slump a little.

"They still think that of me?"

"They think you're dead."

"But they would not be overjoyed to discover that I still live, I suppose." Her voice was flat and unreadable as her eyes flickered over the contents of the letter once more. She folded it in half and dropped it onto the table.

"You don't know that for definite," Olea tried, but it wasn't hard to see through the effort even if she had the kindest heart of anyone Lusine had ever known.

"Olea, I know this is an awful lot to ask of you, but would you be willing to return to Remulan with me? I want you to try to figure out if this is the same poison in my father as it was in dear Regina," She said, asking for a great thing of a girl loyal to her family, to her blood. "Please, cousin," Lusine added in blatant, unhidden desperation.

"If it is even a poison rendering him bed-bound," Olea mumbled, her voice trailed off.

"I don't want to put you in a difficult position because I know your heart beats pure, but I will do this one of two ways: with or without you. With you, the blood spill will be significantly less. Without you, there's no telling what amount blood will paint the walls by the eve."

"Fine," Olea agreed, feeling that there was no other choice through the tug of morality, "I'll help you test if it's a poison, but I suggest that you make your arrival one of clear concern for your father, not for revenge against your mother."

"Mother knows it well that I would see her head rolling," Lusine replied with a terrifyingly empty upturning of the lips. "It is no secret to the Court either."

"Then do not remind them of that fact or you will pay the price. You may be forged from iron, but do not forget who forged you," Olea warned, rising from the chair and dusting off her white dress. "I must leave to gather my things. I assume you mean to leave early tomorrow morning?"

"Yes," Lusine said, turning to stare out of the window as she pondered over the words of her little cousin, letting them run riot along her bones, "we leave as soon as we can."

The soft click of the door shutting following Olea's exit was the only cue Lusine's wrath needed to go flying off the rails as she slammed both fists into the glass table, sending a waterfall of shattered glass over her legs and between her toes.

As she stood, it crunched beneath the soles of her feet. Pricked her skin as she bent to pluck the letter from its shard lake. Mouth snarling, muscles taut, Lusine stepped out of the glass and confined the anger back into its cage, grinning chaotically as she reminded herself to save it for her enemy.

-

-

Lusine slid into the seat at the table beside Thor, ignoring his surprise at her finally showing her face at his side and reaching across for the wine. As she poured it out, she did not miss his smile.

"Nice of you to finally join me for a feast, Lusine," He commented, watching with not a hint of surprise as she filled the glass to the very top, barely leaving room to lift it comfortably without spillage.

"It has been a long time coming, huh?" She replied with a short laugh as she lifted the wine to her mouth and drank the cool liquid down like a vampire to blood, lapping it up straight from the wound. When she put the glass down, she continued, "Besides, this will probably be the last for a long while."

"You mean to return to your homeland?" Thor asked, hopeful that his assumption was incorrect. It was inevitable that Lusine would have to return at some point in time, he'd just hoped it wasn't sooner rather than later.

"Yes," She said, feeling it only right to meet his eye contact and lay out her cards for him to understand. To begin to understand her motives and what cogs still worked inside that tormented mind of hers. "We leave tomorrow morning."

"We? So you intend to take Casia with you?"

"Gods, no," Lusine said exasperated at such a thought after the news she'd received that day, "my home is no place for her right now. I confide this in you with confidence, Thor, but my father is gravely sick and I suspect that my mother has something to do with it."

Thor watched her carefully for a moment and finding the terrifying wrath in her eyes that he knew he would. It churned in as much turmoil as it had always been in. For a while, it had quelled and he was not pleased to see it return.

"While I wish you good luck in whatever endeavour you embark upon, I also wish that you take caution," Thor told her, knowing the way her sword swung when it came down to the last man. 

She thought him to be fretting over child's play. The nature of wolves could not be changed. His words could do no such thing while the anger sent her chaotic self into dominance, her ribs cracking at the seams trying to keep it locked behind steel bars.

"Thank you, Thor." A simple appreciation of his concern was all she deemed fitting to reply. She suspected that concern reached beyond herself to the woman she'd brought to Asgard with them and watched him closely as she drank her wine and picked at the fresh bread. "I know you speak of this Jane Foster, but have you ever considered other possibilities?"

"I heard the words you hissed at Lady Sif," Thor replied, "I do not think either of us appreciated them."

Lusine scoffed, rolling her eyes rudely. "I may have been in a state of fury, but I spoke the truth. That woman has eyes for you, but you do not so much as glance in her direction beyond war talk."

"That is not true. Lady Sif is a friend," Thor protested, obviously irritated by her accusations. He didn't understand her insistence of such an idea and couldn't understand where she'd plucked it from.

"And is Casia just a friend too?" Lusine questioned and stuffed half a chunk of bread into her mouth, forcing Thor to fill the silence with his answer.

"Yes, Lady Casia is a friend," He replied, putting his foot down. With the light heat on his cheeks, she could tell his frustration with her was rising.

"Well," Casia herself said as she slid into the seat on Thor's other side, "it's nice to know I've got at least one friend in this place."

Lusine ate more bread, amused by her appearance at the table and wished she'd turned up a little sooner.

"Of course," Thor said, sinking back into his chair, though it did nothing to exclude him from the conversation.

With the sly smirk that danced with delight upon Lusine's mouth as she swallowed and turned to face them, he wished it would've.

"We were just discussing how oblivious Thor is to the adoration he receives from many women," Lusine explained, following the bread with wine sloshing down her throat in a river of satisfaction.

"Oh?" Casia's eyebrows rose, turning to him with expectancy. 

Thor laughed. "Well, that's a ironic coming from you, Lusine," He bellowed, playing up to his well-known character as a joyful prince, "you've got more admirers than anyone I've ever met."

Lusine did not fail to notice the bristling fire that had begun to flicker in Casia's rich brown eyes as she said, "Well, at least I am a woman who knows what she wants."

"And what is that?"

"That is for me to know and for you to find out," Luisne quipped in response, rising from her seat. "I should leave. I wish to visit Loki one last time before my departure tomorrow morning. So, I bid you farewell. Have a lovely evening."

As she pushed past them, Casia reached out and gripped her arm firmly. Lazily, Lusine turned to her with expectancy.

"We're leaving?" Casia asked, frowning deeply. 

She didn't want to leave yet. They'd barely been in Asgard for a week and she was just getting used to the Shakespearean manner with which its civilians spoke and the flowing dresses she could never seem to pin right. The thought of having to adjust to a new place all over again without knowing anyone apart from the eternally pissed-off Lusine sounded like torture. 

"There is no 'we' about this matter," Lusine replied sternly, her face a stoic masterpiece, "you will remain here and continue your training with my cousin Kyrie and Lady Sif while I return home. The arrangements have been made."

"You're already abandoning me?" Casia accused, her face dissolving from confusion into anger, that fire in her irises burning brighter. "Was it really so difficult to spend a little more than three days trying?"

Lusine ripped her arm from the other woman's grasp, skin itching where she had been held by the woman who did not and could not understand. While the wrath inside of her was minute compared to its potential, it still simmered and cooed in response to the sensation of Casia's magic force climbing and building within her.

"Don't be selfish and assume that this is me giving up on you, even though you've given me plenty of reason to do so," Lusine snapped back, fists coiled at her sides. Heads turned at the sound of a raised voice, eager to see a fight. "My father lies on his death bed as you whine and complain about your muscles aching or your head hurting. Remulan is not a stable or safe place for me to bring you into right now. You would be dead within hours of setting foot there, you inconsiderate swine."

Casia shot from her chair to stand toe-to-toe with the goddess who dared brand her in such a childish manner. She pulled against Thor's grip on her wrist that tried to pull her back, but to his surprise she held her own against his strength.

"Don't belittle me, Lusine," Casia warned. Oh, the phoenix inside of her soared with joy as the fire bubbled up and up and up inside of her lungs, contorting her breathing, sending her heart rate through the roof. "It won't be pretty if you do."

Lusine just smiled thinly and said, "Do yourself a favour and grow up a little by the time I return."

"Don't talk to me like I'm a child," Casia said lowly, yanking her arm from Thor's grip and stepping up to Lusine without a drop of fear. In the hall around them, murmurs rose and whispers flew.

"Casia, this isn't a good idea," Thor warned, but he was ignored as Casia stepped even closer to the woman who wore chaos like a second skin. 

"Are you not a child?" Lusine questioned, not giving an inch as Casia attempted to intimidate her into backing down. She had faced worse and would face worse. "A child who views the world as a game? Guess what, it's not a game and you will pay the price if you treat it as such."

"Is that what happened to you, hm?" Casia continued to push her luck with Lusine's patience, but she knew how to snap it in half without breaking a sweat to look for weakness. Why would she delve for it when she already knew its name? "Is that what happened when you ventured to Asgard and got your heart broken by Loki? Were you just playing a game?"

Lusine turned her gaze to the side, a low, empty laugh leaving her lips as she scanned the crowd for anyone who would try to stop her. The only one was Thor, but he was sat in shock as he watched Casia stand up to a woman with little hold on her own anger.

"I was not heart broken by Loki-" Lusine began, but Casia continued her fury-fired rant before she could finish.

"Not heart broken? You loved him and he betrayed you. He tried to kill you, Lusine, doesn't that break your heart?" Her tone was patronising and without even a spec of remorse for the words she spat with venom to the woman who had turned over a new leaf.

Calmly, Lusine turned the leaf back over as she delved into the surface of her power.

"Do not test my will-power, Casia," Lusine told her; she dragged her fingertips through the inky lake, testing its loyalty. 

"He wanted you dead and maybe he should've succeeded," Casia seethed, eyes glowing with fire and tongue burning hot with the venom that flew from it with dastardly ease.

Lusine took a single step forwards. "Maybe you should finish the job," She dared, though her voice was steady as she spoke. Calculated as she roiled Casia up. Wound her up like a toy soldier.

There was something about her collected nature as she bickered with the Midgardian woman that was entirely unsettling to the crowd and to Thor, but Casia swung for her anyway.

With utter grace, Lusine simply stepped out of the way, but her eyes widened in complete and utter surprise as flames consumed Casia's entire forearm as she turned and aimed to strike her once again.

It was upon the second punch that Casia caught sight of her blazing arm and stopped in her tracks. She stared at the flames like a deer caught in headlights, bewildered and terrified. She coiled her fingers into a fist, the anger reminding her from where the flames had been born.

Lusine glanced to Thor and shook her head slightly in a brief, underwhelming apology as she took her chance to strike the agent while she was distracted by her new found strength. 

She lifted her palm up and, with a twitch of her fingers, a rapid burst of dark energy shot into Casia. Lusine watched with a tight throat as the magic climbed up her neck, invading her body through her mouth and her nose.

The women met eyes for a short moment of resistance before Casia's eyes rolled back into her head and she collapsed, Thor barely catching her before she hit the ground.

"Take her to her room. She will need to rest," Lusine said quietly before she turned and strode from the hall before he could say a word to reprimand her actions. Not wanting to meet his eyes and see the disappointment as clear as the day within them.

She had allowed Casia's anger to boil. Had fuelled it. With every smirk and every word, she threw another log onto the already raging fire behind the skin of a girl who had no control over the phoenix as its uncurled its wings to greet the winter wolf with a ferocious hello from its snapping beak.

-

-

By the time Lusine stood before Loki's cell, she had to clamp her hands together to stop them from shaking with shame and shuddering regret.

Maybe he saw the expression on her face for he closed his book and stood upon her arrival, or maybe he was just pleased to see her. 

Though, when he looked closer, he could see the white of her knuckles as she held her own hands tightly and the black veins that had begun to crawl and wind up her wrists once more.

"Lusine," He said her name as a greeting, but also as a flicker of light just in case she needed to see through that dark that he could sense swarming around her.

"One moment," She muttered and her eyes closed.

Ever so slightly, her hands uncurled, the veins lurched up her forearms as she blinked form existence and reappeared right before him. So close he could smell the wine on her breath and the shame on her skin. 

Lusine took a step back under the weight of his gaze.

"I know that we did not part on the best terms, once again," Lusine said, still holding tight onto her own hands, the fingers slender around her palms. He could not help but watch the spidering veins gradually dissolve beneath her skin. "But I wanted to see you before I departed for Remulan."

"You're leaving so soon?" Loki asked, the question coming with a companion of a little laugh that fell flat between them. "Why, don't you love the Asgardian culture anymore?"

Lusine declined his bait; lay on the ocean floor as the waves roared over in clashes with every turn, spitting foam.

"My father is sick and I suspect it is my mother's doing," Lusine replied shortly.

There was something about her voice that was different to before. Different to how it had always been when conversing with him. This was no chaotic, out of control being stood in his presence. 

This was a woman with a vendetta who knew exactly what she wanted.

"And you're going to go home to do what exactly?" Loki chanced a step towards her, but she seemed intently wrapped up in her calculations and analysis that she didn't seem to notice or care.

"I want to see my father and to try to confirm that it is poison in his system, not a natural illness," She explained to him with grit determination to stick to her word. "Once Olea confirms that it is poison and an attempted assassination, I will have my mother pay for her crimes."

Loki took a moment to ponder her expression. To drink it in just in case the worst occurred so that he may never forget the pure commitment to her cause that lined her face with beauty that day. He admired her for it. Wondered how he'd been so foolish to not admire her loyalty sooner. 

"Then what? You'll assume the throne?" He questioned, forcing her to think about her plan beyond the criminal charge of her own mother.

"If I must," Lusine responded begrudgingly, "though I would prefer not to." Her voice trailed off as she glanced away from him for a heartbeat.

When she looked to him again, she took both of his hands in hers and gripped them tight, that same light of determination hovering upon the expanses of her features.

"Loki, I do not intend to encourage you to break out of your confinement... but if you ever do and find yourself requiring a place to lie low, the gates of Remulan will forever be open to you," She promised and he saw no lie within her words.

The offer was genuine and full of hope for her own future as well as his. While darkness had always been her twin, Lusine had an undeniable kind streak that could not be kept beneath the surface, no matter how the dark tides tried to submerge it. To hide its beacon of hope from the world. To hold the facade that she was a monstrous woman with a taste for blood. But she had seen the light and it was glorious.

"Thank you," Loki replied, matching her genuine nature as he squeezed her rough hands.

Her head tilted to the side as she smiled at him with a sadness he couldn't bring himself to bat away from hitting its mark right between the eyes.

"If I don't return, do not mourn me," Lusine said, absently tracing a thumb over the back of his hand comfortingly as his eyes fervently searched hers for any clue as to her intent.

"Why would you ask such a thing of me?" Loki questioned, finding such a request absurd and blatantly far from the truth. Did she not realise quite how many would truly mourn her death?Did she not understand that she was loved?

"Because I will have died for honour, not for chaos, and that is all I have ever wanted in this life, Loki. To not be the dawning chaos, but to be the light in someone's world."

In that moment, he truly understood what a remarkable woman Lusine Volkov was and prayed for her prevailing glory to every god he knew. 

-

4106 words
15.6.18
ok, this was a long one, but this was the final Lusine centred chapter for AGES so it felt right to give her a long chapter before she was gone for a while.