Whatever, bitch. (whatever_bitch) wrote in newalliance, @ 2013-11-17 11:02:00 |
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Entry tags: | loki, rose wilson |
Who: Ravager, Loki
Where: First Norway, then the Isle of Silence
When: November 10 (backdated and takes place after this)
What: Rose goes to retrieve her mother's pendant from her enemy's. While there, she discovers what he's up to... (Completed in GDoc)
Rating: PG-13 (violence, swearing)
I’ll get your heat up
I’ll lay your body down
I’ll mess the sheets up
I’ll rip your nightgown
I’ll get you steamed up
I’ll burn your house down
We’ll wake the street up
Let’s wreck this Dogtown
******
The little fingers of a five-year-old girl’s hands clasped around her mother’s necklace. Every single day that little white-haired girl had seen her mother, she had worn this same jade and gold pendant.
She was sitting on her mother’s lap as her mother read her a story of a young woman who had been cursed when she stole a magical sword from an evil king. Her mother was reading the tale to her in Khmer, their native language. Rose was already fluently bilingual and studying martial arts under the greatest teachers her mother could afford.
But the story didn’t interest her. The pendant -- it was just so pretty. “Mommy, who gave you this? Can I have it?”
Lili looked away from the book and smiled down at her daughter. “Your father gave it to me. It will be yours one day.”
Rose frowned. Her father. She wasn’t supposed to ask questions about him because that was the rule, but her mother just made it so much more tantalizing when she mentioned him. “When will I meet him, mommy?” It was a quiet whisper, but there was so much eagerness in that tiny child’s voice.
“We talked about this, my love.”
“I know.”
Lili kissed her daughter on the forehead. Rose was obedient to her mother to a fault. Whatever she said went and once again the little girl deferred to her mother, snuggling back into her arms as Lili continued reading.
*****
“We have to leave now, Rose!” William Wintergreen’s voice was hushed, but assertive. Rose had begged him to take her back to the brothel so she could get her belongings, but she barely spent any time in her own room.
Wintergreen, as he was known by, was Rose’s father’s most trusted assistant and ally. And at this very moment, he had taken Rose home after her mother had careened off a cliff trying to kill Wade Defarge. Defarge had attempted to kill Rose in order to get to Deathstroke. Wintergreen had packed most of the 14-year-old’s clothes while she listlessly moved about and finally settled on the floor of her mother’s room. He found her again practically ransacking the room, tearing it apart in search of something.
“What are you looking for?” He asked.
“My mother’s pendant! I need it! You don’t understand! ...It’s … it’s the only thing I have left…” the tears ran down her cheeks as the young girl came to the realization that nothing would ever be the same again. She finally succeeded in locating it, holding it up before her face when she did.
It was the last thing she had of her mother. She pulled it over her head and tugged on the pendant. She looked back to Wintergreen with a look that showed little of the pain she had just gone through and everything of a petulant child: “Fine! Let’s go!”
*****
It took some time and a lot of irritating finagling to finally secure the device from Dr. Doom that would counteract magic. And that was what Rose needed before she could set about on her path to retrieve what was rightfully hers.
The apartment in Norway was easy enough to find. When she got there, it was empty. But it was the annoyingly bold and ornate green door that made her realize there was much more to this little journey she was about to make. It was without hesitation that she stepped through the door and onto a long, cold and entirely silent road. Too silent. There was no sound of the wind, no leaves crackling beneath her boots even. It was peaceful, yet unnerving; even for someone like her who could creep in and out of places with the shadows.
The road seemed to drag on forever before she reached a quaint cabin. The question was: what would lie in it? Why did Loki want her to come all the way out here? She was cautious to guard against a trap (which she was fully expecting, considering how far away he'd dragged her), but her simmering fury kept her moving forward.
She pushed the oak cabin door open with the tip of a sword and stood in the doorway momentarily, eye narrowed. She was desperate to get her pendant back. Enough so that she would willingly enter the Mischief God's treacherous abode.
~~~~~~~~~
Nononononono. That was the last thing he had thought as he teetered in place, only vaguely aware of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents swarming around him. It wasn’t possible for mortals to drug a god. It wasn’t! It wasn’titwasn’titwasn’t…
Rose opened the door, and the spell triggered immediately. Once it located him, the energy pulled him through the realms. The travel was rough, since he wasn’t conscious to control it at all, and he was deposited with some momentum and skid across the small floor of the cabin. Despite the hard smack against the wood, causing it to crack in places, he didn’t stir in the least, still cuffed and gagged.
In the silence outside, Rose had heard none of the crash. Now that she was in the small abode, though, Loki’s spells allowed sound to operate normally. It was nauseating loud after the absolute silence outside, the door moving, the wood creaking under her feet, the hum of spells starting to react to an intruder. Energy dart from the wall, seeking to ensare her… then fell to useless wisps once it reached her, the device confounding it. A mirror faced her direction swelled with a fog, then cracked suddenly, unable to capture her, so her image stood, split awkwardly down the center at an angle.
Loki wasn’t conscious for any of it. He lay on his side against the base of the counter, eyes mostly closed and body limp. A look at his eyes would reveal the pupils’ sluggish dilating. He was out of it. Unnaturally so.
Which left all the items in the place free for her to explore and observe. A stuffed magpie sitting serenely on a stand with an ash branch turned its head to watch her, but didn’t open its beak to protest anything. Her locket was hanging unnoticed from the tip of its beak, undisturbed and in perfect seeming condition. A candle on the counter with all its odd trinkets started to burn, flame simply growing on the wick from nothing. The dark brown wax was spicily scented, smelling of cinnamon, nutmeg, and something more exotic. And dizzying.
~~~~~~~~~
When she stood at the door, she had not realized that this was his… home. She quickly surmised this when she entered and saw all of the magical relics and trinkets. Although she wore the protective magical counteracting device provided to her by Doom, she still walked in, slowly, quietly, blade pointed forward and ready for any traps he would have waiting for her.
She could smell the candle immediately and hear the noises, thankful for something that was no longer silence. If she never had to walk down a path in complete quiet again, she would be quite happy. Pushing ahead despite a slight feeling of dizziness, she looked around the cabin, searching for her pendant. She saw a number of necklaces, none of them hers.
Of course he’s not going to make this easy.
She also already knew that he was here, but in some kind of weakened state. It wasn’t until she turned the corner and saw him lying on the floor, butted up against the wall that she realised what kind of state he was in. Her foresight could show her that he was weak, but not that he was drugged.
And of fucking course, he’s weakened. Rose was almost positive he did this on purpose. You fucking asshole!
The sharp tip of her blade met his neck, and without drawing blood, traced a line along the flesh where in previous encounters she’d planted kisses.
It would be so easy to just cut off her enemy’s head and be done with him; he couldn’t speak with the gag in his mouth, so would have difficulty uttering out a spell to stop her. He couldn’t even say any more of his cruel words. There was a festering fury in that beautiful blue eye as she looked down into his green eyes. They were dilated, but acclimatizing, meaning he was regaining his senses, after all.
But, if she killed him now, she would not get her pendant back. There was a long heavy-suffering sigh before she sheathed her sword. “You are a fucking moron,” she said, not indicating whether the ‘you’ meant herself or him. She then knelt down, pulling out a butterfly knife to release him (roughly, of course) from the mouth gag and unpin his tongue from the contraption SHIELD had wisely bound him in.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He felt like he was floating, and could not recall exactly the last time he had felt so dopey. The room was hazy, but he wasn’t even aware he was conscious yet, more asleep than awake as his eyes slid to the sharp edge of a blade above him. The blade doubled, tripled, danced into one image again, the edge catching a golden line of candle light.
Funny… he thought. Loki really should be panicking more. He was utterly helpless and Rose could so easily slice his throat, even had good reason to. Instead he just rolled his head some against the floor, chest lifting and falling with a deeper sigh released from his nose. Resigned. This wasn’t how he had planned it at all. He should have ported here, whole and complete in his senses, found Rose trapped, could then mock her a bit, let her have her pendant and send her on her way, her part in his ploys done.
Instead he couldn’t even feel his limbs, let alone try to move them effectively in these bindings.
The gag leaving his mouth was a bit of a relief, though he coughed some on the saliva, his throat too relaxed. He swallowed a few times experimentally, voice breathy. “Hi…”
~~~~~~~
Of fucking course.
Traps, spells, fighting -- that she would have been able to handle.
But this weakened state? Of which she was quite sure that it was an attempt to illicit sympathy from her. After everything he had done! No, she would not feel any mercy. She glared, her impatience growing. If she knew where her fucking pendant was, she would just fucking leave and he could go on looking ridiculous.
And he did look absolutely absurd, drool starting to dribble out of his mouth. She almost moved to wipe it away, but stopped her leather gloved hand just an inch from his mouth. She stood up instead, placing her hands on her hips and looked around the room. She could feel her senses heightening and was unsure of the reason why, but it was helping her foresight. She could see glimpses of Loki very clearly now and every minute move he made into the very near future. She turned back to him, looking down, her face an expression of haughtiness and irritation.
“You are drooling. Stop that. What are you on?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He had said hi, then his eyes had glazed over again, head rolling and yes, drooling in his sleep. He only passed out for a few seconds, but when her sharper voice cut through his senses, Loki jerked awake again, blinking in confusion and trying to recall in his memory where he was, odd babble coming out of his mouth that truly wasn’t any language, just disoriented verbalizing.
The candle did make it smell nice. There was a heady nutty and wood scent under the sharper spices, making an almost cedar smell. Of course, for Loki this candle was just a pleasant scent and was a touch relaxing. Something that was a touch relaxing for someone of his blood however meant it had a much more drastic effect on a mortal. In short, the magic spices in the candle were getting Rose a little more than buzzed.
Suddenly his brow pinched, and his eyes flew open again, looking a little frantic. “Legs!” He squirmed, looking down and saw a bit of his feet, then flopped back down, head clunking the floor loudly. “Mmgood… They’re still there.” He was still bound and cuffed, though, those laying close enough to his body they had teleported with him. He looked up at Rose again, seemed to be trying to think, but the most clever thing that came out was another. “Hi.”
Unfortunately for Rose, she realized he was going to be dizzy and unstable for the next hour, though at least it seemed in the next fifteen minutes or so he’d be more conscious.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“You sound …ridiculous.”
He was clearly going to be un-fucking-reliable, so she would have to find her pendant on her own. He’s a fucking trickster, how is this not a prank right now? She drummed her fingers on her hip for a moment as she continued to look down at him and then snapped her attention away. She was feeling a little more heady and rash than usual, the familiar and sensual feeling of her inhibitions melting away coupled with her precognitive ability enhancing to the point where she could see the future just by looking at an object one intended to use.
Since he is going to be fucking useless… “If I were the pendant of someone whose head I’m just fucking with, where would I be…” She murmured out loud, quite sure Loki would have absolutely no idea what she was saying. She looked around the room: various magical artifacts hung on the wall, while old leather-bound books, scrolls and assorted accoutrements were stacked up along the floor and on a large wood table. One could barely see the furniture, including a lovely green and wooden chaise lounge, for all the clutter. Heavy and dusty forest green curtains kept the sun out. And reminded Rose just how much she hated that fucking colour.
She walked by the table, stopping when she saw a crystal bauble. This is probably priceless... She flicked it with a finger and the ball rolled down the table, knocking over a few other ornaments in its path until it bounced off the table with a plink and broke, releasing an orange-hued vapour. Rose slowly turned around and gave the man -- who looked much more like a dopey and befuddled little boy -- a most devious smirk. “...Oops.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Loki woke with a snort at the sound of breaking crystal. The release of magic made his sinuses itch, and his nose wrinkled before he sneezed, violently. It woke him more though, and he looked puzzled at the broken glass on the floor, then to its cause. “Stoooop,” the mischief-maker complained, though from the wince he gave whether he meant for her to stop breaking things or to stop being noisy was hard to tell.
At this point he seemed to decide to try to move, squirming onto his back and pausing to stare at the ceiling, as though he had forgotten what he was up to briefly. He tapped his feet at the floor, experimenting to see if he could move them much, then pushed them against the counter to squirm away from it some. That was as far as Loki got before he gave another resigned sigh, looking about dizzily. “I think…. mm’stomach… feels…” Nausea. Wonderful. So long as he didn’t retch, it wasn’t too bad. He thought. Admittedly, he wasn’t sure. Things were still terribly numb.
Then finally a more cohesive thought made it through his glassy staring, looking to Rose as she was moving about. “How-how art thou up and moving? Thu should be…” He looked toward the door, where his now broken mirror stood and the burnt out runes were. “Ah! Thou bitch! I liked that mirror.” Then his brows raised, eyes closing as he flattened to his back again. “And I need not look at things… side-like. They keep turning.”
~~~~~~
She mostly ignored his commentary with a roll of her eye, save for pointing out that “Oh, did I break something else of yours? Oh. Darn.” There was too many things going on in her head and in front of her that she needed to focus on finding the pendant.
An assortment of weapons were fitted into a stand, including the spear he’d used on the trip to Hel. She walked up to it and could ‘see’ a vision of him holding it and pointing it at others, a menacing look on his face; nothing too out of the ordinary. But as she walked closer to a broken sword hilt, she was starting to see something much more powerful. Women warriors, eleven in total were standing in the cold. They appeared as wraith-like corpses -- and they were angry and so very hungry.
Interesting. What was he up to? She was just in the middle of trying to process what she was seeing when she started to hear a retching noise. She turned back around to see that it was coming from Loki.
“Are you fucking kidding me?!”
~~~~~~~~~~
“Wouldst thou stop? Thou aren’t… Not… wandering all over my place. That is mine. Touching isn’t… there’s a… recommended…to not.” His feeble, slurred mutterings were quite ignored though, and being bound and far too foggy to even consider magic, there really wasn’t anything the god could do about it. And with the candle burning and Rose being more distracted by it’s effects, she never noticed that he started to become even paler than usual, breaths shallow. Finally he jerked onto his side.
The only blessing was that S.H.I.E.L.D. had not fed or given him any fluid that morning. So at least it was only bile. After that it was just dry heaving before his body finally relaxed again. He looked utterly miserable, eyes watery and voice faint. “I think I may have an allergy to what they drugged me with.” He squirmed a bit, but he still couldn’t feel his limbs well enough to even consider getting loose. “I realize it is terribly inconvenient, all things considered, but would thou be kind enough to untie me?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
She watched him slump over and vomit with another eye-roll. She heard the plea, but stood in place momentarily, staring at the sword and a long black whip on the wall. The dead warriors flashed back in her mind again and she knew then where she had seen them before. The scroll she’d read that night they’d…
The Disir.
She was rapidly piecing things together as though it were a simple child’s puzzle. She turned back to him, lying on the floor, face in bile. The sigh she let out this time lasted a good 30 seconds.
She walked towards the trickster -- her enemy -- again, picking up a soft gold-ish blanket on the way. “Ha! ...Un-fucking-likely.” Still, she propped him back up against the wall so he was at least seated, scowling when his limp and weakened body flopped against hers.
She pushed him firmly against the wall away from her and held out the blanket. “This is cashmere, right? Good.” As she proceeded to wipe the bile from his face using the blanket, she asked: “You do know I hate you and want to kill you, right? So why did you bring me to your home?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Loki had half expected a kick in the ribs. Instead she picked him up and at least got him settled so he wasn’t a hapless trout on the floor. While most might have smiled victoriously at Rose being kindly, he instead felt dread knotting with the nausea. His eyes were still glazed, and he was having a horrible amount of time focusing on her, head continuing to flop forward on a neck that refused to cooperate until he finally just let it thump back against the wall and stared at a point above her head listlessly.
“Hmm… Yes. I know.” Loki truly did. He’d done a number of unforgivable things to Rose. Being helpless at her feet was nowhere in his plans. He swallowed, closing his eyes. “Odin’s eye, why could they not have simply let me drink something? This would not be a problem, then. I need to stop underestimating you little humans.” Then a frown. “How long hast thou been here?” He looked toward the candle to see it was still fairly fresh, then scowled, anger coming through. “Thou cut it close, didn’t thee? I thought that thou would run to Norway to get thy pendant back! What if the spell was triggered only after I was imprisoned elsewhere more secure?”
His complaining was cut short by another closing of his eyes, brow pinched. “Thou complicates everything.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Oh, right. Because you think I’m your little …wolf whose going to play fetch with you? No, I don’t think so. Besides, I never liked that name. It’s fucking stupid.”
Being in this close proximity to him… she caught a glimpse of the mischievous God receiving a sword from Mephisto -- the same sword she’d seen him with when he swore a blood oath -- he’d done it to ward her off of her suspicions. Of course… The sword was important. Why The whip… he needed the sword. For something. For the Disir. What was the story, again?
“Gross. You have barf in your hair. And you didn’t answer my question.”
So long as he was doped up and distracted, she could discover what he was up to, get her pendant and be gone. At least, if she could find her pendant in time…
~~~~~~~~~~~~
“What was the question again?” Then, “Oh. Here. Yes. Convenience, really. Dost thou know how much power and precision it takes to make such a spell? Course thou does not. Since the pattern was already established here and since the door acts as a convenient trigger… Also, it’s the time of year I always come here.” He shrugged. Then flopped forward to look at the blanket. “Did… Did thou wipe vomit with my cashmere blanket? What kind of horrible person art thou?!”
~~~~~~~~~~
Her reaction was swift and furious: a backhand right across his cheek that forced his head to lurch to the side. He probably didn’t feel it, though, thanks to the effects of the drugs.
“Stop it.”
There was more than a little exasperation in her tone. Though she knew him well enough now to know that he wasn’t entirely lying; he wanted her to come to his secluded abode because it would trigger a spell so he could make his escape from SHIELD. She was, like he said in his letter, nothing more than a means to an end.
But inviting an enemy into your home left you vulnerable. She was going to figure out all of his secrets and expose him. Why had he needed to stab her in front of Mephisto? Because he needed something to seal a deal. Loki was the bartering type... And what was it that scroll said was needed to cut the Disir? A pure soul. There was an urgency to her sight, meaning it was likely to happen in the near future.
As Rose was working out Loki's plans in her head, she appeared to look into his eyes, searching. But Rose was quite good at throwing up a facade to hide what she was thinking. "This is so dysfunctional..." She looked down, tossing the blanket aside. Ravager then rose and stood above him once more. "You know why I'm here."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Crack! He heard the sound, but it took him a few seconds to realize he’d been hit and this was why he was now laying on the floor. He gave an amused laugh, licking his lip to taste for blood. Then it faded as he gave another nauseated cough. Nothing came up though, his stomach too empty.
“Brilliant,” he muttered. “I need loose… Then I need a knife. There’s a thing in my shoulder I need to cut out.”
He rolled sluggishly to look up at her, a touch of worry on his pale face. Rose had that look, the one where she was seeing other things. He had seen her stoned before, seen her just… go away while on a trip. He didn’t like this. Loki did not want her seeing things. She was supposed to come in and be trapped in the mirror, put in a stasis until he was free of the cell. He could have ditched her elsewhere without problem. He should not be in this ridiculous situation, at her utter mercy.
So when she looked at him, and was looking so piercing with that single eye of hers, he just looked back, the drugs keeping the shutters free from his thoughts, but they were still so murky with the haze, so twisted and layered. Loki was far from unemotional--but all his emotions fought each other. He had layered reasons to everything he did, and if it were obvious what he was up to, it was almost certainly a ploy. If he were seemingly truthful, it was a trick. If he said he hated, it was because he also loved, and he shoved people away to protect himself, protect them from himself, and because he loathed them all for it. They could never escape the trickster’s cruelty, his cycling of rejection back to everything, everyone. He was mischief, named to that geis forever, and in a direct confrontation and confronted with truth, he lost. He always lost. Loki wanted to so desperately know and have all things, wanted it to be enough, but for the conspirative creature he knew it was ashes, yet he couldn’t help but try. It went deeper, and here Rose felt the flood of the Fates, their layered, iron strings that were riddled in every story telling, every magic behind myth that made the gods what they were because legend willed it. He and so many others were caught in its threads, and he as one of their cataclysms for change, change to repeat all things, every time with the trickster shifting a little further, fire… to ice.. to fire again.
So here he lay, a god of trickery, deceit, liesmith, mocker, fool and fox, and with naught a single trick up his sleeve at the moment. Loki barely had his tongue in this drugged state, his scattered senses ragged. She could kill him, and Loki knew it.
So it was a defeated act of honesty, looking toward the corner, chin nodding. “The bird. On its stand. Take it.”
~~~~~~~~~~
She could kill him easily in this state. But there was no point with a weakened opponent. And she also knew that touching the pendant or the bird could be a trap. She has to trust his word that she could simply take her pendant and leave.
Rose turned away and walked over to where the magpie was located. She saw the jade and gold pendant dangling from its beak. It was too high for her to reach even so she used the tip of a steel blade to pull the necklace down, letting it slide down the blade into her hand. She was very, very surprised that there was no spell or trick surrounding her pendant.
When she finally grasped it in her hand again, she squeezed her fist around the necklace. With that, she started walking towards the door, leaving Loki lying on his side still, cuffed and all. She stopped briefly before opening the door. Though he couldn’t see it from where he was lying, there was a devilish Cheshire grin on her face.
“Next time, I expect you to bring your A-game.” And with that, she left.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The stuffed magpie moved a little mechanically, then dropped the necklace to her waiting blade. Loki had his eyes closed, laying on his side and waiting for his senses to regather. He said nothing as she left into the silence and the door closed. Only then did one of his green eyes crack open, a line of emerald fire thick with rage burning there. Then it closed, and the god of mischief resumed sleeping.
Havoc was only resting, but briefly...