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Tweak says, "Littering and...?"

Valkyrie is an (angry_queen) wrote in somerealityrpg,
@ 2020-08-18 09:39:00

Entry tags:

active: steve rogers, active: valkyrie

Who: Valkyrie and Steve Rogers
What: random interaction turned bonding
Where: the edges of camp
When: late afternoon, evening, before bucky's return, backdated
Warnings: talk of traumatic pasts, etc. neither are fluffy kittens.
Status: in progress
Cut Song: The One to Survive

Valkyrie was feeling, she wasn't really sure, to be honest. She'd not let emotions control her, besides anger, in a long time. And she was feeling things she hadn't in awhile and she hated it. She had discovered a small stash of something that could even start to take the edges off and she really needed it this week. Everything was exhausting. She buried a lot of things herself, and while she let everyone lean on her, she did not lean on anyone else.

She was happy to see Loki - REALLY happy - but deep down, she was jealous, too. She couldn't remember her family (what were their names? do you even know?), her oath to Odin had wiped most of that out, it was only a distraction from doing her job. And now millennia later, she wondered what she was missing. There was so much she didn't know and it kind of hit the buttons. Seeing Loki, Thor, Torunn, Angela, Frigga etc all have each other in some form stung.

She was family but not like that. It wasn't the same and before she'd let anyone know it bothered her, she swiped the booze and took off for the woods, a knife in one hand spinning the blade lazily. She was broody and there were enough trees she could unleash a little on it. What she hadn't expected was that someone had see the way her face fell a little when the family reunited. It had only been there a second, then she'd pulled her own mask back into place. She missed her people. She missed her sisters, long dead, she missed getting into fights. She missed Asgard. She also missed New Asgard. She hadn't been Queen long but it was long enough to engrain a serious love of her people into her.

Poor Steve was met, as she slid off the path, to a knife held in his direction before she saw who it was and lowered it. Of all the people, she could handle him following. They weren't close, they barely knew each other, but it wasn't someone like Thor, who she couldn't hide her thoughts from for long. "Did you need an escape from the cheer that is camp, too?"

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_onyourleft_
2020-08-19 01:06 am UTC (link)

His expression softened at that. He could sympathise with that particular feeling. "I absolutely don't begrudge anyone who and what they have." He took the bottle again. "It's simply a reminder, sometimes."

When he'd decided to become so forthcoming, he wasn't sure. He probably should have taken his morose company somewhere far away. "This place, though. It's an opportunity to move on. To let go of those feelings," he suggested. It's what he'd been trying to do. Unsuccessfully so far, but the intention remained.

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angry_queen
2020-08-19 01:12 am UTC (link)

She shook her head a bit, "but being here is what brought them out." She waved a hand lightly, "I see families, here, I see my best friend has nearly all his family. And I'm reminded... I don't have that." She pushed her hair back over her shoulder.

"I'm truly happy for him. I don't begrudge him that at all. He deserves it. He deserves to be happy. It just a reminder and I don't like it." She said looking down at the ground for a moment. "So moving on isn't really that easy."

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	_onyourleft_ 2020-08-19 01:20 am UTC (link)
	"It isn't easy because of the reminder?" He set the bottle back down between them. "Sounds like an excuse to me." He looked over his shoulder at her. "What's stopping you from moving on except being scared?" And maybe he wouldn't have said that if they weren't sitting here sharing things that should have otherwise remained unspoken. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

angry_queen
2020-08-19 01:29 am UTC (link)

The look she gave him was one part fire and one part hurt. She felt her temper flare in her chest then she forced herself to take a breath. Then another one. Damn. The bottle got picked up before she replied, another sip.

Then it was set down again. "Maybe I am. Maybe I'm used to sitting with the hurt and don't know what to do with it." She looked at him again, her lips pursed.

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_onyourleft_
2020-08-19 01:37 am UTC (link)

He half expected to get hit for that comment, but the anger never showed. He looked away, not really knowing what to say to that. Maybe because he didn't really know what to do with it, either. Except take all the hurt and the memories of moments he'd rather forget and let them all out with his frustrations on a punching bag.

"Sounds to me like maybe you need to figure it out. Unless you want to keep sitting by a fire alone and drinking." He'd said it to those people. You gotta move on. He just hadn't quite figured out how to do it himself. Having something to focus on, like Thanos, that made it easy to ignore. But the truth of it was, Ultron had been right. Captain America couldn't live without a war.

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angry_queen
2020-08-19 01:42 am UTC (link)

The urge was there but she was trying not to punch her drinking buddies. It was a close call, though, her fingers clenched then slowly unfurled. But it didn't help, so the knife materialized and it was slammed into the tree just behind them, hard enough to splinter the tree.

Then calmly, "but I'm not alone. And you're speaking from experience. Why aren't you letting go and moving on?" A brow arched upwards, she wasn't likely to let him dodge that for long.

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_onyourleft_
2020-08-19 01:50 am UTC (link)

He raised an eyebrow at the little show with the knife, the unspoken 'really?' written all over his face. "You know, you could just tell me it's none of my business."

The question prompted another shrug. "Could be I just haven't figured out how, yet." Or maybe he'd considered doing the opposite for a few moments before opening his eyes in Goodland. Thought about going back and spending that stolen time with Peggy. Did it count as moving on if it was going back?

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angry_queen
2020-08-19 01:53 am UTC (link)

She rolled her eyes at him, at his unspoken really. It was better the tree than his face, as durable as it was, she'd feel bad later. "It isn't, but here we are." She chewed the corner of her lip for a moment.

"It isn't easy." She said as she looked a little less likely to commit homicide. "Could be, could be you've thought of other things to do instead. Including avoiding thinking about it."

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_onyourleft_
2020-08-19 02:00 am UTC (link)

"Here we are," he agreed with a wry laugh, scuffing the toe of his shoe in the dirt. Because it was a ridiculous place to be, sitting and feeling sorry for himself in the middle of the night. But he couldn't bring himself to walk away from her. He couldn't leave someone alone when they were obviously suffering.

"I don't think you can call it avoidance if there hasn't been another option," he pointed out. Now, though. Now was the hard part. "I was going back to her," he finally admitted aloud, after a good minute or two of silence. "I'd made up my mind. But here I am."

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angry_queen
2020-08-19 02:06 am UTC (link)

It was a strange place to be, that was for sure. She tucked one knee up, arm folding around it, chin settling on top. Her eyes dark, stormy even. She didn't think he wanted to leave, he could have at any thumbs.

"I suppose that is fair." She said after a moment then she winced, "oh, oh that one stings." She didn't offer her apologies, he'd likely heard them all before, but she reached out to kick his foot with hers gently, saying she got it. "You got that chance torn right away from you."

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_onyourleft_
2020-08-19 02:15 am UTC (link)

His lips twitched in the beginnings of a smile at the kick to his foot. Apparently she wasn't all that good with the expressing of emotions. "Well." His tone was a little dismissive, wanting to let it go. "Apparently someone out there doesn't think we should be together." No first date, no dance. He probably should have taken the hint.

"I gave it a shot. Moving on. Didn't work out so well." The whole time he'd been too weighed down with guilt. Guilt because he felt like Diana would only end up hurt when his feelings were still so mixed up. And guilt that he still felt like he shouldn't be moving on. Diana was too good a friend to put her through that.

"Nicely done, by the way. We were talking about you a few minutes ago." He hadn't forgotten.

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angry_queen
2020-08-19 02:24 am UTC (link)

She was not. Anger was her preferred emotion, with detachment the next. Happiness, jealousy, empathy. They were harder and she was trying. It was the best she could do.

"All the more worth fighting for, I think. I hate when anything tells me I shouldn't want something, can't do something. Makes doing it more fulfilling." She offered in an attempt to be more honest.

"Let me guess." She paused to think for a moment, leaning hard on to her own memories. "You feel guilty to even start to move on. She's special in many ways and you don't want to hurt even the memory of her?" She'd had a very hard time moving on from her sisters, her lover, her friends when they'd died.

She'd felt guilty finding pleasure, joy, happiness, in another's touch. So for far too many centuries she'd closed herself off and locked her heart up. She'd felt like she was betraying the memory.

Her face clouded thinking about all of it before she laughed, a short little thing, "we were but now we're talking about you."

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_onyourleft_
2020-08-19 02:33 am UTC (link)

"I think that's what makes this place so difficult, sometimes. I have never been able to turn my back on something like that. This place forces our hand."

The words hurt, only because they were so true. Moving on felt like a betrayal. His love for Peggy was still so strong, the anger at losing her sometimes so all consuming. When he woke in the middle of the night from dreams of plunging into cold and darkness, their last words fresh in his mind, the moment became real again.

"So who did you leave behind?" He asked, looking over at her again. It was a clear sign he was done talking about it. And those had been the words of someone who knew.

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angry_queen
2020-08-19 02:45 am UTC (link)

"I understand how you feel." she did, too, though for other reasons and not quite the same ones. But she knew, and she knew her words had hit home.

But that was okay. They clearly both had things to face and nudging it into the open sometimes helped. Maybe a little, anyway, knowing someone else knew how much it hurt.

"No one alive to remember." she said slowly, then let out a breath. "But, I lost everyone." she waved a hand, "I'm not talking about recent history," not really wanting to talk about THAT either, "but a very, very long time ago. When we were the best force in Asgard. I fought for Odin. I did everything he asked."

Her fingers curled into the curve of her knee, "And yet, he sent us against his daughter, his power-mad daughter who drew her strength from Asgard herself." a snort before she took a drink from the bottle and handed it back.

"My sisters. My friends. My lover. Decimated. Easily. Leaving me the only one standing. I don't remember how I escaped but to this day I regret it. They died and yet, I lived." the entire elite Valkyrior, gone. "Any time I looked at a man, or a woman, I felt my heart crack. Like I was betraying her memory, their memory, by just being alive. So I know how it feels. And that is before Asgard fell, my people halved and halved again."

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_onyourleft_
2020-08-19 03:45 am UTC (link)

He knew how that felt. He'd woken 70 years in the future with all his friends, everyone he'd loved, gone. And knowing to them, he'd been dead, had somehow made it all the crueler.

"I'm sorry." The words were completely earnest, the only way he knew how to be. "Maybe one day you can tell me about them." Not today, he didn't think. Today wasn't a day she'd want to speak of the people she loved.

"Maybe that's why we're both here," he finally offered, shifting to face her this time. "Maybe it's the universe's way of telling us it's time to move on."

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angry_queen
2020-08-19 03:52 am UTC (link)

Their lives had been thrown away and she was left. And then had faced down their killer once more during Ragnarok - and still came out alive. But still losing. She wasn't sure how to handle that one either.

She took his words at their honest truth and offered him a faint smile. "Maybe sometime." she hadn't really talked about it to Thor, or Loki, or anyone. But maybe she needed to. She wasn't sure about that.

Valkyrie regarded him for a moment before looking down at him, her head tilted a little thoughtfully. "Perhaps," she said in a slow, cautious tone. "perhaps it is time to lay the dead and gone to rest and stop letting the ghosts of our pasts haunt the days of our future." it was a carefully said statement, like she wasn't sure if they were the right words or not.

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