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Amora had been up and out of bed, if only to trail behind the Thunderer's steps or at his side. Though time and time again he rebuffed her in a friendly demeanor, the Enchantress seemed merely content to be by his side. Her edge had softened, her smile grown more honest and she even had a kindly word and a smile offered to Loki or Scarlett upon seeing them. She did not lure any mortals on to mischief and did not cause trouble. She seemed, for all intents and purposes, in a good mood.
At least, so she had been up until she had left the castle grounds some time earlier that afternoon. Now, the moon had risen when she had teleported back in a swirl of green glittering smoke. She stank of mortal magics and of salt and sand. Her features drawn as she cupped a crystal in hand, images playing over and over showing her the happenings that had occurred in Muspelhiem.
Now she sat, cross legged on top of the ramparts of the castle, clad in a mild cotton sun dress that whipped around her figure with her loose flowing hair. She waved her hand over the crystal again, replaying the events before her eyes with a look of increasing heartbreak. She frowned, her eyes downcast as a heartbreaking ache settled into her chest.
*
The darkened archway that leads further into the tower became filled with a shadow more palpable. Footsteps heralded the arrival of the man, so humbly dressed and seemingly at ease with his surroundings. Yet he lifted his voice to greet her as he drew near. "Incantare,"
Loki's hair is tied back in a small ponytail, and his chest is clad in that loose white jerkin that is so common of this part of Scotland. He emerges into the setting sunlight, hands in his pockets and his expression touched with curiosity. "You seem to have settled into the role of lady of the manor, decently at the least. Though you also seem to embrace it as if it were written by Bronte." His lip twitches as he steps up to stand beside her at the edge of the parapet, leaning back and against the crenellations.
*
A flickering glance leapt up toward Loki at the sound of his voice and she frowned faintly, rising to walk barefooted toward him with a smooth motion. "I wish you would not call me that." She murmured, the scene continued to play in the crystal ball in her hand as she came to a halt a breath away from him.
"I am lady of the manor in so much as a wren is a hawk," She closed her hands over the crystal, turning her gaze down to it in a morose silence for a beat before she lifted her gaze once more to him. She tossed it up and caught it, before with a gesture she dismissed it once more.
"I have seen what occupied in Muspelhiem when you and your brother came.." She hesitated and sighed, her gaze held low.
*
A nod is given, "We did what had to be done," Loki folds his arms over his chest and turns his head to look across the scenic view over the ocean and the nearby fields that he and Thor had been tending to of late, perhaps on some lark, or perhaps on some desire to reach some… aspect of equilibrium. Whatever it is, however, the green-eyed god looks back upon her. "And we are both sure you would do the same for us, with roles reversed. Though you most likely would not let us live them down." His lip curls faintly.
"What has you so low in heart, Enchantress?" He looks down to his boots and gets a small smile, "Was it because we made light of your reign?" A sly look touches the features of the trickster as he meets her eyes again.
*
His jest brings no equal humor to her eyes and she rather seems to deflate the more for it. Her lips twist and she crosses her arms under her chest, a huff of a breath escaping her. Her gaze pauses on the ground before she spins on her heel and starts to pace again, and she seems to struggle with words before the flood gates open and the makings of a rant leave her.
"I know not what to do Loki! Time and again, your brother spurns me. He does not even look upon me as a man might do. He does not mark me. Time and again! He did not note my exile to Midgard, he did not note that I was /taken/ in the first place. And," She pointed a finger toward him. "If not for you, he'd have ne'er been to my rescue in the first place. Am I not right? He did not note that I was not myself, again, it was /you/ that noted it and broke the spell that so ensorcelled me. Your brother has never been one for subtlety or to note anything at all unless it concerns a hunt or some wrong in Midgard." She inhaled, and continued to pace, barefeet moving soundlessly on the stone beneath her feet.
"Tis not fair, after centuries I have tried again and again. In as many ways as there are stars in the skies of all the realms, I am at my wits end." She sighed, pressing her hand against her forehead and pushing back strands of golden hair.
"What am I lacking in? What do I not have?" Her voice was small and sounded lost, her green eyes damp with unshed tears that emotion had welled up in as she turned her gaze toward him.
"I have searched the spinner’s magic, and not once have I seen a means to ever have aught else.."
*
Loki's brow knits in consternation, his expression turning as her mood grows all the more prominent. As she rants and lets go with her feelings, emotions spilling out before them like the onset of the tide, the trickster god follows her pacing with the casual aplomb of a wolf observing a packmate with a burr in its paw. His lip twitches and then he lifts his chin. "How, do mine eyes deceive me?"
The Asgardian cants his head towards her as she moves, "Amora, the Enchantress, stealer of souls and devourer of a man's will complains to the world that life is unfair?" He looks at her levelly, "Perhaps the mortals you hold at rapt attention, the ones you use and discard now and again… perhaps do you feel their perception of the world might perchance be… unfair?"
His lip curls cruelly, "What would you tell them, I wonder? What words of consolation would you offer them?"
The trickster rolls to his feet and steps towards her, leaning forward as if he were observing her so terribly close. "Did it not occur to you, dear Enchantress, that he does not love you? Did that possibility enter your thoughts that perhaps there is not a happy ending to your story?"
*
A flicker of anger riots in her eyes and then becomes muffled, as she presses a hand to her lips and looks away from him. Her other hand rising to band around her waist tightly as if in comfort against the cruel words he had fired so accurately that the sting was still worming further into her heart. She exhaled a shaky breath, her hand curling into a fist at her side before she turned back toward him.
"There is no happy ending for your story either, Loki." She snapped, her voice toned and raw with the hurt that lashed in her chest. "You know the tales of the future promised to come. You won't find happiness either." She swallowed the cloying lump in her throat as she spoke, and her eyes narrowed.
"What of the mortals that fall for you? Is it kinder since you don't use magic to ensnare their hearts? So that when they love you they do so truly and melt away into hate when it becomes clear that you cannot love at all?"
*
"The difference is I never claimed as much," Loki answers her easily enough, "Nor pretend to rail at the world about the fairness of it all." Folding his arms back over his chest, the man in the garb of a laborer speaks to the goddess of such high matters, and seems entirely at ease doing so. "The mortal tales are but tales. Whatever fate holds, whatever we pretend is our destiny, it will be a making of our own. Whether it be through a surrender of culpability and self-determination, or simple acceptance of having our paths written for us."
The man makes a casual wave of one hand to the side, as if brushing past such conjecture. Instead he turns to the next angle from which she strikes back at him. "Why not ask any being who has fallen in love with another whether heartbreak is fair. There is a difference, Amora, between you and I. And it is that you trade on love. You have made it an exchange of goods for services. You have become a merchant. And that is so terribly undignified. Which is ever so much more flattering than what else I could call it."
*
Anger clogged her throat as Amora seethed at his words, her features whitening with rage as she stood there and he continued to hurl insults upon her. She looked near to burst with loathing, with utter hatred. And then, it seemed to snap full closed in on herself. She exhaled once, her lips pursed together before a strangled sound of laughter escaped her and she turned her gaze skyward. Her hands pressed over her cheeks as she near doubled in laughter. Several long moments of this followed before she straightened and coughed, smoothing a hand over her face and pushing her hair back.
Then she shot Loki a lightning sharp smile, whatever softness, whatever vulnerability she had shown previously was well smothered and hidden back into its proper place. "You're so very, very," She dragged her lower lip between her teeth. "Sexy when you're being a cruel bastard, you know that?" She closed the distance between them, reaching up to drag a hand through his hair and muss the ponytail that kept it in check.
*
A laugh comes from him and Loki leans close to just touch a small kiss to her cheek as he ever so smoooothly slides up and away from her reach. A few paces back as he turns around to walk away from her backwards, hands out and at his sides. "Amora, I am just trying to tell you… Thor doesn't love you. Not perhaps as you would wish. But we both will do what we can and be there for you if you wish. You are making…" The tall man looks to the side, then back. "The decision to be unhappy. And if you are indeed finally looking upon yourself and seeing that, then I am glad to have helped facilitate that however little."
That said he rests his hands on his hips, "Now if you truly want a tumble, perhaps we'll see what can be arranged." His lips twitch slightly and she knows that look, he might well be planning something very evil. Perhaps he'd spend the night with her, or perhaps he'd arrange for her to have a lovely time otherwise. But still, evil.
*
It happened more than once in their time that such conversation had happened, though perhaps this was the first that she had admitted to knowing how little a chance she had with the Thunderer. Yet the heartache was something that she was used to, a thing that typically had her falling into Loki's arms or mischief in more than one way. "I know Thor does not love me." She murmured, "And that he will forever choose others over me. Though I can not fathom why." She whispered, her back stiff as she swatted at his figure as he stepped back and out of her reach.
Her eyes narrowed faintly at his grin, his wicked delight that had her stepping up toward him with a hitched brow and a cant of her head. "Now don't tell me that you too, will deny me. I don't think my pride could take such a hit." She fluttered her eyelashes at him. Her hand combing her wind swept hair between her fingers.
*
"Amora," Loki maintains his unassailability with his arms folded in front of him and his rather jovial look to him as he cocks his head to the side. "Do you want my advice? For true?" He awaits there as he looks into her eyes, his own expression calm and as he gauges her expression. And if she gives him a nod or some other form of affirmation he'll continue in that quiet calm manner of his own.
"Allow yourself to venture into the world. Amongst the mortals. Amongst these people who on the whole have such horrible depths and depravities, yet still one can find examples of such exquisite… heroism and unique ability… that you may find them to have qualities you would never imagine."
A breath is taken and he steps towards her, resting a hand on her shoulder. "Open yourself to them, do not allow yourself the crutch of your magic, nor your glamours. Just venture at as you who you are, amazing being that may be. And find yourself love. A unique love."
A fingertip lightly brushes her hair to the side, "For if we lay together again, and you allow yourself that… reassurance, that false security and sense of self, then you will awaken again as you have felt before. Loathing yourself, feeling empty, and still seeking."
*
A pause had her frozen before him, her brows furrowing as she turned her gaze up to his own. At the honest offer for advice she pursed her lips, and then a faint nod followed. She listened, well and truly listened to him and his words. A blink followed and she reached up a hand toward him only for it to fall between them. She seemed to consider, and finally sighed.
"Myself? Loki, I am shaped so that most mortals would…" She broke off and grimaced, looking away. "A mortal love would not satisfy me… what heartbreak, what sorrow would happen to me should I fall for one with so short a span? What miseries would visit upon me worse still.." She shook her head, awareness for her circumstances flickering in her gaze as she glanced back up to him.
"How can you stand to live among such short lived creatures? Knowing that they are here but an instant and gone?"
*
"How do you mark the lives with one so short lived?" Loki turns to face the fields of Scotland before them, the sun's still setting and they only have the wind and the sound of the waves washing ashore as their company. "You make each day interesting. You do not allow the years to blur together. It is so easy for us to simply lean back and let the months simply pass by. But here, we can simply step forward and refuse to surrender to such."
A shake of his head is given, "Why do you consider my father at times passes into the Odinsleep? It is to gather himself, to strengthen his power and his resolve. Yet it is also to allow him to survive for eons longer."
*
Amora follow his gaze, toward the setting sun and the full moon that lit the sky opposite. The sky still a pale blue in places even as night crept in. She shifted, returning her gaze back toward the Prince opposite of her again. "I do not doubt that such things can draw the mind so raptly and strongly. A candle with a quick wick that burns all the brighter for its short span—is that not the words that mortals often use in comfort for their quick lives?" She hitched a golden brow upwards and shook her head.
"I do not deny it, that they are interesting. That they beg the mind to forward things. How can I not, when I have spent these past few months here and seen what I have? Not after seeing you and the Thunderer so enmeshed with this realm?" She gestured out to the sea before them and then let her hand fall away.
"I've played the part of a fairy wife before when I was younger, but I dare not give my heart to such a quick lived thing. How would I survive the sorrow of their death if I did? Our kind tends to slower passions by comparison, it's true, but we do not lose love or hate as quickly either. Many a time have I seen death brought on by such sorrows." She murmured softly.
"How can you withstand that?"
*
A foot lifts to rest upon the edge of the crenellations as Loki casts his gaze downwards. A breath is taken as he shakes his head and then he turns back to look at her. "Amora… Even Thor could pass from this world on the morrow. Or the next. Or even the next. We have no guarantees in life, and naught is fair. All we have are moments that we string together. Make them as you will."
With that he offers a small shrug as he turns away, starting to walk towards that archway that had brought him in the first place, though he does linger with one hand resting light upon the stones encircling that way of descent. "Tell me, have you met Dr. Strange?"
*
Amora shot him a dry look as he spoke of the possibility that Thor might die unexpectedly, a brow shooting upwards in disbelief. As if the God of Thunder could /possibly/ die so easily as a mere mortal. Perish the thought! But still, the unable to, or rather unwilling to wrap her mind around the very idea. She shied away from it as surely as a oil to water.
At his movement to leave however, and his comment about Doctor Strange a grin flashed over her features and she practically prowled after him. "Oh yes, I am well familiar with the good man." She came up closer to him, and invaded his personal space once more.
A wicked glint lit up her eyes and she ran a finger over his chest. "He was so very, very, quick to temptation. All I had to do," She leaned forward on her toes, releasing a ghost of a breath against his neck. Her fingers attempting to close on the fabric of his shirt.
"Was a kiss," She trailed her lips up to his earlobe and nipped there. "Or two.." She murmured. "I didn't even use magic.." She breathed.
*
A laugh slips from him as Loki lifts a hand up to gently take hers, giving it a small squeeze. "Then go, Amora. And find him. He'll provide you with such amusement." And as he says that he brings his fingertips along under the supple curve of her chin and draws her eyes to his, meeting his gaze. "If you must find someone to bed tonight, let it be the sorcerer 'supreme'."
A wry grin lights the trickster's features up as he steps back, one hand holding her before him. "Now, you have actually given me a touch of inspiration." He turns his head to the side, "I will bid you goodnight. And good hunting." With that said his body suddenly flickers with a flare of eldritch energy…
And suddenly she's left there with the terribly beautiful horizon and the crash of the ocean far below. Yet other than that she is also very, very alone.