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A huff of breath escapes Amora as she crosses her arms beneath her chest. "I'll have you know that the Queen doesn't mind me at least, more than I can say for the All-father." She muttered dryly at Thor's teasing. Even if a smile remained on her expression—at least so far until he mentions visiting some princess. Then her eyes narrow and her lips part as if to rally further questions. Yet without pause the Thunderer leaps off and into the sky. Irritation flashes on Amora's features, her gaze swerving toward Scarlett.
"What do you know about this Princess that he goes to visit?" She arched a brow, moving then with sharp steps to begin gathering a handful of herbs in her palm.
*
"Crystal? As I understand, she is the princess of a kingdom concealed and largely hidden here," Scarlett says slowly, plunged out of one firebath and dropped into an ice bucket. This may well be her own sacred space, traipsed across by living gods who corrupt the thoughts of a girl harbouring memories and spells beneath the fragile mask of her being. "Her sister holds more political significance, based upon her statements, though I know very little of that one. Crystal was recently involved with handling the eldjotnar in Muspelheim, and possesses considerable facility with elemental powers. Air and earth, though I watched her repel a vast amount of water that calculating would require some manner of paper and pen. She loves her sister dearly and has excellent manners, and I would not cross her if she were enraged or upset." Her dreaming-dark gaze simmers with the abandoned stars, turned upwards to mirror the turbulence of the heavens. What tribulations are to be found there that aren't wrought hard and violent upon her own heart? "I cannot think of anyone who would speak ill against her, such is that."
Her eyes narrow at the random picking of the plants she tends to; this is no community garden, though the words still upon her tongue as she reaches her palms upwards to capture the drifting mote of a delicate seed.
*
The picking of the plants was anything but random, and as Amora crushes them between her hands she mutters a spell. The language a guttural sound compared to that of the Asgardian accent that All-speak granted her. The magic that glowed around her fingers dimmed, darkening to shadow as the witch threw the crushed herbs into the air where they froze in a circular pattern before her.
"A beloved princess of another realm, magically gifted and not to be crossed?" Her features twisted as she spoke, "We shall see and watch then what business Thor has with her. He needs speak with her before departing to Asgard? How have I never heard of this woman? Why not speak of her before.." A shadow crossed her beautifully wrought features, and all at once the name 'witch' seemed more appropriate than 'Enchantress' ever had.
"I will know what he and she speak of."
*
The redhead closes her hands and allows them to fall to her sides. Patience is Scarlett's grace, much more than she might ever recognize, but even that pride so deeply buried sometimes arises to the fore. It's been a trying night for them all, and not the least because her heart resonates to another wavelength than Amora's or even Thor's. "My lady, I know her beloved of her sister and that her sister suffered extraordinary trauma. Had the same befell the Prince of Asgard and Norns allow it will never happen, the other would be devastated and stop at nothing to amend the wounds. It may well be she asked for the favour she did in Muspelheim repaid in some capacity. I know not, she did not confide in me that purpose nor is His Highness much obligated to share his thoughts, either."
The words come without sting; she doesn't expect such a talent. If it came to the other prince, that's another matter altogether. "I bid you not do this here, in a place consecrated to the earth mother," she murmurs softly. "If you are angry, I will not contend with that passion in your heart. Nor should I tell you to stop feeling, for you are entitled to your emotions."
*
A thunderous expression twisted Amora's lips back, a silent snarl as she shot the redhead a glare that would freeze fire and melt diamonds. Her fingers curled, outstretched before her as she held the spell and spun on her toes to face Scarlett fully. The jealousy, and rage were quick to spot, and beneath it all— was the utter terror and fear that all her hard worked plans and schemes would fail now. Now when she felt so close to getting what she desired, her exile lifted, a chance to steal inside Odin's vaults and reclaim her birthright along with her magic. A chance to openly appear on Thor's arm and have the chance to rub it in Sif and all the other ladies of the court's faces? It was everything that she could realistically get, and she saw this Princess as a threat.
Many a creature throughout the Nine Realms had run in fear at the sight of such a look from her, and she practically prowled toward Scarlett with an utterly silent step. No click of her heels. Nothing. Silence.
"Perhaps. Perhaps not. I will watch, unimpeded. This is the last spot that the Thunderer stood. It holds the most recent memory of him and will follow him to his destination." Her words were chillingly cold, and clipped. There was no flirtatiousness.
*
Terrors exist in manifold faces in the world. The yawning maw of a vast, chthonic horror that annihilates galaxies by its writhing presence, say, or the denial and loathing burning in the beloved features of a parent, a spouse, a child. Fossilized remains of ghastly monsters that patrolled the deep can invoke a primal memory encoded into all multi-celled organisms.
The beautiful ones, wearing the loveliest of features, are always the worst. Seductive creatures without a soul hold incomparable force. Scarlett is not immune. Scarlett never has been. Her eyes close against that boring, soul-scouring stare turned upon her, the line of her jaw flexing.
Voices rise in concerted chorus from the darkest corridors of her oubliette mind, imprisoned fragments starting to resonate in their ululating pandemonium wail. Too high, too far. Held forever at arm's length, the chorus besieges the scion of Midgard as she allows their raving and despair and longing to pour over her. And underneath, somewhere, she remains.
"It hurts." Her voice is soft, terribly distant. "Such hurt I understand." Of course she may, for it's reflected in the sobbing and laughing and wailing, the pleading and the shouting, those voices no one else but her hears for the belong to the victims and the threads of her shorn tapestry of life. A cleansing breath quiets them, but only by not drowning. "But my lady, is this truly the best way to seek your aims? They require good counsel. If you position yourself as a temperate force wise from your time here, it will be a gain to the All-Father. Your cause. The things you care for."
For the one thing she cares for, she cannot speak to. Not now, not here, even as the memories crawl down the walls of her arteries and veins, pounding in every thought, driven through every breath. I want, I need, I yearn, I ache.
*
A pause as Scarlett speaks, the silent tread of a predator's step halted for the moment it takes the mortal to speak. The Enchantress cants her head to the side, her gaze locked upon every movement the redhead takes, noting every breath and every flex of muscle. She could hear the thump of the mortal heart in her chest, hear the breath rasp past lips. The silence holds for a brief moment, like the calm before a storm. The breath of a victim before executioner's axe falls. The moment where a jumper pauses at the edge of a cliff. The second the prey spots the hunter following it.
"I DO NOT CARE WHAT THE ALL-FATHER THINKS!" The violence in which the Enchantress of Asgard screams reverberates on the rooftop around them. Though there's no thunder to accompany her anger, or her voice there is a pressure. A thickening of gravity in the area that drags greedily down on everything. Amora's breathing comes in sharp, shallow, rapid gusts as she stands there trembling under the emotions that boil.
"I care for nothing." She seethed, gritting out the words between her teeth. "Do not assume to stop me. Get in my way. Deny me what I desire? Mark me. Mortal." She raised a hand, pointing a finger in Scarlett's direction. "I swear, if need be, I will rip this realm and all the others apart until Ragnarok takes hold. I will restart the whole cycle again. And again. And again. Until I finally get what I desire."
*
Days have pulled too hard on that girl, and here, of all places, tip her to the breaking point. Scarlett takes note of the finger leveled at her, and without a word, executes a very prompt, slight bow with her arms swept to her sides. If Amora is in her right mind, she may recognize echoes of the gesture. If not, then it is simply a bow.
"Very well, Lady Amora."
Greenwich Village echoes with that scream, its moorings shaken, and how many disturbed audiences from their performances turn their gaze upwards? Musicians gone silent seek the source. Residents all around might open their windows, stare into the night, and whisper.
Scarlett takes a step across the garden, then another. By the third she is no longer the bohemian redhead of laughing countenance, and the wavering sweep of a long coat, dark hair, and long stride demarcate the transition of one self to another.
There is nowhere else to travel but back or up. Save one, in hindsight. Fabric rustles as the fourth step — the number of death, in many Asian cultures — goes right over the edge. No impending scream lands abruptly, nor is there a sound at all. Among the mingled masses of pedestrians going this way or that, a confused look here and there, but forever in motion.
And it's not Scarlett who walks away among them.
*
The finger falls at the bow, her anger, and the spell fading to wisps as instantly as she had summoned them. Herbs fall to the rooftop in a heap with whispers as the pressure that had built breaks with Scarlett's words and receding steps toward the drop. The Enchantress turns, watching in silence as the mortal goes and does not drop off the edge of the world but continues onwards.
Alone. Alone. Alone.
Her anger always drives those around her away. Yet Amora is not one to learn from her mistakes, in letting her emotions rule her so completely and utterly. It was a failing that had dogged her steps for centuries. One that Scarlett herself had remarked upon once, though indirectly and said with such flattery and in such a way that Amora herself had agreed. Perhaps, if Amora ever had someone to give her heart to utterly, she might grow into something truly amazing.
But here, and now she stood alone. In the silence that swept over the rooftop her green illumined form vanishes with faint wisps of smoke.