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Preparations. We could speak all day of the preparations that Alexander made; how ravens were sent out, squawking and searching out those who'd receive her call. The call of Lady Sif. And there was no tarrying about. The most important man in the world was often overlooked. A sentry of a being who kept his eye upon the horizon, blade pointed downward as if he were to mark the line in the earth as to where he stood before you.
Before that blade came down across the back of the neck of his foe..
This was for Him.
Though of course, the rash woman was always such. A twirl of the blade brings her own means of traveling with her companions at her side (sans one), into the very darkness that completes Hel..
Where one would consider it hot. The very point of access allowed teeth to chatter and tremble.
Where one would imagine fire? There was ice embedded in the rocks which barely made it visible.
And where that ice made it's home? Holes of eye sockets and mouths that hung ajar, left to rot with their final expression of horrors they have seen..
"You will know it when you see it." Is the instruction that Lady Sif gives. She trusts that those who accompany her (and happen to be roaming nearby), were suitable enough to take care of themselves.
The Siphoning Mage.
The soon-to-be God of Fear.
The Enchantress.
The Spectre. (Sera).
And then there was Sif.
Where the woman would put herself in a category that none would achieve, she was the Goddess of War. Fable told she was a mother, but that fable died when she took up the blade
And then there was Her.
She who lingers, at her throne. She who has eyes that ever expand across the horizon, who lifts with a svelte curve of her hips, one bare foot in front of the other. Crown of bone and chiton that ever expands, a shadow cast by the illumination of a dark moon by her own creation. Her hand stretches out.. a smile curves black lips.
'Intruders,' she would cry out. 'Bring them to heel.' She would say. But NAY!
She wished for fun.
A green orb of magic curls upon the flat of her palm, brought to her lips, lifted before her eyes as she murmurs without a thought.
'I find thee. And hold thee close upon my bosom. Give me your hearts"
*
Give Hela her heart? What a cruel joke. When Sera had insulted the Lady of Hel for the awful position she was in - the eternity of torment that every Angel, on death, recieved - she had been sentenced to her greatest fear.
Being locked in the choking earth forevermore, alone and silent. Barred up by claustrophobic walls. Lost where there was no joy, no music, no stories. Where time was a meaningless determination, and the songs you sung to yourself began to run thin. Her longing for the love of her life grew draining and depressing.
Of course, then with a little help from a friend, she had escaped. She had found Earth, with all of its cultures and foods and songs. She had found love again.
And then, as suddenly as if a door had slammed in her face, she was back in the hole. Her stone cage. And with all of her magic, all of her skill, and even the special techniques that she had been taught, she couldn't escape. And for what seemed like another eternity, she was trapped. Banging against the walls of her cage.
Hela had already clasped her fingers around Sera's soul. Putting the squeeze on it was easy.
"Was this it, then? Granting me hope before crushing it? If… if Angela were here…"
Sera sobs before gritting her teeth.
"There are so many stories of this sort of thing ending up with a dead queen and a broken cage. Some are tragedies in their own way, but… I don't like those ones as much."
*
Alexander was indeed a busy man in preparation for this venture; a trip to another realm is not a thing one enters into lightly. Sif's instructions were followed to the letter, in the hope that he would redeem himself in her eyes, after such disappointment. But now, with the plot afoot, he stands with her retinue, armoured and armed in a manner not entirely unlike the samurai of the previous centuries; certainly he stands apart, visually from the true Asgardians, a small blond man in Japanese fittings, carrying the legendary sword Kusanagi at his side. This realm was unlike anywhere he had visited previously; the dimension which the Demon had taken him was not unlike Earth, where he had spent much of his life, and Olympus was practically a paradise, for the short time he had spent there in his recovery. Hel, not unbefitting its name, puts him ill at ease. But perhaps such wariness was to everyone's benefit.
The voice reaches his ears and mind, and fight it though he might wish, he cannot help but let his thoughts wander. His heart's desire was not Olympus, as one might think; the paradise he had known as a child, only briefly, was among the wishes he longed to fulfill, but for the moment it was not chief among them. A youth still, far younger than any of those who had come on this journey, his heart was ruled by his body, and his body craved the attentions of another. The image of a lithe young blonde girl flits through his mind. Surely she has a name, and those among Sif's household may well recognize her. And while it may be simply be the passing fancy of youth which draws him to this girl, she occupies the whole of his heart and his thoughts for the present, at least. And try as he might to shake the image of the girl from his mind, to focus on the task at hand, he cannot.
*
Amora had spent her time in seeming idleness once more. Without further commands by Sif, The Enchantress did what she did best. Toyed, flirted and manipulated men for her own amusement (yes, in that way too). She had expected Sif's command to go to Hel, after all, the Lady had informed her about it before. It was merely a matter of timing. It was unfortunate that she did not have time to snag the Sorcerer Supreme's apprentice to come along as she had planned, but no matter.
The Witch of Asgard had donned her battle regalia of green and golden plate, corseted around her frame. There were no visible weapons on the woman, but jewerly dripped from her fingers and around her neck, jewels of green that whispered with power. Where she might not be able to hold onto her full power according to Odin's decree, the Enchantress had had several thousand years to store items of power, and she made use of them.
Only a sparring glance was offered toward the others in the party, and she smirked and made a mocking bow to Sif as they prepared to enter the realm of the dead. Arrival there had Amora in much the same manner as they departed in, overly confident and just as proud as always.
The Queen of the realm, Hela's magic, did not take her by surprise. Not in the least. But for her own reasons, Amora allowed it, perhaps because she knew she could not fight it off in her current state. Who could say?
The magically induced dream pulled and swirled around the Enchantress and she sighed into it, aware of what was going on. The dream had her in, of course, the court of Asgard. At the side of the Golden Prince as he held court as King. A little red haired child bounced on her knee and all around her, courtiers swept in and offered greetings with bows and sweeping curtseys. Compliments dripping from their lips.
Amora had trapped herself in a dream so very similiar before, willfully, Hela's magic? How could you trap a woman with her heart's desires when she openly dreamed it regularly? The Enchantress sank into the magic, playing with the dreamy little child and coo'ing to him.
*
Scarlett of Midgard, anointed lady by Thor Odinson — so good enough for anyone else — possesses no pretenses about such places. That cold does not inestimably destroy her comfort on contact is no reason not to show up precisely armed for a venture that relies on stealth, and she wears her long cloak atop verdant-and-silver leathers and underlayers meant to stifle her against what comes. Her sword rests at her side, a pair of very odd daggers curved like cat claws sheathed on the other hip. Unlike some, perchance, she knows precisely where Hel lies in relation to Yggdrasil. When the neighbouring realm is Niflheim, famed for ice and mist, she takes the necessary precautions. Including, of all things, arctic matches. She is neither god nor mighty terror or immortal, merely herself, the least among their company. In this realm, Scarlett is the oddity, and stranger still? She's already claimed.
True faith weaves through the unseen energies around her, branded upon her soul, dancing in every crevice of being not hollowed to the void of her self. When the dread queen of this realm speaks her will, the response of the redheaded bohemian for a moment is… hard to measure. A whisper of laughter might vibrate across those full lips. A smile well begins to form. Glittering eyes blaze in fire. Darkness resonates inside her lithe body, pouring through the momentary control unleashed. Voices sing and scream, whisper and lament together, whispering their sultry promises and harrowed tidings in a doombringer's chorus.
Acid green spellcraft might have met something of a match. It finds much and nothing: the unerring sweep of the Twilight Sword clasped in her hands, a world of gilded towers and frost-kissed mountainous pinnacles collapsing underfoot. A retort from a sniper rifle, a blond man lying prostrate — that shifts again, becomes a redheaded woman curled up beside the soul-thief on a riverbank. A vision of an operating room, melts askance to a golden-haired child running through a lush garden full of unearthly blooms, crying, "Papa!" Thor Odinson in a flicker-flash appears, for once free of the duties of state…
Retirement without the strings attached shows some tropical vista studded by palm trees and aquamarine seas; a gentleman finishing the schematics on a mobile suit of armour guaranteed to be sold to the highest bidder, thrilling to the idea. Bang-bang-bang, that's two men down and that fucking bitch. Wine, women, Zeus reaching out with a broad hand to gesture to a shining shaft of marble and golden light. His laughter is deep and encompassing the world. "Your mother is waiting…"
A child in arms, fair-skinned, eyes greener-than-green, and a whisper: "I'll protect you…" Hunger and fury, the earth consumed in darkness, and then the stars fading out one by one by one, as flames writhe over the frame of vision. Even the ice realm shatters under that devouring weight. A woman with stars for eyes steps forth, holding out her hand, and one is three as she breathes out a sound, and then magic rips out from the gem suspended between her hands to form incredibly complex sigils and symbols interlaced around the globe, radiating upwards from the trunk of the World Tree and down it, feeding into the roots and blossoming to its heighest crown at Alfheim. Power soars along the radial axis channeled through the redheaded girl on her knees, holding her hands out at fixed points with vastly elaborate shields painted incandescent with plasma and starlight.
Do your worst, the realms cannot fall to you. I will keep them safe, no matter the cost. Even my life…
*
Torment was sweet, as sweet as a lovers lip upon a bosom. To give freely, on a whim. Possibly because there was no time. No need. No need for attention until the heart beat at its fullest. Until the heart began to lift from the chest to thrum, tremble and soar to greater new heights. For with a lively heart; grew a fire. A fire of ideas. A fire and a burning desire to be free.
Sera.
You have been a -bad- girl.
To take away from her was the sweetest symphony that bore from the Angel's lips. The fine spectre. The quiet sobs that revitalize the soul in all of its cruelty and want. The stride. The stride that takes her back to the throne, holding the delicious orb which pulses with a green, sickly power. It is fed. It is feeding. Lifted into the air to orbit it's Queen, marked with a -taste- of love. Even if it was a little bit! A LITTLE!
Nay. Resistance calls.
Dig deep, mortal. You will need it to survive.
You call upon the voices of old.. and yet.. there is someone there that wishes for something more deep. Focus.
A warm body. The wispy touches of hair upon the shoulder. Laughter. A kiss! Behold, legs entertwined around the waist. The heat of the cosmos upon them. Petit mort! MORT!
The lithe body settles as black lips curl. Eyes narrow. Lips parting to speak. Words directed for the spectre and fear. The Siphon! The Enchantress.
Oh how sweet! The little child giggles and grabs for its mother. Skin so soft. Bones so small. Small enough to .. grab.
And where was She? She who bears shield. She who breaks bread with men; laughter and wine! She who hath delivered souls upon her doorstep to sup like fine wine..
Where one would say, 'Over here, bitch.' She was gone from the sights of those who followed her into battle.
Abandoned.
Left.
Gone.
A flick of the wrist draws the ball of power away, portals opening before thine eyes to reveal the hearts heart. The wants. The hopes. The dreams and wishes.
"Pay heed. Sera. You are my muse."
And then she takes it away!
With a lean forward, each image was weighed. By the grain of salt, by the brick that falls. By the twitch of an eye!
SHOW ME DESPAIR!
*
*
Showing despair is easy, for Sera. She's already an emotive sort, and while she understands that perhaps this is the point of eternal suffering… it's hard not to say /something/. Do /something/.
Being the caged canary, the singing bird for a rather vicious and task-oriented sort of person was from the outside a horrible fate.
As the canary, it was something else entirely.
And so, for what seemed like an eternity, she sang happy songs.
And then, for what seemed like an eternity, she sang sad songs.
And then, for what seemed like an eternity, she muttered tales.
And then, for what seemed like an eternity, she was simply silent.
And after all of that, after the stretching of time like a bitter taffy, she simple laid in her stone cell, having finally learned how to think and do nothing at all.
*
Alexander watches the images before him, hears the voice, and though he recognizes it as magic, he has no defense against it himself, but his own will. The exquisite image before him has him enraptured, and disappointed when it ends. Such pleasure he's never known in the flesh, played out for him like a dream. Breathing heavily, heart racing. It's almost like was there. But not. If the others can see it, he seems to pay no mind. The voice calls again to point out that their leader has gone, and Alexander's face turns to concern. Worry, even. But then the call for despair, his thoughts are forced to dwell on his darkest. A child again, taken from home, imprisoned, and taken again. Controlled, compelled. Demon blood in his veins. The slaughter of his own, under the will of the Demon. But in this vision, rather than be freed of the Demon's influence, Phobos is victorious. The fallen God of War, and Zeus himself on his knees. The Demon takes his place on the throne, Phobos at his side, an empty vessel of power. Alex screams into the darkness around them, "NO!" He pulls the sword from its sheath. It is not fear, and not even anger. Despair, desperation, as the Queen of Hel commanded, take hold of him, powerless to stop the vision, or fight it.
*
The Enchantress had always felt deeply, especially of the well of misery. Yet when she felt the roiling of the spell she shrugged, a curving smile pulling at her lips. She might not be able to break out of the spell, especially against the ruler of the realm in her element. But to twist it? To take control of her her prison? Easily done. Redirection was feasible and did not take nearly as much magic or energy.
Thus it was that Amora found herself not drowning in despair, but carefully taking the dream child's grabbing hands and singing a song of soothing. A song of tragedy to feed the call for despair. Of lovely Gudrun, a name that she had known and used in ages past. Of broken hearts, marriages and lost love.
The singing would have brought tears to the eyes of the most hardened skald in nearly all of the Nine realms. And it brought the red-gold tears to the goddess that sang it. Despair, aye, but not of Hela's making. The spell would have it's price, but it would not be the one in control.
Thus it was, that Amora smoothed her delicate fingers over the redhaired child, rocking it back and forth in her arms.
*
(Of her own prison*)
*
Another whirlwind of facets might show countless incarnations of despair, above them all something daunting perhaps even to the Queen of Hel. It threatens to leech out in its enormity, the same unconfined power that blotted out the sky and laid waste to every shape under its infinitesimal presence. That foreboding shadow briefly eclipses all else around the bohemian girl, something darker than black, a void rimmed in molecules nibbling at the very edges of the corrosive spell on a power fed by a veritable realm of other souls. A terrible force collectively draws on the essence of despair itself, something vaster than the mind can possibly contain—
It collapses upon itself, compressed down into a speck no larger than a barley seed, falling to the ground. Even that chaff is inert against the greater demand. Its emergence lasted a thought, a moment, no more.
Scarlett is upon her knees, looking up, up into the face of whatever presents itself when Hela's urge crosses time and space. The vast enormity of crushing purpose settled upon her does nothing to alter the course of those eldritch discs interlocked by countless fine filaments, rotating to form overlapped shielding hemispheres. Lines mark her fair face where no wrinkle dare trespass, the corners of her starry eyes fret by webs of concentration. Light bleeds over the rims, banishing the darkness in two pinpoints shining the same unearthly shade as that she contains between palms. The stone aflame in an eldritch halo casts striated bands of radiance far and wide. Determination draws across her tightened lips, the rictus of a bittersweet smile turned upwards in face of it all. She might laugh, if she could.
Not a word passes from her with the odds stacked up against her, the throw of the Norns' shuttle determining the course that must be. The soul-thief is exactly as she appears — not an iota of illusion lies about her, no pretenses or lese-majeste torn to shreds. This is what she is, facing Hela, and all the nameless might arrayed against the Ten Realms.
One scion of Midgard, mortal and doomed by right of birth to die, graced by nothing more than this trust, this place, this duty. There is only her. Only this. Despair is the cost, unchanged: herself in the flesh.
*
To do nothing was despair.
To hear nothing was despair.
The sweet song that fails to pierce the ears in a place of lonliness was despair.
To do nothing was despair.
To only hear the beating of thine own hea-.. wait. There was nothing there.
Despair.
The laughter of the Dark Queen echoes through the realm that belongs to She. A hand, both! Fingers long, long that curls around the souls of the damned that she's supped from the fields of ill-fought battles by Odin's behest, they grab. The grip and pull into perdition. Not above it. But below.
The army stirs. It knows the growing laughter, the growing laughter that hides the anger that she feels.
There was defiance. A twisting of her own 'gift' she sends upon the Asgardians, the mortal, the angel, and the Olympian. Defiance that allows a small hint of peace. Not the physical peace that Sera now feels. The physical nothingness..
But emotions wallowed in, desired. Craved. Longed and wanted.
The far cry of Alexander soothes her yet this?!
YOU ARE DESPAIR?
Non!
Those long fingers grip ahold of the chair as she begins to cry out. Words upon words that were old. Long ago heard along the nine realms. Words that shoot the very foundation that the world itself was built upon, splitting the ground before them to crack and crater.. rickety fingers that peel from it's bright blue depths that draw themseelves upright with cracks, snaps, and the sound of bone chimes in the ill felt wind.
But where was Sif? That one was -not- felt. That one was not beyond her grasp and yet she feels the soul of the many favored upon the horizon. She was search-.. aha..!
MY OFFERINGS! GIVE ME YOUR FEAR! YOUR LIVES!
The cackle cracks the sky like thunder. The bone sentries shudder and shake. Their own weapons, worn with time and rust put upon their torrid grasps .. and they charge!
"My.. dear.. pet.." The hiss goes to the lone bird, swung within her cage. "..you shall not be alone this night!"
Hela seeks to take them! One. By. One.
*
Someone joining her?
In this hel(l)?
No. No no. Thoughts fluttered around her, like the strings of power. Of magic. Hope, as someone once said, springs eternal, even if it hurt for it to gush forth.
"You may have me, /queen/. I don't deny that I am stuck here. But…"
Summoning an instrument was child's play, and tuning it wasn't needed. Striking a few cords, the 'canary' begins a song.
"Hope is not an il-lu-sion, fear can be a lie // The latter has no pow-er when, your soul has not yet died."
"Owned by Hela you are not, like one such as I. // Fear is her main course, and de-spair her dessert…"
She groans, shaking her head. "I can't think up a good rhyme now, so snap out of it dorks!"
Letting her fingers rest, she flops back in her stone cage. "There. Muse enough for you, Queenie?"
*
*
The Enchantress sighed, once more at the spell worked illusion that kept her dreams alive for a moment longer. A lost cause indeed, to stare at her heart's desire beyond reach. Perhaps, that was the true tragedy in all of this. That once more, Amora could see her dreams and knew beyond a shadow of all hope, that they would never be. That she would never have the Thunderer's heart, nor the warm and accepted position beside him as his Queen.
It would never be.
So the blonde goddess kissed the magick child's brow, a sigh pulling from her lips as she murmured a few words of command, reaching up to her necklace and crushing one of the gems therein. Lime colored smoke, arcane power, wafted up around her and she used it to shape a door within the dream… and stepped out of the spell and into Hel.
*
*
Inside the fractured crystal oubliette of the soul-thief self, countless vibrations acquaint themselves with the genetic chambers withholding them from any hint of freedom. Beating fists and hammering wings seek absolution against the inviolate prison holding them fast. Low base grunts to high-pitched screams lift in a ululating, soul-scouring pandaemonium wind.
That might collectively be every last being in Hel uttering the same hymn or an infant crying in its cradle when the night has fallen and the half-dead monarch slips past.
Nothing changes.
Nothing has changed. Scarlett remains fixed in place, her foot pressed to the ground, lifting her to one knee with taxing effort. Sworn vows command her stay here, pouring out all she can into the effort, and nothing yet has dislodged her from this black task. Atmospheres collapse atop her, stacked one after the other, nothing preventing them from crushing her except the fluid lines of artfully interwoven energy searing the gloom in their vibrancy. Sigils flare and fade according to their will. Plasma sears through every finely delineation, filling the artistic curves with a laser sheen throbbing to the pulse of stellar emissions. The shields waver and bend, reinforced bit by bit, their luminescence wavering betwixt an auroral green and silver-blue, occasionally pulsating citrine in a flash that overtakes the whole arcane structure. And solidifies it.
Her wrists are still bare, lithe arms taut, every muscle braced for the rigors of what has already been named and offered at the base of the World Tree. The Hel-Queen's words sear her and slough off into white noise, the crackling cacophony registered in silence as she holds to the first promise fixed in her thoughts.
Life, sacred life, to be defended at any costs.
And for another place, outside of dreams and delusions, Scarlett hasn't ceased to be as she was, palms outstretched and offering made, while the bewailing maelstrom of her being — beings, an incomprehensible miasma of powers colliding together — aligns to that one goal.
*
It starts with a song. A song that shatters the illusions. A song that could have been a rallying cry if more poetic and well thought out. But it served it's purpose for one. The one that was solely affected by the charms of Darkness, one that raises his Grasscutter in defiance with a glow befitting of an Olympian to STRIKE.
The bone golem moves back. Arm sweeping wide to steady himself to knock another golem off his balance, and yet, the God of Fear was unmoved.
Courage bolstered. Thank you Sera. Fear exsanguinated..
Hela rises from her throne, whatever happiness that marred her beautiful, yet dangerous features remain a blank slate; a frozen river in winter, yet movement beneath the surface. She does not move. She does not react. She remains a sentry, a statue, a bust of an evil thing that could lash out at any moment if looked aside..
Aside..
Defiance. It rolled upon her doorstep. It took her notice. It gained her ire. The souls that beat, breathe and sing within her city draws out a scream of frustration.
If the world collapses for Scarlett. It shall for them.
Stars will fall in an already darkened sky. Yggdrasil trembles!
The Enchantress emerges from her effigy renewed. Magic that swirls around the woman bring thoughts of times past. Past.. where the other favored prevailed in the face of Death.
YOU SHALL NOT LEAVE! Hela cries out, a declaration that reaches the Hevens. A Heven that Sela will never see, Hela has her way.
But the east wind blows harsh. And it -SNAPS-!.
Where a raised Grasscutter would be, Alex stands no more.
And where no Alexander stands? The golems remain, both large, hard fists raising towards the sky to break down upon the women to make Hela's wish realized.
*
Amora swept out of the dream, looking as regale as the Queen she dreamed. Then promptly, with a flick of her wrist, was standing before the Queen herself; and dropped into a low kneel. Her hand pressed to her chest and green eyes angled low.
"Gracious, and terrible, beautiful and horrible, Queen of Hel. Hela of the realm of the dead. I beg your pardon for trespassing upon your realm. Yet I call upon you to stand witness to the fact that we live still. My mistress, Lady Sif remains engaged to marry the Crown Prince. The one you desire of all beside the Trickster himself. Calm your passions, and speak with me. I would bandy words with the greatest of all. The one which all must bow to in the end." Amora could do humble, she'd apprenticed to Karnilla after all and lived to see the day in ages past and as of late.
"I beg thee, pray, listen and hold your fell wrath."
*
Scarlett says naught to this woman alive and dead, gracious and terrible. The conflict lies not with her.
Staying upon her knee puts her already in a position best suited to show a degree of diplomatic humility without abasing herself. Unreadable eyes ablaze to a degree they rarely reach attest to Hela's wrath, and no more. Not with the voices in her psyche murmuring their discordant prayers, seething far, far below the surface of her present mind. She remains settled, focused in her purpose, no thought to spare for other than the moment.
*
The bone golems stop in their place. Frozen in time. Where they meant to strike and draw the souls of the current damned in her vicinity, they remain frozen as if they never were. From the throne is where Hela draws herself once more, her steps close .. slowing.. yet stopping as she glances off towards her left. There was a grin there, and soon her approach continues. No fanfaire.
Amora has appealed to the kindler.. gentler Hela. For now.
"Speak. Your words draw interest. And hold them."
The east wind. It comes upon them again. It is told that it comes to take any and all, no matter the creed or faith. Dead. Damned. All falls to it..
*SNAP*
And so doth Scarlett. Gone.
*
Amora remains kneeling in supplication to the Queen of the dead. Her gaze unmoving from the cornerstone of the platform in which the throne of Hel stood. The bone golems were noted. The hoardes of shambling dead were noted. The fell breeze of false air swept through the place in which the Queen and her court remained. Yet the Enchantress remained.
"My chains are bound thusly by the All-father, my magicks weakened. My passions stymied. Your powers reach beyond that of the court, of those yet alive yet promised to your realm. All must pass by your gates come Ragnarok. You know my heart, O' Queen of the end and beginning of all such souls. I am wronged yet by the line of Bor, and forced to suffer a meaningless life to stretch out the years alone and cold. Grant me your patience, your strength thusly. Break my bounds, and I will usher in a world of souls of true believers unto your realm. I shall wreak a vengence of cold death upon the realm eternal in your name." Green eyes lifted, her figure still bowed in supplication.
"Free me and you shall have the souls you yet earn for."
*
That wind. It was a succoring pop off in the distance. Hela's eye does not stray from Amora. Though there was interest there. Keen. Solid. Unmoving and nonplussed. Where she would lift her hand, her finger points, slowly drawing upright as if she were to reach out to touch Amora's temple. The touch, it wound unbind the woman. It would set her free. It would embue her. Enlighten her. She would be QUE—
"No."
What?
Hela knew better than to go against the word of the All-Father and Frigga. The two alone do not frighten her, but now was not the time for her to act. While that finger hovers -so- close to the beautiful woman's crown, her hand draws upright to wriggle long fingers in her inevitable departure.
"Queen Karnilla and I are going to enjoy this little chat over our weekly tea.."
*SNAP*
THE BELLATOR:
Each of the members of the expedition into Hel were retrieved and planted right into the foyer of the Bellator as such. Alex sprawled to the side, Scarlett possibly thrown upon the couch. Amora left in her kneeling station as Sif stands before her, the glare that tops the golden-haired beauty's head is enigmatic. And Sif? She looks like hell.
Hell that was soon wrapped in black, black as her hair, blue eyes fierce yet drowsy. Within her hand is the thing that she holds.
And the thing that she holds was mighty!
A battleaxe, bigger than She. Bigger than them. Ruined. Hung upon her shoulder, stretching across most of the room compared to their mortal seemings (and Rogues!) But there was a hidden power that silently bloomed through the axe. And it could be felt even if not magically inclined.
And yet? Where one would think that Sif would unleash her ire upon Amora? This is not the case.
"Get cleaned up. You have a date." How did she know?! (She didn't. She assumes. Amora is Amora, never discount that. And -never- disrespect it.) "And when you two are ready.." She says to Scarlett and Amora then. "We move to Asgard. We have men that need choosing, and Amora. I need your expertise."
*
Amora straightened with a smirk upon her lips, a hand pushing through golden locks. "I see you gained that which you sought. I was unsure how much time you required and thusly thought it wise to take time and bandy words. Tell me that I was wrong, dear Sif, to distract the Queen so?" She arched a golden brow, and eyed the battleaxe.
A flutter of magic had her mortal guise once more in place and The Enchantress winked at Rogue. Then she was arching a brow as she glanced back toward Sif. "What, guards? My dear lady wants to rely on /men/ to guard her person against the mortals?" She tilted her head to the side and tsk'ed.
*
"You were not wrong, Amora." Sif admits. "You did what you were expected to. Even Queens fall to your ruse." Was.. was that pride? Goodness. Sif must have gone mad! Though, as she takes to turn, she makes great care at doing so, certain to not knock over a bauble, or a person that stood within her path. Her steps were carrying her to her quarters, where the battleaxe was lifted, and set against the wall at an odd angle that expands at all sides.
"Oh. The guards are not for me." She says, the smile sly. "For the Princes Two. And you." Yes, she was sticking Amora with guards. Yes. Amora was going to choose her own guards. And for the Princes.
"We leave in a weeks time! Go. Drink. Be merry!"
*