1963-12-28 - Sacrifices at Jolablot
Summary: Amora calls her apprentice to sacrifice at Jolablot, and they foretell futures that must be.
Related: Fall of Asgard logs
Theme Song: Silently - Axel Flovent
amora rogue 


Amora had yanked the redhead with her once again, without little explanation or warning. A puff of green had encased her and suddenly the two stood on frozen ground surrounded by darkness of the night. Of course, Scarlett was now clad in the thickest of furs, woolens and other appropriate cold weather garb. Amora for her apart looked every inch as she must have appeared to those of the Norse lands so very long ago.

Golden hair flying free in the only truly bright spot in the night, save the rather large bonfire that was currently burning among old, thick pines. Fur of the whitest hue that matched the thick snow drifts around them hemmed her thick, green, woolen cloak, which when shifted revealed a corsetry of gold that gleamed in match to her curls. A crown of fir and holly wreathed her head, the very picture of Jolablot that artists had dreamed so long ago..

As the Enchantress led the redhead deeper in, toward the blazing fire, several logs were seen made fit for sitting. The air was clear above, stars and moon alight and shining with scattered clouds high in the darkness.

Even then, the temperature did not match the picture, and it was clear that Amora had worked her own set of magic on the spot to ensure the safety of her more mortal apprentice. The Enchantress moved with smooth steps, before lowering herself to sit. And just like that a gleaming goblet was in her hand, smelling sweet of golden mead and fruit.

"Come, join me and sit. We've stories to sing."

*

The tropical heat exchanged for winter pulls Scarlett to extremes, but she can be thankful for the cold rather than stifling, exhausting humidity that leaves even the most resolute redhead more than a little wilted. Her bikini top and sarong skirt replaced by furs is satisfactory enough, even if she has no time at all to explain to Amora why she was hauling a pine tree through a rainforest. Maybe it's time no question some life decisions made by the soul-thief. Like, why she's in a rainforest and hauling full-sized trees.

"And good evening to you too," she mildly comments, long used to Amora's unusual and impulsive behaviour.

She gives a few tugs here and there. That she doesn't need these garments to stay protected from the cold doesn't matter. It surely must feed the performance. Walking over the snow leaves a pattern of crunches tapering off as she leaves the ground, clearing the broken surface by no more than a few centimeters. She appears to walk, at least, even if she does not actually do so. Not until they reach the tree line, when she drops back down to her heels.

A clear night, a burning sky; of such things are dreams made. The deep, clear breath purges some of the details, and then Scarlett falls in beside Amora, settling in a classic lotus position. Maybe a touch out of keeping, but she quite likes it. "Stories to sing? Ah, I'm the skald tonight. Well and good, Lord Fandral has kept me on my toes memorizing them properly."

*

A golden brow was arched in response to the redhead's choice of position with legs folded, but otherwise chose not to remark on it. Rather, the blonde tilted her head back, eyes glowing faintly with magic that she breathed in and out in faint wisps. It was clear that Amora was feeding from the simple ritual as she was apt to do. Ritual and story were as much a part of what made up Asgardian magic as the realm itself.

A sip from her goblet followed and Amora held the drink out to Scarlett after a brief pause.

"Good, we shall tell of the darkest nights. The death of the sun. The death of the Gods and the rebirth of the light." She murmured, leaning forward and settling an arm against her thigh.

"The mortals liked to call it Thor's festival.. His time.." She waved a hand and pursed her lips together.

"But older, magic lays in the daughters of Sol. How all goddesses are born of her light and blessed as such." A sigh fell from her lips and Amora's gaze went to the far distant stars above. Memories of ages, of fires and festivals long passed in which she had loved and lost and danced in.

"And you are now their tales' keeper. 'Tis a time when my magic, such as it is.. of life, fertility, and love are at their lowest during the year. The season of the gods is dying.." She murmured, her voice low and filled with eons of tales.

Then her smile warmed and she shrugged the thick layers of fur back. "And an excuse to drink deep of mead."

*

Gods have power. The Hindi say they have many faces. In the land of a million gods, all gods are one god, divine aspects of the same perfect being, omnipotence through countless facets in a glittering gem. What was Thor's today was Jove's yesterday, and before him, a collection of Indo-European names carried by small nomadic tribes out of the cradle of early cultural practices that spread over Eurasia.

One dies, another rises. Even the immortal is mortal, then, and that news does not sit poorly upon Scarlett's shoulders. She understands this, at some level, nodding to Amora. The goblet taken from the Enchantress is not sampled, but merely held and warmed a little by the heat of her body.

"Women carry on life. The darkness they give us in many places, and say it is our nature: water, earth, night. Who are we to be afraid when the fire is crackling and the company so fair?" Her words tumble easily from her lips. "I am given of mind to tell a story of immortality, true immortality, as the children of Ragnarok were never said to know. Sometimes I wonder whether I keep her company."

The spin of the cup sends a shiver running through it, but she keeps any mead from spilling. "Tonight, in memory, let us sing of the highest rebirth of all: Gullveig. She, whom they say, outwitted all the Aesir and Vanir."

*

Between one blink and the next, Amora had yet another goblet in hand. The twin of the golden one in the mortal's grip. A smile, amused and yet somehow achingly sad, painted on ruby lips as she watched Scarlett spin it with care. A small nod of her head followed, gracious and for once, patient. Few had seen this version of Amora, for it was one not bound before pretense. One not seeking power or love that she desired and lacked.

Rather this was the teacher, the one that had taken mortals before in the night and taught them her ways… only to lose them to old age and death. A face so rarely seen that none now lived that had seen its like besides the redhaired woman opposite of the golden haired goddess.

The wind whipped above in the pines, sprinkling snow dust that sparkled in the glittering starlight above.

"A name that I have been called once long ago, though was both me and not. A great many of the goddesses that the Norse took were attributed to myself. For the others? They did not trod upon Midgard as I did. Though I oft appeared in different forms." A slow smile at that.

"Please, tell the tale as you know it.."

*

"Fair, lovely Gullveig. Must not all our heroines be? Never a girl of flaming locks, but ah, she may well have been. In my telling, anyhow," Scarlett murmurs as she lifts the goblet to her lips, anointing the arrogant bow of them in a gilding of warm summer and the promise of flowers gone, seasons past in the darkest of winter. "From whence she comes, we have forgotten. Perchance why she holds so many possible aspects and survives in cultural memory but in fragments. Men should fear a woman who will not die, but laughs at their efforts yet."

Her lips part to allow a hum to pass, setting her passage. "Gullveig, the woman of intoxicating beauty, came early in the years of Asgard clothed in her glorious ruddy-gold hair. The men of the age sought her, but she would have naught to do with them. What could be gained by the young, virile warriors her kind did not already have? No, Lady Gullveig spoke among the women instead. The men would mistrust her gives to snare minds and seduce them, whereas the secrets she possessed held great value for those lovely maidens in the spinning halls and the mead halls.

"Even then, did she espy the fracture lines within those great, new-minted heroes sweat-streaked from battle and their games? Perhaps she did, for we know from the kennings she represented a hard-wrought wisdom but also hunger. Hunger for power, knowledge, and sight. An ambitious woman."

To the night, the first golden drops of mead are poured. The firelight dances and wildly crackles. "What brought she but the wisdom of the distaff line, the Vanir rune-magic so sought by the Aesir. They lacked the runes, weak in magic, whereas she contained all Vanaheim's rich, deep lore. A thing to be possessed, no? Yet unlike in Asgard, did women not hold powerful rank among the Vanir? And so she spoke with an authority the gods dreaded, for their goddesses listened."

The skald's dark laughter braids with the wind and the crackling logs, hewn by heat and hungry flames. "Gullveig was a prize above prizes, yet for all she personified, the gods feared her deeply and conspired from the moment of her arrival in the golden city to slay her. Yet we daughters of Sol know the light cannot be slain, and so did the golden queen."

*

A chuckle at the comment about how fair and golden the woman in the stories had been and Amora tossed her own golden curls over her shoulders. A smirk painted upon those tempting lips that had led countless men to trouble and early graves. "Ah, they must be for those stories come from the woman before you, darling apprentice. Where else would the skalds of those mortal days have gotten such tales?" But then Amora was quieting, allowing the story to tale hold and blanket the grove of trees that the two sat in.

Only at the natural pause did Amora lean forward, adding a flick of magic to the flames and feeding them with wood that was not of this world.

"My kin see a woman's place in the home or in the hall as ages past did. An old and ancient people that change very, very slowly. A woman, such as Lady Sif. Such as myself.. we are the oddities.. We are the much the same as your mortal version. Feared and desired alike by many.." She murmured, drinking deep of her goblet.

"Please, do continue. Your tale is well spoken." She raised her goblet in the redhead's direction, leaning back on her own log to turn her gaze from the brilliance of the fire, to the cold and icy darkness above where the frozen light of the moon and stars above sparkled. Planets and worlds that the Asgardian most likely knew by name.

*

"Perhaps I did. Nothing would indicate I am the only one of me, or that the incarnations gone before do not carry on the knowledge to our future selves." Shrugging her shoulders upon that possibility, Scarlett sets down her goblet beside her and adjusts her position only slightly. Her feet rest tucked over her thighs, attesting to a degree of flexibility imparted by the regular practice of the asanas. Strange blends of culture, hers.

Ephemeral warmth holds the key to making the night lovely rather than unpleasant, the searing whine of the northern winds buffeted by the Scotch pine and firs around them. Rank on rank, those silent watchers hold the line for those lesser living creatures in their wake.

"My mortal version? Oh, my lady, none of them fear me and certainly none of them desire me, unless you mean to suggest that Lady Gullveig was a mortal kind." The soul thief shakes her head, throwing a tumble of her flaming hair into disarray. No effort has been made, really, to conceal the frost-white licking her brows and framing her face, rendering her as spellbinding a create as any faerie who frolicked in these woods.

"Yet over her the first war in the world would be fought. The men of Asgard meant to bargain with Gullveig," the young woman recounts. "They offered her marriage, which she spurned. What use had she for any man? They plied her with gems and stones, precious metals as the dwarves might be bargained with, and she laughed lightly at these. Song and dance given in tribute to her did little to stir her heart towards them. The lady represented all they desired — prestige, wealth, and comfort — and challenged their ways by her very grace, her unfettered appetites, and her gifts. By her near presence, she enraptured them. It could not be."

Her fingertips weave a circle in the air. "The warriors seized upon their weapons. Spears, we say, but it might have been axes or their phalluses, for all it matters. They struck her down in the halls of Odin, and he they say smiled as he presided over it all, for the message must be had. Primacy be sought, and from her corpse, mayhap they could wrest the forbidden knowledge. Their runecraft was limited then, the seidr a fraction for what they possess now. And it was not to be so, for when they hurled her bleeding body to the fire, Gullveig spoke the rune secrets of kenaz, and her mother the sun, and she was restored instantly to life. For I know the truth as you do: light is life, and life is woman."

*

Amora had cleared the first goblet of drink by the time Rogue had started speaking, and the rosy hue that came to her cheeks would have made her all the more charming and desirable to those of such inclinations. Were there any to be had in the middle of the snow laced forest to be had.

"She might have been in the first tellings of the tale. I must admit, I remember them not. Too long a time has passed since then for me to recall. Though I will admit to having told them at one point or another to an amorous skald in my younger days." She smiled, rolling the empty goblet in her delicate hands.

"Many a story became my story as a result." And it was clear that the Enchantress was anything but regretful by such a happening. After all, she only gained power from such tellings.

A pause as the fire crackled, a natural silence between the two. Though the wind howled above and cracked pine boughs, and the fire crackled with life, spitting embers into the night air above. It was anything but truly silent.

"The war did happen," Her voice was soft, "Between the Vanir and the Aesir. Before.. long before I was born. The Queen is of that line. Of that alliance.." She murmured, and her goblet was filled once more.

It seemed that Amora constantly had self filling goblets. All smelling sweetly of mead and apples.

Then she was waving for Scarlett to continue, for she knew that there was more to the tale. More than her simply being restored to life by the blessing of the sun.

*

Desire lives in Amora's presence. It hums in the golden highlights of her hair and laughing emerald eyes full of ancient wisdom and timeless purpose. Innocent she may never be, but she embodies the desire to lose that innocence, perhaps, penned in every lustrous smile and flick of the fingertips.

"The Queen was not thrice slain and risen. For Gullveig is the weregild of the war, and one must ask, who incited it? Her for coming to Asgard by dark purposes for its women as the poets have it, or the Asgardians for coveting so dearly what they have?" Scarlett's expression is shuttered, her chin raised as she surveys the stars overhead. Crystalline luminosity stands out against the darker than black sky, the low light of high latitude ensuring that nightfall sinks in even deeper. Brushed basalt looks positively bright and pale beside it.

Another sip of the mead drains the cup, only for it to be refilled, and the heavenly fragrance of a summer harvest laces the air. "But I get ahead of myself, do I not? Lady Gullveig rose thrice in perfect splendour, as unharmed as the moment of her arrival. Each time she smiled upon the masses, and asked again among the ladies whom wished to know her secrets. She gave the men smiles and fine words, but no promises. Her gifts were not for them, though they yearned to seize upon those mysteries. What man wouldn't possess the very wherewithal for childbirth if he could, and thus builds around womenfolk laws and customs to prohibit their free action?"

Her voice charges the final question in the rhetorical manner of any skald, bard, jongleur. They question, as professors in Cambridge or Oxford, and bend ideas upon their very heads. Let the audience think for once in its life. Not for nothing did she stand in as a professor for weeks and committed herself well.

"Might not it be said wisdom cannot die? The very force animating Lady Gullveig cannot be slaughtered by the sword or consumed in the fire. The Vanir maintain secrets over life, death, and rebirth. How else could Freyja be remembered always as the great lady she is, opposite the great lord, her brother? There is nothing that must frighten them more than knowing their immortality provides no protection against violence or death, for even great power wanes. Yet those words of power did Lady Gullveig capture can only be manifested and known to the worthy, they who sacrifice at every moon's tide and know the faces of life itself."

*

Another long draught was taken of the mead as the redhead spun the tale as deftly as any skald of old, here upon Midgard's frozen ground or in fair Asgard itself. A flicker of a smile at that thought pulled Amora's lips into a full bow, and she remained silent until the telling was through.

Once the natural silence established itself over the two once more, the one of a good tale's end, Amora leaned forward as she had much the same before.

"No, 'tis true the Queen was and has not been thrice slain and returned. For while she is of the Vanir, turned to marriage of the Aesir and Queen indeed.. she is not of the magical stock in the same vein. Though her powers are no less finely wrought.." She added, for if there was one woman in Asgard that had The Enchantress' respect, it was that Queen who sat upon the golden throne. Who had welcomed the fair haired girl amongst her son's playmates as surely as the Queen had allowed the much beloved Sif.

A fingertip was run over the edge of her goblet, an idle motion as the golden haired goddess watched the mirrored light of the fire play off the edges of the cup.

"The mortal tales would argue that the All-father has since gained such wisdom, such power for himself through varied means and rituals. All of which may or may not be true. None know for certain.." She whispered, and slowly shook her head.

"But this night is not his.." She smirked and lifted those luminous eyes toward the matching hue of Scarlett's gaze. "A good telling, darling." She added.

"Now for me to think of a tale.. Hmm.."

*

"I shall concede the performing stage to my lady, then. A proper telling in that is difficult for no one seems to know the end Gullveig came to. Should she exist, I would like to meet her myself, though I have the awful imagining she would blast me off the surface of the rock I inhabited for spite, pique, or amusement," murmurs the redhead, looking at her own frosted reflection in the glass. Its thickened honey runs in lazy rivulets, guided by rotations still, and that cannot hurt but warm her expression.

They who love the Queen are many and in her way, through the fractures in her being, so does Scarlett honour a woman with no time or care or patience for her. Just another mortal, hidden in the procession, given no position or recognition, but one of the rare to see into the heart of Asgard.

She downs mead, twice over, proof that none of its alcohol can truly or really touch her. Payment made and rendered, she shrugs. "We are what we are, no? No point to try and deeply dissect that, for the essential nature of us will change in response to time and surroundings."

*

A sigh was offered as Amora glanced over her apprentice, the mortal doomed to die by time's passage. Then the emotion of pity was gone as quick as it had appeared in those emerald eyes. Another gulp of that mead was taken, and being Asgardian in nature, the honeyed wine made even the goddess' head light with warmth. A smirk pulled at her lips then and she settled a hand behind her.

"The tale of Gefjun, or Gefn as some might say," She tilted her goblet to the side, looking at her reflection in turn, and it was quite obvious that Amora was not merely reciting a tale of the skalds. There were bound to be too many of those she'd had a hand in for her to not preen under such a telling.

"The goddess of the spring, of fertility and growing things," She started, gaze drifting upwards to the sky above once more. "Had angered Odin once more, as was her wont to do. Perhaps 'twas o'er her beauty, or some slight in court. As it stands, however, he sent her to Midgard. No less diminished in her strength or looks, for she was as fair as the dawn and as cold as the moon."

A long sip came in the pause and she tried to orient her thoughts once more.

"Thus was the goddess sent down to Midgard. Alone. She found herself in what the mortals call 'Sweden', and there found a mortal King. Handsome and gentle spoken he was, but he did not believe the woman when she stated her rank and station of a goddess. For he'd become, only recently, one of those Christians, a new thing for the kingdom then.." She murmured, trailing off and squinting her eyes faintly in thought. It was possible she was mixing up stories here.. But who could say?

*

As an audience, Scarlett hardly detracts from the act of listening. She bends her ear to the cadences of Amora's voice and the image she conjures, for three thousand years of learning are worth paying attention to. No doubt, given her druthers, she'd turn into some kind of goddess of curiosity and knowledge, given a fairly broad choice of portfolios. The liquid in her goblet is ever full, but she does not sip often or interrupt by moving that way.

"Gefn. Giving, yes? Another name so often associated with Freyja, though we have lost too much," murmurs the redheaded bohemian, slipping in and out of the tale of the Norse. Her eyes close for a moment, and no more will be had for some time as she allows the thoughts and story spinning to land where they will in a butterfly light rhythm. "She professes herself a heathen and a blasphemer. How on earth would his subjects take to that, but if she is the giver of graces and growth, then what a prize to be had."

*

Amora laughed lowly, a soft thing over the lip of her goblet. "Indeed, she was as charming as she was beautiful and even as a heathen to the Christian King, he was enamored with the goddess. For how could he not be? A mortal man faced with such a creature of intrinsic beauty and grace? She was perfection and all else was dun." The smirk that pulled at Amora's lips was the same as before, laced with self-confidence and boosted with old memories and mead.

"So when she had charmed him as was her way.. he offered her land. As much as she could plow in one day and one night."

A long pause followed and Amora pursed her lips, "There was some upstart mortal that claimed she was a virgin goddess. As she was so beautiful and he so very much Christian that he could see no fit way that a woman might enjoy the more .. carnal pleasures of the bedchamber and still be as beautiful as she was." She hand wave, irritation flickering in her gaze.

"Even though said mortal had long since known of the Trickster's insults to the beautiful goddess for her natural inclinations." She muttered, and took another deep gulp of her wine.

"Anyways, here is where the tales of men take hold. They believed that, I'm sure as you well know, she had four sons of giant origin whom she turned into oxen to plow the fields. It was said that they dug up so much earth that they created a lake, Lake Mlaren, and the earth that they had dug was dumped into the sea where it formed an island. Where she married one of Odin's sons and lived happily ever after." A simpering noise followed and she shook her head.

"Which is utter lies, but makes for a good story."

*

"As the goddess of the dawn, prevent the sun from rising and carve out the territory you so desire. That leaves plenty of time to swive your new beloved, and enjoy the fruits of one's labour. Though I can see the delight of Lake Mlaren, and how that story would appeal. Imagine if they had known of Superior. Was that a sign of when Bors took his wife to bed, and would have shown her a great feat to honour her, or was it merely the proof of a goddess' tears at the loss of her fair child to some other foolish business? Mayhap they were caught in bed with another partner than one another, or something equally as terrible." A solemn wave of Scarlett's hand leaves no reason to imagine that she is entirely blind to whatever rubbish Amora alludes to.

A sip of her mead follows, and she sets down the cup. "I admire her ingenuity, at least. Nothing speaks so well to folly and pride as putting a hole in them, and allowing them to deflate like a balloon." A low shimmer of a laugh follows, though it never quite reaches her frosted jade eyes. Then again, so precious little does. Wisdom learned is a grave, dangerous thing and the tarnished brilliance of their lives must carry on or fade away, as mortals do.

Flames leap and dance upon the wind; she watches their upward ascent, staring into the diamond strewn sky of midnight. "Where is your isle, my lady? We must all have one."

*

The goddess sighed, and her goblet vanished as it had appeared, when she had her fill, and leaned back to peer up at the stars. "The island that they attributed to the story, is in what the mortals call Denmark these days. There was once a lovely hall there, but 'tis nothing but peg holes and rotten logs now." A shrug followed, lazy and relaxed.

Yet all sign of comfort vanished suddenly as Amora's gaze narrowed on some distant point in the heavens above. What appeared to be falling stars streaked across the clear night sky and the Enchantress' teeth flashed, jaw clenching as she lurched to her feet with a sudden intensity.

"What? No.. it cannot be.." She glanced toward Scarlett sharply, a hand motioning for the woman's goblet.

"Quickly, pass your goblet over. I must see for myself what falls from the skies."

*

One need not tell Scarlett to do something twice. Her hand passes over the goblet, and she rises from her seated position, staring up. "Even at full bore, I can't get high enough to see well." Trouble with moving at speeds lower than light but faster than sound, alas. Her gaze narrows slightly and she turns to the Asgardian goddess, brow furrowed. "Thor, Frigga or something else?" Those things that truly matter to the woman are limited at best, and they can be named in fewer words than she has fingers. A concerning matter, now, all said and done.

Still, her feet are off the ground, the troubled expression enough to spark her to some burning form of action. Fingers curl around her wrist, and she stares up. Nothing matters anymore, and everything matters now.

*

The Enchantress closed her grip around the goblet with a quick movement, A small sliver of green magic swirled around the goblet as Amora stared hard at the liquid's reflection. Her own image of perfect golds and heated greens, faded instantly. And her gaze narrowed at what she spied in the mirrored surface of the mead.

There, tiny rainbow colored chunks of light and power burned in the space above, falling endlessly in all directions and appearing from seemingly no where and everywhere all at once.

"No.. no.. it.." She frowned, shaking her head as she lowered herself down to the log once more with a sweep of her furred cloak.

"The Bifrost?" She breathed, a hand lifting to press against the bow of her lips.

*

ROLL: Rogue +rolls 1d100 for a result of: 1

*

ROLL: Rogue +rolls 1d4 for a result of: 4

*

"Heimdall? He saved—" Her gaze swivels upwards again and the wheels turn at rapid speed, the ideas clashing and shimmering on a ribbon until the colour drains from her already pale face. Scarlett puts her hands together, enough to suppress their shake, and the strange light in her eyes intensifies to the point of sizzling fury. Her brows angle down and her full lips tighten, suppressing the lovely lines of her face for something else.

She rocks upon her heels, easier done given she floats in place, and she looks back to Amora. "It seems we are unfortunately prescient, or the Norns seek to gain nourish attention. Here we speak stories of the wit of goddesses overcoming the miseries of this wretched place, and the court that fails to recognize my value. Or yours." The timbre of her voice doesn't change much, rich and thrilled by the simmering passion bleeding out from so many countless wounds concealed. "Think how different all might have turned out did anyone heed our warnings and consider that in exile, you might know a great deal more than met the eye? Too late for regrets now." But to further plans? Oh, the opportunity is not so grim as that. Her movements are certain and poised as she circles around the fire, and she plucks charcoal out. She'll need at least three pieces to go with the most readily available option to write on: chipped wood. Writing out the runes takes hardly any time at all, considering her habit of reading them, and speaking in them.

A full handful, soon enough, gathered up and writ in black soot. Without concern, she gathers them into a fold of her coat, shakes them, and immediately drops three. "Berkana, reversed for the past." The first chip lands neatly. The second, flipped over: "Peorth, the present. My rune." The third, she holds open in her palm, the third: the Odin rune, Ansuz, reversed in all its damnation. "Family treachery, the disruption of what was taken on as a new beginning. I think we can see the results of that, the positions assigned by the All-Father did not end well. The present is bound in revealed secrets. What might those possibly be? Allegiances, perhaps, or where the power truly flows, and those who build deception to strengthen their truth?" Her gaze is unmuted, burning green over the golden flames. "The voice of the All-Father and the divine is being stifled, in the future. We are being mislead, if we listen to the demagogue, and the leader. Fallible sources present themselves as infallible, and they are not speaking for the divine…"

*

The image in the goblet was doused as Amora upturned the golden cup in hand, before it too vanished to where ever its twin had gone to before it. Even as the Enchantress' gaze narrowed faintly upon Scarlett, scenting the change in the woman's bearings as much as in tone. A smirk pulled at her lips, and with a clapping of her hands as if to free them of some dust or other undesirable element, she stood languidly.

"Come, my apprentice. We have work to do. If they are pieces of the Bifrost, as I believe.. as I sense.. Then there is magic ripe and free. All manner of creatures big or small within the Nine Realms shall come to feast on the magic and power therein. I should desire it before the carrion crows have their ways.."

Green eyes narrow in thought and she glanced around the grove of pines, now looking thin and spindle like in comparison to the goddess standing in their center. "As I said, 'tis the time of death and dying.. a foul omen those runes are indeed."

A manicured hand lifted, held a loft toward the red-haired companion. "Let us away."

*

The tip of her head acknowledges that truth, such as it is. Slim fingers imbued with ghastly strength close around Amora's wrist, and the inherent strength of an Asgardian still is nothing to that. Reassuring? Maybe.

Scarlett shrugs her shoulders, agreeable to moving away, given she is altogether prepared as it is to jet off into the sky or something worse still. Trees quiver as the spiral of air that's bound to form when she jets straight up into the air, flattening the plants and making the trees rock back on their roots with the force. It's a reminder of how fast she moves when she wants to, far beyond the human pale, at rates that ought to shatter her bones. They don't.

She gives little time for Amora to adjust, simply assuming with all the arrogance borrowed and bled into her veins she will. After all, the Enchantress, be left less than perfect? Please. She can open a spell on the wing and make her flouncy, glossy golden curls superb. They both ascend like a shot, storming through a hundred angels and change in seconds as she sets northern England to crackling in the night. The boom might launch Tornadoes and other jets to find the source, fearing some kind of invasion, or the Russians up to no good. The redhead's trajectory is dead vertical, and she hauls Amora into something of a hug to narrow their profile and less likely shatter the Enchantress' wrist or lose a grip at those speeds. It happens in the first few seconds they're pressed together tight as sisters, and the sky above them is a stationary point to the reeling shards of rainbow glass.

The death of dreams. The death of hope.

Air whirls behind them in furious vortices, and the temperature shifts become apparent as they cut through the different layers of the atmosphere. Even that breakneck, it's going to take a few minutes to really launch high enough to hit the upper atmosphere, but they can clear the stratosphere pretty damn fast.

*

Perhaps the Enchantress always meant for the mortal to lift her up into the skies, perhaps she meant to teleport them there. Yet for part, Amora did not look surprised or even ruffled at the sudden tug into the air. Her figure was perfect, and the thick and heavy cloak evaporated into nothingness, revealing the goddess in her standard green and gold spun corsetry.

She was perfect and beautiful as always, untouched by the battering winds or force that was exerted. After all, she was Asgardian.

A bubble of green magic encases them the further and higher into the sky they plow and between one blink and the next they're held floating above Midgard in all her glory. Rainbow chunks fly past, and Amora tosses her hands up into the air, a muttered word offered and green power leaps from her finger tips.

All at once, several hunks of rainbow colored rocks are imprisoned into bubbles of green light around the two. Floating and twinkling with their own power and light.

"I shall pull them toward us, apprentice, you will be responsible of their care 'till I have gathered what I can.."

*

Perhaps the mortal has reasons to loft herself airborne rather than trust in teleportation. Whyever bother with the latter when they need flexibility and approach? "How fast they are moving," Scarlett measures the arc of a flash through the sky, "I expect they will incinerate before they reach the earth. Or if they do, they should not cause any explosions. We haven't seen any fires, not so."

The high altitude gives a view of the countryside, towns picked out in orange, streams of light that suggest roads here and there. The network is visible even at low orbit versus high, though they have a long way to go before they are fully free of the earth, and neither does she intend to go so high. Enchantress and soul-thief make a pair; her in a bikini top and sarong skirt, if Amora hasn't maintained the winter wear. It makes little difference other than to generate a shiver.

"Good," murmurs the redhead, surveying those falling sparks. "Could we potentially net them? If they respond to being knocked aside, I could chase them, but such a waste of effort. I'm not a maidservant. The bubbles are easy enough to sustain. Do you wish them consumed or merely chained like pearls on a necklace?"

*

Amora's focus was for catching the little spheres of light that streaked across the sky in more bubbles, her arms waving with intent as she threw magic this way and that. Her movements swift, smoothed and utter perfection in catching the chunks and flying debris of what tumbled from Asgard proper down the world's tree to Midgard.

Time was short and she wasted no time in collecting what she could from the remains of that magical bridge that had encompassed the realms.

"Chain them together, then we will return them to a more comfortable place in Midgard to see what remains of their power." She called, blonde hair flying freely around her as she spun and caught another falling chunk of the old bridge. Emerald eyes narrowed and she snarled in silence, the thought of someone.. something destroying that age old symbol of Asgard's power? Something foul indeed must have occurred.

*

The spheres of light can be caught, and the redhead zips through the air, proving her ability to rapidly spin on a dime with a precision delivered through all her living years of memory — albeit not many — of dancing on clouds and catching flung rings or other things aloft and fetching them. If the bubbles link together by some tactile effect, she squishes the jade pearls together, one after the other. Otherwise they will be gathered into her skirt and knotted up again, creating something of a hazard to her mobility, but not impossibly slow.

Pieces of the bloody Bifrost. "The elves," she calls to Amora as she swings by, "have the black Bifrost. Or so it's said the Svartalfjar do. Is this their doing?"

Another piece soars down and she rises to meet it barehanded, as it were, no protective emerald cocoon streaming around it.

*

Amora spins as she twists and catches chunks from the size of a fist to the size of a table in spheres of green power. A purse of her lips follows of sharp intent and she exhales a sharp breath of consideration for Scarlett's words.

"Perhaps, though the Bifrost proper went through all realms. Theirs does not. It would take considerable force to shatter the bridge in such a manner and scatter it through the realms.." A scowl at that thought, worry was not present in those eyes of her gaze, but some other emotion flashed and lived there.

"It could be any number of things.." She drawled, and the torrent of scattered rainbows slowed to a trickle before fading entirely. Either the rest of the bridge had gone to other realms, or hadn't fallen as the parts that the two had collected.

A glance was spared for the red-haired woman, and Amora caught a chunk between her hands with a glow of limelight. Her gaze narrowed as she turned it over in her magical grip, trying and failing to find a mark or a hint of what had occurred.

"We shall have to find the others that remain here on Midgard, and I shall see if I cannot scry an answer.." She murmured. Another glance around and Amora frowned faintly, the falling debris had ended.

"Shall we return?"

*

Scarlett's movements are sped up to seize the rainbow, to capture those pieces which have not fallen fully to earth. Small shards might be netted in her hair, her flapping skirt, but more than not, she captures them in the spheres. Small chunks and large; the tiniest of them might end up peppered on her lips like sugar crystals.

Don't lick. Safe to lick?

Her body descends through the open space, and she holds her collection in her arms, the folds of the batik skirt wrapped up around several pieces that probably envelope her in a chain. "We need to take these somewhere safe. There may be more." Her gaze narrows and she slants north. "The Faroes, Iceland. Norway, Sweden. The places we sang of seem the best choice for where we can expect to find them, other than New York. And it wouldn't do for others to earn what is rightfully ours."

*

A chuckle, and Amora eyes the glowing shards of the once great bridge, she twists her grip on the chunk in between her hands a whispered word and she inhales deeply of the arcane power that swirls inside the crystalline structure. The glow fades immediately, swirling upwards and around the Enchantress before sinking into her skin.

When her eyes open they sparkle with the inhaled Asgardian magic, brighter than Scarlett had seen in months. "Aye, 'tis only fitting. But lower us to Midgard once more. With what we have, I might yet summon the shards that have fallen toward Midgard proper. The other realms shall be far more difficult to traverse, and draining. The paths of which I'd walk to find them would be treacherous indeed. Few have memories of their ways for they are old and forgotten by time and travelers alike."

*

The extent of her arm, given they are surrounded by orbs and spheres, reaches for Amora. Then she drops out of the sky faster than escape velocity, seeing whether they — Amora, the bubbles — can follow rapidly enough. If not, then Scarlett slows, but otherwise she answers for expediency and aims them towards a roadway open in the dark night, limned in a few lights.

Their pirouette slows a few thousand feet short of the ground, reducing speed and bleeding off the impact. They'll have a rapid turn to make, and then the velocity melts as she sets down Amora on the ground. Her own bounces carry her a few steps further, and then she halts, holding her arms up to the shards of the rainbow. The power within is a curious thing, but it might be living. So a bare hand tests it. And should that do nothing, she taps upon the shard, seeing whether it melts into her flesh with the knowledge borrowed, manifested, and frightfully present. Somewhat.

*

The Enchantress descends much the same as she had when going vertically upwards. No less speedily than Scarlett, but perhaps more prettily. Green sparkles and smoke whip around her otherwise perfect figure. And the spheres of green light huddle and curl closer to the Enchantress as they fly, partially fall, back to Midgard below.

A gentle touch down has Amora's heels clicking on the street and with a wave of her hand, the magically contained shards swirl and bob around the goddess' head. A glance was spared for Scarlett, the woman would see much the same as she had, a diminishing of light and a transfer of power into herself as the arcane power lifted up and into her. Yet there were no /memories/ such as it was. Flashes of what Asgard was, of golden, pure light and magic.. but there was naught else to be found in the construction of the remains of the Bifrost itself.

A lift of her hands followed that, and the magic twinkled, held aloft around them like globes of witchlight. Then, just as suddenly, they vanished. The magic drawing itself into the Enchantress to join the piece she had collected. The goddess bent slightly at the sudden flare of power that rocked her figure, and when she straightened, oh, that power glowed beneath her perfect skin.

"Ahh, I have not tasted Asgardian magic is so very long.." She drawled, eyes closing and head tilted back.

*

Memories do not exist for Scarlett in the same fashion, but the soul thief is a thief, no more, no less. They who are imprisoned within her possess a sort of immortality, a flash frame of the moment of their existence, pristine and untapped. In postmodern terms, they might consider her a living archive in a sense, though not ideally the type they might wish to plumb, given the high cost to install that information.

Her dark, glittering emerald gaze lies upon Amora and does not veer. "Uppsala," she says. "The great temples are there. They pointed north and if nothing else, Bifrost should cut over it more strongly than some if I remember the anchor points."

Remembrances are strange, terrible things without easy certainty of their purpose, their place. Who is to know what may be truth and what is not? But even she can feel the terrible cost of the tug.

*

"Then she has fallen, and one can assume that Asgard has likewise. Which means the All-father's decree that I seek to not further myself in magic is for naught." A purse of her lips follows as she casts her eyes around. Everything about the Enchantress appears renewed in looks and presence. The magnetic pull of her personage was increased tenfold already, and she looked to carry herself with a renewed sense of confidence.

"Very well, then we shall seek out the fallen pieces there." A flicker of her hands, and Amora transports the two toward the tugging presence of more shards of the ancient bridge.

When they arrive, the temperatures are once more the cold chill of winter. The skies overhead the darkness of those without street lamps and tall buildings. It was silent, and snow drifts covered the field before them.

Rather politely, the Enchantress had supplies those fur-lined garments once more.

There was no pause as she marched into the snow, treading so lightly not a foot step showed behind her. She practically glided about in her search.

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