1964-03-22 - Good Counsel Defined and Denied
Summary: History repeats itself.
Related: The Crooked Distaff
Theme Song: Hurricane - Vaults
amora rogue 


Amora directed traffic, for lack of a better term. Men in crisp uniforms of the butler variety walked this way and that in her penthouse apartment. The sounds of chaos and cooking could be heard coming from her kitchen, which was obscured from view from where she stood. "No, no, put garlands higher, higher, to the left. No." She sighed, pinched the bridge of her nose and finally the enthralled men managed to hang the string of flowers to her parameters.

Thus continued the preparations for the Ostara feast. Her living room, and dinning area seemed to have expanded, or perhaps the lack of furniture other than what one might expect for a feast had been left out.

There was an explosion of greenery, plants and other such nonsense around the room. And Amora stood in the middle of the festivities. Dressed in green as always, but with the addition of little white flowers combed through her hair. She was a goddess of desire, lust and yes, fertility. Technically. Thus her powers and her interests of course, tied her within the welcoming of Spring, or at least the start of it officially. Even if it was still chilly outside and snow on the ground.

*

Time plays tricky games with redheads traveling the cosmos, realms, and university classes. Semesters still tick on, regardless of what Scarlett might have to say about it. She still receives quiet looks from certain members of the faculty, and they don't doubt her talent on paper, though the girl is never entirely there. Her world belongs somewhere else, and for all that she imprisons herself inside Columbia's well-regarded walls. There comes a time she needs a change of pace.

That means finding her way to whatever digs Amora claims for herself, though predictably it's out of her price range and somewhere where the bellman looks oddly at her until she offers a blithe smile and peers over her sunglasses, unimpressed by his stature. Again, life has taken so many twists that she can reveal her inner mettle now and then for a gain. Bowing she may do, but never bending.

Her usual braids are always flower-adorned, and this time around, she's replaced the snowdrops with jonquils, pale gold and silver stars running down their length, bright as ever. Spring belongs to another soul, but her opposition, given she manages one of the seasons in name and spirit. All said and done, though the girl is more or less seen in carrying a pot of tulips.

*

Amora frowns distinctly as the wards that she'd placed around the apartment complex alert her to her 'apprentices' presence, yet she chooses to do nothing until the redhead appears and is properly escorted to where the Enchantress orders her servants about. All of whom always stared at her, enthralled with the woman's beauty and magics. The festival was not a large one, a simple, minor one that had long ago fallen out of favor by and large for May Day.

But given Amora's circumstances with the 'threat' of Sif on the horizon, the Enchantress was willing to do anything to draw magic from rituals to herself. So a golden table was lifted and placed in the center of the room, silk streamers of emerald green tacked onto the ceiling among flowers imported from greenhouses and the alike.

And of course several barrels of mead were brought up and rolled in as well. Scarlett would find the doorway to the penthouse suite crowded. Yet the servants had been trained to greet her warmly, and welcome her in to Amora directly.

*

Her apprentice carries the flowers inside, the streaks of white and crimson a rare variety indeed, especially with the inner cores of the flowers professing the myriad buttery hues of a golden morning. Enthralled servants could probably be trusted to tell her all about Amora's morning routine, and not a great deal else, but surrounded by such people forever swooning over the blonde goddess is something of a norm. It's not that she holds any particular resistance to that beauty; she doesn't. Scarlett simply accepts beauty as part of the glory of life and finds a mental space to deal with it.

Threats, such as they profess to be, could be cause for why she is here. Green everywhere among the gold earns arched eyebrows. "You either mean to hold the finest of parties, my lady, or your house guest…?" The statement trails off, all the same. "Good afternoon. Had I but known I might have sprung to bring you a bottle opener or six."

*

Amora steps forward as soon as Scarlett crossed the thresh hold of her doorway and was promptly waving the redhead over. "Darling, come. I have needs for you. Only a woman trained might aid in this venture. If the magic is to be done correctly. And I needs must have everything perfect for tonight." She pursed her lips, red lips thinning into a line.

Then she was off, with a click of her heels down the hall and toward her bedroom.

A place more lusciously designed, nor was heavy with glamour rarely existed. On Midgard or Asgard. The Enchantress simply wove between the servants and staff, like an expert, expecting Scarlett to follow. Amora paused before her rather impressively sized bed, draped with more silks and wreathed with more flowers and gold than one could think possible. Donald's room, the redhead might note, was just next door.. and surprisingly plain in comparison, with the door open a crack.

"I have need of aid to draw the runes for blessings."

*

A woman trained; on that front, Scarlett counts as both, and probably somewhat more, did memory need a manifestation from the depths of her self. There's no telling what or who lies in there, nor is she prone to ever discussing the business.

Following in, the redhead nods to the staff, and glances about the lavishly decorated bedroom. Her own is, naturally, not something to a scale of this; on the other hand, she has a fully functional seidr garden, and not many people can boast that. "Indeed, I should be happy to. Medium of choice, my lady?"

*

Amora heaved a sigh, and gestured to several vials, sprigs of plants and boxes of stranger greens that clearly did not originate on Midgard in the least. There was a faint glow to some. A few smelled of impossible things like amber, sunshine or warm sand. "I have collected assorted things from the realms. Tis not my usual, as my palace has the better items still in Asgard, but twill have to do." She mused, and with a wave of her hand the bed lifted up and then settled a few feet displaced from where it had been.

"If we place them beneath the bed, the they should bring blessings for the Spring to come." Her brow furrowed faintly as she folded her arms and glowered at the floor.

"I have hope that the ritual will give me it's blessings. I fear with the trials ahead that.." She shrugged, trailing off as she dragged a hand through her golden curls.

*

Pretty foliage and growing plants deserve to be examined, and they will in time, though largely from a visual context. Scarlett does not intend to approach any too closely as yet, the perfume enjoyed at a distance plenty sufficient for the bohemian. She, more than most, knows the benefit of look, don't touch. Sufficient to give the nearest bloom an affectionate trace of her gloved finger, painting a whorl down the spilling tongue of the petals. "Can you not reach your palace in Asgard, as yet, my lady? I thought such prohibitions were no longer upon you, unless the Valkyrie brought other news?"

She rests her hand upon her hip, waiting for a sign of where the appointed materials to write or paint are. Carving might get interesting; she's certainly strong enough to break rock, but chisels might break before she does. "Trials ahead?"

*

Amora settled, pulling up her skirts around her knees as she kicked off her heels and reached out to pluck a frond of some glimmering plant. It possibly looked to be a piece of grass gone to seed, with the exception that it was solid silver and caught the light in sparkles that dripped from the Enchantress' fingers to disappear when they touched the floor.

"Lady Sif appears to be alive. I saw her in a vision and once in a rip between the veils of Jotunheim." Her words were soft and her brows pinched as she gazed down at the impression of the foot of her bed. She set the silvery grass down there, and closed her eyes briefly.

"Donald.. Thor.. whomever he may be, dreamed of her. I was brought into the vision when I attempted to wake him." Green eyes opened and fell upon Scarlett beside her. "I fear that when he saves her, that she shall do all that I cannot.. return him to who he is.. and his memories.. if he be Thor. And then..?" She arched a brow, lips pursed.

"I shall once more be forgotten.."

*

Hope has partially disconnected.

*

"If he be Thor, then he has every ability to choose his own path, my lady. And do you think him so loathe to forget what kindness you do for him, or any other host of abilities? Certainly he's not going to just up and toss you over." Scarlett reaches for one of the long-stemmed flowers with a trumpeting bloom practically dripping dust onto the ground, and she considers for a moment, before settling on a pattern of Gebo, Wunjo, and Eihwaz, spinning out the neat slices to intersect one another with very pretty penmanship indeed. It's all the more significant given the tumbles of sunlight sluiced across her skin, leaving trails of radiance on the grass.

"My lady, more than anyone I understand the fear of loss." She should. Amora lives on, in a sense, in Scarlett, probably an unknown quantity all given. "I have sympathy for your plight, though I should also note that you are dealing with a man whose noble qualities are superior to most, if this is truly the case. And one who has taken immense loss, both of home and family, but depths we cannot say. It may well be the path he walked before he cannot foresee doing again, or that he will be in need of good counsel, support, and all those other things we seek in a time of grief. I do not pretend to know what the Prince of Asgard is going through right now. I can only caution you not to turn your face to a war footing too readily. I appeal to your subtler, gentler side. Consider what attracts him to you, yes? Let that be a comfort, and do not start bristling like a cat if you don't have to. You may see her as a threat. She may not be."

*

Amora was supposed to be the older of the two, and yet she seemed then as ageless and adrift as a youth of few mortal summers. "I do believe he would. If he regained his memories in her presence then they shall return to .. to.." She swallowed a lump that formed in her throat and smoothed out the front of her dress as she bent and reached for a few more earthlier buds not yet in bloom. She wove the daffodils not yet opened into the desired shape and set them in the center.

"I have earned no affect to restoring him. Yet in the dream between the veils, he saw her and she him. I know it. There was a moment when he disrupted the flow of magic wherein she was trapped to repetitions." She pursed her lip, and sat back. Staring at the pattern of greenery that was slowly being woven together.

"He shall hate me for having taken advantage of my knowledge to seek his bed again."

*

Scarlett is somewhat frozen in time, containing far more than the sum of her very young years. She tips her head towards Amora, frozen in another neat cross to mark gifting of success. "You believe, truly, the moment he stood in Sif's presence, he would cast you aside completely? Truly, Lady Amora, I would question if that is worth the effort in a man, though mine is the state of a cast iron cauldron eyeing up the kettle." Her mouth barely brushes up to a smile, the faintest crook catching whatever golden daylight is reflected upon him.

"Supposing, my lady, he is the Thunderer. Do you know his reasons for him being as he is? We do not. I am loathe to remind you of what I already said, but his reasons may be his own, and it's not for you or I to guess what he might be thinking or how he might act. Give someone their options, their right to act, and let them go whilst they will. Unfortunately all of us are adults, for all that you may disbelieve me to be that, and thus permitted to choose our actions. A life of happily faking enthusiasm or concealing truths eventually will have out; the truth always does. No matter how, and he would not thank you for withholding it as the years go on. To say nothing of the All-Father or the Queen taking a direct hand. "

*

Amora bristled distinctly at the question on if he was the Thunderer. It was a question that tugged at her heart strings and made gave her pause each time she saw Donald. She still wasn't sure if she had bespelled the man, or not. Whether the instinctive want for him to be the Thunderer had befuddled her spellwork to the point that she could no longer say, whether or not he had truly been taken with her.

It galled, and was something the Enchantress kept close.

Still, she continued with twisting fronds and sticks of greenery and wood frosted with impossible magic. A flower encased of sunlight and dotted with flecks of stardust was next. A nimbly formed love knot slowly taking shape.

"Tis more that I fear if he regains his memories that he shall cast me aside regardless. That Lady Sif shall be the thing to regain him his mind.. if .. if he is as I think. He has no love for me beyond that of a man desires a woman. I thought perhaps it would be enough, when I was younger. A foolish thought. Yet his anger at me since his ventures to Midgard previously makes me believe that he shall turn me over without thought.." She nodded and paused as she glanced down at the knot of plant life in her hand.

"Regardless, the magic that traps her will surely be a problem for him. He shall require me up until that point. I shall need what I can scrape from forgotten rituals."

*

Empathy has a habit of hitting fairly hard, especially when the girl in question is becoming surprisingly talented in reading the unspoken language of the body. Not an expert, by any means, but Scarlett holds a trump card on that front compared to some.

"Lady, you already shared your fears on that front with me." Another twist of grasses form Gebo again, the rune shaped by twisting and weaving a free strand around the intersecting angles. This, she lays down. "What then is your intention with this? Suppose you capture her, then?"

*

A shrug, "I have no intentions beyond gathering what power I can. A Spring is the renewal of life. Of power. The loss of winter and the long withdrawing roar of the frost." She murmured, tracing a manicured finger along the edge of her weaving greenery.

"My beloved, as he is now, if he is as he is now.. has need of power, and I shall gather what I can to ensure his safety. Regardless, he has at least, the power of the Thunderer when he has need. It should do enough.." She murmured and then closed her eyes as she reached for another leaf bedewed stem.

A breathless sigh pulled from her and she settled the sprig of rosemary in the corner.

*

Scarlett slips a pouch from her bag, and opens it, revealing a number of stones with a decidedly jade tinge. She plunges her hand in, shaking out five of the stones into her palm, and casting them against the protective circle of flowers and silvery grasses. They dance in a pattern and land in the cross shape, mostly, aided along by her straightening the axes presented to us.

"Let the voice of the fates speak," she murmurs, head tilted down as she examines the lay of them. "Your past, and what brought you here, is Algiz, the elk. My lady, you had the thrill of the hunt and the joy of victory in your veins. What you stalked, you gained." The second rune reveals itself to her with the slightest coercing, a stain at the top. "The force working in your favour is Ansuz. Listen to the voice of the gods, seek the good counsel and listen to the message. Deny the message and the fates are aligned against you." She slides down to the opposite side, the rune already facing upwards. "What works against you, the forces of Ger. Fruitfulness will stand in your path, and particularly the path of karma. Providence. Autumn." Tracing her fingers against the space between them symbolically clears out her vision, for all that is meant to help.

"The deciding element in your reading…" Another stone flipped, the jade facet reveals Nyd, a glaring strike in the midst of it all. Mouth thinned, Scarlett sits back slightly. "Yours will be a hard journey with many lessons to endure. Nyd brings sorrow and loss to this endeavour, my lady. The runes say to learn from your mistakes, and by that, you may avert the doom to come."

One last stone, and she gestures, the future laid forth in its inverted design. "Berkana, the birch. By its placement, on this path, leads to discord within families, and failure to ventures set forth."

*

As ever, Amora was a creature of old habits. Of fixed desires and motions that all too often she found herself resorting to the same tired and repeatedly, failed means. Such as the runes warned against, was all too true. The threat of Sif? She goes to her magic immediately preparing like a damp cat, to launch herself at the target of her bristling. While at the same time, unheeding of the ever drawing tide below.

Perhaps it was the pigheadedness of the Asgardians themselves. Perhaps not.

Still, she listened to the rune reading, falling silent as Scarlett spoke and read the meaning of the stones. She sat back, eyeing the runes as she shifted her upon the floor, a hand rising to twist a lock of her hair between her fingers as she mused on the meanings herself.

"I see." She murmured simply, her eyes narrowed faintly upon the last of the runes. Cementing perhaps, a thought she had had before. Yet she did not attempt so much as to share her thoughts. They lingered in her gaze.

*

Sweeping aside the rune stones, Scarlett drops them once more back into the pouch, securing its throat by pulling the knotted strands, each of them a different, subtly altered shade such she might be able to open the bag by touch alone, and know what she touches.

They once more end up stowed in her coat pocket, a simple addition. Marie has her tarot; she has the runes, though only one of them has any mystic direction, the other merely her interpretations. "I hope you do, my lady. You are not without great purpose and talent."

*

Amora glanced away, and stood as the runes were swept aside. "I see that 'tis as I thought, that the fates do rise against me in what I seek. As always. It is nothing new." She sniffed, and her skirts were dropped back to their proper positions. A huff and she reached out with her magic to lift the bed back into it's proper place now that the various herbs had been woven and set so as for a blessing for Spring.

"Thank you Scarlett for aiding me in my weaving. I had need of it. Now, are you going to stay for the feast this evening?"

*

"The fates see further than any of us, Lady Amora." Scarlett stares off into the bower of greenery, and then nods. "I should like to, though I am not properly dressed for it. Will you permit me to make the appropriate additions to my attire, or do you have a bolt of something in your closet that I might turn into proper clothing?" Because appearances matter, as it would happen, and it's not like Amora is going to spirit her off to Alfheim for Ostara. Or is she?

*

A hand was waved in the direction of her closet and the doors swung open to reveal practically another room within. Dresses of all manner and sorts of every fabric imaginable were there, along with shoes, and assorted accessories. "As you desire, my dear. Take what you wish. Otherwise, I can have one of my pets seek out and gather whatever you desire. I should see to the kitchens and ensure that there is enough food within. I know naught if my beloved as he is will desire as much food as the Thunderer typically consumed for a feast…" She frowned faintly.

"Hmm, I wonder…" Then shrugged and tossed her hair back from her face. "Perhaps I might invite Strange as well. A proper feast requires more visitors."

*

The redhead will be certain to stumble in there and find something worthy of the event, though she may be lost for a few hours. Scarlett can wield a needle as well as some, and she might be overly thrilled by the notion of vanishing into a pile of clothing for a time. The servants no doubt will be called on to help sort, though it's hardly fair when the mystics can conjure whatever they like. "Perhaps," agrees the redhead, though her thoughts tumble into a rill of possibilities that converge and diverge as frequently as any. "It will be delightful to have the company, I expect."

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