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It begins as it has for the 'nth' time. Wind swirls, snow falls, and the darkness is ever pervasive. The scene is as it was, only Sif is growing weaker in each cycle; the injuries gained not healing as quickly as they may in life. She is in tattered armor, her sword dragging the ground as she turns, watching warily as the jotun begin their close once again, as wolves to their prey. The fire hasn't yet departed the warrior maid's eyes, but there is a decided fatigue there evidenced at the (lack of) speed in which she brings her sword up to parry a sudden attack at her flank. With each move, Sif is able to parry, but now there's very little strength left in her ripost. And, while there are many, many cycles, each moment of battle is new with potentially new outcomes.
Greenland. Midgard. The cold still holds the iced island in its grips. Winds and snows have long set away any trace of activity outside the few cities' limits. The white, frozen crystals hang in the air, cover the grounds, keeping secrets until the thaws.
*
Amora was irritated. Beyond irritated, and verging unto outright anger. She had no easy way of triggering Loki's spells and she would not admit that she'd been stumped for the better part of the week. Much less that it took her that long to even gain an inkling as to what those spells Loki had set were. Then of course, was the fact that she still had no idea if Donald was Thor. Add to that her insecurities about Sif, and the nagging of various others around her to help.. and here she was. In Greenland.
She hadn't been here in ages. Nor did she care to visit again. Yet with a grumble and a sigh, she had teleported her apprentice and whoever else that decided to tag along. To the place that she cound sense the rip in the realm that gave hints to what she had seen before in Jotunheim. Small favors that it didn't require her to cross realms.
The Enchantress stood on the icy landscape with her arms crossed, dressed in her fabulously gorgeous armor trimmed in gold and fur with a matching cloak slung over her shoulders, magic glowing gently around her as she glanced around.
*
Blowing snow and the frigid wastes of the Greenlandic ice cap would deter even the bravest soldier from crawling out of his base and giving the pearly skies a miserable shake of his head. Somewhere, NATO agents stationed on the DEW Line and the Pine Tree Line thank their lucky stars no one in Colorado or Ottawa reassigned them to the thankless duty of monotonous winter chores, monitoring Soviet and now alien adventures. Even did they notice the weird blip on their radars, none of which are actually pointed south but towards the distant shores of Nova Zemlaya or the pole, nothing would follow up on the distortion. A man praying for leave to Florida isn't going to make much of the single-file approach around a certain frosty precipice.
Licks of ice groan and howl with their own peculiar rhythm, nature's rock and roll performance. Even in winter, there's such a cacophony in the crevasses and the deepest pits of the flowing heart where bedrock and ocean meet under high pressure. On the surface of that sheet, dangerous abound, threats made far less significant for someone able to levitate independently of gravity. A streak of cerulean and scarlet interrupts the endless white space, and then follows the verdant flame, an aurora given form. Eyes narrow against the bracing difference in temperature, but it's all fairly relative. For the woman, at least, cold can't kill. For the man, command of the elements goes with the divine mantle.
*
A certain blip has been tracked to this chilly waste devoid of all life, but it has nothing to do with NATO and everything to do with a life under threat. Figures that he would get involved, given his propensity to thumb his nose at the skeletal figure of Lady Death under her sepulchral robes and kid-skin leather gloves. Nope, this soul is his — after all, there's a debt to be repaid.
Crackling lightning spreading out reality to a perfect circle announces his presence even if the roll of power that precedes him doesn't. Ozone crackles at a level just beneath visibility; any higher and literal links of static might dance upon his frame and through his aura. Doctor Strange clearly means business as he steps forth onto the slab of an icesheet that stretches for miles. No fear slows his stride, for he has the buffer of the crimson Cloak about his shoulder to catch in case of collapse. It catches in the wind and spreads wide, perhaps in simple mimicry of a jessied falcon testing its wings. About him, a stark temperature difference might be noted in the wavering of displaced space — he wraps springtime's gentle heat about him and thus, staves off Greenland's chill.
As one power senses another, he unerringly glances over towards the presence of Lady Amora, no matter the distance between them. A thin smile curves his lips. Of course.
*
Sword up, swing around, and Sif thrusts in an even push, slicing down. She manages to dispatch her opponent, but her pleasure is short-lived as the wolfish smile turns into a grimace of pain as her own flesh is touched by the edge of a sword. It slices deep, blood flows, and she grunts in pain even as she spins and brings her sword to rise, neatly removing the offending hand from the offending body. There is blood in the water, however, and the ring closes in on the Asgardian warrior. One, two, four fall, but given her ever weakening state, Sif is lost and ends bloodied, bruised and dead in the cold wastes of Jotunheim. No Valkyrie comes to bring her home to Valhall, none comes to give her the chance for Hel. Here, it will all start again, given time.
There are prints in the snow, miles away. The paw-prints of polar bears that have come ashore to hunt, come off the ice floes for food. On shore, of course, birds fly overhead, musk oxen graze in competition with the caribou. It's an area given over to nature; it's deep, rich history buried in the snow and dirt of near a thousand years.
*
Loki arrives from RP Nexus.
*
Loki has arrived.
*
The Enhantress ignores the pulses of magic that enclosed the area, her gaze rather lingering on the red cloaked Doctor Strange as he arrived. Painted lips spread wide into a flirtatious grin as she winked his way and, with light steps that left no real foot print behind, approached him with a sing of her hips. "Oh Doctor, we truly must cease to meet in such a manner. Whatever would people say?" She fluttered her eyelashes prettily, but otherwise made no attempts to touch him. Infact, her presence seemed oddly lacking in draw, as if she had no insatiable hunger clawing at her aura.
There was no need there to tug his way, even though it was clear she wasn't lacking in magic. How odd.
Finally, a sigh pulled from her lips as she turned her attention to the ghostly visions that haunted the rift between realties. "Well, shall we make this connection stronger?" She mused, holding a hand out and aloft, she summoned a knife to her hand and pricked a finger, dropping blood on the hardpacked snow below.
"Blood for blood, ties that bind us, draw us closer. Let us see what sheds upon the twin snows clearer.." She whispered, sympathetic magic at its heart, to draw the vision ever nearer at least.
*
The frigid wind makes playthings of the living, whispering of a collective cultural memory of a drowned woman hateful to all warm flesh and rich blood. Spite murmurs around jumbled icy blocks and snarls past the boulders mixed into the millennia-old slurry that Scarlett scorns with all the ease of a child sworn and owed to another season altogether. Gelid fingers find little purchase in throat-to-toe leather garments, and her habitual gloves are gone in favour of elbow-high gauntlets and vambraces suited for battle against far more toothsome foes than walruses and subzero temperatures. Snowy lashes frame the burning gaze turned with no little intensity upon a tableau playing itself over and anew, calling to the copper blood with a distant rage.
So much can she do to project her voice, the lilting memory of waxing sunsets painting the fields golden and drowsy. "That Urd left no coincidences in your thread, my lady Incantara," she pitches it to be heard, waiting for a lull. For all she makes every sign of treading across the icefield, her leather boots do not contact the ground, nor does she outpace the Sorcerer Supreme. In this field, she is merely a wildcard, the Nornsdottir another tool for them to move on the board however they like.
*
"Probably that you're a nuisance, Lady Amora. If you'll excuse me." With a lack of the Enchantress's magnetic draw about her, she's very easy to ignore. In fact, he can stride on past her, aligned towards the deep interior of this particular ice plate, with his usual confidence and keen focus on his target. It rests farther out still, within the nearest half mile, but the strength of its connection to him flickers like sunlight through leaves. There one moment, gone the next.
"Miss Scarlett, if you'll keep half an eye on Lady Amora, it would be appreciated. I can't be interrupted further." His murmur is aimed for the redhead Bohemienne, even if his eyes linger in slitted pause on the blonde Asgadian practitioner for all of another second.
Then the man continues on, heedless of blowing wind or shifting surface beneath him. He clasped arms with this Battle-Maiden, shared tales over food, and laughed in friendship. Memories guide him on.
*
In the frozen wastes that is Jotunheim, Sif, one of the trusted and accomplished warriors of Asgard, lies seemingly dead upon a battlefield that is dotted with red. The bodies of her enemies have disappeared, whether they've been taken away by their comrades or disappeared as if by magic. For a long moment, all is still until a single form, a giant like the others but unlike them, walks slowly and seemingly hesitantly towards the stricken form that is Sif. He pauses, crouches, and rests his arms upon his knees for a heartbeat before he reaches out before him, his hand over touseled and blood-soaked black hair, but he doesn't reach down to touch her. He doesn't have to. In the next moment, there comes a gasp of air as if it rushes into the woman's lungs unbidden, and she rolls onto her back her eyes briefly unfocussed. She lies there, the deep insults upon her flesh still present, though they cease their bleeding as she gains her wits. Slowly, it all comes back, and by the time she is once again on her feet, albeit slowly, painfully, and there is something behind those eyes. Defiance, and perhaps a bit of knowledge. That understanding is fleeting, however, as the new group of jotun begin to enter, to make themselves known by pounding rhythmically upon their shields. Who will be the one to best the Asgardian warrior?
The dry, white plains underfoot tries to hide its secrets, but as the blood flows in the spell by the Enchantress, and the discernment of the Sorceror Supreme, it begins to give its secrets, though unwillingly. Blood upon the snow lies beyond, and easily it could be taken for the finish of a hunt, wolf versus snowshoe hare, only there is no body to be found, and there are no pawmarks around to suggest a life and death battle of that kind.
*
Amora huffed a breath, irritation flooding those emerald eyes of her, before it was gone. "Now.. now, Doctor Steven Strange.." Her voice deep with her own liquidous power that seemed to rise up around her as the vision plays out and her blood on snow draws them ever closer. She tsks under her breath as he continues on mentioning how Scarlett should 'keep an eye on her', her brows hooking upwars as she cast a glance to her apprentice.
"I have seen this twice, and am better equiped than yonder puffing peacock. Come along, darling. I have an idea of what we might be able to do."
And she wrings out a few more drops of blood from her injured digit before its healed, then bends down, drawing a few runes out of the shapes in the snow. Her voice lifting into some strange lullaby sounding song as green magic tipped her fingers and lit up the area around them. It was a child's song, one that sounded as if it belonged on the sparring field, or in the classroom. Memories bound up in memories..
*
Amora can feel it. Strange can feel it. Wanda can feel it. They triggered something. It could be a trap, to pin them, also, in the wasteland. It could be something else. But the magical spell is sprung like tripping a wire, and it makes a chime sound and rushes away into the distance. And Sif is joined by a second spirit…or rather…a memory. Its definitely Loki, but Loki from 200AD or so, still coltishly teenaged, and wearing an outfit that is as exposing as Sif's. Pants that lace up the sides, and bared thighs, a flapping tunic, and whipping, black hair. He smiles, that winsome smile from a more peaceful time. "Need some help, Sif?" This Loki seems to be armed with a bow and arrow.
*
Blood matters naught to the skald, whose very existence at the moment revolves around a set of intact memories subjected to the ultimate test, their brightness a cutting blade upon the fabric of the void of her soul. Woven from emptiness whence the world began and such it is doomed to end, her very being vibrates in accord with faceted memories plucked from the crystalline oubliette where countless impressions lie. It is not a place where the girl calling herself Scarlett happily walks, the annals of her own existence penned in blood, tears, and wrath alongside runes of exultation and unimaginable successes for a humbly born Midgardner of no particularly known provenance. Those ill-healed wounds to psyche and flesh open again at the slightest of touches, while Sif herself dances to a circle of frost giants, her blood bright as poppy petals on the ice, Amora's leeching neon presence obscenely green in an island misnamed to lure the unsuspecting from their relatively fertile fastnesses further east.
Treachery and lies, hope and protection.
Scarlett flits in between them, and does other than offer her blood, what little value that might hold. For one, she lacks a knife, and two, most knives cannot penetrate her skin enough to break a vein. Thus, another sacrifice is called for, one that requires a different tack. She settles with her head bowed a moment, elaborately plaited hair whipping in the wind, and draws a series of three runes onto the icy snow with her fingertip. In that, no more than simple divination by mundane means is evinced, but with a difference. She sings… in Aesir. Old Norse. The language of old, painstakingly learned and refined, beaten into her skull sometimes with a blade, the byproduct of loss and gain. Her soprano voice rises high and pure, tempered by only the pause, and her eyes flare greener than green at the sight laid before her. It may be an awful thing to watch the past come alive, and her faith goes ablaze to the point it might as well burn out her heart.
"The Norns their silver'd shuttles cast,
Bind the future, cull the past!
The weavers' tales are ever told,
In sagas of Sif of tresses gold.
There came a warrior from on high,
Beloved of earth and storm-rent sky,
Swift in sword and long-cast spear,
Helmed war sister the jotuns fear.
Come, lady, of kennings proud,
Battlefire, faith-bringer, fortune's shroud.
Nine realms turn and fall and clash,
Wi' Asgard wreathed in fire and ash!
Betrayed by lies, wounded at heart,
I call thee, Sif, from worlds apart!
Loose Valkyrja to guide thy path
Back to glory leached of his wrath.
Night-clad spirit, find your way home,
I name my faith in thee profound.
Noble rebirth is fate's decree,
Woven into Urd's tapestry!"
*
The Sorcerer might continue ignoring the Enchantress and his name (after all, a key at his collarbone means the world to him), but the sudden sound of a song breaking through the windy noise causes him to look back over his shoulder.
"Very good…" His smile is content, if not a little sad. Everyone here has a part to play. He can see the happenings of the vision in the not-quite-empty air, of Sif rising to her feet once again and the appearance of a Loki far younger than any he's beheld, and it gives him further reason to pause. The meaning of the spell-trap sprung, yet another distraction.
With a sniff, he aligns himself once more with the beacon growing ever nearer with each step across the glassy ice.
"And now let's see if a lost soul and a lost body can find their way back home," he murmurs, breath blasted white by the cold.
It's impossible to remain earthbound when inundated by such raw magic. He draws from ley lines far beneath, from the stygian depths of the sea, and surrounds himself with it. This is the might of the earth below, borrowed from Gaia in a time of need because, quite frankly, he's not letting a favor get away from him. I mean, come on — it's the premise of the thing. It's a Midgardian's problem anyways, this lost courtesy, and thus, no needling talons to his skull.
Sneaky thing.
The Words echo across the empty space before him as he spreads arms wide, hands formed in gnarled mudras. His eyes blank to pure opalescence, every color upon pearl, and he calls forth the physical form of the lost warrior. Come home, he commands, before me now.
*
While Loki may hold the countenance of one much younger, Sif has her life and experience behind her, and as she drags her sword in her turn to face the oncoming jotun, her expression is far less open and welcoming. She's not quite understanding the enormity of the presence… "Do you seek to finish it then, Loki?" is breathed. Her voice is wearied, hoarse, and wary. "I won't fall at your hand." It'll take some convincing, apparently. As for the jotun? They're both surprised and a little concerned to see a new twist in this that isn't disappearing. Loki will feel a pull, an attempt upon his spectral personnage… but will it be enough?
Sif doesn't allow Loki the chance to get behind her; instead, she keeps him in her sights along with the jotun that now approach again. They don't know what to do with the young Asgardian now in their midst. It's not something that was supposed to happen. Of course, another thing that is totally unexpected is the soft sounds that rise from magic to envelop the area, to infuse the battlefield with something other than despair, death, and perpetual 'rebirth'. The air seems less oppressive, and at the sound of her name called in sweet soprano, she looks around searchingly. There's no way out, not that she can see. This isn't the punching through of her Thor, no. It's a subtler thing, and as that sinks into her mind, she twists back around to stare at Loki. "You didn't.. that's not.." No!
With Sif's attention most definitely somewhere else, the jotun who have been promised their measure of blood and their place in the halls go on the offensive; it's what they were told to do in order to gain that which they truly desired. It's not as easy as expected, however. Sif brings her arm up in a back slash in a more violent, a harsher cut than in many, many cycles, and a leap is taken forward. There's something of a renewal within the pounce, but instead of landing her blow with her sword into the closest jotun, she blinks out. Loki will feel a collapse, a loss of dimensional form that threatens to encase him should he not find his way from the prison inspired soley by his actions.
There, in the cold of Greenland, deep within a cave known only to some wild animals, and maybe an Aesir, a body beaten, bruised and bloodied draws physical breath. Her head rolls back, pulling the air into her lungs deeply, and breath by breath there proves to be something of life. A cough, two coughs wrack her body as it tries to recall how it feels to breathe, to pull air in and draw it out once again in a regular pace. Her heart has found its rhythm once again, tentatively at first, but then keeping its pace.
And there, there before Steven Strange, Sif appears, at first supine in tattered armor upon the ground before she rolls to her side, curling up to protect herself instinctively, her sword still covered with 'recent' blood of her battles. Those wounds of battle show upon her, souvenirs of her past battles when cast out by the young Prince turned King.