1964-06-25 - Tart Rebukes
Summary: Amora attempts to break into Loki's quarters in Asgard to retrieve his helmet. Thor intercepts her and there is a loooot of character drama.
Related: All the Asgard
Theme Song: None
amora thor 


The wards to Loki's quarters in Asgard were well placed, but Amora had been sneaking in and out of Loki's wards since they'd gone to school together as children. Especially since they were no longer being upkept, nor had they been for months. It was an easy thing to twist the knob of the door open and sneak inside the otherwise abandoned chambers.

It was late, and most were either feasting or seeking quarters themselves for bed or further, more private entertainments.

The Enchantress was dressed in her finery, such as it could be expected of Amora while walking about the royal palace. None had stopped her, and who could when she was at her full power and beauty? A kiss here. A glance there. Guards forgot that she passed or forgot that it was strange she was going toward the Princes' rooms.

Inside, Amora closed the door gently behind her, and a lantern in her grip as revealed as she lifted back her cloak.

*

Were it not for the basest of happenstance, Amora might have proceeded through the night uninterrupted. Stealth and guile were on her side— but the Thunderer, soaring above the skies of Asgard with Mjolnir in hand, was close enough to the Royal Wing to see all the lights and occupants. His room, darkened; Odin and Frigga concealed behind privacy glass; the Warriors Three on the level below.

And a flickering, suspicious light in Loki's room.

Adjusting course with a twist of his hammer, Thor flies towards the balcony and lands with a heavy tread of boot on steel. Lightning crackles from his hammer and the runes which illuminate the apartment snap to full intensity, and he steps forward with his hammer aloft, looking for the intruder.

"Who dares trespass—- Amora?!" he demands, staring thunderstruck at the woman. "Why are you skulking in Loki's quarters in the dead of night?"

*

Amora froze at the sound of thunder, looking to the balcony as the Thunder God himself followed. Her expression grew to match, just as stormy as the weather Thor commanded. "Loki sent me."

She muttered, setting the tiny lantern on the edge of a table and moving about the room as if Thor had not arrived to question her. She lifted her skirts as she stepped up the few short stairs that lifted up the platform where the bed rested. She crouched down, peering beneath it and waving a hand under it. A glint of magic lit up her fingers before she sighed, muttered and withdrew. "Why do you care? He is marked as criminal still, and last I recall, your only recent memory of him was pushing you off the Bifrost."

*

"He is still my /brother/," Thor reminds Amora, but her sour expression— so unlike her typical visage— clearly unsettles him slightly. An expression of vague guilt crosses his face. "And I'd prefer not to see his apartment simply /ransack— wait, he SENT you?" Thor asks Amora, following her along unconsciously. He misses the step she takes and stumbles, arms windmilling to maintain his balance, and looks back at Amora.

"How did he send you the message? Is there new word on Kai?" he inquires.

*

Amora a toss of golden locks followed as Thor stumbled in the darkness and she moved toward the bookcases against the wall, and she shot the golden prince a look of irritation. "Did I stutter? Aye. Your brother sent me." She repeated, lifting a book off the shelf and turning it over once, twice and a third time before putting it back in place.

Magic lit upon her finger tips in a greenish glow. "He did not send me a message, I found him and spoke to him. He wishes to speak with you as well, of course." She waved a hand and moved away from the bookshelf, a sound of annoyance pulling from her lips before she stepped down from the raised portion in the room and headed toward the large desk on the other side.

"Kai is as he was."

*

"I wish to speak with /him/," Thor assures Amora. He crackles his hammer once more to turn on the lights in the room, before he blunders into a low table. Even though no dust is on any surfaces, there's still a sense of the apartment being abandoned. Empty. Thor looks around the room with an expression of profound loss on his face, and unconsciously grips his hammer a few times before focusing back on Amora.

"What is it you seek here?" he inquires, finally, resigned that Amora's on a mission and he's likely not going to be able to do anything but help her.

*

A glance was spared once more in Thor's direction before Amora whispered a word, and runes flared on the desk. A drawer opening under her touch as she knelt. "Oh good, then you two can reunite and the realms shall tremble before you all. I'm sure there will be plenty of cursing, insults and tears. Add a touch of violence, as it is you two, and of course all shall be well when you take up arms together for a cause." She rolled her eyes, her lips peeling back in a look of disgust.

She seemed to find what she was looking for, knocking against the false bottom of a drawer and pulling out a small iron key.

"I am looking for this." She held up a key and straightened, rolling her bare shoulders back as she eyed the golden Prince. "Tis all you need know."

*

Thor's face gets flinty and he stares at Amora as she rises and turns. "No, I think not," he tells her, stepping closer. "Insult and goad me as you like, Amora— I'll shrug off thy slings and arrows. Tart has ever your tongue been."

"But I'll not let you merely 'collect' the belongings of a man who betrayed me, to deliver to him without consequence. Tell me what the key is for, and I'll /escort/ you to Loki to deliver it— if I am satisfied with the story he offers," he declares, in his usual stubborn baritone.

*

Amora turned, facing him as she settled against the desk and slipped the key down the front of her corseted chest. A golden eyebrow hooked upwards and she smirked, her fingers curling around the edge of the wooden top. "You liked it tart enough, your highness." She snapped back, rolling her shoulders backwards as she looked at him from her perch.

"The key is but the means I use to fetch what I must." She dragged a hand through her hair, her gaze raking over Thor in a narrow manner. "I was aimless. Directionless. Unwanted and unloved. As I have always been. We who keep to thine shadows are used to it, and always find our way. Criminal though he may be. Trickster. Untrustworthy and hated.."

*

"Untrust— he tried to MURDER me, Amora," Thor snaps, though it's obvious that Amora's injurious words cut him rather deeply with their unspoken reprimand. "Hurled me from the Bifrost into the oblivion beneath Asgard. Nay, I /did/ die, as you well know!" he scolds her. "And by only sacrifice and the luck of the Fates that I am returned at all!" he adds.

He eyes her corset, as if weighing the cost of diving for the key. Good manners seem to pause him before he does something brash, at least for the moment. "Now tell me what the key unlocks, and what it is you intend to bring my wayward brother. I don't wish to detain you, Amora— /please/," he finally says. "I want to help sort the mystery of Loki out from the burden he left 'pon me."

*

A shrug, and Amora shifted to settle her weight more firmly upon the desk. "Aye. He did. Which, I was the only one in all the Realms to not believe the end. The only one to seek you out and ensure your health. Your protection. While you were unable to defend yourself. And only through another death did you yet return. Such a tragedy. A life for a life. By such a statement, you killed my beloved. Since you say I love you not, and that you are not the same man. Then what is the point in speaking with you?" Green eyes glittered as she looked at him, her golden brow hooking upwards in question.

"You can detain me if you wish, your highness. It matters little to me. Nothing does." She held out a wrist toward him. "Please do, in fact. Perhaps you might yet be rid of me then."

*

Thor blinks at Amora in stunned shock. Clearly, it had never even occurred to him to phrase it in such a fashion— but just as clearly, her words strike home, and deal a deep blow.

"I— 'tis not fair to say it in such a way," Thor mutters, casting his eyes aside from the weary, jaded smoulder in Amora's green gaze. "I knew him not, asked not for such a sacrifice," he says— but doubt clouds his storm-blue gaze, and it's a long moment before he can look at Amora.

He makes no move for her wrist, stymied by her stinging rebuke.

*

Amora pushed off from the desk, her full lips pursed into a thin line as she reached out a hand to trace against his arm. "You did not ask, but all the Realms did. The Norns did. If you are not he, then you replaced him only through his end. There is not even a body for me to barter with Hela for his return. For 'tis yours." She whispered. "And should I die, I cannot ever be with him. For he has not a soul of his own to hold."

Her hand fell away. "He was part of you and not so. A fleck of your spirit melded and diminished." Her throat tightened. "You claim 'tis not fair? It was not fair that you can wave away my feelings and claim them to not be true in all my centuries. Tis not fair that I am denied once more any chance or any hope at happiness."

She turned and started away from him, picking up the lantern she'd set aside before. "Tis not fair that I am alive and alone once more. For that? Loki has offered me direction. For my heart ache that even he acknowledges. I will return his helmet."

*

"I— helmet? What?"

Once again, Amora's words throw Thor off, and he's left scrambling to pick up the pieces in her wake as she stalks off in movement again. "Amora, what do you desire of me?" he asks in frustration. "Should I replace this man? Is that a fulfillment of the debt I owe him— to live his life for him? Should I go to the Norns, beg them to reverse the will of the Realms? Should I lay down myself, and die so that you may be with him again?" he asks; his voice, a blend of wary confusion, uncertainty, and bitter rebuttal.

It's obvious that he feels Amora is treating him unfairly, and equally so, it's obvious he cannot come up with a meaningful objection to her righteous anger.

*

Amora turned, lantern in hand as she stalked forward to meet him once more. She came up short, a hands breath away from him. "Aye, his helmet. For he seeks to rescue Kai from Hela. He needs his arms and armaments. Mine are only magicked so much by comparison." She murmured, her chin tilted upwards as she met Thor's frustrated blue eyed gaze.

"I desire all that I have ever desired. A chance to prove that I love thee." She murmured, reaching out a manicured hand toward him and letting it fall away before it touched him. "I have never been one to take refusal well. I break things I love the most in my fits of rage and tantrums. I was a spoiled child, who grew into a spoiled woman. Tis all I have known to act. To behave. And now I am at a loss in my grief." She laughed, bitterly as she shook her head, golden curls shifting around her features. Her eyes slipping shut briefly.

"Your death would not bring him back. Only compound the ache I already feel." She opened her eyes and looked upon him once more.

"But it matters not." She murmured, "You shall continue on as you always have. And you and the Trickster shall rescue the elf, avenge his death at the hands of Malekith and the balance will continue. Trapped as it always has for the past several centuries. Skalds shall sing of it and it shall be glorious." She smiled thinly. "And I shall be forgot."

*

Thor listens to Amora attentively, and even sorrowfully as she relates her tale. Frustration compounds his expression, along with guilt. After all, he was the one who had bullied her through the stages of grief so cruelly— convinced that Amora's woes were but crocodile tears.

His eyes close as Amora speaks of the aching hole in her heart, and he is forced to look away from her.

But when she remarks with thin humor of her descent into anonymity, he looks at her in surprise, and snorts. Loudly.

"Woman, your ego rages like a hurricane at all times, save when it is right and proper for it to do so," he chastises her, loudly. "Then you feign meek surrender? You are AMORA," he tells her, with a sweeping gesture of his right hand. "Who else but— but my /brother/ has such a reputation as you?" he inquires, brow hiking skywards. "You have set Asgard afire over the merest of slights. Women in the Nine Realms almost /pray/ to you as a harbinger of vengeance for the woman scorned!"

"The first time you were banished— do you recall? Seducing all the men of Asgard with a /flower/? And then, when we rode as allies against the Drake Armies, your magics carried the day when Asgardian steel failed to pierce their hides!"

"Banished and returned to Asgard a dozen times, the chief beauty of the realms— who went to Earth and impossibly, retrieved the dead and restored them to life? Who saved /me/, when even Odin believed me to be lost to time and space?"

"Amora, you may be reviled or loved by all or none as you like— but I guarantee on my hammer, there are /none/ in Asgard who will ever forget your name. Least of all, myself."

*

A look was cast over him, expressive in its ability to be dry and lacking humor while still her eyes glittered with some manner of pride at his words. "I feign it not. Shall I tell you in the plan which Loki first suggested to me? One in which I traded my life for Kai's? In hopes that I might stymie the Hela's armies with my weeping beauty should they march? For I long for nothing so sweet as the idea of death in which I might be with the one who made me happy?" She arched a brow and looked over Thor anew.

"Compared to you, and your brother I am as nothing. I am a footnote in the songs sang in honor of you and the warriors three. I am a shadow in the court by the light in which you shine. You are beloved by all. The Norns sweep away rules for thee. There are none that do not see your glory, your strength and your honor.. your glowing light of warmth that is your heart." She shook her head, staring at him.

"Do you not know the lengths in which Loki or I have gone in our desire to even be counted in that light? In your consideration? Who am I in all of that? What do you expect of me, your highness? To remain here as I am and watch as you no doubt stumble upon another woman to make your Queen?"

*

"Loki /is/ a prat at times," Thor tries to agree with Amora, but the rest of her singing, scornful praise leaves him on his heels.

"Amora, I — what can I do?" he asks, finally, with a helpless shrug. "How many years did you spend with your plotting and scheming? How many times did you try to woo me and ensnare me through shameless hook or crook? To abuse me or use me for your own ends, or strike at me over some slight— however minor or misperceived it might have been?"

He passes a hand over his face, exhaling through his nose in frustration.

"I— I suppose… I owe you nothing so much as an open mind," he says, finally, the words clearly taking a long time to work through the warrior brain. Fite much gud, word not gud.

"I must admit that there is part of me that harbors reservations, and yet you … are sincere, now, in a way you've never been before. Not in my company have you ever issued me such tart rebuke over someone /else/. For that… assumption on my part, I … I am sorry."

*

Amora lowered her grip on the lantern, her fingers trembling faintly at Thor's words as she looked upon him, staring in the low light. She swallowed hard a lump that dried the back of her throat. Green eyes shut briefly as she stood there in a drawn silence. Only the wind outside, the muted sounds of the palace beyond, could be heard over their soft breaths.

Slowly, her gaze opened once more to fall upon him and she retrieved the key from her corseted chest. "I schemed for as many stars there are in the sky. For as many women as have warmed your bed and as many men have mine. I have wept for each betrothal and scorned just as many would be lovers from mine side." She breathed softly.

"You have been reborn, Loki has as well, neither of you hold memories of all your times. I am restored but lacking what I once was. In such a way, the tapestry is woven. Give me the chance to prove that I am changed as you and the Trickster are. Perhaps not by magic, but by circumstances and by mine own will."

*

Thor steps forward, looking at the key— but doesn't reach for it.

"Perhaps there is reason no woman shares my crown yet," he says, looking to Amora's face. "The Fates may yet store something for me. Or I am merely too fearful to find the resolution my father did."

"Mayhaps it 'tis in your nature to be capricious as an island breeze. Soothing at the day, a squalling hurricane by nightfall. We might do this dance for all eternity, until Asgard itself falls from the heavens," he says, with something wry in his tone.

He grips Amora's hand over the key, but gently pushes it towards her bare sternum again. "Perhaps we both have a base nature that leaves us at cross odds at times. For now, I think— I think that we are in harmony, despite our detente of the moment. Let us find Loki, and see what we find along that broken road."

*

Amora watched him, holding the key up in her grip lightly, waiting for him to take it. Yet as he did not, her grip shifted, eyes tracing back to his expression. The crystalline blue of his eyes always held her attention, and now was no different. "What resolution is that, exactly? A marriage for duty? For peace?" She murmured, her head tilting forward slightly.

"Aye, tis in my nature. Just as your's is that of the storms you command. You strike hard and fast. Blinding in your rage. Thunderous in your voice." She smiled with a curl of her full ruby lips. "And bring much needed rain to places wracked with drought and famine." She added.

As his hand closed over the key, pushing her hand toward her once more she blinked, surprise flitting over her features. "Aye.. I suppose we shall. To return his helmet for his quest in the rescue of his beloved." A soft, hushed laugh followed.

"Perhaps that is the biggest change of all, that Loki is willing to risk himself to save one he loves without any benefit to himself.."

*

Thor nods slowly, and then something sly enters his expression, before he breaks into a bold grin.

"If we are to aid my wayward brother, then let us at least arm him accordingly. These trinkets are hardly Loki's weapons of choice. Come with me to the royal armory," he tells her, beckoning. "His proper arms are stored there, next to mine— those which he would crave most in this fight."

His face grows more serious. "I am trusting you, Amora— you and your judgement of Loki. If these weapons are lost from the armory, my father's ire will be considerable. But I do not wish to ride to battle with Loki lacking his tools, such as they are."

*

Amora slipped the key away at Thor's sly look and following grin. She followed after him, closing her cloak back over the lantern to douse the light as they slipped outside the room. "He lost his temper over my remarks that he should seek Kai. I have only seen Loki lose his cool a few times. And never over the loss of a lover." She whispered.

"I know how his desires previously ran. And these are not the same. He even went so far to claim his love for you. Openly." She pursed her lips. "I have not heard him say so for at least five centuries. Not willingly nor sincerely before others."

Her slippered feet moved silently down the hall as she followed after the Golden Prince. Though silence hardly was merited when traveling with Thor. "Besides the fact that Kai is a good elf. A kind one. Sweet and not deserving of this fate. Of being used as a pawn by Malekith. He was tormented and slaughtered most cruelly. They would not use Kai if they did not think it would work against Loki."

*

"Then Loki has well and truly changed," Thor acknowledges, furrowing his brow.

"I care not for the idea of Malekith holding anyone in his thrall, least of all someone close to Loki. Much as my brother pains me at time— like certain company— there is a fondness for him I will likely never overcome."

They reach the royal armory, and Thor orders the guards to step aside— making no excuse for Amora's presence, and bringing her inside without any word of argument voiced. Once inside, he beckons her to stay close, and they move to an alcove filled with many personal belongings of Loki's that were likely considered too valuable to be left in his room alone. His horn, his best set of dwarf-forged knives, and a little bundle wrapped in leather that Thor straps to his back— but he gives Amora the other gear to carry. "Let us find my brother swiftly, Amora, and then— to action. The three of us," he says, gripping her shoulder gently and leading her from the armory again.

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