27| COMMON OCCURENCES, HURRICANES CONTAINED AND DESTRUCTION

It was quite the common occurrence for the Volkov Princess to meet on the balcony with the Asgardian. The slight wind whipped through her hair with a fiery kind of passion that months ago would have matched her own, but now she felt a shell of her former self. The princess reduced to a woman and then to a little girl once again. She felt overpowered in her swarming deep purple dress that hung off her, barely clinging on to the remains of her skeletal body.

From within, she was a hurricane contained. It pushed her, it pulled her, it threw her around. It was having its toll on her physically and mentally. Loki could see her torment and for a brief moment he pitied the girl he had once been completely and utterly infatuated with.

Where he once upon a time saw beauty, he now saw a saddening kind of destruction. Lusine Volkov is not a monster, she's a ruin. A great power brought to its knees by its own being. Her dark eyes, circled by an even darker shade did not meet his as he slip his arm around her waist from behind. Sunken features said everything her tongue did not. Her waist was small, her rips sticking out and up her tensed arms ran her veins as clear as day, but they were as dark as her eyes. Black, running up her arms in rivers of darkness and gloom.

She was being consumed.

As Loki's fingers reached out to trace up the dark vein, she snatches her arm away in an instant. Pulling it to her chest, she turns to meet his eyes at last.

"Lusine Volkov," He whispers to her, barely audible to her dulled senses. "What have you become?"

Slowly, her arms fall back to her sides and the deranged smile he had once been ever so occupied with springs to her lips in a false act. "What have I become? What do you mean?" Her smile falls as his eyes are unchanging in their element of pity for her, which does not go unnoticed. Her spark is dulled once more and she turns away.

Her palms slam against the stone wall of the balcony and her head hangs low. The coldness seeps into her, conforming her to its whims. "Loki, why do you ask me questions that you already know the answer to? I may be half dead, but I'm not dull witted."

"I have never thought you to be dull witted," He says, grasping her chin suddenly in his fingers and forcing her to face him. "But I have always thought you to be disloyal, Volkov." His venom burns her skin ferociously. A shudder of horror rips through her, sending her legs into tremors and her eyes into floods. He releases her, stepping back from the broken china before him.

"Disloyal?" Her voice quakes as the first silent tear streams down her cheek, running from the sky blue eye it once called its home. No effort is made to wipe it from her. A tarnish fit for a broken girl.

"Which is why it's time for you to go home, Lusine," He says calmly and as if he were talking to a young child. Lusine felt her already broken heart completely fall apart, shattering at her feet.

"You can't do that, I have no where to go," Her begs reduced to sobs, her eyes pouring tears. Her face was a mess, tears sticking hair to her face. Composure was long gone, far from her mind by now and all that remained was a husk of former glory.

"I can do that and I will," He announces, stepping forward once again. Their faces were close. They hadn't been this close in weeks, but this time was different. Not intimate, but challenging. "As the King of Asgard I command you to leave Asgard, Princess Lusine Volkov."

In a flash, her palm was across his cheek. The sound of her striking him echoed throughout Asgard as he reeled back, holding his cheek in his hand. Trembling she falls to her knees, staring at her hand in horror as she sank to the depths of her despair.

A sob ripples through her body as she lowers her hand into her lap, pulling her knees to her chin. Loki stands above her, looking down. "I should have you banished for that, Lusine," He tells her. "Now bow before your king."

Lusine shakily bows her head, reduced to nothing. How the tides had turned, how the winds had changed. Looking at her now and remembering the strength and determination the woman used to behold, Loki almost believed he was looking at a different person.

Inside her hollow chest, the remains of her heart ached and burned as she bowed to the false king. "We were going to do this together, Loki. What happened?" She lifts her head steadily, her heart singing its last melodies.

"You're a wreckage, look at yourself, Lusine. You had it all, you had me grasped firmly in your clenched fist, but you let go of yourself and in the process lost everything. First, you lost Cloris-"

"Don't talk to me about Cloris," She hisses firmly, the anger spitting from between her teeth. "You don't deserve the honour of her name on your tongue."

"Anger is what broke you, ruined you and turned you into a weapon of mass destruction for whatever force is inside of you. Luisne, you're dangerous and you need to leave Asgard before you take anymore innocent lives."

"So," She breathes, pushing herself onto her feet. "This is how you say goodbye to someone who dedicated their being to you?" Her eyes were dry, but her heart still burned.

"Goodbye, Lusine Volkov," He says, turning from her and striding away. She watches him leave, she watches until the night falls and her body began to freeze over. Ice forming over her eyes, her lips blue and she trembled even as she felt the warm arms of her brother curl over her, pulling her into his chest.

"It's time to go home, sister," He murmurs into her hair. "The wolves are calling us."

-

1034 words

this isn't the end for lusine volkov! stay tuned for more of lusine coming soon! this is her lowest point and she will not fall any lower than this.