nineteen
"selfish indulgence"
-

In the early hours, Olea, yet to sleep, pours over yet another book. This time, she doesn't devote herself to its pages for Doctor Greer or Shield. No, this is a selfish indulgence, but one she's been meaning to do for months.

Leaving behind the only home she's ever known for good also meant leaving behind much of her life's work.

Though this separation is perhaps only temporary if she can find what she needs from this ritual book. Within its pages, it possesses the spell she must cast to reopen her portal door. She can attach it to any door she desires and, when she speaks the correct password, opening this door will instead reveal a portal to perhaps the only untainted place in her life.

A sprawling garden complete with a ginormous greenhouse packed with every plant she can ever imagine needing and full of life that Remulan could never sustain with its cold climate and even colder inhabitants.

In Olea's Garden, she is distanced from all the violence and the war of her moon. She used to escape here when one of her sisters or cousins tried to pressure her into yet another boisterous training session where she, almost definitely, would be injured.

They never knew this is where she fled and, if she has anything to do about it, they never will.

No one else can ever know.

This is her haven. Her safe space. An eden created by years of pooled magic and love and tenderness. Materialised straight from the heart of a being so devoted to her craft that she swore an oath never to harm another living being for as long as she walks the universe.

In return for her oath, the universe gave her more power than she ever could've imagined having as a little girl being forced into violence.

She would be the first in a long line of Remulan Asgardians who would never make a kill.

Olea turns the page, committing its lines to memory. Wondering who was the first to discover this magic? Who wrote this down for later sorcerers to learn and replicate? Whoever it was, Olea promises to do them justice.

She's about to scratch down a few more notes from a particularly interesting paragraph about having multiple doors to one Eden when the front door bangs open.

From outside, Florian comes stumbling in.

He clutches a rag torn from his own shirt to his face, staunching the blood flowing from his horribly broken nose, but it already has begun to run down his wrists and to soak into the sleeves of his cream shirt. His eyes are ringed red and puffy, cheeks wet with more than just his own blood. One eye is swollen and already turning black. On his jaw, he sports a purpling bruise, stark against the paleness of his skin.

He slumps against the wall, smearing blood where he catches himself.

Olea slams her book shut and jumps to her feet, rushing over to hold him up. She helps him into his bedroom, which she is astonished to see is a complete mess and realises this is the first time she's been inside the room since they moved in.

His clothes are everywhere. Mugs and bowls she's been wondering about have been left in here, growing mould and congealing. A few empty liquor bottles lined up on the bookshelf are the only thing in order. Behind them, the books are stacked without any real organisation. Just balanced on top of one another, teetering over the edge.

She seats Florian on the bed and tells him to lean forward and breathe through his mouth. Though she is afraid to leave him, she darts from the room and gathers her arms full of supplies. When she comes back, he's barely moved.

She pries the bloody rag from his hand and replaces it with another, cleaner one, infused with the scent of a delicate touch of rosemary to ease his pain a little, though he'll need a lot more than that to cease the pain altogether.

When it finally seems like the bleeding has stopped, Olea pries the cloth away from his face to get a better look at him.

His once porcelain statue-perfect face is now broken and blurred. Smeared with blood and painted with bruises. A work of art shattered by just one push into the concrete. That's all it takes. Just one push and the boy who used to be is gone forever.

Olea retrieves a couple of cold compresses: one for his nose; the other to cover both his bruised jaw and black eye.

"Will you hold this to the side of your face, Flo?" She asks gently, lifting the compress. He nods his head and places hand over the compress to keep it in place. "Thank you," She says and rests the other lightly over his nose, careful not to press down too hard. After drawing in a deep breath, she asks, "Are you going to tell me what happened?"

Florian's uncovered eye squeezes closed, and he swallows hard, throat bobbing with the effort.

"I got in a fight," He finally croaks out with a voice fractured and torn.

"With who?" She readjusts her grip on the compress and begins to steadily flow magic into his system, pushing away the pain inch by inch like a tide coming in to reclaim a sandy beach. "Where did you go?"

"I went for a walk and got in a fight," He replies.

"But with who?" She wants answers. She can't just let this go. If there's someone out there who has assaulted him, she'd quite like to know who it is. If only so she can make sure they avoid them, but also so that she can be assured it isn't the ghost who's been following her for a couple of weeks like her shadow.

"I don't know," Florian says, eyes still closed.

"You don't know?" She raises her brows, unconvinced.

"No, they were just some random men I found," He says.

"You found them? I thought they assaulted you out of nowhere?" Another rush of soothing magic shoots into his system and he lets out a relieved sigh.

His eyes creak open once more, glassy and hard. "I never said that."

Olea sighs shakily. "I think we'd better discuss this in the morning. I need to reset your nose and then you ought to get some rest," She says, rising to her feet.

"Okay," He responds, ready for the day to be over.

-

-

After being given the go ahead by Director Fury, Lusine is about to go on her first ever mission without Steve. He's busy with something else so it's down to Lusine and Natasha to head the march alone.

After suiting up and boarding the jet, Lusine realises that the bubbling sensation in her stomach isn't nerves: it's excitement. This is going to be her chance to prove that she doesn't need to be baby-ed by Steve all the time. She doesn't need him as her crutch to get through a potentially deadly mission.

She hasn't gotten this far solely because of him. It's her own hard work and grit determination. Her own will power that has driven her to reel herself in and revaluate who she wants to be.

Though she no longer wishes to be all brute-strength and cruelty, Lusine supposes a little chaos never hurt anyone.

They land the jet in a clearing amongst trees and slip through the forest in hunt of the abandoned country house that apparently isn't so deserted after all.

"You sneak through the trees and enter through the back," Natasha commands as if she has the authority over Lusine to do so. She pulls her gun from its holster and clasps it between both of her slender, scarred hands. "I'll go through the front."

Biting her tongue, Lusine nods and splits off from her partner-for-the-day.

She weaves between trees as a wolf hunting her prey once more. With every step, she lets herself fall deeper into the calm state of mind she'd perfected from years of being a warrior. The composure necessary to preserve her own life amongst the blood baths of war.

The old house comes into view. She approaches cautiously, dipping her fingertips into the power as she gets closer, her senses heightening to an almost predatory standard.

The viciousness is only a few paces away, but she walks the line with easy confidence.

Though the house is in a dilapidated state, there are several lights switched on inside. Barely making a sound, she creeps right up to the backdoor and presses her back to the wall. When she takes a peek through the window, empty of its glass, she can't see anyone inside, so she lowers herself in, careful of the shards of glass sticking up ready to impale her should she make a mistake.

Without a hitch, she lands on the other side.

Having successfully infiltrated the base of operations for a terrorist organisation, Lusine creeps through the house and stops dead in her tracks at the muffled sound of voices on the other side of a door.

By standing there, hardly breathing, she can tell there's only two of them in there, probably tasked with keeping watch. They appear to be having a rather heated discussion about a sporting event and, having decided they're suitably distracted with one another not to hear her, Lusine clasps a hand around the handle.

When their conversation pauses, so does she, but it picks back up again in an instant and she continues, twisting the handle and deciding that neutralising these potential threats is in her interest to save herself some time later.

She manages to open the door entirely without notifying them of her presence, much to her disbelief, and finds them both sat with their backs to the door, watching a small TV they've managed to balance on the window ledge.

"Mind if I join you?" Lusine croons, casually closing the door behind herself with a click.

The slenderer of the two is quick to his feet, already pointing his gun right at her. "Stay where you are!" He demands and Lusine rolls her eyes at him. "We know who you are, you freak! You've got no right coming here."

The other is standing too, but he's slower, perhaps dealing with an old injury. He raises his gun, aiming right between her eyes, and snarls, "Monsters like you ought to be put down."

"Monster?" Where her arms are folded between her back, she conjures twin daggers. "Is that what you think of me?"

"It's what you are," The first guard says. "You don't belong on this planet."

"Well," Lusine's arms straighten to her sides, revealing the menacing blades, "then I suppose you'd better make me leave, hm?"

Before they can pull their triggers, she rushes them and plunges a dagger into the slower of the two, knocking him to the ground and stabbing him right through the shoulder, pinning him to the floorboards.

With a cry of pain, his gun falls from his hand and clatters to the floor, but the other terrorist still holds his and makes good use of it too, sending a bullet into Lusine's back. The metal sears through her flesh and she hisses, whipping around to the shooter.

As she rises, leaving the man writhing in pain at her feet, he fires another bullet into her. It lodges in her thigh, but she surges forward and grabs his wrist in her vice-like grip.

Her eyes melt into black. "You don't want to do that, do you?" She asks, invading his mind and holding him tight. A sensation she's not felt for a long time and one that her body has been, undeniably, missing. To feel the man's mind squirming and gasping for air beneath her touch is more satisfying than she'd like to admit.

"No," He replies, completely bent to her will.

"But, you know who you would very much like to shoot?" She moves aside and aims his hand at his companion. Now, his mind screams and begs against her power. Dagger back in her belt, she grips the back of his neck with her free hand. Her mouth is right beside his ear as she asks, "Would you like that?"

The panic sends the power inside her crazy, foaming at the mouth for more, more, more. Always more. Needing more. Hungry for more, more, more. Feeding on their terror.

"Yes," The guard says woodenly.

"No, Finn, come on! No!" The other guard cries, blood already pooling beneath his body.

It's right there for the taking. All she has to do is say the word and this man will end the life of his friend. The void inside her swings against the iron bars of its cage in delight, singing its melodies at the top of its lungs, urging her to take the plunge.

Do it, it sings, do it.

"Shoot him in the leg just like you did to me," She seethes and before she can take a breath Finn has shot his peer straight through the thigh. He cries out in agony and passes out from the shock, his head lolling to the side.

They stare down at the unconscious body: Finn with glassy eyes, Lusine with not a trace of emotion.

The door swings open and Natasha bursts in with a face of thunder. "What the fuck do you think you're doing!" She exclaims and then her eyes fall to the body. "Did you kill him?"

"No," Lusine replies, rather uncaringly.

"We need to leave. Deal with him and let's go," She says, turning and leaving having had her suspicions confirmed.

"Sit and watch the TV as if nothing has happened. If anyone asks, say that you did this," She tells Finn and he nods stiffly, doing exactly as she commanded the moment, she releases him.

Lusine leaves the house the way she came in and finds Nat already strapped into the Quinjet.

"Well?" She asks expectantly.

"Well what?" Lusine snaps, busying herself with fastening her belt.

"What was that?" Nat asks, furious. "You could've compromised the entire mission. You're lucky that I found what we were looking for before the gunshot went off. They've probably already swarmed that room and executed that man for what you made him do."

"I don't see an issue," She says. "He's the enemy. It's better he dies now than us have to kill him later down the line, isn't it?"

"Fury isn't going to be happy about this." The jet takes off and Lusine sinks back in her chair, not really caring what Fury thinks. He knew what it meant to have her on this team when he asked her to be a part of Shield and he'd not backed down.

If he wants another Natasha, he'd better look elsewhere.

-

2488 words
20.8.19

well then