six
"fatality to fate"

As the newly-employed Lusine strides into the training room, the sight of around fifteen trainees running up and down the length of the room greets her, as well as the ever-surprising Florian shouting at them to keep going. His words of encouragement were far from moral, but clearly effective.

His mouth clamps shut when he sees the fallen princess and he commands the trainees to stop and break whilst he awaits the expected scolding.

Olea stands beside him, nervously looking between the two of them as Lusine saunters over as if she wasn't late, shoulders pushed back as if there wasn't worlds worth of weight resting upon them. The younger man pushes his own posture straight and holds his head a little higher, mirroring her confidence.

The two of them find it hard to ignore the pristine appearance of their superior. A vision of the woman who would ride into battle at a disadvantage with a grin on her face and emerge victorious, not the woman who'd been reduced to little more than skin and bones and terror.

Another fatality to fate.

"You began without me?" She questions, her tone flat and giving little emotion away. A practiced art. To some, a curse.

Florian swallows. "Yes, I thought it would be a good idea to get them warmed up a little, Your Highness," He replies, holding his ground, perfecting the formalities.

"Yes," Lusine says quietly, clasping her hands together in front of herself, ignoring the twist in her stomach at the title that still, even here, haunts her, "thank you, Florian. You may sit aside for now until your presence is required once again." With that, she turns her back and steps towards the onlooking trainees.

Fifteen pairs of eyes lock onto her. Fifteen pairs too many. This wasn't what she had wanted when she'd envisioned her new life on Midgard, but this was what she'd been given, and she would make do. Anything was better than Remulan. Anything was better than Asgard.

"So," She begins, addressing them with a power in her voice. This wasn't far out of her comfort zone She'd lived and breathed war for much of her life. War was in her blood and she would never be Lusine without it. If she had not matched herself every step of the way with her brother, she would be just another pawn dressed as a princess married to a man she despised. "I don't know what you are expecting to achieve from being trained by me, but do not underestimate the work that will be required. This will be nothing like any training you've ever endured or will ever endure again. Where I come from, we do things differently and I will train you to those standards, not your Earthly traditions."

Her lips curl into a wolfish smile as she hears a brief whisper of her madness passed between two agents. They were young. Baby faced still. Bright eyes, unmarred skin, unbroken. The one who whispers in the ear of the other stands tall, but his shoulders are casual and relaxed. This was not a man who respected her.

Lusine lifts a hand and points directly at him. "You," he snaps to look at her, a tension knotting in his expression, "what is your name?"

"Tom Edlen," He replies, smart to give little away to a woman he didn't trust.

"Step forward, Agent Edlen," She commands, lowering her hand and pushing her hair behind her shoulders. "Do you know how to fight hand-to-hand?"

"Yes," He says, folding his arms across his chest, looking down at her through shielded eyes.

"Good. At least they've taught you something in this miserable place," She remarks, disbelieving the extent to which any of the recruits had been trained. What other reason would there be than their short-comings for them to be lumped into a training course with her? Ignoring the eyes of Olea in her back, Lusine pushes on, "Why don't you show me what you know, Edlen?"

"What?" He blurts out, glancing from her to his peers and back again.

"Spar with me. How else am I supposed to know how much more you need to be taught so you won't die within two minutes of being in the field?" Lusine snaps, already squaring her feet to defend against whatever move he decides to make. He wasn't getting out of this and he seems to realise this as he takes another small step forwards.

"Alright," He says, glancing to the other trainees one last time, his face a paler shade than before. He visibly swallows; his throat bobs.

"When you're ready," Lusine prompts, watching his every little move.

He pauses, unsure, but he's confident enough in himself when he takes three steps and swings for Lusine with an unrelenting fist. With pleasant surprise at his strength, she catches the punch and uses his body's momentum to pull him past her, offsetting his balance. Tom stumbles, but catches himself as he spins to face her, never letting her get behind him.

He was smart, she could give him that much, but he was undeniably predictable. After his second attempt at striking her, she grows tried of his repetitive movements and sweeps her leg out to knock his from beneath him in her shift from defence to the offense.

He dodges, barely, and swings for Lusine again with a panicked jab. She locks eyes with him as she clamps a hand around his wrist and sees the fear lighting his brown eyes bronze, highlighting the flecks of molten gold. Lusine blinks, re-emerging herself into the spar moments after the fear driving his motions brought her from its depths and, again, sweeps with her leg as she holds him in place, forcing his legs to come from beneath him. Once he's down, she's got him pinned, with her forearm over his throat and the other holding his wrists tight.

Moments later, she stands and steps away from him, brushing invisible dust from her suit as he picks himself up. Tom looks at her like a deer caught in headlights.

What had he truly expected from someone like her?

"You're too predictable," Lusine scolds, crossing her arms at her chest and forcing herself to meet his stare. "I expect all of you are similar to that. Pair up and spar one another. Try to think outside of the box. If you find yourself slipping into a pattern, get yourself out of it. If you think your opponent is in a pattern, predict it and use it to your advantage. Any advantage is better than none. Edlan, take a rest and analyse the spar you just had. Fight me like that again and you won't come off half as well as you did today."

Lusine turns away from them to take a seat beside Olea on the bench at the back of the room. After they'd been sat there for a few beats of silence, Florian stands and wanders over to where Tom is, quite evidently, sulking, leaving the cousins alone.

"It's like you've been doing this your entire life," Olea jokes, leaning back against the wall with her hands folded between her thighs, a book bound by worn string resting beside her.

Lusine glances at her with tired eyes. "An entire life dedicated to war and its soldiers. Is that a life to be proud of?" She shakes her head as an empty laugh escapes her. "I didn't want to be pulled back into all of this and I know you didn't either, but I think it's the best deal we're going to get."

"I agree," She says, green eyes reflecting the artificial light. "This isn't what we wanted, but it's a whole lot better than what we had."

"Is it?" Lusine questions, an eyebrow lifting as she sinks back against the wall, paying little attention to the trainees and focusing in on the pure-hearted woman before her. "This is definitely a better life for me after everything I endured, but you? I feel although you got roped into this entire mess without choice. You were happy, you had good friends, close family, you were engaged to be married, but then I came into the picture and spat all over that with blood and venom."

"It was a life filled with people, but maybe it wasn't as happy as it may have looked from the outside," Olea replies, smiling sadly in memory of the life that she'd barely had a chance to grieve. Perhaps a life she didn't want to grieve. "Kyrie will be perfectly fine without me. She's strong and I have attached myself to her for far too long. And, as for my betrothed, well... we both know how he turned out. His loyalties were misplaced."

"Then you are happy to be here?" She asks, pushing further. It was better to know than to sit and wonder. To stab into the dark with guesses of good intentions with no clue of who stands beyond the veil of shadows.

"Of course," Olea confirms, letting Lusine's shoulders sag with relief, the guilt sliding off in shards of melting ice and crashing to the floor in glitters, sharp to the touch. "Now, I think perhaps that you should focus on training instead of on me. That's what you're here for, after all."

"Right, yes," Lusine says, standing up. She squeezes Olea's shoulder gently and offers her a smile. "Promise me that if you ever want to return to Asgard that you will tell me."

"I promise." Olea smiles back, the sweetness of it cutting through another shadow looming over them, a fine blade through a thick darkness. Tough going, but going nonetheless.

-

-

Lusine sent Olea and Florian on ahead in getting home. She wanted to stay and train for herself, knowing that she had strength she needed to rebuild.

While rest was good for recovery, it would only do so much. She needed to replenish her strength and feed her muscle with practice, not wine.

Once all of the trainees had finally filtered out, Lusine quietly closes the door and turns to face the room. Before her, there was a mountain. She just had to bring herself to climb to its tip and stand once again.

After stretching out all of her rusted muscles, Lusine flexes her fingers as she steps onto the training mat and conjures the double-ended spear that had brought so many to their knees into her palm. Pushing their faces from her mind, she braces both hands around the staff and swings, slicing the sharpened tip across the front of the punching bag leaving behind a thin, precise cut through its exterior.

For a bag, it was repairable. For a being, their insides would become their outsides quicker than they could hold it together and fight for their life. A calculated and efficient move Lusine had employed many times on the unguarded fool who dared challenge her.

Using this for training, but also to push as many emotions out of her system as possible as she plants the spear and swings herself around it, landing the kick onto the bag's firm body. As she lands, her magic coughs and splutters and the spear shatters beneath her fingers.

Her feet are barely on the floor before the magic dissolves into the air before her very eyes in a wash of flickering light. A stab of pain shoots up her spine, jolting her brain with memories rather left in the dust. The illusion around her crumbles as she pushes her hands into her hair and squeezes her eyes shut. Her teeth grind as she attempts to compose herself, to draw herself back into the calmness, but the anger is suffocating.

When she hears the door click shut, she drops her hands from the knots of hair tumbling around her face and snaps her eyes open, body tensing for a fight.

But her entire body sags at the sight of Steve stood staring at her with that pitiful look in his eyes she wishes would disappear forever. She didn't want his pity. What good was pity?

"I was just training," she explains, voice slow and unsteady as she swallows down her embarrassment like sand, "but, as you can see, it's not going the greatest."

Steve chances taking a few steps towards her, not because he thinks she would ever attack him, but because he knows any wrong move could send her into denial and dismissal. She would shut off quicker than he could try to recover the situation.

And she watches him. The caution doesn't go unnoticed. She might come from a home of hostility and wolves, but she was no wild animal.

"I can help," Steve offers genuinely, but Lusine turns her head in dismissal.

"Did Olea send you to check up on me?" She asks. "To make sure I'm not running myself into the ground? I don't want to just sit around and rest all the time. If I'm going to be a part of this organisation then I'm going to play the role they want me to play."

"What role?" Steve frowns, the expression misplaced on his face. If Lusine could bring herself to scrub it out and replace it with his golden smile, then she would've.

Lusine's hands coil into fists at her sides and she glances away from him so that he can't see the emotions sending her irises into the depths of violet. Running her eyes into the evening skies, setting the blue into despair as it's overcome.

"You know what role I mean, Steve," She replies quietly, turning her gaze to the ground. "Every single one of those trainees were scared of me. It wasn't respect. It was fear."

"It doesn't matter what they think. You know you're not going to hurt them, and Director Fury wouldn't have asked for your assistance if he thought otherwise," Steve reasons, reaching out a hand to place over her tightly coiled fist, but she snatches herself away and meets his eyes with power, the violet hues unmistakable.

"Do I? I don't know if I even trust myself let alone expecting others to trust me with their lives," Lusine admits, a flush of anger brightening her cheeks as the violet is tinted with a glassy coat.

"Lusine, I—"

"I just want to train, Steve," She cuts him off, her voice low and mumbled. "It's the only way I'm ever going to get anywhere close to how I was before."

In an instant, the vulnerable feelings are shuttered away behind walls of snarling iron teeth and steel. Hidden from the prying eye. Even the whispers were shut down before they could grow into cries for help. Strangled, held down. Heads beneath the water until the final bubble of air rose and died. Petals falling away with every withheld truth until nothing more than thorns remain.

"Okay," He replies, wishing she would've let him say more. But those wounds couldn't be smoothed over by his words alone. He understands that, even if he wishes it wasn't true.

"Do you want to spar with me?" She questions, slipping away from the emotional vulnerability into a new skin. The sheep back in her wolf's clothing, strings drawn tight at her throat, impossible to untie. "I could use an opponent I'm not going to seriously injure."

Steve smiles comforted by her resilience, even if he wonders in the back of his mind how long she can continue to bottle everything up.

"As long as you take it easy on me," He jests, attempting to lighten the mood. His efforts seem to pay off as she grins wide, all teeth, and reminds him just how wonderful it is to see her smile even after all she's been through, even if he won't admit to questioning just how genuine the smiles are.

"Oh, not a chance, Captain," She jokes back, flashing her wolfish teeth as if she hadn't just been small and bare. "Are you ready?"

"Ready," He replies.

Just that signal is enough to send her body into motion as she jabs out her fist for his abdomen, which he successfully blocks. The next jab, she lures him into a pattern and, when he blocks her attack, she swiftly moves and grabs him by the wrist. To his surprise, she pulls him close to her, setting him off balance in his shock. With the grip on his wrist and a palm flat against his chest, she pushes him back using his body weight and her own to send him back into the mat.

When he's down, she pins him, but no inch of her looks proud of the feat.

"What's wrong?" He asks when she sits back and slides off his chest. Steve leans on his elbows as he peers at her, wondering what was wrong now.

"You didn't need to take it easy on me. I'm not fragile," She tells him, tucking her feet beneath herself. "I can tell when you're holding back. I've seen you fight enough times at this point."

"I don't want to hurt you," Steve says, wincing as he sees her face fracture with insult.

"I might not be even half the power I was when I left Midgard, but I'm still tougher than most." She moves in a flash and kicks his elbow from beneath him, leaving him to fall back into the mat. "So, spar like you actually mean it."

One minute he's handsomely smiling at her, the next he's gripping her by the arm and pulling her over. With narrowed eyes, she looks up at him, calculating whilst her arms are pinned by his strength.

But he'd made a fatal mistake in leaving her legs unchecked. In a blink, she's got her feet against his chest and pushes him off her. He has no choice but to release her wrists as he's thrown back.

Chuckling, he picks himself up. Lusine rises to her feet, grinning as the adrenaline thunders through her blood when she rushes him, sending a flurry of attacks at him, which he blocks and counters. His fighting style was incredibly different to hers, but it matched her impeccably.

Step for step, blow for blow, breath for breath.

Slowly but surely, exhaustion won out over Lusine as she stumbles back at a blocked attempt at a jab. His block was as defended as ever in expectance of a full punch, but there wasn't the power behind it either of them anticipated.

Lusine takes a few steps back, shoulders heaving as her lungs lurch for breath.

"We can stop if you—"

"No!" She breathes, cutting him off as she launches another attack, though this was much weaker than its ancestor.

Heeding her body's fatigue, Lusine steps it up a notch to get this over with. She wouldn't stop until one of them won. In an attempt to knock him off his feet, Lusine sweeps her leg and connects with his ankles, but he catches himself before her move can succeed and counters.

Not expecting his counter to come so soon, Lusine loses balance when his palms connects with her shoulders, knocking her feet from beneath her. When she falls onto her back, she almost lets out a sigh of relief that it was finally over.

Steve barely lets her lie there for a second before he's offering a hand out to pull her back up, which she gratefully takes.

"Thank you," She says, pushing her hands into the pockets of her trousers, no longer hidden by her intricate illusions. "I needed that."

"Anytime," He replies, mouth quirking up at the corner, sweat beading at his brow. "Besides, it was a good change of pace for me compared to punching bags."

"Well," she rocks back on her heels, "I suppose next time I need to train I'll come to you then?"

"Yes," Steve answers, happy to be of help to her in some way. A way which she accepted with open arms instead of pushing him away with dismissals and sharp edges. "I'd like that a lot."

-

3351 words

im losing followers quicker than laura lee these days yikes