sixteen
"i don't want to forget you"
-

The night is not kind.

In it rushes, hot and heavy. Clinging to the skin like a humid summer's day.

Lusine rolls over in her sleep, knotting the sheets between clenched fists, and letting out a fragile whimper as the grinning face of her mother looms before her in the nightmare scape her mind brings her to most nights.

With every blade that drives relentlessly into her flesh, a new face appears before her. The blood-stained face of Cloris, the decayed face of Regina, the face of her twin grinning in revenge, and (oh she always comes last) the sadistic mother come to teach her child a lesson.

A lesson she never asked for nor deserved.

But a lesson she got all the same.

She isn't expecting the dreamscape to shift from that fateful day to a beautiful day on Asgard. It's mid-Winter. The snow is drifting from the sky like tiny white feathers and Lusine is walking through it, smiling as the flakes land in her hair and upon her cheeks, melting into her freckles.

She wanders into the room that will always be stark in her memory. The room where they'd held the Winter Ball, where fates had aligned, where her life had taken a turn.

When she enters, he's waiting for her.

Standing there with that smirk she knows she'll always adore. His hair slicked back and shorter again, just like how it'd been on the day they'd met. Eyes his wonderful green and brimming with mischief.

With every step she takes towards him through the empty ballroom, her stomach lifts and falls.

When she's close enough, Loki extends a hand.

"How about that dance?"

His words jolt her from the dream, and she's yanked away. With a start, she wakes, sitting bolt upright, but she's thankful for the dream, for the break from the reminders of trauma.

And, with an ache, she realises that, actually, she quite misses the god of mischief and lies. More than she'd like to admit, especially to him.

Lusine slips from bed with sleep still heavy in her bones and weighing down her eyelids. When she cracks open her bedroom door, she can see the sun is beginning to peek over the horizon. Cresting to bring a new day to Earth.

She walks closer to the sunlight coming through the glass, drags the armchair right over to the large window, and slumps down in it to watch the sunrise.

It calms her. Brushes away the worries and stresses in the forefront of her mind. And, though this peacefulness may only last for a fleeting moment, it was a moment more than she'd had before. So, she lets the morning sun soothe her as she basks in its glory.

The knock on the door breaks her tranquillity, but she's determined not to give in to the call of responsibility.

Instead, she sits and ignores whoever knocks in favour of the sun.

Behind her, a door flies open, banging into the wall and surely leaving a dent. The front door opens, and a mumbled conversation follows.

"Lusine, the human you've seduced is here!" The grouchy morning voice of Florian calls out, followed by the slam of his bedroom door as he slithers back into his den.

Steeling herself, she peers around the armchair. "Hello," She says, ignoring the pitiful expression he wears. "Pull up a chair, if you wish."

He takes her up on her offer, placing a chair next to her not long after and settling beside her. A few beats of silence pass and, for a moment, she wonders if he's going to say anything to her at all. Whether he has the audacity to come here and expect an apology from her.

"How are you?" He asks at last and the simplicity of the question is enough to make her choke out a strangled laugh.

She turns to look at him. He shifts under her gaze, the wooden kitchen chair creaking under his weight.

"Very much the same as I was the last time we spoke," She replies, observing him carefully and not missing the way his eyes drop away from her. "I'm clearly not who you think I am, but I'm not even sure who that is."

"I'm sorry for doubting you, for doubting your control, but you have to know it was only because I care about you." Again, his hand moves for her and she slips out of reach, but it does not halt the burning in his crystalline blue eyes. Burning with a fighting spirit, a determination not to let this end here.

But Lusine has heard it all before.

She's not going to forgive so easily this time.

"If you truly cared for me, you'd trust me. Not question my ability, not check bodies to see if I've killed them when I swore I wouldn't." Her mouth is dry, but she swallows hard. "You would trust me."

"I do trust you," He insists, but she shakes her head, expression worn with an unmistakable sadness.

"You don't," she clasps her hands on her stomach and lets her gaze turn back to the reliable sun. "but that's okay. Not many people do. In fact, I think I'm down to one."

The sun stares back. Smiling in pity as everyone else does, but this pity is warm and inviting. It is a silent pity. A pity of caresses and embraces. A wordless support to hold her up as she begins to walk again.

"I trust you, Lusine," He tells her, wanting her to just look at him and see the honestly sprawling in plain and simply vulnerability across his face. "I'd trust you with my life."

"Is that so?" Her voice is reduced to a low and barren thing. Rocking heavy in her throat, hanging by a thread.

"Yes."

"I wouldn't make such comments lightly, Steve. It may come down to that someday," She says, looking right at him.

Those wolfish eyes turn on him, almost knocking the wind right from his lungs. Dark and yet so effortlessly blue all at once. Perfect for a woman designed by the universe to bring chaos wherever she walks.

"I mean it." This time, when he reaches for her hand, she doesn't snap herself away, though she doesn't exactly hold him. Her palm rests against his as if it were as mundane as the armchair she lounges upon. There is nothing tender in her touch. In fact, she appears quite removed. "I know you more than you realise."

Her fingers twitch in his grasp.

"I don't think you understand who I really am, but that's okay. If my history is anything to go by, you'll find out in due time. Then let me know if, after all that, you'd still trust me with your life." Her hand slips away. "I think it's time you got to training, isn't it?"

"Yes, I suppose it is," he agrees without so much as glancing at his watch, "and you're not coming?"

"Not today, no," Lusine replies. "Have a nice day, Steve."

A hollow woman sits before him with the voice to match. He takes a step back to put distance between them in an effort to give her the space she so clearly wishes for. If this attempt at pushing him away is anything to go by, he doesn't think he's wrong in assuming that she's done this before. But he understands why and leaves her to her early morning basking.

When he's gone, Lusine doesn't move from the armchair. She hardly moves at all except to blink and breathe. As if all her energy is being used up thinking things over and over inside her tired, rotting mind.

She's almost grateful when Florian collapses into the wooden chair left beside her and snaps her from her spiral. Though the almost becomes a certainty when he hands her a steaming mug of tea.

"Thank you," She says quietly.

"No problem," He replies, leaning back in the chair and propping his feet up on the windowsill. If she'd been in any better state, she would've scolded him, but she isn't. "So, trouble in paradise, hm?"

"Yes, I suppose there is." Lusine clasps her fingers tightly around the mug, letting the warmth sink through her flesh and welcoming it into her bones with open arms.

The chill of the morning is still fresh and flowing through the open window, with the breeze gently playing with the cream curtains. The sun beckons her to begin the day, but still she sits. She will start when she's ready. Not before.

"Well," Florian pauses to take a gulp of his own tea, sweetened with far more sugar than necessary, "if there were no obstacles, then it would be boring. That's what Sebastian always tells me. I mean, told me before you executed him." His dark brows furrow; he shakes his head as if trying to force his mind back onto its intended course. As if the pieces of conversation and thought rattle around inside his skull. A jumbled mess. "He was always talking about training, but I think the same thing works for you and your human."

Lusine flinches at the mention of his brother but sees this titbit for what it really is. An extended branch from one drowning Asgardian to another.

"You're right. I do tend to get bored when things are too easy," She agrees, nodding her head.

"I'm right?" He laughs and pats himself on the back. "I guess that's bound to happen sometimes. Just a case of probability or whatever." He swigs his tea like its beer. "Anyway, he seems like a good man. Whatever this bump in the road is, it'll even out." He leans forwards as if he's about to reveal a grand secret. "God, I'd bet my brother's life on it."

Her expression crumbles.

"Florian—"

"Oh! Look at that!" He springs from the chair, the half-drunk tea sloshing over the side of the chipped mug and onto the floor. "Time to go! Goodbye, Your Majesty." He bows a deep, exaggerated bow before scurrying away back to his bedroom.

Lusine sighs and sinks back into the armchair. A conversation about the execution of Sebastian Aubade is perhaps one for another time then. Maybe that's for the best. Neither of them is in the right head space for such a discussion anyway.

And, for the meanwhile, some things are better left unsaid.

-

1740 words
7.8.19