thirteen
" a woman renewed "
-

The pair of them wander back to Steve's apartment. Along the way, they stop and buy two takeaway pizzas and a new bottle of wine from the local store. Escaping the bustle of the real world, the two of them make their way into his apartment block and up the stairs to feast.

Lusine is starving and can't shovel the first slice into her mouth fast enough. She washes it down with a few gulps of wine. Completely unladylike, but beyond caring. Besides, it's not like Steve cares.

After she's finished, she lies back, resting her head on the sofa cushion rest with one hand resting on her belly.

"I am incredibly full," She announces, though not too full to nurse her wine. "But that was so good. Very good."

"I'm glad you enjoyed it," Steve says, laughing at the sight of her barely being able to keep her eyes open. "I might not be able to cook, but I sure do know the good take out places."

She sits comfortably watching some comedy show on the TV that Steve stuck on without much thought. He's a much slower eater than her, but maybe he just wasn't that hungry. One and a half glasses of wine later, he's finished and is taking the boxes out to the kitchen.

He comes back and settles on the sofa beside her. She drinks another gulp of wine and tucks herself under his arm without question, her head resting on his shoulder as her eyes begin to close immediately.

Barely keeping them open, she continues to drink the rest of her wine, but they just keep on closing. She's just waiting for the buzz to bring a little life to her, but, when it finally does, Steve seems to notice her half-asleep state.

"Maybe we should get to sleep," He suggests, already standing from the sofa.

"I'm fine, Steve, really. I can stay up a bit longer," She protests, but stands up anyway, already accepting that he won't take no for an answer.

"We've got work tomorrow anyway," He adds, switching the TV off.

Both of them get themselves ready for bed. Lusine switches out of her dress and relaxes into the comfort of the silky nightdress. She's already in bed when Steve comes in and she rolls over when he gets in beside her.

He can see the outline of her face in the dark as she shuffles a little closer. Automatically, his hand slips onto her waist. A routine for them at this point. One which can only tell of comfort between them.

An irreversible bond set in stone.

Both of her hands come to settle on his chest. She is keenly aware of his fingers on her shifting tighter as she loops one of her legs over him so that his thigh rests between both of hers, bodies intertwined.

She can't resist another moment longer. Lusine keenly lifts her chin and connects their lips for a short taste. When she draws back to make sure he wants her too, Steve's other hand catches her jaw and pulls her mouth back to his.

With every touch, his confidence with her grows.

Even now, he goes further than he would've when they'd first become romantically involved and pleasantly surprises her when he moves on top of her. Lusine clutches onto him, cupping his face as she savours the moment.

When his mouth begins to trail kisses from her mouth and along her jaw, she releases him and tilts her head back, providing unguarded access.

He's not rough at all. His tender touch makes her feel loved as a shudder shoots down her spine.

She hooks her leg under him, an arm around him, and rolls him over before he can combat her attempt. She lowers herself on top of him and provides him with a lingering kiss. One he leans into as she pulls back.

Lusine's gaze flickers all across his face and then she chances an advance, knowing full well that if he doesn't want to then she won't persist, and they can just curl up and go to sleep in one another's arms. Would be just as satisfied with that.

Her fingers curl beneath the hem of his shirt and begin to pull it up. He doesn't seem alarmed or uncomfortable. In fact, he sits up to let her completely remove it and neither of them break eye contact as the t-shirt drops to the floor.

But they're kissing again before it even hits the carpet. Her hands roaming down his muscular body, admiring shamelessly. Wanting him badly, but knowing they need to take this steady.

His hands grip onto her thighs and only tighten when she rolls her hips, grinding against him slowly. With her hands on his shoulders, she pushes him gently back into the bed and treats him well, kissing him up and down, hips working expertly.

A quiet yelp of surprise leaps out of her when Steve, with a sudden burst of confidence, gives her a taste of her own medicine and flips them over.

She laughs lowly at him grinning down at her triumphantly.

Leaving him to hold himself up on one hand, she takes his other and guides it to the thin strap of her nightgown. While she watches him carefully, she sees no discomfort.

He's even that much of a gentleman to ask, "Are you sure?"

"Yes," She breathes out, stomach pooling hot. "It's only fair, right?"

He swallows and nods his head. "Right," He agrees, and his fingers are infinitely gentle on the skin of her shoulder, brushing right past more of her battle scars, as he draws the strap down, followed by the other.

Though he seems lost beyond there. Lusine is quick to fill in the gaps. With her legs on either side of his body, she sits up and settles in his lap as the nightdress falls from her front, pooling around her waist.

The cold air bites her naked flesh, but she only knows warmth as he takes her in. The vision of a torn-up beauty from a hostile land ready to give herself to him the moment he wants her.

Seeing the hesitation written like poetry in his eyes, she smiles softly and bends her head to kiss his shoulder. The fingers digging into her hips relax slightly.

"We should get some sleep, Steve," She whispers and, once he's nodded in agreement, she pulls the nightgown back over herself.

They curl back under the covers together.

Barely touching, but hardly needing to.

-

-

"Hold still," Olea calmly commands, her fingertips illuminated by her brilliantly green magic.

Healer's magic is always beautiful, Lusine supposes. It has to be. If it was stark and bold like hers, it would strike fear into the hearts of those it yearns to save.

Lusine forces her body still and tries to fight against every impulse and reflex as that healing magic sinks into her. Searching for the weak points which her mind desperately wants to conceal. Her instincts scream against the wrongness of opening the iron gate to the outsider, but she ignores it and welcomes the dulling sooth of her cousin's magic.

The ache of her wounds ease. The churning waves in the pool of her magic stirred up by the thunderstorm calm once again.

"You've healed a lot more since we did this last week," Olea comments, though her eyes stare through Lusine as she speaks. It's as if she's in another world entirely. As if her consciousness has transferred entirely into her magic to give it the sentience to search for places in need of its touch.

"I feel a lot stronger," She says as another wave of green runs through her body, scanning and analysing.

"There is still weakness in your muscles from the stabbings, but they've healed substantially." The magic focuses into the muscles, administers a small dose of pain relief, and begins to heal some of the ruined muscle. "There isn't much more I can do for you in terms of physical repair. The rest will have to be done alone in training. Perhaps it would not be a bad idea to request a little time off work to build up your strength?"

"No." Lusine swallows, shaking her head slightly. "No, I want to continue training the agents."

The magic withdraws and steps away. Steps back into the shallows of her pooling magic and tempts it to the shoreline. The wolf emerges, dripping wet, and gives chase.

"Your magic is stronger too," Olea comments when she pulls back entirely, removing the magic from her cousin, leaving the growling wolf to its solitude once more. "If you wish to continue training the agents, I suggest you also find time to train yourself."

"I have been," She mumbles, sitting up.

"You need to do more than spar or hit punching bags." Olea rises from where she'd been sat on the edge of the bed and clasps her hands before herself. "Think back to how you used to train and go from there."

Lusine glances away as she casts her mind back. Not struggling to do so in the slightest because she already knows what she needs to give herself the kickstart her body begs for.

Since the day her magic showed itself, chaos has been what fuels her.

That need was only heightened when the void took her apart and pieced her back together again all that time ago.

The only reason she'd begun to make more progress is because of the chaos she'd caused when she'd forced Natasha to witness what she'd endured. When she'd stepped over the line and brought pain and misery upon another.

Naturally, it had only been a matter of time before the lack of said chaos caught up with her.

The Goddess of Chaos can't run on empty forever.

"I need chaotic energy," Lusine says finally, admitting it to the world at last. "My magic feeds on chaos and my body thrives when my magic is at its best. Here, the life I have chosen for myself is rarely chaotic and I did not anticipate the toll it would take on me."

Her eyes turn back to Olea, searching that expression that she always keeps so plainly calm for anything. For a hint of disgust at her admission, for fear, for horror. For betrayal that the woman she'd called her Queen is nothing without the past she'd tried so hard to move beyond.

"Maybe I should ask Director Fury if I can go on a few field missions soon. That might help," She says with a voice so deathly quiet that it's a wonder anything could be heard at all.

Olea reaches out a hand and places it on Lusine's scarred cheek. The softness of her palm tender against the ragged, toughness of the tear down her face.

"Yes, you are fuelled by chaos, but that does not mean that you have to cause it." Her thumb strokes across the scar without a second thought. "You are not a monster. Don't let yourself become one just because you think that's what everyone expects of you."

Lusine places her own hand over her cousin's where it remains resting against her and pries it away, folding it between both of her own.

"As soon as I was old enough to kill, a monster is all I have ever been." When she tries to pull her hand away, Lusine clamps tighter. "When I made my first kill, you weren't alive yet. My brother and I were looking for mischief. We were young and only looking to cause a bit of trouble, but we bit off more than we could chew when we found a pair of thieves sneaking through the palace in the dead of night.

"Lycus didn't want to confront them, but I was already doing it. They were armed and they knew our faces. I conjured my sword and, before I knew it, I was in my first fight that wasn't a spar. No blunted swords or padding or mentors to call it off when it got too rough."

Her eyes are alight with the memory as it burns like a bonfire in her memories. Olea climbs onto the bed beside her and places her other hand on top of the one Lusine has clasped around her so tightly it was beginning to hurt.

But she won't complain.

"I remember nothing else in the world mattered. It all faded away from me as I fought this man. All I wanted was to win because I was certain that, if I didn't, he was going to kill me. I could see it in his eyes. I could hear it in the way he spat and hissed his insults and curses at me. He told me that I would only cause ruin if I ever sat upon the throne and that I would deserve the pain it would bring me."

Faintly, Lusine smiles a haunting smile. Her lips thin and her eyes brimming with silver.

"I ran my sword through his stomach first. I wanted him to see me when I stood over his kneeling body. When he tried to strike me again, I cut off his hand. As I pushed my sword through his heart, I watched the light leave his eyes and didn't stop watching even as I drew my sword back and his body slumped.

"When I looked over my shoulder, my brother had only restrained the other thief. We were never supposed to kill either of them. Only toy with them. Play one of our mischievous games until the guard showed up. That's the day a distance erupted between Lycus and I. Nothing was the same since then," her vision snaps to meet her cousin's eyes, "but I don't regret it. Even now."

Olea lets out a shaking breath but does not tremble beneath the weight of Lusine's intense stare, though she retracts her hands as the heaviness of the tale sinks in.

"That was a long time ago," She reasons, but her voice is small in her throat. Quiet and feeble. "He would've killed you."

"Maybe," Lusine clasps her hands together and winds her fingers together, "maybe not."

"There's no use in fretting over it now. You'll never know what would've happened otherwise," She says, rising from the bed once more. "You should get some sleep."

Immediately, Lusine retreats in on herself.

She nods her head. "Okay," She replies, agreeing as the flickers of soothing magic enter her system.

The wolf circles the edge of the lake, keeping the green magic in its sights.

Lusine climbs beneath the covers, as Olea turns out the lights, playing at compliance as the wolf growls and lashes out at the magic, sending it retreating in an instant.

She knows it then.

Knows that, even now, her cousin still harbours a fraction of fear.

Through the dark, she can see her lingering at the door and Lusine watches her for a moment.

"Goodnight, cousin," She says.

"Goodnight," Olea replies, closing the door behind herself.

-

-

Once she's certain that Olea has gone to bed, Lusine creeps out of her room, pulls on her cloak, and exits the sanctuary their apartment is supposed to provide.

That sanctuary has been tainted. The moment she realised that Olea still fears her, that sanctuary was tainted.

But no part of her is bitter for the fear her cousin possesses. All her life she'd known Lusine as the angry, chaotic force that could bring gods to their knees. The wild woman with an art for seduction and lies. Someone to stay away from. Both of her sisters made sure they rarely crossed paths and, if they did, one or the other was always there to stand between. To shield the youngest, the most innocent, from the horrors of the princess with an ego bigger than the moon they walked on.

Fearing her had been drilled into the youngest Kella from the day she set foot in the universe.

It's going to take time for that fear to dissipate. And maybe Lusine's self-hate and self-depreciating stories of her past won't help with that, but she needs to know every ounce of truth for solid trust to forge between them.

For now, Lusine intends to train.

Lying in bed isn't going to do anything for her but leave her muscles to waste away like a breathing corpse.

The dead of night is perfect for what she means to do.

After making sure there's not a soul around, Lusine shrugs off her cloak, folds it neatly as she collects her thoughts, and sets it down on the steps of the abandoned warehouse.

When she walks in, the night air is a welcome chill on her bare arms and on her thigh as the slit in her dress opens and closes with each step.

Olea is right. She needs to go back to her roots to begin building herself up again.

Though it's going to take a long time, it's one of her only options left.

That and casting herself into the void to be torn apart and rebuilt by its power once again. She'd considered it briefly in the worst of her agony. Thought that the pain and possibility of death in the void was worth it if she came out of the other side even half the woman she'd been before. At least that would be something.

But there is too much to leave behind if the possibility of it going terribly wrong became a reality.

And, so, this is her final choice.

Lusine tentatively grasps a tendril of her power and bends it to her will. Conjuring half a dozen ghostly enemies to train against. They cannot hurt her physically, but psychologically they're more than capable of landing her on her back.

The first is a broad-shouldered man whose ghostly form glows faintly in the dark.

She summons her double-ended spear and tests it in her palm, spinning it and remembering its weight. It's just like greeting an old friend.

The form suddenly darts forwards, catching her unawares, and she's barely got time to swing the spear up and deflect the blow of his sword. Now she's alert. Wide awake to any attack he might attempt.

When he draws the sword back, its' metal oddly quiet against the length of her spear as it retreats, he attempts to stab at her with the dagger he'd held hidden at his side. Lusine manages to catch him by the wrist, surprised by her own reflexes, and prevents the dagger from sliding between her ribs.

Her grip on his wrist tightens until he's gritting his teeth, though she knows he feels no pain, and the dagger drops from his clutches.

It's all a distraction.

A rouse to conceal his next attack as he tries to impale her on his sword once again.

But, in its new found strength, her magic rises to shield her. A wash of the pure white magic she'd once been defined by streaks up between her and the blade coming for her waist, deflecting it. Her eyes shoot to the magic and she breathes out a sigh of relief.

So, she's still got it.

She's not totally useless.

With his attempts thwarted, Lusine tightens her grip on his wrist more and grasps him by his front to gain the leverage to toss him to the ground. He lands on his back with a thud. She stands over him and, not wanting to prolong this and wishing to move onto the next, slams the spear into his chest.

As his form dissolves into the nightly breeze, the second figure steps forwards.

When she flexes her fingers around the staff of her spear, the magic inside of her protests and begs to be released.

Without a second thought, she obliges.

The inky black magic washes out of her in a bolt and impacts the ghostly woman, sending her stumbling back.

Her hand presses over her stomach, expecting oozing blood. But the hand comes back clean. The wound does not bleed. For a moment, the conjured being before her flickers with a confusion, but that's quickly erased when her purpose overrides her darting thoughts.

Lusine dips her fingertips into the pool of magic and finds that it's much deeper than it had been only days before. With a gasp, a grin flies to her face as she realises: She's made it. That she's healing quicker than before.

If she closes her eyes, she can sense the magic trickling into her, drop by drop.

But there's no time for such luxuries as her opponent marches forwards, shield up and short sword drawn.

Her fist clenches inside of the reservoir of magic. The inky blackness thunders up her arms and coil around her neck as if she now wears a dozen tiny cobras. Perching on her shoulders, staring at the enemy with beady eyes. Ready to strike and ruin.

The shield is futile as Lusine plants her feet, extends her hands, and lets the magic free.

Its' unleashed chaos storms the woman. Rips her defence to shreds left to scatter in the wind. The rush of the power consumes Lusine. Lights her eyes on fire as she's flooded with that chaos she's been lusting for and somewhere between the strike of her power to the woman herself and her demise, she begins to laugh with pure relief.

When the woman crumbles to ashes, Lusine draws her power back in.

She dabs her wet cheeks with the backs of her hands, trying to control the raw emotion overcoming her.

When she turns to finish off the final four, she is a woman renewed.

-

3627 words
7.5.19

she's back-ish.