Author's Note – this came out of nowhere. I mean it.
The Four Sisters
"Everything is more beautiful
because we're doomed.
You will never be lovelier than you are now.
We will never be here again."
― Homer, The Iliad
War – destruction, conflict, violence – chaos when personified by a male, but in a female's hands? War is terrifyingly organized.
The old days were gone. No longer could a flick of a wrist send armies into the field or navies sailing for foreign ports. It could have been so very disturbing. Skills rusted, after all, when they were not utilized. Fortunately a new battlefield existed in this modern era. Board rooms replaced fields while clever words and secret information replaced the arrow, the sword, and the spear. If one played at a high enough level, the thrill of victory might still beckon.
Famine – scarcity, dearth, hunger – so many see the famine of the body, but only she understands the truth. Famine is truly of the heart.
Once upon a time fields withered when a mere glance touched upon them. Flora and fauna bowed to an implacable will and brought the warning cry of the coming cold. No one recognized the truth– how the coming season of death caused them to huddle closer, bleeding out the emotions generally channeled into backbreaking work for field and pasture. Now there was no need to bring a time of fear - people bled their emotions without prompting.
Pestilence – scourge, disease, plague – it surprises her how so many fear the breakdown of the body when it is the least of what makes one human. Pestilence is most dangerous when it affects the mind.
The world burned with such brilliance. It had always been so. Every generation possessed its heights of intellect, and those were the minds so easily affected by instability. This generation certainly could lay claim to giants of its own. Seeing the cracks growing in the depths of those minds brought back such memories, times of unrestrained passion and excess when intoxicating power flowed in unending streams.
Death – mortality, dissolution, downfall – how fast and how far she watched the frightened rabbits run from her power…and yet how fascinated they found her tiniest gesture. Death is the ultimate mystery.
Never before had an age of such extremes come upon the world. People ran from dying even as they hurried towards death. In their constant search for new thrills, new extremes, and new pleasures, they wound their way ever closer to death even as they used science and medicine to stave off the actual act of dying. Watching their fruitless, hopeless struggle almost made up for the loss of power…almost.
Four sisters tossed into the abyss of time claw and scrape at the mortal prisons to which they have been exiled. Their powers chained, they must await their awakening – an awakening decreed by the Fates. "When four sisters stand side by side, united in a common cause – then might they try to break their chains. Let them hear and understand – only love will open the final lock."
The time foretold has arrived and the powers watch fearfully. Will they seek vengeance for their imprisonment – or will they forgive? Will love bind them – or will it empower them? Only time will tell.
In the spirit of War…
Pepper Potts smiled as she watched Tony mutter and roll over in his sleep. She would forever have had a soft spot for the man even had she never learned to love him so dearly. He placed his empire within her hands and gave her free reign to rule as she would. Her skills and deepest desires merged and flared as she deftly maneuvered her pieces in an intellectual warfare that rivaled any bloodstained battlefield of her past.
"Pep?" Tony muttered, eyes opening to mere slits.
"Go back to sleep," she murmured, brushing a hand over his hair. "I'm off to a meeting."
"'Kay," he replied, burrowing into the pillow. "You go kick ass."
"Oh, I certainly shall," she agreed. He never saw the dark edge highlighted her lips for just a moment. "I most certainly shall."
In the spirit of Famine…
Natasha Romanoff slipped out of the room she shared with one of the few men on the planet she truly trusted. He was not the man she would have expected to capture her heart – or what little there remained. She had warned him upfront.
"I have little left in me of true feeling," she told him, her eyes steady and unflinching.
"As long as what's there is mine, then we can work through everything else."
Lines like that are what drew her to him. The emptiness within her called for someone to fill it, someone to offset the shadows. Steve Rogers did all of that and more. His light, his heart – they pushed into her, not letting her hide away. They called to her – it seemed like an unending feat which even she could not destroy.
In the spirit of Pestilence…
Betty Ross hummed lightly to herself as she rode the elevator down to the first floor. Her thoughts flickered and danced as she sensed the change was imminent. Only two thoughts remained steady – the knowledge that she would be completely reunited with her sisters and Bruce. Bruce and Hulk, Hulk and Bruce – the thought of the symbiotic relationship between both personalities brought a whimsical little smile to her lips. Could there be any more appropriate man for her? The sheer complexity of the relationship offset by the pure simplicity of their love…it was its own form of madness, but she would not trade it for anything. He completed her and gave her the courage to face the future as a mere human.
In the spirit of Death…
Darcy Lewis waited in the foyer. The time had finally come. She could feel it in the thrumming of her veins. She could sense it in the play of power over her skin. The electric sense of life – from every living creature – it had been so long since the heady essence last filled her. Her eyes fell closed as a wicked smile curved her lips. At least now she understood her choice of partners. How very appropriate for the queen of Death to require two such bloodstained knights as her consorts - so similar and yet so different, one to the other. Clint with his boyish charm striding casually in the sunlight while Bucky's dark enticement slipped from one shadow to another – they gave her the perfect connection she needed to the mortal world. For them, she could hold on to the once hated humanity – even once she came into her full strength.
Four sisters…united once more…
Darcy's gaze flickered from Pepper to Natasha to Betty before she tilted her head to the front door. The four women stepped silently out into the darkness preceding the dawn. Each of them breathed deep of the last air of the night. Darcy let her head fall back as she stretched out her arms. Pepper's capable hands came to rest on her shoulders. She felt each of the others place one hand on each of her arms knowing their other hands rested on Pepper.
Light flared around them. Power rushed through them. The combination might have intoxicated them, but these four women had been preparing for this from the moment they met and realized their freedom was at hand. They took it all in and absorbed even more. They were no longer the flighty little girls who had been punished for their transgressions. Now they were women grown, anchored by their chosen mates and firmly committed to their plan of action.
As the moment finally came to an end, Darcy laughed, a low dangerous sound. "May our enemies tremble this morning as their nightmares come to fruition," she said softly, the soft whisper of Death in her tone.
"Our chosen?" Betty asked, her eyes bright with Pestilence.
Natasha shrugged, the languorous movement of Famine in her shoulders. "They are ours and we protect our own."
"And their enemies are our enemies," Pepper agreed, smiling War's sharp, deadly smile.
Darcy, the sister once known under many names as Death, stepped forward, donning the mantle of leadership once more after so many years the child. "We are sisters," she decreed. "Your chosen are as my brothers, and I will protect them with all I have. Never again shall any of our family walk alone. So I speak, so it is done."
"Done." The three voices spoke their agreement as one.
Yes, let the world tremble…for a new power has risen and it knows little pity when defending its own.