Fate's a Bitch
Fanart by the amazingly talented and entirely generous Christytrekkie. This can be found at Fanart, Fear Not the Multiverse. She also created various versions of the banner (SO COOL!) and how Lenore looked like at the New Year's Eve ball in Italy and how Lenore looked like at the Valhalla dinner party. YAY! Thank you so much Christy! ps: everyone should check out her work and leave a review! :) (NOTE: This can all be found on Twisting the Hellmouth and my posting there for "Living as Lenore". Sadly, ffnet does not allow pictures to be embedded)
Reine, Norway
May 7, 1912
"Good morning."
Lenore shifted, burying her face into her pillow, at the sound of the soft masculine voice. Vampires did not need a great deal of sleep, especially at her age; but that didn't make mornings any easier. She mumbled in response, "Morning"; her voice a husky tone of sleepiness.
Chuckling lowly, Loki pushed Lenore's hair off of her neck and began brushing his lips against her sensitive skin. Again Lenore shifted, but this time it was for a different reason. She smiled against the pillow's surface and reveled in the feel of Loki's touch. His hand trailed down her bare back, leaving shivers in its wake, and his lips followed the path.
Suddenly, Lenore was completely awake, and in the best way possible. Giggling, she turned over to see Loki gazing at her with devotion – and a hint of mischievousness.
"Uh-oh," she breathed softly as she raised a questioning brow. "What are you planning?"
Smirking, Loki bent down and pressed his lips firmly against Lenore's. Letting out a moan of content, Lenore wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him against her. His bare chest warmed her own – not to mention other parts of her.
"Happy birthday," Loki whispered as he nibbled gently on her earlobe.
Lenore grinned. Loki always did make her birthdays the best.
Many hours later they were laying out under the waning moon at a gorgeous beach in the Hawaiian Islands. Loki was sipping a fruity drink with a pink umbrella sticking out and Lenore was drinking Mortemzilina blood; one of those reptilian creatures from Quor'toth, that they purchased through Wolfram and Hart. Loki had ordered several of the beasts through her account representative, Vishvini Patil, a descendent of her original account holder – if there was one thing Lenore valued it was loyalty and she strove to hire only the members of the original family.
Of course, Lenore had to admit that the reason partly stemmed from the fact that the Patils were her only remaining connection to Kali. It was the goddess who had helped Lenore open the account back in 1929…
On her birthday. It was on her birthday that Kali had helped her open the account.
Lenore froze in place as old memories assaulted her senses. Kali was someone she had fought for many years to forget, but forgetting Kali on her birthday was always especially difficult. After all, she had met Kali on her birthday in 1714.
Kali glanced at her out of the corner of her eye and Lenore got the impression that she was amused. "What is the purpose of life?"
Lenore frowned. On one hand she didn't understand Kali's comments and she was getting frustrated. On the other hand she knew that there had to be something more to what the wise goddess was saying but Lenore just couldn't comprehend her greater meaning.
"The purpose is…to help others. To live a good life," she answered at last.
Kali stopped at the outskirts of the crowd and turned to Lenore. "Souls enter a cyclical pattern of life and death, but it is what they do in-between the two that matter most and will shape their next life."
She ran Kali's words through her head as she sought to understand. "So…if I am cursed in this life than I must have done something wrong as Tara in my past life. Why else would I be forced to suffer this way?"
Sighing, Kali cradled Lenore's cheek. "All souls are caught within the never-ending cycle. The sun will always rise and set just as the moon will do the same. But what came first: the sun or the moon?"
"I-I don't know," Lenore mumbled as a feeling of vulnerability passed through her as Kali's eyes watched her intently.
A soft smile graced her face. "You do, but that knowledge is not yet needed." She brushed lips as soft as a rose over Lenore's lips, and the vampire shuddered in response. Lenore's heart leapt in her chest and for the first time in this lifespan her knees weakened from a simple kiss.
That first kiss had inflamed Lenore. It had been the first consensual sexual contact she had ever received in her forty-two years of life. Kali had been…A soft smile graced Lenore's face before she could finish the thought. Kali truly was one of a kind.
Kali's head cocked to the side and spoke in a throaty voice that heated the spark that flared when she had first seen the goddess. "May I have you?"
Lenore licked her lips in surprise as she discerned the meaning of those words, and then her heart flared with warmth at the sudden feeling of what it was like for a partner to ask and not to take. She blinked back the unexpected tears and nodded as she tentatively cupped the goddess' cheek with her own hand.
"Yes."
Lenore's skin felt hot as she remembered Kali's touch that night. Vivid memories of Kali's silky hair falling across Lenore's stomach, the light flickering of tongue against her breast, the heat behind her kiss…Lenore wet her lips at the memory.
"Hey."
Lenore swallowed heavily and turned to Loki, her memories dissipating quicker than the morning fog. He was giving her a curious and almost cautious look.
"You looked like you were a million miles away. Are you not enjoying your birthday plans?" Loki asked.
Lenore forced a smile. "Of course!" The answer was honest, because she washaving fun, but the guilt of realizing she was thinking about her ex-lover right next to her current lover hit her quickly.
Hmm. She was struck by the random thought that maybe this was why Loki always went all out on her birthdays – so she wouldn't think of Kali.
"I'm just going to take a quick run," Lenore said with a bright smile. "Those Quor'toth beasts give me so much energy."
Amber eyes examined her and then Loki shrugged. "Alright., Have fun!" he grinned as he raised his cocktail in salute.
Nodding, Lenore set off to run along the edge of the beach, her feet slapping in the low water. She began humming to herself an old mantra, one that rarely used anymore.
'Om Krīm Kālyai namaḥ ,
Om Kapālinaye Namah,
Om Hrim Shrim Krim Parameshvari Kalike Svaha'
Lenore wasn't sure how much time passed as she mentally repeated the mantra but it felt like several hours. Then a sharp feeling crashed into her skull, causing Lenore to stumble and fall onto the wet sand. A bright lit filled her inner eye and then the scene snapped into a black abyss. Finally, the blackness brightened and Lenore saw a scene of people in her mind's eye.
It was Eli. He was dressed in only thin pants and surrounded by a jungle canopy. His eyes were darkened with stress and a weariness that causes the soul to suffer more than the body. Half a dozen other vampires wandered with him, their hands holding tightly onto several monkeys that they had captured; one vampire was already drinking from the animal. Birds suddenly began to squaw and the vampires looked up in terror. Then, a steel sword with crude engravings sliced into Eli's neck; her friend's head tumbled like a morose soccer ball.
The last image she saw was his dark eyes trained on her, silently pleading. Then the world shifted, the sharp pain in her skull faded, and Lenore found herself lying down in the sand. Like an eye, the moon stared down at her, its silvery light suddenly feeling oppressive to her sensitive eyes. Lenore shook off the feeling of unease and panic as she sat up, but all she could see was Eli's imminent death.
"But it can't be," Lenore whispered softly in disbelief. Her visions were of her family and that was it, regardless if others viewed her as a prophetess – only because they did not know her past life occurred in the twentieth century. So perhaps what she had seen would not come to pass…
Unless Kali gave her that vision. Dammit, how could Lenore be so foolish as to repeat Kali's mantra? That was like a welcome invitation!
Except…Lenore had used it for decades after Kali left her. Hell, she had even used it a few times in the last decade when she felt particularly overwhelmed by the scent of human blood – it always had a calming effect on her.
Dammit. She needed to talk to Loki.
"Lenore, I've heard you tell the story three times now, but I just don't understand why you're so sure Eli's death will come to pass. In all your centuries you've never had a vision like this before." Loki's calm amber eyes assessed Lenore's pacing body. They were already back home, in Reine, after Lenore had frantically described the details of her vision. However, Loki was cynical of it all.
"That's not quite true," Lenore replied quietly as she looked into her lover's eyes. "That night I tried to call for you to help against Bilquis, I saw you in Aphrodite's arms."
Paling, Loki's lips parted briefly before he pressed them tightly together. "Yeah, well, that was, that was just once." His nostrils flared; Lenore knew he hated to be reminded of the spell the now-dead Goddess of Love had placed upon him.
"Was once. Now is twice. Loki, I have to find Eli." Lenore nervously bit her lip and pushed back a strand of her black hair. Her eyes strayed to the flickering fireplace as her mind traveled to old memories. "Eli is my oldest friend and was loyal to me for many years."
"Loyal to you until he wasn't," Loki snorted meanly; but she knew his anger was reserved for Eli's defection to Déshèng and the others.
Lenore was silent. She had no answer for that. Eli's betrayal had been very difficult and it had carved out a piece of her heart, there was no mistake about that. Still… "I can't let him die," she confessed, her voice breaking at the last syllable. "No matter what happened."
He stared at her, searching, for a long moment before he sighed deeply. "And how will you go about finding him, hmm?" Loki asked wearily. "All you saw was a forest and monkeys. There are plenty of those." He plopped into his favorite sitting chair and gave her an expectant look.
"Well…" Lenore shrugged. "Magic, I suppose. I could do a location spell."
"Yeah, you could," Loki replied guardedly.
She flashed him a sharp look. "Why aren't you being more supportive, Loki? Especially because can't you find anyone, Mr. Angel?" she asked him.
Pursing his lips, Loki leaned forward. "I'm not exactly tied into the whole heavenly system anymore, Lenore. In case you forgot, I wasn't even able to find you after the Alpha stole you."
Lenore shivered at his name and turned away. Regardless of the centuries that had passed, the pain of her moments with Aurelius were still there, buried deep.
She felt a warm hand encircle her upper arm and soon Loki was nuzzling her neck. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I didn't mean to mention him."
Lenore went still, just breathing in Loki's familiar scent of fresh pine and earth as she pushed back those memories from her twenties. Damn, two hundred years later and that beast stillgave her the shivers. She was just thankful to God that no one had heard from Aurelius in all that time – it was her sincere wish that he was dead. Probably not with her luck, but she could hope.
She laid her arm on his thigh and pressed close to him. "It's alright. I'm okay." Eventually Lenore stood up. "I'm going to prepare some ingredients for the spell. Can you at least try to help with your own magic?"
Balking, Loki nodded. "Y-Yes, of course, Lenore! I just don't want you to get your hopes up. But I'll try." He gave her a confident smile. "It'll be alright."
Giving him a thin smile, she shrugged. "I hope so."
Perspective Change ~ Loki
Asgard, Highest of the Nine Worlds
May 12, 1912
"Something on your mind, blood brother?"
Gabriel looked up at Odin and scowled at his concerned expression. The two of them were hanging out in Valaskjalf, Odin's great silver hall in Asgard drinking sweet honey mead in front of a grandiose fireplace. Geri and Freki, Odin's mighty wolves, sat on each side of Odin's chair dozing quietly. The only sound was the cracking of firewood and each slurp of mead.
"No," Gabriel muttered. He and Odin were close – or rather, as close as Gabriel could be with anyone, besides Lenore – but Gabriel was reluctant to say anything. Odin was crafty and one could never be sure what the one-eyed god would do with sensitive information.
A low rumble of laughter fell past Odin's thin lips and he twirled bits of his long, gray beard between his fingers. "Ah, is your vampire upset with you?"
Gabriel glared at him. He hated how Odin tended to refer to Lenore as "the vampire." Yeah, sure, she was a vampire, but she was a hell of a lot more than that.
"Oh honestly, Gabriel," Odin snorted. "What did you do this time?"
"Nothing!" Gabriel snapped. "Can't a man just relax with some mead without getting interrogated?" Honestly, when Odin had issued the invitation to his hall, Gabriel had taken it just to get out of the house, but now he was regretting that.
Odin glanced around, but they both knew no one else was here but them. That was the standard procedure for them, lest they not be able to speak freely. "You and I both know you're not a man, Gabriel. Or a god, for that matter," Odin said with a discerning look.
"Yeah, like you're a god," Gabriel bristled. Odin smirked and Gabriel waved his hand in the air. "Whatever. Man, god, angel, I deserve some peace and quiet."
"Mmm-hmmm," Odin muttered playfully as he sipped more of his honey mead.
"Fine," Gabriel grumbled as he glared at Odin. "I…have a problem."
"Yeah, well, they do say admittance is the first step," Odin joked with a toothy smile.
"Dammit Odin, I'm trying to be serious here!"
Sighing, Odin raised a brow and motioned for Gabriel to continue.
"I feel like I'm going to lose Lenore."
A beat passed, then two. Gabriel felt himself get more nervous with each moment of silence.
"Well, I cannot say I am surprised," Odin shrugged.
"Wait, what?" Gabriel questioned in surprise. That had not been the reaction he had wanted to hear!
"Lenore is…a marvelous creature but better than you, Gabriel. Anyone with a hint of Heaven in them can tell she's meant for something big. And you're out of that game."
Odin's words felt like a troll hammer to the chest. Gabriel's hand curled into a fist and he fought to control his reaction. Sure, he was the adorable funny younger bro of the four archangels, but he had one hell of a smite-ful temper.
"You don't know that," Gabriel said between gritted teeth.
Odin shrugged. "No, I don't," he admitted. "I've been cut out of thatf old."
The unsaid accusation against Gabriel hung in the air, heavy like smoke that blackened Gabriel's Grace. But he shrugged it off, because that topic was an old song and dance for them. Every couple centuries Odin liked to bring that up, but hey, you can't change the past.
"Well, I'll prevent it. I already interfered in her location spell. She won't find the other vampires." Gabriel frowned as he tapped his fingers against the chair's armrest. He knew what he did was wrong, but he didn't have much of a choice. If Lenore walked down that path then only death would follow – and he couldn't live without her. When Kali had taken Lenore, he thought he had lost her for good. Then, he had been too scared to make her his and tempt Fate. But now, she was his and he would fight against all three of those stuck-up sisters if he had to.
"And if she asks for someone else's help?" Odin asked, his single eye focused on Gabriel's expression. "She will find the vampires eventually."
"But they'll be dead by then." Not that Gabriel wanted them dead, but they were the key to Lenore's Fate; he could feel it, and he didn't mourn their loss if it meant his Lenore was kept intact.
Sometimes, just sometimes, he fucking hated Kali for putting Lenore on her path. Yeah, what was done was done. And yeah, Lenore had done things that had changed her for the better, blah-blahdedy-blah. But at the end of the day she was at risk now, because of Kali's interference. It still baffled him why Kali had gotten involved, and he could only be thankful that she had left Lenore be.
"You should think about letting go," Odin suggested in a mild tone. "Leave her to her fate. You can always join us again, up here." He paused and glanced briefly at Gabriel. "Sigyn misses you, you know. She misses what was once hers."
"Odin…you've got to be fucking kidding me," Gabriel cried out in an appalled tone. He stood up quickly and Geri and Freki woke up to growl in response; those wolves were entirely too protective of their master.
He and Sigyn were complicated…she had been a dutiful wife but he had never loved her. Hell, if Odin hadn't forced his hand, then Gabriel never would have married his friend's daughter. Unfortunately, Sigyn didn't feel the same way.
"It is the truth," Odin shrugged nonchalantly, but his eyes gleamed in the flickering firelight.
"Listen, I've heard you say it a million times – regardless of how fascinating Lenore is, I should be with someone like my own kind, more or less. But I'm not interested. I loveher. I would do anything for her," Gabriel spoke passionately, his right hand pressed over his heart. He hated the two-face'd persona of Odin; he knew Lenore liked Odin but that was because the scoundrel was charming when he needed to be. It pained him that Odin had some weird bias against her.
It would pain him less if he didn't care what Odin thought, but Odin had been the one to help him hide from Heaven and Gabriel couldn't sever their bond – hell, he wasn't even sure if he could at this point.
"Fine," Odin said with a growing smile. "You love her. You would do anything for her." His head tilted to the side as he gave Gabriel a curious look. "Perhaps you are right to hold onto that. Few in life get to find their soul mate," he mused.
Tired of Odin's talk, Gabriel snapped his fingers and appeared at the other end of Asgard, at the great tree Yggdrasil. He took in a deep breath when he saw the quiet god Heimdallr guarding the tree, and pasted on a smile. Now it was back to being Loki, as everyone knew him.
Or rather, as everyone but Lenore and Odin knew him.
A/N
References:
*Then, he had been too scared to make her his and tempt Fate. But now, she was his and he would fight against all three of those stuck-up sisters if he had to.—featured in the "My Heart Will Go On" season 6 episode of Supernatural were one of the three sisters of Fate.
+ lots of references to other chapters. I know it's been a while so I wanted to insert quite a bit to help prepare y'all for later events :)