Ruin
The physical destruction or disintegration of something or the state of disintegrating or being destroyed.
Three days dragged by. Ticking. ticking. Slower and slower beneath the eyes of the monster that childishly hugged her knees to her chest below the defiant crack of light that streamed through the crimson drapes. She held out her shaky fingers to touch it, the meagre glow of sun that chased away the shadow of her chamber. It was warm, so warm against her deathly chill. The extravagant filigree woven clock that floated against the wall in its golden awe became more taunting than helpful. That damn ticking. She wanted to rip it off the ugly red wall and launch it out of the window. It diverted her mind from being thrown into a wing the guards had locked from the outside. Once again Loki's dwelling was home to only one. A palace for one person. A prison.
The desolate palace had won two for two out of the inhabitant monsters that dwelłed within. Both the God of Mischief and herself had snapped within the ranks. Those red eyes. Those goddamn red eyes. They broke her. They broke her worse than the mind splitting migraines or agonizing aches with her bones. She hurt so badly but nothing was more immobilizing than those crimson orbs staring back at her.
No healer could...no healer would help her. No one would ease her body into the transformation it was to undergo. She was a God...A Goddess? One who resembled a vagabond lazing against the dark carpet that cushioned her prison. She ached. How she ached. It hurt to move. To breathe. To think.
She stayed pressed against that hideous crimson wall for a while, breathing in with every pulse of pain. It helped to imagine that she was back in Asgard's dungeons, the first time she had met Loki face to face, but instead of making conversation she drove her blade straight through his neck and he bled out on the shiny floor. It made her jaw clench in agony. That wretched pest.
Sleep aided with her recovery but to fall asleep when her limbs felt shattered and her body quivered from the agony was inconceivable. Her grey Hooded jacket and long pants stuck to her like a second skin from the cold sweat. It had to end. The pain had to end. She hated it with all she had.
Fury didn't notice the blood surging from her nails buried deeply into the carpet, touching the solidness underneath. Flesh against stone. Her body bounded off the wall and to her feet she rose with her hands shaking from the agonizing wave of pain the surged through her chest. A sharp breath escaped the thin line of her lips. That fucking clock ticked with the range of a drum being played right in her ear. Red eyes shot toward it. It reminded her of what Loki had done. Of what she was. Of the unbearable aching in her bones. Her chest heaved. Tears encompassed her vision blinding her with their hateful frustration. A thought so dark entered her mind forcing her hand to curl at her side. Tingling ever so slightly.
The golden tendrils of filigree buckled with terror. What? Her eyebrow raised in question as the glass casing exploded in a violent splatter of white shards. She covered her eyes from the battering assault of glass but felt the sharp edges cut into her cheek and neck. Her arms shuddered. Her red eyes glanced over her forearms that bled with beads of crimson from the shallow holes barring her left wrist that had been shielded by the black cast. She stumbled back from the red wall with fear. She didn't stop until her shoulder rebounded off the wall closest to her neglected bed. The ground welcomed her back into its arms. A fire burnt in her core, spreading through her with its tormenting throb. So ferocious and mean.
Her throat was too dry to vomit from the agony. A sorrowful groan echoed through the darkness. She laid her head against the cool floor, flicking the tatty silver strands of hair from her eyes. It burned. It burned with more ferocity than she could bear. Fingernails clawed into the soft carpet. She uttered a helpless yelp.
A softness swept against her cheek, A hand. Someone spoke before collecting her body into strong arms. Help. She needed help. Would they help her?
"Will you help me?", She murmured sleepily. She suddenly felt so tired. Exhausted. A rumbling voice echoed from her saviour's chest.
"Furya. You are a beacon of light, a catalyst of power burning so bright and ferociously. I don't believe you need it.", That vibrating voice boomed with tenderness and care, placing her against the mattress. She tried to open her eyes to see but they were too heavy to flutter. Their breath tickled her cheek.
"Sleep",
"I can't", She groaned through a wave of uncomfortable pain in her chest.
"You can and when the sun shines on your skin again you will tear yourself off this decrepit bedding and seek answers."
There was no fire in her veins, no warmth within her body. She felt cold. So cold as she sat at the top of the staircase, staring down. Her hands were clamped over one another, offering little warmth. She had changed from her baggy night garments that began to dirty from three days of restlessness. Fury wore her heavy boots and tight-fitting cargo pants with a thick tank. Even though it was cold she didn't throw a jacket over herself. She liked the feeling of the cold. It was something so new but not unfamiliar. She had spent too many nights curled against the warmthless floor. Too many nights cursing it's icy wrath that shook her bones.
A week she had stayed in her prison of pain and despair. She had enough. Enough loathing. Enough darkness. Enough pain. She wanted answers. So when her eyes opened from her restless sleep and her body began to ache with malice she silenced the begging whimper that pleaded for her to curl up underneath that crack of sun. Instead of taking those four steps to the gold-framed window she took four to the left. Instead of hugging her knees to her chest to weep she changed from her stale clothes. Instead of waiting for the aching to cease she strode out the mahogany wooden door that stood so beautifully in her wake. The door that was encrusted with intricated swirling designs had shuddered under her wrath. The lengthy handle that curled in the same theme didn't dare halt her.
Her staring eyes watched the afternoon sun cast shadows against the foot of the steps through the stained glass window the crawled up the height of the palace. It's coloured glass pictured Loki with his horned helmet. That loathsome creature who had outwitted her mischief. The one who had saved her.
She was yet to speculate why. Why he would want her immortal. Why strengthen her?
Though she told him otherwise he was indeed unpredictable. Perhaps that's why he did it. To revel in the chaos that would ensue once Odin found her well enough to come before his judgment. To reveal a double-cross perhaps. All that mattered was that her situation didn't look good at face value. A protector of realms, A mercenary corrupted by Loki. An accused adulterer between his family now made immortal wouldn't be received well. Yet the worst she feared was the betrayal of Asgard's queen. Frigga had employed her, pleaded with her to bring Loki's innocence to light or else send him to his death. She had an idea for what she was to be labelled. Faithless. Asgard's whore.
A corrupted harlot. Perhaps that was Loki's plan. To see her exiled from Earth and Asgard. To have her disgraced and sent to an unholy land to live out her days. No. She had one better. A move that was most wicked and mischievous. One that would drag Loki through whatever judgment she was to face. If she were banished, he was coming with her.
She had eyed off his room, the black door when she left her tomb for the first time in three days. Could she even summon him without her magic? Could she return his? Why would she try after he turned her into a vampire?
Those cursed red eyes. She saw them every time her mind began to rest. She didn't have the heart to glance in her reflection, having torn down the mirror in her chamber for good measure. She couldn't bear the sight.
Boredom struck her after an hour of staring into nothingness. Listening to the still sound of silence. Her mind battled between finding answers or keeping what was left of her sanity. Fuck it. She peeled herself off the polished floor, stomping toward the black door. Her slender fingers yanked it open, hearing it slam against the wall. Eyes searched through the dust-ridden room, settling on the Book of Shadows that was dumped on the floor.
She spoke the words from page 882 with fire in her tone. The green comforter crinkled under her bodyweight as she sat with her ankles crossed on the bottom on the four-poster bed. The heavy book shifted the mattress in the flight toward the wall. It landed with a thump. She was all but patient. Where was he?!
"Was it too much to ask that you leave me-
"Shut up", The words came with a wave of violent anger. Her eyes glared at the figure that appeared from the shadows. His emerald orbs narrowed, staring. A smirk spread replaced his insulted frown. It made the violence that swirled in her mind multiply twofold. She wanted him to suffer.
"Oh, my"
"What did you do?", Her voice snapped at him, daring to taunt the God. She launched her steps forward. Dreaming only to hit him. To make him bleed. His ghostly transparency told her she wouldn't get her wish.
"I made you a God, dear Fury", Loki replied with mock insult, his words quick and precise.
"You turned me into a beast", She hated how her voice wavered toward someone she shouldn't have shown such weakness to. She darted her sight to the pile of books to her left.
"A meagre price for immortality.", Loki scoffed. He made the anger in her veins boil to the brink. How she wanted him to suffer. She had to squeeze her hand at her side to restrain herself. A tingling feeling vibrated in her fingers.
"It is nothing you weren't already accustomed to", She waved her hand to silence him but a groaning crash stopped her mid-motion. The chandelier above them fell from the ceiling with an almighty thunder, spraying glass at her feet. She was safe, shielded under Loki's protective green mist. The decorative ironwork clattered against the polished floors. Loki's eyes followed it as it rebounded then settled, leaving sharp indents on the hard floor. His expression was calculated and questioning all in the same. A moment later his expression was replaced with a maleficent scowl. He looked murderous.
"You evil little witch", Loki, smirked a sinister grin. His eyes sparkled with fascination. "Just how did you harness my magic?".
Fury met the emerald orbs that fluttered above her, a mirroring smirk painted her lips. His transparent body towered over her with a threatening closeness.
"The blood contract", Her words were hidden with a victorious might as her tongue ran over the outline of her teeth. She knew that meddling trickster would jump at the chance to obtain her magic. It was only too easy to snare him with her trap. Her insurance if he double-crossed her. He could hand out immortality like it was a raffle ticket. A sorcerer so powerful.
Without an active power, he would have gotten what he wanted. Her secrets. Her life. He would have won. And how she loved the expression on his face. The confusion, the scowl. It was not as though she stole from him. The magic no longer recognized him, he told her as much. She merely made use of what he could not.
"You have bound yourself to me", His words went cold as his emerald eyes spied the additional tendrils of black ink swirling into curved horns against the nape of her neck. Around it protective runes began to appear, glowing a bright green. His long fingers were quick to tear open the neck of his tunic. She smirked at his expression. He scowled at her brand of glowing blue flame that faded into swirling black lines. It was placed just at his collar, A mirroring spot as hers.
"Matching tattoos already and we haven't even been on a first date", Fury chided. It was the suffering she had wanted to see from him. It made her feel powerful. She spoke
"I guess this makes you my bitch",
Loki's eyebrow hiked in its place, his expression a little less calm.
"And you mine", Scowling venom shattered his impeccable patience. He opened his mouth to speak, eyeing off the bookcase, turning his sight back to her red eyes. He was lost for words. Finally.
Suddenly his ghost disappeared from her sight. A smile painted her lips. A devious thought entered her mind, making her new tattoo tingle with a green glow. Loki. She thought of The trickster and there he was before her again.
"Oh, this could be fun",
He sighed with a roll of his eyes and vanished again. Loki.
"Stop it!", His well-mannered voice echoed in her mind.
"Bite me", Fury bit back.
"My pleasure", That polite accent purred at her ear. Fury shrugged away the chill it gave her, stepping forward from his shadow, almost into his illusion's blade that stabbed from the front. Really? She raised her hand and the dagger crumpled into a wall of iridescent mist. It triggered the illusion to disappear, leaving him towering over her back with a childish frown.
"Predictable, partner, predictable", She teased as his Emerald orbs met her cast bound wrist. Pain rippled in her shattered joint. He kept his unblinking stare on her red eyes as he motionlessly sent green waves of power to attack her injured bone. A high pitched yelp escaped her lungs.
"Fury!", Thor's booming voice queued Loki's disappearing act. She gripped her cast with shallow breaths to ease the agony. Her head snapped to the figure that burst through the black door with such haste it shut itself after slamming against the tapered wall.
You miserable little c-
Now, dear Fury do not be bashful, Loki's tauntingly irritating accent pried into her mind in response. She startled at the sensation.
"Fury", Thor looked her over without a care for her space or any formality. His hand pressed gently against the cast like he would accidentally shatter it without the utmost care.
"Argh, it's fine I just...", She glanced at the chandelier that was scattered over the ground In pieces of black iron. "Almost got impaled is all", Fury softly returned her black cast to her side.
"What are you doing in here?",
"I was making my own fun", Fury breathed out bitterly toward the man who had disappeared for the last three days.
"...Right", His blue eyes ran over the shattered chandelier then settled back on her. "How are you-"
"Feeling? I feel like I was just thrown down some stairs and turned into a vampire", She hissed in an assertive tone, her eyes narrowed. She felt like he had abandoned her in her time of need. He told her she was a monster then left. No note, no message. Just gone for three days. Her friend that she had rescued from Alaska. That she had cared for.
A smile curled at the corners of his mouth. A laugh that was so contagious. She never thought she would have said such a thing.
"Don't you dare laugh", He broke the anger that swelled in her chest, forcing a chuckle to escape her lips. She stared into his blue eyes that were so innocent, that she was so envious of. They darted to the crimson cuts of her forearms and against her neck. She had felt the deepest slice against her jaw.
"I've not been doing well...", Fury breathed out, her steps retreating from Loki's prison. Thor was silent, contemplative while he followed after her with striding steps. Fury was exhausted after a few paced steps. Out of shape and just about dead. Great.
"Fury", The blonde-haired God gripped her bicep softly.
"Where. The hell. were you?", She spat, biting back the choice words that tempted her. He stepped back, stumbled back.
"Do I scare you now? Why the hell are you acting like a little bitc-"
He didn't retreat. You shielded yourself from the witless oaf, how heartbreaking. A lover's spat. I do hope you work it out.
Loki, I know you may be used to this but fuck off and die quietly.
"Fury", Thor's booming voice broke her dissonance. How strange it must have been for her to just space out mid-conversation. A low chuckle echoed in the background of her mind. The God of Thunder raised his brow in what she could only assume was a dire concern.
"...I was convincing Odin to allow you to stay. To show your worth...after you were dismissed from your duty of guarding Earth and Asgard.", He delivered the news with an unwavering tone. Dismissed. Thrown aside. What news to kick her while she was down. Her jaw hardened with disdain.
"My hero", She spat with fire, pushing past his outstretched hand and down the black stairs to the dragon's keep.