Val was curled in the chair of the observation room as best she could, hands cuffed to the table in front of her because she was a 5150, a harm to herself or to others. She was more bony than the sleek form she'd been, she was starving, slowly losing her body with the slow, corrosive degrade of being seperated from Yggdrasil. She hadn't set foot on soil in near a year.
"Why is she cuffed, you know that causes her anxiety!"
At least her 'therapist' understood.
"She tried to tear her 'wings' off again."
A patient sigh from her therapist and a muttered, "not again."
She just wanted to die now but she didn't even have enough magic left to summon her wings from her glamour and rip them off herself. She had finally lost her focus, lost her balance between reality, her memories, and her nightmares. She was Foresworn twice over. She deserved no promise of service in Valhalla, because she had failed him. Hot tears welled in her eyes and slowly dripped down her cheeks. She was his death, he believed her his salvation.
And she simply brought him damnation.
She didn't bother to look up, sunken shadows surrounding now dull black eyes, the gold ring around her pupil gone brown with her decay of magic. her hair was limp, her skin colorless.
To starve a Valkyrie, was to ensure the cruelest torture.
"Valerie, you have a visitor."
Eyes slowly lifted, unashamed and uncaring of the tears falling across her face. A familiar perfume filled her nose and the tears fell faster.
"Sister," Val rasped, speaking for the first time in weeks. "Please kill me. Just let me die, please." She begged, stretching her cuffed hands as far forward as she could, skeletal looking fingers reaching beseechingly.
"Please. I just want to be with him again." Val bowed her head in obeisance, paying deference to the one who could kill her, bring her mercy. "Please."
Choking heat. Suffocating water. No! Refuse to answer the questions! More suffocating heat. Or was it choking water? Screaming, who was screaming?!
Val fought her way out from under the heavy weight, screaming and trying to untangle herself from the covers. Hands found her wrists, trying to still her flailing and she tried to wrench herself away. "DON'T TOUCH ME! DON'T FUCKING TOUCH ME!" She screamed, voice cracking. She fought herself out of the blankets and away from the press of a warm body against hers. She shivered in the near icy room and pressed herself against the headboard, trying to catch her breath for lungs that thought they were being starved of air.
The sweat on her skin cooled her seething mind and she started to register where she was. The smell of him in the room, the sight of his sword sitting in the corner, next to hers, the feeling of their sheets under her palm. She looked up at her concerned and sleep tousled bedmate, studying him and slowly recognizing him. Then it clicked. It was a nightmare. She had had a nightmare.
She stared in shock at her mate who was watching her like she was going to crack and shatter. Val covered her face with her hands and started to sob. She crawled to him, and nearly forced herself into his arms. The wounded, scared Valkyrie just to be close to him, and know she was safe, that he would protect her from even herself. She hid her face against his chest and wept. "I'm sorry." She rasped. "I'm sorry I woke you and hurt you." She pressed her face into his neck and breathed him in, trying to calm herself.
"She is," Juliet replied with a nod, nuzzling closer to him. She loved when she got to be with him like this and didn’t think that it happened often enough. They had both been too stressed of late and probably needed more time together to sooth and balance themselves.
She leaned up an her elbow, startled by his words. “You two got into a physical fight and you didn’t tell me?” She nearly cried out with the words, not believing that he wouldn’t tell something that important. However, she also knew that he meant it when he said that he wanted to fix things, therefore, she pressed her lips to his for a fierce kiss. “Of course I will help you. I love you, Thor.”
~~~
"Hey now! None of that. Or we will be disappearing into a tent before we have even had anytime with our siblings." He laughed quietly with his words, as he moved back slightly. He wanted to spend time with her, sure. However, he had also come to spend time with his sister and new brother.
Thor grimaced at the shock. "Yes we fought." Thor admitted and pulled her close. "Thank you, I am hoping I can fix things with her this excursion. I at least am looking forward to trying." Thor chuckled lightly under her kiss and stroked her hair once they pulled away, listening to his sister's laughter and the sound of his new brother's laughter with a smile.
"Do you want to join them, beloved?" He asked quietly and sat up slighlty on his elbows. "Let's go, the water looks enticing to play in." He hadn't been back to the beach since she died on it, but once with Valerie and Steve, when he learned to surf. He stood and offered his hand to her with a small smile.
~~~
Val huffed at him but grinned and her eyes sparkled for him. "Awww okay I'll try and behave." She teased and bobbed closer towards him, teasing a finger down his abs. "I pinky swear I'll be good." The wicked smirk tugging at her lips belied that as false. She loved teasing him, or getting him hot and bothered for her, it made her particularly gleeful to exact some of his own kind of revenge.
"Can I at least snuggle close?" She pouted pitifully. "I'm so cold." She teased, curling her arms around her and hunching forward, doing no purpose other than fluffing her cleavage making it look damn good. She gave him a sad look, with full pouty lower lip, and a sorrowful dark eyes looking up at him from under her lashes. Let's see how well the puppy eyes work on him. She grinned to herself.
Val prefers her Valkyrie blade above even a gun now. She forged the blade herself, a communion of her soul with Yggdrasil to learn ancient magic. The blade will not feel the same for anyone else, it will be unbalanced, and the grip just the slightest bit uncomfortable. It’s layered, saturated, and interwoven with Val’s magic. Much like Mjolnir is a conduit for Thor’s magic, Val’s Valkyrie blade is much the same for her, it can withstand an outpouring of her magic and help focus it.
A drabble about a beloved one lost in a fight.
Val arched off the ground, scrabbling at her abdomen to try and dislodge the blade that pinned her to the ground. She tried not to scream but couldn’t help it when the hand closed on her wing. Terror, and arous—
"Loki! No!" Val looked over her shoulder, looking up into the dark, nearly black eyes of the man she called her lover. "What… what’s wrong with you?" She could barely breathe now.
"Threats must be eliminated." He snarled, voice cold, and strange sounding, as if ancient voices overlapped to sound sybillant and alien and yet still Loki.
Val gripped the sword tighter, the blade slicing her hands and palms to the bone as she tried prying herself loose. “No! Nononono!” She sobbed and felt him grip her wing tighter, cracking bone.
"You told me once these were your weakness. Foolish Valkyrie." He scoffed and started to pull the wing out at an unnatural angle. Val screamed in agony and pushed up on the blade to lessen that pain, regardless of the burning pain that caused. "Stay still!" He commanded.
Val froze. Her Sworn Ward had given her an order, she could not disobey. He started to pull her wing back. She felt the tendons snap and tear under the strain and she screamed again.
Then her wing dislocated with a sickening pop. When he squeezed even tighter and her bone snapped she lost the control over herself. The Valkyrie welled up in her at the threat to her magic, her wings and her life.
With an explosive movement she shoved up off the ground, and swung her Valkyrie blade under her arm, shoving it up and through his chest with deadly precision. “Ég er Valkyrie gyðja. Og þú munt ekki hafa vængi mína. Ég sakfelli þig til Heljar Loki Laufeyson.” She snarled, eyes glowing gold as a nimbus surrounded her body. She shoved her blade harder back into him and twisted.
The hand gripping her wing loosened and eventually let go in shock and she turned, running him across the room to pin him to the wall with her blade, the sword in her own body forgotten as the magic and adrenaline surged. “You will die.” Valerie promised and dislodged the sword from her abdomen, staring at Loki as it clattered to the ground.
He looked smug and amused. “You will not har—” he choked on his words as Val shoved her fist into his chest and ripped out his soul.
Val glared at the tainted soul in her hand and tore the connection between the two of them apart, breaking the bond between Ward and Sworn Valkyrie. She was now Forsworn. “Revel in the tortures at the hand of Hel’s Queen. There is no saving grace for you now. A Valkyrie has condemned you there, none can remove you.” She whispered, tears starting to fill her eyes at the pain going supernova in the center of her chest.
Loki’s spirit smiled evilly at her. “And you think this could stop me? I could find my way.”
Val freed her Valkyrie blade and beheaded his falling body and looked back at the spirit. “There is no chance for you now.” She released her hand and he hung in the air for a moment before being sucked into the earth, screaming curses at her.
Val’s vision spotted and she slowly sunk to her knees before passing out.
Val looked at her daughter and sighed, she had her fathers expressive brows and now they were knitted as she looked up from her sketch book for a moment before a picking a new copic. “That’s pretty little chickadee.” Val murmured in thought and her daughter showed her the sketch with a small smile. “It’s not that he wants to, baby girl. You know that right? Your father loves you more than anything. He just has a very taxing and demanding job.”
Val wrapped her arm around the girl’s shoulders and pressed her lips to her daughter’s temple. She inhaled the smell of jasmine and ginger and smiled slightly. “He loves you so much, just like I do. I will talk to him about being home with us more though, does that sound fair?” She never thought she would be raising her daughter like she was raised, alone, when she had a mate who should be helping making her daughter feel loved and cherished. A mother telling her baby girl ‘you know he loves you’ was not the same as a father saying ‘I love you’, and the little Unmade needed more love in her life.
Val padded down the steps from her master suite, shaking the last droplets of water from her wings after her shower. She had been so nervous after leaving the voicemail on his phone she spent a few hours in the gym. She felt calmer now, less nervous and spastic, like she was going to lose her mind. She fidgeted with her cardigan and glanced to the blacked out windows to judge when sundown was by the feeling in the air against her wings when she heard his voice. Oh of course he would come straight here.
She tucked her wings away quickly before he saw them and couldn’t help the silly smile on her face as she bounced down the last few steps and around the wall obstructing her from his view. “I’m here, Kristoff.” She grinned at him and her flats clicked quietly on her wood floors as she walked towards him. She smiled nervously. Her muscles in her legs cramped slightly as she wanted to sprint across the room and launch at him, Valkyrie leaping the way Jules did to Thor. She held herself steady by sheer will. She wanted to, but not yet.
She paused and the majority of her living room stood between them. Not that distance really mattered for the two of them, a single leap and either of them could cross that obstacle. In truth she had bought a few bottles of nice wine and set out candles and even bought a new fluffy sheepskin rug and floor pillows for in front of the fireplace. She wanted tonight to go really well, even if she was telling him some of the worst parts of herself. She swallowed anxiously and was thankful she'd put her make upon before she had come downstairs and not waited, it helped with the feeling of vulnerability he always gave her.
“I was not expecting you so soon. Do you want anything to drink?”
