Past the Gates - Pt 2

October 06, 2017:

Siege wakes up, and is lead further into his destined course.

City of Asgard

(In RP)

Characters

NPCs: Hornbori

Mentions:

Mood Music: [*\# None.]


Fade In…

Mattias wakes to a smear of thumb across bared hip to silken fabric. The split of his eyes that pries eyelashes that feel like cracked bone apart from one another casts a haze of blue upwards, through the gold of Amora’s hair, to find her face. The brief second of confusion drifts away as the immediate details become clear.

A bed.

    She’s not fighting, she has a goblet in her hand. She’s brushing his hair.

        The scent of fire, dust, and wood from Yggdrasil are gone.

            Wherever he is, it’s safe.

The lightning fast calculation in Mattias’ eyes is evident, prompting his eyelids to lower to half-mast. Through his nostrils, a gentle sigh wafts out against her fingertips as he watches her hip rise from the bed. The pillow beneath him divots in the center under his weight. Not unlike his bed back in Midgard, his muscles strain in waking under the blankets; the whole of his body tightens and shudders in a clench of muscles all of the way down to the toes. His leg that pokes free from the blankets extends as she passes it, toes flexing out to brush her hip…intentional or not.

He rolls on the bed to follow her path.

The comforter of sewn together wolfen hide falls from his shoulder, leaving a thin sheet of white linen against his skin that pools over it like water over a rock. The scarred spanse of shoulder down to his Olympian-ridged abdomen reveals a new scar, the talon of the Valravn. The more his hips buck and turn in his gentle roll, the blankets peel away.

“Home.” Mattias repeats to the low-plunging backline she wears, watching as she parts the curtains and allows moonlight to spill into the room. “It almost sounds foreign to hear as something that’s truth.”

The rest of Mattias of Gothenburg slides out of the bed. Cleaned and oiled, smelling of Asgardian salts and olives, he rises to his feet without a shred of clothing upon his body. A body that was devoid of scars before Amora had walked into his life. Shadow and moonlight curls to his sides in his walk towards Amora from behind, the scents growing ever-near. Naked and fearless, a warrior waking from battle, he steps in behind the Enchantress and lowers his lips to the crook of her neck for a gentle press. There, he turns his eyes over her shoulder to the buildings and the balcony before them, unable to hide the slow intake of breath as his head turns…and turns…and turns…at the sight of the massive Citadel looming over everything.

“Fokkin-A.” He blurts out before he can catch himself ruining the sanctity of the moment.

“Come.”

Mattias squeezes the part in Enchantress’ gown where bare skin meets silk, and without a shred of clothing, offers her the sight of his musculature stepping freely onto the balcony before her. Out into the moonlight, like a body pulled free from the waters and baptized in Asgardian air, he steps his first steps into the Asgardian city, a citizen.

“We finally made it, Amora. Both of us.” Mattias arches his back and turns his nose upwards, breathing in the scent of cooking meat and spilled mead that catches on the wind. He comes to a stop at the edge of the balcony, planting his hands to the stone railing. “Don’t think for a moment that I’ll claim this victory  all for myself; this was never just my work. I wouldn’t be here if not for the risks you’d taken as well.”

Now it is his turn to extend a hand back to her, not thinking of the likelihood that their every move, from Heimdall’s post, to the Citadel above, could be watched.

“And I know we cannot stay forever, but you’ll have to forgive me. I can’t take my eyes off of it just yet. This is…”

Mattias trails off, failing to find the word.

In the streets below, as he watches, Einherjar patrol the streets at the edge of the Citadel. Dozens travel the walkways below, some looking up, others moving about their business, as the fires light in nighttime lamps and chimneys begin to bellow smoke for the evening. Shadows across the purpling skies and the four moons above rain down light upon the mostly private balcony, but in truth, nearly all of the city is within their view, all of the way to the edges of Bifrost and the thousand-foot high waterfalls off of the mountains that form the ocean that tips off of the edge of Asgard itself.

//

“Astonishing.”

“Magnificent..”

“Spectac —- …”

Each word is a different language, varying dialect - all to hang on his missing final word as he draws in a breath along the expanse of exposed skin to bare his eyes to the city-scape of Asgard.

Amora expected no less in Mattias’ exasperation, or the motion to carry him to the edge of the balcony.

    If she was not welcome here, she would not be here…

        Yet here she stands, bears witness….

                Walking in the mist,
                    No one knows where I have been…

The citadel itself bears a bustle of bodies, even as the First Sun sets and casts an angle of shadow across the streets below the balcony.

    Four to Three…

A thumb traces along curvature of flesh and Amora follows that beck and call towards the ledge where once before…

            Far from my home now,
                Going in circles ‘round and round…
                    I’m on my own now….

A pale hand caresses the brink of the balcony, and despite the lofty hold of chin and slight shadow of jawline there is a pale that sweeps over knuckles in the grip over the ledge that rests alongside Mattias’ own.

    Barest brush of hip.

        Faint sweeping caress of silken dress…

            The Enchantress will not *bow*!

But when those pale mossy eyes turn to the horizon -

They have missed it so…

            Far from my home now…

The rotation of guard comes and goes between misty lines for cloud-smoke and that of aerodynamic security regarded to a far more advanced people than believed by most Midgardian beliefs.

    They are nowhere near archaic here…

        Nothing’s ever what it seems..!

Alongside Mattias, Amora reveals herself to the Asgardian streets, as well as the very singular Raven’s eye of Odin…
        … the ear of Heimdall…

            .. Did they call it off tonight?…!

I’m on my own now…

”…Home…” The only answer Amora can whisper to Mattias as they breach the balcony ledge and oversee the Einherjar as well as the denizen’s deserving.

The very sight is one to furrow Amora’s brow, shadowed by the fall of braids and that of pearlescent tress while knuckles whiten over the ledge bearing such a view almost laden in a laughter of silent mockery.

“It is what you deserve…

        Where you belong…” A trail of fingertip along his jaw…

Her hand departs and where it imparts…
                    A raven lands and a single eyes cants towards.

Reflective.

    The cry of the Raven draws Amora back, further, a step beside, a brace behind her Ber-Odr.

“I wish nothing more than to be home, our home to be nothing less than this…” A whisper to the sign. The very being she cast cinders of papyri unto…

For Revelation..

//

It may just be Amora’s fault that Mattias of Gothenburg isn’t so afraid of his naked state, even on the balconies of Asgard. His first months spent in the realm were in such a state; albeit covered in mud. The balcony isn’t lined with open cuts of rock, concealing the latter half of his form, but to feel the naked wind on his body is a gift of its own. The sense of want to present himself to the realm unbidden is strong, but there are times where care simply isn’t necessary.

He’s made it this far. It isn’t likely that he’ll be thrown out of his home realm for a lack of pants on a balcony that was intended to be his. Theirs.

He remains in silence, even with the touch to his jaw. His downward cast stare meets the eyes of onlookers. Some double-take, not at Mattias, but the sight of the infamous woman at his side. Those concerned add an extra bit of gait to their step to place some distance between the ominous presence of the Enchantress, even if she’s with a man rumored to be the son of a known protector of Asgard. Dark clouds spell rain. Platinum tresses and green skirts often spell trickery.

But in the sweep of his eyes, Mattias does meet the attention of some of the Einherjar, who look up to the balcony. Mattias slowly nods his head to one of them…

…and the Einherjar, with painstaking slowness, nods in return.

The sudden arrival of the raven and the way Amora tucks herself in behind Mattias, placing his muscular body between herself and the iconic creature, captures his attention. He turns to double-take from Amora to the raven. Mattias has to blink to see the single eye looking to them, but the famed imagery of the one-eyed raven in his childhood stories is known to him. His mouth closes into a quick clap, and he tilts his head to meet the angle of the bird.

And then Mattias nods, as well, to the raven.

“You know my heart, Amora. You know I just wanted what is, not what lies I was told to believe to be a part of someone else’s plan. Definitely not Malekith’s and no one else’s.” Mattias begins, sparing a glance back to her as an arm lowers to the front of her hip, palm turning around to press into her side. “And you’ve done just that. You’ve brought me here. That there’s worse coming was no one’s doing but Malekith’s, and for that, I’m grateful.”

Mattias turns his attention to the raven, speaking to Amora as he watches the sign.

“Our home?” Mattias leaves the question to the air. “At this point, I don’t know what I’m entitled to, if anything, but if there’s a home for me in this place, I would want you to be welcome in it and a part of it. For both of us, this has been an uphill battle.” Mattias twists at the waist and looks back to Amora, catching her eyes out of the corner of his sockets.
“Nothing less than this.” Mattias nods in agreement to her, then shifts his eyes to the lavish apartments. “If by nothing less than this, you mean, it would be hard to not say goodbye entirely to Midgard, though this matters not. I’ve pledged myself to aid and defend Asgard.”

Mattias grows silent.

“Which means I’ve declared my true home.”

//

The state of their exposure, or the scant lack thereof in regards to cover is not Amora’s concern. There was a message, there was a meaning, and somewhere in there… A heart pulsed, a fleeting moment of heat, passion, truth in it all.

”You will not win this!”
// laughter echoes into darkness while a pool ripples.//

        How many scrys’ have been broken?

Mattias’ touch to the exposed spanse of hip, half covered in the drop of sateen fabric can feel the heat, and if tips of fingers dared to press, the pulse is there, evident like a war drum in the life-lines of carotid.

Mattias’ words echo in the backdrop of her mind, while in the forefront, that Raven (a Sigil of Odin) is given acknowledgement despite the past that has put up a wall of bullet-proof proportions…

        ..But eye(s) are daggers.

“I know what we  call home,” A draw of her body aligns to the back of Mattias’ own, but her body is following the flow of her hand, where palm smears cross shoulder blade laden in sinew and honed trial of enchantress proportions. “I just want to be sure that which can be burned, Is no longer part of history…”

From one shoulder to the next, the form of Amora in whispering in a play of pressure and breathe, “That home is what you shall get.” A glance, a spark of emerald gaze alight within garnet infusion heads Mattias’ way.

A moment of serpentine pressure, forked tongue, chaste-isement…

History shared…

“You need to forge your Siege, Mattias.” A pause enough that has Amora daring a one-eye’d stare of her own towards the raven before that near-serpentine ravel of limb, about Mattias draws her back. “Did you see the ashes I sent, or no… A Laurel…” Lars….

“I said,” A pause and even if there is a *flicker* of something else , hidden in those eyes that suddenly go a frosted moss hue before they turn back towards the streets of Asgard below, then seal behind lids dusted in kohl and ash. “Welcome to your home. Even Sons can proclaim another loyalty and keep their place amongst Gods, while abandoning Queens. But that matters not…”

A pause that gains girth, lips lined in plum tic upward at corners as her eyes reflect the streets and skies in their rise to only cut the raven’s way as it skips back on talon’d feet, scrapes tally marks across Elder Stone and casts a shadow on the North-most Moon. “You belong here, even if war of many sons needs to pass. It is an Epic to be told, and you….”

A few breathes between them, a capture of hand, a gesture that could have left him pin-pricked…. Amora draws him in and brushes her cheek along his own cut-and-defined jaw line as she utters. “Get what you deserve. He will suffer for trying to demean You. Demean Asgard. Your right.”

A lingering in passage and slowly her hand releases, her foot draws back to seek a breadth between them… “When do you wish to make your  Ox Sigr-hamrammr, whole?”

//

Mattias lowers his head, watching Amora the Enchantress out of the corner of his eye as she moves behind him. Ear pointed to the one-eyed bird, he breathes down through the braids in his long, blonde hair that were there upon waking; he’s yet to question them. A beast in the present tense, he has a talent for honing his senses for what is in front of him, always, but the bigger picture, he is always one step behind the mind of Amora. Thus, he watches, he listens, he keeps to the present, ever-confident like the Sons of Odin, that when the time comes, he will be the victor.

    Even Achilles had his bravado; it was a bravado that ended him.

“I saw that you sent ashes into the sky, but I never truly asked what they said. Not what they meant, either. That you did seemed more than enough to make Malekith furious.” Mattias replies, rubbing quietly at his jaw to find the week’s growth to be gone, shaven clean. So clean that one would think that hair had never grown. “But worry not about abandonment and greed, not from me, Amora. This is my home, and my people are here, and my people are many, clear as I can see from this balcony.”

Mattias, however, looks not to the people below. His eyes are cast in one direction, and one alone. In such blue eyes rests a hint of fondness, but no, these words aren’t spoken with the magics of her enchantment, but a statement of loyalty.

He hasn’t forgotten how he’s come to this place.

“Malekith isn’t going to wait until I’m ready,” Mattias begins to turn from the balcony, walking in naked carelessness towards the curtains at the apartment’s archways. “My mother is trapped and held hostage; he’s going to use her as a means to get to me. This is going to be ugly, even if I’m a player in the war of many sons, but from what I see, he isn’t going to wait until I’ve found an unbeatable way to take him down and end this once and for all. To reclaim my right. To right these wrongs.”

Mattias crosses the room. The tile, cold on his feet, shimmers with the lit fires in the corner of the room and the roaring of the massive coalfired hearth in the center of the room, wrapped in chains. He steps to the table of food, plucking a grape free to pop it past his teeth.

“When, Amora?” Mattias speaks over his shoulder, turning two goblets over. “I’m considering whether or not one night to see my home is something I can afford. It should be whole by the time this fight starts, which could be any time. Is one night a foolish thought? I cannot decide.”

The wine pools against the walls of the goblets as he pours.

“All I know, for sure, is that this is not done, and I cannot stop to celebrate my victories long.” He continues in the language of Asgard; his accent has slowly improved. “To not put this as most important would be an insult to my birthright and the risks you’ve taken, so no later, not one second later than the coming of dawn.”

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