[Loki, Thor, Valkyrie] Asgardians play rough

[st_ratagem]

The Inn, while not technically all that small, seemed to get emptier and smaller with time. That was, in Loki’s experience, one of the features of imprisonment in general. The business of every day was simply filling the day, finding what novelty one could in order to vary the texture of time.

Today, for some reason, he’d opted to appear in the Inn’s fitness room slash sparring arena to watch Thor and the Valkyrie spar. He had no intention of challenging the winner, of course; Thor would demolish him and he generally preferred less public locations for anything involving Valkyrie and violence in his direction. But it would at least be interesting to watch the two have fun or bleed off aggression, and possibly play spoiler of sorts - a few little tricks to tip the scales one way or the other in case one of them got complacent.

Sniping from the sidelines was, after all, entirely his style.

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[st_ormbreaker]

Close quarters didn't exactly work well for Thor's usual lightning-heavy fighting style -- something that became all too obvious to him during the attack on The Statesman. While most combat favored the outdoors, there were moments where he couldn't rely on big open spaces to fight. True, he managed to hold his own against the Hulk on the helicarrier (well, mostly), but that had been with Mjolnir's assistance. He couldn't always count on himself to have a weapon in battle and he couldn't count on being able to use his powers, either.

"You know, Midgardians have a phrase they use when they're trying to antagonize one another into combat," Thor informs, rolling his neck. "It's 'Come at me, bro.'"

Thor cracks his knuckles, now readied for combat. "Come at me whenever you're ready."

[st_allionofdoom]

Valkyrie smoothly stepped onto the mat as Thor did, clad comfortably in a sweater-and-sweats combo that allowed for plenty of freedom of movement. The Midgardian attire was piss-poor with durability, but it followed you everywhere. "I started in on you last time, 'bro.' You lost. I'm feeling charitable this time."

[st_ratagem]

"Well, one of you should do something!" Loki called from the sideline, just to stir things up. "If you're just going to stand on opposite sides of a mat and preen at each other, I might get bored." It was unlikely, since Loki was good at making his own fun, but it was a decent threat.

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor rolls his eyes at his brother. "All right," Thor says. "But don't go easy on me just because you won last time." Sure, he doesn't want her pulling her punches, but if she's going to give him starting advantage, who is he to say no to it?

Thor charges in, dists at the ready and launches his assault; he's not nearly as nimble as Valkyrie is, but what he lacks in finesse, he makes up for in sheer power. He attempts to lay two punches to her stomach -- a good way to knock the wind out of them (quite literally) before the fight's even really gotten started.

[st_allionofdoom]

Valkyrie has already prepared her swift counter strike in her mind as Thor closed in, visualizing how she’d use his energy against him to swiftly turn the tide.

Unfortunately for her, those two punches were launching her clear across the gym and shattering the wall-sized mirrors when she momentarily became one with them. Several loud cracks echoed in the gym as her petite frame smacked the floor, glass sprinkling her body.

[st_ratagem]

Getting kicked some distance, into a surface (wall, tree, mirror) wasn’t unusual even in sparring matches. Loki himself - no real warrior - even accepted it as, essentially, the cost of playing the game. It was not, therefore, worrying in itself that Valkyrie had gotten so impressively flung.

What had Loki at full attention, reaching out (mostly mentally, but also a tiny physical step or two), and throttling down something almost like having his own breath knocked out of him, was everything else about it. How early in the match it had occurred, how she hadn’t dodged or countered. How she hadn’t rolled back to her feet before actually landing. How the spike and throb of pain radiating from her (when they were in the same place, Loki paid attention on reflex) seemed off, too sharp for a basic blow. Thor wouldn’t have hit her that hard....

[st_ormbreaker]

Valkyrie's lackluster performance hasn't gone unnoticed by Thor; she's sparred with him many, many times and he's been bested by her many, many times as well. This was uncharacteristic.

Still, Thor knows she wouldn't want him to go easy on her, so he doesn't call the bout off -- but he doesn't advantage of her in her prone state, either.

"You forget to stretch?" he asks, casually sauntering towards her.

[st_allionofdoom]

Gasping and coughing, Valkyrie’s palms scraped the mat and the broken glass as her attempts to push to her feet only ended up into a dead roll onto her back to ease the extreme pain spreading through her torso.

“I would—never.” She caught Thor’s haughty smirk upside down and she had to reply with one of her own, twisted by agony as it was, but she was single-minded now as she forced herself up onto her side. Then, the world was spinning. A minor thing.

[st_ratagem]

And that was nothing but wrong. The pain wasn’t dulling, and a Valkyrie not on her feet was a Valkyrie who couldn’t get on her feet, so say nothing of the gargoyle smile she wasn offering Thor, the near-blackout, and the blood on the floor the mirror’s glass had scrapiher palms.

Thor was no threat. Loki knew it logically. Thor would back down, call for a healer (probably Loki himself, given his proximity), be beside himself with worry. Still, unreason had taken over, and worry and fear pushed Loki to move, almost instantly putting himself between his brother and his injured lover. “Stop. Something’s wrong.”

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor frowns at Loki's sudden intrusion. He's still frowning when he lifts the heels of his feet off the ground to look at Valyrie, still trying to peel herself off the ground and the shards of glass that surround her.

"Val?"

Worry swells inside of Thor as he moves to pass Loki -- not to fight, but to check on a friend.

[st_allionofdoom]

Valkyrie didn’t hear the two, though she did realize the match was bafflingly called to a halt. “C’mon...” Goading weakly, she had enough strength to lift her head before it went dark. Her body gave out well before her spirit and she dropped back to the floor, barely even feeling herself hit it.

[st_ratagem]

For half a second, Loki almost made the insane decision to try and fight Thor away, but the blink-out of Valkyrie’s consciousness yanked all of his not-exactly-panicked (but close!) attention to her body on the floor.

He turned and fell to his knees beside her, stroking fingertips over her cheek for several seconds, as if that would help at all or get her attention. “Stubborn woman.” It took every ounce of willpower he had, after a lifetime of practice choking down or hiding emotion, to shift from useless caresses to light touches and gentle spells intended to diagnose the extent of her injuries.

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor quickly clammors to the other side of her and crouches down low. His brows furrow with worry as the ends of his lips pull into a frown. His gaze skims over her face. She almost looks like she's sleeping.

His head swivels towards Loki. "Is she okay?"

This wasn't like her at all.

[st_allionofdoom]

Her body coughed reflexively as Loki’s touch glanced over her midline. Valkyrie’s brow was still knit tightly, her consciousness wavering. Had she enough lucidity, she’d have already insisted on merely walking it off.

[st_ratagem]

“No, she isn’t.” Loki hated the shake in his voice, the little choke that made his upset clear, but kept himself rigidly on task. “Broken ribs. Concussion. Ruptured... spleen, I think? Internal bleeding is obscuring anything else. Everything else.” Green energy floated between his fingers, sinking into Valkyrie’s body to probe gently. “If you can understand this, dearest, I will kill you if you try to move.”

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor swallows the guilt to focus on what's in front of him. Valkyrie, badly hurt; Loki, uncharacteristically upset. Thor bites back the urge to ask if Loki is okay. He knows exactly what he'd say if he asked, anyway.

"What do you need?" he asks instead.

[st_allionofdoom]

Valkyrie's pained expression softened somewhat, the hand guarding her midsection relaxing. As stubborn as she was, her body seemed to have an understanding of when to behave for a healer.

[st_ratagem]

That was something, at least, that relaxation. Loki looked up at his brother. “Bandages, just in case. Supplies to clean her hands. Painkillers.” Moving Valkyrie seemed like an extraordinarily bad idea, and the clinic didn’t have the supplies or equipment to deal with this kind of internal injury anyway. Leaving her in pain by waiting for natural healing was not an option, even if he was certain that would work. “...Food and water. I’m going to have to try magical healing, so she’ll need that when I’m done.” If his effort didn’t kill her outright.

[st_ormbreaker]

"I'll be back." Thor is immediately on his feet, and a few moments later, is out the room in a flash.

[st_allionofdoom]

Labored as it was, her breathing persisted. Her dark eyes cracked open to gaze at the ceiling, making out shapes and light, though they were slow to make sense at first. Catching movement, her eyes trained on Loki who bore unmistakable features, blurry or no.

[st_ratagem]

Eyes open and focusing, or trying to. That was good, and touched off some frankly idiotic relief: if she was even a little sensible, her head injury at least might not be as bad as he’d feared.

In no small part due to that relief, Loki leaned down and kissed her forehead lightly, careful not to jar anything. “You’ll be all right. We’ll get started when Thor gets back.”

[st_allionofdoom]

Though she couldn’t do much beyond twitch her lips, she wore a brief and tired smirk that asked what that look on his face was for.

‘I’ve had worse.’ True, she barely realized the extent of what she had, but she felt confident of this fact.

[st_ratagem]

“I don’t doubt it.” The magic investigating her body made is easier than it might otherwise have been to hear thing she intended to say but couldn’t. “My threat stands, though, so I’ll repeat it: if you try to move, dearest, I will kill you.”

[st_allionofdoom]

Valkyrie gave a stuttering, coughing sigh and then she was gone again. Her thoughts hadn't held together for more than a second to question how she'd gotten from point A to B or the absurdity of being in the state of that carnival game she and Loki had enjoyed from a few love taps.

[st_ratagem]

The second or two of relief in a lucid Valkyrie meant that Loki was able to keep from returning to the same level of fear and worry that had tried to control him up to then. That meant he could stroke her hair away from her face - for his comfort rather than hers, it had to be said - and wait quietly instead of what the fear wanted him to do: start trying to heal her before Thor got back.

He'd need Thor to knock him away the moment a healing spell went wrong. Valkyrie might not survive errors; this wasn't a little cut to the hand, it actually mattered if he accidentally rotted the wound instead of healing it.