Sleep hardly ever came easy to Cressida and it had been that way since she got her mutation at age eight. It was growing increasingly difficult to believe that there ever was a time when the voices didn't whisper to her in the early hours of the morning. When the thoughts of others' didn't spiral and swirl around in her head; a plethora of mental voices who all competed for her attention and whispered their secrets, jealousies, losses and pains. There were sometimes beams of giddiness and excitement that broke through the darkness of the nightmares, but they were far and few between.
Cressida pulled up the sheets to cover her shoulders. Then she turned, feeling them being tucked in beneath her tightly, and she felt instantly comforted. It wasn't difficult for her to imagine that she was still in her childhood home, an English Revival mansion on Graymalkin lane in Westchester County, and she could almost pretend that it was her uncle's voice that was speaking to her, not the whispers of tormented thoughts. Erik Lehnsherr had always been the one to tuck her into bed when her father had been away on conferences, talks or missions; he would tell her stories in German and French so that she'd be forced to pay attention to his mind only for the translation, not let her powers and her worries slip into other's thoughts. Cressida smiled to think of the sharp angles that he'd fold the blanket, the tight way he'd tuck her in. It was a military habit that he'd been too unbothered to try to forget, she knew. But the young telepath had tried not to read his thoughts too deeply while he told her the stories. They were always sad.
Closing her eyes, she felt sleep tease the edges of her mind. . . and then the images of battle began to unfold. Frowning, the telepath tried to determine whose thoughts she was seeing. There were no mental voices in this image, which was strange because most memories had a 'mental voice' - a play-by-play of conscious thought and the soft susurrant hiss of a subconscious voice. But not this one. Like radio static, this voice was silent and indistinct. Yet Cressida's skin was starting to grow cold - because she knew what that radio static sound was. It was the thrum-pump of a battle-ready heart. It was war.
The Battle of Sokovia. Cressida's pulse started to skip as she watched as screaming people were being attacked. The worst part about it was that she could tell from the terror in their eyes that they were screaming, but no sound came from their mouths. The only sound was that racing pulse and the short, muffled sound of breathing as the person ran. People that she recognised flared through her mind - Natasha Romanoff fighting a band of metal soldiers, the sun glinting off of Iron Man's mask - and then a face that she hadn't seen in years. Cressida's breath caught.
Pietro.
Blood pooling through a silver-mesh suit. Blots like red, fluid-filled flowers that blossomed from the bullet wounds. Cressida's murmurs twisted in her throat, becoming a cry of pain as she watched her friend die. She had heard what had happened to him, of course, but to see him die in front of her. Scrubbing at her eyelids desperately, she begged for the images to stop. But the carnage continued around her dying friend as she finally watched him fall to the ground. Eyes open sightlessly, his lips spewing blood as he met his final -
"Shh. Calm now."
"No," Cressida's voice broke.
The arms that came for the woman were not forceful: they did not try to wrap around her waist or pull her back from where she was curled up on her side. In her distress, the hand that reached out to comfort her brushed lightly up her spine, coming to rest on her shoulder. That large, warm hand was trying to soothe her. Breathing sharply, she cringed against the images that pounded through her head. Robots firing round after round. People dropping to the floor like discarded paper dolls. Blood. So much blood. . .
"Darling."
"They're dying," She cried, clutching at her head, "I can see all of them - they're just -"
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Lore: When a Trickster Meets His Match
Fanfic"Loki." Her hands were timid. They were much more shy than he had been, which should've made him wonder if he'd been too forward with his actions in the first place, and there was a tremble in each fingertip as she gently reached out and put her ha...
