fic!
Author: arrogantmage
Title: One Last Favor
Word Count: 926
Notes: Based on extensive speculation with rebelvalkyrie on just what happened between chapters 4 and 6 of Valkyrie Profile 2. Canon universe.
Rating: PG-13. No sex, but Lezard's inner musings are never wholesome, are they?
Waste not, want not.
Once, the blue crystal was the engine that ran a world. Suddenly it's become obsolete. Though it remains unchanged and perfect, its power is no longer needed. A new source has entered the closed system that the crystal helped to build. Yet the crystal remains in its cloistered chamber at the summit of the world.
Outside, star-winds ripple fields of grey grasses, and monsters stalk in mindless vigil. The monsters are meant to hinder and to weaken the people now ascending toward the summit. They are a demonstration of might. They are also a demonstration of amorality. The master and creator of this world has chosen to use monsters as tools, an abomination to the people ascending. Once he fought alongside them to purify those unholy things. He did so under false pretenses, in another world. He did not create those monsters, nor that world. This place is different. Everything within this world belongs to him.
The woman in the blue crystal belongs to him too. It's too bad she isn't the one he wants.
"You may be wondering why I haven't yet freed you," says Lezard Valeth to the woman in the crystal. She does not answer, of course. She can't. Within her icy prison, her face is tranquil and untroubled. Her thoughts are unknown.
Lezard is certain she can hear him. It doesn't really matter whether or not that's true, of course. He doesn't need to tell her anything. He speaks to her because it pleases him to speak, to hear the sound of the voice he perfected for himself.
"After all, I don't need you anymore, do I? Please don't take this as a devaluation of the contribution you've made. I fully recognize that without your power I couldn't have defeated the All-Father. I suppose I could have waited to begin work on this place until after I'd acquired Odin's power, but I didn't want to risk it. It would hardly do for your dear sister to travel through time only to find me unprepared for guests!"
Light slides across the crystal's facets without touching the woman within. It protects her from everything except this man. This god, now. She has been passive accomplice to nothing less than his apotheosis.
He paces the chamber, nervous, beside himself with anticipation. Gleeful anticipation. He's like a child on the eve of some wondrous festival. Lezard has narrowed the scope of all his desires to a single wish, and its fulfillment is now trembling just outside his grasp, coming ever closer. All his dreams are one dream that's about to come true.
The only happiness that can possibly surpass this is the happiness he's sure will follow.
"I'll let you go very soon now," he promises the woman in the crystal. "I need one more favor of you, that's all. Not so much to ask, I think, after all we've been through together? After I saved you from the Three Mages, and then from Freya, and now that I've saved all the world from Odin's tyranny, surely you can do this one last thing for me, Silmeria."
His energy still resonates with hers, or rather the energy he's drawn from her still resonates with the energy she possesses. Perhaps she can feel his excitement, remote and distant though it must be through the insulation of her crystal prison, muffled as if through layers of cotton or banks of snow. Perhaps she can't help but share it. Perhaps she's yearning to be free, and exhilarated by the prospect of freedom so near. Who can say? She is frozen. The same faint trace of a smile has touched her lips since the crystal first formed around her.
She is almost like the homunculi Lezard used to grow in his laboratories. They were all so peaceful in their vats. Those creatures were all fashioned in Lenneth's image, though, and they took some time to make. The ones he has made recently, by a faster method and without the substrate of a stolen elf body to elaborate, didn't come out quite right. But they will still have a use, as will Silmeria. They sway dumbly in a stasis field awaiting their moment. One wears a semblance of Lezard's face, the other, Silmeria's: a grotesque Adam and Eve, their spoiled veins discoloring their faces, a macabre mockery of the originals.
"You'll deliver a message for me. It's nothing you wouldn't have done without my wishing it. I simply want you to go and tell your sister what I've become," Lezard instructs the woman in the crystal. It doesn't matter whether she can hear the instruction, since he knows as soon as Silmeria sees Lenneth she'll convey exactly what's intended. In the end, after so many lies, the truth finally serves Lezard's purposes best of all. "Tell her what a danger I am. Surely she'll want to stop me. It's what she's wanted for ever so long."
In a way, he has already won, he thinks: Lenneth is the one pursuing Lezard, across centuries, through knotted skeins of temporal paradox. She is the one who'll move heaven and earth to reach him.
All he has to do, now, is wait.
"Just a little while longer," he murmurs, as much to himself as to her. "Such a little while. Surely we can bide our time, you and I."
He does not touch the crystal with his hand, but his gaze has the valence of a caress, proprietary even without conscious intention. Everything in this world belongs to him. Everything.
Title: One Last Favor
Word Count: 926
Notes: Based on extensive speculation with rebelvalkyrie on just what happened between chapters 4 and 6 of Valkyrie Profile 2. Canon universe.
Rating: PG-13. No sex, but Lezard's inner musings are never wholesome, are they?
Waste not, want not.
Once, the blue crystal was the engine that ran a world. Suddenly it's become obsolete. Though it remains unchanged and perfect, its power is no longer needed. A new source has entered the closed system that the crystal helped to build. Yet the crystal remains in its cloistered chamber at the summit of the world.
Outside, star-winds ripple fields of grey grasses, and monsters stalk in mindless vigil. The monsters are meant to hinder and to weaken the people now ascending toward the summit. They are a demonstration of might. They are also a demonstration of amorality. The master and creator of this world has chosen to use monsters as tools, an abomination to the people ascending. Once he fought alongside them to purify those unholy things. He did so under false pretenses, in another world. He did not create those monsters, nor that world. This place is different. Everything within this world belongs to him.
The woman in the blue crystal belongs to him too. It's too bad she isn't the one he wants.
"You may be wondering why I haven't yet freed you," says Lezard Valeth to the woman in the crystal. She does not answer, of course. She can't. Within her icy prison, her face is tranquil and untroubled. Her thoughts are unknown.
Lezard is certain she can hear him. It doesn't really matter whether or not that's true, of course. He doesn't need to tell her anything. He speaks to her because it pleases him to speak, to hear the sound of the voice he perfected for himself.
"After all, I don't need you anymore, do I? Please don't take this as a devaluation of the contribution you've made. I fully recognize that without your power I couldn't have defeated the All-Father. I suppose I could have waited to begin work on this place until after I'd acquired Odin's power, but I didn't want to risk it. It would hardly do for your dear sister to travel through time only to find me unprepared for guests!"
Light slides across the crystal's facets without touching the woman within. It protects her from everything except this man. This god, now. She has been passive accomplice to nothing less than his apotheosis.
He paces the chamber, nervous, beside himself with anticipation. Gleeful anticipation. He's like a child on the eve of some wondrous festival. Lezard has narrowed the scope of all his desires to a single wish, and its fulfillment is now trembling just outside his grasp, coming ever closer. All his dreams are one dream that's about to come true.
The only happiness that can possibly surpass this is the happiness he's sure will follow.
"I'll let you go very soon now," he promises the woman in the crystal. "I need one more favor of you, that's all. Not so much to ask, I think, after all we've been through together? After I saved you from the Three Mages, and then from Freya, and now that I've saved all the world from Odin's tyranny, surely you can do this one last thing for me, Silmeria."
His energy still resonates with hers, or rather the energy he's drawn from her still resonates with the energy she possesses. Perhaps she can feel his excitement, remote and distant though it must be through the insulation of her crystal prison, muffled as if through layers of cotton or banks of snow. Perhaps she can't help but share it. Perhaps she's yearning to be free, and exhilarated by the prospect of freedom so near. Who can say? She is frozen. The same faint trace of a smile has touched her lips since the crystal first formed around her.
She is almost like the homunculi Lezard used to grow in his laboratories. They were all so peaceful in their vats. Those creatures were all fashioned in Lenneth's image, though, and they took some time to make. The ones he has made recently, by a faster method and without the substrate of a stolen elf body to elaborate, didn't come out quite right. But they will still have a use, as will Silmeria. They sway dumbly in a stasis field awaiting their moment. One wears a semblance of Lezard's face, the other, Silmeria's: a grotesque Adam and Eve, their spoiled veins discoloring their faces, a macabre mockery of the originals.
"You'll deliver a message for me. It's nothing you wouldn't have done without my wishing it. I simply want you to go and tell your sister what I've become," Lezard instructs the woman in the crystal. It doesn't matter whether she can hear the instruction, since he knows as soon as Silmeria sees Lenneth she'll convey exactly what's intended. In the end, after so many lies, the truth finally serves Lezard's purposes best of all. "Tell her what a danger I am. Surely she'll want to stop me. It's what she's wanted for ever so long."
In a way, he has already won, he thinks: Lenneth is the one pursuing Lezard, across centuries, through knotted skeins of temporal paradox. She is the one who'll move heaven and earth to reach him.
All he has to do, now, is wait.
"Just a little while longer," he murmurs, as much to himself as to her. "Such a little while. Surely we can bide our time, you and I."
He does not touch the crystal with his hand, but his gaze has the valence of a caress, proprietary even without conscious intention. Everything in this world belongs to him. Everything.