20 - Blade
Title: Blade
Team: Longcoats
Characters: Azkadellia/Vy-Sor, Zero
Rating: Teen
Note: Takes place about seven years before the series. Slightly Wind 'Verse, hence the time-line estimate, provided by Zero's rank (captain).
Length: About 960. It was already too long, and I just didn't care enough to edit.
Challenge: 20, Stick
-x-
He wasn’t worthy of her love. Since the first flutter of adoration transformed to lust, he’d lost. His heart. His will. It was disturbed. Lust developed like the greens of spring, and never died with each virginal snowfall of winter. He did not know what to do, and so went to her one day, the lump of fear in his throat, and knelt before the goddess, her beauty irrefutable.
‘Have you cursed me?’
The humility and grace of him made her smile. She laid her hand over the top of his head, offering him to rise, and yet he stayed at her feet. Regarding such power at its source would injure.
‘Curse you? Oh, Vy-Sor, your devotion is everything to me.’
But he fathomed the truth of her, that she was not herself. Lucid moments, when her mind belonged to her, she would cling to him, both day and night, no matter the hour, and declare her heart to be in his hands. She asked him for everything when her mind belonged to her.
The first gift she gave him was a dagger, antique, beautiful, jewels glistening at the handle. ‘It has never spilled blood,’ Azkadellia told him, ‘but I hope you use it to spill mine.’
It would be better for the world, for the universe, if he would cut out her heart. ‘You do not know the depth of my cruelty.’
‘You do not know the depth of my anguish,’ Vy-Sor cried. ‘To kill you would be the end of my world.’
‘If you don’t do it, you will never know happiness beyond the eclipse. No one will.’ Azkadellia grasped him, kissed him, and saw herself slipping back into the veil. ‘Don’t tell me when… Only, you must do it quickly.’
Many times had he drawn the knife from its confines, examined it, held it in his hands, that blade which might save the world by murdering the woman he loved. The magic cast upon it tingled his hands, and yet as the weeks sped on, its spell never diminished, and his will never altered. He could not stick her with such a thing. It was impossible. He had nightmares about the blood, about feeling her last breath upon his skin. Hurting her was beyond him, and he returned the knife to her, tears of disappointment in his eyes.
‘At last, I have failed you, Sorceress.’ He prayed she wield the knife and turn it upon him. The blood would feel hot against his throat, as hers had in his nightmares. But she stood close as the box was lifted, and his palms were freed from the burden.
Azkadellia examined the contents, the shine of the blade catching in her eyes. ‘I gave this to you? When?’
His need for redemption ended there. She had forgotten him. Only with the twist of suns, moons, and stars aligning, did she remember him, passion triumphant, and love unending.
*
He woke in her bed and noticed her gone. The shimmering negligee caught dim lamplight, halting in front of the dressing table. The reflection in the glass revealed an Azkadellia he once remembered, that she had once been: sad, determined, broken, hopeless. Her long fingertips caressed the knife’s carcass, and she drew the blade from the peace within. All he knew was Azkadellia, the love of her, the woman whose spirit had infected his, and the insanity of deference saved her. The blade had punctured her skin, nothing more than a mark of red, at a place above her breast. She gasped in shock at his interference. The knife clanked to the floor, and in the quiet aftermath, Azkadellia fell against him, weeping.
‘Maybe the world should end,’ she said. ‘It would end, and I would be gone, and no one will suffer again.’
*
In the morning, Vy-Sor hailed Zero. He was a better horseman than most of the army’s most trusted soldiers, and he completed tasks without gossip. Vy-Sor gave to him the unadorned box. ‘Take it to the R.I.P. and throw it in. If you fail, Captain, throw yourself into the R.I.P. instead.’
The moment he reached an isolated spot of the R.I.P., Zero opened the box, if only to set his gaze upon the object so potent with magic that it had distracted him morning to evening, had made his horse remiss, and had made him wish he could, if asked, kill the Sorceress himself.
For such thoughts, the blade was not a surprise. He regarded it a single time to acknowledge the power of its curse. Over the edge, he let it fall, and listened to it tumble until there was nothing but the rush of water and breeze in the trees.
*
Afterwards, Azkadellia faded, her true self less and less exhibited. She had ceased to love Vy-Sor, had ceased to love all things, and out of the collapse of love, her hatred rose, and the nothingness of her immediate world expanded.
Vy-Sor could not bring her back. She had forgotten him, but she had left his heart yearning for her, pitying her, adoring her. Yet he waited, years and years, for the agony he had known, and the retribution she had planned, to come and end forever, with the freezing of the eclipse.
He handed her the emerald, in a case so like the one that had contained the knife, and watched the gem fall around her neck. She had won, for now, the false win of evil.
There, at the end of all, he realised how thoroughly Azkadellia’s curse had gone. True love, he believed, was for the breaking of demoniac spells, and was not meant to be a curse itself.
Love, he thought, could still save her. But it would not be his love.
Team: Longcoats
Characters: Azkadellia/Vy-Sor, Zero
Rating: Teen
Note: Takes place about seven years before the series. Slightly Wind 'Verse, hence the time-line estimate, provided by Zero's rank (captain).
Length: About 960. It was already too long, and I just didn't care enough to edit.
Challenge: 20, Stick
-x-
He wasn’t worthy of her love. Since the first flutter of adoration transformed to lust, he’d lost. His heart. His will. It was disturbed. Lust developed like the greens of spring, and never died with each virginal snowfall of winter. He did not know what to do, and so went to her one day, the lump of fear in his throat, and knelt before the goddess, her beauty irrefutable.
‘Have you cursed me?’
The humility and grace of him made her smile. She laid her hand over the top of his head, offering him to rise, and yet he stayed at her feet. Regarding such power at its source would injure.
‘Curse you? Oh, Vy-Sor, your devotion is everything to me.’
But he fathomed the truth of her, that she was not herself. Lucid moments, when her mind belonged to her, she would cling to him, both day and night, no matter the hour, and declare her heart to be in his hands. She asked him for everything when her mind belonged to her.
The first gift she gave him was a dagger, antique, beautiful, jewels glistening at the handle. ‘It has never spilled blood,’ Azkadellia told him, ‘but I hope you use it to spill mine.’
It would be better for the world, for the universe, if he would cut out her heart. ‘You do not know the depth of my cruelty.’
‘You do not know the depth of my anguish,’ Vy-Sor cried. ‘To kill you would be the end of my world.’
‘If you don’t do it, you will never know happiness beyond the eclipse. No one will.’ Azkadellia grasped him, kissed him, and saw herself slipping back into the veil. ‘Don’t tell me when… Only, you must do it quickly.’
Many times had he drawn the knife from its confines, examined it, held it in his hands, that blade which might save the world by murdering the woman he loved. The magic cast upon it tingled his hands, and yet as the weeks sped on, its spell never diminished, and his will never altered. He could not stick her with such a thing. It was impossible. He had nightmares about the blood, about feeling her last breath upon his skin. Hurting her was beyond him, and he returned the knife to her, tears of disappointment in his eyes.
‘At last, I have failed you, Sorceress.’ He prayed she wield the knife and turn it upon him. The blood would feel hot against his throat, as hers had in his nightmares. But she stood close as the box was lifted, and his palms were freed from the burden.
Azkadellia examined the contents, the shine of the blade catching in her eyes. ‘I gave this to you? When?’
His need for redemption ended there. She had forgotten him. Only with the twist of suns, moons, and stars aligning, did she remember him, passion triumphant, and love unending.
*
He woke in her bed and noticed her gone. The shimmering negligee caught dim lamplight, halting in front of the dressing table. The reflection in the glass revealed an Azkadellia he once remembered, that she had once been: sad, determined, broken, hopeless. Her long fingertips caressed the knife’s carcass, and she drew the blade from the peace within. All he knew was Azkadellia, the love of her, the woman whose spirit had infected his, and the insanity of deference saved her. The blade had punctured her skin, nothing more than a mark of red, at a place above her breast. She gasped in shock at his interference. The knife clanked to the floor, and in the quiet aftermath, Azkadellia fell against him, weeping.
‘Maybe the world should end,’ she said. ‘It would end, and I would be gone, and no one will suffer again.’
*
In the morning, Vy-Sor hailed Zero. He was a better horseman than most of the army’s most trusted soldiers, and he completed tasks without gossip. Vy-Sor gave to him the unadorned box. ‘Take it to the R.I.P. and throw it in. If you fail, Captain, throw yourself into the R.I.P. instead.’
The moment he reached an isolated spot of the R.I.P., Zero opened the box, if only to set his gaze upon the object so potent with magic that it had distracted him morning to evening, had made his horse remiss, and had made him wish he could, if asked, kill the Sorceress himself.
For such thoughts, the blade was not a surprise. He regarded it a single time to acknowledge the power of its curse. Over the edge, he let it fall, and listened to it tumble until there was nothing but the rush of water and breeze in the trees.
*
Afterwards, Azkadellia faded, her true self less and less exhibited. She had ceased to love Vy-Sor, had ceased to love all things, and out of the collapse of love, her hatred rose, and the nothingness of her immediate world expanded.
Vy-Sor could not bring her back. She had forgotten him, but she had left his heart yearning for her, pitying her, adoring her. Yet he waited, years and years, for the agony he had known, and the retribution she had planned, to come and end forever, with the freezing of the eclipse.
He handed her the emerald, in a case so like the one that had contained the knife, and watched the gem fall around her neck. She had won, for now, the false win of evil.
There, at the end of all, he realised how thoroughly Azkadellia’s curse had gone. True love, he believed, was for the breaking of demoniac spells, and was not meant to be a curse itself.
Love, he thought, could still save her. But it would not be his love.