tushanshu_logs | Am I Part of the Cure

Entry tags:

Am I Part of the Cure

Characters: Valdis and some open
Date: All of July
Location: Throughout Keeliai
Situation: Various
Warnings/Rating: In headers

May had been a complete and utter mess. Between the anonymous accusations, the failings of her plan regarding them, her own foolishness and the cultist attack, Valdis couldn’t seem to pull the pieces back together. It was extraordinarily grating to feel so out of control. She still didn’t have her position back at the KPD, so she filled her time teaching at the Dojo, reading and rereading books and wandering the streets at night. Sleeping was difficult, not for nightmares, but she felt too restless. There was too much to do in the aftermath of the Cultist attacks, and she had no idea where to start. Useless, was the word. June hadn’t been much better, but at least there had been a sense of calm and healing, no matter how false the calm seemed.

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For the sake of lightning in the clouds, Kratos could weather the heat. He couldn't fly as far as orbit, in this place; having low-hanging stormclouds come to him, even unbroken, was almost as good, if in a different way.

It meant that Kratos spent some time aloft, drawing lightning from the clouds and spinning them into bolts, watching lightning arc from bank to bank. Metal Sector, especially, seemed liable to draw electrical currents.

He descended wreathed in blue lightning, hair fluffed from static, clothes damp from rain. He'd been aiming for an empty alley, but by the time he got there it was no longer empty; and the flash of blade was clear enough, even if he hadn't recognised Valdis.

Peace, was unspoken in Valdis's head, relaxed and unconcerned as Kratos alighted in the street, backlit by the blue glow of his wings. Tonight they're furry tendrils of static, rather than sharp crystalline petals, bathing the darkened street with a circle of blue light.

Had she been in Hound form, her hackles would have been raised, even soaked as she was from the rain. Valdis waited until he had landed, taking in the blue wings, the light of which was countered by the glow from the red gem in her blade, painting the space between them in purple light.

"Stay out of my head," she commanded, her tone sharp. Never mind that the demand was slightly hypocritical.

It was a marked difference in their previous encounters -- although perhaps not to be unexpected given the way Kratos had been forced to manhandle her. But it did make Kratos raise his eyebrows at her.

"You're in my head, are you not?" he asked, remembering what she'd said about being an empath. He did not, perhaps, have a right to judge; but then, neither did Valdis.

He didn't generally opt to keep his wings out in public, but given Valdis's reaction, he might need them. "Do you think I intend to harm you?"

And he'd been having such fun five minutes ago -- a rare enough occasion. This was a rather unwelcome return to reality.

"I have very little control over my empathetic abilities, if that is what you mean," she replied, noting that his wings did not fade, "And those do not key off your mind, only your soul."

At his question, she slowly uncurled her fingers from around the hilt of her blade and lowered her hand. Valdis didn't think he ever meant to harm her, but her resentment stayed nonetheless.

"I recognize that what happened is my own fault and what you did was only self defense, but that doesn't make me any less wary of you or your abilities."

In response to Valdis's active effort to stand down, Kratos's wings dissolved into blue light-motes, which then faded altogether, leaving the street darker than it had been.

"If you recognise that my actions have only ever been in response to yours," he said, "then why do you feel threatened by mine even so?" He tipped his head, watching her unblinking. "And even then ask for my aid with the dungeon?"

His tone was neutral, but there was something flatly discouraging about the situation. So much for a new world in which to make some fashion of new life. He didn't disagree that angels were to be feared more than revered; but it struck him as bitterly unfair that he could be as unthreatening as possible and still be seen as a threat.

That was how half-elves had lived.

That was how he, the inferior angelic being, had had to live too.

More tension released and breathing felt slightly easier when the wings dissipated, though Valdis couldn't quite decide why that made much difference.

"Instinct," came her reply, "The angels on my world, by their volition, are my sworn enemies. In their eyes I am an abomination, something dangerous to be destroyed. So while you may not have done anything wrong, past experiences leave scars."

Like how her own father had tried to kill her...though that hadn't been painful at the time, the more she thought about it, the more it hurt.

"Not very fair of me, but if it makes you feel better, I'm generally wary of those possessing the power to destroy me, Raine included." Though Valdis stil considered the woman a friend. "

And to answer your question I asked because I knew you wouldn't try to stop me. It was foolish and for that I apologize." A short sigh, "and I suppose I should also apologize for trying to kill you."

Well, that ... was not a response Kratos expected. Not the first part. The first part, from his perspective, was something everyone experienced and no excuse to fall into habits which escalated violence.

(Not that he had room to judge.)

"Not particularly." But some of the flatness eased from his bearing, regarding her more properly neutral. The apology was the surprising part. "You weren't the one trying to kill me," he said simply. There was no need to apologise for that. No, it was the fact that she seemed to feel she'd taken advantage of him. "That depends on which part you consider foolish."

The part where she'd asked him with ulterior motives, or the part where she went under at all.

The man didn't seem to accept her explanation as reasonable, but he didn't know the extent of it, and she had originally tried to fight the instinct, but wariness was still reasonable in her mind. Valdis knew that she was lucky he hadn't defended himself with light magic, whether that had been on purpose or not on his part, she didn't know.

"I couldn't have predicted the possession, but the last time I was down there, I lost it and my...friend had to convince me to leave. I knew that there was a possibilty that I might lose it again, which is why I desired backup and who better than someone capable of stopping me and who didn't know me well enough to know that it was a risky idea."

She sighed.

"It was a worthless endeavor in the end. I didn't even learn anything useful."

Kratos, these days, had some semblance of what she meant by 'it'. And, after a fashion, she had taken advantage of his ignorance. But he couldn't say, necessarily, that she'd done the wrong thing, or that he wouldn't have done something similar, had he the background knowledge.

"It was foolish," he agreed impassively, "but I wouldn't say it was worthless. We know there was something left, and we know something of its state. And we know that it dislikes light, and how it tends to hide itself, and how it defends itself."

Those are all useful things to know. Maybe there wouldn't have been a threat at all, if she hadn't gone in. But maybe someone else would have. Or already had.

"Perhaps we learned a bit," she admitted, "But not enough to have made it worthwhile."

Valdis didn't particularly feel like dwelling on it though and there was another matter to discuss.

"The Void couldn't kill you," she said bluntly, "The only other time I've ever known it to be repelled like that is in the case of the barrier protecting my soul from it."

"No," he said simply. "Not really." It wasn't as useless as she thought; but it would have been better had she done something else. It wasn't a hook he had a right to let her down from. Nor did it seem like she wanted to be let off it.

... And Kratos would much rather be discussing the merits of the recon attempt than this. His eyes flickered, sliding momentarily sideways before fixing on her again.

"I also have something of a barrier in my soul."

Well, that shift in his gaze was interesting and her own sharpened as she focused on him with all her senses.

"Was yours put there by a holy sword as well?"

It was an attempt at sarcasm, or perhaps humor. Revelations hadn't exactly been kind when it had restored her soul and created the barrier, and from how he acted, it seemed that he wasn't incredibly fond of discussing this barrier. Perhaps he had had a less than pleasant experience too.

"Holy isn't the word I'd have used to describe it." This was soft, though she'd be able to read nothing from him but grimly determined resignation. Perhaps holier than anything the angels had wielded. In its own way, it was also cursed, just as much as the Devil's Arms.

... Maybe that was why her sword had reflected so deeply in him. "So yours was used to lock away the Void."

He'd known what he felt when he picked up Revelations. He hadn't quite had context for why.

So there was a sword? Interesting. Though more interesting was the grim sense of acceptance. There was nothing else attached to it, no other emotions or feelings. Though he could shut himself off completely, so he had greater control than most. Her eyes widened slightly at his statement, it wasn't correct, but it wasn't necessarily wrong either.

"Not quite," she replied, "Revelations restored my soul to me and created a barrier that the Void cannot cross. The barrier doesn't contain the Void, it simply protects my soul from being taken by it again."

"Yet the Void is still in you." She spoke as though it were an outside intruder, a possession on its own ... no wonder she'd reacted to Guardian Field the way she had. Being possessed by two entities at once could have done significantly more damage.

"I presume the Void is the one who doesn't like light-based artes," he said, and motioned toward her. "Your mana is generally balanced between light and darkness."

If this distracted her from asking more about the seal, so much the better.

"It is," Valdis replied slowly, "It's like a parasite, though I wouldn't exactly call our relationship symbiotic." The second part, the reference to her mana, gave her pause for several moments. "That would make sense...the Void is a creature of darkness, but I was once an angel, so my soul must be the light mana that you sense."

Kratos's eyes flickered, and Valdis might feel a sense of deep discomfort. "You're an angel, but angels consider you an abomination for being possessed by a being you cannot control?"

So far her actions indicated that she didn't exactly want the Void in her.

And it lent more weight to what he'd felt from Revelations. The grief and the guilt and the painful love, all at once. The worst kind of heartache. His voice, unconsciously, softened. "And they made your brother try to kill you?"

"I was an angel," Valdis corrected, "But not anymore. I'm not of Heaven or Hell. Neither an Angel nor a Demon."

His discomfort didn't make any sense, so she tried to push it away, but the unexpected softness in his voice made such a thing difficult.

"Yes...but my father tried before that," she said, her voice quiet as she watched him without quite making eye contact, "But I killed him first...Though I didn't even know who he was at the time."

"Being possessed by a parasite doesn't mean you've stopped being an angel." His response is quick. Still even, but quick, with a kind of solid obstinacy accompanying it. After all, if she was no longer what she had been, could he still be? No. He was still human. He strove to still be human. Surely the Desians didn't let him forget it.

The angels in her world might tell her the opposite. That she didn't deserve to be one of them. They were wrong. (They had to be wrong.)

"You sound like my brother...but when your soul is gone and everything about you changes. When your morality has died and all you have left is the desire to hunt and bring chaos to the earth, then you are no longer what you were."

She knew she was no longer an Angel. Even though she now possessed a soul, she was still a Hellhound.

"I am dangerous without a soul, perhaps more so with one, at least in their eyes. They say it makes my powers unstable."

She now realized that while he had feelings about the topic he had successfully sidetracked her train of thought.

"Why do you care so much about it?"

"Everyone is dangerous without a soul." His voice was flat. "Some people are dangerous even with one. And it's plain to anyone who looks that having lost yours doesn't exclude you from regaining it. You may be different to how you were -- but that doesn't change that you are still partly an angel."

His words became slowly fierce, but his voice became low, easy to lose in the patter of rain -- as if to imbue them well enough with passion, they needed to be more controlled, not less. Her question is enough to cut him off for a breath, to realise he might be on the verge of talking without thinking.

The last time he'd done that, he'd told Lloyd what happened to his mother, in spite of Lloyd's demands that he stop. It was not a good habit to get into.

So before Kratos answered he fell silent, studying Valdis until he could be sure he wouldn't lose track of what he was saying. When he did speak, the passion was gone, and his tone was even. "I wasn't born an angel. No angels from my world were born angels. Most of them are half-elves. And most of them feel my having been born human sullies everything I do."

It wasn't something he liked to talk about, but he did remember that the last time they spoke like this, Valdis had walked away when he declined to give her equal information in return.

It became more evident with each word that Kratos had strong feelings connected to some sort of bias. A bias against him, or someone he knew. People didn't feel or speak like this when they were on the outside of a situation. She didn't have to strain to hear him, but his lowered voice, controlled, yet emotional in a certain way, didn't seem in line with the calculating being she had assumed he was.

She waited in the silence, letting him think without interruption, ready to depart should he decide to dismiss the question, but he didn't. The discrimination he faced explained his defense of her.

"I'm sorry," she replied after a few silent moments of her own, "It seems that you and I are both unique in our circumstances. You, a human angel, and myself, a Hellhound possessing a soul...Do all angels have barriers like yours?"

"No. Just me." Passion lapsed into grimly determined resignation once more. He hesitated. It wasn't in his nature to volunteer information, at least in part because it risked talking too much. But Valdis hadn't seemed to hold much back.

So after a moment he added, "I made a binding vow to someone. For someone."

It was not much of an explanation, really; but Kratos was conscious of words crowding his mouth, and so he fell silent instead. He did not intend to air all his past to the damp street.

Maybe she would guess to whom. She'd already heard his voice, after all.

Just one more way they were alike. Unique, even among their own kind, if either of them had a kind anymore. Valdis understood secrecy, though her darkest secret had been inadvertently revealed when she'd tried to kill him. Besides, she'd been in Keeliai long enough that she knew it was relatively safe here.

"A binding vow?"

Her tone went flat and she watched him through narrowed eyes. She didn't like that word, or what it implied and it was this vow that garnered her attention more so than the person he had made it for.

"Why?"

Not the focus Kratos thought she would take. He exhaled a little -- an explicit act, for him. "Because it was necessary, and because I trusted him."

Clearly some more explanation would be needed. He was silent for a moment, orienting himself; choosing what to say, what to not.

"Our world was dying," he said finally. "When we devised a way to save it, it involved being ... loaned ... the power of a spirit. My ... friend ..." She had only ever heard him refer to Mithos as a 'friend'. The friend who'd ordered him to kill his son. "... was the only one with the characteristics to be able to wield that power. But for the use we had planned, and the influence the spirit wielded over our world, the spirit had to be sealed away while my -- friend -- used his strength."

The rest should be clear from context. He fell silent again, watching her unblinking.

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