tushanshu_logs | I don't Wanna Battle from Beginning to End

Valdis arched a brow at him, lifting her glass to take a drink before deigning to answer.

"I'm just full of surprises, aren't I?" She swirled the liquid around, watching the olives turn over and move with the action, "And its not like fighting would make much of a difference when your opponent is an entire plane of existence."

She smirked at him, "Who knows, maybe this isn't such a bad thing." A short pause, "Death, I mean."

That... wasn't a conversation Zelos wanted to have. It wasn't a conversation he should have, either; if Raine were here she'd probably be changing the subject.

But weariness and apathy covered with smiles and drinks? Zelos understood that all too well.

"You're pessimistic," Zelos replied. "Some of the scientists think we'll live, you know. They also think we're going to straddle all the planes and be dead and alive at the same time, but you've gotta take the good news where you can get it."

"I'm a realist."

Valdis crossed one leg over the other, sitting back with her drink in her hand, regarding him with a neutral expression. It didn't know as much about this one as others, which made interaction more challenging. Going over what she did know still left too many variables.

"I'll live, after all, immortality has certain benefits, wouldn't you say?"

How come realists were always the people who went and sat in bars right before the end of the world, instead of getting up and actually doing something about it?

"Sure," said Zelos, stretching back to make himself comfortable as well. "I'll bet the ghosts dogging our heels are just loving the chance for immortality. You can see it all over their faces." He paused, and studied Valdis. "Also, I don't think surviving the end of the world can really be called a benefit."

... Goddess, listen to him. He sounded like Lloyd.

Valdis took another sip of her drink, contemplating the sarcasm with serene interest. The man's emotional state had spiked when she had mentioned Death. Perhaps there was something there to play with.

"Well, if you think about it, even if you die, you'll just come back as a ghost in this particular situation." She shot him a smile, "Dying is generally unpleasant though. But those visions, well, not all of them were horrible."

Zelos's expression visibly fell. Yeah, she was right. Dying now wasn't going to bring Zelos any peace. ... Not that he planned on it, if only because Raine's disappointment worked really well as a deterrent. And, if he was being honest with himself, because Kratos was becoming interesting enough to have a little fun with. But old habits died hard.

"They were all horrible," Zelos answered flatly. "Can we talk about something else? You go drinking to relive the glory days, not to talk about how we'll all probably be dead soon." Zelos shifted, eyed the bar to examine the available drinks. "So what were your glory days like?"

"My glory days?" Valdis took another drink, foregoing the ladylike sips to down the rest of the martini. She raised the glass to the bartender to indicate she wanted another, then set it down on the table and settled back again.

"Throughout the history of my world, the rise and falls of empires and peoples. Every bloody period from before the crusades to the world wars. Chaos and the intoxicating final breath...Those were my days of glory. My raison d'etre."

The server set her second drink on the table.

"A far cry from what I am today."

... Shit. She was immortal immortal. Like Yggdrasill, only happy when she had full power and full reason to use it. That was... very different from what Zelos thought Valdis was like, based on their handful of previous meetings.

He fell silent, abandoning his attempts at lightening the mood, and studied her. "I don't know," he managed after a moment. "I think I like what you are today a lot better."

Valdis arched a brow at him, leaning forward to pick up her new martini.

“You mean weak, emotional and foolish?” She said, her tone bitter, “Souls cause so many problems, unfortunately i’m stuck with mine.”

She took a drink, raised her hand to the bartender and motioned to Zelos, indicating that he should be brought one too. Then she smiled one of those dazzling smiles, “On me.”

~~abort abort~~

"No," said Zelos, sounding impressively level and offhand for how rattled his emotions were being. "I mean beautiful, capable, and persuasive. You got me to reconsider reading porn. If that's not impressive, I don't know what is."

He hesitated, but they were reaching a point where Zelos felt he had a right to be confused, even with how little he knew about Valdis. So, after eyeing Valdis's glass, and without thanking her for ordering him one as well, he took the plunge. "Hey, are you alright? You're acting..." He trails off. Acting what? Passive? Observant? A little terrifying? "... ah, never mind. It's probably just me."

Despite everything she was throwing at him, the man seemed to be more concerned about the host than his own sense of apprehension. It had miscalculated, pushed too hard perhaps. She shrugged, as if dismissing his question and took another drink, that smile still on her face.

"Oh, I've always been those things, you should've seen the men who fell before me. Kings. Emperors. Generals...Of course, by the time the first World War came around, she'd regained her soul and hence wasn't involved in that."

Zelos' drink arrived before she realized she'd misspoken. Hopefully the man would be too distracted by the rest of the sentence to notice.

"What about you? What were your glory days like?"

Zelos wouldn't call destroying empires being capable, but he was aware the definition varied from person to person. Not everyone grew up with their lives and societies tailored down to the last detail by an organisation of angels. Not everyone grew up eminently aware of how damaging that kind of power was. Not everyone could see beyond their own broken motives.

... Not everyone referred to themselves in the third person, either. Zelos had certainly been guilty of it himself, but not like that. Not like he wasn't him.

He answered Valdis's question with a casual shrug. "I was rich. I had the best of everything. Women fawned over me, men were jealous of me, and people pretty much did whatever I said." And then, with a fading grin: "It's not quite the same in Keeliai."

Because it was better. Zelos would take freedom of choice over a gilded cage any day. He had enough experience with those conflicting emotions to be able to effectively hide the unhappy ones from his demeanour -- but the disparity, and the distaste for the glory days he described so cheerfully, was obvious in his mind. It wasn't enough to drown out the new suspicion of Valdis, but it was close.

"Despite your smiles, you weren't fond of that life, were you?" she commented, pushing his martini toward him, her eyes glittering, "And even if you were, it sounds like you were pretty useless to the world at large."

She continued to nurse her own martini between comments.

"You're right about one thing, though, Keeliai is very different. A place for second chances, even for us." A brief pause as she seemed to consider her next words carefully. "At least I've done something with myself, even if only temporarily."

... How the hell did she know. The fading grin faded completely, and Zelos simply watched her, one hand on the undrunk martini in front of him. It was easy, it was very easy, to agree with her and let the idea pass unchallenged, like he always did with Lloyd and the others -- to fall back into the trap of resignation and apathy.

Suspicion, though, worked a little like a buoy. It kept him afloat. How the hell did she know.

"Right," Zelos said slowly. "You made yourself police chief. Then you got yourself accused of being a cultist and got suspended. Now, you're sitting in a bar and not doing anything when the whole city's in trouble. I've gotta say, if this was what you did to bring down empires, I'm not too impressed."

Backlash. It was all emotional backlash from being emotionally cornered. If Zelos were on a more even keel, he'd probably know that. But games of cat-and-mouse, of motivations and accusations, were the only real defence he'd ever been capable of employing.

Valdis smiled, but it was a cold smile, filled with dark amusement and even darker thoughts. "My...species," she began, "Are generally more subtle. You see, we don't go to war, we simply create the circumstances that lead to war. If there is already chaos and darkness, what need do we have to create more?"

She continued to watch him, sipping at her martini, thriving on his hidden emotions.

"Sometimes they just need a little push in the right direction, a little encouragement to make the choice that leads to ruin, for them, or for someone else. You'd never guess how easy it is to convince a man to betray his best friend. Es Tu Brute?." She laughed lightly, "No, we don't destroy the empires, we simply reap the benefits of the fall."

Valdis was really not doing herself any favours. The more she talked, the more forcibly she reminded Zelos of Yggdrasill. Was becoming arrogantly homicidal some kind of co-requisite with immortality?

Zelos! You traitor!

Aw, give it a rest, Lloyd. Did you forget what I said in Flanoir? I side with the strongest.

Zelos shifted in his chair, and turned his face away from Valdis. "Let's talk about something else," he said, managing only a fraction of his usual covering cheer. "Let's talk about the possibility that we'll all be totally fine once the death plane calms down. Are you still going to be chief of police after that?"

It seemed to be working. The man didn't suspect a thing and it delighted in destroying everything the host had tried to build. Valdis smirked, taking a long sip of her drink.

"You speak of fantasy," she leaned toward him ever so slightly, "The Death Plane cannot be calmed, but if we are fantasizing, I mean, why not set my sights higher?" Valdis sat back, gaze sweeping the room, "I was a queen once, I could be again."

Oh for the love of Martel. Zelos didn't answer at first, too busy drinking that martini he'd been so kindly gifted with.

Once he set it down, he eyed Valdis sceptically. "Didn't the last queen get murdered? I thought I heard something about that. Course, I guess if you're immortal, that's not really something you worry about. Queen of the shapeshifters, huh?" Zelos looked at the bar around them. "What are you going to do if all the kedan are dead?"

"Yes, Ironwood Emperor Eshai was murdered," Valdis arched a brow, "By a Foreigner, and as you said, immortality means I can't be killed permanently."

She took another little sip of her own drink, still watching him, trying to figure out where to push next.

"Seeing as I too am a shapeshifter, it's fitting, don't you think?" She laughed, "But if it soothes your troubled mind, I don't really want to be a queen again. The other foreigners would never allow it anyway and I suspect that if..." I tried to kill them, she would intervene. Valdis trailed off, then shook her head, "I suppose it would be difficult to rule over ghosts."

... Of course she was also a shapeshifter. Zelos took a long breath and looked away, staring at the bar like it wasn't really there. Why, he wondered, was this so surprising? At least one Foreigner here had tried to warn them anonymously over the network. The old Zelos would have kept the anonymous message in mind even after everyone else jumped to Valdis's defence. Just in case.

But the old Zelos was suspicious because of the whole being a triple agent thing. He'd been kind of hoping, once Lloyd saved both worlds, that he'd never need to be suspicious again. That was a stupid thing to hope for, now that he was thinking about it.

"Well," he said eventually, getting to his feet and leaving the martini half-finished on the table. "Good chat. Thanks for giving me so much to think about." He gestured. "Enjoy your drink."

The wheels in his head were spinning, she could see it, even if he wasn't looking at her. Wielding the truth as a weapon brought it such joy, especially when twisting it came so easily. Her brief hints of despair were squashed beneath a sly smile, it would relinquish control soon enough, but once it did, it likely wouldn't get it back. At least he wasn't here anymore, and this man, Zelos, was far too broken to realize anything. With luck, the redhead might not even mention the incident, but it might be so much more entertaining if he did.

"Zelos?" She said lightly, that smile not reaching her eyes, "Be a gentleman and keep this between us. I'd absolutely hate for anyone to panic."

Be a gentleman. That was ironic. Usually people were only telling Zelos to be a gentleman after he had very different conversations with women. Or, in Sheena's case, after hitting him.

"Sure," Zelos muttered. "I wouldn't want to make you feel uncomfortable or anything."

And even if you were, it sounds like you were pretty useless to the world at large.

Mark Valdis onto a list of people to avoid. Which, right now, was basically just Valdis and all the ghosts. Zelos did his best, as he turned to leave, to put the whole conversation right out of his mind, but parts of it had hit far too close to home -- he couldn't just forget about all of it. And without someone to perform to, summoning a smile after leaving the bar seemed nigh on impossible.

I don't Wanna Battle from Beginning to End

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