Chapter 51 - Simple

Iris

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Valkyre's hand acted like it had a will of its own. It snapped around, movement so fast his own eyes shouldn't have been able to follow it, couldn't, and yet they did...
His fingernails, which seemed longer than the last time he'd checked, all pointed towads Camael's laughing face and the dark eyes, wanting to rip out those eyes, tear away that vision, shred the tough, leathery skin beneath his nails, feel the blood and the pain and the heat.
It was unbelievably fast. Valkyre felt a surge of power rise up from somewhere deep down that he couldn't locate, something new and pulsing flaring up from an abysmal place down inside, sheathed in ice and dark fog.
However fast it was, though, it wasn't fast enough.
Camael jerked back, one arm easily snapping out and catching Valkyre's rampant hand at the wrist, his strong, hard fingers clenching so tightly that Valkyre felt like the bones were being crushed. His earlier wound from the fight with Asher burned hotly, blood feeling like it was bubbling up to the surface of the cut.
The touch sent sizzles of electricity through Valkyre's veins. It had hurt, in a way that shocked him down to his heart, sent his blood pounding, rushing along his veins.
He snarled, no longer in control of his body, lashing out with his free hand. The table was knocked over in the movement, candle falling slowly, slowly.
Valkyre's clenched fist met an open palm, Camael catching his curled fingers cleanly with his hand. Another flash of pain.
Valkyre wanted to rip him apart, wanted to rip apart whatever it was that was touching him and whatever it was that hurt him so. His wings flared, snapping open in the closed space, stirring up a wind. The candle sizzled out on the ground, leaving them in darkness.
...In a darkness that Valkyre had no trouble seeing in.
He could make out Camael's form, could see his face, the line of his nose, his dark, narrowed eyes. Valkyre hissed, tried to strike out with a wing. It hurt his back, ripping at soft, tender flesh, but he didn't care.
Get away.
Get the angel away.
Camael dodged, then twisted around Valkyre's arms, swinging him around, slamming him down onto the ground, all in one liquid, smooth motion that proved he hadn't lost any of his vigor over the years.
Valkyre gasped sharply, feeling a knee dig into the center of his back, right between the demonic wings that ground against his insides, sharp and painful and still leaking blood.
"I think we could stand for a bit more control, Valkyre."
Camael's voice pounded into his skull. Valkyre snarled, trying to twist around, but the other grabbed his arms, working them behind his back, thoroughly pinning him in place. The ground was rough but soft, made of dirt, and clung to Valkyre's cheek.
"Relax."
Valkyre let his head drop onto the cold ground. He tried to breathe, tried to concentrate only on the air pumping in and out of his lungs. Tried to ignore the pounding in his mind, or the echoing sound of his own voice, or the million tiny sensations he felt now, that he'd never felt before.
"Now."
The grip on his hands loosened somewhat, knee lightening.
"Try to keep yourself in control. Otherwise, you'll just go berserk like last time, and it may hurt more. Quite a lot more, to be honest."
Valkyre stilled his heart, stilled his breath. He wanted dead silence, but even the quiet insisted on having a voice. The air continued to brush over his face, light and stuffy, yet moving nonetheless in a pattern that he could almost track now. It whispered in his ear, spinning out a tale on fabric softer than silk.
He felt Camael pull away his knee, felt the fingers only loosely curled around his wrists, just in case. He didn't try to get up.
The earlier flash of action, of fury and hatred, had vanished, leaving him confused, lost, and empty. He didn't know where the emotions had come from, flooding throughout him in an instant, gone in the next.
He closed his eyes, breathing, thinking of nothing else.
But there was still the pain, still the sharp stinging where Camael's fingers touched his bare skin, able to imagine where the contact was, a rough fingernail just brushing against a coil of a snake twined around his wrist.
"...An... gel."
"...Hm?"
Valkyre swallowed, hard, feeling the dryness travel slowly down his throat. He tried again, attempting to make his voice sound regular again, not some bestial, raspy thing ripping out from between his lips.
"You're... A-Angel."
"Ah."
Camael sighed, then, rather suddenly, let go of Valkyre. The other didn't respond at first, merely resting on the ground, still trying to calm down his heart. He heard Camael step back, listening to the clothing rustle.
Slowly, meticulously, Valkyre pushed himself up on his arms, sitting back. He winced, feeling his wings moving, relocating to fit his new posture. The feathers of his other, dark angel wings sighed into the dirt, getting stained. Valkyre paid them no heed.
"So you noticed."
Valkyre swallowed again, on nothing. He nodded.
Camael was an angel.
Of course, that was impossible.
Camael was- had been- a human.
When Valkyre had been taken in, it'd been by human hands, to a human voice.
He'd never doubted that Camael understood much more than any human should've, but he had been a complete, full-blooded, simple human.
...And yet...
Earlier, he'd seen wings.
And now, he felt angel...
"...Impossible?"
Valkyre glanced up, blinking. Camael had read his mind, and he smiled, seeing that he'd been right.
"Of course not. Not when you've dedicated your life to the arcane and the impossible."
"...H-How?"
Camael sighed, again the teacher lecturing the pupil.
"You know I use the sigils to amplify the weak, tiny amount of power humans are given, right?"
Valkyre nodded wordlessly.
Camael turned then, facing away from Valkyre. The other watched as Camael raised a hand, doing something to his front shirt. The laced string slid out, and Camael shrugged the shirt down over his shoulders.
Valkyre stopped, staring.
"You see now? With a bit of understanding, with the right tools available... You can do unimaginable things."
Angel wings.
In sigils. In black ink, scrawled over Camael's back. Flaring, elegant, curving angel wings, each feather meticulously detailed in a way Valkyre haven't even believed was possible. They arched all the way up to the tops of the shoulders, then angled back, vanishing somewhere far down Camael's backside. The edges were marked clearly with designs and patterns Valkyre had never seen before, detailed swirls and sharp angles that he knew held something potent, something archaic and potent, but of exactly what, he didn't know.
Even in the dark, they were clear and crisp-edged, even on the tanned, scarred skin.
The secret to becoming an angel.
No...
"...How did... you...?"
Camael shrugged the shirt back over his shoulders, hiding the black-lined angel wings burned into his dark, tan skin. He nodded lightly, head tilted to one side.
"As you've seen, Valkyre. Nothing is impossible. And there's really not so much more to it."
A pause, the words fading quickly into the sluggish, damp air.
"However..."
He took a step closer, dark eyes carefully watching Valkyre, running along his slumped silhouette, straining to make him out in the near-complete black. He began to walk, starting a slow circle around Valkyre. Camael's eyes lingered on the demonic wings that pulsated faintly, still drying out in their first taste of bitter air, shifting slightly with Valkyre's each slow breath. Blood pulsed, rushed, danced maddeningly underneath his skin.
"I've answered all of your questions, Valkyre. Perhaps it's time you answered mine."
Answered all of his questions?? Valkyre's thoughts were far from answered. He felt like a doll trapped in a maze, surrounded by the spun-out threads of endless questions and demands he couldn't understand, that no one would explain to him. His world was ripped apart, shattered. Utterly destroyed.
Nothing at all had been answered.
He still wanted to know.
And he still didn't know anything.
"I've only managed to catch up to you now, Valkyre. I know, distantly, how things have been going, but..."
Valkyre blinked, looking up sharply. "...Distantly?" he echoed, voice almost lost to the silence.
Camael paused, then smiled.
"Of course. I would never have simply turned you out on your own. You're too valuable to me. So... I had someone keep in touch. Loosely."
Valkyre stopped, frozen in his thoughts. Keeping track of him? All the time, ever since he left Camael...
He ran through a list of the people he'd met throughout his life, snatching up loose cords then throwing them down again. How? Who?
"I have to admit though, I'm rather surprised you accepted her proposal to the practice so easily in the first place."
"Maeve."
The word slipped out of Valkyre's mouth the same instant the thought formed itself coherently in his mind, shaped itself into a name and a face.
At the same time, the threads tied themselves together, forming an unbroken circle.
Maeve could never have given him money anyways, if his bloodline was... what Camael had said it to be. What he'd shown him now to be. ...She must've known.
So simple, so subtle.
What a fool he had been, never seeing it.
How oblivious he'd been to himself.
Slowly, Valkyre found himself scrolling through all of the other recent new acquaintances he'd met. How many others knew, had known all along?? Asher. Raguel, surely. Corryn, perhaps...?
His sudden list narrowed to one, ground to a halt.
...Iris?
Valkyre glanced up at a movement from Camael, his train of thought broken.
"Wait. I don't understand."
Camael's eyebrows arched up slightly.
"Oh?"
Valkyre paused, then shook his head, slowly.
"Why did you... send me away in the first place, if you only wanted to find me again? What are you doing this for?"
Valkyre hesitated, swallowing hard on nothing but his own dry, thick tongue stuck in his mouth.
"...What do I mean to you?"
Camael merely smiled, sighing empathetically.
"Ah, you're finally catching up. Very nice, Valkyre."
He walked closer to the other, close enough so Valkyre almost backed away, feeling the shift in the air like the current of water underneath his fingertips. He'd never felt a sensation like this before, not from such of a slow, calm movement.
"Do you think it is just coincidence?? Hm?"
Valkyre blinked, uncomprehending.
"You are born, the inorganic creation of a whimsical love between two mortals. And at the same time, he... Iris. Iris is born as well, the organic singularity of every blood, formed by powers so much farther evolved than we can ever entertain. Perhaps beings that have never evolved at all. Does that not seem like something more than mere coincidence to you? I hope I haven't raised you to be the kind of person who maintains such of a nihilistic view."
Organic singularity? Iris, birthed by... something other than a mere mortal? ...By something other than even man and their machines??
"This is destiny, Valkyre. You are playing the role assigned to you. You are strictly following the path paved out before you, by something no mortal, no soul, no event now or ever can ever change. This is destiny."
Camael continued, relentless, unstoppable.
"Your path led you to Iris, of course. I knew it would, and I was right. The two of you are kindred like no other, after all."
A tinge of laughter at the final statement. Valkyre stared back at Camael, blindly. He could see nothing, nothing but the image of himself, something otherworldly, something alone. ...And somewhere, the quiet, calm shades of gray, of Iris... A soft, gentle light...
And yet...
Camael.
He had known all along.
And in the end...
"Then... you..."
No. No master, no guardian, no teacher.
Just the plastic mannequin doll of an angel.
"You're... just after Iris."
Just like everyone else.
Camael shook his head.
"No, Valkyre. You're too belittling of yourself."
He smiled, sympathetically, but Valkyre no longer felt any warmth. Only a fake expression of fatherliness, of the deep, impassable trap Camael had played him into, sinking him lower and lower with each word, without hope of escape.
"You have led me to Iris, no doubt. But don't forget that you are like Iris yourself. And in the fate written out for that... boy, you will play a role as well. You are significant, of your own."
Valkyre stopped, feeling like what was left of him had been torn apart. What had been left of the angel shredded, dirtied like his feathers sinking into the moist soil, black and dull.
Like all there was left was a demon, vibrant, sharp, ready to begin a new life by tearing apart the pain and hatred and abandonment, ripping apart the past, forgetting everything.
A part of him wanted to do that.
Wanted to be left behind, wanted to be ignored.
Wanted nothing.
In the end, he was nothing...
Asher.
A sudden feeling from deep down inside, some other sense he hadn't known about before. Not the feeling of an aura, or smell or hearing. But he knew. Like a blinking bat of the eye, and suddenly a new shape had come into focus in front of your vision, plain as day.
Valkyre's head rose, and he listened. Camael was silent as well, though he continued to watch Valkyre. A quick glance over.
"...It's... Asher."
Footsteps sounded, just ever-so-slightly. They were approaching, kept to almost silent, but easily detectable to Valkyre's ears.
Sure enough, it was the vampire. The door opened at the top of the stairs to the basement, and light flooded down, blinding for an instant.
Camael was already making his way over in long, sure strides, stopping to stand at the bottom of the staircase, bathed in light.
"Well?"
Asher's silhouette fell over the sharp angled black and brown of shadows and wooden planks. He took a few steps down, glancing around cautiously. His gaze froze on Valkyre, on the black, demonic wings which shivered and trembled in the first taste of real light. The vampire's eyes widened in utter shock, tiny black pupils narrowing to mere specks.
Valkyre found some kind of unknown happy revelation, realizing that he could see the other's eye pupils this clearly from such of a distance. At the same time, he had the distinctive feeling of being somewhat like an animal in a display.
He held the other's startled gaze evenly, eyes carefully reading the sigils carved meticulously along either side of the heavy slash drawn over the vampire's brow. Immunity. Repress fire.
Camael shifted his footing, drawing both of their attentions back.
"Well?" he repeated, just the slightest hint of agitation to his tone.
Asher paused, glancing back now, and Valkyre could see by the way his eyebrows were drawn down and the way he stood that he did not want to speak right now.
The vampire shook his head.
Camael blinked, seeming slightly startled.
"No? Not at all??"
Asher paused, then nodded.
"He's not here," he muttered, low under his throat. "Nowhere close."
Camael stopped, gaze dropping, obviously contemplating something. After the longest stretch of silence, he merely dismissed Asher with a wave of his hand, then began to make his way back over to Valkyre. His dark eyes were fathomless, unreadable.
His booted feet passed by the extinguished candle, lying in the dirt.
And in that instant, Valkyre realized that he no longer viewed Camael as his master, or as a guardian or teacher of any sort. Not any more.
Because now, he knew exactly what it was that Camael wanted.
"It seems I still have another question you need to answer for me, Valkyre."
Valkyre stared straight ahead, silent. He already knew what it was.
How simple things were in the end.
Camael's eyes were narrowed and hard. He hadn't expected this to happen. His plan had been spoiled.
"...Where is Iris, Valkyre?"

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AN: Auuuuuuuuugh.
I hate talking. I suck at dialogue.
Anyways, another chapter up! More is explained! (Is it?)
Soon, we'll be off outta this boring place. And boring stuffy old Camael. :p
'Kay hunnies?
Thanks again to all who comment, you've really kept me going!! ::bows::

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