Chapter 52 - Longevity

Iris

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He should've known.
All along, and in the end, things were just so simple. So selfish, the world was. And he was no exception.
Valkyre held Camael's hard, sharp gaze.
"I don't know," he replied, voice even, unfaltering.
Camael blinked, once, twice, judging him, dark eyes cold and hard. Like those of a stranger, of someone he held no affinity to. Yes, that was right.
Now, they were more like enemies, like rivals.
Camael shook his head, lips stretching into a smile.
"Don't lie to me, Valkyre."
He laughed, standing back, crossing his arms over his chest.
"You know. Maybe you don't even realize it now, but you know it, deep down. I know you do. You've known since before you were born. This is what you were created for, you know."
Valkyre wanted to laugh as well, wanted to scoff and snarl and throw Camael's words in his face.
Destiny?
This wasn't destiny. This was just chance, just the way things unfolded. This was life, this was reality. Valkyre didn't believe in destiny.
Camael shook his head, as if predicting Valkyre's thoughts, cutting them off.
"Valkyre, you can't stop what's already been set in motion. Even Iris knows this. It's the beginning of the end, and you're a prime player in the show. That's why you have to stay with Iris, why you want to."
Camael paused, glancing back towards the doorway out.
"You should be going soon, then," he announced, rather abruptly.
Valkyre blinked back, dumbly.
"Your equipment is upstairs."
Camael began to walk away, but slow, methodically. He bent, then picked something up off the ground. Valkyre's eyes picked out the object before Camael had even fully closed his fingers around it.
The pen.
Camael held it out like a knife blade, or a poisoned thing. Valkyre took it, held it in his hand, feeling the ivory-smooth surface sing underneath his fingertips like it never had before. This pen was more than just a device to draw on a surface with; this thing was alive, pulsating, beating. There were things it wanted, things it demanded of him.
Valkyre blinked, pulled his eyes away.
"Why?"
Camael stared back, unperturbed.
"Why what?"
"You're letting me go so easily," Valkyre stated, holding his gaze, searching.
Camael smiled, ruefully, tilting his head slightly to the side.
"It wasn't like I was ever keeping you prisoner, Valkyre. I was merely the tool to reveal you to yourself.
"Now everything is set in motion, and it's time for you to go. I also suggest that you make haste."
Valkyre was caught gazing into the other's eyes now, searching for the truth. Camael was hiding things from him, he knew.
But now he did know exactly why Camael was sending him off.
He wanted to get to Iris. And to achieve his ends, he would use Valkyre as the tool. He'd been doing so since the beginning. He'd known all along, of course. Camael had never been the kind of person to give such acts of generosity without wanting something back in requisite.
"I have one more question, Camael."
Valkyre halted at his own words, the ringing of the name used so blatantly seeming improper, even whispered softly in this black nothingness of dirt and wood and shadow.
"Yes?"
Valkyre stared back unblinkingly. This was not his master; the name no longer held any power over him.
"What is Iris for? To you."
Camael paused, then he smiled.
It was a smile that Valkyre hated instantly, because in that second, all of the false images and memories and elevated forms of Camael were stripped away, leaving the ugly truth at the core.
When he responded, his voice was different, altered. The truth behind the layers and the silence and the calm detachment.
"Can you ever understand, Valkyre? What it's like, being a human?
"Of course, you might. Now."
Valkyre blinked, frowning.
"What?"
"Don't you realize what is happening? I told you to hurry, because you might not survive much longer. Opposite bloods will still clash, even if you managed to be born, and eventually, it'll destroy you."
Valkyre stared blankly ahead.
He could feel it.
He could feel the fire in his veins, feel the heat building up deep down, even though his skin was cold to the touch. That would be due to the demon's blood.
His sentence was already written out, dictated.
Like Corryn, he was going to die, and he knew it.
Like Iris.
"How does it feel?" Camael's face, close to his, sneering slightly.
"Knowing what it's like, being a petty mortal? Jealous of angels now, Valkyre? Of all the other races with such longevity that we could only dream of, knowing we'd die before they even realize we're gone, knowing we're just a blink of the eye to them."
Valkyre stared past Camael's shoulder, staring at darkness clearly defined for him in shadows and textures and crumbling earth.
Maybe he should've felt something. Maybe there should have been some reaction, like sadness or anger or overwhelming despair. But there wasn't.
Instead, he only felt an emptiness.
"This is how I've felt, Valkyre. A mere mortal, a mere human, walking among angels and demons and vampires. Like an ugly moth next to unaging, unchanging, beautiful, perfect immortals. Next to gods."
Valkyre looked into Camael's dark eyes, and he saw the desperation, saw the built-up contempt and hidden anguish. Hatred had broken him, in the end. Envy.
"So you found the easy way out."
Valkyre's words were harsh in the darkness that was his newfound light. Camael flinched, face hardening, drawing back.
"No," he said, shaking his head.
"The easy way out is death, is acceptance. What I'm doing is not that. Not at all. I've always been trying, but whatever I did, it was to no avail. Even now, even after completing an age-old experiment of mine, and even altering my own blood, even giving myself wings"
Camael was shaking his head.
"That was not what I wanted. I don't want more power than I need. I don't want these fake wings."
"Then the longevity."
Valkyre found himself surprisingly distant, indifferent to it all.
Something had altered the way he thought, had altered the way he digested information and processed it through. He accepted the news calmly now, and knew which responses were required of him to achieve what he wanted.
And he could read Camael, so easily.
So simple, the world seemed to be.
Camael, though, was shaking his head, a smile on his lips.
"No," he laughed, "no."
He stepped back, spread out his arms.
"Not longevity, Valkyre. Immortality."
The crossbreed stared back emptily, showing no surprise.
"And that's what you want Iris for."
Camael paused, then nodded.
"Catching on quickly."
Valkyre felt a smile on his lips.
Slowly, carefully, he rose, joints aching slightly, back sore. But he rose easily, and his wings supported him, a weight he didn't mind carrying. He glanced back, staring at the blood-stained demon wings rise and fall slowly with his breathing, gazing at the area where his skin had rent and let through the skin-sealed bone of his wing, hard and solid as stone.
He turned back to Camael now, and the wings folded inwards to him. To his surprise, Camael almost seemed to shrink slightly, almost flinch. As if he was afraid.
His angel wings, distant, furled themselves around him. Valkyre still had now idea how exactly the two pairs managed to both come from his tiny body, managed to remain supported by him, but it was irrelevant now.
He lifted his gaze, stared at the man he once regarded as his former master.
"No," he said, shaking his head, "I think I've known all along."

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AN: Ahh, more cheesy drama-y stuff. So sorry.
Well, things are still going rather sluggishly, and to be honest, I don't really have the next few chapters tamped down real well, but I figure I can work them out as I go along. I always do, anyways. ...Somehow. >>;
Thanks for reading, see ya all next~

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