Chapter 54 - Dual
Submitted November 24, 2005 Updated June 26, 2007 Status Complete | Shonen-ai/Slash! For DD_DM. A black-winged angel finds himself caught up in the fate of a young boy that defies existence itself, a boy with paradoxed wings, a boy named 'Iris'...
Category:
Fantasy |
Chapter 54 - Dual
Chapter 54 - Dual
Iris
+--
His past.
Valkyre blinked slowly, eyes burning faintly from the dust and the heat and the brightness. Ahead, the endless desert of stone. Here, even pebbles were hard to find. His boots ground against the relentless rock as he stepped over them, layers pooling out of nowhere back into nowhere, shapeless, edges crumbly. The heat sizzled around him, and a bead of sweat dripped down to his chin.
Flying had been nothing more than a brief dream. Hed felt power up in the air, riding thermals in a way hed never managed to as an angel, feeling the muscles and the tendons in both sets of wings stretch and relax and work jointly in a way hed never imagined they couldve. He was fast, faster than before, and there was something to the gusty sigh his demonic wings made that he liked, and hed eaten up the miles beneath him in a flash, senseless, but it was never quite to last.
His back had begun bleeding, and the pain had come back. His head had pounded with a deep, heavy ache, and his fingers were trembling. The sun had burned at his wings as if setting them afire.
All reminders that he was going to die, that his body was in the end not nearly as strong as hed thought it would be. Wasted thoughts of the future and of living out to some fake pretense of longevity.
So hed been forced to land, and now the once-effortless miles towered before him, a barrier between his sad, conflicted little body and the jagged, rising chain of mountains far to the horizon, barely distinguishable through the heat waves.
Family.
The crossbreed lifted his head, gazing outwards at the far away, impossibly distant smear of black that marked the northern mountain range, nameless.
He didnt need a family. He didnt need a past.
He didnt need these memories.
Valkyres steps were loud in the silence, but even sound was swallowed up by the sweltering heat and raging eternity. There was nothing to prove that he existed, nothing to show that he was still on this world, in this life, playing his part in his story.
He couldve been nothing. He couldve been a speck of dust blown away into the black abyss of eternity and space and endless stars and fiery dying novas.
There could be no such thing- no such person- as Iris.
And maybe it could all just be a dream, and maybe this pain just wasnt real.
A small, tiny part of him, somewhere, still dumbly, stubbornly clung to this ideal.
That he wasnt some hybrid freak created by foolish whimsical near-immortal mortals, that he wasnt something that was going to die, that he was just the black-winged angel bounty hunter from so so long ago searching for a way to survive, Maeve only a familiar face and not a traitor and Camael nothing more than a blur of memories and no one- almost no one- else worth remembering, and every other goddamned memory just blank and black and empty.
He wanted to go somewhere, before all of this, back when what he understood and what he cared to know and what he was was still all under his control.
Before this huge mess with the labs and with impossible things and with Camael and angels and demons and vampires and blood.
Before this dark black thing had pushed itself up inside of him and curled his fingers for him and twisted its way down every vein and artery in his body, this thing which cultivated its black, ripping wings from his back and shattered his rational thought and mind and world and threw him, tiny, insignificant Valkyre, into oblivion.
Back before Iris.
Valkyre- the new Valkyre, the emptiness and the cold and the flawless precision and the silence and the demon- paused, lifting his head slightly.
Iris.
No, there was a whole new set of memories.
There was confusion and pain and a whole new world and a cool hand and softness and empty eyes and, somewhere, deep down, an infinite sadness. There was a birth of knowledge and death and life and reason and all of it beyond his grasp.
There was the tattoos and the pen and the black ink and the blood and all of the things he felt beneath.
There was eternity in a shard of broken glass, breathed out in a sigh.
Valkyre lifted his gaze from the ground, staring at the black line of mountain so distant.
He didnt know what to make of his memories of Iris. Everything thatd happened with the boy had been a paradox of the good and the bad, of things he wanted and things he never wanted to even so much as recall in a dream.
But there was a person in those memories, somebody he still wanted- needed- to find.
Valkyre the demon reasoned it was optional, a task to possibly complete, an obstacle in his course.
Valkyre the angel no longer had enough voice to say, to fully gather his thoughts.
But Iris was out there, and he was heading for him, and that was all there was to it.
As for the other memories, the newly resurfaced ones of violet eyes and black shadows and splinters, he could do without.
Valkyre didnt want to think of it, didnt want to recall the scenes and the people and the emotions connected with him.
The demon had no use for love or warmth or happiness or sorrow. Emotions of the past were nothing.
His mothers face, blurry but for those endless violet eyes he mirrored but no longer His fathers dark hair and pale complexion and silence and resign The small rooms, the hallway, the bedroom The quilts and pillows and curtains and rugs and scenic, long-gone landscapes painted and framed on the walls The voices filling the rooms, the soft murmuring and harsh shouting and sweet, melodic laughter and light, wavery singing and smooth, silky voices and backgrounded undertones and whispers
Those memories were a blur and disconnected, a childs mind remembering the most meaningless of things. A favorite toy, a torn corner of wallpaper, the city streets of somewhere distant, clogged and dirty, skyscrapers teetering on their solid four walls.
Those were all broken up images like a shattered mirror.
Underneath, all he could recall clearly, like the black backing made of ebony wood, was the end of that life.
All he could see enough to claim his own were the memories he wanted the least.
Blood stains and shouting and shattering. The clatter of kitchenware and ripped clothing and frantic footsteps and slamming doors. Screaming.
He didnt remember the fighting. He remembered the blood splattered along the hallways though, and the crumpled black form lying down against the wall. He remembered broken wood and his mothers violet eyes opened wide that meant nothing to him in that instant.
He didnt want to remember, but he did.
Valkyre paused again, blinking, shaking his head slightly. The sun beat down on him, heat soaking up in his black hair and clothing and wings, bringing him back to his current time and reality and split second of being. There was hardly a headache now, just the faintest, distant feeling of throbbing that couldve simply been mistaken for the blood still pumping through his mind, of his heart still furiously working.
The crossbreed glanced down at the ground, where there wasnt even enough of a crack for insects to find a holding. He let a weak, stifled breeze blow hot air over his face, then he quickly flicked out a blade from his side.
Valkyre held up the small, honed-smooth slice of steel, tilting it until he could catch his reflection. Through the blue-gray of the blade, his eyes seemed at first colorless, dark as midnight, but then eventually resigned themselves to violet.
He blinked, but they remained the same, staring back at him.
Valkyre snapped the blade away, listening to the metal slide against the sheath. One of the few comforting sounds he heard anymore.
His past was done. Itd been there all along, and it would not affect him. He wouldnt let it.
Valkyre began to walk again, focusing his gaze on the black smear so far ahead.
There was the present now, and there was the future.
There was Iris, and there was little else.
And if there was to be an ounce of reassurance drawn from the fact that he still maintained the eyes of his mother, if he still remembered everything of who he was and maintained clear realization of who he had become So be it.
He wasnt Valkyre the angel or Valkyre the demon.
He was both.
+--
AN: Ahh, a complete chapter of senseless ramblings. Heh.
Well, hope you guys like whatever there is to give. Im still kinda struggling to come up with something decent to happen next, but I promise to keep on going because, well, itd be just dumb to stop when Im so far. :)
Thank you all~
+--
His past.
Valkyre blinked slowly, eyes burning faintly from the dust and the heat and the brightness. Ahead, the endless desert of stone. Here, even pebbles were hard to find. His boots ground against the relentless rock as he stepped over them, layers pooling out of nowhere back into nowhere, shapeless, edges crumbly. The heat sizzled around him, and a bead of sweat dripped down to his chin.
Flying had been nothing more than a brief dream. Hed felt power up in the air, riding thermals in a way hed never managed to as an angel, feeling the muscles and the tendons in both sets of wings stretch and relax and work jointly in a way hed never imagined they couldve. He was fast, faster than before, and there was something to the gusty sigh his demonic wings made that he liked, and hed eaten up the miles beneath him in a flash, senseless, but it was never quite to last.
His back had begun bleeding, and the pain had come back. His head had pounded with a deep, heavy ache, and his fingers were trembling. The sun had burned at his wings as if setting them afire.
All reminders that he was going to die, that his body was in the end not nearly as strong as hed thought it would be. Wasted thoughts of the future and of living out to some fake pretense of longevity.
So hed been forced to land, and now the once-effortless miles towered before him, a barrier between his sad, conflicted little body and the jagged, rising chain of mountains far to the horizon, barely distinguishable through the heat waves.
Family.
The crossbreed lifted his head, gazing outwards at the far away, impossibly distant smear of black that marked the northern mountain range, nameless.
He didnt need a family. He didnt need a past.
He didnt need these memories.
Valkyres steps were loud in the silence, but even sound was swallowed up by the sweltering heat and raging eternity. There was nothing to prove that he existed, nothing to show that he was still on this world, in this life, playing his part in his story.
He couldve been nothing. He couldve been a speck of dust blown away into the black abyss of eternity and space and endless stars and fiery dying novas.
There could be no such thing- no such person- as Iris.
And maybe it could all just be a dream, and maybe this pain just wasnt real.
A small, tiny part of him, somewhere, still dumbly, stubbornly clung to this ideal.
That he wasnt some hybrid freak created by foolish whimsical near-immortal mortals, that he wasnt something that was going to die, that he was just the black-winged angel bounty hunter from so so long ago searching for a way to survive, Maeve only a familiar face and not a traitor and Camael nothing more than a blur of memories and no one- almost no one- else worth remembering, and every other goddamned memory just blank and black and empty.
He wanted to go somewhere, before all of this, back when what he understood and what he cared to know and what he was was still all under his control.
Before this huge mess with the labs and with impossible things and with Camael and angels and demons and vampires and blood.
Before this dark black thing had pushed itself up inside of him and curled his fingers for him and twisted its way down every vein and artery in his body, this thing which cultivated its black, ripping wings from his back and shattered his rational thought and mind and world and threw him, tiny, insignificant Valkyre, into oblivion.
Back before Iris.
Valkyre- the new Valkyre, the emptiness and the cold and the flawless precision and the silence and the demon- paused, lifting his head slightly.
Iris.
No, there was a whole new set of memories.
There was confusion and pain and a whole new world and a cool hand and softness and empty eyes and, somewhere, deep down, an infinite sadness. There was a birth of knowledge and death and life and reason and all of it beyond his grasp.
There was the tattoos and the pen and the black ink and the blood and all of the things he felt beneath.
There was eternity in a shard of broken glass, breathed out in a sigh.
Valkyre lifted his gaze from the ground, staring at the black line of mountain so distant.
He didnt know what to make of his memories of Iris. Everything thatd happened with the boy had been a paradox of the good and the bad, of things he wanted and things he never wanted to even so much as recall in a dream.
But there was a person in those memories, somebody he still wanted- needed- to find.
Valkyre the demon reasoned it was optional, a task to possibly complete, an obstacle in his course.
Valkyre the angel no longer had enough voice to say, to fully gather his thoughts.
But Iris was out there, and he was heading for him, and that was all there was to it.
As for the other memories, the newly resurfaced ones of violet eyes and black shadows and splinters, he could do without.
Valkyre didnt want to think of it, didnt want to recall the scenes and the people and the emotions connected with him.
The demon had no use for love or warmth or happiness or sorrow. Emotions of the past were nothing.
His mothers face, blurry but for those endless violet eyes he mirrored but no longer His fathers dark hair and pale complexion and silence and resign The small rooms, the hallway, the bedroom The quilts and pillows and curtains and rugs and scenic, long-gone landscapes painted and framed on the walls The voices filling the rooms, the soft murmuring and harsh shouting and sweet, melodic laughter and light, wavery singing and smooth, silky voices and backgrounded undertones and whispers
Those memories were a blur and disconnected, a childs mind remembering the most meaningless of things. A favorite toy, a torn corner of wallpaper, the city streets of somewhere distant, clogged and dirty, skyscrapers teetering on their solid four walls.
Those were all broken up images like a shattered mirror.
Underneath, all he could recall clearly, like the black backing made of ebony wood, was the end of that life.
All he could see enough to claim his own were the memories he wanted the least.
Blood stains and shouting and shattering. The clatter of kitchenware and ripped clothing and frantic footsteps and slamming doors. Screaming.
He didnt remember the fighting. He remembered the blood splattered along the hallways though, and the crumpled black form lying down against the wall. He remembered broken wood and his mothers violet eyes opened wide that meant nothing to him in that instant.
He didnt want to remember, but he did.
Valkyre paused again, blinking, shaking his head slightly. The sun beat down on him, heat soaking up in his black hair and clothing and wings, bringing him back to his current time and reality and split second of being. There was hardly a headache now, just the faintest, distant feeling of throbbing that couldve simply been mistaken for the blood still pumping through his mind, of his heart still furiously working.
The crossbreed glanced down at the ground, where there wasnt even enough of a crack for insects to find a holding. He let a weak, stifled breeze blow hot air over his face, then he quickly flicked out a blade from his side.
Valkyre held up the small, honed-smooth slice of steel, tilting it until he could catch his reflection. Through the blue-gray of the blade, his eyes seemed at first colorless, dark as midnight, but then eventually resigned themselves to violet.
He blinked, but they remained the same, staring back at him.
Valkyre snapped the blade away, listening to the metal slide against the sheath. One of the few comforting sounds he heard anymore.
His past was done. Itd been there all along, and it would not affect him. He wouldnt let it.
Valkyre began to walk again, focusing his gaze on the black smear so far ahead.
There was the present now, and there was the future.
There was Iris, and there was little else.
And if there was to be an ounce of reassurance drawn from the fact that he still maintained the eyes of his mother, if he still remembered everything of who he was and maintained clear realization of who he had become So be it.
He wasnt Valkyre the angel or Valkyre the demon.
He was both.
+--
AN: Ahh, a complete chapter of senseless ramblings. Heh.
Well, hope you guys like whatever there is to give. Im still kinda struggling to come up with something decent to happen next, but I promise to keep on going because, well, itd be just dumb to stop when Im so far. :)
Thank you all~
Comments
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FATE_The_Pirate on January 5, 2007, 10:40:45 AM
^-^ i like it XP unlike defyDeath im okay with being second XP jk im just givin ya a hard time ^_^