DR 05

She spends just about every waking hour wandering about aimlessly. Pacing back and forth in that endlessly restless rhythm, Lenneth this silent ghost that haunts his tower home. He often catches sight of her through open doorways, a vision of such ethereal loveliness and heart breaking sadness, that even Lezard feels the conflict. That slight stirring of a guilt that is at odds with his own selfishness. It’s never enough for anything more than a sad sort of remorse, the frustrated realization that he’ll never be able to make her happy.

He wishes it were otherwise. But it is the impossible that Lezard desires, all that power, that knowledge, and even that desperation nowhere near potent enough for the man to catch at the one facet of the Goddess that still so eludes him. That of her smile, Lenneth instead this sad sort of miserable when around him. It’s there in her eyes, the pain reflected a million times over in that ephemeral blue. That hurt is what greets him, that barely tolerates his approach. That wounded look that screams of so much, the woman wary, and shying away before he can land even a single finger to touch on her.

“Lenneth…” Her name sighs out of him, Lezard falling into step besides the Goddess. She doesn’t hesitate, not even for a second, continuing her aimless journey about his tower home. He trails along with her, bearing silent witness to the mad energy that moves her first hand. It’s an angry swish of her hair, a purposeful pump of her arms, and a determination he still doesn’t quite understand, Lenneth endlessly patient. Turning corner after corner in a corridor that circles around in on itself, she reminds him less of a woman, and more like some great caged beast, testing the limits of it’s prison.

Around them is the red glow of magic, the ancient and forbidden symbols he has carved into the very stones of his tower. The runes gleam a brighter shade whenever the Goddess draw too near, that primordial power reacting to one another. The sight used to comfort Lezard, but today it makes him uneasy, a dozen what ifs birthing to life in his head. It’s a magic meant to confine, to subdue, to hide away sins, yet each flare of crimson screams like a beacon. It leaves him paranoid, the man looking around as though expecting to see something uninvited appear. That nothing does, can’t set him off from that uneasy edge, Lenneth suddenly seized rough hold of.

There’s the startled sound of her gasp, the woman finding herself forcibly dragged away from the wall and that flare up of magic. That crimson accusation can’t distract from the look in her eyes, the wary unease, or the anger burning inside him.

“It won’t work.” Lezard tells her. “It won’t!”

A slow steady blink is all the answer that he gets, Lezard fighting the impulse to shake some sense into Lenneth. He’s the one raging out of control now, the anger spiking amid heart palpitations of genuine fear. He won’t lose her. He can’t!

He lets out a laugh with that ragged breath, that desperate denial turning him needlessly cruel. She’ll bear the bruises as a result, Lezard landing a low blow not so much on her body as on her soul.

“HE’S not coming.” By her flinch it’s apparent that Lenneth know just who the he that Lezard has referred to is. His name is an unvoiced whisper on her lips, the Goddess trying to draw strength and reassurance from the memory of the man, the youth, whose fate had once caused her to shed such desperate tears over. There’s no hint of them now, the cobalt blue of her eyes blazing strong with the woman’s own anger and disdain, Lenneth glaring defiant at Lezard.

“He’ll come.” She bravely insists.

“Oh?” One eyebrow arches, his smile a mockery of the Goddess’ adamant belief in her delusion. “Why is that? Because he loves you? Because you love him? Ha.” He practically spits then, so disgusted by the idea. “You love a memory. You both do.”

The way that she bristles at that, makes Lezard’s lips twist, more smirk than smile expressed. It’s a twisted pleasure that he feels, something depraved inside him livening to the battering his words will give to her.

“Ironic isn’t it?” He taunts her with that. “Those memories that bind us…” There’s a memory in his heart as well, that first glimpse ever of his Goddess leaving it’s lingering impression upon him. Lezard had never been able to shake free of it, had never even wanted to try, instead letting all his drive and desire be fueled by it.

Awe struck by her, the one being in all of Creation fit to be that absolute shade of perfect in his eyes, it had made for a keen understanding of the loneliness to be found in love. The unrequited, or that of the lost, both were powerful, wounding implements that can and did drive one desperate. It made the impossible happen, the heavens themselves torn asunder, A Goddess made mortal, a memory given new form, even Creation itself warped to accommodate a desire. The secret wish of a heart all alone, the dead not so much reborn, as made a pale imitation of what once was.

“Do you know what the worst part in all of that is?” Lezard asked her. He didn’t wait for the head shake that never came, that sinful part of him savoring the truth that he was wielding like a weapon. “That you, Lenneth, do not even realize what you’ve done. The lie that you’ve told yourself…the illusions you delude yourself with.”

“What are you….?”

“He’s DEAD.” Came the interruption. “The trickster saw to THAT.”

“I…with the power of Creation, I brought him back. I brought them ALL back.” It was the most his Goddess had ever deigned say to him, her eyes bright with the belief that was part of her self denial.

“Oh? Just what did you bring back? The world? The people in it? Or was it just your memories of them given form, Lucian and the likes just hollow husks of what you wanted them to be!?”

There was the repeated, rapid blink of her eyes, the denial still there. She quickly shook her head no, as though that could stave of what Lezard was saying. It couldn’t, the truth and it’s seeds once planted, blooms that would spread their discord and doubt within her.

“How lonely you must have been, how DESPERATE.” He continued. “To cleave to that memory, to the perfect paramour that would never have cause to disappoint or hurt you. He’s been the perfect yes man, hasn’t he? Everything you could have wanted Lucian to be, and then some.”

“Stop with your games!”

He pressed on. “He’s never argued, has he? Never had so much as a cross word, or doubt to be voiced. None of them have. This world of imperfect dreams made peaceful on a whim. YOURS.”

“The people WANTED peace.” She argued.

“Some of them yes, but not ALL.” countered Lezard. It was an almost pitying look that he gave her then. “There should have been some small faction of resistance, some who made trouble…Humans are naturally prone to fighting after all, always wanting something more, something bigger and better than what they have been given. Whole wars have been fought over that, people enslaved or killed, actually sacrificed in the name of greed’s greater good.”

“You’ve seen it with your own eyes.” continued Lezard. “You’ve judged many a soul, walked the fields of battles waged in the name of that greed. You’ve seen the worst in humanity, seen the destruction done to realms and lives first hand.”

She had started to shake, as though fighting the doubts that were trying to smash apart her beliefs.

“Why even that man…”

“You know nothing about him!” Lenneth cried out. “Or me!” She was almost violent, trying to jerk free of his hands grip on her arms.

“I know more than you’d like to admit to!” His eyes had narrowed with that, the angry energy within him rising to the challenge. “He helped doom an entire world with his reckless antics. He was so stupid and blind to the threat, so intent on reaching out to you for his own selfish desires, that he let the orb fall right into the trickster’s hands!”

“He paid a steep penance as a result. He DIED.”

“Yes. He died. The whole world in fact did! All of Creation destroyed in an instant, God, human, and demon alike! That man damned an entire existence to NOTHING. Loki may have wielded the power, but Lucian is the one who made the foolish choice. It’s time you not only realize it, but accept that!”

“No…I never….I never denied his wrong in all this…”

“Yet you excuse it.” Lezard hissed, tightening his grip to be more secure on her struggling form. “You excuse and you forgive, filling this new world with a memory of him. A memory not of how he was, but of how you idealized him to be. How you wished them ALL to be. Do you truly enjoy surrounding yourself with those puppets!? Or are you just so lonely, that you don’t care!?”

“Lenneth…” By the look blazing in her eyes, Lezard had a feeling his beloved Goddess would have slapped him had she been able to get free.

“No!”

“It is meaningless.” He snapped. “His feelings, his memories, his sense of self, all things you supplied his fake with. That one loves you, not because he wants to, but because he has no choice! None of them do!”

She was thrashing so hard against him that Lezard feared the hurt that Lenneth would cause herself. She was simply too wild in the moment, too agitated, a violent energy trapped inside her, the woman unable to face the truth. She tried to keep on denying it, to keep on deluding herself that this happy, perfect world that she had created, was in fact the one lost to Ragnarok. A piece of her might break to acknowledge otherwise, this new world, populated with perfect replicas of those who had been sacrificed, a safe haven to the Goddess who had already lost so much.

He wasn’t without feeling. If anything, Lezard felt too much where the Goddess was concerned. That slight stirring of sympathy was outweighed by his own selfish need, the man wanting Lenneth to truly open her eyes, and take a good look around at the world she had created. This idyllic dream that was built on nothing more than lies, powered by the wish of her lonely heart.

He could understand her reasons. Could understand how powerful a motivator that feeling was. Lezard could even lay claim to the selfish side of lonely, given the lengths he had attempted in an effort to obtain Lenneth in a form he could control and subdue. But the man had also never tried to lie to himself about just what he had done. The lives ruined, the sins committed, or the world ruined. It’s one balance gone, this perfect existence that Lenneth had created WOULD fall to pieces. Without a God to rule over them, those people she had birthed into life were without aim and purpose, doomed to repeat a cycle of old, destructive habits. It might not happen with this generation, or even the next, but sooner than later, those perfect ideals would be forgotten, the love she had infused her memories with halving, again and again, until only the fragments remained.

When that happened, greed would reign supreme, wars once again devastating the lands. Only this time there would be no saving grace, no divine hand to play benevolent for them. With none to guide them, no God to give voice to the concern, they wouldn’t even CARE. Without Lenneth to show them the way, these replicated souls wouldn’t even think to come looking for their lost Goddess.

“No one is coming for you.” He hissed the thought out loud. “No one even cares enough to try.” She let loose with a wild shriek of denial at that, Lezard hauling her struggling form up against the solid mass of his. She didn’t quite still at that, Lenneth letting out a gasp to find herself all but knocked off balance. It was Lezard’s hands that steadied and held her upright, the Goddess a trembling mess in his arms that only shook harder for his words. The truth that he taunted her with.

“Oh I am sure a select few will wonder where you’ve gone.” He continued in that relentless tone. “But in this utopia that you helped make for them, few if any would ever dare imagine that there could be trouble of ANY kind in this paradise. Certainly they couldn’t imagine the likes of ME!” He bent his head towards hers, breathing in the scent of an anger turned fearful. “After all, YOU couldn’t.”

It was a bitter gloat, Lezard knowing that he was the only human in all of Creation to be so uniquely his own. Free of the Goddess’ influence, his was the only soul to have survived the destruction of Ragnarok. It had cost him the philosopher’s stone, and a body or two, but he had endured, with his own mind and will intact, and harboring this combination of love and lust that went beyond any mere memories’ feelings.

“You hadn’t a single thought to spare for one such as me.” He almost laughed then, watching as the narrowed blue of her eyes widened with the dawning realization. “None of you did. Now none of THEM will.”

With that, he covered her mouth with his, muffling a sound that was a cross between his triumph and her dismay. It was the sweet and the bitter all at once, this victory a potent mix of wicked elation and his mounting frustration. Lenneth wasn’t the only one left shaking as a result, Lezard feeling the tremors shudder through him. In the moment, he was a conduit of competing emotion, all the negative at war with the positive, the anger and the disappointments, the gloating and the relief, making for this riotous combination of a barely leashed aggression.

It was so utterly consuming, so completely sexual in nature, Lenneth’s muffled screams only provoking him further. He laved his tongue against hers, kissing her thoroughly enough as to leave the Goddess breathless. Lezard tasted tears in that expression, hers, the fight being leeched out of Lenneth bit by bitter bit.