Not Perfect
Lezard stretched, admiring his handiwork. Another day yielded yet another success. It was surprising; the last few of his homunculi hadn't fallen apart they way they were in the beginning. Reverse engineering elves into a vessel worthy enough of the Valkyrie was harder than he could ever imagine.
It had taken multiple failures, bodies crumbling to dust or worse, bodies liquefying right under his hands, for him to realize that absolute precision was key. Not the sort of precision used on day-to-day projects, the ones he could do in his sleep, but the sort of precision that demanded every last ounce of his attention. One stray thought, one little memory—false or otherwise—and a homunculus was ruined.
Lezard looked it over, his smile falling. There was something off about the face. The nose maybe or the way the eyelids drooped partway over its eyes. They looked a little crooked and its lips were too full. Lezard stepped closer, examining with a keen eye. Its body was far too slender and the hair curled a little behind its ears. He hadn't had time to detach the earlobes. Lezard kicked the table, jostling the homunculus so one of its legs fell off the side.
It wasn't a success. It was all wrong.
"I... I have to get it right," Lezard told himself as he lifted the homunculus' leg back onto the table. "Time is running short. The Valkyrie... she's..."
He wanted to rip it apart, pulling all the flesh from its bones and start over properly, but he knew he couldn't. He had to work with what he had. He had to have an elf close to what he desired and make modifications from there, but it was slim pickings in the Forest of Spirits. Why did elfin women have to look so different than his Valkyrie?
Why did he want the vessel to look like her in the first place?
"Because she's beautiful," Lezard said, turning to the homunculus with a knife in hand. "Because I want to look at her and actually see her." He smiled, his breath catching in his throat and traced the tip of the blade over the swell of its lip. "I want to see you smile in a vessel I created."
To tame a god, to bring the Valkyrie to her knees while keeping her soul intact, he knew he could do it. He knew how to set the stage, and being a goddess of death the Valkyrie was predictable. Lezard knew exactly who he could kill.
"All for you," he said. The knife slid down, dragging through the skin. Elves were long-lived, but as husks they were not immortal. Lezard frowned as a little bit of blood pooled in the wound, sliding down the homunculus' chest. Modification was always a little messy.
It was a soul that granted an elfin body immortality.
For hours he worked and he teetered on the edge of apathy. It was the same thing over and over again: slice, fuse, piece and move. The homunculus was looking more like a patchwork demon than the Valkyrie. Lezard pulled back, his fingers covered in blood and screamed.
It was frustrating, and he kicked the homunculus off the table, storming off down the corridor. He glanced in the holding tanks where a couple of his other not-so-perfect successes slept suspended in a solution to preserve their integrity. Lezard slammed a button on one of the holding tanks, draining it. Worthless. They were all failures. All of them.
He didn't wait for the tank to drain completely and yanked open the door. It soaked his pants, but Lezard hardly noticed. He reached into the tank and grabbed the homunculus by the hair, pulling it upright.
It wouldn't stand on its own, so Lezard slung it over his shoulder. Despite the homunculus' small frame, it was heavy. He figured it was still filled with loathing, carried over after he snuffed the soul of the elf who had inhabited the body prior to his taking. He could barely carry it across the lab.
"Now," Lezard panted as he slammed the homunculus on the table, "Let us try again. You have to look worthy for the Valkyrie's arrival. No more mistakes." He set the knife against its neck. "No more failures."
It slid deep into its flesh, deeper than Lezard expected, spilling blood that was left over in the neck before he took it. Again, Lezard screamed and cauterized the gash with a lightning spell.
"Stop this!" he said, lifting the homunculus by the shoulders. Lezard pressed his face close and lifted the eyelids with his thumbs. He wanted it to see him, bare witness to his frustration and near insanity with a seemingly simple task. He had created monsters before, hideous creatures is horrific detail, but for some reason this was beyond his ken. The homunculus wouldn't look at him. Instead it looked beyond, its mouth parted slightly, dead and oblivious to the rage coursing through him.
Lezard shook it. Hard.
"Why are you doing this to me? Why!?" Lezard lifted the body higher, shaking it with such force that its head whipped backward with a sickening crack. Broken. "Say something!"
Lezard lost his balance with the realization that he was expecting the homunculus to answer his question. He stumbled, taking the homunculus with him and hit his head against the wall with a loud thud. Eyes rolling back, Lezard slid down the wall. The cold body of homunculus pressed against him, and Lezard took a shaking breath. Its head fell limp against his shoulder, cocked at an angle that definitely wasn't natural.
"Get off," Lezard muttered as he arched from the floor. The homunculus was beyond heavy and his head felt sickeningly light. Was it suddenly darker in the laboratory? Where were his feet? He couldn't feel them anymore. "Get off!"
He pushed and the homunculus bent back, starting fold in on itself but Lezard couldn't lift it. A lifeless hand fell between them and slid up Lezard's stomach. He shivered and rolled to the side to evade it, however one of its fingers caught in between the catches of his belt and moved with him. Lezard reached for it, grabbing the homunculus' wrist and jerked it free.
It was soft, the homunculus' fingers lacing through his, and it felt good. He hadn't held hands with anyone in a very long time. Not since he was a child if he remembered correctly. Lezard looked at the homunculus, wondering if there was something beneath that glassy stare after all, something he couldn't quite extinguish when he'd taken the elf woman back with him.
Holding its one hand, Lezard lifted his other and smoothed some hair from its face. He had managed to imitate the Valkyrie's coloring at least. It was actually quite simple. An elixir. A few needles. This vessel he'd managed to get the mouth just right: a full lower lip with a slightly thinner upper, delicately parted and petal-soft pink. He could almost imagine her breath tickling his skin.
It was close but not perfect.
Lezard closed his eyes. Behind the darkness even the most hideous things were beautiful. "Lady Valkyrie," he said. His hand was covered in blood, but he touched her cheek anyway, delighting in the way her skin felt under his fingers. Lezard smiled. He imagined she wore red well.
He opened his eyes and pushed up the wall, shifting the homunculus between his legs. He was lonely, his body ached and here was something he had completely overlooked until now. Letting his eyes flutter shut, Lezard imagined the Valkyrie over him, not cold but warm with the breath of life, filled with divine energy.
With the soul of a god.
"Yes," Lezard whispered, dragging the homunculus' hand up his chest. He slung it over his shoulder. How long had it been since someone touched him, since someone pressed against him like this? Lezard frowned at the answer. He wouldn't ruin it.
Grabbing a fistful of hair, Lezard crushed the homunculus' lips to his neck. Cold but so was the Valkyrie. She didn't care about her einherjar as the people they once were; she cared about the warriors they would become. It made Lezard shiver as he worked the jaw of the homunculus up and down his neck. There was endless beauty in something so cold.
"Lady Valkyrie," Lezard said, canting his hips against the homunculus. A warm sense of satisfaction quickly dispelled the embarrassment. "When I have you... when I make you mine..."
His body was tight, tense with anticipation. The Valkyrie, he wanted her soon so he could move forward and make her realize the great potential she carried. Give her a taste of the greatness they could become. Together, because he would be a god as well, transcending the mortal coil he had loathed since the day he was born.
"It will be glorious."
He pumped his hips, grinding himself between the homunculus' legs. His body was definitely responding and he wasn't sure if he should be ashamed or delighted. Wrapping his arms around its back, Lezard jerked the homunculus closer.
"When you're here this will be so much better," Lezard said as he slid a little ways down the wall, balancing the homunculus on top of him. He risked a glance to situate himself better and cringed. The body was starting to go gray around the edges from being out of the holding tank for so long, and its head was lolling back and forth as he shifted its weight over his thighs. He couldn't bare to look at it so Lezard fumbled blindly with his pants and sat the homunculus on top of him.
It fell forward against his chest, mashing its breasts against his collarbone. Lezard hissed and slipped his hands under them. Not quite as cold as the rest of it, but still it was no human woman. And it was a far cry from the perfection of the Valkyrie.
Right now though his body didn't care.
He rocked his hips, sinking in as far as its body would allow. It wasn't tight but then again it wasn't alive; it's muscles weren't operational and there was no lubrication. Lezard cried out, wishing he had some sense to at least have thought that much through, but it was too late for that. The homunculus was warming up anyhow. Lezard moaned.
"I can't ... aah, wait to do this with you, Lady Valkyrie. Hnn, yes. I'll have this vessel... ngh, perfect for you when you finally arrive. Perfection. Complete perfection."
The homunculus bounced in his lap, rubbing against him. Teasing. Lezard pulled it higher and licked across its chest, tasting the bitter solution he used to suspend the homunculus in the holding tank. He retched but kept right on, knowing its body would taste better once the Valkyrie inhabited it. Sweet like sugar. A little salty too with maybe a twinge of spice.
Lezard groaned, lacing his fingers with the homunculus, squeezing tight as he imagined the Valkyrie's taste lingering in his mouth. He would kiss her everywhere, taste her everywhere, even places where he had never tasted a woman before.
"Lady Valkyrie," Lezard whined. It was getting hard to breathe under the dead weight of the homunculus. "Lady... Val--"
It wasn't tight enough, wasn't warm enough and he was getting desperate, so Lezard pulled out, gasping for breath. He rolled sideways under the homunculus and reached around to jerk himself off, screaming for the Valkyrie as he pulled. Lezard kept his eyes closed.
It was pathetic. He knew it was pathetic, but at that moment he didn't care. It had been too long and the homunculus wasn't working. Nothing worked lately... but the Valkyrie.
Smooth and complete strokes. Firm and hard. Yes.
Even thinking about the Valkyrie sent chills down his spine, barreling him over the edge reason, overpowering him with an indescribable force that took his breath away. Everything about her made his body weak. He hated it. She wasn't even there and she had him on the floor, twisting and writhing under a corpse, touching himself, moaning how desperately he wanted to come.
Lezard wanted to be the one in control.
"Lady Valkyrie, I... ngh, swear..." Lezard bowed his head. The homunculus slid down his arm and hit the floor. "I will... conquer you. I will tame you. I will bring you, aah... to your knees and you will worship me!" Lezard hit the floor as well, balancing on his shoulder and used both hands. "I want you and your, ngh... power. All of your power. Come... to me Lady Valkyrie. Aah! Worship... me. Worship...ngh. I will be a god. I will be your god!"
Lezard laughed. It was ridiculous, a dream beyond all mortal dreams but he wanted it more than anything in all of Midgard. And he had the means to realize it. He would. He--
"I will rule you, Lady Valkyrie!"
With the homunculus pressed against his back, Lezard cried out, his body trembling. One. Two. A small, strangled cry, a pathetic, half-choked whimper and then three. So long. It had been so long. Lezard wiggled against the homunculus and sighed.
Stroking your ego sure was effective.