My Damned Soul Needs Fire, My Damsel Breaths Fire
Summary: (Support conversations between Valter and Selena) At first, their dialogues were nothing but bouts of wordplay, verbal swords hacking convulsively at each other. Yet as time worn on, they sought out each other's company because only they knew the other straight to the core. (ValterxSelena)
Support C: Nascence of a Fortuitous Encounter
Text:
"Speech"
Thoughts
'Wyvern Speech'
Flashback
Poems/Sonnets:
"Tamerlane" by Edgar Allen Poe
"The War Song of Dinas Vawr" by Thomas Love Peacock
"Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold
Disclaimer: Heretofore, the Sacred Stones do not and will not belong to me hence that mean neither does Selena and Valter. I'm just playing around with them. Also, the title of this story are lyrics to "My Damsel: A Confession To An Adversary" by Evans Blue (awesome band, by the way) thus the song isn't mine to claim. Savvy? Let's get the show on road, then.
"I spoke to her of power and pride
But mystically–in such a guise
That she might deem it nought beside
That moment's converse; in her eyes
I read, perhaps too carelessly,
A mingled feeling with my own–
The flush on her bright cheek, to me
Seem'd to become a queenly throne
Too well that I should let it be
Light in the wilderness alone."
-Tamerlane, Edgar Allen Poe
The foreboding cacophony of the dying and the fallen reverberated through the sanguinary, sweeping plains of dazzling emerald and pale sage, only to be stained with captivating ruby and vivid vermillion. The once Copenhagen blue sky had already disappeared with the ominous appearance of the dusky, smoky cumulonimbus clouds drifting definitively into view, eclipsing the once blazing and shining sun and overcastting the entire battle ground in a foreboding, dreary shadow.
Thunder emanating from her hand, Selena swiftly hurled the cracking, electrical bolt onto her foe with ease, ignoring her opponent's strident shriek of agony. The malodor of frizzled, charred flesh wafted repugnantly into her nostrils and she scrunched her face up to alleviate the foul odor from her olfaction.
Today was another typical day of battle, effacing those who dare revolt and attack Emperor Vigarde's decree of sovereignty after the invasion of Renais. Although she swore obstinate assiduity to her liege and reprimanded herself for questioning his motives, Selena could still not comprehend why her emperor would execute such a treacherous deed controversial to all his principles, verdicts, and vices.
Nevertheless it is not my place to doubt or query his motives. His Imperial Majesty obviously has his reasons…that are astronomically obscure to me.
Sighing, the Fluorspar dug her heels into her mare and the obsidian steed cantered down the slope and into the thick of battle, with the blonde mage knight rapidly hurling pernicious vortexes of Elfire from both hands, scorching all the enemies in her path. Once she reduced her adversaries to convoluted heaps of charcoal, Selena scoured the volatile vicinity to detect if any Grado soldiers need her assistance or healing powers.
A blood-curdling screech attracted her attention and directed her eyes to the owner of such a bone-chilling scream of pain. The detrimental cry came from a middle-aged paladin clutching his abdomen in complete misery. In front of him stood an imposing, formidable wyvern knight, lance tip pointed squarely at his throat. Selena inched her horse closer to the ending battle, noticing the paladin was from Frelia and the victorious wyvern knight was her ally.
"M-Mercy…I b-beg of y-you! Mercy!" sobbed the Frelian paladin, round, bugling eyes beseeching his life to be spared. A dark, satanical chortled echoed from the wyvern knight's helmet, his smirk audible.
"Heh, you should have thought about that before engaging lances with the Moonstone."
With quicksilver speed, the wyvern knight speared his lance precisely into the paladin's Adam's apple, blood squirting out profusely from the grievous wound. The wyvern knight retracted his lance, carmine droplets sprinkling the adulterated, sordid ground with crimson stains. He then used his free hand to lift his helmet off from his head, his perspiring, pallid visage coming into clear view.
"Valter," Selena said, catching the savage wyvern general's attention.
"Selena," he acknowledged apathetically. Selena frowned at his indifferent, or rather aloof manner towards her appearance. Then again, Valter never proffered camaraderie towards anyone of the Imperial Six–especially to Glen. When instigated properly, those two men could be itching to rip each other's throats out. Yet, for some peculiar reason, he was equally distant towards her. There were even times she had received the impression that he disliked her…with a passion.
"How's the battle coming along?" she inquired professionally, hoping to engage a decent, cordial conversation with the arcane, intricate wyvern knight. Valter shrugged, tossing his helmet down to the ground.
"The onslaught is a bit tedious but other than that, everything is flowing along smoothly," he replied curtly, ebony eyes focused on the horizon instead of Selena. The way he carried himself, the way he shifted his body and spoke was almost supercilious, like he was deigning this discussion with her. To see whether or not her conjecture was accurate, Selene probed further.
"Any causalities?" Again, Valter shrugged, conveying he doesn't know and he simply did not care.
"Been too caught up with more crucial matters on hand, such as killing my opponents, to worry myself over those trifles." Finally, he turned his head towards her, meeting her with his ambiguous gaze. "Now, if you excuse me, I have more substantial tasks to do."
Why, that condescending, arrogant son of a harlot!
"Like what? Needlessly slaughter a myriad of soldiers?" Selena retorted fervently, her temper getting the better of her. By the gods, she wouldn't let a man like Valter think he was above her and she wasn't worth the time to even talk to!
At her scathing comment, Valter dangerously narrowed his onyx eyes at her. "Why, as a matter of fact, yes," he replied acridly, "Are you going to harp on me about my unorthodox habits?" To the Moonstone's surprise, Selena snorted derisively.
"Hardly. Albeit, I wouldn't call your bloodthirsty antics a 'habit'." Valter scowled menacingly, his caliginous pupils briefly scintillating with a wild glow prior to returning to its normal, inky hue.
"Did I ask for your opinion?" he growled, experiencing the turbulent urge to skewer the blonde mage knight where she stood. Her ripostes were so agitating!
This time, it was Selena's turn to shrug, nonplussed by his pernicious remark. "No, but you probably need it," she chaffed and a muscle in Valter's mouth twitch inscrutably.
"Careful, wench," he hissed ominously, "or you just might find my lance impaled in your stomach." Selena offered him a pointed glare, resolutely standing her ground.
"The only place your lance will be impaled in is up your rear, providing nothing is up there in first place." the Fluorspar responded icily yet inwardly, she was smirking triumphantly at her lashing wiles.
"Why you—" Valter's mood was foreboding, murderous. He was ready swing his lance around and teach her a lesson she was unlikely to forget when, much to his own astonishment, Selena nearly leaped out of her saddle and launched herself towards him.
"Watch out!" he heard her say as she brusquely tackled him, knocking him clean off his saddle. The whistling of an arrow whizzing at them snared Valter's attention and he intricately maneuvered his body around–with his arms tightly encircling Selena's waist–to evade the cloak-and-dagger shot. The arrow swiftly sailed by yet not before brutally grazing his left bicep prior to plunging rapidly into the ground. Hissing from the instant, intense pain, Valter glanced down at the blonde mage knight partially lying on top of him and in his arms. Recollecting her impulsive lung and warning cry, comprehension immediately dawned on him. In the midst of their squabbling, she had perceived the attack aimed directly at him and act upon her instincts to make sure the furtive assault failed completely. As much as the Moonstone was gratified to be to be alive, this valiant act also left him indebted…to her.
And that's just what I need: The obligation that I owe my life to that hoydenish wench!
"Valter, you're bleeding," Selena stated phlegmatically, "hold on, I believe I have a Healing staff somewhere in my gear."
"Don't bother, I can handle the pain. The injury is just a scratch, barely even hurts." Valter interjected, lying through his teeth. Of course the wound wasn't a "mere scratch"; the injury was unfortunately a massive and extremely deep slash. Valter cursed himself for not being more attentive and allowing this blasted woman's persiflage to distract him. Of course, I can always blame my unsavory predicament and this ghastly wound on her….
Selena arched an eyebrow at his dismissal, incredulity and utter amusement sparkling in her sapphire orbs. "To hell with it, Valter! I fathom that you're lying. Bah, men and their ludicrous pride."
The Moonstone glowered, rending his injured arm away from her grasp. "I told you I don't need your assistance. The wound will heal on its own."
"And get yourself killed because you couldn't wield your lance properly due to the incalculable pain this gash gave you? I think not." Snorting at Valter's tenacity, Selena snatched his damaged arm right back, evoking shots of pain up and down his arm. Despite the agony, he managed to keep a deadpanned expression on while she treated his bleeding slash–under his duress, of course.
The main reason why he was so staunchly opposed to Selena's tending of his laceration was simply due to the fact he never truly received such acts of kindness from any one, even in his younger years, before Duessel's demonic lance twisted him into the man he is today. He was used to being despised, cursed and railed upon, and among other iniquities executed out by society. Grado's society and system was the second factor that propelled his transformation after the incident with Duessel's accursed lance. Whispering rumors implied he could have possibly been cured yet the desertion of his peers, his emperor, and the majority of the Gradian society once they caught wind of his precarious, volatile condition is what wholly festered the mental and spiritual scars wrought by the djinn residing in Duessel the Obsidian's spear, fully engulfing Valter with the potency of darkness and bloodlust. Metamorphosing into a more beastly, licentious character, Valter subtly displayed the same perverse, convoluted traits exerted by the abysmal demon that cast its flagrant, tainted tenure over his being, permeating its penchants of blood, excess battling, and taste of the flesh within the Moonstone's very soul.
From this unsavory experience Valter learned was that the sole person you could trust and rely on was yourself and only you could ever be steadfastly loyal to yourself. Count on nobody and don't become attached to anyone because there will be no one. Fidelity was a vestige to him and he actually got along quite successfully without. That is, until he encountered Selena Fluorspar and her intricate, peculiar ways.
"Stop fidgeting, Valter, you'll merely make the healing process harder and the pain more unbearable," Selena reprimanded lightly, provoking an eye roll from the Moonstone.
"I'm well aware of that. You can stop rebuking me like I'm a child."
"A rather unruly, irrational child I may add. Just hold still and I will have you fixed up in no time."
Valter sighed wearily yet capitulated to her pragmatic demands. "To cease your perpetual nagging, I'll comply." He visibly winced when Selena smacked him in the head, inducing a feral growl from his throat. Undaunted by Valter's portending grumble, Selena conjured up her Healing staff and poised the spherical orb over the wyvern knight's oozing abrasion.
"And yet all this 'nagging' is going to definitively save your life. Such gratitude." Selena answered caustically, a wry smile tugging at the corner of her lips. Valter scowled nefariously at her banter, aggravated by her constant supply of shrewd wiles and lashing, scalding repartees.
"Just heal me," he snarled, craving for this to be done and over with, this woman was seriously testing his limits!
"All right, all right, no need to be all testy." Before he could utter another acrimonious comeback, Selena severed her connection with the combative world conscious around her and solely fixated her focus unto Valter's grisly gash trekking alongside his bicep. As her mouth opened and commenced in reciting foreign, incomprehensible enunciations, an electric blue hue illuminated from the orb and encompassed the Moonstone's sprawled form and his injured arm. He watched with odd fascination as the fluctuating strings of bedazzling indigo knit together his torn muscles and flesh while adroitly effacing the blood as if it never existed. However, he eventually grew bored of watching the dancing blue radiance and shifted his focus into something else. Fortuitously, to his bemusement, his sable eyes happened to rest their meticulous gaze unto the mage knight who is currently healing him with strenuous perseverance.
He observed how her eyebrows furrowed together in deep concentration, the way her sapphire eyes blazed with fierce tenacity and resolve as she chanted the proper incantation. He scrutinized how her cheeks were flushed from exertion and the fervid weather that consumed the atmosphere, how her face was composed and phlegmatic as she exerted her dexterity and strength into completing this tedious task before her. Her sun-kissed features were soaked in sweat, grim, and blood from her opponents, which immensely appealed to him for he perceived that her robust, unyielding image was extraordinarily akin to a ferocious, august warrior goddess. His eyes followed the serene, languid sway of her blonde strands, brushing latently against her visage, in front of her lapis lazuli eyes, and in every direction the potent zephyr guided the tantalizing tresses of golden silk. Blonde tendrils coiled coquettishly around her ears and some locks obstructed Selena's peripheral vision as the vivacious gale blew gently all around. As he watched the blonde ringlets curl and flow so banteringly upon the Fluorspar's countenance, Valter suddenly possessed the intense, extemporaneous urge to reach out, brush the strands of hair away from her scintillating cerulean orbs, and delicately tuck them behind her ears. His fingers were itching to perform the sensual deed and his unwounded arm slowly lifted itself up to meet its destination and accomplish his abrupt longing. However, Valter rapidly squashed the impulse and the arm silently flopped to his side.
Disgusted and laden with self-contempt, the Moonstone was sorely agitated at the inexplicable act he just almost achieved. At a brief moment of vulnerability he had permitted himself to gaze at Selena Fluorspar in milder, softer light instead of imbued with his typical supercilious, resentful behavior towards her. Also, in that precise contingency,–much to his loathing–he nearly executed a sentimental feat. Displaying such an act of compassion, of tenderness, was most definitely not what he desired to evince, especially in front of the woman who was in the middle of healing him. If he committed such an affectionate action, the exploit would probably startle her thus severing her concentration and her healing progress will be all for naught. Hence, Valter really wanted his arm to be mended as soon as possible so he could return to the bloody, fervent skirmish and snuff out a few more fools and dolts who had enough gall to challenge him and esteem they would reign victorious against him, the notorious General Valter, Moonstone of Grado.
Is it just me, or does the curing seems to be taking forever?
"There. Your arm has been healed, good as new." Valter glanced down at his left arm, noticing instantly the absence of the gash. The only reminder of the vestige was the blood-stained, rended tear in his sleeve, revealing smooth, alabaster flesh.
"Not a scar to be seen," Valter noted lightly, respect subtly mingling in his rough timbre as his right pointer finger traced the area the injury once was at, "impressive, very impressive." he admitted grudgingly and Selena smiled wearily at his gruff compliment. Although she has only known Valter in short time span, she knew that response was a close semblance to a 'thank you'.
"You're welcome." she replied, a ghost of a grin gracing her lips.
He felt terrific to be in the air again, high up and against the wind. The roaring, vehement sensation of flight that sent one heart's pumping with vigor and esprit, adrenaline surging fervidly and wildly in his veins. The world below him seemed so small, so trivial compared to his divine panjandrum while he flew meticulously over his quarry fighting arduously against his army.
However, no matter how delightful and soothing the rushing, ongoing thrill of flying was for him, he still couldn't get the image of a certain blonde haired mage knight out of his mind. Hair like cascading waves of gold, sparkling, semi-precious stones for eyes, soft, fair skin that also possessed much strength and power, and a slashing, witty tongue with such luscious, beckoning lips—
Clenching his teeth in frustration, Valter tilted his head down and scanned the battle scene below. He tried focusing onto the stumbling enemy, fixing his sight unto a weak link surreptitiously secluded in the Frelian paramilitary. Unfortunately, his stratagems and aerial assault plans were abruptly interrupted when his calculating, intuitive eyes espied a flash of golden-yellow, ensnaring his attention pronto. Selena was viciously fending off two other mage knights with her magic, delivering them both a one-way ticket to death. As her adversaries shrieked agonizingly and crumpled pitifully from their horses, Valter smirked at Selena's decisive victory. The smirk then gradually began transforming into a half-smile as he curiously analyzed how she plunged into the next wave of onslaught, hurling and directing infernal, fulminating Elfire unto misfortunate fools. A snarl almost escaped his throat as he realized she had distracted him once more and he had almost smiled at the prospect of her obliterating her foes with utmost ease.
His mount, Slivegio, turned his monstrous head around to face its rider, regalement twinkling in its feral, yellow ochre pupils. "What?" the Moonstone hissed menacingly and Slivegio answered with a snort, its intrigued expression almost humanistic. "Don't act you know something I don't, Slivegio." The said mount shook his head, his narrowing stare fixated on Valter's disgruntled form, his eyes saying: 'I think you can conceive what's this is about.'
"What in the Demon King's name are you rambling about?" he demanded tersely, struggling to keep his temper at bay. A wyvern-esque smirk grazed Slivegio's muzzle, yellow orbs twinkling impishly.
'I believe you know', he conveyed mischievously to the Moonstone who replied with a pointed glare. Dipping his long, spiny neck downward, the mount then motioned its head directly at Selena who just successfully dispatched a trio of knights. 'I'm referring to her.'
Hands tightening on the reins, Valter deftly composed a refined, deadpanned mask on his face, concealing his agitated and truculent mood. "So? What about her?" Slivegio glanced back at him, carrying a perceiving, profound look.
'Attracted to her much?' insinuated the ultramarine wyvern, flicking its forked tongue out in triumphant, 'Because you have been eyeing her the whole time ever since we took flight. Missing her already?'
"Oh, stow it, you blasted creature. I certainly haven't been staring at her. At all." Valter finished firmly, the acidic warning tone in his voice blatantly signaling his mount to drop the topic posthaste. Of course, Slivegio was quite similar to his master inasmuch paid no heed to Valter's threat and resumed his antagonizing tangent.
'Oh, you weren't staring. You were leering.'
A muscle in Valter's mouth twitched slightly. I swear he is going to be the death of me!
"Have anything else to inform me of? Like you esteem that I'm madly in love with her?" sneered Valter, a caustic edge in his rough, dark timbre. Slivegio cocked his head sideways, as if he was actually analyzing and pondering on that precise concept.
'Are you?' Slivegio snickered. In response, Valter slammed his heels against the wyvern's sides irefully, his knuckles milk-white and locking a death grip on the reins.
"Can you just swooped down and attack?" the wyvern knight growled, seething on all ends. Slivegio sniffed fallaciously, feigning hurt and sorrow.
'All right, all right, all right, you didn't have to behave so brusque about it. Denial isn't always healthy—'
"JUST DIVE!" roared Valter.
Simpering with complacence, Slivegio haughtily complied with his rider's wish and executed an efficient nosedive straight from the air and onto the unsuspecting Frelian battalion. The violet blue mount snapped his treacherous jaws at the Frelian army, snatching and flinging any unlucky soul nigh enough within its reach. Slivegio lashed his tail out, sending horses and men sky-high and launching others across the battlefield. Valter brandished, twirled, and then skewered his spear into anyone who dared to cross his path and his now tempestuous fury boiling and churning convulsively inside his blood. Slivegio was wrong; he definitely, positively wasn't attracted to Selena in any shape or form and certainly harbored no sentimental emotions or potential appetencies for her. The notion was absurd, completely absurd--is that a sage skulking up behind her?!
Idiotic bastard! I'll drown the plains with his blood!
"Slivegio, to the right! Look to the sage!" Valter ordered grimly, erstwhile his spear in his right hand, prepared for combat. Slivegio pivoted its body around and darted after the aforementioned sage who was surreptitiously creeping up on Selena, muttering incantations under his breath. Selena was too preoccupied in delivering bolts of Thunder upon a squad of ill-trained paladins and callow mercenaries, entailing towards a total carnage. Valter quickly calculated the distance between the sage and him and the amount of time left for the sage to finish his spell. Judging by the sage's location and how he was executing the sneak attack, the Moonstone would have to conclude the sage was reciting Bolting.
God's wounds, I won't be able to reach him in time! …Unless—
Readjusting the spear in his hand, Valter concisely aimed the deadly weapon at his inobservant target and fully drew his arm back. Effortlessly, he rocketed the spear at the unaware sage who was still chanting. His aim flawless and true, the spear spiraled and pierced itself squarely into the mystical man's back, a coup de grace. The sage flopped forward to the ground haplessly. When Slivegio finally descended next to the sprawled cadaver, the wyvern knight reached out, grasped his spear, and yanked the pike viciously out of the carcass's ribcage.
"Let that be a lesson to you, wretch," he muttered wrathfully, boring phantasmic holes into the cadaver's back, "for trying to harm what's mine." Too late he realized what he uttered and just revealed, not only to himself but to Slivegio as well. The ultramarine, two-legged wyvern's scaly face was tantamount to a young child witnessing his very first festival and simultaneously was having sweets dropped into his lap.
'I was correct! You're now getting possessive of her!' Slivegio chimed in jovially and Valter dangerously narrowed his sable eyes on his mount's gleeful, smug visage. Ignoring his wyvern's snide remarks, he swung off the saddle and rummaged through the deceased sage's effects for any entity beneficial to him. Nothing suitable for him appeared. Redirecting his inspection, he spied the Bolting book. Nonchalantly picking the spell book up, he flipped incuriously through the pages. Even if he had no use for a novel on magic, he was acquainted with someone who was. Snapping the book shut, Valter looked over his shoulder to analyze Selena's condition.
Like a true warrior, she was adamantly standing her ground, annihilating all in her path. Bathed in fire and thunder, he begrudgingly had to admit her intimating spectacle was rather formidable and appealing to him. Breaking his intrigued scrutinizing, Valter tucked Bolting into his gear before mounting Slivegio again.
'Planning on offering that spell book to her as a token of your affection?' sniggered Slivegio and a vein popped somewhere in Valter's forehead.
"That does it, Slivegio. Forget about those tenderloins I promised you earlier." Slivegio shrugged apathetically albeit his wild eyes danced with mirth.
'I can live without them for today. This is by far more entertaining. After all, this is the first time a woman managed to plague your thoughts consistently.'
"Back to the battle," the nefarious wyvern general commanded steely, jerking back on the reins, "and enough about Selena." Slivegio grunted but nodded and once more took flight with an aggravated Moonstone on his back. Unbeknownst to his seething rider, Slivegio was busy contemplating his master's behavior and the next course of action.
'Hm, I wonder if he'll ever plan on mating with her, she makes a perfect partner for him. As for their future offspring….'
Finally, the massive fray was over and the Grado platoon was victorious. That prospect produced a small yet genuine smile on Selena's face as she tethered her horse to a tree, allowing her subordinates to take care of her mare, Sif. Selena gratefully plopped down a rock right outside her tent, relieved another combat was done and over with and they could all rest now. Amusingly observing the Grado soldiers celebrating and performing a myriad of frolicsome wrestling challenges and competitions, the Fluorspar leaned back as men and women alike hosted an informal revelry. Their merry, amiable voices steadily drifted into a vivacious melody, a war song she was familiar with and rather fond of:
"The mountain sheep are sweeter,
But the valley sheep are fatter;
We therefore deemed it meeter
To carry off the latter,
We made an expedition;
We met a host, and quelled it;
We forced a strong position,
And killed the men who held it."
"The War Song of Dinas Vawr, eh?" spoke a rich, rough timbre beside her. Startled, Selena turbulently whirled around to confront the arcane speaker. Who she met face-to-face was none other than Valter the Moonstone.
Oh, dandy. What brings him here?
"Hello there, Valter," Selena said thusly, her mind whirling with grand, complex ideas and notions why he was here, "and what sort of reason induces you to grace me with your presence?" Chuckling soundlessly at her sarcastic remark, the said wyvern knight took a seat beside her, also eying the celebrants prancing and dancing about in a stuporous, bedazzled fashion.
"No reason in particular, expect for maybe that," he replied, pointing to the modicum of inebriated soldiers amid the merry-goers, "I'm concerned for tomorrow if we have another battle, then some of our fighters will still be receiving the aftermaths of drinking to the excess. Combative performance will not be up to par."
Selena shrugged yet understood Valter's irritation towards the revelries' tomfoolery and casual activities. "Oh, let them have their gaiety. If some start going overboard, we shall intervene and send them straight to their tents."
Valter opened his mouth to either agree or oppose but the mirthful soldiers sang the next verse to song after the impromptu interlude beforehand.
"On Dyfed's richest valley,
Where herds of kine were browsing,
We made a mighty sally,
To furnish our carousing.
Fierce warriors rushed to meet us;
We met them and o'erthrew them:
They struggled hard to beat us;
But we conquered them, and slew them."
"Very apropos, considering our splendid coup against the Frelian army," Valter commented offhandedly and Selena silently concurred, nodding. The Moonstone tilted his head in her direction, abysmal, profound sable eyes scrutinizing her pensive form. "Are you, in any way, acquainted with this song, Selena?" To his revelation, she nodded once more, a small smile gracing her fatigued features.
"Oh, yes, I heard The War Song of Dinas Vawr countless of times, more than I can recollect," she answered divertingly, a grin tugging at the corners of her lips as the memories flashed haphazardly back at her. "I believe during my adolescent years is precisely when I heard the song the most."
Smirking, Valter directed his gaze back onto the gallivanting crowd, inwardly noting the number of drunks was steadfastly increasing. "The War Song of Dinas Vawr was somewhat of my family's battle cry." Sapphire eyes wide in shock and fascination, Selene stared imploringly at Valter, who immediately noticed her curiosity.
"Really?" Valter nodded.
"It was also kind of like a patriotic sonnet for my clan. We would have our personal bards and minstrels play the song for guests, during banquets, balls, tournaments and combative competitions, you name it."
Selena arched an eyebrow, immensely intrigued by his past, of his family's history. "What's the name of your lineage, Valter?"
Suddenly, as if she uttered a verboten word, a foreboding, noxious aura descended the Moonstone, his pallid countenance darkening while his eyes calamitously flickered with inexplicable ire.
"Silly little boy…foolishly believing you could actually exceed your inferior rank and dwell with the more sophisticated, revered folk of this superlative, prominent house."
"I rather not say." he stated flatly, bitter resentment intertwined. Perplexed by this, Selena ignored her blaring alarms that hollered at her to allow Valter have his privacy and not inquiry him any further. However, she couldn't stop herself from accumulating more knowledge from Valter, everything she first perceived about him was swiftly crumbling away, into dust.
"What's so terrible about your family?" she queried half-heartily, attempting to sound affable and consoling-material. "I mean, of all the Grado households I can remember—"
"Do you recall the Schwarzesherz(1) House?"
"You are tainted with the blood of the low class and an outsider. You will never achieve equal status you desperately crave for and be among the rest of us, the true kin of Schwarzesherz House."
Her teal eyes dilating considerably Selena nodded stiffly, stifling the gasp lodged in her throat. "Yes, the House of the Spider." At the infamous nickname for his kin, Valter chortled mirthlessly, sheer acrimony dipped in his insidious laughter.
"Appropriately named my kindred were, both by their surname and nickname. Souls black and sordid as filth and hearts equivalent to any spider. Only a scant of an amiable folk was begotten amongst the Schwarzesherzs."
Selena bit her lip, dying to know more but reluctant to pry more into Valter's personal affairs and past. Curiosity inanely gnawing at her core, she opt to throw all caution into the wind and ask him anyway. "What…was life like, for you?"
"You're trash, Valter. Remember that. Absolute trash. Hardly worthy of the Schwarzesherz name."
Solemnity washed over the wyvern knight prior to the jaded, acid response departed his lips. "…Hell. Pure and utter Hell."
Selena dipped her head forward in sorrow, incredible guilt wracking her brain from her persistent effort to acquire more knowledge pertaining to Valter. "I apologize for coercing you to remember such an awful period in your childhood. I shouldn't have pried so much."
He shrugged, waving her apology off. "Forget about it. What my kinsfolk did to me is trivial, of little importance. The War Song of Dinas Vawr was sole entity I liked that either reminded me of or originated from the Schwarzesherz House."
The doors to his surreal past closing shut and now forgotten, the two generals glanced back at the jovial, marveling celebrants who erstwhile began strutting around in a wide, discombobulated circle, holding hands while laughing and giggling and having a marvelous time. Their raucous, slurred voices drifted over the din of the commotion, resuming where they left off.
"As we drove our prize at leisure,
The king marched forth to catch us;
His rage surpassed all measure,
But his people could not match us.
He fled to his hall-pillars;
And, ere our force we led off,
Some sacked his house and cellars,
While others cut his head off."
"They're certainly having fun, aren't they?" Valter remarked bluntly, talking to Selena and then to no one. "If any one of them by tomorrow morning retain a hangover and start regurgitating their insides out, they better not come crawling and whining to me."
"So…does that means I have to be the one to tend them and listen to their blathering?"
His devious smirk returned. "More or less, yes. I will have more crucial duties to immerse myself in than to hear a gaggle of drunken, delusional wretches spew incessantly. You, however, are splendid for that sort of position."
All of Selena's tranquility towards him dispersed instantaneously, replaced with indignation. "Why you conceited, arrogant—"
"—egotistical, beastly, villainous, bloodthirsty, wretched, currish scoundrel." Valter finished for her, the diabolical smirk widening with every word. "I've heard them all, Selena, so there's no witty barb you land on me."
"…Ass."
Slightly taken aback by her direct, blatant use of execrations, he blinked incredulously at first but regained his pugnacious decorum, now gauging her with newfound inquisitiveness. "I dare say that's not a first but since when does a woman such as yourself utter such vulgar?"
Offering him a rather arched glare, Selena promptly replied, "When a man such as you acts like rascal he is."
"Again with the insults? Sure you don't have any more creative in mind?" The Fluorspar curled her lips into a menacing scowl, a promise of excruciating pain if his disparaging tangent continues.
"As a matter of fact I do, yet the barbs would make your ears bleed."
Valter held in his hands up in mock surrender, evident amusement dancing his ebony eyes. "You're going to swear like a sailor? Oh, do the gods know any mercy?" Snickering, he dropped the deluding charade and placed his hands back on his knees, quite proud of his gibe. Perhaps now he'll accomplish the task of silencing her razor-sharp tongue with witticisms of his own.
However, he believed that food for thought prior to the blonde mage knight decided to hurl composure out the window and literally lunged at him, an arm retracting and a fist ready to inflict damage. Normally, he would have seething through his teeth if someone else pulled off a stunt like that as a mean of attacking him yet Selena was different, totally a separate case. That reason alone was why he continued grinning roguishly as he grasped her wrist while the fisted hand was projected and encircled his free arm around her waist, freezing her movements in an instant.
"Now that wasn't very nice of you," he remarked amusingly and Selena sharpened her glower on him.
"Look who's talking, knave!" she retorted glacially, evoking another round of chortles from the Moonstone.
"You're hitting them all, aren't you," Valter responded casually, jauntiness glinting in his pupils. Selena withered his arms, assaying to free herself from his adamant clutches. She faintly heard The War Song of Dinas Vawr resonating in her ears as she vainly struggles against Valter's potent grip.
"We there, in strife bewildr'ing,
Split blood enough to swim in:
We orphaned many children,
And widowed many women.
The eagles and the ravens
We glutted with our foemen;
The heroes and the cravens,
The spearmen and the bowmen."
"Valter!" Selena hissed through clenched teeth, "Release me this instant!"
Uttering no reply, the said general simply pulled her in close, pressing her roughly up against his body and unintentionally forming a more distinctive, frictional tension between them and their compressed, sweating beings. Selena's breathing hitched momentarily and Valter felt his groin tighten considerably as their bodies connected rather intimately. His throat suddenly dry, he swallowed briefly in a futile attempt to soothe his libido but with no prevail. His proximity betwixt Selena did nothing to assuage his concupiscence, only cultivating and whetting his appetite. Selena Fluorspar shifted dubiously in his enfoldment, unfortunately experiencing the same salacious, provocative sensations tingling and burning inside her.
Pregnant silence swept over the two Grado generals as they avert their gaze from each other, both unwilling to lock eyes on the other in apprehension of what they could potentially glean if they committed that capricious act.
After what felt like eons, Valter relinquished his grip over her and withdrew himself from his presence, an obscure, unrecognizable impression flicking in his sable orbs before vanishing completely. Without saying a word of farewell he departed, leaving Selena alone to her whirling thoughts and in a bewildered, convoluted state.
Shaking her head to rid herself of the rather embarrassing, intense incident, Selena took several breathes prior to coercing the contingency back in the corners of her mind. The final notes and definitive octaves of the jubilant singing voices wafted through the motionless air in the abruptly sober vicinity, captivating her bedazzled attention. Welcoming the distraction, Selena tilted her head towards the disseminated, makeshift gala with the occupants huddled together for the finale.
"We brought away from battle,
And much their land bemoaned them,
Two thousand head of cattle.
And the head of him who owned them;
Ednyfed, king of Dyfed,
His head was borne before us;
His wine and beasts supplied our feasts,
And his overthrew, our chorus."
The tenors, baritones, and other various timbres echoed across the camp-out vicinage and then slowly evanesced, melting in with the quiet, subtle wind. Selena sighed in despair, realizing that the war song didn't wholly banish her fortuitous occurrence with Valter from memory. To the contrary, the incident was unfortunately implanted in her brain, tenaciously taking root. Raking a hand through her flaxen hair, Selena wistfully espied the direction Valter treaded upon and briskly swerved her head away from the path, as if she dreaded being caught staring at the place she last saw him.
Deciding she had enough eccentric actions for one day, the mage knight swiftly retired to her tent a few lengths away, anxiously trying to dismiss the notion that she felt a pair of eyes boring attentively at her back, never lifting their scrutiny until the tent flap canopied over her retreating form, formally obstructing the view and the inside components. Selena sank onto her cot, mindlessly dissecting her mundane accommodations and the past events of today. Unable to rid herself of the accursed image of a specific wyvern knight, Selena shifted her gaze unto her books, hoping they would offer some solace and a suitable distraction from her conflicting, disoriented mind.
She reached for the first book on the stack and then noticed the spell book isn't hers, or didn't belong to her to begin with. Tracing the electrifying, memorizing letters that congregated into Bolting, she pondered on how she had received such an exquisite prize, a magnificent treasure beyond all others.
"Who…?" she whispered breathlessly to herself, azure eyes assimilated on the Bolting's ornate, archaic cover, "Who would give me such a gift?" The only answer her mind could offer who was the conjuration of a navy blue and charcoal haired, caliginous-eyed man with a pugnacious attitude and a partially wanton personality, possessing a conniving smirk that could humor and infuriate her simultaneously.
At this thought, Selena tautly hugged Bolting nigh to her chest, her heart fluttering briefly in her ribcage before it resumed its typical, rhythmical pulsates. Ignoring the percolating sensation aching in her gut, she listlessly opened the spell book and threw herself into the realm intellect and magical knowledge inked upon the cream-colored pages, vainly assaying once more to rid Grado's Moonstone from her conscience.
How was she ever to foresee the subsequent, impending events and the inconceivable aftermaths to come?
"Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! For the world, which it seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain,
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night."
-Dover Beach, Matthew Arnold
Huzzah! Finally I can enunciate the words I have been dying to utter: I am the first author to type a Valter/Selena! That is a fact, not a conjecture. I checked so myself hence I created the very first Valter/Selena ever to grace the Fire Emblem fandom.
My obsession for this stupendous pairing was gnawing at me for months until at last I realized I had to release the urge to write a Valter/Selena story prior to the badgering impetus drives me into the brink of insanity. Since I'm currently working on two other major stories, this fanfic will be rather short, given to the fact it's my fantastical version of a support conversation between two of my favorite generals (that should have never died initially and instead got together and eternally lived in prosperity and ebullience; all that jazz). To sum up what betide in the future chapters, there shall be two more chapters for Support B and A, and then the epilogue.
Moving on to a more dissimilar topic, some of you might be mulling about the brief mentioning of Valter's past. Do not despair, the impending chapters will delve more into his sordid, tragic past and all the injustices and iniquities he had to rise out from. I'm really looking forward in exploiting more of his past, it's going to be exhilarating!
So, hopefully all you readers enjoyed the first chapter, regardless of the abnormality of the pairing. If you can't stomach Valter/Selena, then don't read. Savvy? Anyway, reviews are welcomed with open arms and flamers will locked into a vacant, prosaic room and will do naught but listen to "Old McDonald" perpetually. Trust me, that music torture is extremely effective. Don't believe me? It's your funeral then –smirks-. And if you flame the pairing (which is near and dear to my heart and I adore Valter/Selena the same exact amount as Orochimaru/Sakura, which is saying something for those who know me and my taste for exotic, crack, etc couplings quite well) the punishment will be more severe. Just imagine listening to "Old McDonald" and watching Riev break dancing. What a pretty picture that makes.
Lastly, before I transmute out and end this fairly elongate author's note, I am hosting a Fire Emblem challenge for anyone interested. The challenge consists of both Fire Emblem and Sacred Stones pairings yet let me warn you, the pairings are unusual. So those who don't mind or relish in writing peculiar pairings might want to check my challenge (it can be found at the bottom of my profile). Don't say I didn't warn you -maniacal laughter fills the air-.
Tschüs!
:SpeedDemon:
(1) Schwarzesherz- blackheart (language: German)
