Title: Darkness Beyond Twilight

Author: Sword Lily

Rating: PG-13

Summary: In the aftermath of Ragnarok, the valkyrie Lenneth faces the challenge of restoring order to the nine worlds.

Obligatory Disclaimer: Valkyrie Profile is a trademark and Enix is a registered trademark of Enix Corporation. © 2000 Tri-Ace Inc./ PRODUCTION I.G./ Actac Inc./ Enix. All Valkyrie Profile characters and settings are used without permission. Story content belongs to me. Contains Teh Spoilers, Teh Language, Teh Violence, and Teh Adult Situations.

I – The Forgotten Valkyrie

The stained glass panes of the oriel in her room had been smashed out long ago. The velvet curtains swayed slightly in the breeze that wafted in, their color now weathered from the original deep crimson to a dusky rose. Silmeria liked to feel the wind on her face. It reminded her of a time when she still had wings. That had been ages ago. Before her fall. Before she became a prisoner in the castle of the vampire king, locked away from the gods she was sworn to serve and from her duty as a chooser of the slain. Sometimes she thought she could still hear the souls of men crying out to her in their dying moments, but more and more it seemed just a dream. The idle fantasy of a former death goddess.

Her room was large and luxuriously furnished. Brahms had seen to her every comfort, here in the castle that drifted in and out of Midgard like some lost soul. The walls that confined her were of the same fine gray marble as the rest of the castle, but the ceiling was painted to look like the dawn sky. A bright, false sun peered down at her through clouds tinted orange and pink. She could never truly see the day outside. The castle only appeared in Midgard at dusk and vanished into ether as dawn broke.

The floor was covered in fine rugs, worn from years of endless pacing. The canopied bed was crafted of fine dark wood, masterfully carved and covered in a bright chaos of pillows. There was a well-appointed wardrobe of fine ladies' clothes. Velvets from Artolia, silks from Hai Lan, lace from Gerabellum. The wardrobe itself had come from Hai Lan, sleek black lacquer with a mountain landscape inset in iridescent shell.

There was a vase of rare blue flowers from Flenceburg on the dresser, filling the room with a scent like strong perfume. Ivory-handled hair brushes and combs littered the dresser. A cracked and dusty mirror hung on the wall above them. Graceful sea serpents with blue jewels for eyes twined about its frame, exquisitely wrought and gilded. A clockwork bird, metal feathers of silver and bronze, sat motionless on a perch nearby. She had listened to its song incessantly until she'd accidentally wound it too much. It was broken and silent, but still beautiful and rare. She had no idea where it might have come from.

Sometimes she sang, as if playing the proper part of a caged bird herself. She could still remember nearly all of the bawdy drinking songs sung by Einherjar as they partook of the ever-flowing mead of Valhalla. She missed the cheerful ruckus of Odin's great hall. She would smile and joke with the Einherjar and keep the mead flowing for them, and for herself as well. She could drink any one of them under the table. It was unfortunate that the vampire king had lost his taste for wine long ago, and had no need to keep an adequate supply.

Soon the last of light of dusk would be gone and she would see the stars of Midgard appear in the sky. Soon Brahms would come to her, as he did this time every night since she had been captured. Until then, she stood at her window brushing her hair. Sometimes she spent all day brushing her hair for lack of anything else to do. Bound loosely at the nape of her neck with a ribbon of red silk, it fell in a golden cascade over her shoulders and down to the backs of her knees. Toward the ends it fell into soft waves from being kept in a braid during the day while she slept. The boar hair bristles slipped through her hair as easily as if it were liquid.

She wore a robe in the style of Hai Lan, a busy cherry blossom pattern against a red background. It closed low and opened high. She could never get the hang of tying it properly. The belt rested in a large clumsy knot by her hip, the ends trailing and fluttering around her legs as she moved, rather than in a tidy knot at the small of her back like it was intended to be worn. Like on the robes of the tiny pearl women on her wardrobe, standing at the foot of the sinuous mountain path, carrying parasols on their way to the pearl tea house. She had never worn such things in Asgard, but she liked the feel of silk against her skin. She could barely remember what it was like to feel her sword in her hands and the weight of her armor on her shoulders.

The slippers she wore were delicate satin with golden pheasants embroidered on them. A strip of leather was tied around her left ankle. It trailed and snaked around the room, its other end attached to a heavy mithril ring set into the floor. She imagined her bonds must be made from the skin of a dragon or frost giant, because anything else she could have broken. Nor would the knot loosen, despite her many efforts. It would take a god-made blade or a miracle to break it.

Her blade had been taken from her long ago, and all her hopes for a miracle had been lost quite recently. She knew that Hrist had come for her and failed. Sometimes she had entertained fantasies of the dark valkyrie bursting suddenly through her door, vampire blood dripping from her sword. Sometimes her dream ended with Odin looking down on her with a merciful eye from his throne, and sometimes her blood mingled with Brahms's on Hrist's sword. Either fate was one she would gladly accept, to be rescued and returned to Asgard or to be punished for her failure. Ironically, the dreams were even more vivid now that rescue was an impossibility. Brahms had gently informed her that he had shattered Hrist's soul without much effort at all. That was the last time in a long while that she had tried to physically injure him, and he had merely swatted her away like an insect. She never expected to hurt him, but it did make her feel better somehow.

Silmeria had grieved for Hrist, and for her own inability to avenge her. She was the weakest of the three valkyries, and it was foolish of Hrist to make such a sacrifice on her behalf. Surely the Aesir had no need as of such a powerless goddess as herself. Her thoughts turned often to the Aesir lately. She knew that the time for Ragnarok was nigh, and often worried how they would fare in the battle to end all. She had once been one of three whose purpose was to gather souls to fight in the final days of the gods. She had passed above the battlefields, the cries of the dead and dying ringing in her ears, appearing to those who died valiantly. Some men had wept upon seeing her, such an honor it was. Until her orders changed, and she was given the task of destroying the walking dead and ridding Midgard of their accursed presence. It did not end well, as her current situation attested.

The first stars of the evening were appearing. It was only now that the castle's denizens would wake.

She set her brush aside when she heard the door of her room open, when she heard the familiar voice, deep and rasping. "Are you well, Silmeria?" It could be no other than Brahms, the keeper of the castle, and of her.

She stood as still and silent as a statue as he approached her, looking at her with the livid red eyes that had so unnerved her when she first saw him. He was a huge, hulking brute who took as much care of his appearance as can be expected from one who'd long ceased to care how the world judged him. The old and tattered clothes he habitually wore were a stark contrast to the confections of silk and lace he'd provided her with after he stripped her of her armor. His rough features and the unnatural gray cast of his skin gave the impression that he was carved from stone. A great red scar cut across his neck. The scar she'd given him before he tore her golden sword from her hands.

He extended a powerful arm to offer her a golden chalice. She took it thanklessly and drank. Vampire blood proved to be just as effective at preserving her immortality as the sacred apples of Iduna that she and the other gods had eaten to keep themselves from aging like mortals. She'd refused to eat in the first days of her capture. Eventually her resistance had worn away. Every day she could feel herself growing old, and it frightened her more than the vampire lord that had captured her. She now accepted his hospitality without a thought.

She stared silently down at the last crimson drops in the chalice, at her distorted reflection in the cup. Gold was her color. She tried to remember what her reflection looked like in the surface of her armor when she had polished it until it gleamed like a mirror. "I've been feeling strange lately, Brahms. I suppose a Midgard-dweller might call it homesickness. What news can you tell me of the Aesir?"

The vampire lord reached a great clawed hand out to stroke her hair. Brahms looked at her with what might have been pity, or love, if he was capable of such emotions. She had grown accustomed to that too. "Silmeria . . . Ragnarok has . . ."

She looked at him as if she'd just been run through with a spear. Her voice shook when it came to her. "No. It can't . . . It can't be. . . I—"

He spoke again, slowly. "The Aesir have—"

"NO!" Her scream was loud enough that Brahms imagined it could be heard throughout the entire castle. He moved his head slightly when she flung the chalice at him, letting it sail harmlessly over his shoulder. He heard it glance off the wall behind him and roll quite a ways on the floor before it came to stop. And to think some called her the most gentle of the three Valkyries. This was true, of course, compared to ice-hearted Lenneth and fierce, relentless Hrist.

Brahms had become well accustomed to Silmeria's occasional fits of rage. He usually suffered no more than the occasional sharp comment borne from ennui, but sometimes he gave her cause to be truly upset. He did not mind if she was angry with him; in truth it was her wistful gazing out of her window that truly pained him. He stepped close to her and clamped his hands around her slender shoulders. Her skin was lily pale from shock.

"The Aesir and Vanir are no more. The doom of the gods has come to pass." His voice came out much more cold and harsh than he'd intended. Silmeria refused to look at him. She turned her head so that her golden hair fell in a curtain over her eyes. As if she would shed tears over lost loved ones like a woman of Midgard.

"My place was in Asgard, in Ragnarok. Odin. Freya. Tyr. Thor. Vidar. Ull. Frei. I should have died. That was . . ." Silmeria's voice was choked and frail.

"Your fate?" Brahms's face pulled into a small, rare smile.

"The purpose of my existence."

"It is never so simple. Now you are free to choose your own purpose. Live, Silmeria."

She turned her face to meet his. "What are you saying?"

"If I hadn't kept you hear you'd be as dead as those you once served. Ragnarok is over, and you are still alive." He bent down and picked up the slender band of leather that led to Silmeria's ankle, the tie that had bound her to him for ages. "I have no more reason to keep you here." It snapped like fine thread in his hands. "You may leave if you wish." He rose, and reached out to caress her cheek. "Or you may stay with me."

Silmeria pushed his arm roughly away and stepped back from him. "That can never be, Brahms." Her voice seethed with anger. "I have no wish to live without the All-Father."

Brahms laughed at that. Silmeria turned and looked at him strangely. "The world has not been left so deprived," he said. " Valkyrie Lenneth is the All-father now."

Silmeria had to steady herself against the wall. "Have the Norns gone mad?" She spoke now in the barest of whispers, full of disbelief, bitterness, fear. "Lenneth . . . how could she? How could she dare assume such power. Hrist would never. . ."

"Hrist had no part in Ragnarok."

" . . . So all three of us failed." Silmeria was stunned by it all. She did not delude herself that she could have saved Odin if she had been there at his side during the battle as she should have. He was fated to die. He knew this. That's why he created the valkyries to gather the souls of heroes to join him in his final battle. Not to win, of course, but to go out in a blaze of glory. To die with him. To take all of their adversaries with them. That was their fate. Only a few were fated to survive Ragnarok. But not the valkyries, the shield maidens of Odin. No one had foretold such a thing.

Hrist would have gladly given her life in battle against Odin's enemies. She knew her place and her purpose without a doubt. Silmeria had always admired her bravery. If only Hrist had saved her. They could have died valiantly together alongside the All-Father. Now she was left with no purpose. Nothing except the shame for failing. But Lenneth? "How is it possible that Lenneth would do such a thing?" Silmeria fairly shouted. "She was a valkyrie, same as I."

Brahms had dreaded this question, for he was unsure that he truly knew the answer. He was privy to great, clandestine knowledge, for his servants were everywhere, silent as the shadows. There were few things that happened beneath the cloak of darkness that he was unaware of. But although he had played a part in the complicated string of events that led to the events of Ragnarok, it involved powers far beyond his understanding. "Trust the humans to meddle in such things. Hrist shattered her soul, but with the aid of forbidden magics she gained a new form. This allowed her to expand her powers beyond anyone's hope." He answered her as best he could.

"Forbidden magics? What human dare meddle in the destiny of the gods themselves?" Had Lenneth really betrayed the Aesir by using magic to usurp Odin's power? If Hrist had been sent to replace her, it must have been for a good cause.

"Lezard Valeth. He was one of the human souls who helped me defeat Hrist."

Silmeria had never heard the name. She suddenly felt painfully ignorant, having been away from the world for so long. It was so much to comprehend. " . . . It wasn't supposed to happen like this. Did anything at all happen according to the prophecy? What will become of Asgard now? This is chaos . . . "

"Not yet, but perhaps soon."

". . . What do you mean, Brahms?"

"The gods of this new age are weak. Lenneth's Einherjar have no concept of what godhood entails, and I doubt that Lenneth fully understands the powers she has."

"What do you mean? I thought she took the throne of the All-Father. Who would defy her?"

Brahms's expression darkened. "Hel's servants are still abroad in Midgard."

"So Hel has cheated her fate as well?" Silmeria suddenly realized that Brahms was truly worried. Of all the gods, Hel detested the undead most of all. Any soul unclaimed by another god that somehow escaped an eternity in her domain was an affront to her power. It had been because of her pleas to Odin that he had sent Silmeria to destroy them, and later Hrist. She had petitioned to send her own minions, but the other gods had been loathe to let her unleash her demons in Midgard.

"If she's half as clever as her father, I would not doubt it at all. She is accustomed to reaching her influence beyond Niflheim. Ragnarok has not changed that."

"I like it not. If the other gods must accept their place in Niflheim, so must she. She of all should know that. This must not be allowed."

"I agree. This might be our only chance to be rid of her for all time."

"What do you mean . . . our?"

"Once Hel is gone, then my kind can be at peace. I've stayed out of her grasp for this long. I have no intention of falling into her clutches now."

"That may be, but it is not my concern. You may do as you wish. I have no right to interfere."

"Not sure what to do with yourself now that your precious Aesir aren't pulling your strings?"

Silmeria's eyes flashed with a fire that he hadn't seen since before he her defeat long ago. "Bring me my armor, Brahms! I am still a valkyrie. And it is my duty to serve the All-Father."

~ to be continued