Path of the Divine Soul
By Mena
A collection of drabbles and shorts responding to the challenge posted by 100-series. (Theme Number 8: Heart of a god/goddess)
Note: Theme No. 6, Restless Spirit of the Damned, is found in The Last Mission. Theme No. 7, Lost Memories of a Former Life, is present in Echoes of the Eternal Recurrence.
Disclaimer: I own nothing of Valkyrie Profile or related characters.
Chapter 7: The Hollow Shell
"Silmeria!"
Brahms, Lord of the Undead, hardly batted an eye at the emphatic cry that pierced his throne-room. Standing a few meters in front of him were his fellow conspirators against the gods: the banished princess of Dipan, Alicia, and the vessel for Odin, Rufus. A fang was revealed as he smirked when Alicia drew her sword and leveled it in his direction, eyes livid.
"Let her go!"
Rufus strung his bow hesitantly. "Are you keeping her prisoner?"
Brahms merely shifted his position in his chair. "We're all prisoners of Odin, are we not?"
"When you give up without even trying, you're dooming us all—just like Odin."
At Alicia's vehement statement, Brahms slowly rose from his chair, a dull fire dancing in his blood-red eyes. "I'm nothing like Odin."
"Then come with us!" Rufus lowered his bow and clenched his hands. "We're going to stop Odin and end his reign over Midgard and Asgard alike."
Brahms chuckled. "Go ahead. I certainly won't stand in your way." He turned his gaze to Alicia. "Why are you here?"
Alicia looked at him as if the answer was obvious. "We could use your help. You've fought Odin before—if we work together, we can win!"
"Sorry, Princess, but those days are over. You tried hard, but Odin has the Dragon Orb in his hands. If we so much as make a move against him, he'll annihilate all of Midgard."
"Oh, so the Lord of the Undead is scared?" Rufus flashed a cocky grin at Brahms who crossed his arms.
Before Brahms could respond, Alicia stepped in between him and Rufus. Brahms gave a slight start at the look on Alicia's face—a face of determination not unlike the one that he had seen so many times on Silmeria's.
"Release Silmeria."
"I can't."
"What do you mean?" Rufus stormed up to Brahms, oblivious of who he was messing with. "You're keeping her here; you must know how to release her!"
"A divine power sealed her, and a divine power is needed to release her. Even if there was another way, why would I release her?" Brahms sighed at the aghast looks on the faces before him. "As soon as she was released, she would be a spirit. She would be reborn unless Hrist came and captured her. Thus she would be a prisoner of Odin once more."
"So let's go defeat Odin so we can release Silmeria!"
Chuckling at Rufus, Brahms shook his head. "And leave Silmeria unguarded? I don't think so. That would be just what he wants."
Several moments passed as Rufus glowered at Brahms' phlegmatic expression. Finally, Rufus broke the gaze and turned for the exit. "I'm not gonna just sit around and let Odin do as he pleases. I will stop him." He turned to see Alicia staring at Brahms.
"Let me see her."
Brahms became aware of a dim pounding in the front of his head as Alicia stepped closer to him. He could do this, if nothing else. He snapped his fingers and the crystal encasing Silmeria appeared high above his throne. It slowly descended to the ground where Alicia strode to meet it, stopping inches in front of it, transfixed. Rufus turned to look for a few moments before he made his way outside of the room.
"This is what you really look like," Alicia murmured as she raised her hand to trail down the structure, stopping where Silmeria's hands were. "Soon, we'll both be free, and then we can finally meet again…"
Brahms' eye twitched momentarily as Alicia inclined her head toward him. "Do you really think this is protecting her? Is this Silmeria's idea of freedom?"
Alicia finally tore herself from the crystal and proceeded to march down the hallway to meet up with Rufus. "I suppose you think this is love."
Brahms crossed his arms sullenly but Alicia paid it no heed as she finally exited the room. Brahms stalked back to his chair, Silmeria ascending once more to the heights of the dreary room. As he settled into his chair, Brahms shook his head. Perhaps he should have gone with them.
It never changed. Brahms would always feel like this—their deaths would be on his hands, now. Because he didn't go with them, because he didn't train them, because this, because that.
Sometimes Brahms wished he would change back to the way he was instead of falling deeper into the pit that was now consuming him, a pit full of remorse and shame.
"You cannot possibly hope to defeat Lord Odin. What's the point?"
The muscles that lined his body stiffened as Brahms recalled the day he first met Silmeria Valkyrie.
As much as he hated to admit it, Silmeria had changed since he first met her, hundreds of years ago.
Years passed from the day that Alicia and Rufus had ventured into his sanctuary. Battles were fought with Hrist, petty details that sometimes lined the years. Brahms would mostly sit and talk to Silmeria, reliving the moments they had spent together before her failed Sovereign's Rite.
The first time they had battled in Surts' Volcano Caverns, their continued fights across the years.
Brahms liked to think that he had a part in changing Silmeria. He knew it was him who had opened her eyes to Odin's tyranny. He remembered a sensation that he long since forgotten when Silmeria saved his life, bringing his soul into her, shielding him from Odin.
Brahms recalled, for the first time in centuries, a feeling like pain when Silmeria was captured and forced through the Sovereign's Rite. What little power he had left, he had used to help save Silmeria from losing her memories, to continue the fight.
Strangely enough, he couldn't remember feeling the same when Silmeria saved him once more from Freya's ice attack in Dipan. It was a different feeling, one that he never had felt before.
Long ago, Brahms abandoned his feelings. He wasn't mortal anymore. All that was left was to understand motives, reasons for actions. Behavior and feelings were for mortals.
Such was the price he had paid to become an Undead, a thorn in Odin's side, a hollow shell of the man he once was.
During the years that Silmeria was in her coffin. Brahms felt compelled to try and understand her.
Silmeria Valkyrie was always alone.
Through her actions while under the guise of Leone, Brahms could tell that Hrist Valkyrie secretly longed for the company of her sisters, but somewhere along the way, Silmeria seceded and began to trust no one but herself.
What would it feel like to be utterly alone in the world?
Brahms believed that was why he kept Silmeria with him. Why would he leave? Silmeria needed him.
Maybe that is why she refused to trust anyone.
Often, Brahms thought about what it felt like to have obeyed someone like Odin blindly and then come to the realization that they weren't what he thought they were. If he had ever loved a person like a sibling and saw them turn into a monster like Hrist Valkyrie, how would he feel?
Maybe she was afraid to love them.
Brahms thought about a conversation Alicia had in the Volcano Caverns on their journey. Talk about sleep and souls.
"When I first realized Silmeria was with me, I couldn't sleep."
He wondered how Silmeria felt about that. He would ask her, but he couldn't ever find an answer.
So the question stands: When did Silmeria start to love again?
It really made no sense to Brahms. The heart of a goddess? Impossible. It didn't exist. They weren't born with feelings. They lacked morals, emotions, every mortal weakness.
But the more he thought about it, the more it made sense.
Maybe emotions weren't a weakness to be tossed away.
Perhaps that's what he felt when Silmeria sacrificed herself once more for him.
Was it when she actually spoke up for the mortals?
"Why not help save Dipan—help save Alicia!?"
He knew that Silmeria was concerned for the well-being of Midgard, but one mortal?
It wasn't logical.
Could her love for one mortal have affected the thousands of years of solitude? A heart that so closely mirrored her own.
Sometimes Silmeria would speak to him while they were inside of Alicia. Oftentimes it was about how to overthrow Odin, ideas that were tossed and turned, stamped and rejected. But sometimes Silmeria would ask Brahms about things like why mortals did illogical things, and sometimes she would ask him about feelings.
It was almost as if she wanted to learn.
Perhaps she didn't want Alicia to end up like her.
Hrist called him insane.
He did carry on conversations with a crystal.
Brahms cared not about her words or even her futile actions. A part of him was dimly aware that Hrist was changing for the worse over the years.
What did he care?
He supposed that Silmeria might.
But he didn't.
Many times Brahms would look up at Silmeria and remember the surprise when he saw her expression change many years ago, after Alicia left.
Brahms spent hundreds of years trying to understand the heart of the goddess that floated above him, day after day, night after night.
Try as he might, he couldn't understand her. Maybe it was because he gave up trying to understand himself that he was unable to understand Silmeria.
A secluded part of his heart told him that his efforts were in vain. Another part told him that it was because he loved her. His brain told him it was to understand that smile, a smile devoid of contempt or arrogance.
Who could ever know what made her smile so tenderly while trapped in that pristine prison?
