Disclaimer: I own nothing. I'm just a fucking nerd trying to calm my nerves during this trash fire of a decade. So, y'know, don't sue me. I don't have any money.

Seven Devils

Chapter 1: The Price of Obsession (Loqi)

Notes: Inspired by Florence + The Machine's famous "Seven Devils" as well as the ages-old seven deadly sins and their uncanny influence upon human nature.

Huge thanks to Phoe and Kat for letting me bounce ideas off you!

I would love to see what my readers think about this concept, and I encourage you to comment and let me know which sin you think each of the seven influencers of Niflheim corresponds with.


More than anything, Aranea hates this place. She hates the endless chill that wafts through the halls, the dead and hollow eyes of the patrolling MTs that stare her down. To be blunt, Zegnautus is a veritable hell on earth, packed to the brim with the uncanny and uncomfortable. How fitting that the present empire, what with such a kill count under its belt in the last 150 years, would advocate for military operations to be run out of a fortified tomb.

The idea is to be in and out as quickly as possible, stopping only to collect the written details of her latest assignment from a distant office that would much sooner pass for a storage room. Far be it from her superiors to bother with something as quick and helpful as an email. The commodore is convinced that the higher ups get some sort of weird thrill out of watching on camera as their subordinates march into the offices to collect issued instructions in person. It's not about control so much as it is showing off the magitek movement at any given opportunity. They're all the same that way, obsessed with the sick set of toys that His Radiance has granted them jurisdiction over.

Soon enough, her refusal to command and work with MTs will fall on deaf ears and she — along with the rest of her crew — will be discarded in favor of soldiers who don't talk back or look for loopholes.

How very comforting.

The thrum of the commodore's heart falls perfectly in line with the echo of her steps, and she traverses dark corridors and descends stairways with a speed furious enough to risk snapping both ankles clean off in her boots. It is a calculated one, and one Aranea is willing to take, for the suffocating weight of the Keep's atmosphere only seems to give way once she glides through that last corridor to the hangar where her ship resides.

The space is wide and freeing, her initial breath shaking off the unnatural dread that seems to have seeped into the very walls of Zegnautus itself. Here, surrounded by a wide variety of ships ready to take flight, she feels alive, but an instant away from the wide-open skies and the expansive world beyond. It may well be that here in the capital, surrounded by tall buildings and the imposing weight of her nation's reputation, she feels stagnant, forced to fit into a mold that Aranea knows she will never quite adhere to.

But out there, beyond the crater into which Gralea has so willingly settled, the possibilities seem endless.

Fingers tear through the envelope – why the fuck does anyone bother sealing these damn things in the first place? – bits of dried glue and paper falling to the wayside. Of course, she thinks, unfolding the page and scanning the letters set into the page, it's another damned supply run for valuable materials that will, undoubtedly, be written off as part of Besithia's alleged "necessities." And she, as a terribly mortal soldier, will be left to fend for herself and her crew yet again in the coming weeks.

Aranea rolls her eyes with an audible groan, wadding the thing up into a ball and casting it over her shoulder.

To hell with it.

"Aren't you going to pick that up?"

He's young, and while that fact on its lonesome doesn't absolve him of his crimes and commitment to a faulty cause, it certainly goes a long way towards explaining them. To say the very least, Loqi Tummelt is a child by comparison to those with whom he serves and commands. A boy obsessed with the powerful machinations of magitek weaponry as well as one notorious Lucian, whose infamous moniker is best left unmentioned within the capital's walls.

(Wartime makes for quick promotions, after all.)

One might think the young general the epitome of propriety in the face of diplomats, those both foreign and domestic, but the truth behind his allegiance to the army lies only in the freedom of travel granted by his position. More often than not, Loqi can be found staking his claim throughout Lucis, bouncing from one base to the next in hopes that one of the local scouts has caught wind of his quarry and – by extension – his ticket to being made a veritable legend for the ages.

Rather, his ambitions are based in greed every bit as much as in his imperial heritage.

The nature of their rivalry – assuming Cor the Immortal is even remotely aware of it in the first place – remains uncertain, lost amid wild speculation regularly darting from one chaotic theory to the next. And, as it so happens, each rumor that is brought to Aranea's attention becomes more outlandishly absurd than the last. It doesn't help at all that Loqi seems quite content to keep the facts to himself.

Alas, one cannot so much as vaguely mention the Lucian without the boy's radar picking up on the sound of his name.

"Wasn't planning on it," she replies dryly, a thumb swiping across her painted lower lip. When the telltale crease appears in the general's brow, she sports a mocking grin, examining her nails as a means of encouraging him to move along. "Why? You that committed to recycling, or something?"

Loqi scoffs, arms folded across his chest as he cocks his head to one side, the toe of a boot nudging the commodore's discarded orders.

"Careful, Highwind," he says, and though the tone of his voice drops low as a warning, it still is not enough for Aranea to really take him seriously.

"Or what, you gonna have me court martialed for littering, General?"

It is already a narrow bridge she walks, that of her station as both a commodore and a mercenary, but the dragoon has seen enough in her life to know quite well that the likes of this fledgling commander has no real means with which to threaten her. That, and if he did pursue her on such a ridiculous charge, his shot at maintaining rank and respect within the political sphere would crumble to dust.

His face takes on an even more pinched look than before, and it's with a chuckle and a smile that Aranea bends at the waist, plucking the offending object from the hangar floor and tossing it to the general who recoils in surprise. Despite Loqi's best attempts at recovery, he quite literally drops the ball, diverting his gaze from hers as his cheeks flush red.

"Don't gotta be so serious all the time," she chides, a hand on her hip. "Really. Don't get me wrong, we're not friends, but we aren't enemies, either. You don't need to impress me."

Obsession is the name of the game with this one; always has been. While he falls dreadfully short in regard to hand-to-hand combat, Loqi has quite the talent for manipulating machinery, and thus had made a name for himself as but a lad in army training. But for all the praise heaped upon him as a boy, he'd grown into a narrow young man, buying fully into the empire's false narrative "for the greater good," and believing the present state of Niflheim to be the pinnacle of human achievement.

A rather grandiose lie, but one that, even if it were true, meant that the nation could only decline from here on out.

True or not, Aranea would bet on that fact.

"To those not in the know," he says, seeming to have recovered quite well, "one might see fit to question your loyalty to the empire." The discarded page is collected and smoothed out as best the general can manage, eyes skirting over the crumpled text before rising to meet Aranea's gaze. "That, in and of itself, is treason."

The commodore only smirks.

"Instead of standing here challenging my loyalty to the empire, perhaps you ought to be off proving your own dedication to the cause by chasing down Cor the Immortal."

And, just like that, the page is thrust into her hand as Loqi hurries past her, pauldron scraping against the jagged edges of the dragoon's own armor, muttering under his breath all the while.

Satisfied, Aranea once more spares a glance to her assignment before again casting it to the floor to be ground beneath her heel. As expected of her, she'll comply with the orders, though begrudgingly. Having thrown in with the imperial army from the onset of adulthood, she hasn't anywhere else to go, and the best course of action is to ride this wind until it begins to peter out.

"Who knows?" The commodore smiles, turning to watch the young general depart the hangar. "Maybe, this time, Cor will remember your name."

He's greedy all right, she thinks. Greedy for glory. And whether it's for himself or for the empire doesn't matter one whit.