by GR Griffin
“Well you certainly do look upon your duty with resignation.” A curt nod was all that she could manage, the only answer she could give expression to in the moment. “But I think that you will be surprised at just WHAT you can enjoy from a union with me.”
That seducing tone, that self satisfied curving of that sensual mouth, and the look of dark promise in Lezard’s eyes, all had Lenneth reacting. She FELT the blush on her cheeks, even as her eyebrows raised with her expressed disbelief, Lenenth ill at ease with Lezard’s smug overconfidence. “Oh? Are you THAT sure of yourself?”
“Quite.”
A harsh sound escaped her, a hoarse bit of laughter that wasn’t as full of contempt as Lenneth would have liked. “You are both arrogant and overconfident.”
“Is it arrogant to to think that I could make you happy?” Lezard wanted to know. “Is it overconfidence or just my deepest desire and hope that you could learn to like it here? Is it selfish to want my bride to be able to thrive in her new life?”
She wanted to scream at him then. Lenneth wanted to rail against Lezard and her fate, against the unfair injustice that had been done to her and her sisters. Most of all, Lenneth wanted to cry out in protest, hating that Lezard had expressed a desire that he hoped would one day find her HAPPY.
“You know NOTHING of me.” Lenneth finally settled on hissing. “Not of who I am, not of who I was. You know nothing of my life, of my wants, of my needs. It is absolutely preposterous for you to even think to try. You can’t make a woman like me happy, a woman you just met, a woman you do not love and who does not love you!”
Her heart fluttered in protest at all that she was saying, and at the sight of his smile fading, the light in his amethyst eyes somehow now dimmed. Lenneth braced herself for a complete and total change in his demeanor, half expecting Lezard to strike her for her impudence.
“Are you quite finished?” He then asked her, and no real emotion had leaked into his voice with that inquiry. She wondered how that could be, how Lezard could possibly rein so tight a control over his anger and disdain, his cold disappointments.
“For now.” Lenneth answered with a stiff nod.
“Then allow me to offer up a countering view.” He had let go of her hand during the worst of her anger, but he hadn’t once cowered before it. His eyes took took on a determined sheen, Lezard staring at her as he spoke the following. “It’s true that we have just met, that you do not love me. Neither one of us knows much about the other, not our likes, wants and desires. But Lenneth? We can LEARN.” There it was, that off putting smile, that sensual expression that held the promise of wicked intentions. Lezard’s determined look did not waver, the man stepping forward to close any distance Lenneth might have tried to put between them. She couldn’t stand her ground, but neither could Lenneth yield to him, the woman watching with suspicion as Lezard extended out his arm and his hand to her.
“We can take as much time as you need.” He added. “We needn’t rush this….”
She didn’t take his hand, but neither did Lenneth find the strength and disdain to slap his arm away. Instead Lenneth looked into his eyes, into the hope that she saw blooming dark in the amethyst color. The astonishment eased away some of her tension, Lenneth searching his expression of any sign of deceit.
“You are not...eager to consummate this union?” She inquired, waiting for the lie. So braced was she for it, that at first Lenneth didn’t comprehend the words that were actually spoken.
“I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t.”
She nearly gaped astonishment at him, his blunt honesty such that she was torn in her feelings over the truth that Lezard had just admitted to. It was Odin’s enchantment at work again, the magic wanting Lenneth to be flattered regardless of the fact that Lezard’s admitted desire upset her greatly.
With that push and pull of emotions, with the right and wrong of it inside her, Lezard begrudgingly scored a point with Lenneth’s bespelled heart. It then skipped a beat at the deepening of the man’s smile, Lezard’s eyes taking on a lighthearted sheen that was so at odds with the darker look Lenneth had already acquainted with him.
“I don’t want to do anything to make you uncomfortable.” He had then added. She couldn’t believe it, Lenneth’s lips parting on a stunned sound.
“This whole situation makes me uncomfortable.” She blurted out with that sound. Was it Odin’s love spell, or something else to blame for the words spilling from her? The confidence that she was sharing. “I’m completely out of my element. Not just with these feelings, but with the expectations that might be put on me as a result. I was raised on a battle field, left to toil in war for centuries!"
His hand had never lowered, Lezard still urging her to take hold of it. “It will take some time and adjustment, of course. But given a chance, you can learn to accept this new life. To not only accept it, but to thrive in it!”
She simply couldn’t believe, couldn’t imagine the future that Lezard himself saw for her. “How?” Lenneth demanded in a plaintive tone. I have no purpose here, no reason to exist…"
“For now, let ME be that reason.” He had finally grown tired of waiting, reaching to clasp hold of her hands with his. “Together we can work to find you your purpose!”
His was an earnest warmth, the looks in his eyes alight with the belief of his hopes. That voice didn’t just whisper promises to her, it made Lenneth want to believe, the Valkyrie nearly caught up in Lezard’s excitement. On some level the woman realized and understood that she NEEDED to try to make the best of things, that for her own peace of mind, Lenneth had to try. That was nearly the tipping point that overcame all her doubts, that understanding working together with Odin’s spell over her heart. Nearly pushed to accepting, at the last possible second, Lenneth managed to fight free of Lezard’s words, and the magic of the enchantment.
Her eyes staring not at Lezard, but at the clasping together of her hands with his, Lenneth all but snarled venom at him. “My King would have me be nothing more than your slave.” She jerked her hands free of him, defiant and wanting to hurt Lezard the way that Lenneth herself had been so hurt. “That is my punishment.” She said. “YOU are my punishment.” The Valkyrie had raised her head as she had announced this, her blue eyes alight with all of her anger. That challenging gaze met his head on, Lenneth almost satisfied to see Lezard looking so shocked.
He seemed to forget how to breath, to speak, a single, solitary word choked out of him. “Punishment?”!”
Never taking her eyes from his, Lenneth was almost mocking as she nodded, quirking her eyebrow at him. “Did you not even know?” She asked. “Were you so unaware of the circumstances around your acquisition of a Valkyrie for your bride?” Silent, Lezard could only gape at her as he quickly shook his head no. Lenneth frowned in response, actually sighing out loud. “Then it seems we both enter into this union with little real knowledge to us.” She would have turned her back on him then, if Lenneth wasn’t still so wary, so suspicious of Lezard himself. “I am NOT your typical Valkyrie bride.” She added, none of her agitation having lessened with the announcement.
“Now that I don’t doubt.” He spoke it, but it was such a soft murmur, that Lenneth wasn’t sure that Lezard had meant to be heard. Nor did she allow herself to dwell on just what the man could have meant with such an agreement.
Wanting him to understand her, absolutely needing him to realize and know of the circumstances that had brought Lenneth to him, the Valkyrie found herself confiding to Lezard. “I was not retired from the battlefield due to a physical injury.” Lenneth fought not to close her hand into another fist, the unfairness of her fate, the injustice of it, agitating the Valkyrie further than she already was. “I was still able to fight, still able and willing to stand with Odin's warriors against our enemies." Her temper flared, as did her despair, Lenneth almost hissing in a despondent tone. “Why even now, I should be out on the Plains of Idavoll, leading our einherjar to do battle against the undead...” Once she might have even boasted of th
e victories her leadership would have guaranteed the soldiers under her command, but Lenneth had not forgotten the slaughter that had happened. The massacre that had befallen valkyrie and einherjar alike, Lenneth remembering the bodies, and that of her sister’s limp form forcibly embraced by the vampire king himself.
Almost caught by that memory, by her failure, Lenneth startled in place at the sound of Lezard’s soft question. “Then why? What happened to lead Odin to have to punish you?” At her sharp look, and at the pain of her failure echoing not just in her thoughts, but showing on her face, Lezard looked almost contrite. “It’s not too bold of me to ask, is it?” He then wanted to know.
In a way it was exactly that, and yet Lenneth also knew that Lezard deserved to know. Not just of her disgrace, but the reason why it had led to the woman being punished. It didn’t stop the angry look in her eyes, Lenneth downright ruthless as she spoke. “If you are to be my husband, then perhaps you have a right to know.”
Those words, that grudging acceptance, did not make it any easier for Lenneth to speak on her failure. Especially to this man, this stranger, who was to be part of her punishment. The anger and the pain that lanced through her, had Lenneth at last turning her back on Lezard. Let him strike her down for all that she cared, the woman unable to stand being so close to him for any longer.
With her arms crossing over her breasts, with Lenneth hugging herself for a comfort she could not accept, the woman strode away from Lezard. She would not speak until she was before the cage of the songbird, the woman staring down at the tiny creature who had finally quieted down. As though it too wanted to be privy to her secrets, to her failure.
"Lenneth?" prodded Lezard when she let the silence stretch out for longer than was merited.
“Would it surprise you to know that I was not an only child?” That was how Lenneth chose to start, the woman staring down at the songbird inside it’s metal prison. “My parents were blessed with not two, but three daughters. Hrist was the name of my older sister...” It was impossible to speak of her, to speak of them both without Lenneth conjuring their images to mind. She could almost smile, almost until the images distorted, Lenneth remembering Hrist’s scream, and spying Silmeria as she was fed upon by the vampire Brahms.
“And the youngest?” Lezard voice had urged her to fill in the silence once more.
“My sister Silmeria.” Lenneth answered in a grim tone. She had to extend real effort not to dig her nails into the soft flesh of her arms, all of her fondness and her love for her sisters tainted with the pain that she had come to associate with them over what had happened. “We’ve been at war with the undead for centuries..and there are those older than we, who have been at it for a millennia.”
“The undead...”
“Ghoulish creatures.” Lenneth spoke over him. “Nightmarish monsters all united under the vampire’s rule.”
“Ah yes….I believe the Lord of the Undead is a vampire who goes by the name of Brahms.” There wasn’t many that hadn’t heard that name at least once in their lifetime, and still to hear it spoken by him, by anyone, set Lenneth’s hackles raising.
“Brahms...” She all but growled his name, and this time her nails scratched over the flesh of both of her arms. It was no less than what she had done to the palm of her hand, and yet Lenneth was heedless of the pain, the hurt that she was now causing. “He is obsessed with my sister, Silmeria. Has been for a long time now.”
She heard the soft determined footfalls, spied Lezard’s drawing nearness out of the corner of her eye. “My sister Silmeria was the one who was injured on the battlefield. She was the one due to be retired and wed. All she need to do was wait and be safely delivered to her soon to be husband.”
“What went wrong?” Lezard asked. He was already reaching for her, touching fingers to hers, gently but insistently prying them away from the scratching she had still been doing. She tried to fight him, to at least shrug him off, but Lezard would have none of it. He not only persisted, the man chastised, his spoken reminder inadvertent in the hurt that it brought to her mind. “You are mortal now, Goddess.” He had stated. “Even the smallest of scratches can lead to a deadly infection.”
He had another cloth in his hand, a handkerchief that Lezard had drawn from a spare pocket. It was just as fine a material as the cravat, but made even bloodier from the number Lenneth had done to her arms. She might not have let him tend to her, but his warning earned her grudging acceptance. Though she might not be willing, and certainly not at all happy, Lenneth wouldn’t dishonor her duty as a Valkyrie, and let anything stand in the way of the woman surviving her punishment.
Without even a nodded thanks, Lenneth resumed speaking. “I was to be the head of the party that would escort my sister to Alfheim. The undead were never even supposed to come close, our sister Hrist leading those fiendish factions away from Valhalla. With the warring on both sides distracted, Silmeria should have been able to make her escape.”
“We were fools to believe that.” Lenneth announced. “The vampires weren’t on the run, weren’t tricked by my sister’s feint. Brahms and his kind instead lay a trap of their own, those blasphemous beings laying in wait inside the Forest of Spirits.” Lezard was listening with rapt attention, his hand pressing the handkerchief against the worst of her scratches. “Ambushed and overwhelmed, it was a slaughter. A massacre on the side of the divine. Only I survived such a nightmare...”
“Don’t blame yourself for that….”
“Why should I not? My King does! He faults me for the failure, for the lives lost, and for the blasphemous act I had allowed the vampire King to get away with.”
“Blasphemous act?” questioned Lezard, and Lenneth’s eyes flashed, her anger and pain, her abject heartbreak, tearing up the very expression on her face.
“My sister wasn’t just stolen.” She announced. “She was TAKEN. That bastard fed from her. I bore witness to that much with my own eyes, unable to stop him. Unable to save her, or stop the grievous sin he forced her to commit.”
The question was in his eyes, Lenneth unable to suppress her pain, or the agitation that was making her shake. “He made her drink of his blood. Do you even know what that means? Can you imagine what she will become? What ruin she will bring upon herself and countless others?!”
“She’ll become one of the undead...”
“She will lose her very SOUL.” Lenneth proclaimed, and with it came her exhaustion. “I failed her.” Lenneth said in a broken despairing tone. “I failed every last one of them!”
“You place too much of the burden on yourself.” Lezard protested.
“What do you know?!” She scoffed. “You weren’t even there!”
“That even one person survived, is a miracle.” But he hadn’t asked her just how she had managed that feat, Lenneth grimacing at the memory of just how easily Brahms had been able to defeat her.
“My King doesn’t think so. Nor is he anywhere as understanding about a failure as you seem to be.” She was trying to force down the pain, the anger, and her unceasing worry for her sister. The effort to keep all that at bay, crept into her voice, Lenneth sounding ever so tired as she spoke. “He can see nothing but my faults, my FAILURE. A failure he deemed grave enough to warrant a most extreme of punishments.” She looked Lezard in the eyes as she said this.”It wasn’t enough to retire me ahead of my time, to strip me of divinity. To marry me off with little idea of who or what would be having me. No...none of this was enough, Odin would have me lose my free will, my heart taken just as surely as Silmeria’s life, her future, was stolen!”
Somehow Lezard had managed not to have flinched under all of that. Instead Lenneth’s near unforgiving tirade had softened the expression on his face, Lezard gazing at Lenneth with something that might have been PITY. She couldn’t bear it if it really was that, her temper already flaring to life long before he tried to offer his condolences.
“I am truly sorry for your losses, for ALL of them.”
“Your sorry d
oes not bring me back my sister, or my honor!” Lenneth practically shouted at him. “The vampires have cost me EVERYTHING!”
“You STILL have your LIFE.” Lezard was quick to point out.
“Life!? What good is my life if I cannot even use it to save Silmeria?!” She demanded, attempting to pull away. Not without some effort exerted, but the man managed to hold onto the former Valkyrie Goddess.
Maintaining eye contact with her, Lezard spoke. “You are suffering from survivor’s guilt. A common enough affliction, and one that is none too easy to work through. But in time….” At the scoffing sound Lenneth made at that, Lezard sighed. “Perhaps then, it wasn’t so much punishment as it was a kindness from Odin, when he attempted to enchant you to love me?”
She stared at Lezard like he was half out of his mind, Lenneth shaking with an urge to do a very real violence to him. “How can you say that?” She asked in a strangled tone of voice.
“I..I meant no insult.” Lezard correctly hastily. “But you can’t live out the rest of your life, mourning your sister and lost comrades. Anymore then you can spend that time blaming yourself for what has happened, or torturing yourself with the things that you might have done differently. That’s not a good life, and you survived for a reason. You need to do those lost honor, you need to LIVE, Lenneth. You need to embrace life and that which it offers you.”
She was still staring at him, mouth agape with her shock. He hadn’t made her see the validity of what he was suggesting, anymore than Lezard had made Lenneth believe that Odin had meant this marriage to be anything but a punishment.
“With you?” She finally managed to say. Lenneth had wanted to sneer, but Lezard had left her to stunned to manage that or much of ANY expression.
“It would be a START.” He told her with a smile.
“Why would you even care?” Lenneth wanted to know. “I am a just a stranger to you...”
“Ah but you are a little more than that.” Lezard reminded her. “Yes, we might not know each other just yet, but one day it will be different. One day I want to be more to you, than just the man your king forced you to marry.”