A.N. Can I just say that I don't intentionally create cliffhangers. I don't even realise I'm doing it.
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Lyze pushed away her hands, forcing her to sit down in front of him. As she submerged back into the water, he put a hand to his chin and pondered.
What did he think of her?
There were those in his old world that simply hated her because she possessed a few antagonistic traits. And true, there were certain aspects of her personality that was quite undesirable. And then came the extreme kind of haters who hated just because she was not a virgin...
Seriously, just how much of a weeb did those lot want to be? Wake up and smell the coffee, why would you expect a woman who has been alive for hundreds of millions of years to have not slept with a few men?
Utter idiocy. He really was concerned for their mental state if they could not even grow up in that context.
Still though, other people's opinions would not help him answer this question...
"I have a good deal of thoughts about you Lady Freya." He said quietly. "Some not too kind, but I do find some aspects of you that are admirable."
She merely sat there, not saying a thing as she listened eagerly, not willing to interrupt. Seeing this, he continued.
"Let us begin with how you are as a woman. In all honesty, sitting before you, I cannot see any reason why any man would not desire you. Appearance wise, I find little else and perhaps no other person that could ever match your charms or your beauty.
Back in my old world, we had a system called the golden ratio of beauty, which we applied to women to measure the level of attractiveness. Had you been there, I know for a fact that you would have been the ultimate one, so much so to the point that men in my world would have begun wars over you.
Truly, I can honestly say that you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen...but I sense that is not what you want to hear." Freya shook her head slowly as the look in her eyes intensified a little. "Good, because that is at the very bottom of the my list in regards to importance of character.
Now let's look at your personality. I admire your stubbornness, that unyielding drive to achieve your goals and come out on top of those who look down on you. I admire the fact that you hold genuine love for those under your wing, even if your nature is what compels you to do so. Your Familia members may be little more than toys to you once your fascination with them runs out, but it takes much for you to discard them as so many other gods do so easily."
She nodded, a smile curving at her lips.
"I admire your patience, and your great tolerance." He smiled a little sadly. "I can't imagine it was easy."
"What do you mean?" She said, a little confused.
"As a goddess of love and beauty, you are meant to appear as nothing but perfection. Your sphere forces you to be so nearly all the time, and you appear to willingly go along with it, maintaining an air of superiority and radiance unmatched, so that no one can peek into your true personality and exploit your weakness." Her eyes widened as he continued.
"It must be suffocating. Being treated with such gentle and tender fingers, similar to a phoenix in a gilded cage, or a priceless ornament. Never a moment where others are not looking at you, expecting the best out of you, never letting you do as you please.
I believe the reason you do things like prancing around flamboyantly with a persona like Syr Flover, is because you desire freedom above all things. Yet the world around you refuses to give you that freedom, instead opting to objectify you all the time as the peak of desires...
...so in return, you treat the world as your toys. You take out that frustration on others. You use the desires of other people to guide them around by the nose, having them unwittingly fulfil your own desires. And those that capture your interests, those that seem desirable to YOU, you treat them like objects, like precious toys, just like you are treated."
The expression she was giving him was unreadable. It was as if she was trying to put on a shocked face, or an agonized one and yet all those years of constantly looking prim and perfect had taken such an effect on her that she could not look devastated if she tried.
Freya's face became shadowed as she looked down at the water, some droplets of the bath rolling of her long hair and re-joining the source.
"Why?" She mumbled. "All these years...why was it you?"
But for convenience of the plot, Lyze did not hear as he was still speaking.
"But that is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the things I don't like about you. Your unrelenting desires, your endless need to possess the things you want, things you take at face value is something that is truly unbefitting of what is expected of you.
No means no, no matter what language it's spoken in. You cannot take what is not yours simply because you want it, even if you are of a higher station than us mortals. We may be the Children, but we too have our own rights over you.
I dislike how much you opt to be deceptive, and how uncaring of mortal lives you have become. You tend to to create dangerous situations for your subjects of interest to grow, to nurture and temper them into becoming the best versions of themselves they can become.
But you give no thought to the other lives in the area. The innocents that easily get slaughtered because of your shenanigans, your mere desires. In the pursuit of obtaining what you yearn for, many others lose EVERYTHING. And you just simply couldn't care less. So much for Love, wouldn't you say?"
Freya looked back up at him frowning, not in a defiant way but one that indicated a sort of realization within her.
"Another thing I don't like about you, is the fact that you have the means to help so many people and you've had plenty of chances to do that. But you just don't bother!"
"In what way?" She asked.
"Look upon Daedalus, and you shall find the answer. The horrors I saw there as a child. The things people would do for the sake a FEW Valis, which is practically worthless as it cannot even buy a meal from a food stand in the market." Lyze's fists tightened as the terrors and the disgust he felt back then came rushing back. Now more than ever did he relish the feeling of being responsible for Zanis's death. "Among the most horrific were young girls, YOUNG GIRLS, behaving like a common whore, luring the absolute filth of society into their embraces. And the moment those men would drop their guards, those same girls would pull out a knife and slit the throats of those depraved men and rob their corpses of their belongings."
Freya gave him a horrified look that actually seemed to work.
"YES." Lyze nodded angrily. "That is what happens, right beneath your nose! And you, you with your coffers overflowing with gold do not think to perhaps invest in the orphanages or care homes, so you could take these unfortunates of the streets and give them better lives.
With a small fraction of what your Familia earns in one expedition alone, you could build dozens of orphanages around the city and house those poor children. But you just don't give a damn do you? Because it does not benefit you in any way, it does not ENTERTAIN you. And you wonder why so many mortals refuse to worship you. You wonder why it is so easy for Evilus to find new members all the time!
In the time I have been in the Loki Familia, I have been discreetly diverting some of my earnings into Maria's orphanage and have spent millions of Valis doing so in other parts of the city.
But it doesn't work and you want to know why? Because absolute SCUM, sons of pigs and whores intercept the runners or steal from those defenceless places once I am out of there."
It had been a genuine problem Lyze had been facing. As much as he was focused on his goals, his humanity was still intact. So he had hoped that by providing fundings to places like Maria's orphanage, he could help a few more kids on the streets.
But the people he would send with the money would be attacked and robbed, or at times the runners themselves would let their greed get to them. And if Lyze himself went to deliver the money in person, the bastards would just gang up on the orphanage directors and rob them dry.
"With your political influence, and your connections, you could safeguard those children and the elderly. You could protect them from the wolves that only seek to sink their teeth into their flesh, and you could invest in providing them with medicine to protect them against the horrible filthy disease that plague those streets.
I was fortunate. Did you know what I used to do for a living?" Freya shook her head. "I used to scrape SHIT out of people's gutters and their sewers in hopes of earning a few coins. At times I was not paid at all. I myself had far too many nasty encounters in Daedalus that left me shaken and traumatised. It was only because of the entity that lives in me that I did not die nor did I fall victim to their whims and desires. I cannot even fathom what it was like for those who were not so fortunate!
I guarantee you, if you were to come out and announce publicly your desire to help these people, and to give them the basic human rights they deserve, within a few yours you would have at least a thousand new followers that would willingly swear their lives and their services to you because that is how much in need these people are." Lyze finished breathlessly.
Freya was beginning to feel a sickness in her stomach at what she was hearing. She knew that mortals could be corrupt, but the things Lyze was implying were horrific beyond description. It explained why he was not saying them outright.
She knew the feeling of being objectified and being lusted over for her body alone. She couldn't imagine having no choice or say in the matter though. And to think that he was saying that little girls...
The boy calmed down a little bit, steadying his breathing before he spoke again in a quieter voice.
"Lastly, perhaps not the only thing left but what I believe is most important is your greatest quality...which is also the worst thing about you." Freya raised an eyebrow as she came out of her shocked stupor. "It is your Love. It is true that it is genuine, and it warms the soul to immeasurable degrees. Love is a force that is powerful and mysterious...at times it transcends space and time.
The things people would do for it, the way some of the most evil villains I have seen redeem themselves for the sake of love. How they would not choose a planet of riches over a friend, how they would not choose an empire and unmatched power over their son, how they would give up their own lives and willingly throw themselves into the jaws of death so they could buy enough time for their loved ones to escape."
Lyze began to tear up a little.
"How despite the fact that your mere existence brings them so much pain and suffering from others, yet they go through with it willingly because they love you. How people openly people hate and spite them because they share a connection with you. How they are willing to forego sleep and food, just so they can be there to welcome you back home warmly...it is THOSE kind of things that signify true love.
...YOUR love however is destructive. It only means bad for people in the long run. I like to compare your love to a tornado. It passes over a people, completely uproots their lives and flips them on their heads.
Then comes the eye of the storm, a period of calmness and quiet where those people believe they have found peace and serenity and they bask in your love as the ultimate happiness.
Then the storm comes again and destroys everything as people realize that you have moved on and another people has caught that 'eye'. What is left behind? Utter devastation and nothingness, destroyed homes and destroyed peace of mind.
In a bid to catch up with the eye of the storm again, people go chasing but they can't keep up with it. As you draw further and further away, the more those people are determined to catch up. And in that effort, they unhesitatingly hurt others. THAT is the true state of the majority of your Familia. Other than Ottar, they all want your love to themselves and they willingly maim one another to gain it.
Their love becomes obsession, just like yours does. So the truth is Lady Freya, you should really be called a goddess of obsession now that I think about it. Because your love is fleeting and temporary, 'all for the sake of enjoying it while it lasts' as I remember you saying back at Ganesha's party'."
Neither spoke for a few minutes as he watched her absorb his words. She looked at him tentatively.
"Do you think me...irredeemable?"
He sighed. "No, I do not believe so. Nor do I think your are beyond being truly loved. Time is a precious gift that mortals should treasure but they never do and as such they don't change things before it's too late. You however have all the time because you are immortal. You can easily change, and enact change. And you are in the perfect position to do it right now, as of this moment."
"...Then, am I beyond 'you' being able to love me?" She quietly asked.
"What?"
Freya sat up straighter, her eyes a little moist.
"If you truly claim to know so much about me, then surely you must know what it is I desire most of all." She said firmly.
"...Yes." He said. "The prophecy, the coming of the Odr. Your long awaited husband so I hear. But what does that have to do with me?"
Freya smiled.
"After observing you for so long, and your beautiful soul. And after this conversation we've had just now, I believe I have at long last found my Odr..." She put her hand on his chest on a certain scar directly over his heart. "...in 'you'."
Lyze gave her a look of disbelief, as if her were staring at a madwoman.
"What possessed you to think that I would be someone like that? What convinces you of this?" He asked in a bewildered voice.
"And this is where I answer your question from before." She said. He inquisitively raised a brow. "You wanted to know in what way I saw you as special, correct and why I stopped seeing you as just another adventurer to add to my gallery? Why I ultimately decided I didn't want you to be in my Familia?"
"Yes, that was the agreement."
"You have said what you thought about me. Now let me respond to you."
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