Prisoner 83109 awoke to a loud ringing in his ears. When he opened his eyes, he found himself only able to see a very bright light that seemed to come from every direction, so he closed them again. Realizing that he was seated, he tried to stand. His movement was immediately halted by the rattling of chains and an intensely searing sensation on one shoulder. He tried to feel his way about himself but found himself unable to do so. That was odd.
Then he tried turning his head. He realized at once that his neck was incredibly stiff and sore, which was a sensation entirely unfamiliar to him. He quickly let out a reflexive gasp of pain and heard the squealing of a hatch opening and the clang of the same hatch closing, followed by the tapping of footsteps.
“There’s no point trying to use your powers, 83109.” The voice was female. Pushing through his overwhelming headache, he found his most recent conscious memory. He remembered his ship being shot down, jumping after the same ship, the ship disappearing, and getting into a fight with a Valkyrie who somehow managed to defeat him, though the details were extremely hazy. He did remember something about his arm. That might explain the pain in his arm.
“What do you mean,” he asked. “Why wouldn’t I be able to use my powers?” Just to test the comment, he did, in fact, try to use his powers. First, he tried to crush the woman speaking to him, but he realized that he couldn’t feel where she was. The same problem kept him from entering her mind. Then, he tried to increase his own strength and break his chains. That was one of the simplest powers he possessed, yet even this evaded him. He couldn’t gain a drop of strength. He remembered the woman’s voice having been in his head and feeling weaker before passing out. “What did you do?”
The woman walked around behind him, a fact of which he was only aware due to the sound of her boots on the deck. She continued walking until she had completed a full circle around him. “Oh, I didn’t do much. I just locked away your powers with a bit of my own.” Her voice didn’t expose the satisfaction he was sure she should be feeling at this accomplishment. For a mere Valkyrie to be able to overwhelm a Sheii’Cronell was unprecedented. Yet, instead of satisfaction, he thought he heard the slightest tinge of guilt, as if she felt bad for what she had done. But he wasn’t fooled.
“You’re lying. You’ve done something else to trick me into thinking I can’t use my powers. Valkyries don’t have the ability to do what you’re describing. You can’t just lock away my powers.” He was indignant, and his voice spat the hatred he had accumulated through his years alone, fending for himself. He had fought Valkyries before. They were certainly stronger than the average person, but they weren’t anywhere near as powerful as he was.
“I told you before,” she replied. “I’m not really a Valkyrie.” Her pacing around him ceased, and there was a clicking sound near his face. The reddish orange that shone through his eyelids turned to black. He opened them to a prison visor. He should have recognized the feel of it on his skin and the light that shone into his eyes from every angle, but it wouldn’t really have made a difference, so he pushed it aside.
Through the visor, he was able to look upon the face of the woman who had beaten him. Looking about quickly, he also noticed that each corner of the small room held another Valkyrie, guarding him in still and total silence. He was actually amazed at the silence of their breathing. Even now, he couldn’t hear it. Then, he realized they were simply breathing in perfect time with him. It was quite an effective method, and it was an ingenious technique.
Looking back to the woman, he saw what seemed at first to be just another Valkyrie, a blue-haired woman with lightly freckled skin and green eyes. Wait. Her eyes weren’t green. They were the same seafoam color as her hair. The glow from her eyes was that same Valkyrie green, but the eyes themselves were not, a fact revealed only by his incredible vision, a common trait among Sheii’Cronells that wasn’t actually attributed to any power. It was just a fact of their existence that happened to coincide.
Now looking for more differences, he noticed that the skin tone of this woman was slightly redder than most Valkyries, who tended not to burn but to ever so lightly tan instead. He also noticed the silver in her hair. It was not the silver of a person who has accumulated it over years of age, though the wrinkles on her face bespoke the fact that she was quite old, as Valkyries did not even begin to wrinkle until they reached about two hundred cycles of age. The silver was simply there, as if it were the same color it had always been. It had a lustrousness to it not shared by the hair of the elderly. It was the tint of the blue in her hair that most intrigued him. It had too much green in it, just as her eyes didn’t have quite enough. Most would be fooled, and had she not pointed it out, he never would have taken the time to notice, but she certainly wasn’t a normal Valkyrie.
“Who are you?” 83109 managed out only these three words, and she immediately turned away, continuing her pacing. He looked at her as she walked, her eyes set in a thoughtful sort of way, as if she wasn’t exactly sure how to answer the question. When she reached the point behind him where she crossed to the other side, however, he let out another gasp. His arm was gone. He hadn’t realized in the fight that he had lost his arm, such was the extent of his furious rage at her attack. It was in this fact that he realized she was telling the truth about locking away his powers. Even if it had only been a few hours, his arm should have grown back by now.
“I am the person who can give you purpose in life, 83109. I am the one who can either save your life and let you live normally for the first time or let you find your way back to the authorities, who would be more than happy to proceed in processing you into the Nivlahim facility until your dying days whether you have your powers or not.”
He wasn’t sure where she was going with this. “Yeah? And how do you intend to manage giving me a normal life? I’m a criminal and a rather high-profile criminal at that. You’re a Valkyrie, or something of the sort at least. I’m not really sure exactly what you are, but your people aren’t exactly known for dealing kindly with criminals.”
What she said next were the words he came to remember for the rest of his life. “Right now, you’re in a city full of extremely high-profile criminals, none of whom want to come into contact with authorities any more than you do. If you agree to what I ask, you’ll be given a home here. All you have to do is agree to my conditions, and you will be assigned a house and a job, and you can live out a life free from any sort of judgement. People will just assume you lost your arm in the rebellion and got your prison tattoos before being rescued by the Ginnung. After all, if you agree to my terms, that won’t be too far from the truth. You’ll be as close to a free man as you’ve ever been in your life. No one will know you as prisoner 83109 or even as a Sheii’Cronell. People here will only know you by the name no one has called you in twenty cycles… Qzcivden.”
Hearing his name, given to him after the city in which he had been conceived, gave him shivers. He had almost forgotten his name, it had been so long since anyone had said it. Without realizing they had started, Qzcivden blinked the tears out of his eyes and choked out four words that changed his life and that he would never come to regret. “What do I do?”