@ofdiscord; ya.
This was, perhaps, the closest thing Jericho would ever feel to love.
Vivian was always with him – when they were in meetings, when they were in separate rooms, and even in his dreams (they were deliciously vile, with Demacian royalty maimed and dying at his feet and carrion in his beak, Vivian draped across his shoulders and whispering how this was only but a taste). She permeated into every aspect of Jericho’s life, and he found he did not mind.
Vivian was sure to introduce herself to Jericho’s consul (a polite term for his lackeys; it was laughable to imagine Jericho taking advice from anyone). She made a grand show of it, appearing from thin air and flourishing her blood arm. She relished the feeling of being in power of something – of someone. Jericho could relate. At the end of it, she took it upon herself not to seat at the open chair that Jericho had requested beforehand, but settling in his lap, expression smug. A bleeding, pointed finger ran across the top of his head, and he allowed it.
Later, she complained about how dreadfully boring the meeting was.
“I made a pact with you to give you power, Jericho,” she murmured to him, drawing a knuckle along his cheek. She had draped herself across the strategy table, blatantly staining the maps with red. “You don’t need to bother with all … this. These strategies.” Vivian’s mouth screwed up just at uttering the word.
“You make it sound so droll,” said Jericho in reply, and she snorted.
“If you wanted, we could go take Demacia right now – just the two of us.” She leaned in a little, a hairsbreadth away from him. Her legs were kicked up behind her, and she was leaning on her elbows. Her hair fluttered upwards by a nonexistent breeze like water. Blood flowed upwards in small drops from her arm. “Isn’t that what you want, Jericho?”
Admittedly, Jericho was tempted – sorely so. The idea of standing over Jarvan’s corpse with Vivian by his side was like a dream come true.
But, no – that wasn’t what he wanted. Jarvan was only a necessary obstacle to be removed. The pleasure from said removal was purely incidental. What Jericho wanted was control. What he wanted was absolute, inarguable, undeniable authority over everyone and everything. What he wanted was the ability to make hordes of small minded gnats to do whatever he wished. What he wanted was the satisfaction of knowing he was in command by his own efforts. Hs rise to power would be historic – no, legendary! And it would be of his own will.
Well, his will and a certain personification of Chaos.
Jericho took a bony finger and takes a small bunch of hair between it and his thumb. It was smooth, like silk. Jericho didn’t know what else he expected. He ran his thumb along it and pressed his knuckles just below Vivian’s eye.
“Patience will reward you, Vivian,” Jericho replied. “Don’t trouble yourself; the bloodbath will be satisfactory.”
She looked unconvinced. Her eyes narrowed and her delicate mouth dropped. She was beautiful, certainly, but Jericho knew what was underneath such an exterior. It wasn’t this perfected shell she had created that Jericho was intoxicated by, but with the crazed, uncontrolled, disturbing and terrifying one. What a pair they would be together on the battlefield! He wondered what it was like to hold such a power – to create anything your imagination allowed. Jericho was envious – he admitted it readily to Vivian. But how he craved her.
He would spend his free time reading books – primarily history, consisting of battle strategies and some of the greatest conquests in history. Of course, there had been rulers before Jericho’s time – ones with similar ambitions as he. But they had never come close, never had the resources to take control of even half of Valoran before their empire crumbled.
“This is why we have to be careful, Vivian,” Jericho murmured to her as they lied across a chaise together. He was leaning back on it, book in one hand and another running through her hair. She was leaning on him, resting her head on his chest. She was feigning sleep, he knew; he was fairly certain she did not need sleep.
At his words, she looked up and quickly read over the content in the book before making a disgruntled noise.
“These people didn’t have me,” she said to him, placing her head back on his chest and closing her eyes one again. He did not imagine he was very comfortable; he was almost all bone with skin to fill in the empty spaces. Then again, Vivian weighed easily two to three times her right for her size, so she had no right to complain.
“Indeed,” Jericho allowed her, “and neither did they have a plan.”
Vivian made another noise – impatience, he knew. Talk of what happened after he conquered the world was of no interest to her. He had not forgotten; this was not the extent of their pact. But perhaps, in some way, he hoped she would remain at his side – not just because he wanted her power, but because he wanted someone to acknowledge and appreciate his achievement.
He wouldn’t confine her, of course. He would never kid himself into believing that after their contract he could keep her in the walls of something as small and simple to her as a castle. But he would give her free reign, even authority – and, perhaps, she would return to him some days to revel in what they had wrought together.
“You don’t have to waste time on things like this, Jericho,” Vivian mumbled with a sigh. She had heard everything that had gone through his head. He made no effort to hide it. There wasn’t a point. She would know, regardless. “I’ve told you: we can get started whenever you want. Nothing is too large for me – for us.”
“What’s the point of conquering if there is no rule after?” Jericho frowned, disgruntled. “There is an art to authority, Vivian.”
“You have power,” she said. “What else do you need? Respect?” She snorted. “I did not take you for such a man, Jericho.”
“Don’t be obscene.” His fingers paused in her hair and his eyes dropped from the book to the top of her head. “I need security. I need fear. I need terror. I need my authority to be so thorough, so complete, so absolute, that everyone has no doubt in their mind that I hear every word they utter, see every twitch, smell any trace of resistance they have. Even when I am not there, they must have the illusion that I am. When others read such books like the one I have now, I want them to remember who I am – unlike these passing conquerors and gladiators with meteoric rises and disgraceful falls. I want to be part of history, Vivian. No, legend.”
Vivan only shook her head. “My, my, Jericho – how greedy you are.”
He went back to stroking her head and reading. “As I should be, else you’d not have bothered to come to me.”
“Hm,” she said, but Jericho knew there was the faintest of smiles on her face.
Once or twice, when he woke from a particularly vivid dream, he came face to face with her smug expression. She was hovering above him, upside down, her hair drifting into his mouth and a mischievous look in her eye. “Good morning,” she said.
“Indeed,” Jericho replied, face expressionless.
“An entertaining dream you’ve been having.”
“An entertaining dream you’ve inspired.”
She only grinned. It stretched her face in a strange way, which was not to say that it was unattractive, but it was foreign and unnatural. To a weaker man, perhaps, he might think himself on the brink of death.
“What is the agenda for today, Jericho?” Vivian sighed dramatically, taking a place next to Jericho on the bed, resting on her side and propping her head on her hand. “More meetings? A hearing or two? Perhaps some strategy and history lessons if I’m so lucky?”
“Yes,” he answered, voice monotonous, and her expression immediately dropped.
“You’re no fun, Jericho,” she turned up her nose. It exposed her neck, which was the one aspect of this form Jericho particularly relished. It was slim and elegantly curved. He wondered what it would look like bruised.
“Go entertain yourself with Draven if you’re so bored,” he told her as he rose. She laughed a little while he threw off the sheets.
“Is this envy, Jericho?” she crowed as he hobbled to the bathroom, back humped, lame leg stiff and uncooperative. When he opened the door, he found her sitting atop the porcelain counter with a gleeful look.
“Is it so inappropriate to be envious,” Jericho’s eyes narrowed, “when you are rightfully mine?”
Vivian’s expression immediately darkened. “I am not yours, Jericho. I am not anyone’s.”
“You are what I say,” he sneered, dark nails tapping on the tile.
She rushed in, face vile and enraged, a bloody hand seizing his collar and yanking hi forward. She was stronger than him – much stronger. If not for the pact, she could kill him without blinking. Still, his eyes showed no fear, which perhaps was why her expression only soured.
“Understand, Jericho – we are only a we until the pact is fulfilled, and until then it is well and truly a we. I am not your weapon or your accessory or an ornament for you to flaunt. Your conquest and future successes may as well be mine.”
Unimpressed, Jericho placed a hand on her wrist and sneered. “I will think of you and my work as I please – or will you interrupt this as you do my dreams?”
“You did not complain about the dreams before.”
“And neither did you raise concerns whenever I displayed you so proudly to my associates.”
Her jaw tightened, and she released him.
“Done already?” he couldn’t help challenging her, adjusting his shirt. “How disappointing.”
Vivian hissed through her teeth. “You test me, Jericho.”
“And you me, Vivian.”
She snarled before disappearing without another word. Suddenly, the bathroom was cold and silent. Jericho eyed the pool of blood she had left behind to drip onto to the floor before clicking his tongue. Distasteful woman.
