I realized I never posted this?? Some more for the Villain AU, with a little bit of writing to go with it!
“I thought I was rid of you. And yet, you haunt my home.” Starcevic looked up from her reading, at the hulking figure which filled the entryway. She closed her book, and got to her feet. “I have become quite busy in your absence, so I hope you can make this brief.”
At a loss for words, for only a moment, Valgrun stared at her. “Your reputation has grown, Shamanbane,” he began, the faintest inkling of distress in his low voice, “It is only fair that I should reap the rewards of my hard work.”
Clicking her tongue, Starcevic leaned against her desk. “Your hard work, now? What torment did you endure to get me to where I am? Did you have your immortality stripped from you?” She pushed herself off the desk, and walked toward Valgrun. With her chin held high, she could look down upon him. “How many coups have you thwarted?” Here, she chuckled, and shook her head. “Not enough, clearly. What was this body like before you deformed it?”
“You would be nothing more than a frightened corpse, if not for me,” He answered, a little too quickly. A short pause and a mirthful growl helped him regain his footing. “You have an empire, you have scores of sycophants ready to lay down their lives and their souls- I ask only for what I am due.” She stood mere feet away from him now, still looking down her nose at him, an impetuous smirk at her lips. “What do you think you deserve?”
“Credit? A paltry few of your loyal subjects? It isn't too much to ask, Shamanbane, for all that I have done for you.” He smiled, baring his horrible teeth. “Come now, I've never known you to decline a fair trade.”
“You want my subjects? Forgive me, but of all the things you inspire, loyalty is not one. No, this will not do- nor is it the reason you're here.” She lowered her chin slightly, looking him dead in the eye.
He could see himself in her false eye- it unsettled him. He would have liked little more than to pluck the bauble from her skull, to crush it in his claws. It taunted him, challenged him...or was it her smirk? He parted his lips to speak, before closing them again. “You're over-thinking, Shamanbane.” “Spare me, I knew your every thought for a decade.” The unnatural eye gleamed in the low light. “I know why you've come. The only surprise is that it took you so long to seek me.” She chuckled again, closing her eyes as she did so, granting Valgrun a reprieve from the eye's stare. “Five years I've been alive, how lonely that must have been for you. Tell me, did your spirit wander about until you could find a suitable body, or have you spent this time cultivating one to its pinnacle of monstrosity?”
Valgrun's claws twitched as he brushed off the impulse to grab her. “You need not be cruel to me. I taught you everything you know, I gave you everything you needed to take our power, to ensure our legacy-” he stopped himself as a grin spread across her face.
“Oh, Valgrun,” she half-laughed, “So desperately have you missed me, you're tripping over your words. Say them plainly, and I may yet give you what you so desire.”
He fell to his knees, his claws reaching longingly for her. “It is hell, without you. You are finally reaching your potential, and I cannot have my work wasted. Please,” his plea was much closer to a demand. “We were so powerful, we were an unstoppable force, please,” he demanded again, grasping at her legs through her robe. “I was your greatest ally- nay, weapon, and you mine. You need me-” His claws pressed against her flesh, hungrily. “I was closer to you than your ghoul could ever have dreamed to be. He claimed to love you- how could he have? He did not know the deepest machinations of your mind, the tiny, infinitesimal memories that make you who you are. Only I know them, only I could give you your heart's desires; only I could love you, as you love yourself.”
The rancor of his soliloquy was followed by Starcevic's silence, as she seemed to appraise him. Then, she let her hand fall, and held Valgrun's face in a delicate caress. When she spoke, she matched neither his animosity, nor her previous complacence.
“What do you know of love?”