Standered Disclaimer: The author does not claim these characters in any way, shape, or form. Also, large Large LARGE spoilers for the A ending of Valkyrie Profile are present... read at your own risk.

The wind is laden with ash and smoke; the scent it carries saturated by the small of blood and pain. This is all that is left of my world now... a burnt out series of islands that were once called paradise, a mad god... and myself, and my pain. Loki, in all of his madness, believes that his destruction of the world is the worst thing he can do to hurt me. He little realizes that he struck that blow long before Ragnarok began.

What price of love? Of a lost heart and soul, a wound that will continue to bleed for all of eternity, never healing, never changing... What can one feel when half of your very being is torn away in violence, what remains to the survivors? When one is helpless to protect that which she cares for... what good is all of this power, if I can not defeat the one enemy who threatens that which I treasure most?

I should know the answer to this question... it is my business. Even if I am not a Goddess of Love, I have had enough experience with others to know how I should deal with this. Numerous Einherjar, Gods of every name and power... and yet for the first time in my life, I feel powerless...

A God should not feel this way, this betraying ache of my heart that weakens me so! For are we not the lords of creation, destined to live as long as Asgard and Midgard exist?

What is worse... is that it is a mortal that I love so.

Love can not exist between Gods and Mortals... that is what I told Lezard Valeth in his tower so long ago. So I believed, at that point in time. I had been created by Lord Odin... not birthed, not fathered, but spun from the primal essence of the universe! What would I, the Chooser of the Slain, know about love? My life has been dedicated to war and death since the moment I awakened from my long slumber, to seeking the souls of those worthy of Asgard and Valhalla. I was a dutiful servant of my Lord Odin and Lady Freya, obedient in all things. But slowly, things began to change...

When did I first feel this 'emotion'...? Was it at the beginning, when I first met Jelanda and Arngrim? When Llewelyn bade his last farewells to his ladylove? Or when I took the soul of Lucian, oh dear beloved lost Lucian, whom I killed as surely as if I had struck him down with my own blade? The questions they asked... the reasons for my existence, the purpose of their lives and my own.

"Aren't you just a Death Goddess?"

"Choosing a servant is just like picking a flower... is it not that flower's destiny to be picked?"

"I'm sorry... it's just that... you look exactly like her..."

What right do we have, to control the lives of the humans? We can not even control ourselves, let alone the fate of all mankind... Loki has shown us that. When one of our number can bring about the ruin of our entire world and way of life... where is the 'justice' in that? What manner of being can justify destroying even one being, be it a human or the smallest bug?

Lucian did not care for what I was... it was not a temptation, as it was for Lezard. That he was but a mortal and I a Goddess meant nothing to him. Lezard may have been drawn by my powers, by the challenge of having a Goddess as his 'beloved', but dear Lucian saw something else... a soul he had believed in long ago, a love he believed lost forever. And who was I to refute what he said? A mere trifle of coincidence, something that should not concern a Goddess of my rank and power...

But... but...

From that moment in the meadow, things started to go wrong. The moment he told me that I resembled his lost love, the girl Platina... when I took of my helmet... and kissed him...

I damned myself as a fool at that moment... for letting even the mere whisper of that idea to appear in my mind. A Goddess can NOT love a mortal... but for one who has not experienced love before, how was I to know what I was feeling? All I knew was that I wanted to see Lucian again, after the final battle... I prayed for his safety, so that we might one day meet again, be it in that sunlit valley or in the endless fields of Asgard...

And it was Lucian's love for me that killed him.

The foolish man... that damned, wonderful, foolish man. All for the sake of an earring, and for the sake of my soul, he defied one of All Father Odin's greatest edicts and stole into the sanctuary of Valhalla to use the Water Mirror to contact me. I should have known that something was wrong the moment I heard his voice echoing in the vaults of my mind, rather than that of Lady Freya or Lord Odin. Lucian would not have been able to enter the vault on his own... he would have had help. And the only Aesir who would have dreamed of assisting him in breaking the All Father's edicts...

Loki.

If I blamed only Loki for Lucian's death, I would be lying to myself. Loki was simply waiting for an opportunity to steal into the vault, to steal the most powerful of the Four Treasures that hold the world in balance. But if it were not for me, Lucian would never have given Loki the opportunity... to take the Orb.

No, I could have lived with Loki taking the Orb, creating this wasteland of Asgard that stretches all around me. What I can never forgive Loki for is placing the blame on Lucian's shoulders... and then 'executing' him for his crimes. And Odin did NOTHING to prevent it, nothing until it was far too late... until Loki had burned Valhalla to ash. And at that point, Loki was beyond even Lord Odin's power...

And now it is just Loki and I... the only survivors in a dead world. He lives due to the power of the Dragon Orb, the very source of the destruction. And I live... because I can not die yet. Even if the world itself must end, I must still avenge Lucian.

And Arngrim. And Mystina. And Aelia... and a world trapped in the machinations of one mad God.

No Loki... I will not let you win. Even if it takes the last drop of blood in my body... I will save them all from your madness. It is the least I can do, in repentance for the wrongs I have done them.

And for you, Lucian... I can only beg your forgiveness, wherever you are now. For my last words to you were in anger... and I never go to tell you how much I loved you. Because without that, I will never be able to forgive myself...

Authors Note: This story is another look at Lenneth's reflection during the time that Loki is using the Orb to destroy the world. At this point, it appears that all hope is lost, and that Loki has won.