The Beaten and the Damned [Giselle/Cyrus]

Recent days had certainly worn on Cyrus, far more than he would ever have been willing to admit. Not to Ninsianna, not to Arcadia, not even to Shirohime, had she been present. It was not a matter of simple pride, or of feeling as though he needed to carry all matters on his shoulders. He, of course, had accepted that he simply could not do that. That he was far too human, far too fallible.

Well, no matter. He wore the face of professionalism as he heard the words of one of his most unusual subordinates, as he met her gaze with nothing but his typical determination and pleasant demeanor. He was, after all, the Grandmaster, and even if he still did not have complete faith in the woman before her, she had done more than enough that he did not consider her something that required constant surveillance.

"Certainly, Gewelle. What is it that you require?"

There was nothing else that Cyrus particularly did of late, other than the formalities and officiation of his position. It caused him no small amount of irritation, but what else was he to do? If this was his role, then so be it.

Cyrus supposed this had really been inevitable. In truth, he would likely have initiated this conversation himself, had there not been a myriad of other things for him to focus on. He would be the first to concede that he had done little to address the woman's reputation, or how others had perceived her, but he would also be lying if he said that he regretted that terribly.

"I understand. I have naturally followed the reports regarding you and your work ethic, those of both the handlers assigned to you openly and those who have kept track in less obvious ways. I have no intention of maintaining that surveillance upon you, based on those reports."

It was fairly simple, really. She had done perfectly well, been perfectly trustworthy. This was not all to say that he would ever completely fail to have the woman in mind as a potential threat, but she was far from alone in that respect.

"I will see to it that you are treated no differently from the rest of your compatriots among the Sternritter. Is there anything else that you require?"

The threat of her resignation had not been lost on Cyrus, but he put that matter to the side. It did, if nothing else, give him something further to bear in mind.

Mm. So it seemed that Cyrus' suspicions toward Mazda had not been unfounded, and that indeed the man had begun to simply lord himself over everything even outside Cyrus' authority. That did not surprise him, and if anything, it simply made everything he had already considered all the more assured. That he had failed in nearly every capacity as Grandmaster, and that his authority had become soft, uncertain.

"Thank you for informing me, Giselle."

He stood up from his seat at his desk, then, an effort to the action that gave away the truth of his condition. Even if he had recovered a touch, he was far from the man that he had once been. But, frankly, he supposed that was a good thing. He had cast everything given to him aside, for better and for worse. Now was simply the time for him to take what he wished by his own hand.

"I have no doubt that you are aware of exactly how much you would likely have to gain by simply deceiving me, by letting him do as he may and not informing me of the truth. He would be furious, I am sure, to know that you would tell me of this. But I respect that frankness, and that tenacity. Perhaps this is simply some ploy on your behalf to put yourself into my good graces, but I don't believe that it is. I believe quite genuinely, as you have said, that you are working to turn a new leaf."

Walking past her, to the floor-to-ceiling windows that surrounded the office, Cyrus looked out at the City of Lights for a few moments before he spoke again.

"Mazda is the embodiment of all my ambitions, and all of my failures. I had wished for something to achieve the things I could not do alone. But I did not consider that such blind ambition was a foolish, cruel endeavor. What you see in Mazda is nothing less than the essence of what I once was, the power that I used to build the Vandenreich, and the power I gave away in a vain attempt to guide it."

He glanced back at her, a sad sort of smile on his face. Did he care that it was her, of all people? No. Perhaps she was the best candidate to hear it, for Cyrus wished for the truth to be known.

"He is evil. A cruel and vain creature. But my aims, Giselle, are to bring an era where the world may know peace as it once did. You are old enough to remember it. I do not call it a utopia, but it is certainly a better world, and I cannot make it without Mazda. Let him think what he wishes. I have learned much, and I doubt he ever will."

"In some ways, our goals could not be further unaligned. In others, they are all but perfectly matched. But let it be made very clear that I have no ambitions of godhood. I have already made the foolhardy effort of stealing such power once, and I do not wish to have it again."

That ambition was, indeed, the crux of the issue. That Mazda wished to take the place of the Soul King in the cycle of things, that he wanted only to be the center of creation. Cyrus, by contrast, would hardly ever wish for such a position.

"Of them, I doubt any of them agree with him. My intention is the time before Ender, when the world was a quieter place. Far from perfect, certainly. But a place where one might live their life without the fear that some malign beast, or some unfathomable god among men, might simply appear and snuff out one's life without even a warning."