Work Text:
#01 - Motion
The erratic motion of the whip-blade sets Zasalamel on edge at first and he realizes that for the first time in a long time, he's facing something new and unknown.
#02 - Cool
When he speaks, his voice is cool and calm, and Ivy is reminded of the mysterious Soul Calibur itself.
#03 - Young
He is young, muscular, but one glance at his eyes and the black magic that surrounds him and Ivy knows that he is unspeakably old.
#04 - Last
"At last..." Zasalamel thinks, but is suddenly unsure: he had been planning to shatter his body and soul using the two swords, but now he can't help but think that he could use the swords' energy to end the curse, to give him time to live out one last life.
#05 - Wrong
The thing that annoyed Ivy most about Zasalamel was that he was convinced that he knew everything, that he could never be wrong.
#06 - Gentle
"I'll give you an easy death," Ivy says, stretching out a section of her blade-whip, and that's as gentle as she gets.
#07 - One
Ivy distantly registers the grandfather clock in the hallway chiming one o'clock in the morning, but she is too busy admiring and translating the ancient text in front of her to care.
#08 - Thousand
It was getting on her nerves, the number of times their paths had crossed recently—she would make sure that this cathedral was their last meeting place.
#09 - King
"Checkmate," Ivy says, resting her chin smugly on her linked hands, and suddenly Zasalamel remembers that it's been more than a hundred years since he's played chess, and he never liked the game anyway.
#10 - Learn
He has done his research: he has learned why Isabella seeks to destroy Soul Edge; of her connection to Nightmare; and, just now, the lengths she'll go to in order to accomplish her goals.
#11 - Blur
For her, the line between good and evil was blurred; for him, it didn't exist at all.
#12 - Wait
Zasalamel leans against the clock tower wall patiently, wondering whether the faint trace of magic he had left behind would be enough to lure Ivy there.
#13 - Change
When it was finally dim enough to open her eyes, Ivy was shocked to see that Zasalamel was gone, and in his place stood a skeletal monster... but it was wielding a scythe...
#14 - Command
"What do I care what you think of me? Get lost!" Ivy said, glowering.
#15 - Hold
"Get a hold of yourself," Zasalamel mutters quietly, and Ivy looks up from the ground in front of Soul Edge where her bitter tears have fallen.
#16 - Need
Zasalamel knows that she wants the two swords too, but he has always been selfish and having to wait lifetimes to die has made him even more so, so he decides that, as always, his needs come first.
#17 - Vision
She dreams, and he's always there, either smirking or smiling—she can't tell the difference.
#18 - Attention
Dark skin... white hair... cloaks and hoods—they walk nonchalantly through the streets and can't help but stand out.
#19 - Soul
She doesn't have an attachment to her soul—it's much too late, and her soul too tarnished, for that; when she says this to Zasalamel, he just smiles, impossible to read.
#20 - Picture
He stops for a moment to look at the portrait hanging in the mansion's hallway, a large painting of Isabella Valentine in a stately—low-cut—dress, before continuing down the hall to the laboratory.
#21 - Fool
Zasalamel explains to her the reason for his immortality, how he was a fool to try to cheat death.
#22 - Mad
They are both mad, driven mad: she by revenge, deception, and obsession, he by endless deaths, endless lives.
#23 - Child
Ivy looks around frantically for Soul Edge, but her eyes land instead on a naked baby that has one calm, dark brown eye and one glowing fiery gold.
#24 - Now
Zasalamel has all the time in the world, and yet he feels a sense of urgency as he leans in to kiss her, knowing that it will happen now or not at all.
#25 - Shadow
An impressive air of gloom hangs over Zasalamel like a shadow; it's what piqued Ivy's curiosity, so similar it was to her own.
#26 - Goodbye
Ivy can sense the instability of this being known as Abyss and after several strenuous minutes, Abyss is lifted, screeching, into the air where it shatters into dust, nothing left.
#27 - Hide
Zasalamel has always worked alone, so maybe that is why he hides from Ivy, but sometimes he wonders if he perhaps enjoys making her search for him.
#28 - Fortune
When the fortuneteller had told her that she'd meet "a tall, dark, and handsome stranger," Ivy should have believed her.
#29 - Safe
Zasalamel is not holding his scythe this time and even though Ivy knows that he can conjure it whenever he pleases, she also knows that his intentions are peaceful.
#30 - Ghost
Ivy was haunted by the ghosts of both of her fathers, but it was easy to tell which one was the more dangerous one.
#31 - Book
As the book in his hands is engulfed in flames, Zasalamel watches Ivy's expression carefully, somehow pleased to see disappointment there.
#32 - Eye
Zasalamel is impressed by Ivy's observation when she asks, "Have you tried shattering your eye?" but replies dully, "Do you think it breaks that easily?"
#33 - Never
Playing "never have I ever" with Zasalamel is a bit of a dangerous game, but eventually Ivy discovers he has never seen a play at the Theatre; and eventually she is able to persuade him to rectify the situation, despite his insistence that theatre is an ancient art form that man has engaged in since antiquity and he has seen so many different variations on it ("Not like this," she insists).
#34 - Sing
"What's that?" Ivy asks, after she is woken by the unexpected sound of gentle humming; "A song the world has forgotten," is the answer.
#35 - Sudden
Zasalamel cups her face in one hand, and, before she realizes what he's doing, kisses her lips.
#36 - Stop
Ivy is confused when the chatter around her dies away into sudden silence; she looks around to find all the other people on the crowded London street frozen, and a man stalks closer to her, the only other person not stopped: a strange, unwanted intimacy.
#37 - Time
He likes the illusion of change: the clock's hands have moved ever so slightly from where they were a minute ago, the cogs are in continuous motion, and this life might be different from all the others.
#38 - Wash
Bathing is an experience for Ivy—an elaborate ritual featuring oils, flower petals, and candles (the only thing missing is the blood of virgins); it is also the rare occasion where he sees the muscles of her face relax into an expression of genuine peace.
#39 - Torn
After Ivy processes the new information that somehow the person in front of her is the author of the ancient text she had been reading, she is torn between the desire to ask him all the questions she had had while reading it and the desire to give him a harsh tongue-lashing for daring to deny the world—deny her—knowledge.
#40 - History
Ivy notes to herself: interview Zasalamel sometime—it's not everyday you meet a man who has experienced history.
#41 - Power
Ivy likes the way he fights, how he puts a burst of strength behind every strike.
#42 - Bother
He knows he shouldn't let it bother him, and he doesn't dare ask, but he often wonders why Ivy wears what she does.
#43 - God
Ivy rolls her eyes and suspects—not for the first time—that Zasalamel's "wisdom of many lifetimes" has gone to his head.
#44 - Wall
"She has unrealistic goals, is easily annoyed, and has built up emotional walls to keep the outside world out," Zasalamel writes in his diary—the secret book of personal memoirs that he doesn't tell Ivy about.
#45 - Naked
It's when Ivy submits her sword to his examination—explains how she made it and how it works—that she feels the most naked she's ever felt in her life.
#46 - Drive
Ivy could only move forward, to the sword, and forward led to him.
#47 - Harm
Zasalamel cursed his weakness for never being able to bring himself to harm her—which is why he had lost—not lost, really, more like retreated—in the clock tower... and the cathedral as well.
#48 - Precious
Zasalamel meant nothing to her... yet for some reason she was afraid—afraid that his existence, which defied all the laws of nature, would one day simply vanish without warning.
#49 - Hunger
When he kisses her, she kisses back, teeth trailing across skin, seeking out the touch of another with a hunger she's never known before.
#50 - Believe
Ivy quickly learns that Zasalamel's words and actions are more often than not intentionaly calculated to get people to take the action he wishes them to take... but still, sometimes, something he says... something he does... she wants to believe that in those moments she sees the real him underneath the artifice.