Traffic [Valduggery, Skulduggery Pleasant Fanfiction]

Some Persistence of Personification

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In a different life, Valkyrie would have liked to live somewhere like here. The trees groaned above her, leaves red and yellow and orange, casting fantastic patterns in her vision, even with her eyes closed, even with her ears ringing, head spinning.

Her eyes snapped open and she scrambled up, slipping back down in the leaves.

Lord Vile stood in front of her, the only monochrome thing in the whole forest.

Valkyrie couldn't speak, a lump in her throat. She wondered where her stick was, buried somewhere underneath the leaves. She felt naked.

"Hey," she rasped.

Lord Vile didn't move.

Valkyrie gave a little wave. "You tried to kill me last time I found you. Are you going to do that again?"

Vile held a hand up, and a shadow whipped forward—Valkyrie flinched back.

Nothing hit her.

She cracked her eye open, and her stick was held in front of her by a thin shadow. She frowned at it, frowned at Vile, and then held her hand out. The stick floated gently into her hand, and the shadow dissolved into the air.

Valkyrie gripped it, gripped it harder. Let out a breath.

"Thank you."

Wind rustled through the trees. A red leaf floated down and landed on Vile's helmet.

Valkyrie laughed.

A shadow grew from Vile's armor and pierced the leaf, and the laugh died on Valkyrie's lips.

"You know, this is the first time we've had a talk since..." Valkyrie stood, slowly. "Since, well, you know. Since you went coo-coo-cachoo. I've missed you. It's weird not hearing you talk all the time. Do you miss talking?"

Nothing.

"I bet you do," Valkyrie said, brushing a leaf off her pants. "I bet Skulduggery is dying to make fun of me, isn't he? What does he think of this tattoo?" She pulled up her shirt and pointed to the cartoony skull and crossbones on her ribs. "I can hear the disappointment from here."

Vile did nothing.

"I mean, not that you care, just that I've been dragging myself all over the world looking for you." Valkyrie put her hands in her pocket and shrugged. "I missed you, you know? And every time I found you, you would throw shadow spikes at me, and hit me in the head with a shadow and knock me out..."

Valkyrie looked at him, eyes wide, before shrugging again.

"I mean, it's whatever, I forgive you for hitting me on the head with a shadow and knocking me unconscious. Risk I have to take."

Valkyrie kicked a leaf.

Vile did what he had been mostly been doing—nothing.

"I miss Skulduggery, by the way, not you. Why didn't you kill me, just then? You finally had me at your mercy, literally at your feet. You messed up. That's every villain's problem, you know, they don't strike while the iron is hot."

Valkyrie was getting sufficiently creeped out, Vile just staring at her.

"Can I talk to Skulduggery? Please? Does he miss me?"

A shadow swept across the ground, scattering leaves as it came towards her. Valkyrie jumped over it, snarling, and ran towards Vile, brandishing her stick.