April 22nd, 2012, Velvet Room, Morning.
The eternal blue of the Velvet Room offered a stark, calming contrast to the chaotic void of the Dimensional Gap and the harsh sunlight of Madagascar.
Within this space between dream and reality, mind and matter, two figures sat at one of the ornate, dark wood tables. Elizabeth regarded her guest with a mixture of clinical curiosity and nascent protectiveness.
Ophis, the former dragon god of infinity, now looked like a lost child, her small form seeming even smallersitting on one of the sofas.
"Where are the headquarters of this Khaos Brigade?" Elizabeth asked, her voice calm and measured. She had been methodically questioning Ophis about her encounter with Nyarlathotep, attempting to piece together the Crawling Chaos's motives and methods.
Ophis's brow, usually smooth and expressionless, furrowed in concentration. She reached for the knowledge, for the memory of the hidden bases she had sanctioned, the locations she had visited in her quest to gather strength against Great Red. But where those memories should have been, there was only a formless fog.
The information was gone, cleanly excised.
"I don't know..." she finally admitted, her voice laced with a confusion that was entirely new to her. She looked down at her hands, as if expecting to see the missing memories lying in her palms.
"It was predictable," Elizabeth stated, not unkindly. "Nyarlathotep is nothing if not thorough. He sealed your power, and it seems he also sealed the memories most critical to your former role. You know of the Khaos Brigade, but you cannot recall its foundations." She leaned forward slightly, her yellow eyes intent. "What about its key members? The ones you trusted, or who held significant power within it?"
Ophis's mind reached out again, searching for faces, names, auras—Vali, Bikou, Kuroka... the images were hazy, the names felt distant, and the connections were severed. She could remember the concepts, but the vital, actionable details were walled off behind an impenetrable barrier of forgotten lore.
"I don't know," she repeated, the phrase becoming a frustrating mantra.
Then, the former dragon god turned her attention to her surroundings. The plush blue velvet, the golden bars, the faint, haunting melody that seemed to emanate from the very air—it was all profoundly alien.
"What is this place?" she asked, her large, dark eyes sweeping across the room.
A small, almost imperceptible smile touched Elizabeth's lips.
"I finally have the opportunity to say it," she murmured, a hint of theatrical pleasure in her voice. She straightened up, adopting a more formal posture. "Welcome to the Velvet Room. This place exists between dream and reality, mind and matter."
She delivered the lines with a practiced air, though a glint of amusement shone in her eyes at reciting Igor's customary speech.
Ophis nodded slowly, but the explanation seemed to slide off her consciousness without fully registering. Elizabeth's minor annoyance at being ignored was a fleeting thing. More pressing concerns occupied the dragon's diminished mind.
"I need to find the Khaos Brigade," Ophis stated, her voice gaining a sliver of its old determination, though it was undercut by the new, frail quality. "I must restore my powers... I feel lost in this state."
The admission was stark. To be the embodiment of infinity and then be reduced to a fragile, finite existence was a torment worse than any physical pain Nyarlathotep could have inflicted.
As Elizabeth opened her mouth to advise against such a reckless course, a loud, prolonged growl erupted from Ophis's stomach. The sound was comically out of place in the serene atmosphere of the Velvet Room.
Ophis looked down at her abdomen, a fresh wave of confusion washing over her features. "What is this noise?" she asked, pressing a hand against her stomach. "Is it part of Nyarlathotep's attack?" The concept of a bodily function was as alien to her as the Velvet Room itself.
Elizabeth couldn't help a soft chuckle. "No, Ophis. That feeling is called hunger. Your body now requires sustenance to function. It is a fundamental experience of most mortal and finite beings." She rose from her seat gracefully.
"Do you want something to eat? I, too, do not require nourishment as you once were accustomed to, but I have found a certain... pleasure in the act. Especially when it is Makoto's cooking we are speaking of." A fond, almost wistful note entered her voice at the mention of his name.
"Makoto?" Ophis's head tilted. "I was searching for him."
Elizabeth's playful demeanor vanished, replaced by a sharp, assessing look. "For what reasons, may I ask?" she questioned, her tone carefully neutral.
"I wanted to recruit him. Someone... Vali? said he is strong," Ophis replied simply, as if stating an obvious fact of the universe.
"Oh, The Star told you? That is a reasonable conclusion for you to have drawn, given your previous objectives." She decided to table that particular discussion for the moment.
"Here," she said, producing a small porcelain plate seemingly from nowhere. On it sat three perfectly round, golden-brown balls, drizzled with a dark sauce and sprinkled with dancing bonito flakes. "I consider this one of my favorite foods from human cuisine. They are called takoyaki."
Ophis picked one up cautiously. The moment it touched her tongue, her eyebrows shot up. "It's hot," she commented, a statement of pure observation.
"It is meant to be. They are typically served fresh from the griddle," Elizabeth explained, taking one for herself and eating it with evident delight.
Ophis finished the morsel and sat in silence for a moment, analyzing the complex sensations of taste, temperature, and texture. "I don't like it," she declared with her characteristic bluntness, just as another, more plaintive growl emerged from her stomach.
"Oh, truly? Perhaps something sweeter would be more to your taste," Elizabeth proposed, already searching through a small cabinet. She emerged with a delicate glass jar filled with beautifully decorated cookies. "Yes, these should do. Rias Gremory gifted me these. She has surprisingly good taste for a devil."
Ophis's eyes, which had been pools of confused darkness, suddenly ignited with a spark of keen interest at the word "sweet." She watched, mesmerized, as Elizabeth placed the jar on the table. Without waiting for an invitation, Ophis's hand darted out, snatched a cookie, and shoved it into her mouth.
The crunch was audible. She chewed methodically, her expression shifting from curiosity to clear, unadulterated satisfaction as the sugary, buttery flavor spread across her palate. She took bite after bite, her movements swift and focused.
"Are those cookies more to your liking?" Elizabeth asked, unable to hide a small, genuine smile.
Ophis nodded vigorously, her mouth still too full to form words.
Once the last crumb was gone, she looked at Elizabeth with a new sense of purpose. "Thanks for the cookies. Now I go," she announced, starting to rise from her chair.
"I am against that course of action," Elizabeth stated, her voice firm but not unkind. "I strongly suggest you remain here. In your current state, you are fragile. The world outside is filled with perils, and you would be an easy target for Shadows without your power to protect you."
"What are Shadows?" Ophis asked immediately, her curiosity piqued.
"Suppressed parts of one's psyche given physical form. Manifestations of pain, regret, and twisted desire. Nyarlathotep himself is the ultimate Shadow, a Collective Unconscious given sentience and malice," Elizabeth explained, keeping the description brief but potent.
The warning, however, did not seem to fully land. The drive to reclaim what was lost was too strong. "I still need to go," Ophis insisted, and this time, she stood up fully and walked towards the large, blue door of the Velvet Room.
Elizabeth did not move to stop her. Forcing a guest to stay was against the very nature of the room. But she understood the immense danger Ophis represented, not to others, but to herself.
A being of such former glory, now cast down and filled with fear and confusion, was a prime candidate to succumb to despair and become a Shadow Self—a powerful, twisted version of herself that Nyarlathotep would undoubtedly exploit.
The moment the door closed behind Ophis, Elizabeth acted. She summoned the Persona Compendium, the ancient tome materializing in her hands in a flutter of blue light. She opened it, her fingers tracing the elegant script.
"Sun incarnate, I humbly ask for your help to keep safe a lost soul," she intoned, her voice resonating with power.
Her call was answered instantly. The air in the Velvet Room grew warm, and a blinding, golden light coalesced in the center of the space. From the light emerged the form of a majestic, golden falcon, its feathers seeming to be made of solid light.
This was the avatar of Horus, the Egyptian god of the sky and kingship. His presence did not speak from the beak of the falcon, but rather, his voice emanated from the very atmosphere around him, deep and resonant, as if the room itself were speaking.
"How may I be useful?" the voice of Horus boomed softly.
"If you could maintain a watchful eye on Ophis, the girl who just left this room, that would be ideal," Elizabeth explained. "Ensure she comes to no great harm. She is vulnerable."
"It shall be done," the voice affirmed.
Without another word, the golden falcon dissolved back into motes of light, which then shot through the walls of the Velvet Room, unseen and unfelt by any but the most attuned, to become the unseen, dutiful guardian of the fallen dragon god.
———
A/N:
I won't be able to upload daily for a while. Sorry for that.