“This is extremely awkward, especially after that insane babble you were on about.” Sigi said. “You take me all the way out here, to Kriegstad of all places, to dinner. A dinner at which you do not eat. Staying at a hotel in which you do not sleep. All you've been doing is writing into that grimoire and staring off at nothing in particular. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, Tyr. I trust you and I appreciate the sentiment for what it is, but you need to tell me what's going on. Why me? We get along the least of any of the others. Tell me what's wrong with you, at least.”
Tyr pursed his lips and continued picking at his plate of ground beefsteak lathered in a creamy mushroom sauce. He couldn't taste it, everything was ash in his mouth, no matter how much salt he poured on the thing. Slowly but surely they were taking little pieces from him, whether it was the gods or not he couldn't say. Something was trying to kill him, that much was for sure, but he wasn't alive in the first place. “I have told you that I am dying, correct? I can't remember.”
Sigi nodded. “You have. Are you going to tell me that it's coming soon? Because if so, I truly am sorry. I'll even miss you, but I don't see the point of moping over it. People die, man. It happens all the time. They die, and the world moves on without you. So?”
“Cruel words, Ms. Sigi Mornstone, daughter of the sea and all that talk about the salt in your veins.” Tyr chuckled, enlivened a bit by her boldness.
“True words.” Sigi replied, and he nodded sagely at that, oddly calm despite the grim turn to the conversation. “And it would patently be Mrs., I'm unsure of whether or not you're attempting to get under my skin – but it will not work.”
“I'm not dying and I never was, It's more like I'm being unmade. I will remain on this world until the world itself decides I cannot be. But I'll still be real.” Tyr replied flatly. “I will exist forever because it's been decided for me. Before my birth, if it can even be called that.”
“...”
“Doesn't make any sense at all, huh?” Tyr asked with a thin smile. Attempting to explain to anyone that he was a god, as were they to some small extent, was bound to be difficult. Even from a purely philosophical standpoint, he didn't know how to properly say it. His 'warping mana core' had always been a misunderstanding, his body... In a manner of speaking, it was trying to ascend to godhood without his consent – and he very much wanted to stop that from happening. “Does it? I am as insane as the rest of them, I am sure all primus' experience this.”
“It does not.” Sigi frowned. “Not to me, but I am not a primus. I would not presume to understand what you are, how you think, or what you know. That does not answer my question, regardless.”
“I brought you here because I want you.” Tyr said. “I want you in all respects. We have been part of one another long before you were even born. Either of us. And by your expression, perhaps you can begin to understand why I'm not about to go explaining that to everyone. I must sound insane.”
Sigi snorted, resting her elbows on the table and leaning forward. Displaying her ample cleavage in a bid to embarrass him, but Tyr had become so placid in expression, unflagging – offending her in some intrinsic way. Not even the smallest modicum of a flinch, he simply stared brazenly and directly at her breasts with flat lips and a twinkle in his eye. “You want me in what respect? The biblical sense?”
Tyr nodded. “I brought you here because it might give me more time, but also to get you pregnant. Selfish, I'll try to explain. I need to feed on you, I need you to make me real – and I will grant your wish so long as you do that. My... Infirmity requires it, it's hard to explain.”
'Hard to explain' was only the beginning of it. Tyr had noticed it with Jura, almost like he was funneling his negativity into her, as if she were a vessel for it. His experience with Alex had been far more significant. The mechanics behind how it worked... He could say, and it had nothing to do with intercourse, it was as if... Headache inducing. It was as if some part of him needed to make contact with people by any means possible and was enforcing this on him. Punishing him if he didn't lean into it, it could be as simple as a touch to the hand, or as 'complex' as sex. But once he'd used someone for that purpose, the desire started to fade, though it never disappeared entirely. And with it came the changes to the people he touched, hence why – although common sense – he did not march around laying whores and turning brothels inside out. One, because the idea of adultery in that fashion bothered him, and two, because he didn't want to great a bunch of superhuman ladies of the night.
“W-what...?” Sigi's normally pale face turned scarlet in a split second. “Oi, oi, oi... Let's hold our horses. It's not that I'm opposed to the idea of coital relations with you. But seriously? What in your right mind would convince you that this would work? You want to have me so easily? First of all, I am very thankful for you speaking so honestly with me. I loved your little, incredibly irritating – by the way, birthday surprise. I hated it, actually, but you knew that I would, it's the thought that pleases me, a fine jest on your part and sign that you know me. I like that you read my messages, and that you took the time to address them with me on the way here. And if you want to, I will do it. But it'll be on my terms, and I'll be on... Nevermind.”
'Coital relations'...?
“On top?”
“Shut your cur mouth, swine.”
Tyr snorted, pulling his meal closer. Not because he felt like eating it, his stomach was rumbling in hunger but he couldn't hold much down for long. Something inside of him was writhing, a feeling like he might empty his stomach but it wasn't lunch that was going to come out. And a dire need to ensure that whatever did was contained. He wouldn't be him for much longer, just another slave like all the rest of them. “I'm going insane, Sigi. I'll live, even when my mana core eventually shatters. But I'll be long gone. Mentally, far before that. Violent, too. I am a scant few years away from splitting completely and becoming a drooling beast. You told me what you wanted. A legacy. I heard you, and if it is your wish, I'll give it to you. I will give you this child and then I will kill myself, or I'll try to, hence the book.”
He tapped his finger on the wrapped black leather, the embossed sigil of a silver wolf's head connected to enchanted chains that held it shut. Thousands of pages, nearly 6 inches thick and large enough to use as a shield. Almost full, by the looks of it, but Sigi couldn't understand the language and he'd never answered her when she'd asked. No ink that she'd ever seen had been scrawled upon those pages, and no parchment either. It was vellum, except made and pressed from the skin of men, or man, as was the case here.
It didn't take a genius to figure it out.
Tyr was attempting to pen a Black Book with his own blood, and he might very well be on track to do it.
Alex's greatest fear was that Tyr would fall to the occult and forbidden, and yet Sigi didn't care in the least. It had nothing to do with her, at least he was using parts of his own body in lieu of others. A primus-skin book must make for quite the collectors item, personally – she doubted he'd succeed. A Black Book couldn't be that easy to write, though it looked like he'd wrapped those bindings over the grimoire it had been before he'd placed his sigil atop it.
“It's not always about what we want, Tyr.” Sigi smiled sadly. “I want, and I've told you what as you're aware. But what do you want?”
“Honestly?” Tyr asked. “You really want to know what I want out of this tryst?”
“If we're taking steps, it should be for both of us, not just to my benefit.” Sigi nodded. “We've never had a great relationship, you and I, and that is my fault for the most part. But what you want matters to me a great deal. If I wanted it more than I wanted you to be happy and healthy, I'd have taken it by force. It concerns me that your state of mind is so... Precarious. But I can do nothing about it, so I won't unless you ask something of me. So, I repeat myself, what do you want?”
“Yes.” Tyr said calmly, completely flat in the face again. “I want to bury my entire face in between those big tits of yours. I want to shake my head around and wear them round my ears like a pair of muffs. I would like you to spit in my mouth and tell me how proud of me you are, to make me feel safe and secure. To mother and nurture me, to cradle me to sleep like a child. And then, I want you to stick a hatchet in my forehead and toss me down a flight of stairs. Is that agreeable with you?”
Sigi was still blushing, wide eyed and a little shocked, unsurprisingly. “Well... Really?”
“Perhaps not exactly.” Tyr shook his head before freezing in the motion with a frown, considering it all. “To be honest, the first part is fair play, I'm a big fan of those things and you're an incredibly attractive woman. I would, also, let you spit in my mouth. I've never tried that before, so I can't say if I'd like it or not. Mikhail says it's nice. I am incredible insecure, Sigi – my intimacy issues are a massive impediment to my progression, and I can reach no further until I resolve them. I need more, but I swore that I'd only receive it from one of you, my wives. I've tried with Alex, and I'm afraid to say that despite our obvious compatibility, issues aside, she was only a part of the puzzle.”
“Incredibly attractive, is it?” Sigi snorted in amusement, arching one of those immaculate silver eyebrows at him. “I'm glad to hear that. Most men in the south find large women to be ugly. Undesirable. What about me attracts you other than my breasts? That is a very shallow line of thought, by the way. If that is your criteria, then both Astrid and Alex are inferior to me, and I do not believe that to be true.”
“...You're smaller than I am.” Tyr said. In observation, Sigi had an athletic body and a fairly tight frame. Large? She was muscular and wide of shoulders, granted, but her proportions otherwise were beyond realism. Her face was angelic and full of a warrior's valor, albeit a little grim, how could that be 'undesirable'? If he'd seen a picture of her all dressed up in a paladin's armor declaring her as a long lost saint, he'd believe it – she looked the part of a fighter but that did not detract from her appearance. “You are not large. Though, even if you were, I wouldn't see a problem with that. You could all stand to gain a few pounds around the tummy, but that's not my business. My attraction to you is in how you smell, not what you look like. I doubt I even know what you actually look like, I am blind in this way – you look nothing like your portrait in the estate. Not to me, at first I thought those pictures were of totally random people...”
“...You are so absurdly strange.” Sigi observed. “What I smell like? I do not use scents like Astrid, nor Alex. I bathe, of course, and remain hygenic, but I couldn't possibly smell like anything specific.”
“You smell like a seaside I've never seen before.” Tyr mused with a glazed look. “Like wet rocks and clean water. I smell it on your skin and I can see it in your eyes, I can feel the mist, the warm spray and sounds of celebration. It must be Trafalgar, that place I see. With children playing around nets on a rocky shore, laughing as the waves crash over green cliffs. Flying, fish shaped kites, people gathered in a half ring, singing to the sea. Hexagonal rocks and a storm overhead that kisses my skin with hot rains even in the depths of winter. I miss this place so much that my soul shudders at the thought of it, and yet I've never been there before – I feel everything you do. Magnified many times, it haunts me, the others have not seen loss – but you have. And it is with me always.”
Sigi stared at him for a moment, her seafoam green eyes creased in consternation. How could he know such things? Had he read of it? Was this all a game? The winter rains of Trafalgar were warm enough to burn the skin, like a hot spring had been dumped overhead. But no man had felt those rains in a decade and a half, at least. Moreover, he had aptly described the basalt columnar framing the southern and western shores of the main island. And the festival of Veles, where they flew kites shaped like sea life and gathered to sing the Sea Father's song.
“How can you know this?” She asked. “Do not make this a game of manipulation, these things you speak of are... Sacred to me.”
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
“I smell it, as I said.” Tyr replied, tapping his nose. “I feel it in you. You are the legacy of your people incarnate and so long as you exist I could never forget. I love it. Not the smell. I like the smell, mind you, but I feel your love and it's become my own. Thus, one day, I'm going to go back there and I'm going to see it for myself, even after I am lost I doubt I'll lose that urge to see and to feel. Just a ghost in the glass.”
Defined by conscious though. A god. Tyr snorted even as he thought these things, some men stylized themselves as divine, believing the gods possessive of a great blessing. When in truth, they were the most cursed and wretched things ever created, bloodshot eyes in the dark waiting for the prey to fall so that they might feast. Bending the backs of an entire race to subsist off their faith.
Sigi exhaled. Tyr was an empath. Some might be angry with being read but she didn't particularly mind. Nothing to hide, after all, and he was her husband. “We can go together, then. Keep your mind in one piece until that happens, that way you can go crazy on a deserted island and I can leave you there.”
Tyr nodded, smiling wistfully. Plans that wouldn't happen, could never happen. “I'll give it my best shot.”
“Now...” Sigi concluded, sighing in exasperation at how incredibly bizarre the primus' were. Tyr was not unique in his oddity, she'd caught Vidarr many times talking to himself in an empty room, and Ragnar was even less sane. They were all lunatics, but centuries of life tended to do that to a person, she supposed. “That's quite enough bantering for me. I just so happened to be in the mood for the time being, what say you and I give it a try?”
“Give what a try?” Tyr tilted his head in confusion. “Do you want to have sex? Awfully bold for a virgin, don't you think?”
“I favor your blunt nature most times. I do. But I really wish that you'd learn when it was, and when it was not appropriate.”
–
“It must've been hard on you.” Tyr said. “Losing your home like that, your family. I don't read you on purpose, I never do that to anybody. Because what you feel, I feel, and most of the time it hurts. But you are so real with your emotions that I sense them regardless of what I want. Your sorrow is a monument, it seems to be all you are, and I never knew.”
Sigi gave a heavy sigh in response. Their backs were pressed together and she was lathered in sweat. She hadn't expected it to hurt so much at first, but it had been a decision he'd allowed her to make for herself. Long after custom would have dictated that he simply took 'it'. She was thankful for that, and for the fact that he listened to every simple command she gave to the letter. It made it easier, leaving her wondering why hating him was so very difficult – something about him. Distanced, he was almost abhorrent to her, but once he'd returned it had flickered back into life for all of them. She understood what Iscari had meant, back then.
A transient magnetism, she'd felt it all and assumed it had something to do with his aspect. A foul thing, the ability to bend one's free will to his own, if he wanted to. Even in recognition of that fel nature, it wasn't unpleasant, rather the inverse. Being around Tyr was starting to make her genuinely happy, which confused her a great deal. Tyr, or his perception in the minds of others, was bound to be wholly artificial. Was there any 'real' Tyr at all?
It was enough that her grip on that lifelong goal she'd held to free Trafalgar from the fog was starting to... Slip away, and yet she found that she wouldn't mind so much as long as she could be near him. Unsure how to feel.
“It was hard, and it still is, I think about them all the time. I'm sorry you're impacted by my feelings, but I can't help it.”
“Don't be.” Tyr replied. “Sometimes pain keeps us stable. Grounded. I need pain. I feel less of everything the more time goes on. Like I'm slipping away, and it's been happening for a while.”
“Can I help?” She asked softly.
“Yes.” Tyr turned, resting his chest against her back and being pushed away in the process. He knew that it hadn't been bad, per se, but she had wept and was still in the process of coming to terms with it. A brief moment to allow her to forget herself, perhaps. But Sigi was not ready for that kind of intimacy, and that was okay. He doubted she'd even wanted to in the first place, she'd cried and forced herself to go through with it, but whatever shred of humanity remained inside of him... However much of it there was, he'd not felt guilty over the fact.
Bent towards attempting to honor her family's legacy in a contextually toxic way, and he'd used her without reservation to his own ends. Because he felt, feeding on every beating pulse within her until he was warm again. Only for a little while, both tools to one another – the reciprocation in their bond far less concerning than his relationship with Alex.
Tyr might've been disgusted at himself in the past, but no longer. This was him, therefore it was right, and he would walk this path with his head held high for as long as he needed to.
She... Even with his extra-sensory input, Tyr couldn't tell how she'd rate it. Not something so crude as 'was the sex good?', but rather the connection. Her benefit from it, how she felt. The emotional pair bonding present in the intimacy, the lust and sensation was nothing compared to that level of trust.
Thus, he rose from the bed and pulled her up with him so as to allow her to look directly in his eyes. He needed it, it was for him, not her – that's what he kept telling himself. Everything was for him and always had been, the vain belief that he might be about to 'out believe' any stimuli attempting to change him. And if it meant a few more hours, days, months among the sane, Tyr would sacrifice quite a bit. It was fel, how he could shed this burden and place it on others, little splinters – and they would only get better for it. Not like him, things that made him miserable were what made them mighty, perhaps bringing them closer to the state he existed it. As if he were a virus. “Stay with me. By my side forever. I'll do the same, I'll take away all of your pain and I'll help you find real closure with that loss you've felt. If you promise to put me down when the time comes. I can even make you forget that pain, but I know you wouldn't accept that.”
“You are strange.” She replied, her soft lips rosy in the dim light of the mana crystals, tall enough to address him directly unlike all the others. That felt nice. Tyr didn't like looking down on the people he 'enjoyed' being around. Those that were pleasant to stand near, at least, all in the warmth they radiated. With her finger, she traced out the scars on his chest and sighed. “I don't think I could really kill you. Maybe before I could have, out of anger. And I'd still regret it, I felt sick to my stomach thinking about what I'd almost done. But to premeditate on it... That is an oath I cannot take. I had not realized how intensely bonding this experience would be. Else wise... I'd still have done it. Maybe. I did not expect it to be feel like that, this... Connection.”
“You wouldn't have to kill me.” Tyr said. “Nobody can. I cannot die, ever. As long as your universe exists, so will I, as will you – technically. But Valkan has finished the task I gave him and I know you saw him making them. Deuritium stakes. If I ever appear to be too lost, too far gone, I want you to put one of those right in my navel. It's important. If this... Thing inside of me. If it comes out, what you might call my aspect, it would be very bad. By the time my father or the others stop me, I'd have reaped a heavy toll. I'm sure of it, but I can't leave and seclude myself just yet. If given the opportunity, I could enslave the minds of every human on this world – I think. It is like a virus, and it's already spreading.”
“I will try, then, and perhaps in the process I'll make you aware of how intensely edgy you've become.” Sigi chuckled. “Have you told the others?”
“No.” Tyr replied sincerely. “Only you. You are the only one with the strength necessary to do this thing. Alex will refuse, and Astrid would kill herself trying to stop it – they don't understand the harm that great calamity can bring. But you do. Beyond that, I hope to see you around more, or... Something. Shall we go?”
“Something.” Sigi turned. It was morning, and they hadn't slept at all. Repeating the ritual until she had overcome the pain. A challenge between them, making it a game had made it easier. All by her insistence, of course, he'd wanted to stop but she'd made him do it, feeling guilty for it until it seemed like he was enjoying himself as well. This thing... 'Sex', a simple word for an incredibly deep communion of the flesh – she'd never once thought about it. Now, she couldn't stop thinking about it. Not for the lust, but for the sharing of warmth and the blankness of mind it brought. The dawn light stretched into their room, still dim in the early morn. Their room, how silly. Too late, or too early to sleep, they had ground to cover today. Too later for a lot of things, Tyr's expression sank, all he could do is hope that she'd remain more resistant to it than Alex.
“Let's.”
Tyr and Sigi crossed the threshold and departed from the titanic city of Kriegstad. That circular city around the inlet, likely larger than any she'd ever seen. Ramshackle and loud, though, dominated by that extraordinary black keep at the center of it all. Less than an hour later, she leaned on her steed to squeeze at his hand, smiling in recognition of their new bond and friendship.
“Sigi Mornstone.” Tyr grunted. “The romantic.”
“I'm glad we did that.” She said nervously, not sure how to phrase what she was feeling. How... Submissive he had been, allowing her to control the scenario. It was warm, a mind altering experience, and now she couldn't look at him with anything but positivity. He'd been clear with her what it could do, even his nascent aspect was indeed infectious. But when she felt the light... Her initial reservations vanished, and she didn't feel anything but in control of her faculties – leaving her considering the fact that he might just be wrong about himself. Tyr sucked up all the worries and pains of those around him, made a martyr by contact with humans, it was no wonder he'd turned out this way. There was nothing more heroic than that, in the grand scheme of things. “I hope this feeling lasts forever.”
“Me too. Here's to hoping you're laden with twin sons and we'll never have to do it again.” He joked, proceeding to mock her quite pointedly with an exaggeratedly deep voice. Picking right at her soft parts, and the fact that she felt herself a 'manly' person, less feminine than Alex and Astrid. “I like a more experienced woman, personally. One less prone to 'does it feel good', 'are you comfortable', 'am I doing okay'... 'Oh, please, a little to the left – oh, yes'. Like... Move your hips, you have them too, yeah?”
The force by which she punched his shoulder was nearly enough to dismount him. But now, unlike old times, they both laughed at the humor of it all. Awkwardly holding hands and trotting in the general direction of Amistad. Sigi wasn't so alien to intimacy. As long as she was the one to initiate it, it was all well and good. She wanted to be in control, which would explain a lot. She was the heir of her household and had her pride. A vice of sorts that was more than acceptable given the context.
All of Tyr's 'loves' had put something in him.
Iscari, a little taste of light – knowing what to chase and protect. The very concept of living for another, perhaps even the ability to understand selflessness.
Benny, platonic brotherhood in a way he hadn't felt with the blackguard, until much later on.
Lina, much the same, feeling her so closely and learning to taste the divine on his tongue. Through her he'd come to learn how to peel away the layers of a man, she, in many ways, had become his standard for a 'good' person. As close as one could get, at least. Flawed, but good.
Through Jura, Tyr had learned how important affection and easy companionship with another was, to all people. A reprieve of sorts, perhaps something to fight for.
Alex was similar, but different in a lot of ways, he had learned the pleasure of intimate connection, one that was not always physical. Contentment. Patience, perhaps even the ability to connect and empathize on a deeper level, real love. Even if in the third person. Jura had never argued with, or been wroth with Tyr, but Alex was. Quite often, and yet she forgave him for it, this was normal, it was a deeper and more nuanced relationship. Jura wasn't 'in love' with him, but she recognized Tyr as her partner. Alex was very much in love with him, so neurotic about losing him that it often drove her up the wall.
And through Sigi, he was learning how to process complex emotions. Grief, mostly. She had given him full permission to link with her mind while they were coupled, insistent on it, and it gave him perspective. Either intimately or not, all of these experiences were a lesson in how to behave. He would allow her to move at her own pace. They were both damaged, and she deserved just as much face as he did. More, she had lost far more than he'd ever known.
“I love you.” Sigi mumbled.
“You should. I'm phenomenal.” Tyr replied quietly, not quite convinced, but he wasn't ready to lie to her by reciprocating an emotion he wasn't sure he was capable of feeling. Not yet. Reflecting that he was glad to know her, and be here by her side, would have to be enough. Eventually, as he'd done with many others, he expected he'd discard her like the rest. Whatever compulsion he had to avoid pairing long term with an individual, he didn't really get it.
“I'm becoming more friendly with the idea of putting that hatchet in your head.” Sigi glowered.
Tyr chuckled, releasing her hand. “All part of my master plan.”