She had seen him in a more intimate way than anyone had ever before. Had to know what he wanted, and what he needed, and he'd won out in the end. Or perhaps she was afraid of him. Strong or not, he was immortal, the concept of mortality meant nothing to him until his own spirit took his life. No other blade or blunt instrument could do it. No god or sun, the only one who would ever kill Tyr Faeron, effectively, was Tyr Faeron himself. How dour a fate, but it made him snort in good humor regardless.
“Is your fear so rife within you at a single look inside of me that you would bend the knee so willingly?” Tyr frowned, he didn't like that, no matter the humor of it. His path, at least for now, was his own – and he wanted to be challenged. To be beaten down by another and kept in check, he did not want equals, he had accepted these alfen so readily because maybe, just maybe, they could show him that there was more out there than being primus. His unconscious self wanted to be the master of all, but his spirit yearned for someone to take him in hand and use him. Like a weapon. He was flawed in so many ways, but mostly self aware. He did not want to be 'in charge', he had nearly broken Alex in a way and she rarely questioned him any longer, strength of will or not, perhaps it was less her weakness and more of her love.
But that, ultimately, was a weakness, those ties and bind.
This was a source of extreme regret, even if it'd been necessary, even if it was a lie and she was so strong he couldn't have broken her at all. Tyr needed to be controlled and contained or he would eventually do something terrible, and his chance at someone old and wise to take his reins was vanishing before his very eyes. Though, in actuality, the reason it had been Alex first was because he trusted nobody else so much as her. Alex was obsessively in love with him, and had been for a long time, almost psychotic in how much she wanted to be seen and heard by him, but perhaps this was love, perhaps this was natural and not a true flaw. Tyr feared his aspect, the idea that he'd never earned anything in his life by his own efforts, that without it he'd be alone. But Alex had come before it, as had Tiber – so to say she was the only one was false. But in a life with thousands all around him, knowing only two were genuine... Even someone as characteristically apathetic to being 'liked' would shiver at that.
“I do not fear you, alfen do not know fear, we know reality,” She said. 'Eve', as alfen lived by their surname until such a time as a friendship or appropriate relationship was borne. “I have seen what you are and I now understand why I was sent here. You are both the sun and the moon, a representation of duality in all things. To break, fix, destroy, create, slay, and bring life from what remains. I have seen your intimate connection to the dao, like nothing I have ever laid my eye on, and I will make great use of that gift you have. It is my greatest duty to bear more blessed children and--”
“Stop there,” Tyr raised a hand, that wasn't part of the bargain, he had been explicit. “I have already sworn to give one a son, I will not be bearing children with any other until that task is finished.”
If possible... He had coupled with Sigi as well, and should she bear a son before Tyr died that was a bargain met. If not, it was also a bargain met, not that he'd been keeping very closely to that oath in the first place. She knew as well as Alex did, but only Sigi wanted a child from him – magic would likely ensure Alex did not experience that gift of life until she was well and ready. Aram, or Eve, had to know that this was an unrealistic ask, but she made no comment on it.
She nodded in acceptance, though, “Then through the artifice of my people I can make you a receptacle for breeding and you can bear my children. We are easily capable of being fluid in gender, as are you. I shall become the man and pass my seed unto you.”
“...” Tyr coughed, things were dramatic lately, heavy, and he was edgy, but that was just weird, at least from his perspective, “No thanks.”
“Why? I believe it possible, and it would not infringe on this so called duty of your heralds.”
“I intend to use you,” Tyr said, “To exploit you and your kin until there is nothing left. I do not care for you in the slightest, and that is unfortunate – but it is who I am. I am not a liar, nor am I a keeper of many secrets. I will accept any request from you besides that, we will not couple in that way, you will not surrender the skydance and you will fight me with all the passion your body provides, or I will renege on a sworn bargain without remorse. I cannot die, not yet, and that is not some vain claim as you well know. I will never know rest until my path reaches its end, unlike you, I do not require your agreement, and I will drag you into the sky and do it myself should such a thing be necessary. You should know, having seen what I want, to feed, what I can do if I want for it. Do this and I will reconsider and contradict myself, giving you daughters but no sons. My line will go to my wife, someone I do care for.”
“Is that truly what you want?” She asked, Eve inched closer to him. Not in a suggestive or seductive way in the slightest, rather more indicative of wishing to see more. They had odd bonding practices, these alfen, none of it was lusty or romantic in the sense of gestures and all of that. To go deeper inside of his mind, and he couldn't relate to that at all, thinking she was a bit more than cracked in the head if she wanted to stare at that place any longer than she had to. “I sense physical attraction, lust, some curiosity, but no wish to pair bond with me. And you understand the permanence of this action, why accept? I can see many things, but I don't know everything you know – I still have questions.”
“I have no other choice. To ask me 'why' is like asking a woodcutter why he'd rather use an axe than a knife to cut down a tree. I could choose to follow my own will, which I promised I'd do, but I can't do that in this case. In this metaphor you are the tool, and I don't mean this--”
“I understand,” She cut him off with a nod, not offended by his comparison between herself and an implement for logging. “But don't you ever just... Want to enjoy your lives? That's all we alfen do, from birth to our eventual end. Whereas humans are always stuck in this rat race towards progress. Why do you do this to yourself? I came for a fight, but I wish to learn more of your lesser kin and opportunities to freely interact and communicate are very rare for us. I want to experience, to enjoy myself, and I have trained for near 3 decades just to be given leave to be here. So in a manner of speaking, I owe all of it to you, and I appreciate that even if you had no active part in it.”
“My contentment...” Tyr contemplated her question with pursed lips. It was a good one, and he felt the weight of the significance behind her words. “It isn't built on grand gestures or ambitions, I take what pleasure I can in the little things around me. The smell of the dew on the grass in the morning, the taste of the air on my tongue. The wind in my hair, I would much rather be doing other things with what's left of my life but I keep to my vows and will complete one final task before I leave this place. I am incarnate, but I don't want to be and never did, I became and I will be unmade again through this process and yet I walk.”
Somewhat unexpectedly, she laughed at him. In a friendly, bright way, a laugh that elicited imagery of songbirds in flight. There was a naturalness about her that he hadn't found in many other things, like her very existence was vetted by the world she lived in. All alfen were like that, though, and it was because of their presence in the spira, a presence that humans could rarely match. They were an old race, a race having existed since long before nephilim were ever conceived by the high ones. Born of the dao, unlike mankind who were an afterthought and made of lesser things and for a more specific purpose. Humanity were made as weapons, alfen were made to be as natural creatures were – neither was better or worse.
“You are also very grim, with the odd dramatic flair. Just like your gods.” She smiled softly, at ease with their surroundings despite a temperature that had fallen to near freezing. Tyr found like he much preferred the cold to the heat himself, it soothed him.
“What gods do you alfen worship?” He asked, again genuinely curious and ignoring the comment on his demeanor. Tyr had few passions in the material world but learning new things had become one of them at some point. Later. It almost made him laugh, how he used to dislike his schoolwork so, preferring to play in the mud and dirt instead. Now he couldn't get enough of books, as long as they actually said something worth reading. Those were rare, but they were out there. There was so much out there to learn and experience, but his bucket list was something he could never possibly complete in time.
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“None.” She shrugged, languidly stretching her body with a relaxed sigh. Content and relaxed after the harrowing experience of seeing just how empty and unfulfilled he was inside. Like a man who'd lived millennia forced to do by need with no face given to want. “All of them, the real ones that is. We have our religions, as you know, things of significance. Perhaps not quite religions in the plural sense. Priests exist, the moon speakers and the squallbreakers. My people respect your celestials and all nature spirits, revere and appreciate them but do not worship things like you do. There is a 'god' as you say it in every little thing, from the flea on the back of a boar to a... I am sorry, but there are things I cannot say. There were those who were here before the shaping took place and we revere them above all. You are of their blood, in part, and that is ultimately why you draw such interest. If not, I never would have been allowed to meet you in the first place. Not until you ascended at least, and even then I doubt I would occupy such a position to negotiate with you. Nor would you, as you are, have the authority to do the same with us.”
“What am I, Eve?”
“I am not permitted to tell you that, you will need to learn of it yourself.”
“Why is that?” He raised an eyebrow, it seemed like so simple a thing. Tyr wasn't Alfen, though – he knew that, neither was Alex. Alex wasn't half-blood, but she had a shred of the same thing Tyr just far more diluted over the ages.
Aram frowned. “Because I was told explicitly not to, I do not know why either. But I obey, I am sorry.”
What she didn't mention was that if she did, Tyr could quite possibly cease to exist as they knew it. He thought himself a thing that shouldn't exist, cursed and foul, but to her it was the complete opposite. Alfen were well aware that there was being 'real' and being part of 'reality'. There was always a higher plane, to say that they existed themselves was not necessarily true, to say so would be to claim they occupied the same plane as the most high. Which was not correct, reality was the boiling point of the truth and lie, it was neither and both. Through this it could be bent, and ascension was what took these spirits to the place above. A reality that was 'realer' than their own, one might say – layers to everything in a massively flawed loop. There was a limit to their knowledge, and they'd stopped peering into the over-realms at the behest of their elders.
So to say he was a thing that shouldn't be was a blatant mistruth, he was more meant to be than any of her kind in a manner of speaking. Part of the cycle. He who the alfen and their betters named Apollyon, Abaddon by another name – the angel of the bottomless pit. Destroyer, judge, lord of law – because the fact that a thing is temporary was the greatest law influencing their reality. All diluted by their interaction with sentient beings, of which the alfen were but one of many. Human 'gods' were not, in fact, human gods – not truly. Gods, celestials, whatever one wanted to call them were these things over every race and worshiped by most.
He believed himself a shardling and a primus, which was true in a way – but also not. In the way that reality was both real and fake at the same time, the universe couldn't be known – it was a contradiction. In any case, from her perspective, Tyr was no shardling – he was the destroyer. A 'god' in the truest sense of the word if used in comparison to the others. The true high one that had once been called by the same name and many others, not a piece of that celestial but the original reflection. How that had come to pass, or how it was possible – she didn't know. Tyr had been Noru once, the storm that walks, and many other beings throughout history besides. Some known, and others not. Always he'd been slain, legions had risen up against him eventually – what some might call an evil entity. And it would happen again, one way or another, torn down by impotent hands seeking to prevent the inevitable.
Once he knew what he was, though she couldn't be totally sure, she believed he would ascend to a higher plane. And in the process, their world would as well – which was decidedly not good. He'd take them all with him, and everyone and everything would be torn apart. It was confusing, but no race – not even the elder ones, could possibly articulate the mechanics of this. Only a seraphim might know, and the odds of one of them arriving on this world without slaughtering everything on it was slim to none. Better to avoid that particular classification of beings.
In any case... Eve had not known this until she'd looked within, and now that she did – she understood. Tyr was the anti-child, a shaper doing as they always had merely through the prism of what living things considered real. Not so complicated, his prime objective was to be the demon, the great evil that unifies the world and becomes the source for heroes to rise up. In that sacrifice, living to his compulsions of what one might term destiny, he would simultaneously be saving the world just by existing. As Noru had, but something was differently this time – and she wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing.
Inevitability poisoned through a process that seemed designed to forcibly bring him back outside of the natural cycle. In the weakened body of a powerful race. Their designs, she'd guess, to put him to a different use – though guessing at said purpose was not something she could do at this juncture.
“I see, very convenient. What do you think of all that is me? Your husband forever, unless you wise up and choose a better path for yourself.” Tyr smirked, he was a bit wistful after his time spent with his other wives. Especially Jura. If he wasn't so... Bound. He might have had a happy life, like the one he'd seen in his vision, an older version of himself with grandchildren. It still felt like it was all real, all at once – that there were not many Tyr's – there was only one and he was all these things at once. Which did, in actuality, make perfect sense. “Do I satisfy your criteria for an ideal mate? Because I'll take you for whatever reason is my whimsy, even if only for your flexibility and inflatable breasts. I don't plan things ahead, and I'll sometimes say a thing and do another as long as no promise was made.”
“Mate has nothing to do with it, even in a normal circumstance the bonding gives you full access to everything I have and am, win or lose. In this case, I would say I am satisfied, you are handsome and wild with a penchant for violence. But only against those who deserve it, is that a correct assessment?”
“I'm not sure I'd say I'm wild.” Tyr was spontaneous at times, certainly impulsive, but he had always lived a controlled life. Enforced moderation courtesy of his upbringing in Haran. Even subconsciously, everything he'd ever done had been an emulation of selfish desires drilled into him by others. He might have been living selfishly, but none of it really felt like it'd been for him. It hadn't been a very fulfilling life, he wanted to settle down but it'd never let him. “But violent, sure. I would agree with that, I often go too far when righting wrongs and I have murdered many men. Women, too. Old, young, just not children. This pleases you?”
“The world is ruled by the strong, whether people would like to admit it or not.” Eve explained, showing her ruthlessness of character, that shared by most of her people. A born warrior from the day she was made, trained in all the arts of combat by countless master. Never seeing the outside of their shrine until the day came where the offer was made to leave her homeland. Two hundred years in the same compound was no life at all, and here was her chance. “Alfen law has no room for gray area, we are a free people but we are of duality as all things are. Duality is sacred and so is strength, a right to live, the world makes things strong and this makes them right. The job of law keepers and the criminal is to fight and struggle against one another until the victor is right. Or another aggrieved accuses and the process begins again forever until all are dead or the one is judged.”
“That is a brutal system.” Tyr said, but he didn't hate the sound of it.
Eve nodded... evenly. “Perhaps, but it works. The northern clades of Aelas... I doubt there is a safer and more peaceful place in the world. We have no prisons or pillories, we have no lies or courts, you are brought in for a reckoning and you either leave victorious, dead, or maimed and forgiven. Rarely is the result of a conflict any different. Like beasts, we cull with what the world has given us or what we've earned and grasped ourselves. I see no point in living otherwise, and I am of the law, one of the rare alfen not given true freedom. Thus, all you have done has been just because you are here and the dead are not.”
“I am well acquainted with the concept of might making right.”
“It doesn't. It doesn't matter who is right, or wrong. An alf can be the strongest and be wrong, but we will all of us rise against them together. The point is that if you're going to stake a claim to something, it is sacred to possess the power to defend it against all comers. Like the wolf and the bear, territory or morals are only as real as you make them. Otherwise, it is all meaningless in the end.”