“Tyr?” Astrid woke with a start, having been witness to awful things in her dreams. How something had grabbed a hold of her in that moment when she'd been dragged away. Dominating her mind and sending her reeling, she couldn't remember much beyond that. Except... The city. She'd...? “You saved me?”

“Indeed, I am very heroic and dashing, good morning Astrid,” Tyr was tending to a crackling campfire with his bare hands, reaching into the coals and adjusting the wood so as to ensure as little smoke as possible was thrown up, he doubted there was much in the way of men in this region, but it was better safe than sorry, and he was far too tired to go anywhere fast. He'd made it a scant few hours east of Taur before he'd begun to flag under the pressure tugging at him. Valkyrja had done something to him and left him with another shard, after Tyr had gone through so much effort to expel the others from his mind. He needed to sleep, but she needed it more, they'd both been abused by that tug of war of energies in the keep. It wasn't a fight, as Valkyrja had said, but Tyr had most assuredly lost whatever it was. What happened next was anybody's guess. “Or night, I suppose, looks to be about 1AM.”

She wept, slowly and silently, but he could see it. The dawning realization, and she'd speak on it, too, about what she'd done. “I killed all those people. I... No, I... I did something worse. Tyr, what did I--?”

“No, you didn't,” Tyr had felt it within her, her waking dreams when he'd carried her were so loud that he couldn't help to look, and she'd been half conscious during the wild action that shard in her had took. First hunting down the men that had witnessed what had happened – something he was now well aware of – and later stalking the city like a butcher phantom. Men, women, and children alike. Not just killing them, that would have been a mercy. Rather forcing them to relive every pain and pleasure of their lives in the blink of an eye and many beyond that. Splitting agony beyond cruelty, leaving the word 'god' an inappropriate descriptor, there was nothing divine about the way she'd held those people, it was horrific. Something of the void, and Astrid was not possessed, this was the purest distillation of the self, of her anger, of her capacity for cruelty.

If man could imagine, man could do.

Things that were not natural, power that was not supposed to be held. Valkyrja enjoyed doing it, her concept of 'justice' was indiscriminate, punishing them merely for existing, in the inverse of Tyr who only punished those who made their choices and he found wanting in terms of character.

There was one benefit, however, Astrid had risen as a fully realized nephilim, another one – earning as aspect of her own in the process. But Valkyrja herself was inside Tyr, which made Astrid... Tyr's 'primus shard' – he supposed? His literal other half, with none of the memory loss and tug-of-war the others had experienced. It was, as everything seemingly had to be, exceptionally confusing. That had been the price, though, he and Astrid were bound together forever, and in terms of 'forever', that meant... well, 'forever'. Forever, forever. Like... Forever.

Actualizing the concept of true eternity into the human mind was, as one would find obvious, fairly difficult.

“What do you mean?” Astrid stared up at him in confusion, and he stared right back at her, his eyes just as blue as the fire he tended to. Less light thrown off, though just as warming. “Tyr... I slaughtered a city full of people. I wanted to watch things die, but... I killed children! Innocents!”

“No, you didn't,” He repeated gruffly, staring harder at her. Everything about her was so complete and able, and Astrid's grip on her sense of self was tyrannical. Micah had been pretty close to manifesting, but he suspected that Astrid had already awakened a very long time ago. At least that first step on a road where the steps were seemingly infinite. He'd awakened forty eight times thus far and barely understood how it all worked. What the capacity was, why some people never did and were still stronger than him.

“I didn't?” She asked, her eyes fluttering in confusion, locking gazes with him and blinking slow.

“No, you didn't,” Tyr repeated again. For the last time, sinking his claws into her and feeling no regret whatsoever. She didn't deserve this, it hadn't been her – they'd done awful things to her body and at the point of death she'd found the 'end' where something was waiting. That was her catalyst for ascension, to die, perhaps explaining her unnerving predilections in the past.

“I didn't...” She 'realized', “But if not me, who did?”

“I did,” Tyr asserted, using every ounce of that 'empathy' for the only decent purpose he'd ever imagined it would have. Railing into her mind with his aspect until it was less domination and more assurance. It wasn't an inception of memory, he stole those and left only this one single fact, taking her sin unto him, in a manner of speaking.

'What's mine is yours' between man and wife, in perhaps the worst way.

“You did?” She repeated dumbly, eyes screwed up and tilting her head in confusion.

“I did.”

“Why?”

“Because they hurt you, so I hurt them,” He shrugged, “I told you I'd burn cities for you, didn't I?”

“I see,” She smiled dreamily, her mind made a bit softer but not broken, the soul bond making it even easier. Now he was connected to them all in that way, but he could not reach the others at this moment. It could wait until the morning, something was interfering with their bonds – and he expected it had a lot to do with their shards. Tyr could always feel Okami because the great wolf wasn't a shardling, but not the rest of them. “You saved me.”

“I...” Tyr frowned. It wasn't technically untrue. Valkyrja had been waiting in that keep for him, but the gods rarely seemed to make sense. Nothing did to him, not even normal people. At times it was like they were speaking in tongues, and it was his fault – he would own it. He might not have swung the proverbial hammer, but he'd certainly given her the key to the armory. Ergo, all of this was his responsibility. “You tried to stop me.”

“I did?”

“You did.”

“Why?” She looked a bit fearful of him in that moment, but only for a moment, seeming to believe him wholeheartedly and mull it over in her head. He'd taken a lot from her. Devouring her memories of the abuse that she'd so bravely suffered through. As they spoke, Tyr was forced to relive it all as if it'd been him on that slab, yet he did not balk.

“Because I did an evil thing,” Tyr replied softly, working at the coals of their campfire.

“Was it a good fight, at least?”

“Oh yeah,” Tyr snorted. He stopped pushing on their connection, not wanting to abuse her further, but living with the nightmare of what that shard inside of her had done wasn't something he was willing to let her do. He would take that burden for himself. Why? Because he was a very heroic, charming, and dashing figure? No, because he didn't care, he'd have done it anyway, albeit to a much lesser extent, wasn't that creative. It was the spiritual equivalent of reaching up to the top shelf for a shorter individual, not some grand gesture of romance, not to him. “You beat me bloody and made me beg for mercy.”

“That makes sense,” She replied groggily, reaching out and pulling him nearer. He wasn't sure what she wanted from him, it was all a bit awkward. But eventually she managed to nestle her head in his lap and it wasn't much longer before she was back and close to falling asleep. Tyr ran his fingers through her long pink hair, it was... particularly pleasant, nothing strange about it, their friendship, he'd always, oddly, felt more comfortable around her than the others. “I forgive you, Tyr, I know you're a good man.”

“Thank you, Astrid,” One last time, he forced his will on her and broke another oath, putting her asleep and deafening her ears. Though... To be honest, she needed the sleep, and he was a healer... of sorts.

Because Tyr was not the savior of one, but of a trio, because he had seen them, known the sin wrought against them, and felt sick to his stomach for it.

“Cute couple,” Rommel mused, poking her head up over the lip of the earthen depression. He'd taken from her, too. Nobody had need of that burden, he'd found her drooling and catatonic in the street, but he'd left the rest. Just not that. It was disgusting what humans were truly capable of when left with no fear of reprisal. Unfortunately, for all of his 'chivalrous' deeds, she was... The way she was... Tyr was a misanthrope at times but he really and truly did not like these people. He did not feel the itch to kill them, no, they disgusted him in other ways. Well, no. He definitely wanted to kill Hans, but after leafing through his memories, he turned out to be a far more complex character than he'd imagined.

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Hans hated injustice more than anything, and saw Tyr as a great source of it – hence why he'd been so eager. But he wasn't a monster, just embittered and jagged living with the darkness that ate away at his insides. In constant pain. Tyr had become his grand villain of sorts, and so Hans believed himself a freedom fighter, laboring against the tyranny of the primus'.

And in their... risen states, these Fingers, they actually believed themselves even a speck capable enough to take on Jartor as a group. People needed reminding, truly, how small they were sometimes. For their own good.

“Thank fuck we can stand up like some gods damned human beings,” Hans remarked. Both of them came from the hole that Tyr had dug, thrown into it when Astrid had shown signs of waking.

“If you wake her,” Tyr replied softly, 'kind' and 'gentle' in his intonation, still playing with Astrid's hair, feeling all sorts of emotions at this time, perhaps the first ever shred of real regret. Throwing her out there because he'd been so confident in Eve, and the fact that Micah had easily managed to generate gates even in the interference. And then he hadn't, might even be dead. Tyr had been confident he'd live, though he couldn't say why. These pillars of his were not so easily disposed of, people would underestimate them. “I'll sample other parts of you this time.”

“You're sick in the fucking head, kid,” Hans whispered. But he did whisper. Which was a good sign.

“Wait...” Tyr cleared his throat as softly as he could, turning to Rommel. Also known as 'Gabrielle', he'd torn her mind apart looking for information, and learned a great deal in the process, but she hated that name as it was a sign of her relation to Jartor. Choosing to adopt her mother's maiden name instead, Tyr wasn't the type to judge in that context. They'd all been expelled from the palace before Tyr had been born – all because Signe had insisted Jartor remove his other wives. Not all of his sisters had been forced to leave, Gabrielle Faeron had simply had the bad luck of having a firebrand for a mother, one bold enough to attempt an assassinate of Signe that hadn't gone as planned... “What, exactly, is your relation to Hans?”

“He is my son,” Rommel replied bluntly.

“Ah... Seriously? He looks a little old to be your son...” Tyr squinted at the woman skeptically.

“I am twenty six years old,” Hans scowled. “I use darkness magic, it has that effect on the body but it's not always permanent.”

“That makes me Hans' uncle, right?”

“That is, indeed, how a family tree works,” Rommel replied, frowning hard at what was sure to be a migraine inducing conversation. Tyr Faeron was, as always, extremely chaotic.

“Can I call you Gabrielle?”

“Can you fuck off? What is wrong with you?”

“Mothers shouldn't take that way around their children,” Tyr mused sagely, poking at the fire again. “Well, in any case, I guess we're all good friends now.”

“We aren't your friends, Tyr Faeron. I thank you for saving my life and that of my wayward spawn, of whom I couldn't care less if he died, but that does not make us allies.” Rommel glared at him, as if he could not flick his wrist and erase her from this world, she was a very... severe woman, and far too confident even still.

“Why not?” Tyr raised an eyebrow at her, and he was deadly serious. Both of them were haemonculi, and that was a complication. He couldn't break them in the mind and ensorcel them, they'd both be very useful, so he'd considered it. Agency or the illusion of it was very important to him, but it was odd how he couldn't influence them, and vice versa. They were akin to... Holes in the world. Convenient to rise again, but all magic had a cost. He wondered if it could be fixed, if they could be made real again – haemonculi aged faster than their original bodies.

And their souls were, in all reality, quite damned, and they didn't even know it.

“Is that a real question?” Hans was uncharacteristically soft, he was only, what...? A year older than this Prince uncle of his – and Tyr still seemed so naive and childish at times in comparison. “You cut me open and ate my liver...”

“As I said I would, you had a choice, didn't you?”

“That's not the point!” Hans hissed.

“I gave my entire life to Cortus in a bid to get back at our father, I even had a child with him, I have no interest in doing more,” Rommel frowned, despite her youthful looks courtesy of the replacement body, she was nearing 50 years old. “We will leave, I think. Go elsewhere now that he can no longer control us. I am aggrieved that he has betrayed us after so long, but I am a big girl. You said you fixed that, the manipulation, were you lying?”

Tyr shrugged. “I wasn't, he shouldn't be able to activate you with a word, but we're talking about me. Me, Tyr. Him, Hastur. Measuring up to that genius is hard, he is an incredible intellect after all.”

“He's scum, is what he is,” Rommel commented sadly, downcast and wondering how many years she'd lost, how many burdens she'd taken on to be nothing more than a tool to the man. “He made me forget that I had children. Made them forget, too, my own husband didn't even recognize me. Though I did know of Hans, for whatever reason... More games...”

“Named your daughter after a cactus...” Tyr added pointedly.

“There are times where you are better suited with keeping your mouth shut,” Rommel scowled. “Yucca are not cacti, they are a perennial shrub and tree.”

“I'm just saying. Like there's Rose, Lily, Ivy, Cucumber, so many perfectly normal names for perfectly normal plants and you chose Yucca...” Tyr squinted, he could not believe it.

“Cucumber...?” Hans squinted at him, open mouthed and slowly blinking at the idiocy of the man.

See, first they'd been informed it was likely all an act, but now he was really starting to think that Tyr Faeron was just straight up dumb.

By the sounds of things, how Rommel had described it, Hastur had betrayed them quite clearly. In a way... He'd done worse, and it had been going on for decades amongst his followers. Like Tyr, he was of an emotional aspect and he'd been planting seeds in anticipation of his eventual demise. Even before he'd been killed, she had been part of his schemes. He was incredibly forward thinking.

Now that Hastur had become so confident in his ascension to primacy, he had discarded these pawns of his.

He hadn't sold them out actively, nor approved of any of the foul things done that neither of them could remember in totality. But Rommel had been arguing with him a lot lately, unsure as to why he acted in the way he did, his bizarre schemes. Hastur was a cold man, someone who would often only share small components with them and leave the Fingers to do 'as they pleased'. It was a mixed bag...

But while he hadn't sent them directly into this fate, Tyr had learned through her memories that the Gran Taurus had requested ransom first, and Hastur had ignored him. Aware of what would happen, and he'd done nothing to stop it. He'd done worse things, too, that small thing was irrelevant in comparison to the decades long abuse. Tampered with their memory, Tyr had removed traces of that to get to the root cause, little blocks and speed bumps along the way. Hastur was Hans' father. Some experiment to breed light adepts like Gabrielle Faeron, but in three attempts they'd only had children with darkness affinities. Yucca included. Tyr didn't know who the third child was, but they should all be of a similar age, in their early to mid 20's.

Hastur was a real bastard, worse than Tyr had expected. Putting a hatchet in a skull or showcasing some apathy to the fate of a subordinate was a far lesser crime than the rest. To sire three children with this woman and steal their memories and childhoods both. Training them to kill, Yucca had been given a relatively normal life but Hans... It was dark, to say the least, he'd been tortured as a child to make him hate and therefore strengthen him...?

He had quite the family though – Hastur. Living independently from Cortus, a rather confusing bit of doppelganger logic. Lernin, Pattoli, Hans, Yucca, and one other unknown person were his direct descendants. And there might be more, all a plot to breed stronger humans, and Tyr of course suspected it went far deeper than that.

Then again, he was going to slaughter them all unless they'd submit, so what was the point of thinking it over?