Tanya (2/3)
The wedding isn't grand by any means, though due to Haalfrin high standing in the village, all the villagers attend the celebration.
Sure, a few mothers with marriageable aged daughters are a little unhappy that the mage chose to marry a widow, but none of them dare say anything about it – especially at the wedding.
Once the wedding feast is over, Haalfrin ends up expanding Tanya's house a little more before moving in.
Following that are some of the happiest years Haalfrin has ever had in his entire life.
Being a mage, he always has work available and neighbors to help. There's something about having responsibility that nourishes the soul. Being responsible gives you a place in the world. There's something to be said about that…
What's even more fulfilling is the feeling of coming home every day to a loving and beautiful wife.
Frankly, due to her shy stuttering and aversion to conflict, Haalfrin had taken Tanya for a bit of a push-over. However, as they get to know each other better, she gets more confident around him, and they have their first few marital arguments a few years into their marriage.
However, a few disagreements is nothing a bit of maturity and rational thinking can't solve. Tanya herself is a person who is mature far beyond her years, so she's able to resolve her arguments with her husband quite civilly.
In all honesty, Haalfrin probably would've never been attracted to her in the first place if he didn't sense that archaic wisdom in her spirit.
As he gets to know her more and more, the deeper his feelings for her become.
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Unfortunately, the longer your lifespan, the harder it is for you to have children. Haalfrin knows this very well, so he's not at all surprised that Tanya isn't getting pregnant at all, even though it's been a few years now, and even though they dutifully spend each night together without exception.
Tanya starts fretting about this – thinking that she must be barren or something. She calms down once Haalfrin explains to her this particular problem with mages.
"If you were a mage too, and we were married for a few hundred years or so, you'd probably have a child by then," he explains to her, "so the problem lies with me. I'm the reason we're not having a child."
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Many more years pass, and Kamyen grows up into a fine young man. He ends up traveling with Mr. Alas on his trips, and he finds a pretty girl to bring home eventually. The young man ends up moving into the house that Haalfrin used to own, before he moved in with Tanya.
With the child out of the house, Haalfrin becomes acutely aware that his wife is getting older. She's not to the point of getting wrinkly, but Haalfrin is well aware that that it's only a few short decades away.
This, understandably, terrifies him.
It's around this point that Haalfrin starts looking into arcane ways of keeping people young.
...The first thing he thinks of is that old necromancer he met long ago – Querry, his name was.
'That man was able to keep himself young… Well, he used a lot of human sacrifices to do it, so I assume he was using Spirit magic.'
Haalfrin spends several years feverishly researching this. He takes a few trips away from home during the slow winter months, and he tracks down prominent wizards or well-known necromancers…
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As it turns out, the method to keep yourself younger isn't much of a secret in the necromancer's community.
You see, it's well known that each section of the soul has a different strength. The "Dra" Name describes your body, and it's also where your power is. People with powerful Dra (like the dragons) get what they want through force.
"Reh", however, is the Name that describes your spirit. Spirits get what they want through connections – knowing the right people and influencing others to do their bidding.
It's why most Spirit magic has to do with summoning others or influencing how others feel.
It's also pretty well known that if two people interact with each other, then the one with the stronger spirit will influence the weaker one in some way. It's why weak spirited people always end up following the more charismatic people, who happen to have strong spirits.
It's also pretty well known that if the difference in spiritual strength is large enough, that it can actually affect the weaker party's health and apparent age.
Of course, the only people with spirits strong enough to have this kind of effect are the Rehkin clans in the Other World.
It's been well documented that when a Rehkin local marries a human, the human will become far more healthy, and they'll show less signs of aging.
Sadly, this doesn't change their lifespan, though it at least helps them look and feel young.
Of course, short-lived humans are always desperate to avoid growing old. Sadly, the Rehkin live across the World Gate, and the Brancotte Empire is very strict about not allowing any Rehkin captives to be brought across the gate and sold as slaves.
With no convenient race with a conveniently powerful spirit nearby, these greedy necromancers were left to improvise.
In their mind, if they can't find a Rehkin's powerful spirit to leech off of, then they can make up for it by sacrificing a horde of smaller spirits, using horrific arts to stitch all the spirits together, then binding themselves to this unholy blob of spirits.
Unfortunately, stitching so many spirits together is quite unstable, and spirits frequently fall away and are lost to the Death Realm. Because of this, necromancers who seek to remain young must have a constant supply of new sacrifices.
'Well, I have a pretty powerful spirit,' Haalfrin realizes. 'After all, I know that spirits grow stronger the more connections they have. With so many Wills bound to my soul, I reckon that my own spirit is about as powerful as a Rehkin's… just as my body is as powerful as a Drakin's…'
With this in mind, all Haalfrin has to do is tie some of his spirit threads to Tanya, and she'll remain healthy and young looking for the rest of her life.
…Sadly, the only way Haalfrin knows of to genuinely increase his wife's lifespan is for her to become a mage. Unfortunately, despite all the education he's pouring into her every winter, she doesn't appear to have the talent for it.
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Many more years pass by. When Tanya grow into her 40s, most of the village ladies remark jealously that she looks great for her age.
By the time Tanya turns 50, people finally start to notice that she's not growing any older. Before anyone can freak out, Haalfrin makes sure to tell everyone that it's just a side effect of him being a Spirit Mage.
Funnily enough, even Tanya is taken by surprise. 'Oops. I guess I forgot to tell her.'
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Spring, summer, autumn, then winter… The years seem to roll by in a monotonous pattern that hardly anything seems to change for Haalfrin. With his wife maintaining a young appearance, he seems to forget sometimes that a lot of time is passing.
Eventually, Haalfrin is forced to wake up from his dream when Kamyen dies at a ripe old age of 72. Attending the boy's funeral is jarring for Haalfrin. He's so shocked by the sudden death that he can't even bring himself to feel sad until several days later.
Only then does the reality of mortality hit him. Only then does he slow down and shut himself away out of depression.
As sad as he is, Tanya is certainly taking it a lot worse. Both of them spend the next few weeks hardly talking to each other – hardly even stepping out of their separate rooms. It's like neither of them even wants to talk to anyone.
Eventually, though, Tanya reaches out first and starts being around Haalfrin again…
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Just when everything seems like it's turning out for the better, Tanya's health suddenly starts to fail a few years later. Haalfrin can feel the Death Aura accumulating around her, so he knows what's about to happen.
And so, for the next year, Haalfrin hardly leaves the house, since he doesn't want to be away from his wife's sickbed. Whenever he does have to leave to take care of business, he makes sure that she has some of her grandchildren or great grandchildren visiting her while he's gone.
Haalfrin knows from personal experience how maddening it is to grow old and be left alone by society.