An Interested Party

Of course, the Death gods do have some travel restrictions set in place by the Death King; namely, they can't travel up the World Tree and enter Living Worlds with their True Bodies.

For obvious reasons, a Death god's abundant Death Aura would kill any planet they step on if they're not careful.

However, so long as they stay on the endless plains around the World Tree, where all the Death Worlds have fallen, gods like Freyya can usually get a permit to leave their home world.

Given how often she's been traveling around in her quest for knowledge, the Death King is quite used to his young Reaper knocking on his office door with a permit to leave and a request for his signature.

So, when Freyya pops by his door and lets him know that she's wanting to go to the base of the world tree for a potential lead, the Death King permits it without a second thought.

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That afternoon, Freyya is on a Tree Crawler, and she's on a rail headed straight to the World Tree.

Once she arrives there, she spends an entire week circling the place with a stealth enchantment on, and she carefully looks for any unsavory folk waiting for her.

Of course, she finds nothing of the sort, though she does find a few petty criminals. Naturally, none of them are a match for a High Ranked goddess.

Still, even the petty criminals are quite few in number, given the powerful Celesria Empire, which is camped just up the world tree.

This empire is entirely made up of gods of all kinds who belong to the Living Realm, and they're the most powerful alliance of gods known to exist. The only reason the Death King isn't stronger with his alliance is because he has little to no direct control over the Death Worlds and the gods who live there.

The point is, is that the Celesria Empire heavily patrols the base of the World Tree, since they don't want horrible criminals from the Death Realm to crawl up here and cause trouble in their territory.

Finally, after an entire week slips away, Freyya decides that she'll get nowhere if she doesn't drop her concealment spells and let this "interested party" find her.

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The night Freyya dropped her concealment, she finds herself hunched over a fire. She doesn't really need it to keep warm, but the red and orange glow is somehow comforting when she's surrounded by gloomy blackness.

As she's eating some of her dry rations and roast bacon, Freyya hears twigs snapping and bushes ruslting… yet she feels no presence.

Feeling alarmed, she shoots to her feet, swivels on her heel, and points her spear off into the darkness.

Rather than a sudden ambush, she sees a faint silhouette coming closer to her from the shadows. The only reason she knew where to look is because of the pair of glowing eyes, which are subtly bobbing up and down as the creature walks towards her.

What's weird about this stranger is that their eyes are glowing a bright silver – more mellow than the moon. What's most alarming, though, is that the longer she looks into those eyes, the more she feels that they're burning into her skull, despite them not being very bright at all.

Of course, Freyya hadn't spent so much time researching in vain; she knows enough about these beings to recognize one, just from their unique eyes.

Freyya goes stock still, and her body goes cold in fear. With all of the loud searching she's been doing, she must've tipped THEM off.

Only Elder Gods have glowing eyes like that.

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"Why're you going all stiff? You look like a deer being disturbed in a forest!" comes a young man's voice. A moment after he spoke, the man steps into the light, and Freyya sees this Elder God's true appearance.

He's a young-looking man who's actually stands a full head shorter than her. This isn't weird at all, since the antlers on his head easily gives him away as a Yiirkin; Yiirkin are a pretty short race, after all.

"You must be Yiirkavar," Freyya observes stiffly.

"Oh? How'd you know?" the man remarks with surprise. Most people can only name one or two of the Elder Gods, yet she recognized him.

Freyya feels that this man is trying to be friendly – just from his tone. So, she puts down her spear and explains her reasoning.

"You're a Yiirkin, so you have 'Yiir' at the beginning of your Name. You have glowing eyes, which makes you an Elder God; Gods like you have 'Ka' in the middle of your Name. You also have black hair; that means you have 'var' at the end of your Name."

Yiir-Ka-Var.

"I take one issue with that, though," the Elder God protests. "I prefer you call us the 'Kindred Gods' instead of 'Elder Gods'."

Freyya wants to ask why, but she doesn't dare speak more than necessary in front of such a great being.

"Well, whatever," the 'young' man waves his hand casually. "Do you mind if I sit next to you and share your meal? I'm hungry."

"S-sure."

She sits back down on her log and scoots to the side – giving her guest some room.

As Freyya is watching the man snatch some of her bacon from off the hot pan with his bare hands, she's feeling surprised. 'I thought the Elder Gods were just Cosmic spirits. I didn't know that they eat like anyone else?"

It's just weird to think of an Elder God acting so… normally.

…And that's what's most terrifying of all to Freyya.

The Elder Gods are the greatest of all Gods. You could call them the Gods of gods, since all gods (including Freyya) are given their divinity by the Elder Gods – sorry, the Kindred Gods.

It's as if the Kindred Gods are manifestations of the Universe itself, and they allow a portion of their divinity to be divvied out when they allow a god-candidate to be born.

Most gods think of the Elder Gods as lifeless incarnations of the Realms of Existence. Beings of such magnitude are above such petty concerns that the lower beings waste their lives over. The Elder Gods are beyond things like greed or desire.

Most of the myriad races have found comfort in believing this about the Elder Gods.

'After all, how horrifying would it be if the Elder Gods are just like us? People can be brutal and destructive, so if a being of Infinite Significance were to be just like a normal person…' Freyya thinks this while breaking out in a cold sweat.

This whole time Freyya had been thinking that Drakavar ends up destroying the universe because of some primal instinct, or perhaps Fate. Perhaps it was just time for the Universe to die?

However… what if the Elder Gods, including Drakavar, are just normal people? There's all kinds of reasons a normal person would massacre all life!

"Oi! You! You listening?" Yiirkavar waves a hand in front of Freyya. "What're you thinking of so hard that you couldn't hear me talking to you?"

Freyya looks down and stutters out, "W-well, I was just surprised to see an Elder… Kindred God."

"Huh, I thought Death Gods aren't afraid of anything?" Yiirkavar remarks.

"Death isn't the same thing as being Unmade," Freyya points out. "I've heard Elder Gods can do anything to a person – even if that person is a high ranking goddess."

"Oh, you're talking about Unmaking?" Yiirkavar snorts. "Only Arkala can do that. Hmm… Since I'm a God of Time, the most I can do is… Well, use your imagination."

"Anyway!" he finally sits back on the log and says, "Tell me what you know about the Kindred Gods. I don't like repeating what someone else already knows."

Instead of answering, Freyya reaches into her bag and pulls out a notebook. "You can see my notes here."

On here is written most of the things she learned about the Elder Gods during her travels.

"Hmm… Let me take a look," the kindred says as he reaches over and takes the book from her.

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Yiirkavar spends a few minutes rifling through her notebook, and every now and then, he scribbles a pen over the pages – crossing a few things out and adding a few other things.

While the God is meddling with her notebook, Freyya asks cautiously, "Why would a Kindred God pay attention to a goddess like me?"

The man's pen hand pauses briefly before he answers, "I'm the God of Yiirvar. I know what kind of possible future you and your husband have with Drakavar."

He puts his pen down then looks at his feet with a sad look. "Drakavar is like a big sister to me, but she's been spiraling down a self-destructive path for a very long time now. That future you and your husband saw through Haalfrin's Names is the Events with the best possibility of turning her around."

"Now, I got a question for you," he says as he points his pen at her. "Why is it that no one is able to Time travel to Drakavar's Timeline at all? With how curious you are about the Dragon Goddess, you'd have surely had Scryers look at the past, or even had someone take you back to Drakavar's Timeline to see for yourself."

"Easy," Freyya replies, "you put a restriction on the Drakavar's timelines because Mantling such great being is very dangerous."

Yiirkavar shakes his head to this. "No, that's not right. The real reason is… Eh… How to explain it…?"

He looks down and thinks for a moment before speaking again. "I locked away her Timeline in order to protect her from the world, not the world from her."

"…Huh?" Freyya really is confused.

So, Yiirkavar explains further. "Mantling Drakavar certainly would cause the world some havoc, sure. However, there was a time when Drakavar was quite… vulnerable. If people could time travel to her most vulnerable period… well… you get the gist."

"Vulnerable…?" Freyya can't help but ask.

Yiirkavar looks down and says carefully (as to not give away too much), "Drakavar is a very… frail-hearted person. Despite being so mighty, she's deeply emotionally dependent on other people."

The man sighs and scratches his head. "Let's just say that she's the type of person who would be stupidly loyal to the first person to ever help her out."

"Ah," Freyya realizes, "so if people could time travel, they could help her out in her early years and gain an all-powerful backing. I can imagine how chaotic the world would be if an evil person had the dragon empress doing whatever they want for them."

"Exactly!" Yiirkavar yelps excitedly and stands up. He bites his shirt and squeezes his eyes. "She's like a cute, abandoned puppy who'd follow you home if you stop to pet it at the right time!"

'Cute… puppy?' Freyya thinks incredulously. In all her research into Drakavar, she's uncovered some pretty horrific stories – mostly involving the dragon Goddess brutally committing genocide and ripping people limb from limb in front of their loved ones. '... A puppy…?'

The Kindred God sits back down and scribbles a few more things on her notebook absentmindedly, and the campfire devolves back into an awkward silence.

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"There," Yiirkavar says after a few minutes as he hands her notebook back to her. "I fixed it for you."

He leans back and props his left leg up on a stump. "I must say, you've learned much more than I thought. Congratulations."

Most gods like Freyya really don't know a lot about he and his kind. Sure, everyone knows a little bit about the Kindred Gods, but no one knows a lot about them.

Freyya flips through the book for a bit.

And, as she's reading, Yiirkavar starts talking to her, "So, in order to find the Timelines I've hidden, we're going to have to go to the Realm of Nowhere."

"Nowhere?" Freyya raises an eyebrow at this. "From what you added to my notebook, Nowhere is Yiirkala's Realm. That's a place that doesn't exist. You can't go to 'nowhere'."

"You can if you have infinite Yiir," Yiirkavar confidently says while cocking a thumb at himself. "That's why I said that you'll need my help to go to where we're going."

He stands up and offers a hand to her. "Shall we get going now? I would say we don't have all day, but I'm a God of Time; I have all the Time in the universe."