Sealed Away
Haalfrin ends up leaving the meeting early. He's anxious to get home, but more so, he heard from Dakka that the Clans were going to stay for a few more weeks.
'Yeah. No thank you. I'm going home,' Haalfrin thinks with a chuckle.
The old general doesn't feel like bothering his friend about it, so he sets out on his own on the long trip back.
Due to his ability to fly, and his Dra Names power to enhance his physical spells, Haalfrin sets out on a leisurely pace – only arriving back at the Valor hall 2 days later.
Kaalhyme's lookouts must've been doing their jobs properly, since by the time Haalfrin opens the front gates and strolls in, his second-in-command is there, waiting for him.
"Do you mind telling me how the meeting went?" Kaalhyme asks Haalfrin. "I haven't gotten a report from you in the last few days."
"Very well!" Haalfrin puts on a smile and gives his captain a thumbs up.
Despite his cheery face, though, he secretly feels a little despondent. He's not sure why he feels this way, but he's sure to stuff that depressed feeling deep into his heart and bury it.
Haalfrin steps forward and drapes an arm around Kaalhyme. "Here's how it went…"
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With Kaalhyme, and all the other generals apprised of not only the meeting, but Queen Fina's newfound Spiritual power, many of them start to feel that their "inter-clan alliance" is practically redundant now.
"Should we just disband our alliance?" "What's the point of having it?" Many asked such questions at the next martial meeting.
"Let's just wait and see," Haalfrin tells them all with a frown. "We'll still be sure to protect our allies, just in case something happens to Queen Fina's new mega-clan."
In Haalfrin's mind, keeping up their own alliance requires little to no effort anyway. What's the point in disbanding it so readily?
It's like throwing away a tool as soon as you're done using it the first time. Isn't that too wasteful? What if you need it in the future?
Sure, the tool will waste away in your storage shed for years on end, but it's not hurting anyone just by taking up a little space.
The other generals see Haalfrin's logic, and they all agree.
Still, they agree with the expectation that they'll have nothing to do in the coming years. Perhaps, they'll be completely out of a job?
"We're soldiers. Our job is to kill people and to be killed. Isn't it a good thing that we're out of a job?"
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Over the years, everyone's love for Queen Fina grows greater and greater… Haalfrin can tell just by hearing the Rehkin sing her praises whenever his soldiers visit the lands of the 5 clans in their alliance.
There, his soldiers bring back rumors and stories of the Queen's exploits.
Apparently, Queen Fina isn't staying cooped up in her palace. Instead, she's taking long trips across the land – visiting the clans and settling disputes personally.
What's so uncanny about that woman is that she's able to sense when two clans are getting ready to attack each other.
Wars generally DO take years to brew to a boil, so she always has plenty of time to diffuse the situation in time.
Not only does the Queen become known as a great negotiator, but she also becomes famous for her healing abilities.
In fact, her healing powers are so strong that even previously dead parts of the land start growing green again.
After all, wars between Rehkin are deeply Spiritual in Nature. When they go to war, they bend and twist the life around them into horrible, dark shapes.
When a clan war lasts long enough, the land is permanently scared, and the Spirit Threads there are forever twisted into black malice. With the Spirits there damaged and abused so much, nothing can grow there anymore. Plus, anyone who's foolish enough to try living there quickly falls ill and either dies within a few years, or their spirits get twisted until they become demons.
These black scars on the land are, fittingly, called "cursed ground".
Now, some cursed ground has certainly been healed by the clans over the years, but there are some valleys and mountains that experienced wars so terrible that they remained cursed, even to this day.
These horrible blights on the world had all but been blotted off the maps, due to how nobody can even travel through there.
… Yet, the moment Queen Fina steps onto these ashen lands, the air around her becomes cleaner, and green grass starts sprouting in the wake of her footsteps. Oddly enough, even the weather is being affected – the clouds going away, and powerful golden sunlight illuminating the land.
Spirit magic can affect the weather? What?
Even more miraculous, is that by the time Queen Fina finishes her casual stroll through the cursed ground, previously dead seeds have come back to life and are growing high into the sky.
Only days after her departure, the sound of songbirds can already be heard again from the recently cured earth.
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Of course, many worried, at first, that it was too dangerous for the Queen of Arra to be traveling the world on her own. Shouldn't she have an escort?
However, when some Matriarchs or clan elders bring this up to Dakka, he just laughs in their faces and says, "Nobody in this world is strong enough to harm that woman except for me."
Besides, even if someone COULD harm Fina, Dakka seriously doubts that anyone would want to.
Her Spirit is so strong that even hungry, wild tigers act like tame kitties in front of her.
Even flighty prey animals, like deer, don't get startled when she walks by them. Her Spirit Aura has so completely enshrouded this world that she feels like a goddess of nature. It's like every living thing here is, somehow, tied to her Spirit.
In fact, it doesn't take long for all the Rehkin clans to start worshipping her like a goddess.
Of course, they still hold their ancestors with great respect in their hearts, but it's evident that Fina is more powerful than all of their Ancestor gods combined.
…This is a given, due to the fact that (thanks to Felkawyn's modification to her soul) her power is tied to Dakka's.
Since Dakka is one of Drakavar's Bloodchosen, he is more powerful even than the Death King… The Death King is one of the strongest gods in the entire universe.
With this in mind, it's a given that Fina is stronger than a hundred or so minor-Ancestral gods. Frankly, overpowering them with her Spirit and wrapping them around her finger was just as easy as swaying the rest of the clans to her side.
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Funnily enough, it's the Clans' worship that actually propels Freyya forward to getting her 7th Name.
When Haalfrin realizes that Queen Fina has literally become a goddess, his first thought is, 'She got her 7th Name? I didn't realize she even got her 6th! What happened?'
What he doesn't know is that the day she watched Arla die in front of her dead husband's skull, something was touched so deeply inside of her that she awakened her 6th Name.
Due to her inherently immortal nature, she didn't actually regress in age when this happened.
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Now that Queen Fina is the literal goddess now, the entire world is bound to her Will now. Under the influence of her spirit, wars and slaughters cease between the clans.
In fact, it only takes about 3 mortal generations to come and go before all feelings of resentment between the clans have completely disappeared from the public mind.
For the first time in an era, the world is at peace.
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After 200 years of watching the peaceful seasons come and go, Haalfrin permanently retracts all his soldiers back to the Valor Hall, and he disbands his alliance of 5 clans, though they all agree to still have free trade and travel between them.
Still, the years tick by, and Haalfrin is starting to feel incredibly lonely. It's always the worst whenever Dakka and Fina visit him and show off how in love they are with each other.
And so, one day, we see Haalfrin sitting on his window sill. The window is wide open, and the cool, spring breeze is softly blowing in. His legs are stretched out, and his back is propped up against the wall.
In his book is some random book. The thing is upside down in his hands too; clearly, the thing is only there to make himself look busy to anyone who sees him down below.
'I miss Freyya…,' Haalfrin thinks sullenly. 'I'm bored too, but I mostly miss her.'
He fidgets in his seat restlessly. 'I spent thousands of years lounging around the Valor Hall like this, back when we had that long cease-fire with the Queen, during our war. I never really felt bored then…'
Haalfrin doesn't have to think very hard to understand why.
'Yup. Freyya was there with me. Rather, she never left.'
Ah. It was such a luxury to have her around all the time. Going centuries on end without ever seeing her just feels torturous.
Briefly, Haalfrin has the idea to go challenge a couple of ambitious young teenagers to a duel. 'Freyya would show up if I killed a couple of idiots in battle, right?!'
'NO! NO!' he quickly shakes the thought out of his head. 'I can't just go murderer people over this!'
*sigh* He leans further down his seat and lifts his book up. "Oh. It's upside down," he finally notices.
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The centuries start to pile up, and Haalfrin starts to become keenly aware of something unpleasant.
'I'm getting old again,' he realizes. 'Look at these grey hairs? The stress of that war is finally catching up to me.'
Of course, he's not close to getting wrinkly like an old man yet, but every day, seeing his hair start to darken and grey out, he's reminded of his mortality.
'What'll happen to the Valor Hall when I die?' Haalfrin wonders sometimes. 'What'll happen to the World Gate we guard without any Threshold soldiers to guard it?'
Haalfrin is under no delusion that the Time-locked barrier over the World Gate will hold forever. When it comes down, the humans on the other side will discover this world again.
What if the humans try to invade Arra? They'll get slaughtered by Dakka. No, even the nearby Rehkin clans, under the influence of their goddess, are more than strong enough to take out any human invaders.
But… what if the Rehkin try to invade the human world?
'I can't imagine Dakka or Fina caring very much if the Rehkin set their minds on that,' Haalfrin realizes.
'Fina is a Rehkin, and Rehkin are extremely clannish. The humans in another world aren't "her people", so I can't imagine her intervening to save them in any situation.'
'Dakka isn't any better. All he cares about is spending time with his wife and guarding his World Gate. If the Rehkin felt like expanding their territory, Dakka might even offer to help them…'
Haalfrin's skin goes cold just thinking about this.
'No! I have to be alive as long as possible! The moment I die, Dakka and Fina will no longer have any reason to care about being nice to my world! They'll drive the humans off their world without a second thought, given the chance.'
He then thinks about his memories as a Threshold soldier, and the feeling of belonging and purpose he had while he was fighting against the Ant Queen.
'Yes. I'm a soldier of the Threshold. It's my duty to guard the Gate with my life.'
Haalfrin's heart hardens, and he makes his mind up.