Blistering winds scratched at her face. Alex felt no pain or temperature, or anything at all – all her sensations were a facsimile of feeling. Some instinct in her knew what she felt – but she the sensations weren't real. Because she wasn't 'here'.

Wherever 'here' was...

“What is this place?” Her voice was clear and easily audible against the whipping winds. Everything was gray, and the sound seemed to disturb that pall ever so slightly. A bit of color returning to the world and vanishing just as fast as it had come.

A vast expanse of rocky ground covered in snow, with gray clouds overhead so thick as to not let much in the way of light in. But it wasn't dark, despite that. It was so bright as to cause that emulation of discomfort, forcing her to squint her eyes just to 'see'. A tundra full of phantom figures that would appear one moment, leaving in the blink of an eye. Vaguely human shaped, unique from one another regardless of their lack of identifying features. She feared them at first, before realizing that they either didn't care that she was among them, or didn't really exist at all.

Alex couldn't feel what she'd call any kind of 'real' sensation, as before, it was like someone was in the back of her head explaining that she was feeling something in the most ambiguous way. But it was definitely cold, that was something that began to settle on her the longer she remained, and there was a deep melancholy throughout the place. The wind was as unnatural as the terrain, haunting, almost as if it were speaking in hushed voices.

Just softly enough to prevent her from understanding the words.

She loved adventure, always had. Not traveling in the strictest sense of going to a place on vacation, she preferred her books to that. But diving into the unknown, despite the fel nature of this haunted place... It was worth seeing it for what it was. Trying to figure out where she was, and why she was here.

What had she been doing before this? One moment, she'd been with Tyr, and the next thing she knew she felt like she'd been thrown into a bath of ice water only to find herself standing in this barren wasteland. Rocky, craggy, a blizzard howling overhead and blanketing everything in fine snow.

What were we doing...? She couldn't remember. Her whole body was crawling with a vague sense of pain and discomfort.

Brain split into two pieces, one crystal clear but bereft of any considerations or emotions, while the other was so foggy to make the simple act of thinking difficult. So she didn't think, only walked, and that felt right – just to do rather than to consider.

For what felt like days, she plowed into the blizzard. Everything was uniform and flat, there were no identifying features to the terrain to use as references whatsoever, making it difficult. Her footsteps made no impression on the snow, and for all she knew she'd walked in circles for days on end without ever making headway in any direction in particular.

Not snow, eventually she'd decided to stoop down and take it into her fingers. The fine particular falling through the air was ash...

The wind stopped abruptly while she was attempting to make some sort of guideline with her finger in the powdery ground, failing at doing so. Nothing here could be influenced – not even the phantoms who stayed long enough for her to watch her hand pass through them like smoke.

She looked up, it was still stormy, but the wind and 'snows' were gone, to be replaced by a lifeless forest of stone trees. All about their boughs and trunks were patterns of hard runes from a dozen languages at least. Some so worn that she couldn't make out the words. The others that she understood were little more than the scribbles of a raving lunatic.

Pride. Greed. Gluttony. Envy. Wrath. Pain. Lies. End. End. End.

Random words, and a hundred trees before she found the first legible sentence in the old runic language used in Oresund. She wasn't totally confident in her translation, but it looked to say:

'I am the cycle, I am the beginning and I am the end. I am nothing. I am everything. I am the end and the beginning of all things. I am the balance. Alone, I am the key to everything and nothing. Apart, I am one with the beginning and end. I am the end.'

And it repeated on and on, wrapping itself around that one tree that appeared no different from any other. The only defining feature of it was that the runes were carved from the stone in perfect lines rather than haphazard words and phrases.

Further beyond that tree, the forest opened up again. A carpet of broken chunks of trees that had been shattered, with the few standing beyond it withered and bleeding reddish sap from the stone. Little, twisted things that groaned and groaned at the boughs in pain.

Not a carpet, it was an ocean sized expanse far into the distant horizon that looked as if a hurricane had blown through the forest. Further afield was a tree far larger than all the rest, a titanic growth that was shattered all along every branch. Existing as a collection of splinters held together by what appeared to be a man shackled through his flesh to the interior of its trunk. It was hard to tell, she was too far away, and when she went to get a better look – the terrain changed again.

She was on a mountain, and there was life here – but all the color of the swaying leaves were washed out in monotone gray. The mouths of birds moved in what must've been a song, emerging as harsh ear splitting static.

Waterfalls fell upward in defiance of natural law, and stretching out in every direction from the gray mountain was a sea of perfectly still black water, broken only by chains of the same color shooting up from its glassy surface. Thousands of them, so thick that she'd mistaken them for oddly shaped waves, all sunk into it's craggy flanks and wrapped around the mountain. Binding it.

Despite the colorless atmosphere and general gloom to her surroundings, Alex had to admit that it was... If not beautiful, then it was awe inspiring, this place.

She wasn't sure she'd ever call such a foreboding atmosphere full of static and unpleasant pops and cracks 'beautiful'. Every noise, even a whisper, came with a boom like thunder. Any disturbance to the otherwise calm atmosphere was met with harsh retribution. It, this mountain, wanted solace and silence and nothing else, it seemed.

Some of the birds on the sparse trees below flew too close and were turned to ash in response. Vibrating madly until blinking back to their nests as if nothing had happened. Everything was so contained and cyclic, her foot disturbed one of the pebbles on the stone and the same thing happened. It refused to change, and she tried and failed to make any mark here.

Alex wondered again to herself what kind of place this was. She felt no mana, no spira as Tyr had taught her to sense it. Deeper introspection was impossible to her as she was now, so he'd never bothered to go further and likely never would.

The peak of the mountain was dominated by some kind of temple. Open air shrines and gongs, but no priests to ring them. Everything was deadly still and silent, only the hushed padding of her feet the sole sign that anything moved in this place. It was truly massive, the platforms and dais dedicated to the worship of a thousand faceless gods.

All of them more bizarre than the last, representing vastly different things. A god of what appeared to be murder, war, or bloodshed – twin axes in hand. Sitting next to the depiction of a beggar with open hands, a knight and a woman with a basket full of fruit standing in the same cluster. On and on it went. Winding around the mountain, a sea of faceless statues. Some obvious in their gender, but most were not. A six armed giant with hammers in its hand facing a forge that burnt with cold fire, frozen and still... So many of these things, all around.

A structure sat at the flattened peak of the mountain, and it was the only thing in this gods forsaken place that bore any color.

Stark and vibrant against the backdrop of gray, despite its simple tones of blue and white. Four pillars supported a simple roof of hard tiles with a soft mat serving as a floor. Seated on a round stone plinth in the middle of a clear pool of water swarming with swirling lights.

Beauty was here, in its simplicity. This bastion of color in a gray world. Connected to the rest of the temple by a small and equally simple bridge with no ornamentation. The water in particular was incredibly serene, but there was an intense coldness to it.

Something in the back of Alex's mind warning her against touching it. It promised tranquility and death with each hand. Peace in death, but not a death mortal souls were made to suffer, that was true and total oblivion.

She didn't know why, but she made her way across the bridge and beneath the roof. There were no doors to open, the whole thing was open to the air, a pavilion or gazebo by any other word.

Inside was a table meant for kneeling, with a heavy book of no decoration sans a silver wolf embossed on its cover. There was no title to speak of, but the spine and pages sat together with such perfect geometry that she instinctively knew it was no normal tome.

“A black book...” She breathed, hearing her voice clearly this time, no static in it.

“You should not be here.” Someone said, but she didn't feel frightened in the least bit by the man somehow gone unnoticed in the corner. He was hooded, face swathed in shadow. Gently lifting a ceramic cup to his lips to take a sip of whatever was inside. “Not a place for the living. Not a place for anything at all, if I'm being honest.”

“What is this mountain?” Alex asked. “Are you the priest in charge of this place?”

The figure chuckled. There was nothing dark or sinister about him at all. He had a friendly, even voice and his robes were as white as snow with soft navy accents at the seams, but otherwise bare of any kind of ornamentation. To Alex, that's exactly what he looked like, a priest or a monk.

“I am no priest. And this place... It's nothing and everything. It exists nowhere, and everywhere. And you, little one, should leave. Not a place for shardlings like yourself.”

Alex smiled. She had no idea who this stranger was but she felt a great deal of familiarity with him, almost yearning to continue their conversation... Forever.

“Are you a god, then?” She asked, and the man pondered this for a brief moment. “Am I dead?”

“A piece of one, maybe, a god from your perspective. Then again, an insect could spend its whole life in its burrowed nest and see the stomping feet of a rodent above as godly. I've been many things, but never a philosopher. I am but a speck of dust, and yet me and mine would tower over the greatest among you. I suppose... I am the first, and the last.” He made an amused clucking noise with his tongue. “Tea?” The figure asked.

Alex looked around. There was no pot of the drink nearby, nor was there a kettle – or even a fire to heat it on. But before she knew it, she was holding an identical mug to his own. Bowing her head graciously, a bit unsure of how to act. If it was true that she was meeting a god... It wasn't how she'd expected such a situation to unfold. “Thank you.” She said. “It tastes very...”

“It tastes like nothing, sweet one.” The 'god' chuckled again. “It tastes like everything. White on a page and black in the night sky. Everything and nothing, perception and reality. My dramatic flare and incredibly sage turns of phrase. I have not had a visitor in... Well, I'm not sure if I ever have had a visitor at all.”

“Do you ever get lonely here?” Alex asked, she felt great sorrow from this being even as he joked about and remained so casual in her presence. “My father once said that being a god must the most solemn duty, and we need to pray in order to ensure you never feel lonely.”

“Me?” He hummed in thought. “My mien is loneliness by any other word, I suppose. Desolation, emptiness. Only one true purpose, so yes – I would say I get quite lonely. But nobody has worshiped me in quite some time. I do not need it, and never asked for it in the first place. I am thankful for it, though, for without that devotion I would have no capacity for thought as I do now. I would never have tasted the air on a million worlds and known good friends and companions. As cursed and unnatural as my existence is, it has not been a nightmare. I have only ever known the dark, and would be content with returning to it at any time.”

“What kind of god are you?” Alex asked.

“My aspect, as you call it. Yes?” And she nodded. His aspect, god of. There was always some kind of defining factor to the divine. “Balance, perhaps? Putting the concept into a spoken tongue would be rather difficult, even for me. But in truth, I am just a single part of that balance. By that measure, all celestial beings, large and small, are part of the balance as a whole. Perhaps you could call me the god of endings and beginnings? But that is the mien of fate, and I am not the god of fate. I am fated, and that poses a quandary. Then again, we're all fated. Everything is and always has been, always will be. Many called me the god of justice, but many more knew me as a destroyer, god of calamities. The shaper. I am the end, we do not possess so literal domains, my kind.”

“What do you do, then?” Alex asked. “Apologies, divine one. I've never had the pleasure of conversing with a god before. I have--”

“So much to ask, so many questions.” The figure chuckled. “As all your kind do. Living things taught us to question, changed us. Not always for the better... In any case, my duty before the great awakening was to erase. My brother, he created, igniting suns and crafting worlds. A constant cycle of reaching towards perfection that we were bound to never find. This irregularity resulted in the first life, and I was the will that corrected any and all mistakes. He was my goal, the one who defined me. And now that he is gone, I am nothing. Everything. The sole remaining shaper.”

“So...” Alex frowned, she wished she had something to jot down notes on but her dimensional ring was gone and so was everything else. She was just a wisp of a person now. A ghost. “He, this other god was the god of life?” That was an interesting point. There was no 'god of life' – gods of greater and universal concepts were rare. One could say Freyja was the goddess of 'life', but that wasn't exactly correct. She was just the earth mother, growth, the god of life would be far greater in comparison. In a similar way that Astarte would always be the greatest of the fire gods because he occupied the prime concepts of the element, the same for Bumi, Veles, Vortigern, and all the other elemental kings. “And you... The god of death, then?”

“Death was a concept that did not come until much later. I do not kill. Or, I should say we do not kill a thing, we destroy. Erase. Purge it from existence. I am the god of nothing, but to call brother Samael the god of creation would be fair play. Or maybe just ordering it... He didn't create creation, just as I didn't create the concept of nothing. Nothing was everything long before everything was anything at all. And no, your thoughts are open to me so long as you remain here, nephilim. I am not evil, nor am I omniscient and omnipresent to answer all of these questions. I am broken now, but a god of nothing had no faculties to be anything, I just was. Now, I have no purpose, not truly. Creation has left and without it, destruction cannot be.”

“What's your name?” Alex asked, curious.

“My name is Tyr.”

“Tyr...?”

“Just Tyr. As you are Alex.”