ÉNOUEMENT

WARMONGER

ONCE HE WOVE noble wars into the seams of fate, always just and never fruitless. Tyr's love of war is not for the bloodshed but for the benefit.

A war leaves a kingdom humbled or inspired. The loser learns from what they have failed to do and the winner honors their gods for their victory, as they should. Tyr, after all, is the one who swings the pendulum of which way the battle flows.

Now it is not so.

In this century, they fight with bullets and bombs instead of swords and arrows. There is so much more death.

So much of it unnecessary.

Each time he is reborn, he follows the same path. No matter where he begins, he ends up in the same place; on the battlefield. In every life, Tyr learns the ways of his country's military, what they fight for and how they honor their fallen.

In every life, he weeps for them.

He is born in Iceland this time, a fair-haired blue-eyed boy whose parents do not have the same fighting spirit as he. They are passive in all matters of life, and he soon learns that they reflect their homeland perfectly.

Peaceful isolation. Peaceful ignorance. It's enough to drive Tyr mad. Why do his people not rise to the occasion? When there is a call to arms, do they become deaf to it? It must be so, if the restlessness under his skin is any indication.

But words that were spoken to him long ago roil deep within.

You are a warmonger, Loki had hissed at a time when they still supped in the halls of Asgard. You are no god of justice at all. What fair being seeks out bloodshed?

Tyr would have been justified in putting out their eye for such insolence. But to do so would prove him a god of brash nature. Loki of the Silvertongue was always too clever for anyone's good.

Besides, Tyr is not one to act on every insult. To speak means nothing if it is not followed by action. He has learned this well enough.

But Loki's words are arrows tipped with the poison of truth. They can pierce the thickest hide. Tyr knows that his moments of greatest joy have been in the thrall of battle, fighting alongside his brothers.

I do not celebrate death, he tells himself firmly. War is not death. It is justice. When spilling enemy blood, the joy comes not from the violence itself, but from knowing that it has been delivered for the right reason.

And yet, as time moves ever forward, Tyr begins to doubt.

As a god, he knew who should win a war before it even began. He prided himself on his great judgement. But good and evil begins to blur, and Tyr finds that his wise vision is growing cloudy.

Since the generals no longer pray to him, he is not alerted to their intentions. He must learn what he can through human means.  It is never enough. The news confuses him, twists his opinions, pulls his favor back and forth in a way he's not accustomed to.

It is frightening. It is awful.

He has tried to bring power back to himself. Many times. Less so, now, that animal sacrifice has become so detested. Tyr is disgusted at the last memory he has of slaughter. He remembers, a few lifetimes ago, standing in his father's cow pasture, face and hands bloody, as his sister screamed in shock and horror. He had tried to explain, but to no avail, and the offering had been of no use. He had bit into the bull heart and felt no stirring of power, only blood and regret.

Of course, regret has become a familiar feeling.

He's fought in so many battles that they often meld together in his mind, until the clash of sword and the sting of bullets are indistinguishable from each other. But there are a few that stand out for how they ended, or, even worse, how they began.

The brutality shocks him. Hiroshima. Bloody Ridge. Khe Sanh. New York. All those innocents, all those women and children, caught in the crossfire.

It never used to be this way. Wars were isolated, fought on legendary fields after armies marched for weeks or months. Kept away from the home and hearth, the wives and children.

But now? Now they aim for the heart of their enemies.

He remembers one soldier in his battalion, just a few decades ago. A brash young thing, and just sadistic enough to be unnerving. He'd taken a bit too much joy in the burning of enemy villages, in the "accidental" civilian casualties.

"Just look at 'em." The soldier had scoffed. "They're not quite people, are they? I mean, not really."

Neither am I. The words burned at the tip of Tyr's tongue. Neither am I.

Ironically, he has never died during wartime. Unfair, he thinks, that he has never received that honor, never been the one to make the heroic sacrifice. Surely he deserves it, doesn't he? But the fates must find their amusement in sending the bullets whizzing by him to find their mark in his brothers-in-arms.

So when the wars end and Tyr has the rest of his life to spend, he spends it remembering.

He visits every tomb. Places his hands upon the stone. And thinks a single thought.

There is no justice here.

And the first time, Tyr admits to himself that he is scared.

He hates himself for it.

Because what scares him is not that war has become so corrupt.

What scares him is this.

Though he knows what war has become, Tyr hungers for it still.