Fallen Haven [Baneful] Book 1

The Reveal Of Afaris

"Nyx are you alright!?" Nicolette asks, rushing to Nyx's side. Nyx waves her off.

"Don't worry about me. I'm alright, and you got to see him so that's a win-win, but you should've kissed him longer." Nicolette's face flushes red.

"You saw that!?" Nyx chuckles.

"I see everything that is a room I created with my abilities. What makes you think I wouldn't know what happens in there?" She laughs more as Nicolette is frozen in place, her face in different shades of red. "It was rather refreshing, I'll admit." Nicolette fans herself.

"What was refreshing?" She asks.

"To see that he still cares about you. You both were so young, and I've seen many who make childhood promises never keep up with those promises." Nyx seems so human Nicolette almost forgot she was an ancient entity.

"Have you ever loved anyone?" Nyx is surprised by Nicolette's question.

"I-i, why would you want to ask that kind of question?" Nicolette shrugs.

"I mean, seeing as how old you are, you must've been in love once, right?" Nyx gives a sad smile.

"Not all of us are as lucky to experience love as you humans do. Even if I experienced love, I would just outlive them. I admittedly have grown to care for quite a few humans in my lifetime, but an entity such as myself has no time nor place for love." Nicolette walks up to Nyx and extends her hand.

"Come on now, I'm sure it's not illegal to have feelings for someone." Nyx stares at Nicolette's hand before going back into her shadow-like form. Nicolette watches as Nyx starts constructing something almost like a mirror. "What are you doing?" Nyx adds the final touches, allowing the object to reflect a human being as Nyx stands in front of it. "Who's that?"

"You said you wanted to know more about me, right?" Nicolette looks in the mirror, observing the girl, and then looks at Nyx with concern and curiosity.

"I-I mean only what you're comfortable telling me." Nyx stares at the girl in the reflection and reaches her hand through the glass. The girl doing the same as Nyx steps out of the mirror, and Nyx disappears into her body.

"I am Afaris Nemaien," Nicolette repeats that herself.

"That's uh... quite a name." She says, trying to remain polite and refrain from saying anything crass. Afaris weaves an orb in her hand and pulls it apart, shaping it into a larger orb-like object. In the orb is the image of a village. Taking in her features Afaris looked a lot like herself. She had short black hair and amber eyes, more of a golden orange than a golden yellow. Afaris's physique was more rugged than hers, probably a requirement from her time.

"This is where I used to live around five thousand years ago. I was born and raised in this village after my mother, Farimila, asked Death for a blessing. She was unable to find a man or fall pregnant due to infertility, and she begged Death to give her a child of her own somehow. Death had heard her pleas and agreed to give her a child with her sister Life's help on one condition. My mother, not even caring about the conditions, agreed. Death did not question this, and with Life as her helper created my soul." Nyx sits in silence, watching the story play out within the orb.

"My mother raised me happy to, more than anything, have a little girl to call her own. Unfortunately, having not listened to Death's conditions, she raised me in the normal village life. To many people, I was a blessing in disguise, and so was Tye."

"Tye?" Afaris nods.

"Tye was also a gift from Life with the same conditions Death had in place. We grew up together, and as time passed, we started to develop feelings for each other. Only when my eighteenth birthday arrived did we learn the conditions for Tye and me. Should we both fall in love and kiss on my eighteenth birthday, we would die as our kiss would be like poison to us both. If we both died, we would be resurrected within the yggdrasil tree and turned into entities to serve for eternity. Our parents found out and were horrified and tried to find us, but we had snuck away."