NONE OF THAT IS WHAT ERU INTENDED FOR YOUR RACE. I WILL HAVE TO INVESTIGATE. HOWEVER, AT THE MOMENT, WE HAVE BIGGER PROBLEMS.

"I don't know who or what Eru is and I don't really care what they intended for us. If they're another god, I'm going to guess it was nothing good." Vanyel folds his arms. "What happened? Is that - why the special circumstances?" 

ERU IS THE CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE. HE IS NOT A GOD, IN THE SENSE THAT I AND YOUR SHADOW-LOVER ARE. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO CARE WHAT HE INTENDED, BUT YOU SHOULD, AND I DO. WHAT OTHER STRANGE AND AWFUL THINGS DO THE GODS OF YOUR WORLD DO TO THOSE THEY HAVE TAKEN AS SLAVES?

THE PROBLEM IS THAT SOMEONE HAS RECENTLY KILLED HALF THE POPULATION OF THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE. INCLUDING THE GODS. I AM UNACCUSTOMED TO NOT KNOWING THINGS, BUT IF I KNEW HOW TO FIX THIS, I WOULD HAVE DONE IT ALREADY.

—ALSO, SOMEONE HAS JUST ASKED ME TO RETURN YOU TO THE WORLD OF THE LIVING.

"I– what? Who? Is it - gods. Wait. I - should've looked... Yfandes. My Companion. Is she here–" 

Stop. 

It's suddenly hard to speak, even though presumably he doesn't have a real body here and so it seems stupid for his throat to be tight. 

"Is - Tylendel - my lifebonded...?" 

Pause.

BOTH OF THOSE SOULS YET LIVE.

Another pause.

ALSO, WHAT IS A LIFEBOND?

Vanyel is not even really processing the question. Because the first half of that is impossible. 

"No. He can't be. He...died. Seventeen years ago." 

He's having surprisingly few emotions about this. Mostly he just feels dizzy. 

HE WAS RETURNED. BY WHAT POWER I KNOW NOT. HE REMEMBERS NOTHING OF HIS FORMER LIFE, AND IS KNOWN NOW BY ANOTHER NAME.

He is going to regret asking this question SO MUCH and he is, apparently, doing it anyway. 

"What name." 

STEFEN. I BELIEVE YOU KNOW HIM.

Ack. 

...All right, he regrets asking that question. He is going to go right back to trying not to think about that until the emergency is dealt with and possibly never again. 

"Um. Right. Lifebonds are...a kind of way two souls can be linked, in our world. They supposedly happen when the gods meddle." And he HATES IT. "When - one partner dies - it's...bad." 

Mandos can see Vanyel's inmost thoughts without any effort, and picks up some disturbing connotations along with his words. He can see, now that he's looking, the gaping wound in Vanyel's soul where half of his self has been torn away.

A SIMILAR THING HAPPENS WHEN THE ELDAR MARRY, he says, THOUGH THE CONSEQUENCES ARE NOT SO SEVERE IF THE BOND BE BROKEN, AND IT CANNOT OCCUR BETWEEN TWO MEN OR TWO WOMEN; ITS PURPOSE IS TIED INTIMATELY TO THE BEGETTING OF CHILDREN. YOUR SPECIES, AT ANY RATE, WERE NOT DESIGNED FOR IT. ALSO, MARRIAGE IS DONE BY THE CONSENT OF BOTH PARTIES AND IT SOUNDS LIKE THIS IS—NOT.

Vanyel can't see his eyes, but they seem to narrow anyway. DO YOU WANT TO BE LIFEBONDED? he asks.

He thinks he knows the answer, from Vanyel's thoughts, but he has to ask properly before doing anything.

He wants Tylendel back. 

Vanyel doesn't say this, because it's stupid, but his thoughts are screaming it. 

"I - I don't - know. I think... Stef must be too young, anyway, or it'd have - happened already..." He shivers a little. Hugs himself. "I - if I have to go back and - help fix what happened - it would help a lot if I don't have to, to deal with..." He trails off. 

Tylendel can't be brought back, because, of course, he already has been. Maybe Irmo could restore Tylendel's memories to Stef's body, depending on what exactly these strange new gods are doing—there's definitely damage that can't be repaired, Melkor did a lot of that—but he doesn't really think it would be a good idea anyway.

I BELIEVE I CAN DISSOLVE THE BOND, IF YOU ASK ME TO, SO THAT IT NO LONGER PAINS YOU. THE DISSOLUTION WILL BE PERMANENT; I DOUBT I COULD RECREATE IT AND WOULD NOT EVEN IF I COULD.

It's really weird how much it hurts to have to make this decision! 

There should be an obvious right answer here, Vanyel thinks dully. He is - obviously - not currently lifebonded to Stef (again, what in all hells, Stef of all people...?), so it's not like he would be asking to undo that. He wants Tylendel BACK, but that was never an option on the table. 

He's feeling a surprising amount of - reluctance, flinch-response, something in that space, about asking for this when he can't get Stef's input? Which is also weird. It's not like whichever other god bothered to ask Stef about the lifebond first. 

Stef isn't Tylendel. It's obvious that he's not, that he should be thought of as an entirely different person, and yet somehow knowing that he is in some abstract sense Tylendel is kind of breaking Vanyel's brain right now. 

He's going to be a lot more useful alive if he isn't in constant broken-lifebond pain. It's...hard to feel excited about that, though. Vanyel isn't sure he can remember what it's like, to not be in pain. 

"I - guess if you can fix it then I'd appreciate that," he says dully, because being conflicted about this is incredibly stupid and if he can't stop doing it he can at least ignore it. 

Vanyel no longer has a broken lifebond. There's still something there, a scar of sorts, where the parts of him that fit so perfectly with Tylendel have been imperfectly smoothed over, but it won't hurt him anymore.

Now that Mandos knows what a lifebond looks like, he searches his Halls for other lifebonded people, and appears to all of them simultaneously, stitching a brief explanation of who-and-what-he-is into their minds first so that he doesn't have to have that tedious conversation over and over again.

IT HAS COME TO MY ATTENTION THAT YOU HAVE BEEN UNNATURALLY AND UNWILLINGLY BONDED TO ANOTHER PERSON. I CAN DISSOLVE THIS BOND PAINLESSLY, AND WILL IF EITHER PARTNER WOULD LIKE ME TO.

This gets a handful of people from the rest of Velgarth, and exactly three Valdemarans. 

"I'm what? - Oh. Gods. Treven." 

Jisa is so mad about being dead! She's been wandering around angrily trying to talk to other dead spirits. Without much success, and based on their vague wandering-around they're just as confused as she is.  

It didn't occur to her before now that she could try to find people she knew on purpose instead of just walking in random directions. 

"Where is he? I want to talk to him -" 

That...explains a lot, really. 

"I don't know? I - I love her -" not that he's ever said as much to her, or even really formed the thought, but now that he asks himself the question it's obvious.

A lifebond, though? Lifebonds happen to people out of songs and tales. Not him.

"I - I don't know..." 

Being dead has been, for the most part, a massive relief. Randi isn't in pain anymore. He's spent a long time doing nothing in particular, just...resting. 

He assumed at the start, and for a while, that he died of his long-time wasting illness, in his sleep. He's made some halfhearted efforts to call out for Shavri, in case she followed him, but it's not like anything needs to be in a rush anymore, now that he's dead - 

Except, his expectations about being dead do NOT include a - death god? but not the Shadow-Lover, a different death god - being shocked and horrified at the concept of lifebonds. 

And, suddenly, he's starting to feel like things are, perhaps, a lot more complicated than he's been assuming, and possibly he should have been asking more questions. 

"Where's Shavri?" he demands. "Is she - did she survive - what happened–" 

Jisa and Treven are now next to each other.

He frowns at Jisa.  This is even worse than he had thought.

YOU ARE A CHILD, he says to her. NOT OLD ENOUGH TO MARRY, AND SCARCELY OLD ENOUGH TO BE THINKING OF IT. YOUR PARTNER IS NOT MUCH OLDER. I AM NOT SURE THAT ANYTHING EITHER OF YOU SAY WILL BE RELEVANT TO WHETHER I SHOULD PRESERVE YOUR BOND.

To Treven, specifically, because he can barely even observe the distinction between things Treven is saying to him and things he's thinking privately—YOU ARE IN A SONG AND A TALE NOW, I THINK, WHETHER YOU ASKED TO BE OR NOT.

To Randi—SHE IS ALIVE. I CANNOT ALLOW YOU TO SPEAK WHILE YOU ARE DEAD AND SHE LIVES, BUT I MAY RETURN YOU TO HER, IF YOU WISH, AND IF YOUR LOSS IS CAUSING HER UNNATURAL PAIN.

Then, to all at once—HALF OF ALL BEINGS IN THE UNIVERSE, MORTALS, IMMORTALS, AND GODS ALIKE, HAVE BEEN SLAIN. I DO NOT KNOW HOW TO FIX IT. I AM HOPING THAT YOU CAN FIGURE IT OUT.

Treven...is just going to ignore that bizarre aside from the death god because he has no idea what to do with it. 

Instead of answering, he just tries to pull Jisa into his arms, unsure if this is the sort of thing that works when one is dead.

"Jisa - oh, gods, Jisa - it's all right, it'll be all right, I've got you -" 

It takes Jisa a few seconds to wade through all the mental screaming and start having thoughts which are in words again. 

"What? Half the people in the world are dead? - Wait, what do you mean the universe, is that - more than just Velgarth–" 

"I have to get back to her. Please. Please send me back to her, if - if that's a thing you can do - if, gods, if - if it's not just me who died, if it's half the people, they need me - did Treven make it, who's in charge in Valdemar right now -?" 

In lieu of an answer to Randi's first question, he puts him next to Treven and Jisa.

YES. CREATION IS VASTER THAN ANY OF ITS INHABITANTS KNOW. VASTER, APPARENTLY, THAN EVEN I KNEW, FOR WITHIN IT ARE ARTIFACTS OF MORE TERRIBLE POWER THAN—I WOULD HAVE EXPECTED THE CREATOR TO MAKE. THERE IS A BEING CALLED THANOS, WHO BELIEVED THAT LIFE WOULD DESTROY ITSELF IF LEFT UNCHECKED. HE OBTAINED THE FULL SET OF THESE ALMIGHTY WEAPONS, AND USED THEM TO KILL HALF OF EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE, WITH THE MERE SNAP OF HIS FINGERS.

YOUR HOME-WORLD IS BEYOND MY NATURAL SIGHT. I CAN TELL YOU WHETHER ANYONE THERE LIVES OR DIES, BUT I DO NOT KNOW THE POLITICAL SITUATION.

Aaaaaaaaah! 

"Tantras?" Randi asks, helplessly. "Dara? Keiran, Joshel...? Savil...?"