"I had only heard of the Azlyðine as a tale, a story from my mother's mother... And even for her, it was a myth, a long-forgotten idea about the spirit of the world... And yet here they are, just a babe in my own arms. I can't believe it. It's as though Azlyð itself has blessed us."
- Janne Asmund Caretaker, finder of the current Azlyðine and one of their primary guardians
The Azlyðine is the direct descendant of the spirit of Azlyð itself. They are somewhat simultaneously a religious figure and a historical one, being born, living, dying and fading into myth, before being born again three hundred years later. Gifted with insight into the natural world, they often rise during their time to be a leader and guide to whatever species finds them, and their death is mourned as both a loss of their counsel and a continuation of the Cycle.
As soon as the world creates the child, a bright beam of light appears in the centre of the continent, shooting into the sky, so that someone ventures into the ring of mountains to retrieve them. This has never failed in the many, many centuries the world has done this. Every culture finds the child, lying peacefully in the centre of a clearing, and recognises it as some kind of miracle, adopting them and taking care of them for their time. Born with an innate sense of many natural things, they are protected and revered by every culture that finds them - and every culture does find them, from the first cycles of the Träskine and the Grottine to the current cycles of humans. The child is raised with the values and beliefs of those who protect them.
Eventually, however, the Azlyðine must return to the world. The end of the Azlyðine's life is marked by a sacrifice of their life, a return to the clearing they were born in, where their consciousness is returned to the spirit of Azlyð. Their body is customarily laid to rest at the base of a tree around the site, with the intention to return their material self to the world as well. This fate, the destiny of the Azlyðine, is partially a persistent cultural phenomenon and partially their intuition; they get a sense of it early on, through dreams of returning when they are older or an aversion to returning to the clearing for fear of ending their time before they are ready, and the child telling their caretakers this has led to the caretakers accepting this as the journey they must take. Though many cultures have been lost, everyone knows to return the child to the world when the time has come, and all raise the Azlyðine with this in mind, shaping them into accepting this as their destiny. This has worked for every single previous Azlyðine.
Until now.
The current Azlyðine was, largely, raised like any other. Taught to trust in their destiny, that they would have to sacrifice themselves back to Azlyð, they were dutiful for a long time: then they saw sacrifice firsthand.
Janne Asmund Caretaker was, although one of many guardians of the Azlyðine, this one's favourite. With more of a spark of mischief than most caretakers, Janne encouraged their charge to do what they wanted more often - to pull pranks, to sneak snacks, to doodle during lessons. This was not, of course, eclipsed by their teachings on their destiny, but it had some impact.
As the Azlyðine grew older, so did Janne, but her spark never dimmed. Until one day, when they and the caretakers were viciously attacked by feral Kaldine. Janne saw one coming for the Azlyðine and threw herself in front of it, slamming into it with her spear, but not before it fatally wounded her as well. The Azlyðine cradled Janne in their arms as she died. With her parting breath, she told the Azlyðine to stay true - not to their fate, but to themselves.
While mourning Janne, the Azlyðine had a revelation: why should they sacrifice themselves for something they had never met, that had given them nothing, no choice? It had created the monster that killed Janne, after all. Why should they be defined by dreams and superstition, not by themselves?
They came to their conclusion. And then, in front of the whole migration and only a few months before the prophesied end of the cycle, they announced that they were no longer the Azlyðine. They were Vilin Azlyð Fatebreaker, and they would not sacrifice themselves for a world so terrible, let alone when no one had any concrete knowledge of what might happen should they refuse. Their destiny was theirs, and no one else's.