Everyone sees him as some kind of benign mystic, full of wisdom and sympathy. What they don't see is his ability to manipulate, exploit, and turn everything in his favour while coming off completely blameless at the end. They don't see the cold, calculated mind whose reason always overpowers the passions of his blood. His plea to be stripped of agelessness for Isabel? A deliberated realization that Lorian would never allow his best warrior to die of old age, so long as he still needs him. And if he gets laid in the process, all the better.
The Guard has certain codes. We cannot interfere, we cannot form bonds of love and friendship on our missions. How desensitized must you be to reject six centuries' worth of emotional attachment? Sometimes I pity him for shutting himself off from the world, but that pity is nowhere near enough to give my blessing to his relationship with my sister. And what a relationship is that, how can it ever work out, when she is a child of sixteen years, and he someone who has lived for sixteen lifetimes? How did he survive for all those years? Youth retention aside, the Guard is not an innocuous workplace. People get wounded, people get maimed (Hi, Marduke), people die. That he is in perfect shape after centuries of warfare, unscarred, strong enough to repel the Goddess herself, speaks volumes about him.
And so does his survival in the Middle Ages. From what I understand, when Lorian realized that his spawn wasn't immortal, he left him to fend for himself. Only after the child survived eighteen years of miserable poverty, Lorian decided that he could perhaps benefit the Guard. He must have had some great survival skills, in the time when you died from a common cold and when the judicial system served public entertainment more often than justice. If you were poor and honest in those times, you were easy pray. Easily dead.
How many has he killed in self-preservation? Or, more to the point, how many of those killings has he felt remorse for? I've seen Ethan murder Marduke, stabbing him in the throat, his hand dripping the monster's blood as he struck again and again. If Ethan can kill so dispassionately after twelve years of serving the Guard, what can Arkarian do?
No, to be fair, I've never seen him strike in cold blood. He is kind even to the enemy. But in my gut, I know that this is simply a phase of his long life. Tired of the cruelty and bloodshed, he will rest, he will try patience and gentleness. And how long will this last? How long until he gets tired of being compassionate and trusting, until he remembers that these are not the qualities that have enabled him to survive for six hundred years? How long until he gets tired of Isabel?
They are soul-mates. That is supposed to mean something. It's supposed to justify paedophilia. It is so incongruous, watching her love someone who combines ancient wisdom with the blitheness of youth. He has never aged. I have heard men stress over two kilograms, two wrinkles, two strands of graying hair. It is despair – vain, and hardly consequential – but despair nonetheless. Age has its sufferings, and he has his own. They limit his interaction with our world, with other humans of this day and age. You can see this from his mannerisms, his jokes. Gallows humour. His long hair. Physical contact with men. I am not saying I am homophobic, but I do not cherish a man's touch as often as he administers them.
And what exactly does he do, outside the human world? He is secretive to the point of never telling Ethan – who he calls his best friend – where he lives. What kind of man would consider this a good trait for his sister's boyfriend? What if in his world, there are others? Other women, a haremful of other women. He is good looking enough, powerful enough. He can read their thoughts. He knows when he is wanted. A single move, and they are his. Like Isabel is.
She is too young. I know he comes from a time when girls of Isabel's age were expecting their second child, but that does not make Isabel any more ready for a relationship of this caliber. I don't expect him to wait. He has no reason to honour virginity. He has lost his far too long ago to remember that the notion of sex can mean pressure. She is strong-minded, but if it came to keeping her legs closed versus pleasing Arkarian, the latter would win. I remember when I told him how she muttered his name in her sleep, describing the colour of his eyes in minute detail. He seemed vaguely surprised, amused even. There was nothing in his expression that could be interpreted as a reciprocation of her passion. And yet I am supposed to believe that he would die for her? After holding on to life so fast for centuries? Do I look like that gullible?
For as long as Isabel loves him, I cannot do anything to him. But I can make sure that he takes good care of her. And if he makes her spill a single tear, I will rip his pretty ageless face in two.