Tessa had already had her expectations subverted too many times that day, her sense of control violated too severely, and it showed in her uncharacteristically emotional response to the news. All she could feel was their new god's presence, which she'd just begun to think was subtle and negotiable, becoming oppressive and unavoidable.
She feared the destruction it'd bring to her people, not because she thought Mizuki's goal was to harm them, but because she could already imagine the commoners' reaction to a human ascending to the throne. Even if the whole elven government publicized their support, and even if they explained that Mizuki was more powerful than an Elder Dragon, seeing and believing are two different things.
The public has never seen Mizuki helping them, and Tessa knew firsthand...words alone wouldn't make them truly fathom the depths of Mizuki's abilities the way they needed to. She could imagine that, over time, the announcement of his engagement to Ilina would eat at them, sowing fear and discord, until it turned hostile. That alone would be bad enough – the commoners rioting or otherwise disrupting normal city functions in protest could wreak havoc. But if they were to turn their hostilities directly against Mizuki in their ignorance and anger him...
Tessa's mind conjured visions of elves burning alive as cities collapsed in the background, and the imagery had caused her to squeeze her hands into fists so tightly that her palms bled. Her already unstable psyche had cracked further when faced with the violent premonition, and for a moment she'd only been able to think of stopping it at all costs. Mizuki's presence at the meeting was all but forgotten.
So, when Ilina painted her marriage to Mizuki as unavoidable, refusing to forego it and threatening them with the unavoidable repercussions of trying to subvert her, in a moment of desperation Tessa had succumbed to threats of her own about treating Ilina as a traitor.
However, Mizuki's swift and cold response to her threats had quickly put an end to her borderline manic state, his barely concealed anger a sobering reminder of the limits to her control over the situation. But while she was shaken, she wasn't broken, and her resolve remained.
She did the only thing she knew that could give her a sense of control again – combine cold logic and knowledge like her father taught her, and find the best path forward, no matter how unpleasant it may seem.
Mizuki's words had made it clear to her that, as long as Ilina was safe and free to pursue some kind of relationship with him, he wouldn't oppose the nobles' response to the situation. With that in mind, she'd suggested what she considered the safest option.
Banish Ilina and Mizuki from the kingdom, allow them to pursue their relationship however they saw fit, and welcome Ilina back after Mizuki's death. She knew that the absence of the Princess for several decades would cause problems, but they were only minor inconveniences.
Even when Ilina proposed what Tessa thought was a hypothetical – Mizuki being ageless and capable of giving her elven heirs – her mind remained unchanged. Sure, they'd have to find a new heir, lose the trains, and Eden would suffer some hardships, and they'd lose some face with the commoners. But she was certain that no cities would burn.
She held her ground because, in her mind, nothing could be more dangerous than the backlash of putting a human into power in their country. Especially one as existentially threatening as Mizuki.
As much as the prior revelations had strained her sanity, as much as the fear and and sense of helplessness threatened to overwhelm her, and despite knowing that all the other elves present thought she was just being a bigot, she persevered in preventing her horrifying premonition. Because whatever else Mizuki was, he was also human.
Until he wasn't.
When Ilina and Mizuki confirmed his agelessness and revealed that he came from another world, and Tessa realized that no Azuran in their right mind would consider a nigh-immortal, powerful, otherworldly traveler to be a human, regardless of his physical appearance...
Her resolve finally shattered, and with it, her clarity of purpose.
The revelation affected her so severely that she was in no position to contemplate their other assertion about elves being god-made variations of humans. Mizuki's race, and its implications for his marriage to Ilina, were all she had room to consider.
The dangers of denying Ilina's marriage to Mizuki were predictable and nontrivial, while Tessa's worries about burning elven cities now seemed more paranoia than premonition. But the consequences of supporting the marriage, while relatively lesser, were now shrouded in unknowns. And the unknown scared Tessa as much as anything.
How much could she really know and trust about Mizuki's nature? Would he actually be able to give Ilina elven children? Even if Mizuki isn't human, the elven people acknowledge that, and everything else she's heard about Mizuki is true, will his marriage to Ilina be accepted?
After all, it's reasonable that common elves would take the word of trusted officials about Mizuki's power and origins, and rationally accept that he's not human. But would they accept such a being as their future King? Tessa wasn't sure.
She believed that her people wouldn't oppose their Queen marrying a non-elf King on principle, as long as the Queen and her heirs are elves. But...she didn't know it – there'd never been such a situation before. Her apprehension was exacerbated by the fact that Mizuki was a mysterious being whose race was a complete unknown to the elves. Worse, he wielded horrifying power with a visage of the humans that had long terrorized the elven people.
She had no idea whether supporting his marriage to Ilina would be better or worse than banishing them both, and her self-doubt about what decision to make was eating her alive.
It's in the midst of that inner turmoil that her daughter finally uttered the name of Mizuki's alleged race...Nephilim. Hearing the word had shocked Tessa to her very core, eliciting beloved childhood stories so vivid, and disbelief so visceral, that she'd had to grip the table in front of her just to remain standing.
And her shock was only destined to worsen.
Much like her own daughter, Selena, Darak's daughter Linnea immediately recognized the appeal of the claim. One after another, she listed off every piece of information known about the Nephilim from elven lore, each characteristic as perfect a fit to Mizuki as it was a blow to Tessa's already fragile mind.
Mizuki being a god incarnate was one thing. Gods were aloof, unknowable existences to Tessa. Something that she accepted the grander importance of, but she personally felt held no relevance to her people's lives.
A Nephilim, though...to those that knew of their supposed place in elven history, there couldn't be a more profound existence. Even gods took a backseat. A god may have created the elves, but the Nephilim made them who they were. Their magic, their culture, their scholarly identity, and even their ruling class, the high elves...legend attributed it all to the Nephilim.
And every high elf in the room with Tessa knew it.
She could see it on their faces – her daughter, Darak and Linnea, and even the King and Queen – their eyes sparkled with something akin to worship. Once Selena made the connection on her own, planting the seed of the idea, and Linnea verbalized and confirmed it, the reverence of the elves for Mizuki was infectious. It dispelled any doubt and spread among them like wildfire.
Tessa could feel it, too, threatening to overwhelm her – the desperate hope that a Nephilim might now walk among them.
At the same time, she also felt despair. Because she saw clearly, even then, what that knowledge represented – a potential momentum behind Mizuki's rise to power. If Mizuki's alleged nature as a Nephilim, and all that entailed, was shared with the common people, and the atmosphere in the room spread through them like it had the nobility, it no longer mattered if Tessa supported the marriage. Even three out of five nobles' support was more than enough.
In all likelihood, the revelation heralded the end of life in the Elven Kingdom as Tessa knew it. In one fell swoop, the assertion of Mizuki's Nephilim-ness, true or not, had robbed her of any semblance of control over the developments in her kingdom, and simultaneously drenched the future in uncertainty. Both together was more than she could take.
And so, as her sense of control slipped away from her, so too had her consciousness.