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snowbellewells · 4 years ago

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“For Once, Don’t Let Go”

Okay, so I failed at posting this by early evening, and am instead squeaking it in just under the wire. All the same, I hope you will enjoy my little attempt at a ghost story for the @cssns2020. Thank you so much for the breathtakingly lovely and perfect story art by @hollyethecurious! Thanks to her for forgiving me getting my posting date mixed up, and to Krystal for keeping me on track and calming me down when I started to stress.

Summary: In some ways, Emma Swan has always been a ghost - alone and floating through life without much to tie her to anyone or any place. However, when she wakes up in an unfamiliar old house and realizes she is stuck haunting the last place she went while alive, it takes a while to reconcile the fact that she is a ghost and that there must be something keeping her in the world after all. Then she learns she isn’t the only lost soul in the house. And that changes everything.

Also on AO3

Without further explanations and apologies, here’s the fic!

“For Once, Don’t Let Go”

By: @snowbellewells

In some ways, she has always been a ghost. Never fitting in, never belonging anywhere. Abandoned, and so closing her heart on the need to be accepted before she could be denied. It was for that reason, on the first morning of her afterlife, as she blinked awake in a chilled grey dawn that seemed just like any other, Emma Swan did not at first realize she was no longer part of the living world.

There was a strange quiet surrounding her, as she sat up from the bed, which strangely felt much softer, plusher than hers usually did at the end of an exhausting day or the morning after when her bones still ached and her mind never felt quite rested. It was those two things combined - the unaccustomed silence and depth and comfort of the sleep she’d emerged from - that put Emma off balance. It was never that still in the heart of the city, no matter how early in the morning. There was a constant humming undercurrent, a long-accepted background noise accompanying her life in Boston: sirens, horns, the grating and beeping of constant construction, the hubbub of voices, sounds unending. If she were deeply honest with herself (which she didn’t often allow) it was part of what she loved most about the large city on the eastern seaboard; there was so much noise that she could ignore her own thoughts. She didn’t like to dwell on or analyze her motivations for choosing a job where she tracked and found deadbeats who skipped out on those they should have stayed to support. She didn’t acknowledge - not even to herself - that each skip she hauled into the nearest precinct and collected her reward for gave her a sense of satisfaction that almost dulled her unanswered questions about the runners she hadn’t ever found - the parents who left her just after she was born.

So, she was already on edge as she found her feet and moved through the room she was increasingly aware did not look at all like the one in the loft apartment she currently rented, nor were any of her things scattered around as she usually left them. Moving from the room into the hall beyond, and then down a staircase into an entry hall that she knew her small apartment didn’t possess, Emma’s mind struggled to fully wake and understand where she was and how she came to be there.

It wasn’t until she reached the front door - tall, solid wood, but nondescript and standard, nothing too out-of-the-ordinary - that two more revelations struck her almost at once. Reaching out her hand to turn the doorknob, step outside and see if the outside of the house or its surroundings jogged her memory, Emma was shocked to find that her hand wouldn’t grip the metal knob at all, instead passing straight through both doorknob and door itself, sending her sprawling forward with a yelp of startled disbelief. No matter how impossible it seemed, the rest of her followed her outstretched hand, passing through the wooden door as if it simply didn’t exist.

Blinking and stunned from where she had landed on the top step up to the porch outside the strange house she’d woken up in, it was more than a bit hard for Emma to put together what had just happened. She knew her mouth was hanging open, “catching flies” as one of her more affectionate foster moms along the way had playfully called it, but somehow her surprise only increased when she took in the place’s exterior. She did know where she was, despite being at a loss for why she would have woken up there. This was the place where she had tracked her most recent skip last night.

Furrowing her brow in concentration - and admittedly trying not to consider how she had just slipped past a solid barrier and what that might mean - Emma attempted to pull up more from her memory than that. This newest skip had proven pretty slippery; both Ruby and her seductive honey trap skills which Emma didn’t even try to match, and Mulan with her fighting ability and clever moves worthy of her Disney namesake, had failed in previous attempts to bring the guy in and moved on to more productive marks before Emma took on the case. However, she was just stubborn and competitive enough to have wanted to bring in the skip who had become a thorn in the agency’s side; plus, as he kept evading them and the court date grew closer, the price for bringing him in kept climbing. Emma had been thinking just how she might enjoy the whole week off she could afford to take once she caught this scumbag as she’d sidled up next to him at the seedy bar’s pool table and batted her eyes. She’d still been thinking it even as the jerk brushed her off and left soon after, and so she’d followed him - quite stealthily, she believed - to this place later that night. Fine, if he wanted to play hard to get, she wouldn’t play gently either. She welcomed a challenge, and this avoided the awkwardness she had to extricate herself from once honey traps were sprung anyway.

Emma was realizing now, however, that maybe she had been a little too obvious, a little too preoccupied to see that her skip might have been onto her. Had he been suspicious of her from the start, and that was why he didn’t take the bait? Or, had he known what she was truly after the whole time?

The evening dark had been falling in that strange hour where one could still see outside but surroundings were obscured, shadows lengthened and a person sometimes had to squint to find her goal. She had almost hung back, after watching her mark slip in through the unmarked door of the abandoned house at the end of a rather quiet and rundown street in an outskirt suburb. But she’d spent too long tracking the loser - and she wasn’t about to admit any hesitance or unease. Clearly the guy now had either breaking and entering or squatting in his extensive repertoire, and he needed bringing in before he expanded to something more dangerous.

That was what she was telling herself after waiting an interminable twenty minutes and then climbing the rickety steps as she’d watched her perp do. She wasn’t trespassing anymore than he was, the house wasn’t in his name, and if anyone asked… here she tried the door to find it unlocked and opening as she quietly tried it - yep, she could say it was open.

Emma had just taken a steadying breath and inched the door open enough to enter, when she caught movement in her periphery. She tried to duck, wondering wildly if the culprit had been lurking behind the door, when something long and solid swung towards her head too fast for her to avoid. It felt as though the air cracked, then crumbled around her, and everything went black…

That was all she could bring up, no matter how doggedly she tried to remember what came next. After that shattering impact was simply… nothing. And with that sickening fact, Emma knew. She was dead. Some lowlife bail jumper killed her to keep himself from getting caught. Whatever she was hit with, it was done viciously enough to mean her end.

Feeling a tremble begin throughout her legs and arms, up into all her extremities, Emma tried to fight back the swell of emotion - anger, injustice, hurt, loss that clamored to the surface. If there were any justice at all, she ought to at least be free of feeling all the painful emotion she had spent her entire adult life roughly tamping down. But really, she shouldn’t even be surprised. This wasn’t the first time she’d paid the price for someone else’s wrongs - though apparently it would be the last. The blank unfairness of it was what truly got under her skin. Was she always doomed to end up this way? Sprawled out with a cracked skull in the entryway of some old, empty house, punished just for trying to make a living and her own way in the world while exacting a little much-needed justice? No one would even miss her or know she was gone until she didn’t show up to work Monday morning, ready to gloat and collect congratulatory muffins for bringing in the mark her colleagues lost.

As she passed back through the door (and no, that weird sensation of sliding without feeling past a solid barrier did not become any less upsetting or disconcerting) Emma saw the rough wooden board on the floor where her killer must have tossed it afterward and the dried blood - her own, she recognized with a shiver - that she had missed before. She didn’t want to stay there, but she felt pulled back to the upper floor where she had awakened. As if she was not meant to leave yet. Maybe she couldn’t. Maybe she just had nowhere else to go…

Head bowed in resignation, she mounted the stairs, but instead of going back into what had seemed a nondescript bedroom on her first glance, she moved on to the end of the hall. She seemed to have all the time in the world to rattle around this place, reflect on her loneliness and why she was still there. It couldn’t hurt to put off that depressing train of thought and find out what else was there.

Bypassing the room she’d exited earlier that morning, Emma moved toward the end of the second floor hall. Clearly the place had been empty awhile, dust tickled her nose more the more she moved throughout the house, but the color of the rich, deep wood floors, the tall ceilings and eye-catching nautical knick-knacks and framed pictures on the walls showed her the place was once well-loved and lived in with care and pride. By the time she reached the furthest door on the left, almost tucked into a corner of the house, Emma was curious in sprite of her strange situation and uncertainty.

Upon stepping in the room, Emma felt her mouth drop open once again, immediately captured by the sight of four walls of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, interrupted only by the large, cushioned windowseat under a huge picture window in the wall facing the door. There were books piled on the floor near the windowseat as well, as if to be in easy reach of whomever had sat there to read. Heavy, larger leatherbound tomes that appeared to be atlases or maps also rested on the impressive cherry wood desk in the room’s center. While all of this was stunning, with an air of warm invitation that had Emma blindly inching forward, none of the furnishings were what truly stunned her one more time in a past hour full of riveting surprises. Standing behind the desk, with back turned to the door and studying the wall of books with concentration was a tall, quite formally dressed, man.

At Emma’s rather stunned noise, the figure turned to look over his shoulder, looking at her with dark arched brow. The gasp that had just escaped her was sucked rather inelegantly back up her throat. The man - well, fellow ghost apparently, as she could hazily see the spines of books lined up through his broad-shouldered form - was the most handsome specimen she had ever seen. His stunning bright blue eyes threatened to again steal the breath the she supposed she shouldn’t possess to begin with.

Wow, that changed things.

~~~*~~~~*~~~*~~~~*~~~*~~~~

Surprised in the large library that had stood silent and empty for so many long, uncounted days, Killian Jones couldn’t help scrutinizing the fair haired lass standing on his carpet. The strange haze around her let him know she was a spirit, much as he had been forced to accept he was himself. Still, some nearly forgotten and rusty echo of his former flirtatious nature rose to the surface and her surprised gaze clearly studied him up and down.

“Well, hello there, beautiful,” he murmured, a crooked smile crossing his face as he drank in her blonde hair, sparkling green eyes, and generous curves in equal measure. “You aren’t some marvelous hallucination are you?”

Those sharp eyes rolled in exasperation, the stunned look finally leaving them as she shook her head and shrugged off the compliment. “Hardly,” she snorted, taking a few steps closer to him. “Apparently, I’m a ghost.”

Her words startled a huff of laughter from him with their droll humor. Reaching up to scratch behind his ear, he managed, “Not quite what you’d pictured, I wager?”

“That’s putting it mildly,” she allowed, seeming to understand her welcome and meandering over to sit facing him on the cluttered windowseat’s edge.

Killian allowed a wry grin of his own and nod of agreement. There wasn’t much else to say, but he did understand where she was coming from. It had been rightfully upsetting, earth-shattering, and confusing when he realized he was no longer living and breathing but still wandering the rooms of his house. He was sure there had been a lot of ranting, questioning, and items thrown against the walls before he had accepted his new reality. By that measure, this lovely woman before him was handling her sudden entrance to the afterlife quite well in comparison.

She looked up to capture his eyes with her own and he found he couldn’t look away again. Her face was open, searching, almost as though she were trying to take his measure and decide if he were trustworthy. When she seemed to make a decision and smile warmly at him, Killian found himself swaying closer to her almost unconsciously, rounding the desk to stand before her as though pulled by a magnet. Dipping his head in a sort of playful bow, he offered, “Forgive me, where are my manners? I’m Killian Jones. And you are?”

She reached out her hand to shake, unaccountably grateful that she was able to feel his larger fingers clasp hers without passing through, that she somehow still felt warmth and a zing of awareness at the contact, even if none of it made any sense. “Emma…” she replied, her voice going lighter and more thready than she’d like, “Emma Swan.”

“Hmm…” he murmured lowly, a rumbling hum that she felt along her arm as he brought her hand up to place a kiss on the back of it. “And just who are you, Swan?” he mused.

Swallowing hard, she dove in with the plain truth. “Just a stubborn bail bondswoman who went after the wrong skip this time,” she sighed.

His eyes registered the sadness, the disappointment and melancholy, the resignation to this fate slowly settling over her. He wanted to say it would get better with time, but time was now a funny, nonexistent sort of thing that was impossible to measure and not much help. Instead, he took in her features with understanding and tried to offer what comfort or cheer was possible against the self-doubt, blame, and ‘what-ifs’ beginning to hover. Not only that, they zeroed in on the broken skin, dried red and the purpled bruising at her temple, clearly the killing blow that had been dealt her. His hand reached up of its own volition to touch the soft hair above the wound, a tender brush of fingertips that Emma closed her eyes and leaned into with a relieved sigh. Almost as if he knew how very rare such concern had been in her life - maybe because it had been the same for him. Whatever the reason, they lingered there, two ghosts in the golden morning light through the picture window, drinking in the first real contact either had felt in far too long.

Something linked within them in that very moment - and everything changed again.

~~~*~~~~*~~~*~~~~*~~~*~~~~

It would have been funny; in fact, Emma would have laughed in the face of anyone who suggested - even a week before - that she would be killed on an assignment, end up a ghost, and then meet another ghost who would soon know her better than anyone had in life. And yet, within days she and Killian had shared more than she had ever allowed with co-workers, her handful of casual friends, even foster siblings when she’d still been a kid. Granted, she didn’t have much to lose, but it was more than that. She came to learn that Killian was more like her than she could have thought possible; orphaned as a child except for an adored older brother, that brother then killed in service of the British Navy just as Killian had been preparing to finish secondary school and join his elder sibling in service. Apparently the death had been some sort of accident during a routine exercise, and Killian had been awarded a healthy settlement as his brother’s only living relative, but naturally he hadn’t wanted the payout, just his only family back. Since that wasn’t the choice before him, he had taken the money, gotten out of England, and vowed to do something with it that would honor Liam and help someone else - even if it could do nothing for his own shattered heart.

That was how he’d come to befriend a frightened young mother and her infant son not long after he reached Boston. He’d been renting a motel room on a weekly basis until he figured out what he planned to do in the long run. He took a lot of long, aimless walks in the sharp, chill wind off the Atlantic, and one late afternoon he had stumbled into the public library, hoping to warm up, maybe distract himself a bit, and instead had found Belle sniffling as she attempted to read to a fussy Gideon where they were huddled in the children’s section. It hadn’t taken long for them to become friends; easily one of the best friendships he’d ever had. And in short order, Killian had known this was how he could use Liam’s money for good. He’d found a house, invited, then wheedled and cajoled, her to move them into one of the unoccupied wings and stay with him there. It was much too big for him alone he’d argued, and he needed the company, noise and bustle of even the smallest bit of family in his life. Belle had been hesitant, feeling it was too much, too good to be true, but trying to find a living and make a good, safe home for herself and her boy, while also staying unnoticed and under the radar of her wealthy and well-connected ex-husband was becoming more and more impossible. She’d assured Killian that the man had never been physically abusive, but emotionally and mentally he had left his mark. He had been a master of manipulation, had known the law and its loopholes, could afford the best attorneys money could buy and Kilian had not needed psychic abilities to see the woman was terrified he would come to haul her back - or at the very least take her little lad away from her.

That last admission had been uttered some weeks on in their acquaintance - or at least Emma thought it had been weeks, time was hard to measure when one was no longer on a clock and the days flowed from one to another in a similar stream - one night as they sat by a crackling fire in the hearth of the long unused den. Emma had shared a fair amount of her own scars by then. She had been curled up on the opposite end of the sofa, thinking that this would be the perfect occasion for a hot cocoa with whipped cream and cinnamon, what had been her favorite way to unwind in the evening, and marveling at the good heart this man before her possessed, be it beating still or no. Not just anyone would have done so much, given so much of himself, to help a person he barely knew. Nor kindly helped a complete stranger like her adjust to her new reality beyond the pale either.

Suddenly it seemed like there was nothing else to do but to scoot across the sofa to the other end where Killian Jones sat still as a statue. The pain in his eyes, and blame she could see that he carried, broadcast over every line and shifting shadow of his face. Emma couldn’t help but bring her hand up to touch his cheek, to trace along his tightly clenched jaw as his eyes slowly dropped to follow the path of her fingertips, watching her intently as they continued to brush softly over his skin. Emma had wondered numerous times why she couldn’t physically make contact or grasp other objects but she could touch him. Why could they feel each other so strongly? Was it because they were both ghosts? On some other plane together? Or was it something else, something a less jaded person might call Fate or magic?

Whatever the reason, she was grateful for it as she held her breath, catching her lower lip between her teeth awaiting Killian’s reaction. She found every nerve alive and anxious as she watched him, caring more than she ever had about what someone else thought. Was that the key? For so many years in group homes, with foster families, even for a time homeless on the city streets, Emma had shut the world out. She had been born and grown up without the unconditional love and care all people should know, and the natural childish illusions about people’s selfishness or the world’s indifference had been stripped away far too early. Life had turned its back on her, and she had done the same in return. She had closed herself off from emotion and learned all too well that putting her trust in others made it easy to get hurt.

But now, in this old house, with this wonderful, vulnerable spirit before her - all the feelings she had shut off for so long were breaking free. She couldn’t hold them back, and she didn’t want to. She couldn’t really be harmed, wasn’t hustling to get by, and maybe that allowed the fear to recede enough to peak over the top of her walls. Maybe it was just that - despite only knowing him for a short time - she had never met anyone like Killian Jones when she was living. If only she had, she wouldn’t have been lost for so long.

He was blinking away a tear when her focus turned back to his face in that moment. Smiling back with a tiny, empathetic quirk to her lips, Emma brushed the escaped droplet from his skin, whispering, “He found them, didn’t he? Her ex? Even though you tried to keep them hidden…”

Killian’s head of thick, dark hair bowed, his eyes falling to their laps instead of holding hers. Running her fingers through the coarse strands, Emma ached to comfort him, to somehow lessen the weight he had lost hope of lightening. Whatever had occurred, it couldn’t have been his fault. He had only tried to give them shelter.

His voice was muffled when his forehead had come to rest on her shoulder, and she wrapped her arms around him, cradling him closer in an embrace more binding and intimate than any she had ever experienced. “I don’t know for certain, Swan,” he sighed, his words rough and coming forth in choppy fragments. “It has always seemed so… Both being expats, Belle and I came to enjoy tea… in the afternoons… I had come home early that day...had a new toy for her Gideon...and I - I couldn’t wait to show it to him. ...When I walked through the front door… I knew immediately….something was wrong… too quiet.. I walked into the kitchen… and the table was all set for tea. But the plate of biscuits was… strewn across the table… broken crumbs everywhere… and her - her favorite teacup was shattered on the floor…”

Emma tried to take in the devastation he must have felt, the panic and helplessness, all while making soothing noises, almost sorry she’d asked him as the story was wrung from his lips bit by bit. She kept holding him, hoping that her hand stroking over his back and her fingers brushing the hair at the nape of his neck could give some solace. She had never longed to fix someone else’s hurt more than her own. It was frightening in the desire’s intensity, but all she could do was hang on.

“I failed them both…” Killian husked, his voice even more soft and ragged than before. “Of course… I reported them missing… but the case came to nothing… no leads turned up. He got to them… just as she feared... “

She wished she could tell him otherwise. Her own unshed tears stung in her throat - both for the poor woman and little boy she felt as if she knew through Killian’s stories, and for his pain. Her chest ached with the anguish he had harbored for so long, feeling it as if it were her own. If she could take his pain onto herself and give him peace at last, she would do it without hesitation.

As if in response to her thought and the desire to lend her strength, Emma saw a starling light, nearly blinding her as it appeared over Killian’s shoulder. She didn’t pull away, but she squinted trying to understand what had materialized from thin air right in front of her. It looked like...yes, it was a door. There, where an archway normally lead from the den to the kitchen, was a simple grey door, but for the brilliant white light emanating from around its edges. It couldn’t be ignored for all its radiance, and it almost seemed to beckon her near, drawing her in.

Her eyes widening, Emma forced herself to turn away, breathing in Killian’s scent from against his neck, hoping that the masculine, spicy aroma he somehow still carried, even in his ethereal state, would reel her in as it had before. She knew what must be making itself known before her, and she couldn’t bring herself to acknowledge what it meant.

Up until that very second, she would have sworn she wanted that door to appear, to pass through it and leave the cold bitterness of Earth behind. She wanted that door opening up for her to move on, but she just as surely wouldn’t leave Killian as she had been left so many times. She couldn’t abandon him.

For the first time Emma could remember, she didn’t want to change the way things were.

~~~*~~~~*~~~*~~~~*~~~*~~~~

She shouldn’t have thought the open door would escape Killian’s attention. The man was ridiculously intuitive and seemed to read her like the pages of a favorite book. She had not said a word, had turned back to him, focused on the muscle in his jaw working as he brought his emotions back under control, and managed to ignore the blatant signal beckoning to her until the glow dimmed and the door faded back out of existence. The archway between kitchen and den was just a curve of plaster and paint once more.

But as days passed, Emma coudn’t help worrying occasionally in unguarded moments if a person only got one door. Had she missed her only chance to move on? It wasn’t that she never wanted her peace and rest, or to know what was waiting on the other side. Yet, she couldn’t truly regret her decision either if the alternative had been leaving Killian alone, even if the consequences did trouble her mind.

So she wasn’t sure how Killian had figured it out the morning she came down the stairs to find him already in the kitchen gazing out the window over the sink and bathed in the rising sunshine. Maybe the man was genuinely able to read her mind. He was always able to tell when she entered a room, she conceded as he turned to face her, even before she stepped from the last stair. She felt him the moment he drew near her as well: an awareness, a prickling along her skin, the buzzing sensation of need and desire she had always resisted in life electrified by his presence. Maybe there was no hiding when someone was that close.

With the window and the sunrise at his back, Killian seemed almost outlined by a halo of gold. He came to stand at the counter facing her, and Emma moved to meet him, smiling easily. “Morning,” she offered in greeting, still fighting years’ worth of habitual impulses to start brewing coffee and digging throught he cupboards for cereal - sustenance that she no longer needed.

“Swan,” he’d spoken gently, calmly, but in a way that drew her up and demanded her focus. Reaching out his own larger hand to cover hers where it rested on the countertop, he went right to the heart of the matter. “Emma… what were you thinking?”

She shrugged, trying not to meet his eyes fully as she pretended she didn’t know exactly what he was talking about. “What do you mean?” she asked blankly.

He sighed, that apologetic depth of sorrow in his eyes making her swallow hard when he spoke again. “You saw the light at the end of the tunnel, didn’t you? Your door appeared… The evening we spoke of Belle and Gideon’s disappearance…” He paused, spearing her with the intense blue of his gaze and not allowing her to look away. He cupped her chin between his thumbe and forefinger, stroking along her cheek as he did so, the expression on his face begging her to help him understand. “Why didn’t you step through, Love… and go on to your reward?”

The worry and fear on his unfairly beautiful face showed that he already new exactly why she hadn’t, but he deserved the truth. Emma couldn’t give him anything less. Placing her hands over his, squeezing tightly with feeling, she leaned forward until their noses almost touched. “Killian, don’t ask question you already know the answers to,” she breathed shakily, trying to keep the tremble from her voice long enough to speak. “You must know, surely… it was you.”

His head back as he heaved a deep, rattling breath - breaking away from her as he did so. “I hoped I was wrong,” he admitted. “I don’t want to the reason. You shouldn’t be held back from your paradise because of me.”

For a moment his eyes wouldn’t meet hers as he struggled to regain control of himself. Then, he reached out to wipe the pad of his thumb over her cheek and brush the solitary tear she’d shed away. Not letting him have an out, Emma caught his eye once more. “Paradise, huh?” she tried to tease weakly, desperate to make him smile. He was breaking her heart. “You think an awful lot of me, Buddy. We both know I was no saint.”

A huff of air escaped him that might have been a disgruntled laugh in spite of himself, but he pulled her into him, almost clinging to her for several long minutes before finally breathing in her ear, “Nonsense, Emma. You were meant to be an angel. Don’t give up your peace on account of me.”

She hugged him back, but made no such promise. They would have to disagree on that, and he knew it too. They were both too stubborn to change their minds, so days went on and they went back to almost-normal without speaking of it again. Emma simply had to hope he understood. She didn’t want to argue with Killian, or to ignore his wishes. And she did want to go through her door as well, but when the time was right. She realized now that would have to be when they could both go throught it together.

~~~*~~~~*~~~*~~~~*~~~*~~~~

It had been March when she’d met her fate in the quiet old house, and she and Killian had drifted through the spring and summer and early autumn, growing ever closer to each other. They had sat on the porch for long hours talking without getting too hot or worrying about bug bites or sunburn; spent evenings curled together under one quilt in the large windowseat of the library watching lightning flash across the sky and thunder roll on August nights. As September came, they snuggled under the comforter on the bed, her head resting on his chest, her ear over his heart as though she could still heart its beat. If she had thought before that she couldn’t leave him, there was no way she could even imagine it again.

There was a chill in the air the September afternoon a thick, cream-colored envelope landed on the front porch, addressed with Killian’s name and a Ms. Belle French scrawled in top left corner. Emma heard the soft sound of the thick paper landing on the proch slats, and didn stop to question how it had gotten there, why the ghost resident of an supposed abandoned house was receiving mail again, but had hurried to where Killian reading in the library, letter in hand.

A more lovely autumn day had never been than when a slant of later afternoon sun lit Killian’s face as he scanned the letter’s contents, a smile dawning over his countenance as if he coudn’t believe the words before him on the page. “They’re alright,” he murmured, half to himself and half to her. “They got away… thought I should know.” His eyes continued to skim over the handwritten lines quickly, but his beckoned her close, and stunned smile on his face and light in his eyes that did Emma’s heart good. She could see the guilt and the hurt he had carried lifting from his shoulders with each passing second as she came to perch on the corner of the desk at his elbow. “They didn’t want me to have to harbor a secret… just missed the people who trashed the house that day, and didn’t want to continue putting me in danger…”

He shook his head in disbelief and then stood to sweep her up in his arms, spinning her around as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Maybe, finally, he didn’t.

It was only as Killian set her back on her feet again, as he picked up her hand to kiss the back of it tenderly, and she hummed in contentment, swaying closer to him that a warm inviting light touched the side of both their faces. Turning as one, Emma recognized the sight that had graced her vision once before, but Kiliian’s eyes widened before turning to hers. “Is that…?” he breathed, hope and uncertainty and awe blending in the question as it trailed off on his lips.

She nodded, no words coming to her that she could speak past the lump in her throat.

“Well, then, Swan,” he smiled with the beauty and joy of a man whose heart was free at last. “What do you say we embark on a new adventure?”

“I’d follow you anywhere,” she said with a certainty she felt to the bottom of her soul. Clutching his fingers in her own tightly, she walked with him toward the door wreathed in light that had appeared in middle of the bookshelf. As long as she didn’t have to let go of Killian’s hand.

Tagging: @cssns @kmomof4 @hollyethecurious @artistic-writer @jennjenn615 @gingerchangeling @therooksshiningknight @spartanguard @drowned-dreamer @winterbaby89 @teamhook @revanmeetra87 @searchingwardrobes @tiganasummertree @optomisticgirl @thislassishooked @resident-of-storybrooke @whimsicallyenchantedrose @laschatzi @darkcolinodonorgasm @lfh1226-linda @thisonesatellite @shireness-says @profdanglaisstuff

#cssns2020 #cs ff #cs au #cs oneshot #cs ghosts #for once don't let go

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rhodeswarriors · 4 years ago

Note

Examine! A body, barely recognizable. (Necrosis.)

Send “Examine!” and an item or person and I’ll write an RPG description of it/them.

Anger was an emotion she’d become accustomed to over years, as her body slowly withered and decayed. It was something she felt time and time again, but simply swallowed and let it fester inside, never letting it loose, never blowing up, never giving others that satisfaction. At most, they would be met with harsh, forward commentary and even the rare hands-on experience at the mercy of her arts. Nothing taught lessons more than a simulated experience of what your own weapon feels like...

But this.

With all she been through there was still nothing that could awaken the Lupo’s wrath than this. Disfigured, maimed, torn to shreds. They were an enemy, it was perfectly justified wasn’t it? They’d do the same thing to her allies, wouldn’t they?

No.

Because unlike her allies, all this man was equipped with was their everyday clothes and a broken molotov lying several feet away.

Who could have done this? For once, she didn’t know- this corpse wasn’t even in enough pieces to tell what did them in.

Severe burns were a sign of explosives, mindless grenadiers or brainless Arts specialists firing into crowds to disperse them, finding joy in the fireworks. Dismemberment gave away that if it wasn’t a blast that did it, it was one of Rhodes Island’s guards, callously swinging away and watching the parts fly. And if it wasn’t them, it was their own allies, thoughtless brutes just ripping through the combat to get to their enemies.

Her assistant approached to mention she had found another body buried under rubble, until she saw the tension in her mentor’s arms, the golden, burning fury buried beneath a terrifyingly calm demeanor. She knew better than to instigate or ask, so wordlessly, she turned away to continue helping Hearse with pick-up.

Necrosis knew. She’s been at it too long not to know.

Deaths were unavoidable in combat. The combat was necessary for survival, it was either them or us- it just can’t be helped no matter how much she tries to think on ways to avoid it, to escape this hell.

But this wasn’t survival or safety...

This was murder. Cold, celebrated slaughter.

She had no patience, no mercy, no compassion for the cruel, for those who relished in this.

The only thing she could do for a body like this, was simply place her hand on what remained of their chest... and pray.

Pray that whatever god they believed in, or whatever afterlife, if any, would bring them peace they’d never find here.

Because there was no Peace with Necrosis today, and anyone who tried to push their luck would find out very quickly why she stayed alone.

#Anonymous #♜// 02. IN CHARACTER.#♜// 20. NECROSIS.#;; : )

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smirkingsolo · 5 years ago

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Orpheus: A Reylo Story (Prologue: World Between Worlds)

The World Between Worlds Reylo Fix it fic you’ve been craving since TROS ripped out your still beating heart and crushed it to death.

Canon-compliant, universe-plausible, multi-chapter

Summary:

"Running after Rey with nothing but a blaster to face down the Emperor and his entire cult perhaps wasn’t the wisest, most well-thought out strategy. But he felt it had gone rather well all things considered. Certainly better than he was expecting.

“Ben, a good plan does not involve getting your life force drained from you.”"

After giving his life force to save Rey, Ben Solo awakens in the World Between Worlds. But is he destined to stay there or is there a future waiting for him back in the world of the living?

Find it over on AO3 (Rinnagirl) https://archiveofourown.org/works/21984730/chapters/52460923

A World Between Worlds (Prologue)

The air looked strange. That’s how he knew.

Well I suppose I’m dead, Ben Solo mused to himself. This is the afterlife? Somehow he never expected it would look like the Falcon of all things. Not his afterlife anyway, if such things were personalized. His father’s would, maybe even his mother’s, but not his. For him the Falcon was always about going. Going away, going to. It was too liminal to be a destination, not even the destination of his afterlife.

The air was blurry, an odd, impossible thing for air to be, he thought. Maybe it couldn’t, not in the real world anyway, but this wasn’t the real world. This was death. Every object around him was cast in a soft, smudgy fade, like one of his carefully drawn calligraphy pages when his hand dragged through it before it had time to dry. He’d hated that.

The pessimistic part of him felt there was some sort of deep, cruel irony in his afterlife taking on the look of even the smallest of his pet peeves. It would, wouldn’t it. My afterlife will punish me just as my real life did. He sighed a great, put upon sigh at his new misfortune.

“Still as overdramatic as ever, I see.”

He froze. He hadn’t heard her voice in years. Not in the flesh at least.

But there was no mistaking it, just as there was no mistaking his heap-of-junk surroundings for the Millennium Falcon, there was no mistaking the voice of Leia Organa Solo.

She looked younger, not much older than he was now, like she had in his earliest childhood memories. Her oval face, shaped just like his, was unlined. Her hair was without even the lightest trace of gray, twisted in her familiar twin side-buns. But her eyes pierced him, digging straight through to his heart with their dark brown daggers. The only unblurred thing in the room.

“Mother.”

“Ben.”

She was glowing, faintly though, not the full blueish light common to a Force ghost, but a pale white outline that bent and blurred with the hazy surroundings. Her eyes softened and he thought she might even smile...

Then she smacked him.

It was gentle, a light, exasperated smack on the back of the head like the ones she used to give his father whenever he said something particularly scoundrel-esque. The “ow” he emitted was more for her satisfaction than born of any actual pain, just like his father used to do. He knew she would appreciate the effort.

“You have so much of your father in you.”

“I don’t know what you’re referring—”

“Only a Solo would pull something so risky against such bad odds.”

He didn’t want to smile, but the tiniest eddy of pride swelled within him. She was right, as always. Running after Rey with nothing but a blaster to face down the Emperor and his entire cult perhaps wasn’t the wisest, most well-thought out strategy. But he felt it had gone rather well all things considered. Certainly better than he was expecting.

“Ben, a good plan does not involve getting your life force drained from you.”

Right again.

“I had to.”

He almost felt silly, like he was a teenager again trying to explain why he just had to borrow Uncle Luke’s X-Wing without permission for “learning purposes.” But his mother smiled and the sincerity in her voice was unmistakable.

“Yes, I know you did. She needed you.”

It was nice to be believed. Trusted by someone in his own family. It’d been so long since he had even heard his mother’s voice, let alone his mother’s voice telling him he did something right. He hadn’t expected to hear it like this ever again. Not after everything he had done.

But here she was. Wherever here was. He assumed they were both dead, but if they were and this was, indeed, the afterlife then where was his father, Luke, his grandfather? His one comfort in the face of death had been the thought of seeing them all again, that and knowing Rey would be okay. But it was only his mother here. Unless...what if he hadn’t made it to the afterlife, at least not to the one where “good people” like his family would go? But then why would his mother be here in the afterlife for shitty people? She was, after all, the best of them.

His mother read him instantly. She had always been able to.. When he was a child his emotions would play across his face like shadow puppets in front of a bonfire, open for all to see. But as he’d grown older, he’d learned how to hide some of them, but never from her.

She opened her mouth to answer his unspoken questions.

“The World Between Worlds. That’s where we are, I think.”

He studies his surroundings more closely. Being on the Falcon would make a bit more sense if that was the case. It wasn’t quite a destination itself, but it was the middle ground, the place between destinations. How poetic. How stupid.

“But...I thought you...I thought you were...” He trailed off, unwilling to say it aloud, hoping that would somehow keep it from being true, even now in these odd circumstances.

“Dead. Well, yes, I suppose I technically am.”

“Technically?”

“Ben, before I died I used the last of my energy to reach you, to strengthen your life force and give Rey enough time to heal you.”

He subconsciously touched the spot where Rey drove his own lightsaber though his torso. Rey had been horrified, he saw it in her eyes; he knew from the moment he encountered her in the throne room of the Death Star II that the darkness had possessed her. He had used only the necessary defensive moves, parrying her blows and waiting to wear her out, giving her time to come back to herself. To the Rey he knew. And she had. She’d felt it, as he had, when his mother had gone. The memory ached more than the wound had.

“Because I transferred what remained of my life force into you, my body didn’t fade until yours did. I believe my fate is tied to your choice, Ben. That is why I am here with you.”

“What choice, mother? I gave my life energy to Rey. I used all of it to bring her back. She was gone and I...I couldn’t just...I...” He choked down a sudden lump in his throat at the memory of Rey, eyes wide and sightless.

Leia smiled and he knew she understood.

“I know.”

“Then how am I here? If I became one with the Force, as you said, shouldn’t I be...not here?”

“I have a theory about that, Ben. I believe your life force lives in her now, like a vessel of sorts. I believe it is awaiting the return of her own energy to her body.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” he muttered flatly.

Leia laughed, a warm sound, like fresh brewed caf.

“The Force works in strange ways, you of all the clever, and studious Jedi pupils should know that, Ben.” She winked at him.

A feeling of contentment washed over him like a slide into a warm bath. It had been so long since his mother teased him. She used to do it whenever he was home visiting on breaks from training. Luke had told her how Ben always had his nose stuffed between the pages of some dusty Jedi text in his free time. It had delighted Leia to learn that her wild son could be interested in such a quiet, scholarly pursuit. Hearing the teasing lilt in her voice again made him feel like that same little boy home to visit his mother. He had missed her.

“Normally transferring your life force into another being would mean that theirs is completely gone, rejoined with the Force already. But it would seem that Rey’s may not have been completely gone. I think it is being held somewhere out there in the physical world still, waiting for her to reclaim it.”

Ben sucked in a few calming breaths, his heartbeat quickening.

“What would happen if she did reclaim her own energy? What would happen to mine that is living within her?”

“Well now, that’s the real question, isn’t it? I don’t know that this has happened before. But if I had to hazard a guess, I would say you could reclaim your own energy and pass back into the physical realm, as long as you were there when she reclaims hers.”

Ben’s choked on his third calming breath.

“Go back?“

“It may not be that simple. The Jedi have never been much for making things simple, as you well know. But this feels like something beyond the Jedi. This is the Force at work, that much I am sure of. But of course, Rey would need to be made aware of this; she needs to seek out where her energy is being held before anything can be done at all. And to do that she’d need a nudge of some kind. Some inkling that something like this could be possible. But I don’t even know if we could intera—”

Leia had shifted into planning-aloud mode, her awareness of Ben lessening as the wheels in her mind turned, and she began to mutter under her breath.

Ben was overwhelmed to say the least. The sheer existence of a World Between Worlds, his mother, his soul living inside someone else, his soul living inside Rey.

Rey.

All his life he had relied on hatred to fuel him, push him, drive him. But then she came along, a scavenger from a desert nowhere, a Palpatine of all things. She’d seen the good in him, believed in it and despite himself, he’d let her pure, guileless certainty touch him. She had reached right into the knot of his deepest conflicts and untangled him, unravelling the mask he’d created from the inside out. He didn’t know how or why, but she had. He’d felt lost, ignored, handed off, left behind all his life. But Rey...Rey stayed. Even as he fought her tooth and nail, pushing her to hate him, fear him like all the others who had claimed to care, she dug herself in and refused to let go. And he knew the moment he touched her hand through the bond that he would hold on just as tight.

She brought him back from the dark, and he’d brought her back from death. He remembered the overwhelming feeling of tragedy the moment he cradled her lifeless body in his arms. He knew when he pulled her to him that he’d give it all away, every drop of his life force. The soul in him would be hers too, just like his heart. He’d held her close and wondered for a moment what it would have been like if this weren’t the end. If they had just met in the middle somewhere.

No war. No Jedi. No Sith. No Light. No Dark. No Palpatine. No death. Just them.

He didn’t know if he could have ever had a life. A real one. Honestly, he’d never wanted one, not since he was old enough to think about such things. Marriages meant mutual destruction, distance, the rot of once vital love. Children were just little versions of yourself you could disappoint and destroy. Families were meant to crumble and decay. None of it worked so why bother chasing down something that was destined to break.

But then she’d kissed him.

The briefest moment, the first positive touch he’d had in years. He didn’t even know what her motivation was—was it relief, the overwhelming emotion of all they’d just been through, gratitude, victory?

Or was it more?

He’d realized in that split second as he held her close—her hand on his cheek, his in her hair, her lips still inches away, and the only real smile he’d smiled since childhood on is face—that there were two things he wanted more than he’d ever wanted anything.

He wanted her kiss to be more than relief, or gratitude, or any of those other things; he wanted her to mean it; he wanted it to be the start of something, and not their final farewell. Then he realized he wanted a future.

Ben Solo wanted a future.

One full of kisses, and real smiles, and maybe even marriage, maybe even children, maybe a little home of his own...of their own. Ben Solo wanted a future with Rey.

He knew his mother could feel it radiating off of him, that newfound resolve. A conviction rooted in a desire for life, for life with someone. He’d never valued his life when it was his own, but now, he’d given it to her and he couldn’t abandon her to live it alone. He wouldn’t.

He made his choice.

Ben Solo would get his future. Ben Solo would see Rey again.

Ben Solo would live.

Next Chapter

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kathyprior4200 · 5 years ago

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Alastor and Astrology

Alastor potential birth chart

January 24th 1896, New Orleans(Jan 24 1986 is the birth date of voice actor Edward Bosco.) Alastor died in 1933 getting shot in the head and on the wiki, it said he was in his 30’s when he died. 1933 minus 1896 equals 37. I figured that the dark hour of 3:00 am would be fitting for him.

Sun in Aquarius

Friendly and sociable, you may have a wide circle of acquaintances. Friends are very important to you. Intellectually oriented, you are happiest with friends that share common ideas and interests. Strangely, you find it more difficult to cultivate a truly satisfying intimate relationship. This aloofness exists because feelings are rarely expressed outwardly, and you usually seem distant. You resist anything or anyone threatening your independence.

Alastor is shown being sociable to Charlie, Angel, Husk, etc. He’d be happy with Charlie, Mimzy, Rosie, who share his love of singing and dancing. With a constant smile on his face, Alastor tries to never express what true feelings he may have at the moment. Anyone threatening his independence like the overlords or perhaps his father would likely not live very long.

Moon in Taurus

A Taurus Moon emphasizes the material side of life, and emotions are centered on the comforts and possessions in life. You tend to be a collector and an accumulator of the things that, in your view, make up the "good life." With the Moon in Taurus, you want the best that life has to offer, and you find it difficult to settle for less. The emotions are earthy and practical, highly attracted to material possessions and the satisfactions that come from material comforts. Sense impressions are very strong, the sense of touch and taste is highly developed, and you probably have a pleasant speaking and singing voice. At least you are fond of music, art, dancing and all things that make life more pleasurable. You innate good taste probably extends to decorating the home and having a great sense for interior design.

Mercury in Aquarius

In Aquarius, Mercury produces a mind that is original, detached, and abstract. Ideas come to you as bursts of insights. Your mind is hyper-active and going constantly. Thoughts are rarely organized, rather arriving in flashes and fragments which are often the seeds of invention and progress. The thought pattern is scientific and dispassionate.Your ideas may sometimes be considered very progressive and some may be well ahead of their time. Your unique approach will prompt some to label you as being a little crazy or at least eccentric. You like to do things that are unusual or avant garde just to shake up the establishment and create controversy. You have no respect for tradition and little concern for the lessons of the past. You are a pure progressive. You love to rebel against the system in supporting causes and ideas that are controversial and revolutionary.You are very intuitive, and accordingly, an excellent judge of character. Being very fair-minded, you judge people by what they seem to know or what they do, rather than who they are or what position they occupy. You believe strongly in equality and fair play. A humanitarian, you support ideas and programs that assist those less fortunate than yourself, and you support the concepts of total social reform.You're witty and open to a wide range of ideas, but at times, you become mentally fixed in your opinions and very stubborn. You are talkative and social, but you often come off as rather aloof and cerebral. It may be hard for you to find common ground in many social circles. Nonetheless, you are very verbal and enjoy expressing you views to anyone who will listen. Writing and speaking both come easily for you.

Theory: in his human life, Alastor resisted the racist standards/discriminations, being part Creole and having a mother who wasn’t white. He most likely killed off anyone who had bullied him. It is possible that Alastor will redeem himself by working with Charlie and the other protagonists to stand up against the Archangels, overlords, and/or Lucifer. They who claim that “demons deserve to die” or the overlords who wish to brainwash the populace in Hell would face Alastor’s wrath. The name Alastor means “spirit of vengeance/tormentor,” after a figure who wanted justice for familial issues. It could be good or bad (tormenting innocent people or tormenting evil people, both of which Alastor would relish in.)The speaking/writing aspect could translate into him speaking in his radio broadcasts. The Aquarius symbol can represent water, electricity, or in his case, radio waves. Venus in Sagittarius

You are humorous, sociable and even a flirt. Outgoing and personable, you are very friendly and sometimes not too serious. There is a strong love of personal freedom in your nature that makes it a little hard for you to settle down to a restrictive sort of relationship. You feel more comfortable in a relationship when things go slowly, and your partner doesn't get too serious too fast. In fact, you would probably like it better if the relationship stayed casual, and pressures of serious love never emerged. Threats to your freedom make you very nervous. Deer need their freedom and Alastor is no exception. Throughout the show, we see him socializing and casually flirting with Charlie, Husk, and Vaggie with dramatic gestures, invasive physical touch and in Charlie’s case, dancing. He likely did the same thing with his companions as a human. His humorous side comes into play with his dad jokes and clown-like demeanor. Mars in Capricorn

You are hard-working, very determined. Since much of your energy is focused on your career, you have a tendency to become something of a workaholic. There is a drive to satisfy professional ambitions. This is likely to manifest with innate managerial skills and good old-fashioned common sense. You have strong material urges, but even stronger is the need to get status and recognition. To attain these ends, you use your energy in very practical and profitable ways. You have little use for laziness or a lack of ambition. Alastor is ambitious when it comes to getting what he wants, whether through charm or brutal force. He was likely a workaholic at his job as a radio host. In Hell, he conquered many parts of Hell, killing those who stood in his way “seemingly overnight.” His goal is to take over all of Hell and broadcast his victory, via overthrowing the king of Hell most likely. Not only does he enjoy the finer things in life and the afterlife, he also enjoys the recognition that comes with it, both admiration and fear from others.

Jupiter in Leo

Jupiter is in Leo in your chart. This placement of Jupiter suggests optimism, self confidence and generosity. You have much physical energy and a strong constitution. You have a dramatic flair in showing off your status and prosperity; you're big on grandeur in all forms. Your dignified demeanor inspires confidence and produces excellent leadership qualities. You expect appreciation and admiration in return for your benevolence, and you may seem a little offended if you don't always get it.

Being one of the most flamboyant characters in the show, Alastor lives for drama and showing off. Broadcasting his killings and conquests, both as a human and demon gives him great joy and affirms his powerful position. He appears dignified in nearly any situation, not fazed by Sir. Pentious’ attack nor when Charlie refuses to make a deal with him. With Jupiter in Leo, one could say that “theater is his religion/worldview.”“The world is a stage, and the stage is world of entertainment.” Saturn in Scorpio

Saturn in Scorpio adds much purpose and impatience to your nature. You demand much of yourself and of others. You approach responsibilities with an intensity of purpose that overwhelms people who won't carry their share of the load. You have terrific willpower and much energy. With your determination, it's hard to remain calm and reflective. Secretive and unforgiving, you resent it deeply when you are treated unfairly. Despite your strong drive for success, your approach is usually subtle and calculating.

Scorpio represents the supernatural, Saturn represents misery and death. With so much dark energy running through Alastor, it’s no surprise that he became known as the infamous Radio Demon. Alastor doesn’t like to be treated unfairly, both as a human and demon, and those who do would quickly meet their end. He does have a subtle approach to his plans, observing Charlie’s family portrait with great interest, summoning voodoo symbols when Charlie isn’t looking, watching Charlie sing on TV with fascination.He is demanding on Niffty, Husk, and Vaggie. He bribes Husk into greeting the guests and working at the stand with booze, summons Niffty to clean the hotel, and telling Vaggie to smile. “One never plans a murder out loud.” Uranus in Scorpio

Many of your peers born during the years when Uranus was in Scorpio are apt to bring about massive and often disruptive changes. The seeds of revolution and instability may take root from within this group. Uranus in Scorpio tend to be rebels. Their determination and strong will keep them heads above anyone else. But it may not be obvious at first. Uranus in Scorpio is more of a dark horse that you don’t see coming until the last second. That’s when they pounce.Disruptive changes included the 1929 stock market crash, the Great Depression, war, Alastor’s murders and his death by a bullet through his head.

Neptune in Gemini

Neptune in Gemini are in awe of the world and want to learn as much about it as possible. They are sociable and great communicators. But they and also be drawn into fantasy and illusion. They can also be taken advantage of if they’re not careful. Theory: this might explain Alastor creating illusions using his magic, as well as music, song, and dance, as Neptune rules the arts. Wanting to learn about the world could have been his desire as a child. He may have been taken advantage of in his human life, thus deciding to take advantage of others to make himself feel more secure.

Pluto in Gemini

People during the Gilded Age between 1882 and 1914 were often optimistic, fashionable, sociable and arrogant (describing Alastor and how he was brought up by society).Things in the world seemed to be improving, getting people positive to the extreme. However, things were getting bad and there were cracks in the worldview. The rich and the poor, duality is associated with Gemini. Constantly immersing themselves in deeper and more intense experiences than ever before, they reshape their thinking patterns continuously, ever evolving, ever becoming better. Love and affection are also very beneficial to their state, as it points to them they are appreciated and that it’s worth it to have a bright outlook for the future.

What could Alastor’s ascendant be?

Leo, Gemini, Capricorn, or Sagittarius Sun in Aquarius, Moon in Taurus The combination of your Sun and Moon signs produces a personality that people find easy to like and admire. This is not so much for what you do as it is for what you don't do. You’re never petty or small, and your appeal is to those in the higher as well as the lower rungs of society. You don't pester people with your worries and anxieties, but when others come to you, you drop everything to listen to their problems. You're interested in people, and like to be around them as an observer, but somehow maintaining a distance and not getting too involved individually. You rate people not on their position or rank, but simply on whether they interest you or not. You have a certain self-sufficiency about you, and you never feel that you have to put on airs to impress anyone. You have all it takes to be executive, except the desire that would be required. You seem to be devoid of any domineering or missionary spirit, willing to "live and let live." This combination blends the originality and independence of Aquarius, with the determination and powerful will of Taurus. These two fixed signs together give a will that is so strong that it may become obstinate and intransigent. Happiness can depend on assuring peacefulness and harmony in environment or home life, and in respect to human relationships.

Sun opposed Jupiter

The opposition of the Sun and Jupiter suggests an over-expanded ego. Jupiter deals with judgment, and with this aspect, the drive for significance is subject to being overemphasized. There is often a tendency toward extravagance and pretension. You can have too much optimism, and promise more than you can deliver. There is a continuous need to control urges to enter grandiose schemes and avoid ostentatious manners. The strength of this aspect lies in your ability to apply much charm to gain the approval of those you deal with in your daily affairs. There is often much talent and creativity associated with this aspect.

Sun trine Pluto

The Sun in your chart is trine Pluto giving you a highly evolved power of concentration and will. You have a way of mobilizing your talents to reach your goals. You have many leadership abilities, but you may not be so interested in leadership. You focus instead on your personal agenda. You often display an attitude of righteous indignation toward those who bend the truth and take advantage of others. You are an extremely perceptive person. There is much investigative skill associated with this aspect, and your insight in human motivations can serve you well in fields of behavior sciences. You may not always agree with people, but you understand them very well. Moon opposed Uranus

The Moon and Uranus form an opposition in your chart. This opposition suggests a conflict in your life regarding emotional matters. The Moon denotes emotions and Uranus produces unstable situations. Thus, you may be called on to deal with unpredictable emotions that may appear as nervous tension. It may require conscious effort on your part to maintain a responsible role in your domestic affairs.

Moon opposed Saturn

The opposition between the Moon and Saturn suggests a negative mental attitude and often a restriction of the spontaneous flow of ideas. Intellectual responses are somewhat slowed. Even if you are very bright, the inability to express self in other than a prosaic manner often hides real mental abilities. Thus, you are more contemplative than conversational, but nonetheless a good listener. Venus conjunct Mars

The conjunction between Venus and Mars shows a strong desire nature needing expression. You are the aggressor in relationships with the opposite sex, and you are ever eager and aggressive in making social contacts, as well. Artistic endeavors may be an active outlet for your hyperactive nature.

Moon square Mercury

The square formed between the Moon and Mercury suggests conflict between your mind and your emotions. You have difficulties making reasonable judgments because your feelings get in the way. Irrational decisions place you at odds with people sometimes, and you have the feeling that you're being treated unfairly when this may not be the case. You dwell on trivial personal matters and may have a real sense of insecurity.

Mercury square Uranus

Mercury in a square aspect with Uranus speeds the perceptions, and quickens the intuitions. At times you can be erratic in your drive to be independent. Your speech can become sarcastic and brusque, and mental energies can be wasted in temperament. You love a battle of wits and will take the other side of just about any argument just for the fun of it.

Mercury trine Neptune

The aspect between Mercury and Neptune suggests you're a practical idealist with an intuitive mind. Because your intuition is so highly developed, you understand what motivates others in their relationships with you. You have an artistic imagination and the skill to express it well. You can visualize objects or processes in your mind, much as though you were looking at a finished product. In this regard, your mind is very inspirational. You communicate effectively, and with a flair for dramatic delivery.

Mercury square Saturn The square between Mercury and Saturn suggests mental restraint and strong ties to traditional ways of thinking. Mental processes are on the pessimistic side. You worry too much, often about unimportant details. You have much concern about succeeding or failing to succeed. Your education may have been rigidly disciplined and conforming to traditional doctrine. There is a tendency because of this, to uphold the established order and resist change. Numerology

A = 1

L = 3

A = 1

S = 1

T = 2

O = 6

R = 9

1 + 3 + 1 + 1 + 2 + 6 + 9 =23

2 + 3 = 55 Destiny number

http://astrology-numerology.com/num-birthname.html

The number 5 Destiny suggests that the direction of growth in your lifetime will be toward becoming a harbinger of change, freedom, and progressive thought and action. The number 5 Destiny potentially endows you with the wonderful characteristic of multi-talents and versatility. You must develop in ways allowing you to do so many things well. The tone of the number 5 is the constructive use of freedom, and in your drive to attain this freedom, you must be the master of adaptability and change.As you mature, you must become good at presenting ideas and knowing how to approach people to get what you want. Naturally, this will give you an edge in any sort of selling game and spells easy success when it comes to working with people in most jobs. Whatever you do, you have the capacity to be clever, analytical, and a very quick thinker.You must learn to accept changes as they come along and avoid clinging to the outdated. Avoid rebellion, and focus on enlightenment and progression thinking that will benefit mankind. You life is broadened by gaining an understanding and an appreciation of all kinds of people.The Destiny 5 will be welcome in many varied professional environments. The public sector is a natural for you because you must administer to all peoples. The media, advertising, promotion, publicity, all types of selling, and entertainment are all potential fields that may interest you. Settling on a single career may not be in the cards for you, as you are in a continuous state of flux brought by constantly changing interests. Alastor: Jan 24 1896 Charlie: July 3 before 1830s Husk: age 60-75Died in 1970s1970-75 = 1895VA birthdate Dec 10 Dec 10 1895 Niffty: age 22Died in 1950s1950-22 = 1928 March 22 1928 Vaggie/Vagatha: died in 20142014 – 22 = 1992Voice actor birthdate May 10May 10 1992 Angel Dust/Anthony: died in his 30s 1947Voice actor birth date June 17 19951947 – 30 = 1917 June 17 1917

#hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel theory #alastor

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qwertythepopstarian08 · 6 years ago

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JSAB AU Fanfic- Bug Spray

Okay, so after the events on @small--crcle I can’t think of Rayne’s AU at all without crying, so I wrote this gift fanfic to cope.

It’s literally the most angsty thing I’ve written since “That’s Not Your Brother,” so bear with me here... and bring a tissue box. Yes, I know it’s April 1st, and I should post some happy, lighthearted fic... but nope.

This was partly inspired by some asks that I sent to Rayne’s main blog, @plaquebeat ((as well as her priceless reactions))

Description: Here’s a nightmarish concept- What if every infected shape's magic changed a bit? Just a tiny bit, but enough for Blixer to notice. Like... being too close to Kubix or Penta for too long would make him feel like there are spiders crawling up his arms... Or being near NGB would make him feel like he's being watched... too many eyes... all around... He'd know deep down that it's not real...but he can't shake the feeling that his friends have changed.... and he's the odd one out…

Warnings: Given the source material, this fanfic has body horror, slight gore, references to PTSD, violence, and blood. Please, please, please don’t read at night. The only thing this story doesn’t have is harsh language. Please don’t read if any of these are triggers for you.

Speaking of language, since I personally do not use profanity in any of my works, I’d like to say here and now that the term, “Yxxit,” is an exclamation from a fictional language that I’m developing. It’s kinda rude, so you’ll see the context soon.

Blixer’s eye snapped open, and he sat up, breathing heavily. His heart was hammering in his chest, his core feeling like it was about to explode. He stared blankly forward, his nightmare repeating itself in his mind a billion times, that horrid, twisted song echoing in his head like a mocking, broken record.

Too many eyes… too many legs… skittering bugs everywhere. His friends and family, infected… leaving him as the only pure shape left… A choked whimper left him, and he drew his knees to his chest, hugging himself. It hurt to remember… it hurt to dream.

It took a moment for the reality to set in, and he felt tears running down his face, his entire form shaking. He could still feel phantom pains from that day, that horrible event that had forever changed his friends, had twisted his world. He nearly snapped his neck to turn around as he heard shuffling. His arm thrust forth, his hand changing to a cannon as he shakily aimed for the shape in the bed next to his, his eye shining in the low light.

A sick, paranoid part of him wanted to fire, to turn whatever monster he’d see to shards before it could react… but he soon remembered who he was looking at, and he winced. He whimpered, before he fully awoke, shaking his head and lowering his arm. His cannon changed back to a proper hand, and he shook slightly, sighing.

It was just New Game… it was just his brother… his former alter ego… not a monster. Not anymore. Hopefully… never again.

He sighed, drawing the covers closer as he slid out of bed and walked over the the other side of the room. Each step sent agonizing pain through his legs, and he winced, forcing himself to breathe. He hesitantly reached for the other shape, lightly shaking him.

“New… you awake?”

New Game was practically burrowed in the blankets; he’d been doing that a lot lately, and Blixer feared that he’d suffocate. But he was fine… at least in that respect. He was alive, at least.

The other shape failed to awaken, and Blixer tried again, raising his voice barely above a whisper. “New… New Game…. Wake up.”

Finally, NGB turned around. He let out a small groan, rubbing his eyes as he tried to mutter something, if only to get Blixer to leave him alone.

“Wha...wha’dya wann?” His words were slurred, and as he sat up slowly, Blixer winced, seeing the stitching around his face pull slightly against his flesh… from where it had been torn open. NGB blinked slowly, humming, “It’s… it’s like three in the mornin’... Blix… please don’t tell me you’re hungry…”

Blixer shook his head, whimpering. “I had a nightmare…” He looked away, sighing. “That nightmare…”

New Game’s demeanor did a one-eighty. He seemed to wake up fully, his eyes widening as he sat up, sitting on the edge of the bed. Blixer hadn’t been able to shake his fears from the latest incident. Things had calmed significantly since then, but it seemed like something was… off… for one thing, he was always having nightmares now…

New’s horns folded downwards, and he shakily smiled, trying to seem reassuring.

“You wanna talk about it?”

Blixer’s tone was curt. “No… just go back to bed… I wanted to make sure it was still you.”

New felt a twinge of guilt race through his heart, his eyes flickering. He glanced at the ground, ashamed, before he sighed. Even he was still affected by the… event. He had to admit, he sometimes caught odd glances at himself in the mirror… lingering just to make sure he hadn’t suddenly sprouted extra eyes or legs…

He was barely used to having his own body… being alone in his head was much more terrifying when his form was so unstable. Deep down, he was afraid that he’d wake up one day and be back in that nightmarish form. However, he knew for sure… no shape had been impacted as badly as Blixer.

“Blix? You know it’s not real, right…?” His voice held an anxious tone as he reached for his counterpart. “Everything’s fine now…”

“That’s what you always say!”

New drew back, flinching at the sudden outburst. His horns flicked downward, and he shuddered a bit, the heart rate in his eye quickening. He looked around, trying to avoid Blixer’s gaze.

“But… you know that’ll never happen again…” he chuckled nervously, playfully punching Blixer on the shoulder. A twinge of guilt stung his heart as the other shape cringed, stepping back. “That weird bug stuff… it’s over… I ain’t turnin’ into a… what was it? Millipede?” He fumbled for the words. “Yeah… I’m not turning into a millipede again any time soon.”

He tried not to think about that day… his stitched scars tugged against his skin when he smiled, however, and he winced, trying to remain calm.

Blixer hugged himself. “But… you said it was fine when Kubix turned red… you said it was fine when Droplet blighting tried to kill us.” New winced at Blixer’s callous language. “Yxxit… you always say it’s fine… and then it’s not!”

The monocular shape breathed heavily, his hands clenched into fists. New Game whispered, “But…”

“No… just face it! No matter what we do, everything just goes wrong again the moment we let our guard down!” Blixer suddenly stepped closer, hissing in an uncharacteristic act of rage. “We’re a pretty terrible hero, if you ask me…”

Shuddering, he shoved New Game, his teeth gritted. His powers collected in his hands, and he forced himself to avoid attacking, unable to deny his anger. Sweet, innocent Blixer was gone. He’d been shattered and otherwise maimed way too many times to count, and he couldn’t trust himself to be happy. It was only a matter of time until things went wrong, after all… That seemed to be one of the constants of his world.

“You’re part of the problem…. If you weren’t around…” He shoved New again. “Maybe Kubix wouldn’t have gotten turned into a monster!”

New’s own aggression seemed to return, and he stood. “Well… how do you figure that, shortstack?” He stood, looming over Blixer by a few inches. They used to be the same height… after the incident… it seemed that the alter ego had grown a few inches. His mouth split into a fanged sneer, and he felt his scars stretch, threatening to sever. “We single handedly save this blighted world every blighted week… and you want to ridicule that?”

He pointed an accusatory claw at Blix, feeling a swell of sadistic satisfaction as his alter winced, afraid. He chuckled, his horns flicking upward. His scars ached with a phantom pain, and he winced, forcing a wider grin.

Recovering, Blixer hissed, “Every blighted week I get beaten within an inch of my life by a Tree-forsaken void-spawn of a monster…” His horns flicked back, and he started to scream. “I’m done sitting idly by while my own so-called family sics demons to kill… me… what’s next, my shardin’ grandparents come from the afterlife to rip off my fingers?!”

New’s good eye twitched, and he snarled, his heart rate monitor eye spiking.

“You know what… you should feel lucky… you didn’t get your blighted face ripped in half…” He raised a claw, his voice dropping to a venomous growl, “Although… that could be arranged…”

A sudden, wet ripping sound rang out (like that of flesh tearing), and New clasped a hand to his face, hissing in pain as he felt his stitches tear, pink blood pooling around his hands. He winced, glancing at Blixer. The other shape seemed terrified, his eye wide and tearful. He started to back away, raising a hand… which seemed to be close to becoming a cannon.

New chuckled nervously, dropping the violent act. Guilt pooled in his heart, and he felt a rush of nausea flood him; he’d gone too far… from how Blix was staring at him, he must have thought he was turning back into… that creature.

“Oh come on… I’m kidding…” He shrugged, removing his hand. “Blix… you have to get over it at some point.” Something dripped down his face from the wound, and he cringed, his vision blurring. He smiled shakily, trying not to make a sudden movement as he felt more of his stitches starting to tear… revealing the horrors within...

Blixer’s eye widened, and he screamed, grabbing a pillow and throwing it at New. The alter ego hissed, reeling, and Blixer scrambled back, vaulting over the bed and rushing out the door. Tears streamed down his face as he ran, his entire body glowing as he prepared to make a mad dash to escape. He didn’t even want to see Kubix…

“Blix!” New yelled after him. “Wait up! It was a joke, I promise!”

Blixer could still hear the skittering of billions of little legs with each step that his brother took. Just being in the same room with him… or any other formerly infected shape, was unbearable. He could still see the eyes staring at him from every angle, the mottled innards lining the ground as New Game’s spine cracked backwards, his flesh tearing apart like wet paper.

A choked sob left him, and he shook his head wildly.

Nothing was the same… it would never be the same again…

Blixer eventually collapsed, his legs giving out just as he shut himself in the closet. His eye was flaring with a panicked light, and he uncontrollably sobbed, his entire form quivering as he wept. It was hard to breathe, his hands flickering with his powers as he tried to force himself to stay calm.

The images from his nightmare assaulted his mind’s eye, and he broke down completely, covering his face, his claws digging into his arms as he hugged himself.

He couldn’t even bear to face his friends… each time he so much as locked eyes with his own father, he felt shudders crawling up his spine, his nerves on end as his anxiety skyrocketed. He was afraid…. Afraid that if he let his guard down, everyone around him would become something beastly and kill him.

His mind supplied a twisted pun; things were bugging him more easily lately. He let out a broken, bitter chuckle, his voice cracking… much like his body snapped each time he’d been slammed across walls by his enemies... by his own family.

He drew in on himself, whimpering as his laughter devolved into sobs again. He couldn’t forget that horrible day… having to watch his own brother rip himself to shreds, all in an attempt to stop himself from shattering… no, murdering him.

A soft knock at the door startled him from his dejected thoughts, and he looked up, choking on his own gasp. He coughed violently, shaking as his horns flicked back, fear filling him. How much time did he have until they hurt him again? Until some new big bad came around and turned someone he loved into a monstrous puppet, whose only purpose was to harm? Would he be next? Or would he just be the target the monsters would be sent to shatter? Blixer felt his heart stutter as he heard Kubix’s voice, muffled by the door.

“Blix? You alright?” The door started to open, and Blixer whimpered, scrambling back. “Blixer?”

He yelled, “G-get away from me!” He grabbed the nearest object- an old, balled up sock- and threw it at the square, screaming. “Please… please… get away!”

The sock sailed over Kubix’s head, despite his height. He opened the door fully, sighing and stepping inside. His eyes glowed with a soft, reassuring light, which was nothing like the deadly, predatory shine from the incident. Still, Blixer winced as Kubix approached.

“Blixer… what’s wrong?” He kneeled, reaching out slowly. “Did you have a nightmare?”

The unspoken, “Another one?” was easily communicated in the king’s tone. Blixer whimpered, shaking violently as he turned away, unable to coherently speak.

“S-stop… I.. I just wanna… wanna be alone right now… please…” he stammered. “Please… p-p-please….”

Kubix felt his heart break, and he sighed, his eyes dimming. He inched closer, and Blixer felt nausea race from his core, flooding his senses as he saw the scars along the sides of Kubix’s head, from where those dreaded horns had ripped from his skull.

“Get away… get away, please…” the small shape whimpered. “I can’t take it… can’t… just… please leave me… alone…”

All he could see was Kubix, covered in pink… spindly insect legs writhing from his back as he screamed and howled. Horns jutting from his head, spiking upwards in the air like wicked knives. Seeing the powerful king of Paradise, reduced to the pathetic, screeching mess of a creature, a creature that existed only to kill him. The flashback hit Blixer like a ton of bricks, and he screamed.

“You’re just going to h-hurt… me… again…”

Kubix backed away, raising his hands. “Blix… you know I’d never hurt you-”

“YOU ALWAYS DO!” Blixer suddenly shrieked. He threw a shoebox this time, wincing as it hit Kubix in the shoulder. He instantly cringed, drawing back with a squeak and cowering. “I’m sorry… I-I… I’m sorry….”

His eye was wide and unfocused… hazy with fear. His breaths were uneven, and Kubix was afraid that the pink shape had reached a breaking point.

“Blixer… stop apologizing… you’ve been through way more mess than a kid deserves…” He lowered his voice, his tone warm. “I’m sorry that I had to be the ‘bad guy’... you know that the real me would never hurt you… it was that… blighted infection…” He glanced down at his hands, mentally kicking himself for accepting that cursed tea… if he hadn’t been so naive…. Blixer wouldn’t have suffered…

“B-but… you used to… you used to be a bad, bad shape….” Blixer buried his face in his sleeves. “What’s stopping you from going back?”

Kubix winced, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Blixer… it’s been years since that happened… one incident isn’t going to undo… how much I care for my sons.”

Blixer hesitantly looked up at him. “I… I can still sense it…” He snarled, “E-everytime I see you and New Game and Penta… I can see the… the things you turned into…”

He looked away, breathing heavily. Kubix could see the utter terror in his son’s gaze. He felt his own heart stutter with a protective anger, and he suddenly reached out, pulling Blixer close. The shape instantly began to shriek, his eye widening and glowing with a terrified light. Kubix stood, backing out of the closet, keeping his hold firm yet soft.

“Blixer,” he whispered. He held the small shape close. “Please… listen to me… no one is going to hurt you…”

Blixer writhed, and Kubix felt claws digging into his arms. “Get away, let me go, let me go!” He felt as if he’d die. His heart quickened to a fervent pace, and he started screeching, vainly clawing at Kubix’s arms. “‘S-spiders… spiders every-everywhere…”

The small shape started hyperventilating, his eye wide and bright and so painfully distant. He was reliving his worst memory…. Even Annihilate wasn’t this bad… At least then, he hadn’t cared so much for Kubix… hadn’t had to fight his own father figure.

He tried to squirm out of Kubix’s hold. He could feel spiders crawling up his arms, a spine-chilling phantom sensation. He could see the black and pink acid dripping from Kubix’s mouth and eyes, like twisted tears… just before he started shrieking. He held his head, trying to banish the horrible images from his mind.

“Blixer… I’m not a spider…” Kubix held him, whispering futile reassurances. “Blixer… please… don’t do this… it’s okay…”

“No! It’s not… not okay… not okay…” Blixer shook. “Y-you… you guys turned into m-monsters… I never want to see anything like that… ever again…”

Kubix sighed, “I promise… I’ll do everything in my power to prevent that from happening again. You know this.”

He carried Blixer to the kitchen, setting him down at the table and pulling up a chair to sit across from him. New Game was already there, an ice pack pressed against his cheek as he glared passive-aggressively at his counterpart, who subtly inched his chair away. His glare was more like a slightly irritated, watery stare, pained tears having collected in the shape’s eyes. Kubix crossed his arms, sighing softly as he sorted out his words.

“Blixer… you need to tell us what’s bothering you. We can’t help ya if you just lash out…”

“T-tell you what’s wrong?!” The one-eyed shape growled, bristling. “Seeing you guys get torn apart and turned into monsters is what’s wrong! I thought that was obvious!”

Kubix narrowed his eyes, huffing. “You’ve seen me get turned into Annihilate far too many times to count… we both know you can handle a little body horror.”

It hurt to see Blixer like this; so standoffish, having closed off from the world in fear of being too vulnerable to help. It had been his emotions that stopped him from trying to save his own brother. He’d frozen up, overtaken by fear… but now, it seemed that he couldn’t stop reacting, usually with violence.

Kubix breathed, “Blixer… if it helps you get over this… I’ll go Annihilate right here and now just to make you see… I’m in control.” He winced as he felt his magic spike a bit, trying to force the irritated red out of his glow. “No matter what form I take… you’re still my son, Blix. As long as my mind is intact, I’ll never let ya get hurt again.”

New just grinned, starting to move the ice pack from his face. Blixer whimpered as he spotted the glowing yellow eye that had opened in the alter’s face. Kubix reached over, lightly plucking NGB on the shoulder and glaring at him. The alter ego huffed, pouting, before replacing the ice pack.

Blixer shuddered. “B-but… this was different…” He hugged himself. “Even when you go Annihilate… I know it’s still you, deep down... “ He looked away, sighing shakily. “But… whatever Suenami did… it changed you… and I can still sense it…”

Kubix huffed, “Blixer. Do I look like an insect?”

The panicked shape squirmed, shakily breathing. “N-no… not on the outside… but… w-what if…. What if the infection’s still there? What if you all t-t-turn back… into those bugs again…”

New scoffed, “Okay… so a FEW of those creepy eyes are still there… but I’m not gonna start sproutin’ bug legs all willy-nilly…unless...” He reached for Blixer with his free hand, wiggling his fingers eerily. “Ooh… I’m a monster… blegh…”

His brother squeaked, smacking his hand away. “Not funny!” he squealed. He growled under his breath, “Y-you won’t be laughing when I... spray you with pesticide…”

“You won’t be laughing when I turn into a bug monster and eat you.”

“Y-you’re already halfway -tthere…” Blixer’s tone was venomous… although his stutter remained.

New stood, clenching his fists. “Oh yeah? I’ll show you a real monster…”

“Look in the mirror and tell me what ya see…”

“Boys!” Kubix yelled. Both circles paused in their argument, eyes wide. The king huffed, crossing his arms as he eyed the two, disappointment clear in his gaze. “You two need to learn to get along…” He sighed, rubbing his temples. “Look, I get it… that… incident… was emotionally taxing for all of us…”

New Game deadpanned, “There’s an actual hole. In my face right now.”

“Shut it, New,” Blixer growled. His voice faltered instantly, and he huffed, quivering. “Just drop it.”

New ignored him, of course. “A Tree-forsaken hole, Kubix.”

Kubix glared at NGB, before sighing. “As I was saying… last week was filled with some… unfortunate events…” He looked away, glancing at his hands. “But… we can’t just let it tear us apart.”

Blixer snarled, “Tell that… tell that to New Game.”

The alter ego whimpered, sitting down and hugging himself. He subconsciously scratched at his scars, squirming in discomfort. Blixer seemed to regret his rude tone, turning to face his brother with a small sigh. Hesitantly, he hugged the other, his horns flicking back as he stared hollowly through Kubix.

“S-sorry… I just… haven’t been feeling myself… since then…”

Kubix’s eyes filled with a sympathetic light. “I know…” He breathed shakily, “None of us have…”

Standing without another word, Kubix backed away, giving a last, empathetic smile, before turning away. He rushed out of the kitchen, towards his room… The last thing he wanted to do was scare Blixer… and if his very presence was painful, he’d just stay away… until things all returned to normal… no matter how much it hurt to know that he was the source of his own child’s nightmares.

Blixer thought he saw a flash of an agitated red in Kubix’s glow. He hurriedly stuttered, “D-Dad… wait…” He stood, dashing over to intercept Kubix’s departure. As he caught the ruby glimmer in the king’s eye, he felt his breath catch, a twinge of fear stinging at his core. He stammered, “I’m s-s-sorry… I shouldn’t have been so… so curt…”

Kubix’s expression faltered, and he backed away a pace. “Blixer… I know you’re still on edge… I want you to recover at your own pace… I can’t force you to be happy.”

“No…” Blixer shook his head. “NGB may be a pest…” That earned him a glare. “But I… I can’t just… run from my fear... “ He shuddered, barely able to make eye contact…. Barely able to ignore the anxiety in his heart. “I faced Ra… and Droplet… and… our own family… I should be able to face my fears.”

He took a hesitant step towards Kubix. The square went still, not wanting to frighten his son again. The young hero was terrified… he could see his horns quivering at a glance. New Game watched from afar, blinking owlishly. He was curious… what would Blixer do? Run… or face his fears head-on?

Kubix breathed, “Blix… if you’re scared of me… it… it’s okay… I know I haven’t given you reason to t-trust me lately…” He sighed, collecting himself. It hurt to see his son so terrified… of him. “But I promise you…Even if you think I’m still a monster... I will never hurt you, Blixer. Please, try to understand that much…”

He was cut off as Blixer hollered.

“N-no! I’m not afraid of you… because you’re n-not… you’re not a monster…” Blixer took another step, quivering like a leaf. “You’re… my dad.”

Much to the shock of the other shapes, Blixer suddenly hugged Kubix. Terrified shudders went down his spine, and he lingered, shaking violently. He repeated a mental mantra like a broken record, reassuring himself that his father was himself… that he wouldn’t harm him… ever again.

Yet, the memories of all the times Kubix had been controlled, all the times that he had hurt him… made Blixer’s eye fill with tears, and he shook, his breath catching.

“I… I don’t w-w-want…. Don’t want you… to turn into a monster… e-e-ever again…” His voice cracked, quavering. “I… I wouldn’t be able to take it…”

Kubix returned the embrace, sighing. He reached down, picking up the small shape and carrying him back to the table. He wordlessly pulled New into the hug as well, holding his two sons close… as his happiness depended on their safety…

In a way… it did.

Kubix’s voice was airy as he whispered, “I’ll never let this happen again…” He shuddered. “You shouldn’t have to fear for your lives… not in my kingdom…”

New said nothing, and Blixer just whimpered. The latter felt an eerie chill race up his spine. He could still picture those insect-like legs, the extra limbs that had torn free from Kubix’s back… that had left scars deeper than any corruption.

Blixer couldn’t speak. There was really nothing to say, except that he was deeply, truly afraid. The scars were proof that the transformations hadn’t been mere corruption… it was something much, much worse...

Kubix continued, “If you ever… ever feel unsafe… I will be there in an instant, and I will slay whatever beast is harming you….”

New shuddered. “It… it hurts, Kubix…” He sniffled, despite himself. “I’m s-s-sorry… sorry for teasing Blixer…”

“Like I said, I’ll always protect you… both of you.”

Kubix held them for awhile, silent. He still hadn’t been able to fully shake the effects of the incident. It was so, so much worse than anything he’d ever encountered. At least in the past, when it was simple as corruption, they could be sure that whatever mutations had occurred would fade away completely… but now, the scars ran deep to their cores, and Kubix was unsure if he could take it.

Yet… he’d remain strong for his sons… for his kingdom. He started to drift off to sleep, hoping dearly for sweet dreams, before he heard whimpering. He looked down, seeing Blixer clinging to New, his eye wide with tears.

“Blix?”

Blixer finally squeaked, “Wh-what if you’re the beast….?” He buried his face in Kubix’s sleeve. “What if… what if you lose c-control? What if you turn… into a m-m-monster?”

He didn’t want to picture that scenario… he never wanted to see Kubix or New Game… or anyone else… in that state again.

“Blix… as long as we’re on the same side, you never have to see me as a monster again… however…” The square chuckled, despite his seriousness. His tone was bitter, laced with a morbid, foreboding growl. “To the enemy… that’s exactly what I’ll be.”

#jsab #Just shapes and beats #blixer #new game #Other people's OCs #kubix #jsab au #fanfic #Oh Look a Story Thing #body horror #blood #eyes #horror warning #oops all angst #gore tw

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psyopmyself · 5 years ago

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wrote this a while ago

The Present: Fate and God meet for the first time

part 2, Lucifer is born, a Reminder of Mortality

“curiosity killed the cat but satisfaction brought it back”

everybody just wants to have fun. angels and demons alike we all search for the same fix. last night i was in the VIP section of heaven and i found a door to hell. i saw a woman and man smiling, leaving a party behind and stepping back into the light and i switched spots with them. I walked upstairs to the underworld and all my senses came alive. the world made of cement and mirrors. there was sweating and grabbing and strobing and swooning. drugs on the floor and speakers on the ceiling. everybody had a fire in their eyes. i fucked a few times, did a few lines, and when i was tired i remembered that there were couches back in heaven. i don’t remember how i got to heaven in the first place because hell felt like home. heaven just was. what i hadn’t noticed on my way up was the book to get back in the white palace. “what are you going to do with this experience to help someone else?” you had to answer honestly to get the door to unlock. there was nothing like this on the otherside.

i stopped. i didn’t realize that was part of the Deal.

will i go get someone upstairs and convince them they’re dying and bring them to heaven with me? or will i leave cloud9 altogether and find a soul on the outside of my world and show them how to get to the top of the bottom and the top of the top?

i forgot that you can die everywhere but in Here, and i’m standing at the gate.

I went back upstairs and found the guy who i fucked and talked Nietzsche with. He told me he came in through an elevator and he just had to sell a few souls to make it up there. we came from different places.

“Have you ever thought about finding a calmer ecstasy?” i asked him.

“I’ve never known calm.” he replied, curiosity and danger in his eyes.

“Here’s the deal, you come to heaven with me and say i taught you that there’s a more pure way to fuck, to think, to breathe. Come give it a try, i know a way to get there. and if it doesn’t work you know the way back Here.”

“why would i do that? and why would you leave this place? it has everything you could ever want.”

i looked at him and realized he had never known. we came from different places.

“no, it doesn’t. you think the flashing lights, the chemicals, the bodies are all you could ever dream because you forgot what it’s like to fall asleep somewhere else and remember that there are oceans with fish who have never done a drug in their life, people who have devoted years to listening in the dark, and bodies that only touch when they are in love. this isn’t the only music in the world. I want you to remember that with me. There is still water to clean ourselves with and a divine which is still alive and well within a holy curiosity. you can’t grow in here. you get trapped in your body and all you become is a ghost looking for constant reminders that you exist. you’re continuously reliving the moment before god died and you haven’t seen it’s afterlife. i told you, you can always come back, but i want to show you and i need to bring you if i want to die and get back in. and you have to want to come with me. downstairs there is more than lights, music, drugs, sex, and echoes off the cement. There are still mirrors, but there are also libraries and sand and sheets that have been washed. there is innocence and maturity and adrenaline in the knowledge that you are living as one god among others, not the only one lost in a cacophony of stolen identity. there is so much more and the door back upstairs never goes anywhere.”

he looked at me and realized he had never known.

“i’ll come, but you have to stay with me until i decide to leave. i don’t know if i believe you but i feel like i want to know what you’re talking about”

“i was never going to leave you. I think that’s the Thing, you’ll never be alone when you’re there.”

#short story #?#text

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worryinglyinnocent · 6 years ago

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Fic: What Comes After (18/18)

Final chapter!

Summary: Dead Like Me AU. After Belle French loses her life in an accident, she finds out that she has been recruited to join the ranks of the Grim Reapers, helping souls pass on. It’s a huge upheaval to deal with, but her fellow reapers are there to help her out, especially head reaper Gold.

Who says you can’t find love after life?

Rated: E overall, this chapter is E.

[One] [Two] [Three] [Four] [Five] [Six] [Seven] [Eight] [Nine] [Ten] [Eleven] [Twelve] [Thirteen] [Fourteen] [Fifteen] [Sixteen] [Seventeen] [AO3]

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Eighteen

Belle was glad that it was sunny. Although winter had well and truly fallen now and the days were ever shorter and colder, the weather had seen fit to let her have a bright day today, as she made her way through the town to the cemetery in the centre.

Considering that it was surrounded by busy roads on all sides, there was a sense of calmness in among the graves, and it made Belle smile. This was a resting place for people at peace, and she knew that she’d had the satisfaction of helping some of them on their way to peace.

Well, not all of them were at peace just yet. Belle gave a sigh as she stopped in front of the marble slab that she had come to see, one that she had not as yet had the courage to look at.

Belle French, Beloved Daughter, 4th January 1988 - 16th February 2018

The others had asked if she had wanted anyone to accompany her on this first visit to her own grave, but Belle had declined. After all the time it had taken to come to terms with her own death and her new afterlife, she felt that this was something that she wanted to do alone.

She shook herself, not wanting to linger on her own marker, reading the dates of her too-short life over and over, and she glanced to the stones on either side, one shining and brand new, only installed a little while ago, and one much older.

Colette French, Dearly Missed, 23rd August 1962 - 17th May 1995

Maurice French, Loving Father and Husband, 18th June 1957 - 3rd September 2018

Belle supposed that to the outside observer, this would be a sad sight. A little family, now gone in its entirety, the oldest member being the last to go. Belle didn’t feel the same way. She knew that wherever her parents were now, they were happy together, and they would wait for her for as long as it took to join them. It would be the blink of an eye to them, she was sure of it. They had each other, and they had a lot of catching up to do.

Belle set her basket on the frozen ground and pulled out the first bouquet. Game of Thorns had not reopened since her father’s death, and the other florists in the town just didn’t make bouquets in the same way that Moe had always done, so in the end, Belle had just bought the cut flowers and made up the individual little posies herself.

The one for her mother’s grave was white and pink, lilies and honeysuckle, her favourite flowers. Their garden had always been full of honeysuckle when Belle had been a girl, and in spring and summer there had never been any shortage of butterflies darting between the blooms. It was too cold for butterflies now, and too cold really for honeysuckle, but if she could bring brightness and light to the cemetery when the warm weather came again, then Belle would be happy. Moe’s contained creamy yellow camellias, always his favourite to work with.

Finally, Belle took the last flower out of her basket. It felt strange to be laying flowers on her own grave, but if she was tending to her parents’ final resting places, then she saw no reason to let her own go neglected. A few simple white roses would suffice for her, to make the ground look pretty. Placing the flowers there gave her a sense of release. It truly marked the end of her old life, and the end of her grieving period for it. Seeing this gravestone here, with her parents either side of her and knowing they had moved on made her want to focus on the future and not dwell on the life that she no longer had.

She stayed crouching on the cold ground for a while, looking at the marble inscriptions with a little smile on her face.

Do not stand at my grave and weep, I am not there, I do not sleep.

She had never really thought anything of the significance of those beautiful words until now, and she had never really known how they could have given anyone comfort. Now though, she knew. There was so much that she knew now that she didn’t know before, and the knowledge gave her the strength that she needed to get through this life filled with death. Everyone had their own methods of coping, and perhaps Belle had found her own in poetry.

She looked up as she heard footsteps crunching along the path towards her, and she was surprised to see Henry. He stopped a little way short, not wanting to intrude on a private moment of grief but evidently still wanting to speak to her. Belle waved him over.

“Hi Henry. What brings you here? It’s a pretty bleak place for a kid.”

“My mom’s visiting her dad,” Henry said, gesturing over his shoulder towards the foreboding looking mausoleum a little further into the cemetery. “I don’t like it in there, it gives me the creeps, so I came out for some fresh air.”

“Yeah, I can appreciate that.”

Henry crouched down beside her, looking at the graves.

“It’s a shame they were all so young when they died,” he observed, looking at her family’s dates. “Still, at least they’re all together now.”

Belle nodded. “Yeah. They’ve moved on.”

Henry was looking at her steadily, and Belle met his gaze levelly. Alistair had told her about his suspicions of Henry seeing their true faces, and she wondered where this interaction would lead.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you around, Lacey,” Henry said. He looked at the marble headstones again. “Don’t worry. You’ll see them again some day.”

Belle smiled. “Yeah, I know I will.”

It was a moment of unspoken understanding between them. Whether Henry knew about the grim reapers or not, he knew, somehow, that the woman he knew as Lacey was the Belle who was buried beneath their feet.

Henry left her to her own devices as his mother came out of the mausoleum, and Belle sighed. It was nice to have someone living who knew the reapers’ secret, even if he was only a kid who couldn’t exactly do anything with the information other than live with it. It made her feel like they were less alone in the world, and they could still interact with the living in a meaningful way. Now that she had moved out of Dorothy’s apartment into her own place, she found herself missing the constant contact with the living that having a roommate had provided her with. Even Alistair had admitted that perhaps his policy of separation did not always work. Humans were social creatures after all, and being dead didn’t change that.

At last it was time to leave; her joints were seizing up from crouching in the cold for so long, and she grabbed her basket, making her way back through the cemetery to where she had left her bicycle, pedalling quickly through the town in an effort to warm up before she reached Alistair’s place. She allowed herself a sly little grin as she free-wheeled down a hill. For all that she might be a little lonely in her new place now, she didn’t exactly spend a lot of time there these days, and not a lot of time alone.

Alistair opened the door before she knocked, greeting her with a kiss as he let her into the house.

“How did it go?” he asked.

“Well,” Belle said. “It went well. Actually, it went better than expected. I was fully anticipating being an emotional wreck, but I feel much lighter now than I have for a while. I think that maybe I needed to see it to make it final, and truly allow myself to move on from my life.”

Alistair nodded. “I think that there’s something profound about seeing a grave and knowing that there’s not really anything of substance there.”

“Where are you buried?”

“Back in Scotland. I haven’t been there for a long time, but we can visit if you’d like. You could meet all my relations.”

Belle wrinkled her nose. “A bit morbid, don’t you think? Not that I’m not up for a holiday to Scotland if you can wrangle it. We’d better not tell anyone though; Mulan will be wanting to come with us to see Merida.”

“Well, now that you mention it, I have just received a petition from Merida to join our little post-it crew over here in Storybrooke.”

Belle smiled widely. “That’s great! Is she going to be able to come?”

“I see no reason why she shouldn’t. It’s not like we couldn’t use another experienced pair of hands. Ella keeps complaining of being overworked and underpaid.”

“We’re not paid at all.”

“Precisely her argument. She’s all for lobbying the powers that be for better remunerations.”

“Do you think she’ll get anywhere?”

“No, but everyone needs a hobby.”

Belle gave a snort of laughter. Ella would never fail to be a source of entertainment for the rest of the reapers, and Belle thought that she knew it and wholeheartedly embraced her role. Of all of them, Ella had always been the most accepting of death and their state of afterlife, and her attitude in turn helped all of the rest of them - even Alistair, who had been dead longer than she had.

Alistair had slipped into the kitchen whilst Belle had been peeling off her outer layers and returned with a glass of wine for her.

“Dinner’s in the slow cooker,” he said. “There’s plenty of time for you to warm up before we eat.” He grimaced as he handed her the glass. “Your hands are like ice. Come on, let’s go into the living room and take advantage of the fire.”

That was a definite advantage of Alistair’s place over her own. Being such an old house, it still had beautiful and fully-functioning fireplaces, and she settled on the sofa, turning her face towards the crackling flames and letting their heat warm her.

“You’re like a cat,” Alistair observed, following her into the room and settling beside her, one arm coming around her in a familiar hug that they had just fallen into after a while of seeing each other. “I half expected to come in here to find you stretched out on the hearth rug.”

“I can stretch out on the hearth rug if you want,” Belle said. She snuggled closer into his side and slipped a hand up under his sweater, giggling when he squirmed away from her cold fingers. “I mean, they do say that the best way to warm up is with bare skin to bare skin, and if dinner’s in the slow cooker then it’s hardly going to spoil.”

Alistair looked at her with narrowed eyes.

“I do believe that you might have ulterior motives, Miss French.”

She winked at him. “Of course I do.”

Despite having got off to a slightly inauspicious start, their intimate relationship had only gone from strength to strength once they were on the same page. Alistair might have been out of practice when it came to pleasuring a partner, but he had proved himself a very eager student and Belle was more than happy to give him as much practical instruction as he wanted. She smiled against his mouth as she felt his warm hands come up under her layers to splay over her back.

“You know, if we’re going to warm up skin to skin, then we should probably take off a few layers,” Belle suggested, bringing her hands to the hem of his sweater and making to tug it up over his head. He gave a grunt of protest at having to relinquish his hold on her, but duly capitulated, and Belle rewarded him with a kiss once the sweater was off and she was starting on his shirt buttons, slipping her hands inside once it was open enough and tracing her fingertips over his skin, flicking at his nipples and making him hiss with pleasure.

“I thought that you were the one who was cold and needed warming up,” Alistair pointed out.

“I know,” Belle replied, giving him a sweet smile. “That’s exactly why I’m still bundled up in several layers and we’re getting you naked first.” To emphasise her point, she flicked at his nipple again with cold fingers and Alistair squirmed again.

“All right, all right, I concede your point.”

“Good.”

She kissed him again, pushing him back against the sofa cushions so that she could make her way down from his mouth and map his neck and chest, her tongue following the path that her fingers had taken before. Alistair groaned under her touch, and Belle smiled against his belly, dipping her tongue into his navel and making his hips jerk up before she sat up and began to work his belt buckle.

She didn’t get much further than that, as Alistair wrestled himself out of the sleeves of his shirt and stayed her hands, pulling her back down on top of him for another kiss.

“It’s my turn,” he said, pulling her sweater up and off and cupping her breasts through her camisole. Her nipples were already hard from the cold and were even more sensitive from his ministrations, showing even through her layers of clothing, and she gasped as he brushed his thumbs over them, arching her back to press up against him more firmly.

“Let’s see if we can’t warm you up a little.”

Her camisole and bra came off in short order afterwards and then Alistair’s hands were back on her breasts, kneading them gently and sending a fresh wave of arousal straight between her legs. He pinched her nipples before bending to suck one into his mouth, laving his tongue over the pert bud and making her moan, wanting nothing more than for him to repeat the treatment on her other breast and at the same time go down even lower, to where she could already feel the heat pooling between her thighs in anticipation. She rubbed herself up against his crotch; he too was showing rather obvious signs of arousal now, his cock beginning to stir and bulge against his zipper.

She unfastened his trousers then and in a somewhat ungainly display of a lack of dexterity, they managed to kick them and his boxers down and off to land in a heap on the floor beside the sofa. His cock sprang to attention between them, and Belle curled her fingers around his length, stroking him up and down to take the edge off. Alistair groaned, throwing his head back with pleasure, eyes closed.

“Oh Belle, you’re going to ruin me.”

“Who’s to say that’s not my intention?”

“If you do, you know that I won’t be good for anything at all afterwards, least of all warming you up.”

Since Belle was already getting rather warm, she had to laugh at the euphemism, but on reflection, she decided that teasing Alistair to distraction before they’d really got started wouldn’t be a good idea. They had all the time in the world, after all, and his body looked so beautiful in the flickering firelight. No, she wanted to drag this one out for as long as she possibly could.

She let his cock slip from her grip and took his hands, placing them on her hips and unfastening her jeans to show off her underwear.

“Undress me, Alistair,” she whispered.

“With pleasure, my love.”

He pulled her jeans slowly down to her knees and cupped her sex through her underwear, stroking along her slit through the dampened gusset. Belle’s hips bucked up against his touch, wanting more, and he slipped a finger into her panties to touch her properly, just the very tip ghosting along her folds.

“Yes,” she breathed. “Yes, like that. I need more, Alistair.”

“Then more you shall have.”

She scrambled out of her jeans and underwear and settled herself back on top of him. There was a moment of stillness then, both of them just admiring each other’s bareness in the firelight, the urgency of their encounter all but forgotten as Belle felt a sudden swell of emotion in her heart. She was absolutely in love with this man, and she knew that he felt the same way about her. She could see it in his eyes, in the sheer wonder that filled their chocolate brown depths.

Then his hands were back between her thighs, parting her folds and seeking out her clit, rubbing his thumb in languid circles over the swollen pearl and making Belle wriggle on top of him. She could feel the sheen of perspiration prickling on her chest; she was definitely warm enough now, but she didn’t want him ever to stop doing what he was doing.

“That’s good,” she whispered. “Yes, more like that, please.”

With her praise and encouragement, he redoubled his efforts, a finger slipping into her cleft and stroking along her folds to spread around her pooling honey before pushing up inside her. Belle’s knees were shaking and she collapsed down on top of him, giving him a clumsy kiss as he just chuckled and pushed another finger up inside, curling and petting at her inner walls. There was no pause for breath, and there was no uncertainty anymore. He knew what he was doing now, and they had been together enough times that he had learned the best ways to bring her to her climax in dramatic fashion.

“Come for me, Belle,” he crooned in her ear, pressing his thumb firmly against her clit and making her cry out with the intensity of the sensation. “Come for me now, you know you want to.”

Belle couldn’t have held back even if she’d tried; another curl of his fingers inside her was all it took to bring her over the edge, warmth radiating out through her veins as she yelled out.

“Yes! Oh, Alistair…”

She was panting heavily as she came down from the high, Alistair drawing his fingers out of her carefully and petting her through into the afterglow, and as soon as she had enough breath back, she kissed him deeply, fingers carding into his hair and never wanting to let him go. His hands came around her back, pulling her in closer, and she could feel her juices on his fingers smearing over her wet skin.

“Feeling any warmer yet?” Alistair asked with a cheeky little smile as she finally let him up for air.

“I think I might be, yes.” Belle traced a finger down his chest. “But what about you? I think that you could do with warming up as well. Especially this part of you.” She gripped his cock, stroking him once again and swiping her thumb through the bead of liquid that had started to form at his tip.

“Well, you are lovely and warm,” Alistair said. He brought his sticky fingers up to his lips and licked her essence off her. “And if you feel this wonderful around my fingers, then I would love to know what you feel like round my cock.”

Objectively, he knew what she felt like around his cock; they had made love more than enough times for him to be familiar with it, but the words still made Belle grin. A couple of months ago, she didn’t think that she would ever have been able to get him to indulge in talking dirty with her like this. There were some things that no amount of modernisation could change and this seemed to be one area where Alistair was still stuck in the past. There was a still a light flush of colour on his cheekbones, but Belle decided to put that one down to exertion rather than embarrassment. He had shed so many of his inhibitions during the course of their relationship, and she supposed that she had shed a lot of hers as well. They were on the same page now, and they knew how to communicate with each other – both in the bedroom and outside it.

She raised herself up on her knees a little so that she could line them up, and sank down onto his cock, feeling him stretch and fill her in the best way. Alistair groaned at the sensation, his fingers digging into her hips.

“Oh Belle,” he murmured. “You always feel so incredible. I could stay inside you forever.”

Belle rocked her hips and he groaned again.

“I’d like that,” she said. “But it would play havoc with the reaps.”

There were no more words after that, as Belle settled into a rhythm, Alistair thrusting up to meet her hips, their hands slipping on each other’s skin as they moved together, the tip of his cock brushing the sweet spot deep inside her and bringing her closer and closer to that peak again.

“Oh Belle, Belle, my lovely Belle!”

He came with a final thrust upwards, his hips shivering as he spilled inside her, a low, guttural groan escaping the back of his throat. Belle kept moving on him, rubbing up against his pubic bone. He was buried in her to the hilt; she could feel the coarse hair at the base of his cock tickling her sensitive folds, and she was so close to the edge.

His thumb found her clit again and a simple touch brought her over with him, closing her eyes and throwing her head back with a moan that would have alarmed the neighbours had there been any.

Belle raised herself up on shaking knees to let Alistair slip out of her and then lay back against his chest, burying her face in his shoulder and never wanting to move. She felt him stroke her hair out of the way, his fingertips doodling patterns on her back.

Beside them, the fire continued to crackle, and Belle could still feel the welcoming heat from it dancing over her skin.

“I love you,” she said.

“I love you too.”

Their relationship was never going to be plain sailing, Belle knew that. There was still the undeniable fact that they were dead and they were going to have to keep reaping other souls; they would never be able to get away from the death that surrounded them and that was naturally going to have a wearing effect, but she hoped that with each other to rely on, they would be able to get through it. No matter what they might witness during the day, they would always be able to come home to each other and lose themselves in each other, leaning on the support that they had built up for themselves.

She knew that this wouldn’t last forever. Alistair had been reaping for so much longer than she had and it was inevitable that he would get his lights sooner rather than later and have to make that journey to move on, but if there was one thing that her time as a reaper had taught her, it was that nothing ever really ended. She would go on, and she would see him again soon enough. Time was nothing to a reaper, not when they had so much of it, and when they knew that there would be so much more of it when they found their lights. She did not feel any trepidation at the prospect.

For now, she would just enjoy what she had, and live every moment as if it were her last. Now that she had the second chance to live, she was going to really live it to the full, with Alistair by her side for as long as she had him.

She kissed him deeply, trying to pour the very essence of her feelings towards him into that kiss.

She had found love after life, and she was never going to let it go.

#rumbelle fic #rumbelle #rumbelle smut #Belle French #Mr Gold #Fic: What Comes After #Final Chapter

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thirteenphoenixes-blog · 7 years ago

Text

all the stars are closer --

the gun goes off and finn is choking on his own blood before even his knees give out. the fever races through him fast and he can feel it—the blood not the fever—filling his lungs, thick and not quite liquid as it drowns him. he sinks back against the wall, keeping one blood-covered hand lightly against his chest as he lets out a chuckle, thinking how ironic it is that the one moment he doesn’t want to die is the moment that he’s dying.

time shutters to a stop the moment finn’s heart should and instead of dying like he should (or maybe he does die, the details are starting to get muddled quite honestly), he wakes up with a jolt and a cough that’s far far too wet.

the floor is about as cold as death underneath him in this… place. it sits in dim orange light, as though there should be candles around, shadows flickering on the columns even though he can’t see single hints of a light source. he doesn’t know where the hell he is or what he’s doing here, but it feels weird.

his shirt is wet and so is his mouth and he can taste blood on his tongue, and he has the distant sense that he should be in a lot more pain, but even with the mess being made of his chest, he doesn’t feel anything other than a slight dull ache.

footsteps, slow and strolling, sound from off in the distance and finn’s bloodied hands drop from his chest as a man rounds the corner, locking eyes with finn at the same moment that finn locks eyes with him and finn feels his heart shudder to a stop (again, probably) before he races over.

“you idiot.” finn curses, grabbing at mase to tug him into a hug. knowing that if he’s debating his own slip off the mortal coil here, then mason is likely… he doesn’t say it, can’t bring himself to even think it if he’s honest. it’s not, it’s not, it’s not… his sense of danger kicks back in with a thump that has finn on edge as he drops the person and steps back, heterochromatic stare sweeping over them before he speaks again.

“… you’re not mason.”

the figure morphs before his eyes, features shifting and pulling and tugging at a rate faster than he can keep up with and settles on one that he can’t exactly say that he harbors anything but resentment for as eyes colder than winter settle on him and a grin upcurves pale lips. “perceptive creature aren’t you, boy? even in death, astounding you mortals are!”

mortal? the distinction makes finn uncomfortable because if this creature is not mortal, then what is it? instead, the thing wearing his brother’s face smiles pleasantly at him and peers close as finn frowns. “so i’m dead?” it hurts a lot more than he expects (and is ready for) to actually pose the question. he puts a hand to his chest again, still wet with blood.

“should be,” the creature remarks finally, pacing around finn in a tight circle, before sprawling over the arms of a plus loveseat with easy grace. “i… pulled some strings.”

what the fuck is going on and where is he? “strings,” finn echoes dully.

“strings.” they agree, sitting upright and resting their elbows on their knees and their chin on steepled fingers. “i’ve had my eye on you for a very long time you know. you and your family, including the ones that you call your family, are absolutely fascinating!”

finn can’t quite stop the noise of outrage that bubbles over from his throat. fascinating?

“fascinating enough that i’ve decided to grant your wish, all of your wishes in fact.”

“what wish?” finn feels dread starting to pool in his stomach as they grin another cheshire grin at him, his brother’s eyes narrowing with the expression.

“why your wish to stay together, of course!” the creature declares, throwing their hands up. “after all, it works in my favor too… you and your lovely little band of misfits get to entertain me for eternity.”

finn doesn’t bother stopping his snarl this time. “entertain yo—you’re fucking crazy if you think i’m gonna stick around and do anything of the sort.”

“audacious!” the creature trills. “i’ve never seen creatures so brazenly ready to go against the decrees of god.”

god? finn bites back his comments, narrowing his eyes, and scoffs. “i’ll go against anything that tries to steal my freedom. i don’t care who or what you are.” he balls his hands into fists as the thing wearing his brother’s face laughs at him. finn can’t blame them. honestly, what the hell is he gonna do? get into a fist fight with—his stare darts back to creature in the chair and he presses his lips together tightly. that can’t be god, can’t be.

finn back tingles as his thoughts slide to badly buried memories that he shoves back down. “look, you can fucking forget keeping me around like i’m some kind of pet.”

“who said anything about a pet?” they volley back, apparently all too amused with him. “i said entertainment.” they laugh. “and you have no choice in the matter.”

finn glares. he’ll be damned if he doesn’t have a choice. people have been taking away his choices for years and if they think they’re gonna start doing that shit in death too, well they can fuck off. besides, he’s already dead. what does he really have to lose at this point?

“i don’t want this.” finn growls at them.

(weren’t you not literally just panicking about being dead? some part of him questions. well, yes, finn replies to himself. he had been but that was then and becoming immortal was not the alternative to death that he’d been looking for.)

“you can take your immortality and shove it up your div—”

the god leans forward with bright wide eyes and all finn can think before the pain starts like someone tossing a lit match into gasoline is how they’re still wearing his brother’s fucking face.

amabel is not the last thing i want to see before i die…

his knees hit the ground as his mouth opens in a soundless scream of agony, finn curling into himself like that might ease the searing pain. it feels as though he’s sitting in the core of a goddamn star, or maybe more like he is a star--a dying one, collapsing in on himself to explode into fire and ashes and pain.

he writhes, scratching at the glow illuminating his veins (the fire, a part of him thinks, if he can just get it out).

the god’s laugh is nothing short of cruel. “did you think becoming a god was a painless affair, finn?”

“stop it,” finn huffs, vomit coppery and steaming enough to leave blisters on his tongue as a mixture of blood and molten gold pours from his lips. “i don’t want this—stop it, please.” he’s begging now, and his mouth aches.

the god is smiling pleasantly above him, “does it hurt?”

finn snaps his mouth shut, doesn’t reply—can’t, as the pain crests again, other than a scream (which he’s not gonna give this asshole the satisfaction of hearing).

“oh, you’re really gonna love this next part.”

the distant sound of fingers snapping makes finn wince. it doesn’t help there’s a steady ticking in the back of his mind like a time bomb on countdown.

“i’d get up, finn. you’re gonna want to see this.”

he doesn’t get up as much as he’s pushed up, breathing hard and shaky and blurry vision a mess. there are two figures on the floor that finn thinks that maybe he’d recognise blind, just close enough to touch and he would, except he can’t—

he can’t

the panic that’s been running undercurrent takes hold, and finn wheezes a soft, pained, “no…”

the god smiles pleasantly. “granting your wish remember?” finn shakes his head with another wheeze, but the god continues, as calm and detached as though he were talking about the weather. “just had to wait. seems these two followed you very shortly. how sweet that you’re all so intertwined, more sweet that you get to stay that way. you should thank me.”

“don’t.” finn says hoarsely. “don’t please i’m begging you—“

on the ground nearby, his family are starting to stir. okeana wakes first, “the fuck… i’m pretty sure i was—” she doesn’t finish because her stare goes to mason, one hand reaching out to brush the hair from his face as the dark-haired man stirs, and then to finn.

their eyes meet.

“finn.” her voice carries that warning that finn knows means that he’s about to get a smack upside the head and a lecture and his eyes sting, with tears soon to overflow.

he drops her stare and tries again with the god, “let them go. i’ll do—” he hates the way that he hesitates, but he can’t help it. trading away his freedom is like — “i’ll do anything.”

the god ignores him and okeana snaps his name again. “finn, what is going on?”

“please.” finn pleads.

“finn?” mason’s voice sounds slurred as he slowly pulls himself up with a grunt. “can’t be, finn’s--” he stops himself, “i was… where are we?”

“the afterlife,” the god says cheerily. “well, technically.” they amend, smiling wide. “i’m granting your wishes. you two wanted to be together for eternity, didn’t you?”

“the fuck are you talking about,” okeana grumbles. “i don’t remember making any wish, besides aren’t we already dead? a little late to be mak—” her words up end in a hiss as she drops to the floor.

“okeana, what’s—” mason’s voice is frantic, but he doesn’t get to move before he drops too.

“then consider it a wish i made,” the god speaks over their evident pain. “your friend here already accepted.”

finn pushes against the invisible walls of his cage, but they hold steady, screaming. “LEAVE THEM ALONE.”

the god simply smiles at him. “aren’t you glad, little brother? you and your family can be together forever.” the creature’s taken his brother’s voice now and finn can damn near feel his sanity starting to fray at the edges.

“i’ll kill you.” finn snarls. “i’ll kill you and take my time doing it, make you regret ever putting your damn hands on me and my—”

“you never fail to put on a show do you, finn?” the god is still wearing that ever present smile. “always getting caught up in one thing or another, ever since we were kids. what a troublesome little brother you were back then.”

“don’t call me that, you’re not—”

“who’s to say i’m not.”

“ama wouldn’t,” finn whispers, even though he knows his brother would. to get back at finn, he would. “he’d stop this.”

ama—the god (finn’s having a hard time differentiating now)—snorts, “would i?” it’s taunting him. “i hated you. you did nothing but hold me back, from the moment we were born. i’m still disappointed old woman georgia didn’t kill you when she had the chance.”

huh, hearing out loud what he’s been thinking for years hurts. the ache is dull though and the reedy crack of mason’s scream in the background is a pain much, much worse. “i’m begging you to stop this,” his voice finally gives out, “i-i can’t...”

“you already are.”

“stop it.” finn sobs, “st-stop hurting them, i’ll do anything. i’ll stop fighting it, i’ll—”

“you mortals… so arrogant.” the god chuckles. “what makes you think you have anything i want? better yet, what makes you think that i wouldn’t have simply taken it from you already?”

“then do that!” finn spits. “do that, and make it stop. please.”

the god ignores him.

finn snarls and fights and screams, until he can’t, watches okeana and then mase go still. he prays they aren’t dead, realises exactly how stupid it is to say that when they’re… already dead. but does it anyway. does it anyway and swears with everything he’s got left that he’s going to kill the god wearing his brother’s face.

they stand, tilt their head in a mocking half-bow, and says, “seems my work here is done. shouldn’t be long before you all wake up.”

“i’ll—“

“you’ll do what, boy?” the god leers. “you’re several thousand years too young to be challenging me.”

finn glares. “i’ll do it anyway. you’re going to pay for this.” he spits, “don’t care if i have to spend the rest of this damned eternity, i’m going to make you pay.” the tick-tick-tick of time passes outside. outside where, finn doesn’t know or really care, too busy staring into the god’s back.

outside, something insists.

finn snaps awake, on the ground in the mouth of some alley—the same alley, a part of him reminds. you never left to begin with.—blood in is mouth and chest itching like mad. dammit.

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keeperprinceling · 7 years ago

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Honeymoon

Khit’li and Yvaine’s honeymoon, part three

(part one) (part two)

It was in moments like these that she wished she had magic she could summon without the need for her weapon. What was she—the Warrior of Light—once they took her bow away? Nothing, that was what. She had to rely on Khit’li, who was in actuality so much more capable than she was. Yes, she had the Echo, but she had no idea how to use it. It was just… in her. And it gave her visions whenever it felt like it or boosted her powers in the face of primals and protected her from their tempering, but hell if she knew how to control—let alone use—it. Half the time she felt like it used her. Made her what she was—a hero, supposedly—and yet, sometimes she felt like she didn’t have much of a say in it.

She believed in what she was fighting for, and she had thought she was the only one who could do it, but what if she was wrong? What if it only brought about misery and a war that never ended? They’d driven away the Empire once, they’d saved Ishgard, they were getting ready to free Ala Mhigo, but where did it end? When the Garleans were completely decimated? When they were fully driven out? Would they not seek revenge anyway?

It was not her entire life or her past that flashed before her mind’s eye when she looked at that sword above her. Rather, it was her entire future, the one she had dared to dream of, where she lived happily with Khit’li and their children. All of it was going to be taken away in a blink of an eye.

And she felt heat rising in her chest, an unspoken scream of a simple word. NO.

If only it were that easy to stop them.

But something did stop them, even if it was not her. Khit’li’s voice sounded eerily calm as he ordered them to stop, threatening her captors’ lives.

She looked at him, trying to catch his eyes, trying to see what he planned. And to say that she loved him if there were none. She gasped when one of them pulled him roughly, put a blade in his throat, and for a second she thought she was going to lose him then and there, that she would have to witness them murder him. This time a scream did escape, and she struggled violently, knocking one of the Garleans in the jaw, feeling satisfaction at his angry howling. Another one quickly retaliated with a punch and restrained her again, leaving her fuming, her entire vision narrowing to Khit’li and the blood that had trickled down his neck.

Her heart was beating too loud in her chest to hear the conversation between him and the Garleans, but she struggled to concentrate. She didn’t know how he could even think in this moment when all she could feel was the fire raging inside her and all she could see through the tears were blurry figures of people she had never felt such murderous intent for. She never relished the killing she had to do, and that was partly why she’d chosen the bow—it was quiet and fast, it could be done from afar, she never had to go face to face with anyone or beat them up with her own hands.

But these people?

They made her burn.

Khit’li’s words trickled through the haze of red, only bits and pieces that confused her. Aetherbomb? She’d never heard of that before. Was he bluffing?

They thought so as well, and then he talked about her dying, portraying such a nice afterlife—all a lie, she knew, for what kind of afterlife could be beautiful without him and their future—and wondered if he really thought they would just let them go. She knew Garleans; they were never going to go for it.

They soon decided to take them alive instead, and hope slowly bloomed within her. Taken alive meant there was still a chance to fight, to escape. To be rescued, even, once the Scions figured out what happened. She almost willingly went as they pulled her up, but Khit’li spoke again, rejecting it, his body glowing with power that daunted even her. She tried to shake her head at him, to tell him to take this bargain, the best they could get. They’d freed Minfilia from the Garleans before, surely the Scions could do it again, and maybe they wouldn’t even immediately kill her, what with everything that had happened.

Don’t provoke them anymore, she tried to say through her eyes, willing him to go quietly, to bide their time, to seek for opportunities to escape when his magic had returned and she could fashion a weapon out of something else…

Then he spoke the words that would doom them both for sure. Just him?! He was volunteering to be taken alone?!

No, surely they wouldn’t want to give her up in exchange of him…

Her panic rose as he continued to talk, spouting all his values, something that she’d oddly been very familiar with by now, but this time it was not funny or endearing or charming, this time all she wanted was for him to shut up and stop talking.

”No!” she cried out, her voice ripped out of her with such fury. “You won’t go alone. It’s either both of us or not at all!”

She pleaded with him with her eyes, willing him to read everything her mind was screaming at him.

We only have hope if we’re together, not apart. Don’t do this to us. I’ll never forgive you if you left me on our wedding night!

Her furious words tore through him like a hot, dull knife. Still he could not look at her, answering her would be hard enough. He kept his attention on the commander, and narrowed his eyes, “You’re the Warrior of Light,” he answered simply, pausing just long enough to muster enough hatred for her captors to push past the pain and move through the waver in his voice. “They wouldn’t chance keeping you alive when we get to where we’re going. They’d try to make you talk, use me against you when you didn’t, and when they finish with you they’ll execute you publicly to punish Eorzea. I’m not letting that happen. They can deal with me. They can’t threaten death,” he cocked his head slightly, continuing with the charade of the ‘aetherbomb’, “but I’m sure they’ll find other ways of making me talk. It just won’t include you.”

“I’m not going to let you die, Yvaine,” he said, glancing just once, just for a moment, down at her shorter frame, and as he looked back at the other he adjusted his hold on his closed book so the newly placed ring on his left hand flashed in her direction. “Just as you wouldn’t have let me if our positions were reversed. I go, you stay. These bastards get to live, but so, too, will the Warrior of Light.”

And as soon he knows she’s safely away, he’ll teleport right back to her side the moment they give him long enough to hone in on her aether signature using the Eternity Ring.

“Do we have a deal, or should I just apologize to her and let this explode?”

For the first time in her life, she truly despised the title given to her by everyone, the title that somehow always elevated the worth of her life beyond others she cared about. She’d lost the Scions this way, she’d lost Haurchefant… she’d tried to stay with Papalymo but—

A sob choked her at the thought that her own husband would do that as well, despite promising otherwise.

It didn’t matter that his words were right. It didn’t matter that she’d probably take the world down with her if she let herself be captured. She’d rather die with him than continue living on without him. For once, she just wanted to be Yvaine Aradia, wife to Khit’li Mewrilah.

She wondered if she could ask him to just kill them both and be done with it.

Would she really do the same had she been in his position? The idea that she would ever walk away from him, condemning him to a life without her lanced her like a betrayal. But she had almost done that, hadn't she?

As confusion swirled within her, she looked up and caught the glint of light, blinking as she noticed something that wasn’t there before tonight—the ring. The Eternity Ring!

It could bring him back to her. Relief flooded her as she realized what his true plan was. Of course, he was clever. She should have trusted him… But maybe her outburst would help sell his charade better.

She said nothing more, just waited, hoping they would take him and go, so that he could come back to her and all would be well.

“We have a deal, then,” the Garlean projected, stepping away from Yvaine. “Release her, but keep her covered. I want none of that Warrior of Light magic to rear its ugly head. Toss the bow so she doesn’t make a mistake.”

His men worked quickly; the two that were holding her down now moving back, their own arrows drawn and trained on her as a third pulled her bow from the sand and slung it away from them, the weapon spinning through the air as it disappeared into the night. She’d be able to recover it later. They followed their commander in his retreat towards the boat, pausing when he stopped near Khit’li. “Are the wounded aboard?” he called, nodding his head to a signal the Miqo’te could not see. Not that he cared much anymore; it had worked: Yvaine was alive and free. Now he could look at her, now that it was over and he was assured of her safety, knowing he did everything he could and succeeded for her. Sure, he would’ve preferred they had just eaten his bluff and walked away, but using the rings to get out of a sticky situation seemed somehow poetic, and right in line with the realization that inspired the… somewhat convoluted plan. They didn’t both need to be freed now – corny as it sounded, love would set him free. … Love and miniature aether crystals attuned to them, anyway. He didn’t like to see her looking so upset and seeing her hurt made him feel sick, but he was confident she understood the plan. They just had to sell the goodbye.

“Khit’li Mewrilah, you are hereby a prisoner of the Garlean Empire. You are relieved of your weapons and are guaranteed safe passage to our destination for as long as your behavior allows for such.”

As the commander spoke, the Elezen finally withdrew the knife, sheathed it, and tore the book from his left hand, tossing it aside. Khit’li frowned, but quickly retrained his eyes on Yvaine, offering a her an eyeroll and sardonic smile for the action instead, wanting her to be confident in this; being defenseless wasn’t appealing, but it wouldn’t be for long. He loved her. He knew how much sacrifices made for her weighed on her, but this wasn’t really a sacrifice – it was just a few hours, a day at most. He’d be okay - he could handle it, and he wanted her to know that.

The commander had started walking, Khit’li with him, being pulled along by a firm hand on his bicep, but a quick “Sir?” brought everyone to a halt. He rolled his eyes again for her – Garleans – but what was said next made his heart stop. “The ring?”

“Ah, right,” the Hyur replied slyly, “I had nearly forgotten. That would’ve been a waste, wouldn’t it? Both of that hard-bought information and this charming little deal. Relieve him of it, would you, Armand?”

His hand jerked up over his head – his fist clenched instinctively – and an arrow flew through the air, landing in the trunk behind Yvaine. Wide-eyed, he froze.

What had he done?

“So clumsy, Alnod!” the commander lightly admonished, “I’m sure Mr. Khit hadn’t meant to resist after he had surrendered under such fair terms, but accidents happen. Now prepare another arrow and this time be more careful with your aim.”

“I won’t miss again, Sir,” his favorite Garlean replied, a smile clear in his voice.

He uncurled his hand, allowing the Elezen to remove his ring. His only way out. A symbol of her.

“There now, not so bad, is it?” He had been so sure they wouldn’t have known about its abilities – the whole process of attunement had been so fundamentally Eorzean in nature they had no reason to know. He… he had failed her. He tried to look brave for her, forced a smile as he memorized her all over again. She’d never forgive him for this. … he may never get the chance. The aetherbomb ruse would only go so far. This could be the last time…

“It’ll be okay,” he said, just for her, his smile wavering but staying stubbornly in place.

“That’s more like it,” the commander cooed. “Toss the ring.”

She gritted her teeth to stop herself from saying something stupid to the Garlean commander, forcing herself to stay still as they released her but trained their weapons on her. Her bow was out of reach now, not that she could use it anyway, since her arm had now gone completely numb and whatever they used was still spreading, weighing down her body and making her feel as if she were a rock in the bottom of the ocean.

She didn’t breathe easy until the knife finally left his neck, yet she tensed when his book, too, was thrown. He rolled his eyes at her and she tried for a smile, even as worry still ate at her. What if the ring didn’t work? He’d have nothing else to defend himself with… The thought of what they would do to him to get information about her was slowly killing her inside.

As he began to walk away, she tried to pull herself up, even as she forced herself to be patient and wait until he came back to her instead of going after him. She couldn’t fight right now, anyway…

But it was so hard to watch him walk away. It felt like it could be the last time she saw him.

Then they stopped. He looked again at her, and then upon hearing the soldier’s next words, she saw the moment in which his humor turned to terror, mirroring the very same dread she felt in her heart, cold as a clamp of ice. No.

They knew about the ring?! Panic coursed through her as the commander ordered for it to be removed, she scrambled to her feet fully—

Only to almost be stabbed by an arrow right in the face.

It whizzed past her, nicking her cheek, leaving a trail of blood down her face as it landed with a thud somewhere behind her. She’d frozen completely, her heart stopping for a brief second, and now she was shaking.

He’d forced that shot. It was a warning shot, for both of them, to remind them that the Garleans still had the upper hand, and that they had no choice but to follow their terms.

Even if it meant never seeing each other again.

She shook where she stood as they spoke casually of the incident, making it sound like an accident, and then she was forced to watch as one of them touched the ring—their sacred bond—and then removed it. It felt like such a violation, and it seemed to be the symbol that sealed their separation.

It was the symbol of their eternal bond.

And now they were taking it.

She couldn’t stand seeing it in their hands. She couldn’t stand seeing him look at her as if everything was going to be all right when she knew it wasn’t. She couldn’t stand not doing anything while he walked away from her, without his ring.

With a groan she finally managed to stand, even if her entire left part of the body seemed to sag uselessly. Even if she had no weapon to fight with or the skill to fight without one. If she had to crawl on all fours to reach him… she would.

She opened her mouth to say that he can’t go, that they would have to take them both after all, but then the commander gave the order to throw away the ring and she glared at him with fire in her eyes.

“Give it to me,” she demanded. “It’s the least you can do. And let me say goodbye.”

Her tone left no room for debate, even as her voice trembled with anguish.

He moved to go to her – that specific tenor had never been denied, by friend or foe, but the way it trembled made him want nothing more than to hold her. To wipe the blood from her cheek and kiss her and tell her again that it’d be okay. He’d come up with something. Scions had been taken before and they’d always come home in the end; sure, it had usually been them who found and rescued them, and it had never been as far as Garlemald itself, and some… some never had returned, but that wouldn’t happen this time. She’d be okay. He’d make it. That this wouldn’t be the last time he held her.

But as he moved forward for the goodbye that he stubbornly refused to allow to be the end, the commander inhaled loudly and he was held in place by the Elezen Armond, the grip on his upper arm, still held above his head, tightening against further movement. In a mix of fury and fear he turned to see the Hyur commander, ready to fight for their right to a goodbye… until the three arrows trained on her drowned his anger in trepidation. He had no more control over the situation.

“It’s funny how they hadn’t asked for a goodbye before we took the ring,” the commander seemed to ponder aloud, “It’s almost as though they thought they had us tricked and fully intended to go back on our deal, even as we made it; what do you think, Alnod?”

The Hyur wasn’t going to allow it. Forcing himself to breath evenly, he looked back to Yvaine, this time unable to muster a smile of any sort. He loved her. Wholly. Irreversibly. Desperately. To think that the last time he touched her had been so rough – he hoped that would not be what she remembered. When she thought back on him let it be from earlier, not on how he might have hurt her in his attempt to escape, or how he failed her here.

“Seems that way to me, Sir,” Alnod replied, his voice every bit as dangerous as it was playful. “Not very respectful of them.”

He loved the way she looked in the moonlight: the way Menphina made her skin glow and her sea-colored hair shift in the breeze. His stomach churned to see the blood dripping from her jawline; the awkward way her arm hung from her shoulder from the paralyzing agent on the tipped arrow made him feel sick – she should sit down and be comfortable.

“Neither respectful nor commanding of trust, I agree,” the Garlean paused, as though considering, “She can have the ring, but they’ll just have to yell their goodbyes, seeing as I can’t trust them. Move out.”

His arm twisted back down to his side but the Elezen’s hand remained, tightening momentarily as Armond pulled back to throw the ring to her, the stone glittering as it arced across the darkness towards her. He wouldn't get to hold her one last time, or apologize for insisting they were unreachable that night. He wouldn't get to kiss her goodbye. She'd always have a part of him in her ring, and for that he was grateful, but as he was pulled into walking towards the shore he didn't know what to say. He didn't want this to be their end. He didn't want this for her - to have yet another person taken from her. He was afraid of what was to come for him, but he'd have days to think about that - now was the only chance he had to make sure she'd be okay. He loved her, and he would love her for the rest of his life, no matter how long or short that might be, and the selfish part of him wanted the same of her but that wasn't fair and that wasn't love talking. She should love again. And she shouldn't be afraid that anyone she got close to would end up like this because of her. He had tried to be that example but he had failed; that didn't mean anyone else would. The Free Company, the other Scions - they had better take care of her and themselves for her. And whomever she gave her heart to next - even the notion made his chest hurt - but whomever that was, if he met them in the After before he met Yvaine, he'd beat them into the next life for letting him down.

"I love you," he called as the divide between them grew. She should never doubt that. "I'm sorry I got us into this." It wasn't her fault and she shouldn't blame herself. But he didn't know what else to say, and soon they'd have to shout to be heard. "Kick their asses for me," he finally finished, ignoring the rush of other things he would want her to do for him. Live for him. Settle down for him - enjoy the peace when it comes. Have kids. Grow old. There was so much he had wanted to experience with her, and now... but he couldn't say those things. He didn't want to make this worse than it already was.

She briefly wondered if she could do what she did that time with the horde of dragons, when they’d almost died in the Churning Mists. That time, she had been filled with anger and fear and had somehow exploded in a force unlike anything she’d seen before. But that time she had her bow.

She—the Warrior of Light—was nothing without her bow.

Forced to watch helplessly as the love of her life was taken away from her in front of her eyes with no means to get him back. Forced to accept that this might be the last goodbye, that he might die and she would never see him again.

On her wedding night.

What had she ever done to deserve this? What had he ever done? She’d saved the world a thousand times over. All she’d ever been was selfless, and this was what fate decided to give her?

That was unacceptable.

Her eyes were glued to him, memorizing every single feature of him, not daring to think it was because she was afraid of forgetting them. His one ‘bad’ eye, perpetually hidden under his stubborn bangs—suddenly she really wanted to see it. She wanted to see all of him.

She barely paid attention to the Garleans’ condescending conversation, making note to remember their names as they had so gracefully offered them, so that later she could hunt them down and kill them. When the commander said that they weren’t going to have their goodbye, she felt her world crumbling all around her. The desire to scream and throw something—anything—at his captors was overwhelming. All she wanted was to get to touch him again. To kiss him and never stop. To hold him in her arms and never let go.

He was walking away. “Khit’li!” she yelled, forcing herself to move, to follow him, managing a couple steps before her left leg gave way underneath her. “NO!”

This could not be happening again. He’d only given himself away to spare her. She saw again the flashes of everyone else’s faces and smile before they turned and walked away—Haurchefant, Minfilia, Ysayle, Papalymo—as they told her she must live, that she was the Warrior of Light, the burden she never asked for.

The accursed title.

All she was ever going to see, all she was ever going to get to have was to watch everyone walk away. To see their retreating backs as they went off to certain death, leaving her on her own.

She was always going to be alone.

Tears blurred her vision and she blinked them away frantically, not wanting to lose sight of him now when she might not be able to see him again ever. He shouted that he loved her and apologized, and she was never going to forgive him, probably, but she didn’t want that to be the last thing he remembered.

“I love you too,” she cried, her voice hoarse. “I’ll find you! I swear it, Khit’li, on my life, on Eorzea, I will not rest until I find you. I will not do anything else before we’re back together. Wait for me. Don’t give up. I won’t. Not ever.”

Her words dissolved into sobs as she fell to the cool sand, burying her face in her hands. In that moment, she made a vow that she was going to find him if it was the last thing she did. The universe owed her this. She was not going to be the Warrior of Light without him.

She was never going to love again.

Her words echoed, the promise rolling around in the night just as it did in his mind. He should have told her it was okay. That she shouldn’t do that – that it was useless, that she had other things to worry about, that coming after him would undoubtedly lead to a trap and undo everything he just did to secure her freedom, but he failed to say anything. Whether he didn’t want to take that promise away from her, or from himself, he let it float in the distance between them, the last thing that passed between them before he was unceremoniously pulled into a rowboat and he lost her silhouette to a red-and-black uniform. The grit of the shore scraped away from beneath them, the vessel rocked as the last soldier hopped in, and as the oarsmen pulled at the water and they glided away, he got his last look at the frail figure on the beach who was stronger than she would ever know.

Yvaine Aradia, the Warrior of Light, the useless Keeper who couldn’t even read a map. The woman whose heart was too big for her own good – who would help anyone and anything to the point of her own exhaustion, who went above and beyond to spare a perfect stranger’s hurt and heartache so long as it was within her power, and oftentimes even when it wasn’t. What she could and would do for people, even those she didn’t know, even when it put her life in danger, even when no one else thought it could be done… it was no wonder she was the symbol of Eorzea’s hope. But who would watch out for her now? Who was going to make sure she wasn’t being taken advantage of? Who was going to tell people off if they asked her one more time to haul packages? They would make sure she ate, right? They’d tell her when people were trying to scam her, or take care of it another way so she could continue to be so trusting, wouldn’t they? They’d make her take a break when she looked frazzled or tired, even if they had to fake being evenmoreso so she’d have to stop for their sake if not her own – and when things went wrong they’d have to know how and when to comfort her –she’d never let it go otherwise. She needed someone to be there for her – she needed someone now, right now, but no one was coming – no one even knew to be there. She shouldn’t be alone – she should never be alone –

And here he was, stuck on a godsdamned boat instead of with her. She was the best thing that had ever happened to him, the best thing he never knew he needed, the only person who had ever wanted him, and he had screwed things up so bad that not only had he let her go but in the last words between them she had promised to put herself in danger to come after him. He had never wanted to be a burden on her, and yet that bit of hope that she’d be coming for him was a lifeline he couldn’t let go of.

He didn’t want this to be their end.

And then she faded from view, lost in the blur of the shore.

The end.

Yvaine --> @yvainearadia

#ffxiv #ffxiv rp #rp #story #yvaine #khit'li

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mad-hats · 8 years ago

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A Matter of Life and Death, that’s the title of this story I’ve been working on...it’s my first legit thing so don’t hate on me.

Lei and Melody Pond pressured me into posting this ASAP last ight so it’s all I could do. But hey, I gotta say it’s some cool stuff about the universal entities, Life and Death...plus some other dudes.

I dedicate this novel to my family and friends who inspired me and helped me write this story...and to readers like you! Yes...you reading this...right now.

Prologue

Tony Torelli, unlike most people Death came accross, was satisfied with his life. He had managed to stay alive for 99 years, which was far longer than any of his uncles, aunts, or his parents had.

Tony was rather impressed with himself, considering that he had immigrated to America with nothing but his wife by his side and his ambition. After starting his own bakery with the money from selling little pastries on a cart and from Mrs. Torelli doing the neighborhood's laundry, Tony had a total of five children, who each provided two grandchildren for Mr. And Mrs. Torelli.

Death recalled meeting his wife, Abrielle Torelli in 2010, she was surprisingly rather calm considering she had just died of lung cancer with no actual knowledge of how the “Passing Procedure” functioned. Although he was never entirely sure about what lied beyond each of the doors to the afterlife, Death knew that the sweet elderly Italian woman would be heading for something pleasant. So Death felt a wave of satisfaction, knowing that Mr. and Mrs. Torelli would be united as soon as Tony Torelli finally finished groaning in pain and collapsed on his kitchen floor.

As his heart stopped beating, a wisp rose from the old man’s body and formed into his ghost. Death gave a little wave from his seat at Mr. Torelli’s kitchen table. The ghost of Tony Torelli stepped back, scared and confused, Death pondered whether Torelli was more scared by his own ghostly appearance, or by the sudden appearance of a black cloaked skeleton with a scythe against his chair. Either way, he looks like he’s seen a ghost, Death silently chuckled at his own horrible joke.

“What is this, am I dead? Are you- are you the Grim Reaper?” Torelli asked worriedly. Death stood up and brushed off his cloak, “Yes and yes, but don’t worry, most of this isn’t so bad as most think” he said in a surprisingly comforting tone.

“It works like this; I ask you a few questions about your life and if you are honest and if you meet the qualifications, you can go to the afterlife of your choosing”. Torelli nodded slowly, despite the baffled expression on his face, he seemed to understand. Huh, this one’s a strong one.

“So Mr. Torelli, how did you die?”

Tony Torelli thought for a moment, “Well it seems like I have just died of a heart attack,”

Death nodded in approval.

“That’s right, not the most noble death, but the noble ones always tend to be the most painful anyway. Moving on, do you think you were a good person?”

“Well, I suppose. I’ve never been involved in anything illegal, I tried to provide the best life I could for my family. Of course I’ve sinned, but I ask our Lord and Savior for forgiveness regularly, I try not to judge others...I’m not going to hell am I?”

Death glanced into the old man’s soul. He’s just too innocent, it’s a bit disturbing really, but as always, Death could sense that Tony definitely wasn’t lying his way to a better eternity. Death raised a finger over one of the ancient symbols carved into his scythe, it glowed white. Yep, he’s a good one.

“No Mr. Torelli, you’re a decent man, even though I’m only a gatekeeper, I’m sure that you’ll be joining your wife today”. Death swung his scythe in the air and planted it firmly on the floor, a stream mixed of shadows and light bled from the end of the scythe, the stream gathered together and created a sudden archway. Even over millions of years, Death couldn’t quite find a way to describe it, it was the most beautiful and most threatening thing Death had ever seen; an array of conflicting shadow and light, he supposed, much like that of the stream. Tony Torelli drifted towards the portal and disappeared. One down, another several hundred to go. Before he could teleport to his next destination, Death froze to a stop. Something changed, Death could feel it within the scythe, he could feel it in the air. He took a deep breath and smoothed out his cloak, regretting that he had chosen his skeleton form. Why today? “Hello old friend, it’s been awhile since we’ve spoken,” Death turned around to face Life. Of course, she was as obnoxiously radiant looking as usual. “It’s been a week, and a rather peaceful week too,” Death chided.

“Why did you have to reap Tony? A few more months and he would have been a hundred years old. One. Hundred. I don’t get to do that very often and it’s really annoying when you just come along and reap them at the last minute”.

Death sighed, “Life darling, he died of a heart attack, everyone has to die eventually, and I help make the transition easier. You don’t create children, you just open their lives to the world. Are you okay Life? Something seems to be troubling you.”

Life sighed and bit her lip. “Well, I came here to talk about far more than a possible hundred year old man...Death, we have a problem. You know our friend Noir? She’s gone missing”. Death laughed, “Well I doubt that, she’s a reaper; she’s most likely just off doing paperwork for some particularly complicated death, our jobs aren’t easy you know”. Life’s expression darkened, switching her aura of serenity to something far more sinister in a matter of seconds.

“That isn’t the case Death, you sense people dying, I sense people living; Noir is alive, but she’s oddly distant, there’s something going on that may affect more than just one of your Reapers”

“Distant, you say? Life, you know that Noir is more than just one of my helpers, she- she’s a close friend. If you truly think there is something going on, I’ll need your help investigating it”. Life nodded, and pursed her lips, “well, there’s something else too, you know how the most accurate way to connect to reapers is through blood or DNA, well since we don’t have Noir’s blood sample on hand, I’ve recently discovered, um, another possibility”.

Death twirled his scythe in anticipation, “Yes?”

“She apparently had a child with a mortal named James Mourn about twelve years ago, especially considering that the girl has inherited Noir’s abilities, she’s our best and only hope.”

Death fell silent, “she never told me that she had a kid, she never told me- never told me any of it...of course you’re right though, I’ll find the girl, you keep gathering more information,” he said quietly. Life nodded, deciding it was best to leave her friend to his thoughts as she turned to leave, “her name’s Lucy. The girl, her name is Lucy Mourn”.

Chapter One

“What if I had a death that was so tragic that my favorite bands would feel the need to come play at it? I mean that would be so cool, maybe Panic at the Disco could play “Far Too Young to Die” or something, I’ll add it to the list of stuff on my will,” Lucy Mourn cheerfully wondered out loud as her math class drew to a close. The new student sitting next to Lucy glared at her, “You’re so weird, why do you have a will already? We’re only in 7th grade, isn’t it a bit creepy?”. Lucy tilted her head and smiled as her pale green eyes widened, as if this was a questioned that she loved answering. “Why, it’s never too early to write a will, we could die any day now, at any moment at all. I don’t see why I shouldn’t be just a tad bit prepared,” she chirped. The kid next to her gradually scooted away, unnerved by Lucy’s nonchalance on the subject.

“Okay class I know that it’s winter break but that doesn’t mean you can’t study your geometry, we have a test a week after you return from break!” Mrs. Harrison desperately called out as the students gathered their backpacks and headed out the door. The new kid who had been talking to Lucy rushed away from her before the bell had even finished ringing. Lucy’s shoulders slumped as she put on her black cat-ear beanie with the little pins on them; one normal smiley face, one with x’s for eyes, and finally a little skull pin, along with a few from various bands. Another failed attempt at friendship but that’s okay, I’m just too brilliant to share my friendship with anyone.

She swung her black and pastel pink backpack over her shoulder and skipped out into the preteen-packed hallway. Lucy weaved past the packs of students scattered about the hall and left school for Winter Break, it was a shame, she tended to feel less lonely when she was at school; at home everything just turned into an abyss of time, boredom and loneliness. Outside she saw half of the kids going home by foot, or bus, and the other half being picked up by parents or relatives. She couldn’t help but feel a tinge of envy at the sight; her Father was often at work as an accountant and she had never met her Mother. Every time she tried to bring her up while talking to her Dad (which wasn’t very often), he quickly tried to change the subject. As a result, the most she had ever been told about her mother is that she was a green eyed French woman named Noir Arquette who had ran off not long after Lucy’s birth. Lucy climbed on the bus and took the only seat that had not been taken, (which was most of them, including those in which kids suddenly sprawled across the seat in a precarious position as she walked by). After Lucy finally sat down, she looked out the window on the bus as she sketched a scene of unicorns and zombies into her notebook. By the time the bus came to a stop Lucy had drawn an intricate portrait of rainbows raining over a trio of bloodthirsty unicorns trampling on zombies as the undead creatures tried to bite back at the unicorns in vain. Satisfied with the sketch, Lucy jumped off the schoolbus and skipped towards her house on Briarwood Boulevard. The house was pretty small and it was always a little cold, and the inner decor was a little too grey and unwelcoming, but it was Lucy and James Mourn’s home.

“Dad I’m home from school and it’s time to start Winter Break fun!” Lucy sang as she dropped her backpack, threw off her black jacket and striped scarf as she danced around the house. Of course there wasn’t a reply; her Dad was still at work, as always. Lucy untied the shoelaces on her bowtied boots and kicked them off as she went to the kitchen to heat up some ramen noodles from the pantry shelf that she could barely reach due to her petite height. Before she could do so, Lucy stopped and her heart lifted as she saw a little note on the kitchen counter. Dad might've left a note to apologize for not being here, that would’ve been so nice! Yet as Lucy reached for the note her heart fell straight back onto the little hole it was in a moment before. The note on the counter wasn’t written in James Mourn’s handwriting. Thanks Dad.

Dear Lucy Mourn,

I’m sorry I didn’t meet you in person today, but most humans tend to be quite frightened upon meeting me. Essentially, I am Death, you might think this is a prank from your dad, but it’s not. I can’t really prove it but if you notice that the flowers next to your kitchen sink were alive this morning and now they’re all wilted. Sorry about that. Anyway as you may or may not know, I am a friend of your mother, Noir, and I am in need of your assistance in order to help her. I’ll be seeing you tomorrow at noon.

Sincerely,

Death/Grim Reaper/Shinigami/Thanatos/etc.

P.S. You may or may not be in grave danger.

Lucy tilted her head, and couldn’t help but giggle. “I have no idea what’s going on but I also don’t know whether I should be amused or disturbed,” Lucy said to herself. Ask Dad about it later, it’s definitely not a prank, he’s not cool or weird enough for that, her mind answered back. Thanks self. Lucy made the ramen for herself and went to her room to put her earphones on full blast as she started a new sketch, this one of a vengeful little ballerina puppet strangling it’s master with it’s strings. By 6:49 Lucy heard the door unlock as her Dad came home.

“Hiya Dad! Did you see that weird note on the counter? I saw it earlier and decided to ask you about it,” she called as she skipped to the living room. James Mourn set down his briefcase and began to undo his tie as he sat on the couch. “Hey Lucy-Luz, what note are you talking about, there’s nothing here but the ramen packaging you must’ve forgotten to throw away earlier,” he sighed.

Lucy went to the kitchen counter and sure enough, the note was gone. “It was right here, a little note, it said it was written by Death, like the Grim Reaper. He was talking about my Mom, did you put it there as a joke?”

James Mourn froze, then sighed. “Look, I don’t know what you’re trying to pull here Luz, but I’ve had an exhausting day at the office and I’m not ready for your weird goth crap,” her Dad snapped in exasperation.

Lucy drew back, surprised and hurt. “First of all, I’m not lying, and that ‘weird goth crap’ is just how I am, but you wouldn’t even know that would you?,” Lucy said with all the calmness she could muster.

“Don’t sass me, Lucy, I’ve had a long day and I’ll be having another one tomorrow, just go to bed,” her Dad scolded. Lucy scoffed and drifted back to her bedroom, where she practiced smiling until the tears stopped and she changed into her skull covered pajamas. Since it was still only 7:05, Lucy decided to listen to music and watch anime for hours, and hours, until she fell asleep in a tangle of blankets and earphones.

Lucy sat alone in a dark room that resembled the old ballet studio that Lucy used to attend, despite the teacher being exasperated with the alternative dance style Lucy practiced between warm-up sessions. The teacher, Ms. Warrington was never very patient with the children she taught, and Lucy was the only one that actually excelled in the class while still being the most hated by the teacher. Eventually the teacher had an angry outburst and yelled at Lucy, causing James Mourn to take Lucy out of the class. But this wasn’t Lucy’s 4th grade ballet class. It was dark, and there weren’t any instructors or students in sight; It looked wrong. Lucy would have liked to say she was alone, but the mirrored wall with the barres against them reflected images of Lucy, except...different, she looked older, and sadder...it was all wrong. Along with the twisted reflections, there were dark shadowy figures surrounding her. It was impossible to tell how many because of the mirrors, but Lucy was surrounded. Even her reflections looked panicked, and began running towards the surfaces of the mirrors, screaming until they dissolved into black feathers. The spidery, shadowy figures didn’t seem to notice as they advanced towards her, and a little light rose from Lucy’s screaming mouth. ‘You can’t escape’, the shadows sang as their shadow fingers wrapped around her throat.

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

Lucy’s jade green eyes popped open and she gasped for breath as she sprang out of bed to turn off the alarm she had set on her phone. Since school was out for a few weeks she had set it to 10 am instead of 6 am. After a long shower Lucy changed into a black t-shirt with a pink broken heart design on the front over a pair of buckled black jeans. James Mourn had already left to go to the office that morning, leaving Lucy to do a few chores around the house. So, after consuming a small bowl of cornflakes Lucy got started on dusting the house. All the while Lucy nervously checked the clock, waiting for Death. Lucy laughed at the idea of it. She looked up at the clock in the living room. Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock.

Eventually it was noon and Lucy was still home by herself. No Death, no information about Noir. She scolded herself for being stupid enough for even considering that Death would come knocking on her door. Lucy sighed and took a moment to be jealous of those who wouldn’t have given the notion a second thought, or whose parents would’ve just given a simple “yes or no” without getting triggered and angry. She shrugged it off and finished up dusting the kitchen and began to make herself a sandwich, until she froze to a stop while passing the trash can. What if Dad had the nerve to throw away the note? Lucy flipped open the trash. There was nothing inside except the ramen packaging she had finally remembered to throw away. “Finding anything interesting in there?” a low voice asked from behind her. Lucy whirled around to see a black hooded figure standing in her living room. He was holding a tall black scythe with unfamiliar engravings lining the handle.

“You’re Death,” she whispered with a smile.

Death stepped back, taken aback by the terrifying look of delight on the young girl’s face. “Yes, that’s me, shouldn’t you be a little more, I don’t know, alarmed?”

Lucy kept smiling, “I am alarmed but I’m also pretty happy, I thought I was being crazy and stupid but now I think it’s just plain crazy, but I’m used to that part anyway”.

Death tilted his hood back, revealing a rather confused looking skull. How can he look confused while having no expressions? The world may never know! “You’re late you know, your note said you would be here by noon but now it’s 12:16, you should have said ‘approximately noon’ in your note, then it technically wouldn’t have counted as late”

Death still looked perplexed “I was busy dealing with a guy who had been murdered up in Scotland, he kept on trying to deny that he was dead and it took a surprising amount of time to convince him otherwise. You must be Noir Arquette's daughter, Lucy Mourn”.

Lucy nodded, “So upon reading your letter I wondered; if you’re friends with my Mom then do you know why she’s never been around for me?”

Death seemed to frown, “I didn’t even know you had been born until another friend told me yesterday, I didn’t know that she had abandoned you either”.

Lucy sat down to process everything for a second, “where is she now? Can I speak to her?”

“Well, you see that is exactly why I came to see you. First off, I have large group of people called reapers who help me with my duties as the Grim Reaper, after a while of serving me they develop some of my powers such as teleportation, and being able to reap the souls of the dead by themselves. So when people die, the reapers and I cooperate to open up the doors to the afterlife for them. Your mother, Noir, well she’s- she’s a friend as well as an especially powerful reaper. Yet as I said, I’ve been informed that Noir is missing, and since you have a blood connection with her-”

“I’m your only hope at finding her,” Lucy finished. Death nodded grimly, “I’m also not quite sure if you noticed, but you should have inherited some of your mother’s powers as well”.

Lucy grinned like a maniac, “I can teleport and reap the souls of the dead? I’ve always wanted to do that!”

Death tilted his head, “somehow don’t think that was sarcasm...anyway are you going to help me or not?”

Lucy looked down at the pink little bows on her boots, I’m gonna help my Mom, then I’m gonna give her a little wrapped up box of hell. Lucy reconsidered the offer one last time. “Yep, that sounds like a plan”. Death raised his scythe and slammed the bottom of it towards the ground, suddenly the world erupted into shadows. When light returned, they were standing in a large, dim study with leather bound books lining the walls. Lucy staggered, “Did we. Just. Teleport?”

Death nodded and chuckled, “you must be Noir’s kid considering that you haven’t vomited on my new robes yet”.

“Ha, but um, I forgot my jacket though can we go back for a sec?”

After teleporting back in order to get Lucy her jacket, gloves, and phone, Death teleported them back to his ‘house’, which really seemed more like one of those cool gloomy castles that served as a secret lair for villains in movies. Lucy sat down at the study’s sofa as Death poured some tea.

“So do your deathlings live here too?”

“First of all they’re called reapers, never call them deathlings again, and yes, some of my most trusted reapers live here”.

“Does that include my mom?”

Death paused, “yes, Noir normally lives in the northern wing over there,” he said, pointing towards the staircase down the hall. Lucy laughed bitterly, “I’m in my mom’s house, I’ve been standing where she stood, it’s just so weird”. Death finished pouring the tea, “I um, I understand that this isn’t easy for you,so would you like some feel-better madeline's to go with you tea?” Lucy bit back a laugh. The Grim Reaper eats little pastries with his tea? “Hey, hey stop laughing at my madeleines, I get enough of that from your mother and Life”. Lucy stopped laughing and thought for a second before gaping, “Life? Is- is life a person too?”

“Technically she’s more of a magical entity sorta thing like myself, she’s the friend who informed me that Noir was missing, and of your existence. You know since she like senses people’s lives and things, she should be joining us in a few moments now”. Lucy opened her mouth to say more-

“HELLO DARKNESS MY OLD FRIEND!” a feminine voice sang from the other room.

“Damn it Life, I’ve been telling you to stop doing that since the 1960’s, can’t you just say hello like a normal person?”

The door to the study swung open for a beautiful woman in a long white and cream dress. Her skin was a radiant shade of caramel and her blondish hair was pinned up so that only one wave of curls hung by the side of her head. Yet it was her eyes that intrigued Lucy, at first she thought they were dark brown, but they were frequently shifting to a moonlight shade of pale gold; like some brilliant array of shadow and light. “Why, I’m just making a fun first impression, Death, and look at little Lucy here, she looks- wow she looks just like Noir doesn’t she?”

“Hmm, that’s an exaggeration, she just has Noirs’ face shape and eyes. Oh, and don’t get too enthralled by Life, Lucy; she’s crueler than she looks”. Life’s radiant eyes dazzled as she flipped her curls as a wicked smirk spread on her face. “You always have to spoil the fun”. Death laughed, “well someone had to warn the child, didn’t they? Come now Life, join us for tea and madeleines”.

“Pfft, you and your little tea cakes-”

“Shut up,” Death said as he poured another cup of tea for Life. “So, Lucy how do you like your tea?”

“Sugary and creamy”Lucy chirped, still watching the way Life almost seemed to glow and bring light to the dim study. “Ugh you monster, oh well, some cream and sugar for Lucy, and I know that Life likes her tea with honey and lemon”. Life produced a lemon out of thin air and squirted a bit into her cup of tea. Lucy opened her mouth to speak. “No puns please, the ‘life gives you lemons’ jokes get really, really old” Death said quickly. “Come now Death, the only thing that gets old around here is your weird skeleton aesthetic, I mean it’s just overly dramatic in my opinion” Life said with a mischievous grin as she sipped her tea. Lucy watched in awe as Death grudgingly shifted from a cloaked skeleton to a dark haired man in a black suit. Death muttered something about aesthetic as he took a sip from his cup. “You guys can shapeshift? Can the reapers and I shapeshift too?”

“Not in a thousand years, literally, we haven’t seen anyone do that by themselves in a little less than a thousand years.

“Oh well, I kinda expected that.”

“You might learn someday, your mom did it once”

“A thousand years ago?”

“She wasn't human; when someone becomes a reaper, they are immortal”

“So, she was born in medieval times?”

Death nodded, “I think she was in her early twenties at the time, just beginning as a reaper. A wicked man with a strong soul had died, and he wasn’t very happy about it. After becoming a ghost he drifted off to haunt an enemy of his by driving him mad and chasing him off a cliff. Noir distracted the ghost at the last minute and reaped him. Yet while doing so she ended up falling off that cliff, as I ran to help I saw your mother vanish into thin air, and a crow flew in her place. The crow flew up to me and suddenly transformed into Noir, who if I recall had been grinning like a maniac the whole time. That’s the last actual shape shifting I’ve seen from a reaper”. A thousand thoughts and emotions filled Lucy’s mind. Her heroism would’ve ended her, perhaps she’s gone missing for similar reasons. “Well, that’s the last time a reaper has shapeshifted, but I had a kindler who shapeshifted into a cat around three years ago, yet I always thought he seemed more like a dog person,” Life said, changing the topic.

“What are kindlers?”

“Death has his reapers, I have my kindlers, they go around, sparking life into pregnant mothers”.

“Doesn’t that mean that a kindler had to spark life into my Mom, a reaper?”

Life nodded, “Yes, it does seem a bit odd, I’ve been looking for the kindler that sparked you into existence since yesterday. Despite being easier said than done, I found her this morning, she’s the same kindler that sparked your mother, a few other reapers, and even a few of her fellow kindlers, so I thought that we could pay her a visit to ask about Noir’s absence”.

“Good plan,” Death said in agreement as Lucy looked down at her tea in confusion. She found it pretty unnerving that they would be meeting the person who practically gave life to both herself and her mother along with countless others just as part of her daily routine. The thought actually seemed put her off her tea. Death saw her reaction and snickered, “oh Miss Mourn, if you think this is strange already then you’re in for quite a ride”.

Chapter Two

Once they were finished, Death waved a hand over the tea set and it vanished into darkness. “Shall we then?” Life asked as she twirled out of the living chair she had been sitting in and strutted out of the room.

“Oh, she meant now? Like- we’re going right now?” Lucy asked. Death sighed and straightened his tie as he rose from his chair, following his lively friend out of the study. The hallway outside had a similar, stylishly gothic style as the study. Lucy took note of the picture frames on the walls, most filled with people whom Lucy assumed were various reapers. She paused before a portrait of a green eyed woman with high cheekbones and long black hair. Despite having a smile on her face, the woman had a very brooding, shadowy look to her. Lucy understood what Life had said about there being a strong resemblance between her and her Mother. With a little smile, she joined Life and Death at the foot of a staircase. “Life, you do realize that we could just teleport to your kindler’s house right now?”

“Yes but your study looks gloomy and just a little bit sad, it’s nicer in this hallway, you need to put flowers in there or something”.

“I always end up killing flowers after trying to water them. You know this, you’ve seen it happen many times”.

“Yes but I like to encourage you to do otherwise because you look like a depressed kitten every time you fail at gardening”.

“That’s insulting and it doesn’t even make sense…”Death muttered while blush spread across his face.

Life shushed him as a gold staff appeared from her hand and the world disappeared into glimmering light. A second later they stood in what appeared to be in the kitchen of a luxury apartment with a view of the busy streets of New York City. “Amy are you home? Me, Death, and Noir Arquette’s kid are here, we want to talk to you”. The only response was silence. “Let me rephrase that, Ambrosia Galanis you better get out here, ‘cause it’s a matter of Life and Death and I will personally release my wrath against you”. There was some shuffling heard from the other room and a woman rushed in. She was tall with curly brown hair and tanned skin, despite having a gleam in her eyes that Lucy normally would have found a little intimidating, the effect was ruined by the terrified expression on the Ambrosia’s face. “Guys, I didn’t know anything about Noir’s disappearance, I just heard about it yesterday, I’m sorry but I can’t help you”.

“Well you seem a little worrisome considering that you know nothing,” Life noted with a skeptical glare as her staff began to glow as her eyes darkened.

“No I’m telling the truth! Well, I felt her grow distant, you know? I thought it was nothing at first but after a while I got worried…” she trailed off with a look of terror in her eyes as she backed away from the dangerous glares coming from Life and Death. Lucy looked at Ambrosia, who was practically cowering in front of her. So this is who sparked my existence? Her patience was growing thinner by the second. “Listen up, I don’t care how much these two scare you. If you know anything about what happened to my Mom you might as well spit it out right now instead of sitting here like a pathetic bundle of fear,” Lucy growled as she stepped forward from Death’s side. If anything, this somehow seemed to frighten her more than Life did. She mustered a smile as she looked down at Lucy’s green eyed stare. “Look how you’ve grown up, you remind me of Noir”

“So I’ve been told. Information. Now.”

Ambrosia’s smile faded, “look, I last saw her the other day reaping a suicide after sparking someone a few minutes before. Of course, I stopped and said hi to her, apparently she was going to meet up with the Balthazar Jones so she was in a bit of a hurry. But I’m sure that Balthazar had nothing to do with the disappearance; he wouldn’t do anything like that I’m sure”. Death shifted his jaw, “Balthazar is one of my strongest reapers; if he was responsible for this, I’ll impale him with my scythe,” he growled, gripping his scythe tightly enough for Lucy to see the whites of his knuckles. “Thank you for your reluctant cooperation, Ambrosia. But I’ll keep a careful eye on you considering just how willing you were to hold back information from me,” Life said to Ambrosia, who had a look of relief on her face before it was filled with shame once more.

“Of course,my Lady, I promise to keep in touch if I learn anything”. Life gave a nod of approval, and with a wave of Death’s scythe, the room disappeared into darkness. Lucy blinked and staggered into what appeared to be an empty store. ”You know what Mr. Death I think I would like a warning next time we teleport, what are we going to do now anyway, where are we?”

Death sighed “well since Life’s almost-traitor didn’t have an answer to whatever happened to Noir, I suppose I’ll have to go beat it out of Balthazar”. Life shifted her jaw, “it’s not my fault that Ambrosia was tight lipped about the subject, she’s been loyal to me since ancient times, I won’t punish her too much for her weird thing for Balthazar.”

“She’s been around since ancient times?”

“Yes, she’s one of my oldest followers, yet I thought she would’ve at least developed some better tastes in men over time”. Death laughed, “Well, I won’t judge people’s interests, Balthazar isn’t so bad as he seems; of course, that was before I knew he was involved in all of this”. Lucy was curious about this Balthazar Jones now, she looked around again, “Oookay but you still haven’t told me why we’re in a store, that doesn’t have any items, or employees, or anything?” Life and Death looked around, as if they were just noticing this. Death didn’t have an emotionless skull to hide his annoyance, “this was a shop for dress clothes a few weeks ago, wasn’t it Life?”

“It had a sign saying that it was clearing out in two weeks, Death”

“Oh,” he said looking disappointed, “very well, we’re in a mall in Seattle, Balthazar hangs out here most of the time, let’s go,” Death proceeded out of the shop and into the busy shopping mall as Life turned to Lucy and murmured,

”he truly is horrible at remembering dates like this, I keep telling him to put little reminders on his fridge but he’s impossibly stubborn”.

“Isn’t anyone in the shopping mall going to question seeing a man and woman holding scythes and staffs?”

“Ha, nope, we go completely unnoticed by mortals, unless we want them to see us”.

Sure enough no one questioned Death, who was twirling his scythe like a cane, or radiant Life, who was strutting through the shoppers without receiving a single glance, not even from the group of guys who were snickering at a display in a lingerie shop. They went unnoticed by everybody, all except one.

Sitting by the edge of a fountain, a messy haired man in a leather jacket was giving the trio an impish grin. As Lucy drew near she saw that the curtains of mousy untamed hair were hiding a long scar that ran from the bridge of his nose to his cheekbone, despite his grungy appearance, he still had a somewhat handsome face. “Hey Mister Grim, it’s been a while! This isn’t about that time I used my scythe to open that door even though it turned out that the door wasn’t stuck, just a ‘pull to open’ door I was trying to push?”

Death looked befuddled as he processed that question. “No, um, we might talk about that later but that’s not why I came here. But I think you know that, Balthazar.”

Balthazar Jones went pale as Death looked him in the eyes. He pushed a lock of matted hair back and stared at the floor, “I know what it might look like, but I just wanted to warn her. I knew what was going to happen and I told her to prepare herself, is...is she okay?”

Life’s staff began to glow and spark in an violet manner, as if it was ready to explode. Death looked eerily calm for a second before he swung his scythe at Balthazar and stopped the blade as it was only an inch away from his throat. Life put a hand on Death’s shoulder, “Come on Death, you don’t want to kill him, you want to keep him alive so he can suffer.”

Death ignored this comment and kept his dark eyed gaze fixed on Balthazar.

“Zar, I know that you’re actually a good guy, but if you don’t tell me the whole story people are about to be quite startled by such a sudden decapitation,”

Balthazar Jones whimpered, “really man? I thought this whole threatening stuff was more of Lady Life’s sorta thing. B-but yeah, I understand. I knew that they were going to set her up. That’s why I’d wanted to talk to Noir, to warn her. She just wouldn’t listen she said that if they wanted her she would go to them and start a fight”. Lucy summed up her courage and slowly moved Death’s scythe away from Balthazar’s throat, thankfully he didn’t put up much of a fight.

“Who took her? Tell me what happened to my Mom.”

Balthazar took a deep breath, “Death and Life have lost reapers and kindlers in the past, sometimes they themselves are reaped, other times, they just disappeared. They overused their magic, or got caught in a barrier, so they left without Death’s guidance; we always assumed that they died or just erased from existence” he breathed shakingly.

“We were wrong. They- they transformed”.

Life scoffed as her staff’s glow began to go out of control as it burned white hot, “they transformed into what? Into dust? Don’t chide about lost kindlers and reapers, Jones, or you might just join them.”

Balthazar swallowed. “I’m not kidding, or chiding- whatever this isn’t a joke! Reapers and kindlers, we’re immortal, magical even, but deep down we’re still human, these things, I don’t even know what they’ve become. I saw them, among them I saw Chetan Malhotra, he was a friend and fellow reaper, until he disappeared a hundred years ago. He was different when I saw him, a monster, his appearance and even his...mentality was unrecognizable. Like a monster, with..all these shadows, not like Death’s, these ones were just...wrong.”

Lucy recalled her nightmare from the previous night and shuddered. It was all wrong.

Yet Life arched an eyebrow, unconvinced. Death looked as if he was ready to swing his scythe right back at Balthazar’s head.

“Just how do you even know this, how did you know what would happen to Noir?”

“Well you see, that’s where it get’s weird. It um, it kinda came to me in a dream”.

Lucy stared, unblinking. “You expect me to find my Mom based off of some dream? I had a dream that Cthulhu became a ballerina against his parent’s wishes and that hasn’t happened yet...at least I don’t think it has-”

“What Miss Mourn is trying to say is that you’re an idiot when you’re awake and I think your brain turns into solid rock when you sleep.”

Life smirked at this comment while Balthazar looked a bit hurt. “Yo that’s a bit harsh, Mr. Grim.”

“My point is that you seem pretty unreliable at the moment”.

Balthazar’s voice wavered, “That’s what Arquette thought before she was set up. She didn’t believe me but I had a dream, no, a nightmare where they surrounded me, one second they were the kindlers and reapers who I used to know and the next they showed themselves as what they’d become. They want a world without Life or Death, they want the rest of the kindlers and reapers to join them, First they tried to make me become like them, they told me to open up a barrier and fall through it and I would be like them, I could kill whoever I wanted without consequence, I would never have to die, I wouldn’t have to struggle through life; I would just join them in their sick version of peace. When I said no to them, the dream shifted. I saw a cage with a little light inside it, a little bird, a crow I think, flew towards the light, when suddenly the others, their arms sprouted from the bars of the cage and dragged the bird in, when it entered the cage it turned into Noir”.

Lucy’s mouth went dry as she looked up at Death. “My Mom turned into a crow once,” she uttered, but she was thinking so much more. A little light. Death nodded grimly, “Indeed, okay Zar, this um...this seems like a pretty legitimate dream, do you know where they are right now?”. Balthazar shook his head, “I’m sorry man, I know that Arquette was-”

“It’s okay Balthazar, you’ve told us all you could, I’ll keep in touch with you. Unfortunately people are starting to stare at you and Lucy talking to yourselves right now so we’ll have to get going”. And so he promptly turned and walked away. “I’ll see you later, Jones,” Life said before running after Death. Lucy thought over everything that Balthazar had said about his dream.

‘Lucy Luz’. L u c y L i g h t.

In my dream I breathed a light while being strangled by shadows.

“Well that’s interesting,” she said aloud. Lucy had caught up with Life, “What’s interesting, that Balthazar Jones just happened to have a dream that explained what could be going on right now while also bringing up an issue to distract us from Noir?” she asked sarcastically.

“Um, nope. That’s not what I found interesting. What I did find interesting is that a light was in a cage, my Dad’s only nickname for me is Lucy Luz, my Grandma was hispanic so she taught him spanish while he was growing up, apparently ‘luz’ means ‘light’ in spanish. Plus I had this nightmare the other day where a light came out of my mouth. Isn’t it a little more than weird that my Mom just happened to be flying towards a light?” she asked quietly. Life furrowed her brow, “that is rather interesting”. When they caught up with Death, he was waiting for them in front of a coffee shop. “Lucy, this seems to have grown to be a far more dangerous problem than I had anticipated, I think you might have to begin a career as a reaper”.

Chapter Three

“I’m sorry what now?”

Lucy asked as her cat eared hat nearly flew off as she skidded to a halt. Life appeared just as startled as Lucy did. “Um, Death? You’re my oldest friend, my business partner, and as much as I hate to admit it, you’re a bit of a genius too. But I don’t know where you’re going with this. I’m not sure if you know this, but Lucy is only twelve years old, she’s a child. You can’t force her into this!”

“Life darling, I’m not forcing the girl into this, it’s just a suggestion! With danger on the rise she’s going to need to tap into her powers to defend herself!” he snapped back. “Don’t ‘Life darling’ me!”

Lucy ran the words over in her mind as Life and Death’s argument blurred out into the background. That was until their argument got loud enough to make it hard to block it out. Lucy took a deep breath and looked up. “SHUT UP!” she shrieked. Life, Death, and a few shoppers stopped and looked at Lucy, who had now fallen silent.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to be that loud,” she added, lowering her voice,”anyway I accept your offer, I think I should be able to have some magic on hand and I would love to help you with your work”. Death had a brief look of satisfaction as Life glared at him with eyes like golden daggers. She didn’t look convinced.

“Lucy, this business is not a game, you’ll grow up, but after that you won’t age unless you choose to eventually retire, but I have seen that humans find immortality addictive. You can see your home, your friends, family, everything you know may grow old and perish, you may even be the ones to take them to the afterlife. I’ve seen immortals get torn apart by this, yet they still feel the need to live forever. I don’t want you to get drawn into this unless you truly want to”. Lucy pursed her lips, “well, I don’t have any friends and I barely have any family so I guess I might as well do something cool like reaping the souls of the dead,” she said decidedly. Death gave Life an ‘I told you so’ look of smugness as she stared in puzzlement. “Are you sure you don’t have any friends? Not even a crush or good acquaintance, you seem like a likeable girl”.

Lucy lit up, “Wowee, do you really mean it? Plenty of adults say that and regret it later but I think you really mean it! Actually the sad part is that I think you guys are the closest thing I have to friends. Huh, that’s depressing when I say it out loud”.

While Life smiled awkwardly, Death’s face softened in pity as he smiled, “if you truly feel ready, then let’s go get you a scythe”.

“So this scythe is mine? You’re actually giving a magic, fully functioning blade to me, a child? That. Is. Awesome!” After teleporting back to Death’s house, he had led her back to his study and held out his hands, producing a small, ebony handled scythe with ornate carvings and a smooth, curved blade. “What kind of metal is it?”

“Honestly I just call it death metal.”

“Like, the music genre?”

“Yeah…I think one of my ex reapers coined the term for the music genre to annoy me…just put your hands on the handle.”

“Oh, okay.”

It was more like a mini-scythe, smaller than a baseball bat, but it still had odd aura of power around it. Lucy placed her hands on the scythe, it felt right in her hands, like it had been a missing part of her before. “Don’t get too excited Lucy, you still need to agree to the terms and conditions,” Life said from her seat at the reading chair, engrossed in a book. Death rolled his eyes amusedly and turned his gaze back to Lucy.

“Lucia Nicolette Mourn, do you swear to obey the laws of Death?”

“Yes, but I’ll like to hear the laws and how the heck do you know my full name? That’s a bit creepy.”

“Just shut up and continue the ancient ritual.”

“Did you name the laws after yourself?”

Death ignored her and continued. “Do you swear to send the departed souls to their rightful place, to be unbiased as you open the various doors to the afterlife?”

“I do”

“Do you swear not to use the power of the scythe for greed, and with the exception of my permission, to use it only to transition the deceased?”

“I do”

“Do you swear to remain loyal to me and to Life for the rest of your immortality?”

“I do”

“Then do you accept all the duties of being a reaper?”

“Yaaaaasss!”

Life bit back a giggle as Death facepalmed, hiding his half-smile.

“A bit of an untraditional response but okay. Lucy Mourn, you are now a reaper”.

Lucy released a shriek of maniacal laughter as she did a violent little victory dance that caused Death to step back nervously. “Can I have my scythe now?”

“I’m seriously regretting this decision,” he said as he set the scythe in her hands. “Wait a minute I have something else too,” he said as he stood up and reached into the desk behind him, pulling out a leather container. “You can switch down the blade of the scythe- no not like that you’ll slice your hand off-that’s it-okay now you have it, anyway after switching it down it can fit in this case which you can wear on your back, almost like a quiver”. Lucy put her scythe in the case and slung it over her back, “sweet, but what if someone asks what’s inside?”

“There’s a symbol by the opening flap-there you go, now mortals can’t see it.”

“Couldn’t it just be a button, why is it a fancy little symbol?”

“That’s what I suggested,” Life interjected from her reading chair.

“Magic symbols look cooler, plus the magic used to place the symbol is a lot easier than having to manufacture a button on them.”

“That’s a good point,” Life agreed with a frown as she put down her book. Lucy reached back in her case and pulled out the scythe. “So how do I use this? It doesn’t seem long enough to plant into the ground like Death does it”. Life laughed, “he does that for aesthetic and style, it actually doesn’t need to be that dramatic.”

“You do the exact same thing.”

“I can have style and aesthetic too.”

“Aside from style and aesthetic, all you need to do to activate it is will it to do as you ask, sometimes planting it into the ground or doing a sort of pose is the thing that helps you bring out your own power, like the old quote from Galileo Galilei, ‘You cannot teach a man anything; he must find it within himself’. Basically it’s your scythe, you can figure out how to use it,” Death explained.

“When do I start?”

“Tomorrow, approximately 11 am, it’s getting late, I think your father may be getting off work soon,” Lucy checked the time on her phone, of course Death was right, it was 6:20, James Mourn would be home soon enough.

Lucy Mourn took a shower and changed into her pink nightgown. Upon being teleported back home, which now looked even more mundane than it had before It’s been one hell of a day, now I’m one of Death’s reapers on a mission to save my Mom. Lucy began to process how eerily calm she was about the matter. A matter of Life and Death? She giggled and skipped to her room, where she took out the scythe out of her case and ran a finger down the carvings on the handle, my new favorite toy. “Lucy Luz, I’m back from work”. Lucy sighed, shoved the scythe back into it’s case and placed a finger over the symbol by the opening a second before her Father walked in and adjusted his glasses, “I wanted to apologize for how harsh I was yesterday, I understand now that you were acting out because you just wanted to talk,”

“Sure Dad, because my weird changing body and my weird changing mind are rendering me incapable of starting a conversation like any other human being”.

“That’s a bit much but yeah, that’s what I gathered from it”, he responded, apparently ignorant to the overpowering sarcasm in her voice. “Anyway I thought that I could make dinner tonight, does spaghetti sound good?”

Lucy sighed again, at least her Dad got something right. “Yes, spaghetti’s good.”

“Maybe after dinner we can,um, talk? About stuff?”

“Sure, Dad, I need to- um study some maths. We have a test after break.”

“Oh, okay Luz,” he said after going to start dinner.

It was moments like this where her Dad seemed to try, and that’s what mattered. She wished she could tell him about everything that had happened that day. She wanted to see his face when he learned what her Mother had been up to for the last twelve years. The mother of your child reaps the souls of the dead for a living. Lucy giggled, she wouldn’t tell him yet, she would wait to tell him after finding her Mom so that they could all tell the story together.

Like a normal family.

The thought of it put a smile on Lucy’s face. She pulled out her sketchbook and started dragging a pencil across one of the empty pages. By the time she was finished she was looking at a cartoonish sketch of Death, Life, herself, and her parents. She had remembered her mother’s face from the photograph she had seen earlier, Death wasn’t too hard to sketch, in fact Lucy had drawn Grim Reaper-looking figures before, so the only difference was that instead of posing in a surreal manner, he was simply having a cup of tea. It was hard for her to capture Life’s supernatural beauty on the page, but she had managed to draw an alluring woman with Life’s same features and style, which was close enough. Then she drew James Mourn, sitting down and listening intently as Lucy held her new scythe and talked to him. She drew the picture as something to work for, no matter what sort of trials she was going to end up facing, the sketch would be a promise. A promise that Lucy was determined to keep with all of her being.

“Dinner’s ready!” her Dad shouted from the kitchen.

“I’m coming,” Lucy replied as she hastily put away her sketchbook and skipped over to the dining room to set the table for two.

“So Lucy, what did you do today?” James Mourn asked once they were seated.

Lucy froze for second, afraid she would spit out her drink.

“Stuff. I did stuff. I did the chores I needed to do, um…”

It was never this hard for Lucy to think of normal thing to do before then. “TV, I read TV, watched books, y’know...things”.

“Um..cool, that’s cool. I did stuff too. Not that kind of stuff of course, I was doing paperwork and things all day.”

There was a minute or so of awkward silence. “I gather that you wanted to talk about your Mom the other day, you were wondering if she’s dead?”

Given the recent information from Balthazar Jones, Lucy was starting to wonder that. “Well, I guess, we don’t talk about her often, and sometimes I wish that I knew more about where I came from”. And I did receive a load of that so I can’t complain much.

“Well then, if you really want to know more about her, we met while I was in college. I was a student at Cambridge University and I was trying to take the bus to school that morning but since there was such a horrible car accident, there was enough traffic that I decided that it would probably be faster if I just walked the rest of the way instead.”

Lucy put quite a bit of effort into keeping a straight face as she was beginning to grasp that her Dad had likely interrupted her Mom in the middle of a reaper work shift.

“As I got off and started walking I saw her walking away from the area where the accident was. I figured it must have been pretty bad if the accident had delayed the traffic for such a long time so I went up to her and asked if she knew if the drivers were okay. I remember her taking off her sunglasses and I panicked for a second because I realized I had just spoken to such a pretty woman. She looked oddly calm as she was telling me that they’d died. It seems a bit sick to fall in love with someone as they talked about dead people, but I did so anyway, I think it was the French accent.”

Lucy put her fork down.

“Please tell me you didn’t make plans for coffee after several people had just died, that’s just a tiny bit too weird.”

“Of course not, I asked if the crosswalk where I needed to get off to the University was blocked and well, it was, getting rid of my plans for the day. I don’t think she had much else to do either, given that she had started a conversation, asking if I was a student and such, so a few moments later I knew that her name was Noir Arquette, it seemed like a fitting name, she had a dark sort of look to her in a way, as if she was constantly mourning, maybe that’s why she started dating me after I saw her again and we talked few days later. It seemed to be a second chance for me to ask her out, so I did. She didn’t like to talk about her family, saying that they had died long before then, but she said that she worked at a morgue, making the irony of all of it even sweeter.”

You don’t even know the scale of the irony here.

“We fell deeper in love over time, and over a year later she found that she was pregnant with you. Even though we weren’t married, everything went smoothly for a while, Grandma and Grandpa were supportive of us and we were happy. And when you were born everything was complete for a while, I’d never seen your mother smile quite so brightly after seeing you for the first time, and that’s saying a lot because she was always smiling, a lot like you do. But one day I woke up and she was gone, there was a note that said that she was sorry and she hoped to see us again, but that was it, half of her belongings were still there but she was gone. After thinking it over I realized she had a few friends she had said were back in France. There was a guy named Mort who she had been friends with. She said they were friends, and that guy Mort worked with another friend named Liv, I just assumed they were a couple, but your Mom didn’t talk about them too often. In the end, she could’ve ran away with Mort, or maybe she just wasn’t ready to have a child. Either way, she was gone”.

Lucy looked down at what was left of her spaghetti, she didn’t know what to say. Hey Dad, Mort and Liv are actually Death and Life, and they’re all just good pals that deal with dead people and living people as their job? She figured that probably wouldn’t go over well. “You’ll know the whole story eventually Dad, I know it”. James Mourn looked up, suddenly looking older and more worn than before.

“If you say so Lucy Luz...but um, I hope dinner wasn’t too poisonous, and I have to go do the dishes”. Lucy gave a reassuring smile to her Father and went back to her room. She was determined to have a conversation with her Mother when she found her, and she was eager to have a talk with Death the next day.

By the time she woke up the next morning, Lucy’s Dad had left for work and she had started getting ready for her training with Death. By 11:24 Lucy had been waiting for a little while and Death appeared in a shroud of black smoke that had disappeared as soon as it had materialized.

“Good morning Lucy, are you ready for our training session?”

“Yep, right after you tell me why my Mom wasn’t able to stay with me when I was a baby.”

“I’m sorry what?”

“My Dad said that before leaving she had left a note saying that she had to go. Why couldn’t she have stayed?”

“Well, there’s no reason she wouldn’t have been allowed to, I have plenty of reapers with mortal spouses and families, heck I have reapers whose entire families work with me and Life. She could have simply told me that she had a family instead of running of to ‘work’ or hiding away all the time. I’m sorry Lucy but I don’t know why she would’ve left you,” he said with a touch of bitterness on the subject. Lucy nodded in understanding as she picked her scythe case off of the chair she was sitting in and pulled it over her shoulder.

“Well then, I guess I’m ready to do some training.”

Death gave an odd skeletal look of approval before slamming his scythe into the ground and teleporting them to a sidewalk in a busy city with plenty of tall buildings looming over their heads. “Where are we?”

“Seoul, South Korea, and if my scythe is correct, as it always is, we’re about to see someone die”.

Chapter Four

“You can’t just say that someone’s about to die and then start walking down the street! It’s not very polite for anyone as confused as myself.”

“We’re about to reap a soul, it’s a rather major part of the job.”

“So we’re reaping a soul in Seoul?”

“Was that pun really necessary?”

“Yep.”

Death tilted his skull in a way that suggested that he was rolling his eyes. “Seoul has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, so one of these buildings is more than likely going to have someone fall down the side of it in three....two...one…”

A screech rang out and before any of the surrounding people could process what had happened, a woman was lying face down on the pavement.

“Holy- you’re right, there’s a dead person!” “Is it really? I would never have known,” he said with his words dripping in sarcasm.

“Well, Jesus I’ve never seen someone’s death before, oh my god shouldn’t we do something? I feel like I should be much more disturbed than I am right now,why am I so calm about this?”

“Everyone is calling the police, the hospital, etc. But it doesn’t change the fact that she’s dead...- come on Lucy don’t look at me like that- watch this”. Lucy watched as a wisp rose from the woman’s grotesquely sprawled body and transformed into a ghost. The woman’s ghost rose, with a petrified look on her face as she saw medics take away her body, then her gaze shifted over to Lucy and Death. She began frantically speaking in Korean, looking like she was about to cry.

“Don’t worry Gi, I’ll be here to make sure you’ll get to your afterlife, you can’t change anything now”.

Lucy was confused. After thinking for a moment, she realized that it was only reasonable that Death should be able to understand every language, everyone (no matter what country they lived in) died eventually. Death seemed to notice Lucy’s puzzlement as he placed a cold, skeletal hand on Lucy’s shoulder. Suddenly the ghostly woman’s words became clear.

“I was just getting so tired of living and now, here I am! But now I can’t believe I’m dead, I’m regretting it a little actually...it’s too late now though, isn’t it?” she asked Death with translucent tears in her eyes.

“I’m afraid so, Miss Gi. But everything should be alright after I ask you a few questions, with my assistant,Lucy Mourn, here to help,” he explained, gesturing towards Lucy, who gave an awkward little wave.

And for the magician’s final act, assisted by the lovely Lucy Mourn, he takes a suicide victim to the afterlife!*applause*

Death pulled a small, leather bound booklet out of a pocket in his robe and handed it to Lucy, “go to page 3 and read the questions,” he murmured under his breath.

Lucy fumbled with the packet and found page 3, much to the confusion of the ghost woman, Gi. Lucy bit her lip as she looked down at the paper and saw a series of questions written.

How did the deceased die?

“So um, Gi, this is a stupid question but how did you die?”

Gi pushed back a ghosty strand of hair, “Young girl, did you not see me just jumping off of a building?”

“Yes. Yes you did.”

She looked down at the second question.

Did the deceased find themselves to be just of heart?

“Do um, this is really weird, do you think you’re ‘just of heart’?”

Gi tilted her head and furrowed her brow.

“Um,” Death interjected, “she just means if you think you’re a good person.”

Gi’s expression softened. “No, I’m useless and I don’t fit into society, that’s why I left.”

Lucy looked at Death for help.

“But if you looked at the world in a different light, and if society didn’t break you, then how would you see yourself?”Death asked softly.

Gi looked down, “if I was able to fix everything, if I could find a purpose, then I would be good, looking back, I wish I could have talked to my family. My aunt might miss me. I feel bad about it now.”

Lucy’s scythe began to give of a bizarre, gentle vibrating feeling. She looked down and saw that one of the sigils along the sides seemed to glow white-ish. “You’ll see her again, sooner than it may seem,” Death assured her.

“Now Lucy, this is when you open the door to the afterlife.”

“What.”

“You can do it, trust your scythe.”

“What.”

Lucy bit her lip and gripped her scythe tighter. What if she thought of it less as an object? It felt like a part of her, but what if it was a part of her? Then all she would need to do is make a simple cut with the blade, cut open the door. Lucy thrust out her scythe and cried out as a bright yet shadowy sort of stream shot out of the blade and formed itself into an archway. Holy crap that worked.

“That was faster than I expected,especially considering that it’s her first day on the job,” Death explained to Gi, who for a second seemed to be regretting her decision to die. Yet within a moment she drifted towards the archway and it all vanished.

Lucy staggered and took a deep breath, “so this is what you do?”

“Yes, this is what I do, and you’ve completed your first training session.”

“It’s pretty cool, I hope she went to heaven, or...whatever...what happens afterward anyway?”

“Hell if I know, why would the doorman know what happens at the party?”

“That’s a good analogy. But is the afterlife-opening always so dramatic?”

“No, it actually looks a pretty choppy and anticlimactic the first few times, but at least now you have the main idea of it. I’m actually quite amazed, I was certain that I would need to help you at some point.”

Lucy smiled smugly “I’m special.”

“Well, yes...yes, it would seem so.”

“I’m the chosen one.”

“That sounds stupid.”

“Nope I’m the chosen one”.

Death sighed, “now that you’ve activated the scythe, it should notify you when there’s a death you can take care of.”

“But people die every second,”

“Yes but I have quite a few reapers working for me, so the worst case scenario is that a ghost ends up haunting something for a short period of time but it’s nothing that can’t get cleaned up later.” In a whirlwind of darkness, they arrived in Death’s study, where Life was putting some yellow flowers in a silver, skull shaped vase on the ebony desk.

“Does she um, live here?” Lucy wondered aloud. Death chuckled.

“It seems like that sometimes, but no, she kind of leaves for a while then shows up to annoy me again, a bit like weeds. Life darling, did you teleport in here without my permission again?”

Life stopped fussing with the flowers and rolled her eyes.

“It would be nice if you stopped assuming that, Your reaper Mei Katayama opened the door for me.”

“Isn’t she supposed to be in Japan?”

“She’s down in the Halls of the Departed, doing paperwork, apparently six men shot each other at the exact same time so she’s trying to file who killed who.”

“Poor girl, I’ll have to give her a pay raise for this month,” Death sympathized.

“What are the Halls of the Departed?”

The yellow flowers went into full bloom as Life gave them one last touch, “it’s basically where Death keep files on all dead people in history. Halls of the Departed just sounds nice and intimidating. My place has the Halls of the Living, which is essentially the same thing but with files on all living people,” Life explained.

“Actually, I was just about to take Lucy by there to the Location Center to further our search for Noir,” Death said.

Lucy raised an eyebrow, “I assume that the Location Center is for locating people?”

“Exactly, I can locate all of the reapers from there,” Death responded as he took a black box from his desk and left the room, black cloak flowing behind him. “I’ve never understood the skeleton aesthetic,” Life muttered as she and Lucy followed him as he continued down the hall and began to go down the stone staircase. They had entered a part of the house Lucy hadn’t seen before. It was similarly decorated to the rest of the house but with more portraits and art on the walls. As they turned the corner the trio nearly collided with a bespeckled young woman in a leather jacket with several folders in her arms.

“Death! Life! How nice to see you, I-i’m sorry I was just about to ask you to check these files, I think I’ve finished them up but I want to make sure I know who killed who. Y’know because these guys all shot each other at once-”

“Yes, Life told me. It’s nice to see you too Mei,” Death said as the bespeckled reaper, Mei, handed Death the folders. After running a skeletal hand over them with his head lowered he looked up and nodded, “excellent job Mei, you’ve managed to figure out that Haru shot Gyo who shot Kyle who shot Yuki who shot Greg who shot Ben who shot Haru. If I didn’t know better I would say that you’ve been working here for forty years instead of fourteen.”

She sighed with a relieved look on her face, “that’s great because for a second I thought that Gyo shot Ben who shot Yuki while he shot Haru while he shot Kyle while he shot Gyo while he, finally, shot Greg. I would’ve been in the Halls of the Deceased all night if that was the case.”

“Nope, although that would’ve been a disaster, you got it right.” Death said with a proud smile. Mei’s gaze fell on Lucy, “and who’s the little goth girlscout?”

Lucy took this condescending remark with a smile, “actually I think I’m a little too old to join girl scouts, and it’s too much of a time commitment anyway.”

Mei raised an eyebrow as she glanced questioningly at Life and Death.

“Noir Arquette’s missing and we’re trying to find her with her daughter’s help. Death also had the genius idea of making Lucy the youngest reaper ever recruited,” Life said with a skeptical glare in her color-shifting eyes. Death only smiled smugly and cleared his throat.

“Actually, Life darling, you should know that Lucy just performed her first reaping a few moments ago. And she did so within seconds.”

Mei pushed her rectangular glasses further up her nose,“within seconds, for the first time? Huh, little miss girlscout has a bit of a gift for the necromantic arts.”

Lucy did a little twirl, “necromantic arts, gosh that almost cooler better than soul-reaping, I think that’s what I might call it sometimes”.

Death looked back at Mai, “we were about to take her to the Location Center to find Noir, would you mind assisting, Miss Katayama?”

Mei nodded and continued around the corner to a large set of double doors. Above the doorframe there was a golden plaque.

The Location Center

Lucy’s eyes widened as she entered the circular room. There were quite a few small, silvery black stones placed along the walls, each stone had engravings on it’s edges, just like the engravings on the scythes. In the center there appeared to be a raised pool filled with a luminous substance resembling mercury.

Lucy smiled in awe, “wow, what’s that shiny stuff? Can I touch it?”

“Do you want your hand singed off?” Death asked grimly.

“I can’t tell if that was a warning or a threat but still want to touch it.”

“Uh, Girl Scout, I would strongly advise against that. It’s the torilnkal, when an immortals’ DNA comes in contact with it it can help locate them or their recent reaping. Yet it’s pretty deadly for anyone other than Life or Death to touch it” Mei explained.

“I said I wanted to, not that I was going to. It just looks so pretty.”

Mei shook her head, “as insane and fun as your little reaper seems, I’ve gotta get back to Tokyo, there’s this other kid and a lot of murder, and then this rubber duck,” she explained as if that made perfect sense.

“Anyway see you later guys,” she then twirled her scythe and disappeared.

“I like her. Anyway what about the deadly silver stuff?”

Life laughed as she ran a smooth brown hand along the wall’s silvery black stones, “I have a kindler who touched the torilnkal, she got a really high quality prosthetic foot though.”

“A foot?”

“Somehow she thought that if she used her toe to touch it t wouldn’t be as deadly...to be fair she was a bit drunk when she did it though. Moral of the story; don’t be an idiot and get drunk while standing next to torilnkal.”

Lucy joined Life by the wall stones, “What are these?”

“There’s a stone for each reaper, I’ll get you one too soon enough, now go up to the torilnkal.”

“I thought you said my hand would burn off?”

“Don’t touch it, just approach it, gosh Lucy pay attention.”

Lucy shrugged and skipped towards the silvery pool. As she grew closer it smelled like paper and pencil lead, with a hint of Cedarwood. Lucy drew close enough for the glimmering light of the torilnkal reflected on her face.

“Now what?”

Death reached for her hand and before Lucy could react he grazed it with the blade of his scythe. Lucy gasped and sprung back, clutching her bleeding hand. Death calmly dipped the edge of his scythe in the torilnkal, letting Lucy’s blood drip into the shimmering liquid in a grimly beautiful manner.

“You just cut me you old skeleton bastard!”

Death recoiled a little at these words as Life stifled a giggle “That’s a bit of a harsh thing to say, but yes I’m very sorry, I can get you a bandage and fix it up?” “No you just cut me! You literally just sliced my hand open, what the hell man?”

“Things like this hurt less when they’re unexpected. I didn’t want to hurt you more than necessary”

“Yes but it still hurts. Because I’m bleeding. And you just cut me. I mean you could’ve just asked me for a blood sample. Bastard…”

Death waved his hand and a spool of bandages appeared, he looked at Lucy reproachfully “I can bind it, and Life can heal the cut.”

Lucy cautiously held out her bleeding right hand.

At least it’s not my dominant hand…

Lucy pouted and scowled as Death wrapped a bandage around her hand, “I’m not trusting you. You had gained some Lucy Trust Points earlier but you just lost them.”

“Once again, I’m sorry, and that hurts Lucy, it really does.”

“Not as much as my damn hand.”

“But you have something called ‘Lucy Trust Points’? That’s speaking in the third pers-”

“My hand. Is still. Bleeding.”

Death hung his head as he finished up the bandage and Life stepped forward to grasp her bandaged hand. Life’s own hands started glowing as a sharp pain shot up Lucy’s arm. Lucy cried out when the pain suddenly stopped as soon as it had started.

“Healing sometimes hurts kiddo, you have to used to it,” she said with a wicked little smirk. Lucy took a mental not to take away a few Lucy Trust Points for Life later.

“Look, the torilnkal’s taking effect,”

Lucy whirled around as her gaze fixed on the silver and red pool, which was now swirling around and shaping itself into a human figure, a woman’s figure, who appeared to be swinging a scythe before walking away.

“Noir,” Life breathed as Death stared at the pool, transfixed despite being familiar with the torilnkal’s properties. Another figure appeared in the blood. It was twice as tall as the female figure and was sickly distorted, with multiple, long, twisted limbs. It wasn’t the only one, all they needed to do was approach the female figure and she seemed to writhe in pain. A little whine filled the air as it increased into a violent scream.

Lucy gasped as her green eyes widened in fear, Mom?! The scream was laced with chokes and sobs. With every second, Lucy began to feel her mother’s agony stronger and stronger. A tear slipped down Lucy’s face as she watched her mother’s silhouette writhe in pain.

“THAT’S ENOUGH!” Death yelled as the image in the torilnkal disappeared. Lucy’s breath hitched and she stepped back. Death swallowed, “I’m so sorry Lucy, you shouldn’t have seen that. But she’s alive, I could sense from the torilnkal that they brought her to some...other realm, like another layer of reality, underneath Paris.”

“I suppose they wanted to kill her in her birthplace…” Life breathed bitterly.

Death’s expression hardened as his dark eyes seemed to look more like voids.

“Was that. Really. Necessary, Life? You couldn’t just acknowledge the situation without saying anything, could you?”

“I’m sorry but it’s the truth. These things aren’t the reapers you used to train, these are hollow monsters that by the looks of it, are planning to add a bit of irony to your fvorite Employee of the Month’s death. I’m sorry you have to hear this, especially you Lucy, but that’s how it’s going to be unless we pick up our staffs and scythes to save her.”

Lucy blinked away her tears and nodded in understanding before looking at Death. For a second it looked as if he was about to lash out and cause some sort of mass genocide, but instead he sighed.

“You’re right...you’re right again Life. We just have to carry on.” Lucy’s shoulders relaxed as exhaled she backed away from the torilnkal. She hadn’t realized that she had been holding her breath. “So...now what? My- my Mom’s being tortured in Paris. Are we gonna go there and ‘carry on’ as you put it?”

Death tilted his head as he saw Lucy forced a determined fire in her eyes, “so far you haven’t ceased to amaze me Miss Mourn, I searched Paris for her yesterday but as I said I’m starting to believe that they opened up another realm.”

“Another realm...like an alternate universe or something?”

“Not quite,” Life answered before Death could open his mouth.

“It’s more like, a little disposable pocket based on reality where you can do whatever the hell you want, we’re in another realm right now, Death and I created our homes in alternate universes, you know because we wouldn’t want anyone knocking on Death’s door,” she said with a sly grin when she got to the pun. Lucy smiled, and she felt her spirits lift a little.

“The puns between the two of you are going to become unbearable,” Death murmured, “but yes, that’s an adequate description. Noir’s in a realm of Paris, we just have to figure out where.”

“Then let’s go to Paris and look for a monster realm.”

“Now that you say it like that it sounds stupid.”

Life rolled her eyes at Lucy and Death as she began to glow brightly for a second, When her glowing faded- wait. Was it his glow now? Life appeared to have morphed into a handsome, fair haired man in his late teens.

“Dress up time guys, I’ll play a college student who’s lost while looking for their campus and looking around France like an idiot.” he said with a French accent.

It seemed as if Death couldn’t help but grin and was immediately cloaked in shadows for a second, when they lifted a young girl not much older than Lucy stood there. As Lucy half expected, Death was rocking a bit of a gothic look with his- her dark hair and makeup. Lucy began to feel uncomfortable by how beautiful Death looked, especially in comparison to herself. “So...do you guys even have genders, if you’re, y’know, universal entities and stuff?”

The pair glanced at eachother and Life shrugged. “We’re whatever we want, really. Does it really matter considering how beautiful we are in every form?” Life asked with a sarcastically innocent bat of his eyes as Death scoffed.

Death was about to swing her scythe, which was now nearly taller than she was, when she stopped and looked at Life.

“What if I’m you’re clueless American cousin who’s confused in a foreign land?”

“Good idea, we’ll do it like that time in Constantinople.”

“I actually had an okay feeling about this plan until you compared it to the Constantinople Incident of 1792.” she said before she swung her scythe into the ground and everything erupted into shadows.

Chapter Five

“So this is Paris? It’s very...Parisian, isn’t it?”

Lucy asked as she attempted to pry her eyes away from the eiffel tower in one direction and the Notre Dame Cathedral in another. They seemed to have shown up on the patio of a French cafe’, luckily the locals and tourists didn’t seem to give them a second thought. Life raised an eyebrow at Lucy’s question as he leaned up against a wrought iron fence,“you know what Lucy, no, it’s Egypt, you can tell because of the Eiffel Tower right over there.”

“Keep an eye on your saltiness, buddy; you might turn into Death, anyway how are we finding this realm-portal thingamajig?”

“Normally Death and I can just teleport, but since we were unaware of the realm before now, we’ll have to find the right frequency.”

“Frequency?”

“We’ll have to sense it using our magic, like Death is doing right now, yet she kinda looks stupid while doing it,” he explained while gesturing over to Death, who was standing a few yards away and lowly waving her fingers by her sides as she stared off blankly into the distance. Despite the her odd movements, Death didn’t really look stupid with her long black curls billowing in the wind. Lucy looked back at Life, who’s bright gold eyes assumed a similar distant look as he scanned his surroundings. Lucy tried to see if she felt anything different, or otherworldly-realm-portalish, but all she noticed was a man approaching the trio with a confused look on his face.

“Do you kids need any help?” he asked. The man spoke french, and strangely enough, Lucy could easily interpret it. She recalled needing Death’s help to understand other languages before, but now that she had performed her first reaping, she must have been just as bilingual.

“Um...well you see sir, um..”

Am I speaking french? Wait, I am speaking french. Gosh that sounds nice…Wait a second-

Lucy nudged Life, who seemed a tad distracted in finding the portal frequency. He looked over. “Oh forgive me monsieur, My cousins and I have never been to the Citiy of Love before, and we’re simply taking in the sights,” he casually replied in french as he tousled his thick glossy hair. The man raised an eyebrow as he looked between Life, Death and Lucy. The entities certainly could’ve picked forms that looked a little more like Lucy, for between the freckled green eyed girl, the olive skinned dark haired girl, and the fair skinned and haired teen didn’t seem to have much of a resemblance. Fortunately, with Life’s charisma, the man walked away with a shrug, wishing the trio a safe journey. “Works every time”, Life chuckled with the same wicked snicker he had in his previous, feminine form.

Death snapped out of her trance, “I’m sorry did I miss something?”

“Just the stupid look on your pretty little face,”

“You know what Life? Look who’s talking,” she snapped through the mild blushing on her cheeks.

Lucy rolled her eyes and stopped as she felt a cold buzz from her scythe sling. She reached back into the leather container and brought out her scythe, so cool and comforting in her hand. The scythe began to pull at Lucy, drawing her away from the cafe’ patio and towards the Notre Dame Cathedral in the distance...

“Lucy wait!” Death said, placing a hand on Lucy’s shoulder after catching up with her. “I felt the pull too, it’s a dead person,”

“Well I kinda gathered that by the fact that I felt it from a scythe meant for reaping the souls of the dead,” Lucy chirped.

“Yes but it’s a trap.”

“Someone died specifically to trap me?” Lucy asked skeptically.

Death pulled her closer with a grim look in her jet black eyes. “That death is just by the Notre Dame, according to Life, that’s where Noir was born. Now isn’t it curious, that as we search for mother, we are distracted by a murder in that exact same spot?”

Lucy gasped as her blood ran cold, she gulped.

“Is it her?”

“No. But it seems as if they’re luring us.”

“So do we follow them and find my Mom or do we find an alternative?”

Death shapeshifted back into his suited form and straightened his tie, greatly disturbing Lucy who was watching a pretty teen transform into a grown man in a flash of shadow. Death kept his hand on Lucy’s shoulder and began to lead her back to the cafe’.

“Wait where are you taking me? Aren’t I gonna help my Mom? Isn’t that why you’ve been keeping me with you guys this whole time? To find her?”

“I needed your help in finding her, but not saving her, you are going to stay here with Life while I go negotiate.”

Before Lucy could respond she heard someone clear their voice. She turned around to see Life standing not a foot away from them, back in her female form with her arms crossed over her chest.

“Excuse me, Death but I’m not going to be babysitting Lucy while you go storming off into some unknown realm. I’m scarier than you anyway.”

“That’s a fair point.”

Life rolled her eyes. “You know how realms can be anyway, let alone one ruled by monstrous psychopaths.”

“Well what now? We let Lucy strut right in with us, maybe they’ll have mercy on her if she sells them some Girl Scout Cookies-”

“Once again...I’m not in Girl Scouts,” Lucy protested, “and I really want to-”

“No” Death snapped. Life looked down at Lucy and made what looked like an attempt at a sympathetic smile, “Lucy, you literally became a reaper yesterday. Death’s not even stupid enough to let you in this.”

“Thanks Life”. Death scoffed.

“Anyway, I think you can see our point,” Life reasoned.

Lucy could feel her eyes tearing up. Life gave a submissive sigh while Death was struck with a panicked expression as he saw the young girl try not to cry.

“Don’t fret dearie, I have a plan.”

“Is it as good as the ‘Hey-let’s-make-this-kid-a-reaper-and-tell-her=she-can-help-us save-her-mom’ plan?” Life interrupted.

“I think I have a babysitter for her.”

Lucy clenched her fists and began to argue, “NO YOU CAN’T DO THIS-” but before she could finish, Death teleported her with a twirl of his scythe.

When the shadows cleared, Lucy’s scream rang out as she fell onto the cold hard ground. Wherever she was, it looked as if it was the middle of the night. She got up on her knees and looked up, there were a lot lit up signs (which Lucy could now read as Japanese) advertising for bars and restaurants. Great, just dump lil’ old me into some dark alley in a foreign country so that I’m confused and alone, that’s way safer guys! She thought while rising to her feet.

“Y’KNOW WHAT? THAT’S IT. NO MORE ‘LUCY TRUST POINTS’ FOR YOU TWO! ASSHATS!”

She shouted as she stomped her feet on the ground. But she wasn’t alone.

“What do you think you’re doing, screaming around at this time of night, kid?” barked the gruff voice of a nearby local, who’s stumbling walk suggested he was drunk.

“The dead man’s right about one thing, you better watch your language, Girl Scout.”

Mei Katayama stood waiting by a motorcycle at the end of the alley, twirling her scythe in her hand.

The man scowled, “what did you just call me?”

“A dead man. Don’t ask me how but I’m especially good at sensing these sort of things.”

“You’re crazy, all crazy,” he proceeded to mutter about craziness as he walked out of the alley and towards the busy street.

Mei scoffed as she stomped towards Lucy, “I just got a text from Death..I guess that makes me your babysitter...as if I haven’t had enough to deal with. I mean I know he’s saving Noir but can’t someone else watch you...? I just hope this isn’t like the Constantinople Incident.”

“Did you just let that drunk man walk into the street?”

“Why would I not? Even if I told him not to, we can’t change fate; he would die at the same time, even if not the same exact death.”

“Huh,” Lucy mused. Another thing Death probably should have told me before dropping me off in Japan. She looked up at the night sky.

“What time is it?”

“4:00 am, I’m ending my work shift after this guy,”

“Long day?

“Child, you don’t even know. Long story short I’ve officially decided to never have kids-”

Screeeeech.

Lucy heard the tires from the street.

Mei strode to the side of the road, where a ghostly man stood, dumbfounded.

“You were right. I’m dead.”

“Uh huh, that’s what it looks like,” Mei said as she turned to Lucy.

“Go ahead, work your magic. I wanna see if Death was right about your skill.”

Lucy swallowed and stepped forward, then stopped.

“Do you have that handbook?”

“What?”

“There was a handbook with the judgment questions in there..?”

“Oh yeah I haven’t looked at that thing in at least a decade,” she laughed as she pulled a leather bound booklet from the bottom of her scythe sling and tossed it to Lucy. After fumbling the booklet and barely grabbing it before it fell, Lucy flipped to the page with the questions.

“Okay Mister I’ma ask you these questions, and if you’re an alright person and you answer them right then you go to an afterlife of your choosing.”

The ghostly man looked down with a puzzled look on his face, “but I’m an atheist.”

“Oh, sucks to be you then...yeah I have no idea what’s about to happen-”

Mei cleared her throat loudly,

“-but I have confidence. So, how’d you die?”

The ghost man looked at his mangled body on the street, saying nothing.

Lucy winced, “okay yeah I get your point...are you just of h- I mean, were you a good person?”

The ghost man scratched his translucent hair, “I had a drinking problem, dying seems to have sobered me up though...I guess I’m not that bad when I’m sober... I’m a jerk though.”

Lucy’s scythe symbols glowed grey. Lucy tilted her head and looked to Mei for directions.

“Just do the thing, the symbols don’t have much of an effect on the actual job.”

Despite confused looks from the ghost, Lucy focused and held out her scythe like before, a stream blasted out and formed an archway.

“It was nice meeting you, good luck!” Lucy chirped as the man drifted into the portal.

Mei stared in disbelief.

“You not only just performed a reaping suitable for at least a year-long member, but you freaking wished him luck as he got taken into the gateway of death.”

“Well I don’t think I gave a very good description and I figured it would be nice to make up for it by wishing him luck,” Lucy replied with a shrug.

Mei smirked and tilted her head, “I’m starting to like you, you’re a really nice kid, creepy as hell...but nice.”

“I get that a lot,” Lucy said with a grin as Mei started walking towards her motorcycle.

Lucy froze in her steps, “can I ride it?”

Mei turned around, “no, you’re going to run behind my bike as fast as you can until we get to my house.”

“Couldn’t we teleport there?”

Mei shrugged, “Yeah, but Suzy is a smoother, not-as-nausea-inducing ride.”

“Suzy?”

“The name of my Suzuki bike.”

Mei hopped on her bike and turned on the engine, then gave Lucy an expectant glare. She cautiously pulled herself onto the bike, sitting awkwardly behind Mei.

“What? Do you wanna end up like our friend on the street? Hold on, Girlscout.”

Lucy gripped her arms tighter around Meri’s waist, close enough to smell her leather jacket and for Mei’s dark brown ponytail to whip Lucy’s face. Suddenly they took off, and as Lucy suspected, the ride was far more pleasant than a teleportation.

“Whoohoo!” she accidentally cried into Mei’s ear. Lucy muttered an apology as Mei clenched her teeth and the bike wavered dangerously. Yet the apology was swept away by the wind rushing in her ears as Lucy stuffed her hat in her coat pocket and let her hair whip around her head. Through the brown locks over her eyes she could see the bright lights and signs of Tokyo. She continued in this daze of bewilderment until Suzy slowed to a stop at a modern, narrow house that looked a little more like a high end apartment.

Mei took off her helmet and adjusted her glasses, “So, this is the place. I didn’t want to watch any more damn kids today but it seems like a matter of life and death-err, Life and Death...whatever. Until I get more details about the ‘shadows’ Death gave a brief description of, I’m keeping an eye on you guys.”

Lucy’s knees wobbled as she climbed off the bike. “What do you mean ‘any more kids’, and what am I gonna do about my Dad? What will I do, text him that I’m hanging out with some strangers on the other side of the world?”

Mei grinned as she fumbled with a keychain. “You’re a curious little Girl Scout aren’t you? Heh, at least you’re asking the right questions...there’s this other girl, around your age. Whatever shadows Death’s talking about, she’s been connected to them too, I’ve been running around with this kid all day, I know reapers aren’t supposed to get too involved with mortal business but I knew there was something more than that.”

“I thought you were the one mocking Death for recruiting me.”

“For your information, I’m not recruiting Akiro, I just want to keep the kid safe. And as for your dad, just tell him you’re sleeping over at a friend’s house, or that you’ve been kidnapped, whatever you kids do these days.”

“Yeah, yeah, sleepover or something, he’ll think I’m just in a weird teen rebellious phase and stay out of it…anyway tell me more about this Akiro kid you’ve been babysitting,” she said while walking into Mei’s house. The interior was as modern as the outside, but with a few traditional twists such as the shoji panels and paper lanterns that hung over the living room that gave the room a warmer feel.

“Shoes off.” Mei demanded, stepping out of her sneakers in the entryway of the house. Lucy nodded and slid off her own boots, dusting off the little pink bows on the ankles as she did so.

The space was chillingly silent, and it was only broken with Mei’s sigh as she slumped into a nearby chair. “C’mon sit down, I’ll make some tea or open up some snacks in a sec. As for Akiro, I think her father has something to do with these shadowy beings, apparently she was staying at his house the other day when the shadows started surrounding her and her sister. I was reaping that group of guys who shot each other all at once when I saw them running down the street. I asked them what was wrong, I wouldn’t have believed them if I didn’t see the fear in their eyes. The younger one couldn’t have been much older than five, no five year old should look that afraid. So I told them to stay put while I investigated, their dad was lying on the floor, cut and bruised. Apparently he’s in some sort of coma now. I called 911 and took them to their mother’s house. But both of them kept ranting about these ‘tall shadows’ trying to grab them, especially the little girl, Natsumi. I tried to calm them down but Akiro was persistent and determined to find answers. She’s clever, that one. Later in the day she went back to her dad’s place to pick up a few of her and her sisters’ things, the shadows appeared again. I was watching this time, I wanted to keep an eye on the kid, but when those things reached out for her...something happened, they recoiled back from her, and by the time I was ready to fight they just faded away. I mean Akiro is almost as creepy as you but not enough to prevent an attack like that. So, I’ll keep an eye on her for the next few days while she stays with her mother...you could see why I didn’t want to tell Death or Life about this,” she explained. Lucy nodded,but at the mention of their names her thoughts immediately strayed back to whatever Life and Death were doing at the Notre Dame.

Are they helping Mom? Is Mom hurt? Are they hurt? Wait- can Death die? Can Life die? Is everyone dead? Wait nononononono...Shut up conscience, SHUT UP.

She shuddered and tried to focus back onto the information she had just processed from Mei, wondering what the beings wanted from Akiro and how she was able to prevent them, unlike Lucy had in her nightmare.

“Well, anyway, that’s what I was did today and I think that’s enough disturbing topics for today, I’ll get some food made, I guess I’m making two servings now...I have some mangas in the shelf over there, a few of them are in english so knock yourself out”.

Lucy pulled out her phone, the timezones had changed on the clock and it was now 4:31 am, Japan time, Lucy was too lazy to calculate whatever that was back in America, but she wasn’t that tired, so she figured it was in the afternoon. Considering what Mei said about her manga, she walked towards the bookcase by the t.v.

“Sweet mother of manga…” she murmured, the shelves were almost entirely full of various mangas.

“Don’t judge me, Girlscout, mangas are actually common reading material her in Japan,” Mei called over from her kitchen.

“I’m not judging I’m admiring, and no one gives you weird looks or asks why you’re reading comic books here either?” “Pretty much,” she answered, followed by a series of clanging pots and pans.

Lucy let herself smile as she found one written in english and engrossed herself in it until Mei had prepared lunch, or dinner, whatever it was. For a brief while, Lucy wasn’t worried over her family or immortal friends or long shadowy beings coming to strangle her, just whether the demon hybrid princess was going to go on the quest the prophecy foretold.

“Food’s ready,” Mei announced. Lucy’s stomach growled in an oddly lod manner as Lucy put down the manga and skipped over to the low, wooden table Mei was waiting at. Lucy didn’t quite recognize some of the foods, but she could see that the meal included fish and rice. Lucy sat down on one of the low chairs across from Mei and sat there in silence.

“Ugh you’re the ideal awkward houseguest. Go ahead and start eating I didn’t make this food for nothing,” Mei said with a smile. Lucy dug into her food with her chopsticks, and although Lucy knew how to use them, bits of rice fell back on her ate as she attempted to eat them and it took Lucy longer than she would have liked to figure out must how to grab certain things with them. She assumed it looked pretty pathetic judging by how Mei was barely hiding a Life-like smirk.

“This is really good, I honestly don’t know half of what I’m eating right now but it’s still great.”

Mei looked down at her food proudly, “You should try Death’s cooking, I’m telling you Death’s like a freaking master chef, they’ve had like centuries of practice but there’s still some serious talent there.”

Lucy raised an eyebrow, “Death can cook?”

“Oh yeah, it’s one of the things that Death rubs in Life’s face all the time considering that Life may or may not have started the Great Fire of London over some burnt scones, it’s never really been proven but I’ve heard that it’s a possibility. People have like, cried after eating Life and Death’s cookies, for two very different reasons and two very different cookies.”

“Huh,” Lucy said as she took a bite of fish.

#fantasy story #sarcasm #grim reaper #life #lol

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