#i know roughly where i want it to end although i'm debating some particulars of it

[aparticularbandit]

The Rehabilitation of Agatha Harkness: Prologue The Second

Chapter Summary: “You’re not ready,” Rio repeats, and she looks up just enough to meet Agatha’s eyes.  “Pretty sure you were throwing a tantrum about not going, too—”

“I was—”

“You’re right.  You were.”

Chapter Rating: T. Fic Rating: T.

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“If you think I’m going with you, you’ve got another—”

The world around Agatha disappears.

Mostly.

Not really.

The world remains the same but frozen, as everything disappears from view save for herself, her very quickly decaying corpse, and Rio.  Lady Death.  Rio.

They always call her Death, but she’s more than that.  Rio maintains the balance.  She governs both.  That’s why her name is what it is.  But no one ever thinks of that.  They see her only when they die – or when someone they love dies – and they assume only Death.  But she’s always been more to that.

And she takes the guise of what they want to see.

Agatha turns to her, but she isn’t there.  Not really.  Rio’s still caught up in the flow of time, taking what’s left of Agatha’s body and rapidly turning it into something else.

That is what Rio does.

Even in death, life.

No one gets that.

(Agatha does.)

When Rio finally fades from the black and white of a world gone cold into the startlingly bright color that she commands in her own domain (and even this isn’t quite that), she looks the way she did when they first met: like a normal human woman with a cloak much like Agatha’s own, but in the softest shades of green.  Her eyes are dark only because they are always dark, but they’re warm, not cold as they have so often been – or seemed to be – in the much more recent past.

“You’re not ready.”

Agatha scoffs.  “I died, didn’t I?”  She stomps over to Rio in spite of herself – hates the way that her boots make no noise whatsoever in this frozen bit of time – and then waits.  “What, aren’t you happy?  You finally got me.  Woo-hoo for you.”

“You’re not ready,” Rio repeats, and she looks up just enough to meet Agatha’s eyes.  “Pretty sure you were throwing a tantrum about not going, too—”

“I was—”

“You’re right.  You were.”  Rio smiles – sad, fond – and then waves her hand once.  “Don’t say I never gave you anything.”

Then she disappears.

Agatha hears it over her shoulder – I only take people when they’re ready – and shudders.  It’s a truth and a promise and a threat all at once.  Like being told that she had time with Nicky but never knowing exactly how much.  It’s worse, somehow.

She won’t tell anyone that.

~

“Why do you hate ghosts so much?” “They’re a different kind of imbalance.  People who live longer than they’re meant are one thing – the dead living – but ghosts are another – the living dead.” “So why not make a balance of those?  Then everyone wins.” “…no.”

~

“So before,” Billy asks as he drives back to his house, “when Tommy wasn’t anywhere but he was somewhere…was he a ghost like you?”

Agatha shakes her head.  “No.  Tommy was a soul seeking to reincarnate.  That’s not the same thing.”  She holds up one hand.  “And before you ask, no, I’m not going to tell you the difference.”

Billy rolls his eyes.  “Because you don’t know.”

“Think what you want, hot stuff.  You’re not getting me all hot and bothered.”

“Gross.”

“Exactly.”