A QUEST OF DEATH : Dawning Darkness

INTERLUDE: Fall(edited)

On a chilly autumn evening, with Crepusculem bathed in moonlight, Ada found herself exploring the rooftop of one of its many halls. It had been her habit to traverse all the paths they had been taught in their midday classes, the map in blue-green gold streaks of stardust on old clay models of intricate architecture—a maze with a bazillion roots in brown sand-lined paths overlapping each other. To get good grades in her next mock test on Crepusculem's Landscape, she needed to visit them all by herself and learn, so she climbed onto the roof for a closer view of the map.

To her surprise, she discovered a figure seated there, his silhouette obscured by the darkness. From afar, he looked like someone she knew. She slowly tiptoed over to the figure.

That evening, the Lord of Death had finally decided to stop procrastinating and actually clean his scythe. It had been one hundred and twenty-six days exactly since the last time he had cleaned his tool when the sneaky girl appeared behind him.

Despite growing up as an orphan, trained under his uncle's will to claim the throne, Devereaux came to have three maternal figures later in his life. Lady Nova was the one who saved him from darkness, while Lady Moira shaped him into the strong, independent creature he is today. Then there was Lady Merba Romersai, his human mother—the root of a family tree that produced many great mages in their world. She was the beloved grandmother of his first and last love. 

"Boohoo!" 

"Ah–oh–Ada!" Caught off guard, he looked up with a start. "What are you doing here?" He tried to conceal the weapon from her sight.

"What's that?" Ada asked, her eyes wide with innocent curiosity.

"Nothing," he replied, attempting to hide the scythe under his ebony cloak.

"No, I saw something," she persisted.

"Nothing, nothing. I was just sitting here," he murmured, searching for words to convince the curious adolescent.

"Is it something from The Land Of Shadows?" Sensing his hesitation, Ada quipped.

By then, after six years of their initial meeting, Ada knew who he really was. And for some reason he couldn't quite decipher, he had been very hesitant to associate her with anything from the place he came from.

With a sigh, he finally relented. "Fine, you caught me. But it's not something you should see, kid."

"Kid?" she asked, her eyes wide as she feigned offence.

And the Lord of Death gave her a sceptical look. "Aren't you a kid?" he asked with a smirk.

"It looks like you have forgotten that mortals mature fast. I'm fifteen! Turning sixteen soon." She pouted. And a soft chuckle responded to her.

She reminded him so much of his past. He had been as carefree as she was at her age. Just a couple of years later, he had become a king, betrayed, left to die alone, and retrieved by Birth, only to be raised by Fate to become Death. He had not aged since, and he worried there was a fragment of him that still yearned to be as free as he had been when he was her age—a kid.

"You are a kid," Devereaux emphasised.

Ada shrugged, redirecting her attention to her previous question as she peeked to take a look at the goodies he had hidden. And Death knew there was no escape. With much reluctance, he slowly unveiled the scythe from his cloak.

Of all the weaponry one could fathom about, the scythe emerged as a paradox, a symphony of elegance and lethality. Its staff, a towering nearly seven feet of sleek blackness, bore a texture that mimicked the essence of wood, lending it an earthy mystique. The ominous length, almost a reflection of the shadows it cast, hinted at a beautifully dangerous dance that awaited beneath the moonlight.