Viking's Mate (Twilight OC X OC)

Prologue: Death

Sweet apple flavored poison. My dying husband hand in hand with me on our soft bed. My friends and family surrounding me. Acceptance. Love. Peace.

Those were the last things I remembered before once again dying and greeting Death, only this time, I was in control of the timing. 

"Hello Death." I greet the familiar heavy, pulsing, living darkness after my passing. 

I have greeted Death many times in the past by now, though this time, I am meeting them on my own terms, and I am greeting them as a friend. I lived a longer life in my last resurrection, I was content and satisfied, and I chose when to part from it. I died as an act of true love, a final sacrifice, to undo something terrible and be able to save my loved one's soul from a fate worse than death. The cost was the remainder of my life there, or possibly even the end of my existence entirely, a price I easily paid.

"Welcome." Death greets me, their voice emanating from all around me and even inside of my own mind, just as they usually do. "You have completed another lesson, and now you have chosen for it to be time to move on."

Death then appeared in their floating, black form and showed me my world I just left, showed me all of my friends and family living on after I died. They showed me the impact I had made on their lives, how they visited my grave annually, or honored me in ways that meant something to them, or when they themselves passed peacefully. They showed me the joy and happiness I caused in all their lives, even after the end of my own. It was gift to get to see, and I knew my selfish decision to go on my own terms was respected by my loved ones, especially those that knew my truth.

"Please tell me, did he move on peacefully?" I ask Death softly, no names are needed for them to know who I spoke about.

"Yes, he did." They replied kindly. 

"Thank you." I smile softly at them in thanks. "What will become of me now? Is there still more for me to learn?" I ask Death curiously. "I have learned the importance of friendship and family from the first two resurrections, and now joy and happiness from this last one. What more does my soul need to be complete? Or is it already complete?" 

My mind briefly passes over my twin from my second life, who I have tried hard not to dwell on in years because missing him makes me so sad. I shake the thought from my head, Death once said to me that if we were meant to be together again, we would be. 

"Do you truly feel your soul is complete?" Death asks me after a moment of silence. 

They have never asked me this before. I hesitate to answer though... Is my soul complete? 

I feel a lingering answer, and I can feel that something, I don't know what, but something is missing. It's almost like a deeply buried longing for something, something I've never known before. This longing confuses me, I don't understand how I long for something I have never known. My hesitation was enough of an answer for Death. 

"I know what is missing." They say mysteriously. "You will also know what it is the moment you find it. It is something you would not have been able to achieve without the prior resurrections building your soul as much as they have done." They add mysteriously, and their floating form begins to disappear, leaving me alone in the heavy darkness.

Before I could call out and ask anymore questions, the pulsing, moving, heavy darkness of Death's realm began to change all around me. Again, I felt my own body disappearing, and the darkness tightened around me, changing into a new type of constricting darkness. 

This was the same process as the other times, I must be about to be reborn again into a new world. I don't know where I'm going or for what purpose this time, just as the last two times. I feel the pressure around me increase, and I can start to see the light again ahead of me.