Breath taker

Part 7- The Worst Thing That Could Happen

"Alright, so torture device or suicide mission? Both it appears." Lorelai laughed at the sight of the sleigh.

"C'mon, you love it! Everyone loves the sleigh."

"No, no, no. Everyone does NOT love death. I am Death, I should know. This thing,"she gestured to the sleigh.

"looks like it will tear your limbs off, skin you alive and burn you until you finally die. Me, I take two seconds. It's a swipe, they don't feel anything. Just a-" she made the sign of dragging her finger against her throat

"And most people hate me for it. So this death trap does not get to be loved and desired while there are people who attack me when I show up. So thank you very much, but I will get there by myself. Where ARE we going anyways?"

"No can do mate, you're going with us. If I have to get on, yer getting on as well." Bunny growled at her.

"Still don't trust me do you? That's fine. I doubt that I'll trust you guys for a long time. Maybe never." she said.

North picked Bunny up off of the floor and put him in the sleigh. As he went to grab the Grim Reaper, who was climbing into the sleigh herself, she turned around and gave him the silent stare, which was once again saying Don't touch me. He immediately retracted his hand as she continued her way up the sleigh and took a seat in the back row, next to Jack.

North climbed in finally, after Tooth, Bunny, Jack, Reaper and a very concerned Sandy had taken their seats.

"Okay! Buckle up everyone!" North cried, from his seat in the front. "There's no seat belts." the Grim Reaper said, unamused. "That is just expression! Let's go!" North cried with a crack of his whip. The Grim Reaper cringed as the whip hit the reindeer, but the sight went unnoticed.

The reindeer sped off, through the ice tunnels, onto the ramp and finally, into the air. They began to slow down now that they were in the air. The Reaper looked down, at the frozen tundra below them and smiled. She always loved being in the air, however, she'd much prefer to have been using her own wings instead.

She looked back when she heard Jack laugh and taunt the Rabbit. "Bunny are you alright. You're looking more green than grey. And we don't want a repeat of last time do we?"

"What happened last time?" she asked. "He puked carrots everywhere." Jack said. "Alrighty then, I'll just be getting off now." she said. "Hey, how were you going to get to Sandy's anyway? Were you gonna, I don't know, teleport with the shadows and whatnot?" Jack asked her.

"What shadows?" Bunny asked. "Less talky, more prevent throw upy." the Grim Reaper reminded Bunny.

"So, no. I was gonna do..... this!" she stood up, leaned back and back flipped off of the sleigh. Gasping, Jack rushed to the side where she'd jumped off, but she was gone. Looking around, he couldn't find her.

Behind him, Bunny saw a black shape in the corner of his eye. "Argh! North, we're under attack!" he cried. Jack, turning around, watched as the shape rose above the sleigh and laughed.

"It's just me you big baby." the Grim Reaper said laughing. Jack looked up at her face. On her back was a pair of large black feather wings, like a raven or an angel.

"You can fly?!" he asked amazed. "Oh, no. Of course not. These are just costume wings and I'm being held up by an invisible wire. Of course I can fly idiot. That's the point of wings." she said sarcastically.

"You really are just full of sarcasm and wit aren't you?" he asked her.

"Yup." she responded.

She flew down, beneath the sled. By now they'd flown so far that they were nearing civilizations, but they were still north of it. In the snow, she saw a man, and a child. Clicking her hourglass, she saw that it was their time, so she began her descent as she saw another Reaper, closer to them.

"I've got these two Lorelai!" she cried. Lorelai looked back. She was far enough away that the Guardians couldn't hear the Reaper on the ground.

"Ok! Thanks Christie! Tell Asha to cancel the lessons today! Some things came up! I'll see you soon!" she waved to her. The Reaper waved back. She flew back up to the sleigh.

"What was that about?" Jack asked when she got back up. "What?" she asked. "Lessons?" he asked. "Oh, that. Yeah I do the training courses for the Reapers." she explained to him. "Reapers have to do training courses?" he asked.

"Well duh, I don't just send them out like 'alright, you can now kill things. Have fun!'. No, they have to go through a really excessive training program on everything barely related to what they'll eventually do. I made the lessons so I teach most of them." she explained further for him.

"Ah." he said. "Plus we're short staffed currently so I don't have the time to find a decent teacher." she added.

"What happens if you were alone? If you didn't have others working with you?" he asked.

"Well, the number of people dying each minute would diminish slightly. Maybe about half, at most. But I'd have to go to all who were dying. The other Reapers work for me. They're tied by contract, they do it because I gave them the power, but they can stop. They can just turn off their hourglass and never turn it back on. "

"But me, my soul is tied to this, I think. I'm not sure exactly. I can turn my hourglass off, but only because there are others who can take care of the dying. If they all went away, I'd start teleporting throughout the world."

"There'd be no moments of comfort for the dying, just a theft of life and then I'd have to leave for the next one. There'd be no afterlife, because they wouldn't be able to find it without a guide, and either way there'd be no one running it."

"They'd be left in limbo, in a blank, darkness, unable to find anyone or anything. I know very little about what happens to those souls, I have no contact with them. But they're lost forever. The lucky ones might be able to cling onto the world, as a spirit or ghost, but they'd never be whole. The balance would be gone, between life and death. The world would fall into chaos." she finished, leaving the sleigh in silence.

"Wow. So it's a bad thing then?" Jack asked her.

"It's not a bad thing. It's the worst thing that could possibly happen." she corrected him.