A Compilation of Fantasy Concepts

Chapter 6...Grimm Reaper and Fairy Child

The mortal word was quiet, but the spirits were always abuzz. Wandering souls would take it upon their noble duty to torment stray travelers lodging in old haunted hotels, elves and nymphs would pick a fight at any hour of the day to protect their homes in trees, rocks, or lakes.

The grimm reaper.

Their primary duty was to bring about death. Swift and clean, breaking the seams that bound soul and body as quickly as possible. Their job was simple; to make sure things died when they were supposed to die, how they were supposed to die, and to deliver their souls to their respective places in the afterlife. For the small amount of time they were given responsibility for that little ball of light, there was no space to falter. Unlike with guardian angels, the target of a reaper didn't have a firm physical form. They were slippery and sly little things, human souls, often unwilling to go down without a fight. Others yet had no will at all. They just sort of faded off and floated through their fingers, invisible to the eye and ever losing presence.

...Not to mention the people who just wouldn't die in the first place, who clung in tantrums to the objects of their affection, who dared to linger as ghosts, formless mirages of their formal delves. The obstacles before they could even reach a soul, spells and beings that would intervene, demons that had taken possession before a reaper's duty even began. Just like with people, there were the devoted little fighters, the mom-figures, the pranksters, the clumsy, all of them mashed together. Slacker or not, it was no easy job, it never would have been.

Amelia's bare feet clung to the wobbly surface of the grey rock, edges smoothed out and slightly molded from all that water. Childlike arms spread wide, Amelia slowly, slowly moved a foot out from underneath, wobbling from side to side along with the rock before taking her jump, landing on a much smaller rock with only her heel for balance. The pale-skinned arms flapped desperately now, her breathing going faster and faster as the young reaper began to jump from rock to rock like a little bunny, wobbly and unstable, the bunched up slinkies falling in messy ringlets upon her shoulders and down her pitch-black clothes, a few small ones tickling at her cheeks and eyelids at every little movement.

"W-wait up! I'm almost there!"

Sometimws, though, there'd come a day without any assignments. Where files didn't need sorting, or rooms didn't need cleaning. Where they could go on to other things, exploring, games, or just lazing around. Just as they had back when they were alive, back before they'd become like this..

The little hands' fingers curled into loose fists as the child gave one final jump. A small yelp escaped the lips as she landed on her stomach, the forceful current making bubbling sounds as it raced beneath the cliff-like rock the girl had just barely managed to reach, fingers grasping and pulling like the flippers of a frog against the hard, uneven surface. The little glowing blue and white orb that always followed close now went in circles above the girl, fretting and worrying in different shades of firey light over the little one. The reaper smiled, looking up and blowing it off so she could see.

Sometimes it was a punishment. Repentance for propel who hadn't valued their time on this earth, who'd taken the trouble to die before their time. To those, it was probably a lesson hard learnt. To look upon the faces of people to much stronger than they had been, who'd fought to see it through to their end, or maybe even a little past the end.

"It's okay, I made it!"

Of course, they all had their reasons. Many died suddenly, amnesia was overwhelmingly common when reaper's first awoke in the afterlife, sometimes self-inflicted as a method of defence, other times they honestly just didn't know. Then there were those who were a little too clumsy, skateboarding off roofs and bungee-jumping right atop a volcano. Some had it coming, others yet were comically clumsy. But then there were the exceptions, those who couldn't have possibly done anything wrong. Those who life loved too much to let go, who were stuck in a battle between life and death. There were people in the realm of shinigami whose bodies were actually alive somewhere down there, dormant, asleep, tied by fate in a way that they couldn't quite move on. Despite their differences, they were all the same. Messengers. Messengers of Death.