Death and the Emperor

Book 1 Chapter V: Death and All Her Friends

'I think you might do something better with the time,' she said, 'than waste it in asking riddles that have no answers.' -- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Kilan was in love with Death. Varan was dead, Death may or may not be coming to take him to the Land of the Dead tonight, he was having a minor mental breakdown, and he was in love with Death.

He had promised Varan he wouldn't become the latest of their family's many madmen. He suspected he was breaking that promise. Someone who fell in love with the embodiment of Death could hardly be called sane.

Death didn't come that night. He didn't know if he wanted her to or not.

She didn't come the next night. Or the next. Or the next. For almost a year, he heard and saw nothing of her. And then, one night, there she was.

~~~~

Contrary to what certain inhabitants of her realm insinuated, Death was capable of feeling fondness for people. She was on relatively good terms with most of her husbands, viewed her Reapers with the sort of amused exasperation a mortal employer might feel for a well-meaning but rather incompetent employee, and enjoyed the never-ending drama various dead souls provided. Most of all, however, she was fond of her children. And of all her children, she liked Pestilence the most.

Even if his appearance and sartorial choices at any given time occasionally made her question his sanity.

Unlike his mother and most of his siblings, Pestilence did not have a "default" appearance. Instead, his appearance changed according to his whims. Sometimes it reflected the symptoms of whatever disease he was currently spreading. Sometimes it was simply whatever appealed to him at the moment. And sometimes it was so bizarre that she had to wonder if he had been staying with Insanity when he selected it.

"Are those branches growing out of your face?"

Right now, he looked like an old man with purple skin(!) and bright red hair(!!) -- and something very strongly resembling branches sprouting from beneath his eyes. Death had seen some truly outlandish sights over the millennia. Her son, it seemed, was trying to be numbered among the oddest.

"Of course not!" Pestilence looked offended at the very suggestion. "They're twigs. And they're not growing out of my face, they're extensions of my cheekbones."

Death closed her eyes and counted to a hundred. "Why?"

"Because I want to! I think it makes me look more intimidating."

Death gave up. There came a time when she had to admit her children were quite simply mad, and there was nothing she could do about it.

"Why are you here? If I remember correctly, there's supposed to be an outbreak of diphtheria on Earth."

Pestilence tried to wave a hand dismissively. This proved harder than it should have been, because his poison-green mantle was too heavy to allow easy gesturing. He had to settle for a motion half-way between a shrug and a wave.

"I heard rumours," he said instead of answering.

"Really. About what?" She could guess. If there were two things both mortals and immortals had in common, they were a fondness for gossip and an inability to mind their own business. Every time she so much as looked twice at a mortal man, a flock of little birds otherwise known as her Reapers carried the news to the other side of the universe before a day had passed on Tzadkl[1].

"You and some mortal again."

A surprising flash of irritation struck her at hearing Kilan referred to as "some mortal". Didn't Pestilence know that every mortal was unique, and Kilan even more so than most?