The delicate-faced grim reaper was leaning against a secluded tree. The fire, a speck of light from where he stood. Smoke puffing to life only to fade away in the end. He couldn't bring himself to focus on the task at hand, losing himself in the thurible instead as it swung back and forth with a creak.
Heart? Head? The creak seemed to ask. The golden cage thrummed in his grip, guiding him to the rightful place the dancers soul belonged.
Send the girl into the land of the dead! Where the creature's will claw at her, where they'll squeal remarks of repentance in anguish. His conscious felt like it was screaming at him through every rush of pain in his head.
"What could someone like you have possibly done?" He mumbled, feeling pity for her soul, and then a hardness in his chest for feeling anything at all.
"I fell in love," a gentle voice whispered, sending Death to straighten up.
He knew it was her and decided to hide the instrument behind his cloak. She now had a shawl on, and her loose hair resembled vines overtaking a wall, but it was her.
"Pardon me?" he swallowed, running his hand through his hair, taking in her face; her forehead was glazed in cool sweat. She seemed to make the world around him sharpen, a deer nibbled at the trees and bit at dead flowers a few feet away, only to scurry off.
"With dancing," she clarified. "My mother claimed I was a 'natural', it was the only time I could ever make her cry. My village was ransacked by the Tyrants Men. These band of rebels found me underneath rubble, and I decided to follow my saviors. I'm sorry for rambling!" She covered her mouth. Beautiful. "I do that...yet here we are. Anyhow, I'm pursuing bigger things, like following my dream."
Dream.
She made it seem like he still had those.
"The colonel hired me to dance for the men and women, keep their spirits high and such, but that's all." She looked up at him, a reassurance had rest in her voice, to which confused him to no end, though a great weight was lifted off his chest. She seemed to want to say more. I promise, perhaps. He hadn't spent much time with the warm-blooded, and yet here was a human talking up a storm.
"I figured just as much," he tried an awkward, twisted smile.
This caused her to giggle, a breath later and she grabbed his hand. "Wilona," she offered.
Figuring 'Death' would scare her away, he pulled a name from his memory, one he hadn't been called in a long time.
"Den...Denali," he stammered, fighting the sleepy calm that blanketed his shoulders at her touch. A smile shared, an unraveled past -this, dear reader, lit the spark of a flame.
YOU ARE READING
In Death We Love
Fantasy"This is the story of how Death tried to live and love, turning love into a deadly thing." Delani was a young man of whom the Fates chose to be Death, their personal grim reaper that sought out the souls calling to him, aiding in the circle of life...
