Post by Thanatos on Apr 8, 2014 19:18:19 GMT -5
"...Oh look, an angel," she murmured, eyes still half-squinted against the early morning light. She smiled groggily and reached for his hand at the edge of the bed. "Am I dead or is this just a good dream?"
Thanatos, for one, found no humor in this situation. "What the hell were you thinking?" he hissed. "You could be dead right now. You probably bloody deserve it for your stupidity."
Helena just squeezed his fingers gently. "You were gone a long time. They get malicious."
"I was gone for ten days. You couldn't have stopped back by the ship for a night to recuperate? Prides gets people killed, girl."
"Death's not so bad." A little bit of the usual twinkle sparked in her eyes. "I happen to know him personally." She lowered her voice as if letting him in on some big secret. "Handsome fellow. Bit gruff at first but when he warms up to you, his company is quite nice." He snatched his hand back and stood, pacing a few times because, Gods be damned, she had scared him and he was not used to that sort of human vulnerability and he didn't like the way it sat beneath his skin and pushed from the inside-out, threatening to burst him.
"This isn't funny," he muttered, stopping and running his hand over his face tiredly. "I don't see how you can keep smiling about it. I just carried--I would have had to--"
"Darling, if I started crying over how flawlessly unfair life can be, I think I'd never stop." She pushed herself to sit halfway up and watch him. "I'm okay, Than," she urged gently, pulling the sheets up around herself. She was particularly protective for the few days following any of his extended absences, slower to touch him, always covering herself a little more. "Sorry." He looked up in surprise. He could count on one hand how many times she had apologized to him in their centuries together. "I didn't mean to frighten you."
"You didn't," he bit back because he didn't want to start this conversation, concerned to discover where it might end.
Something passed in her eyes but she was astonishingly more patient than usual. Maybe she was just too tired to be angry. It tended to take a lot out of her, spending any lengthy period of time away from her vessel and the spectral men that haunted it. "Alright, then," she agreed and she laid back down, rolled over to face the wall and was still.
How can you be so selfish? he wanted to ask her. Did you not think about how I might feel to find you like that? What it might do to me to have to come reap you? But that was a slippery slope leading to doors he didn't think he was bold enough to open with her. So he grabbed a book, sat in the corner and pretended to read when really he was watching from the corner of his eye the way her shoulders rose and fell, promising that she was still alive, only sleeping.
--
It had been a month since that incident and not a day had gone by that Thanatos hadn't ruminated on it for at least a few hours. Usually it happened when Helena was asleep, unable to distract him with her petty chatter and bright laughter or the odd instances in which she turned to him and asked him something quiet and remarkable. Every time he reached down to open his little black book, he feared he would see her name there, laid out in Fate's elegant, lethal handwriting. They had spent so long together and Helena was such a crafty survivalist, he had begun to believe that maybe she really could just go on grinning and flitting about fantastically for the rest of time. Seeing as neither of them aged and both were a little more than human, it was easy to forget how much closer to mortality Troy's Queen was than he.
Nothing lasts forever, Fate had warned him more than once. You'll have to let her go eventually, Thanatos. Can you do it? Could you reap her? Then she'd paused heavily. He could not see her through the divide between them, only hear the smile in her voice when she asked, Did you really think she was yours to keep? Oh, you poor dear. Is that why you haven't freed her from those awful spirits yet? Are you afraid she'll leave you when she doesn't need you anymore? She'd clucked her tongue at him. Don't want to go back to the way things were before? Don't like being alone now?
He tried to pass it off as some strange, quasi-catfight; Fate and Helena had never met but it seemed each time he traversed from one to the next, the each of them had some biting remark to be said about the other. But Fate had never been wrong before, not once, and he couldn't ignore the odds of that for very long. Thus it was that he had knocked on his companion's door earlier that morning, stepping in and shutting it noiselessly behind him. "I have to leave for the day. Take care of some business." He felt a little like he was apologizing.
She'd tensed but shrugged then. "You have to do what you have to do."
"It will only be for the day," he promised. "I should be back by nightfall." He hadn't left her since he'd come back that evening to find her holed up at an inn, her ship docked in port. Helena was too damn stubborn to go back and restore her health, even if it meant he'd walked in on her lying so motionless in bed he had half-feared someone else had already come to claim her soul. He never cared to repeat the walk back to the ship, her hoisted up in his arms, skin cold to the touch.
"You'll know where to find me," she answered.
He chanced stepping in and catching her arm, then. The surprise at his daring showed in her eyes. "Don't leave the damn ship, Helena." He didn't use her name much. Usually girl or woman or, when he was more amicably playful, Your Highness, Your Majesty, my Queen.
"Thanatos, you're eventually going to have to acquaint yourself with the word 'please', you know," Helena tutted. He rolled his eyes at her and vanished.
--
The sun was an hour off from setting in the sky, and still Thanatos had not returned and had no prediction as to when he might find the courage to rally and do so. He was a stark contrast to his surroundings, seated on a rock, chin propped in his hands, glum as the ending to most stories from his time and homeland. Around him, the glade of the Fairies' world throbbed with color and the music of nature. The closer in one got, the more pressing all that livelihood seemed. He'd seated himself upon the outskirts so as to avoid the majority of the noise and movement. For the sickening amount of bright, promising colors he'd seen on his way in to speak to the Superior, she hadn't actually turned out to be very pleasant. Polite, yes. But certainly not helpful.
Maybe she was just hesitant to make a deal with Death. Some cultures confused Reapers with demons, or even the devil himself. Thanatos was not unused to hostility. Even still, near-all individuals could be swayed. Everyone has a price, Helena would have encouraged him. You just have to figure out what it is and if you're willing to pay it. But for all of his bartering and even the instance of near-begging, the Blue Fairy had not been moved.
The magic of your world is different than our own. Olde magick, yours is, and that's the way of her curse. I'm sorry. We can't help. Mixing enchantments like that is risky. No one's done it in recent history. Tales of old suggest it never ended well.
He wanted to ask her if she even knew where the hell 'tales of old' came from because Thanatos knew that most of them were hogwash, but she'd been immovable in her decision and so here he sat, wandering what their next option was and if he would even be able to find the valor in himself to pursue it because it had been hard enough coming here to haggle for her freedom. Fate might have been right. Thanatos might have been selfish. He wondered if that was more a human trait, or a mark of the divine part of him.
Astrid
Thanatos, for one, found no humor in this situation. "What the hell were you thinking?" he hissed. "You could be dead right now. You probably bloody deserve it for your stupidity."
Helena just squeezed his fingers gently. "You were gone a long time. They get malicious."
"I was gone for ten days. You couldn't have stopped back by the ship for a night to recuperate? Prides gets people killed, girl."
"Death's not so bad." A little bit of the usual twinkle sparked in her eyes. "I happen to know him personally." She lowered her voice as if letting him in on some big secret. "Handsome fellow. Bit gruff at first but when he warms up to you, his company is quite nice." He snatched his hand back and stood, pacing a few times because, Gods be damned, she had scared him and he was not used to that sort of human vulnerability and he didn't like the way it sat beneath his skin and pushed from the inside-out, threatening to burst him.
"This isn't funny," he muttered, stopping and running his hand over his face tiredly. "I don't see how you can keep smiling about it. I just carried--I would have had to--"
"Darling, if I started crying over how flawlessly unfair life can be, I think I'd never stop." She pushed herself to sit halfway up and watch him. "I'm okay, Than," she urged gently, pulling the sheets up around herself. She was particularly protective for the few days following any of his extended absences, slower to touch him, always covering herself a little more. "Sorry." He looked up in surprise. He could count on one hand how many times she had apologized to him in their centuries together. "I didn't mean to frighten you."
"You didn't," he bit back because he didn't want to start this conversation, concerned to discover where it might end.
Something passed in her eyes but she was astonishingly more patient than usual. Maybe she was just too tired to be angry. It tended to take a lot out of her, spending any lengthy period of time away from her vessel and the spectral men that haunted it. "Alright, then," she agreed and she laid back down, rolled over to face the wall and was still.
How can you be so selfish? he wanted to ask her. Did you not think about how I might feel to find you like that? What it might do to me to have to come reap you? But that was a slippery slope leading to doors he didn't think he was bold enough to open with her. So he grabbed a book, sat in the corner and pretended to read when really he was watching from the corner of his eye the way her shoulders rose and fell, promising that she was still alive, only sleeping.
--
It had been a month since that incident and not a day had gone by that Thanatos hadn't ruminated on it for at least a few hours. Usually it happened when Helena was asleep, unable to distract him with her petty chatter and bright laughter or the odd instances in which she turned to him and asked him something quiet and remarkable. Every time he reached down to open his little black book, he feared he would see her name there, laid out in Fate's elegant, lethal handwriting. They had spent so long together and Helena was such a crafty survivalist, he had begun to believe that maybe she really could just go on grinning and flitting about fantastically for the rest of time. Seeing as neither of them aged and both were a little more than human, it was easy to forget how much closer to mortality Troy's Queen was than he.
Nothing lasts forever, Fate had warned him more than once. You'll have to let her go eventually, Thanatos. Can you do it? Could you reap her? Then she'd paused heavily. He could not see her through the divide between them, only hear the smile in her voice when she asked, Did you really think she was yours to keep? Oh, you poor dear. Is that why you haven't freed her from those awful spirits yet? Are you afraid she'll leave you when she doesn't need you anymore? She'd clucked her tongue at him. Don't want to go back to the way things were before? Don't like being alone now?
He tried to pass it off as some strange, quasi-catfight; Fate and Helena had never met but it seemed each time he traversed from one to the next, the each of them had some biting remark to be said about the other. But Fate had never been wrong before, not once, and he couldn't ignore the odds of that for very long. Thus it was that he had knocked on his companion's door earlier that morning, stepping in and shutting it noiselessly behind him. "I have to leave for the day. Take care of some business." He felt a little like he was apologizing.
She'd tensed but shrugged then. "You have to do what you have to do."
"It will only be for the day," he promised. "I should be back by nightfall." He hadn't left her since he'd come back that evening to find her holed up at an inn, her ship docked in port. Helena was too damn stubborn to go back and restore her health, even if it meant he'd walked in on her lying so motionless in bed he had half-feared someone else had already come to claim her soul. He never cared to repeat the walk back to the ship, her hoisted up in his arms, skin cold to the touch.
"You'll know where to find me," she answered.
He chanced stepping in and catching her arm, then. The surprise at his daring showed in her eyes. "Don't leave the damn ship, Helena." He didn't use her name much. Usually girl or woman or, when he was more amicably playful, Your Highness, Your Majesty, my Queen.
"Thanatos, you're eventually going to have to acquaint yourself with the word 'please', you know," Helena tutted. He rolled his eyes at her and vanished.
--
The sun was an hour off from setting in the sky, and still Thanatos had not returned and had no prediction as to when he might find the courage to rally and do so. He was a stark contrast to his surroundings, seated on a rock, chin propped in his hands, glum as the ending to most stories from his time and homeland. Around him, the glade of the Fairies' world throbbed with color and the music of nature. The closer in one got, the more pressing all that livelihood seemed. He'd seated himself upon the outskirts so as to avoid the majority of the noise and movement. For the sickening amount of bright, promising colors he'd seen on his way in to speak to the Superior, she hadn't actually turned out to be very pleasant. Polite, yes. But certainly not helpful.
Maybe she was just hesitant to make a deal with Death. Some cultures confused Reapers with demons, or even the devil himself. Thanatos was not unused to hostility. Even still, near-all individuals could be swayed. Everyone has a price, Helena would have encouraged him. You just have to figure out what it is and if you're willing to pay it. But for all of his bartering and even the instance of near-begging, the Blue Fairy had not been moved.
The magic of your world is different than our own. Olde magick, yours is, and that's the way of her curse. I'm sorry. We can't help. Mixing enchantments like that is risky. No one's done it in recent history. Tales of old suggest it never ended well.
He wanted to ask her if she even knew where the hell 'tales of old' came from because Thanatos knew that most of them were hogwash, but she'd been immovable in her decision and so here he sat, wandering what their next option was and if he would even be able to find the valor in himself to pursue it because it had been hard enough coming here to haggle for her freedom. Fate might have been right. Thanatos might have been selfish. He wondered if that was more a human trait, or a mark of the divine part of him.
Astrid