~Death~

It was a strange feeling. Death felt it deep in his core, in his bones so to say. He knew something was afoot. He feared for Life. He didn't want to lose her, to never see her again. To feel her tender lips, to see her smile or hear the rustling of her petals. To hear her voice, to look into her amber eyes...

"I love you." whispered the huge skeleton in his refuge where all the afterlives are stored in shelves like books made out of blind glass. If he could cry he would do it, but he only felt one thing: fear to lose her forever.

He felt weak. Not as himself. Like he was losing substance somehow. His step was not as firm as usual, his grip of his six hands sometimes unsure. He felt weary, weak. 

There had to be an alternative. It has to be.

And there was. He felt it. Behind his eyes somewhere. In his skull whispered something. Not a voice, a feeling.

Death looked up. The giant obsidian stone was glittering like always, the scythe leaning against it. Only a symbol, but so sharp it could cut through stone, metal and - if necessary - the fabric of the universe. Because Death was inevitable and nothing could hide from him.

Only he from himself maybe.

Death looked into the stone. His eyes changed from purple to red to blue and back to purple. Was it so easy? Probably not.

He sighed, pulled himself up, placed his six hands on the surface of the obsidian. Funny thing is that he could feel how cold the stone was. Cold as space and... dark.

Wait. Maybe there was an answer. But not in his refuge. Maybe... yes.

Death grabbed his scythe, conjured his robe around him and grinned. There wasn't a solution in his mind, but maybe... maybe an answer.

He stepped out of his refuge and in the blink of an eye into the dark void, sprinkled with a myriad of stars and other worlds.

There was an answer and he was eager to find it.

~Life~

"Death?"

Life wandered through the palace of her beloved Death, a dream of white oak, black marble, obsidian, purple linen and white orchids. Afterlives where stored away on countless shelves, a faint humming was the only sound in the otherwise very quiet palace. Refuge. Temple?

"Death, love?" she asked again, stepped into the room with the large black obsidian stone. Death was gone. At least he was not in his refuge. Which was not so unusual. But she couldn't sense him and that was what makes her uneasy. Uncertain. A cold hand enclosed her heart and she took a long look around his refuge. Where was he? She was... no, why would he leave? Why couldn't she sense him? Why was her heart pounding like this? Why was she fearing for him?

He was Eternal, no? He was Death, her counterpart. She brings life to every world and realm and he provides for the end of the long way which was life. Sadly enough.

"Where are you, love?" she whispered and shed a tear which tumbled down to the black marble floor where it laid like a flat diamond.

She took the way up to his outlook into the void of space but she couldn't see nor sense him. It frightened her and her petals began to fall.

~Death~

"Where are you taking me?" asked the man, healed from his wounds, but still dead.

"To a choice." answered Death, taking the man with him into his refuge. There was a room, dark like the universe, little stars twinkling in it.

In the midst of the room lay a stone, shimmering in the light of the little stars. It was made out of obsidian, the surface a crescendo of thousands and thousands tiny facets. A scythe stood beside it, leaning against the stone as it was a person. Small runes were etched into the blade of the scythe and the staff was made out of wood. The wood appeared to be as dark as coal and nearly unbreakable.

"What do you mean?" The man - Dervan was his name in his former human life - looked up to the skeleton in the black robe with the six arms into the blue shimmering eyes. "I am dead, am I not? What choices are left? Will you bring me back to my wife?"

"No." Death blinked once. "That I can't do. There are rules in this universe even Life and I have to follow. Fundamental rules. So you are dead and you stay dead."

"And what kind of choice do you have to offer?" Dervan looked to the scythe and the stone. It appeared to be brimming, but could it be that it was a trick of the eye?

Death chuckled which sounded like an avalanche. "You see, I am Death. I am the first Death and the Eternal Death. For every species my love Life is creating I craft an afterlive. For Humans, Garladans, Elves, even insects."

"So... you are the Grim Reaper everyone is talking about?" Dervan turned to Death, facing him. The man was average, a person you probably wouldn't recognise even if one would encounter him at the sidewalk.

"Yes. Probably yes. No, just yes. I am the Grim Reaper if you want."

"And what do you want off me? What are my choices here?"

"Well..." Death got rid of his robe and stood blank to the bone before Dervan. "You are obviously dead. I can't bring you back.

Normally I would guide you to your afterlife where you would be happy and where you can await your wife, your children, grandchildren, see your parents again and so on and so forth." Death gestured with his three right arms to the blind glasses of the afterlives.

"That is one of your options. The other one is a... well, how can I say that... Eternal?" He chuckled. "You see, apparently my life is coming to an end. My existence. For whatever reason I do not know right now. I gazed into the void and an answer was forming in my head: I am not only an Eternal, I'm a cycle. Well, Death is a cycle."

"What do you mean? Isn't death the end?"

"For mortal beings, yes. But not for me or the Eternal Life." Death caressed the large scythe. "So I make you an offer you can refuse if you want."

"And what could that possible be?" asked the man in a quiet voice. "Do you offer me your place in a cycle where I would be your replacement until the end is coming to me as well? To never see my wife and my children?"

Death was silent for a moment, then he placed himself on the floor right next to the uncertain human and nodded. "Yes. If you want it, that is. But you can say no to it, move on and I try to find another successor."

"And if you can't find one?"

"I do not know. It is happening the first time." He blinked, his blue eyes changing to a bright green. "I can't promise you anything. I do not know what kind of Death you will become or what your powers will be. I can only promise you that you have help while the Eternal Life is still there. And she is probably the only real Eternal, I am afraid."

"Don't be." Dervan smiled a weary smile and sighed.

~Life~

There he was!

Life looked up in the clear blue sky where she was sitting under the branches of an old weeping willow tree. She had cried for at least a decade, had weeped for her beloved Death because she couldn't find him. She thought he had finally enough of her and that he had abandoned her.

But there he was. She sensed him like the rays of sunshine on her skin. She rose to her feet; old, brown and dead petals falling slowly to the ground.

"What happened?" she asked quietly and then she took a step. Opened the fabric, took the roads and entered Deaths refuge, starting at the library, filled with all kind of things more or less intelligent species could engrave runes or word in or on it.

Her petals began to bloom again as she was walking fast to the heart of the refuge, the palace, the temple. Where the black obsidian resides and the scythe and her Death. Her beloved Eternal!

She took a turn and jumped right into his arms, tumbling to the ground with him and kissing him. But something...

"Wait." Now she took a look and frowned. "Who are you?"

"Oh... hey." The being who was once a man called Dervan smiled with its still human face. "You must be Life."

"Yes, and who are you?" She refused to get up and away because he felt like Death, smelled like Death and talked like Death with the voice coming down from the bottom of a barrel. But he was way smaller and had only one pair of arms. And was apparently human.

"I think... well, I was a human moments before you arrived." He grinned, his brown eyes changing colours from purple to red to green and blue back to brown. "And I think we might have to talk about something."

"No." She shook her beautiful head, tears filling her eyes and then she kissed him, before whispering a few words into his ear. "Hello, my beautiful end."

~ ~