Death: We Could Still Be Happy

Who would have known the Morning Star to weep? But he does -- he is. Weeping, embracing Hyun. Despite knowing the truth that they are or were, in a way, my own blood, I still feel apart. They are mine, yet I do not fully feel like theirs, nor shall I ever. I see no point in revealing my past to them; I do not even remember it myself, so why rip open new wounds for the sake of old, forgotten scars? Something twinges within my chest; it is an empty, lonely feeling.

“Lucifer always was the most emotional one,” says Gabriel. He watches them as I do, though with more than a little amusement in his smile. “Explains a lot, I suppose.”

“I do not follow,” I clear my throat, blinking away traitorous moisture that had begun to build behind my eyes.

“Well, Father may have crafted humanity in His own image, but their emotions…” he laughs, “those were modelled on us, His children -- especially Luce’s.”

“Have you ever considered simply using your siblings’ given names?”

“But where would be the fun in that?” he winks, before dropping his smile. “It’s an old habit by this point, anyway. Father depends on me to be swift and efficient as possible when it comes to information.”

“God is both omniscient and omnipotent -- I would think “depending” over-exaggerates your role.”

“As much as I love to puff my own wings up, you’re wrong. Yes, my Father is, as you say, all-knowing and all-powerful, but can you imagine how chaotic that is? All that information, always coming, all at once -- and not even in any sort of order or sense. It’d be enough to drive anyone or anything else mad. I help...filter that ever-flowing mass -- prioritize and delegate as much as possible.”

“My apologies,” I incline my head, “what I said was ignorant.”

“Eh, it’s alright,” Gabriel walks over to Silver, stroking my mount’s great hide. I hide my surprise that Silver allows it. “Running as The Messenger keeps me busy, always has. I suppose we’re alike in that way, you and I: all work, no play, and no thanks.”

Running as messenger. Running. That word. I think the more accurate truth would be to say running away from his own family. Running away from the problems, trouble, and the messiness that makes up a family. It makes all of the archangel siblings seem far more...human. Or perhaps it makes humans appear far more like the angelic. Ah, I see. So that is what he meant: crafted in God’s image, moulded by Their children’s emotions.

I say none of this. Instead I say, “I doubt you lack time for play, and I require no thanks. I am what I am.”

“And you’re tired.”

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The moon is shining bright enough to rival the sun, and snow falls like gentle dust motes in the starlight. I can hear the whisper of the trees, the breath of the earth and sky. A symphony of life surrounds me, filling me so that my fingers spark and my chest hollows.

"So very tired," I say. It is a quiet sound, the smallest, most secret desire of my deepest self.

"You can always stop if you wish. The choice is yours...all you need do is ask."

“What about--”

“If you haven’t already guessed,” Gabriel gives a quiet snort, “I care more about you than I do Lucifer’s kid -- or even when you were Lucifer’s kid too, horrible as that may sound. And as much as I’d like to keep you around for as long as possible, if you truly wish to end now...I will honour your wish. I feel like I owe you that much.”

I say nothing, instead looking at the beauty of life that surrounds me. At the father and brother I had never known were mine, now enclosed in a laughing circle of Horsemen and archangels. But that was another life; all of me that belonged to the highest of the Fallen has long-since burned away leaving only me…whoever that is, or whoever that will be.

In the centuries past, I am sure a master might have thought to paint it, this impossible image. In my mind’s eye I can see, too, the ghosts of all the Horsemen past; they no longer weep nor curse at me, instead they smile at the world they left and to which, one day, they would return in a new life. Perhaps they already have.

As impossible as Death desiring to die. In the heat of battle and confusion, all I had wanted was to continue on to see the next moonrise. Yet now, as it all peters out towards its inevitable denouement, the exhaustion renders me near-weightless. To float away into the deep goodnight does not seem so unwelcome.

War turns to us, and his smile fades a little. So much to learn, that young one. And yet how smart he is, for I sense that he sees -- truly sees what we are discussing, Gabriel and I. And I see, too, that he knows my answer as though I had dipped my fingers into the aether that still stains my body and written it across my forehead for all to see.

"Death," he says. I do not hear him, only see his lips move to form my name.

He may yet last a while yet, this War. I hope he does, and though that hope is such a fragile, fluttering thing, it remains. I hope that he has time before his replacement appears.

"Does it hurt?" I ask.

Gabriel turns me to face him, taking my face between his hands, eyes searching my own. "Is Death afraid?" he asks, but there is no laughter in it. He does not smile; he only looks sad.

"I am Death," I reply. "I am not the unknown."

“Death, I--”

“Death, darling, we’re heading home! Let’s go!” Famine calls.

I blink. Whatever stuff as such dreams are made of shatters at the slightest sound of my fellow Horseman’s voice, and the moment is over.

“I am, for now, still Death,” I say, stepping back from Gabriel’s hands. This time, it is I who smile. “And I am no longer needed here.”