Work Text:
Perhaps I should show you another story, one that puts the other in context. This one began far before I did.
The Land rose to meet the Waves, and they brought Fire into the world. The child was given form, a vessel. Dust formed the child's hair, sea glass made its eyes, and every step was accompanied by breathless laughter.
Mother Entropy (or Decay, as she was known to some) coveted the beings created by her fellow gods. It was this envy that a made a new being from the Mother and Father Time - their child, Death.
Life sparked on this star, bringing the people who would give existence purpose. Mortal from the start, unlike the way your Etheirys was built, these beings found themselves walking side-by-side with immortals.
The people would meet Fire young. They ate with him, lived with him, danced with him… twas no time at all until he was gifted a name. Stephanivien, it was, owing to the wreath frequently seen circling his head.
The people all came to meet Death as well, at the end. Some hated him, some revered him, some simply gave him respect. Regardless of their opinion, all would face him alone at the end. His name was whispered across the star: Artoirel, with his noble bearing and solemn steps.
Time went on. Of him, two more children were made; Expansion (more alike to the Land's family than his own) and Riches. Earth and Water brought the other elements to the world. Wind was brought as a playmate to Fire, then the twins of Lightning and Ice. The elements played together, mingling with themselves, with mortals, with Time's other children when they could.
I came around in that eon as well, but as much as I would like it to be, me and my house are a tale for another time.
Artoirel kept himself apart from it all. His mother spoke to him of futility, of inevitably. He spent centuries with only the Fates for company. The women led him to those whose strings ran short and handed him the end of the strands. He shepherded both young and old, rich and poor, the charitable and the remorseless - all had the same end destination, in his domain far below.
There was beauty on our star. Nigh endless life and love and warmth. Even still, Stephanivien wanted. My dear friend has never been one to thrive in satisfaction.
What had happened to his peer, to the one that used to follow in the shadows he cast? Stephanivien wandered from those he knew and loved in search of the stranger he lost.
The rest of existence noticed the change. With their warmth pulling away, they clung to his heels and buffered his path out of the land of the living. The gods and men distracted him, leading to a season so indulgent that it all became unsustainable. The abundance of food led to an abundance of pests, a world thriving so intensely that it would break before long if nothing changed.
It was then that Stephanivien came to me. And, for better or worse, I told him what he wanted to know.
He could do nothing to stop what people were doing to draw him in. No words would change how people felt about him. As drastic as it was, I let my friend know that he could see Death by doing nothing at all.
The tipping point came naturally. Stephanivien waited until dusk hovered over the fields, and the dried out crops, unpicked and unwatered, caught ablaze.
Night blinded the land. The flames burned down to ash beneath Stephanivien Brightsun's feet. In a dark so full of decay, in an offering of ruination, Artoirel Ironbone crossed into our plane again.
Death had become more ghost than man. He was barely visible, his steps left no impact. His clothes were little more than moth-eaten velvet and drifting cobwebs.
The cast-off god went to work rounding up the souls of the dead. They followed mindlessly in a line headed in the direction from whence he came. Death turned away, off to his empty halls, when a burning touch disturbed the place where his shoulder should be.
"Wait," bid the Fire. Myself and the Fates held perfectly still on opposite sides of the interaction.
"Why?" Death winced at the sound of his own voice, raspy after an eternity of silence.
"Where have you been this whole time? I've been looking for you."
Death turned. His lips were cracked, looking a bit like the land where Stephanivien raged against his father, only tinted blue. "I have been where I belong."
"Take me with you."
Existence held its collective breath. None with thoughts of their own had gone to see the land of the dead, save for Riches, who kept watch over his horde, and their parents, who were not constrained to any one place in any one realm.
"…No."
In shock, Fire froze. He let Artoirel leave, and perhaps the story could've ended there.
Stephanivien was never one to leave well enough alone.
He began to chase Fate, to run behind disasters and wait in the ashes. Over a devastated battleground, Stephanivien called to Artoirel again.
"Take me with you!"
Death halted. "Why?"
"I wish to spend time with you. It has been too long, my old friend."
"I am no one's friend."
"Don't you want to be?"
"No."
Again, Death departed. Again, Fire fled behind.
Over a grandmother, taken in her sleep:
"Take me with you."
"No."
Over two lovers who took one another out:
"Take me with you."
"No."
Over a poor man, unlucky enough to be struck by his sister's ire:
"Take me with you, Artoirel."
"…No."
"Why not?" Stephanivien sped up to walk side by side. "What are you afraid of?"
Death cocked his head. "Afraid? What would I possibly have to fear?"
"Then what is it? Why do you run from me?"
"I have a job to do, people to shepherd to their final destination, I do not have the time nor desire to allow you to throw my schedule off course."
Stephanivien, for all his credit, takes a moment to think before he speaks. "That's all you do?"
"What else is there to do?"
"Everything! Laughing, loving, lounging amongst the people that all of this is for."
"Frivolities, all of it." Death scoffs. "I do what I was created to do. I will do so until Time ceases to be, and then only I will remain."
"Let me show you all there is. Give it a chance."
"I've no time, and I must return home."
"Then I hope you won't fault me for asking one more time: take me with you. I don't need to derail your existence to spend some time at your side."
I met the two eyes split between the three Fates. A string was pulled taut in the air.
For perhaps the first time, Death made his own choice.
"Fine," he said. "But keep up. No one can keep me waiting."
Stephanivien held fast to his word. Even still, Death's existence was irrevocably derailed.
Where Stephanivien walked, braziers were lit, and the palace of the dead saw light for the first time. Seeds drifted from the garland woven into Steph's hair and bloomed into fire poppies in the obsidian's cracks. Laughter echoed through the rafters of a building that had been silent since Time created it. The underworld grew into a world of its own.
For several moons, Stephanivien stayed down below. He followed his promise to teach Death to lounge, and laugh, and love. They split a pomegranate, a juice-filled fruit adorned in rubies. Something burst in Artoirel's chest.
In a small room in the palace, one barely used before the year began, Fire curled around his heart. A now adorned hand growing paler every day without sun turned Death's head down to face him.
"Thank you," Steph whispered. "I have- I cannot stress how much I have loved spending this time with you."
The past tense brought tension to Death's shoulders, one that he had just lost.
Stephanivien propped himself up on his arm. "I will never forget you."
"You don't have to."
"My dear… I need to go home."
A heart Death didn't have nearly burst out of his chest. This- this was cruel. He can't be asked to give up warmth when he has only just began to thaw, he can't-
"No."
Steph's lips parted. "Why not?"
"You're mine," Artoirel whispered, holding Fire's hand in his own. "My mother's first mistake was to let Time run rampant. I- I love you."
"I will return, my love, but I need to see my family. My people. It has been so long since-"
"You can't."
"Why?"
"Pomegranates are of the underworld. In partaking of the fruit, now you are as well. My domain won't let you cross back over."
That didn't stop Stephanivien from trying. Every time he reached the border, he found himself somehow nearer still to the castle he was escaping. The elements raged in the world above, the people rioted, but Death held his ground.
Only two bodies could move back and forth across the barrier. Emmanellain's, as the world had taken to calling Death's youngest brother, and mine.
The two of us played our parts as intermediaries. I parroted messages back and forth as a neutral teller of tales, and Emmanellain kept Stephanivien sane with his company (through the skeletal cat haunting the palace, as Artoirel's grip grew tighter, and Stephanivien's space to roam grew smaller). The star span almost out of control along its axis. Something had to give.
A tsunami rocked the land above. A storm of catastrophic proportions raged, one that could've become calamitous if left unabated. The Fates led Death into its tides to retrieve his newest subjects. Nature trapped him there.
None can say for certain how that conversation went, what threats and what guilt were thrown into play, not with the whipping of such a violent wind. All that I can tell you is this:
Stephanivien returned to the land above by the end of the moon. The world recovered from his loss and the resulting environmental devastation. And six months after, Stephanivien had grown tired of the lights and the noise, and he ageees to return to his dearest friend still in the land of the dead. The season where Stephanivien reigned above came to be known as Summer, the period where Aurvael swept in was called Autumn, the cold months that Laniaitte would one day have to rule alone was named Winter, and… and the Land and the Sea gave rise to their youngest child. Francel, the people called him, Herald of Spring and usher of change.
The cycle continued as it does today, again and again, with the Fire always burning to be where it cannot go.