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A Portal To Origin
When I asked him of his name, there had been a second of silence before he explained he does not bear one nor had he ever needed it as before dying vessels, capable beings or fading souls, only the path to afterlife is what he needed to provide them. I complained for so much unexpected gibberish he feeded me. That was when I caught his attention--well, enough to make him turn his head to me for the first time ever since I dwindled into an ironically angelic-looking.. err, fae? well, child in white that seemed to be poorly fated to sit only on his cold shoulder.
"Most call me the death reaper."
"That was what I had called you, too."
"But I am not."
"You are."
"If anything, I may be Death. Meanwhile, you are Reaper. You reap them of what I bring."
"What?"
"What?"
I lost sense of time. But I know for certain it did not take me a while to get used to his presence and ways. Far from what most would have imagined, he holds a very common stoic and aloof of a simple personality. Only his appearance was the frightening thing with all that heavy-looking raven cloak, dark, huge skeleton with glowing red eye holes. And oh, his voice.. that for some reason is sounding like as if incapable of ever be shaded of some colorful hues and sentimental tone. It's always slow, low and stolid. If one did receive the invitation to afterlife from him, I sure understand why they would be gobbled up in fear. This entity would forsooth not make the slightest effort to talk further or even justify his position as the death. Or the bringer of it.
Well, perhaps, I am in no position to talk.
The first and foremost thing he told me was a succinct information delivered out of sloth; to eyes of the dying, I am but a scythe that reaps them of breathing. That is the premise he brought over the table in our discussion of names. His in particular.
"Where to?"
That's the problem. Just as he would not care providing the dying of further information other than his single line almost sounding like a recorded tape to me now, he would not also create the tint of effort to communicate with his partner--I, the kid in ironically white raiments comfortably seated on his shoulder. I had to stand up and threaten him again of pulling his hood off before he finally responded.
"For another soul."
I rolled my eyes. This is really not going anywhere. If every retrieved soul had the opportunity to spend a few moments with their grim reaper, they would have realized he's just a recorded tape playing over and over again. Each time I ask him where would we be going, I receive the same awful answer. He just would not exert effort thinking of any useful details; whether we are going to fetch the soul of a suicidal child or a sick grandpa on bed. To him, it is just another soul--one of another thousand.
The view from his shoulder has always been high. It is a luck that somehow let me learn the world of the dwarves on my own from a bird's eye view. Since this Death has never been concerned of making me familiarize of the world where we were bound to bring death and reap breathing. From the moment I had been collected from the human realm as the thousandth soul, I've known only the world of dwarves--aside from my own world--which I never even thought existed. So, when Death halted in the middle of a vast mudded land of dwarves, my curiosity has arose.
"Get down."
"What? Why?" I have always cherished this sweet spot on his shoulder not ever needing to step my foot on the land of the rough, barbaric, tiny drunkards. Always leaving their work unclean thinking they do not have to for the next day, it would just be used again as the working field.
"Just get down."
It would be difficult to insist on getting useful answers. He would just probably tell me it's a needed action, anyways. I knew I just had to leaped off of his shoulder and land gracefully beside him on the mud. And my hair... my unnecessarily too long white hair would have definitely landed on the mud and gotten some dirt on it. If I hadn't caught all of it with both of my poor, tiny and thin limbs. Gah, how did I end up with such fragile body over the time? It's taking all of my strength just to carry this unnecessarily too long white and heavy hair.
"Gah, Death! Why did my hair turn white and kept growing while I remained as a kid--even grew weaker all this freaking tim---!"
I have been cut off by a sudden spark when he snapped. In the middle of nowhere, within the cold breeze as the sun sets, in an unbelievably quiet land of dwarves, I began to recognize the combination of colors forming a circle in front of us. Blue, green and red... and a lot more. From a tiny hole in air, the whirling hues forming it commenced an expansion, producing more recognizable features. It's a portal. It's a freaking portal! It was the first thing he has shown me when I was transformed to be his reaper. This was the same thing that let us travel through dimensions, space and time and worlds. This was the thing that sent us both to the world of dwarves.
"It's a portal!" I exclaimed. "How could you not tell me we're finally leaving this spiteful land of barbaric and foolishly boisterous drunkards, you skeleton!" I couldn't help but hit him to the level I reach him--his knee. He shifted his gaze to me. And though I do not read any kind of expression from that bones and holes in eyes just glowing red, I just kind of knew he was trying to falsify whatever idea is evident on my face. I crossed my arms and raised an eyebrow on him. "I do hope it works the same way it did before. We're not just going to move onto another continent in Dwarville, are we?"
He looked at now fully formed portal. "How long has it been there, you think?"
Oh... Astonished I was, my eyes just widened. I cannot be mistaken. And so, I drawled a question. "We're finally going back to human realm...?"
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