"Hey." I meet eyes with Aster. "Are there any female Reapers?" So far, I've only seen guys.
Aster shakes his head. "No, this is an all male squad. But it's not by choice, and I'm sure there are female Reapers out there somewhere."
"Why aren't there any here?" I ask.
Aster shrugs. "Well. This is all speculation, to be clear." I nod. "An interesting fact to note here, is while there are no female Reapers, every current Guardian and every one since the beginning of time have been females in this world."
"That is interesting." I say. I ignore the sounds of Vito and Nico bickering, and Banks egging them both on. Aster always had the most informative things to say. I find talking to him to be the most productive use of my breath. "Why do you think that is?" I prod.
"As you know, to be a Reaper, you must sacrifice your life for someone else. But you also must regret it before you even have time to die. With a Guardian, you can never regret it. You die happy, knowing you made the right choice, and with no doubts about if it was worth it. Because of the high traffic of male Reapers, I think it's safe to say in this world at least, men are usually the ones sacrificing their lives."
"But we're kind of slimy about it." I say.
"Unfortunately. Because though there are only three current Guardians, those women died for someone else, and never once thought twice about it. They died ready and welcome to whatever was next. Not to mention, they too must be impartial about everything. Both men and women possessing that trait are quite difficult to find these days."
"I see you've thought a lot about this." I nod my head a little, rolling his words around in my head.
He chuckles a little. "I'll be honest, I keep waiting for one to pop up. I'm beginning to wonder if there's some unwritten rule none of us know that says women actually can't be Reapers."
I shrug. "I mean, they are kind of the creators of life, if you think about it. Maybe someone thought it'd be too weird to have them taking lives as well." Aster laughs at this, shaking his head.
"I doubt we'll ever know for sure, but it's nice to see I'm not the only one who thinks about these kinds of things." I flash Aster a lopsided grin.
"So hey, Zero, now that you've figured out your name, you need to think of what weapon you'll want." I turn my attention to Jaskier, who is looking at me from across our loose arrangement of chairs.
"A weapon, huh." I lean back and rub at my eyes a little. I was actually kind of getting a headache, maybe from the blood? Or maybe I just wasn't used to my new eyes yet. It was kind of like I was wearing too strong contacts. I needed more time to adjust, I think.
"Are you feeling okay?" I jump when I open my eyes and Aster has moved to crouch in front of me. He looks very worried.
"Oh." I blink a couple times, startled by his concern for me. "My head hurts." Aster hums and puts his fingers on the sides of my head, on my temples. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. I wonder what he's doing.
"Your eyes are just strained, maybe you should return to my room." He says after a moment. He drops his hands and turns to the group. "Zero is going to bed now. He needs his rest for tomorrow, anyway."
"Aw, can't he play with us more?" Vito says dryly, clapping his hands together and making a fake pouty face. He turns to me then. "You'll figure it out soon enough, but we don't' see each other often. Our work keeps us busy. So next time I see you, I expect you to be ten times cooler than you are now, cause it may very well be a while." I feel a little sad that I won't get to see him again for a while. He was kind of annoying, but I liked him well enough.
"See you around." I say simply as I stand up. He grins at me, and nods before I turn to follow Aster back to his room.
I rub at my temples as we head down the hallway.
"You were up and moving quite a lot for only having a few days to recover. You don't have to start your training tomorrow, you know." He says. I shake my head, even though he's got his back to me.
"I just need to close my eyes for a while." Aster hums but doesn't say anything else.
He holds the giant wooden door open for me once we reach the end of the hallway and walks around blowing out the candles on the walls. I fall into the bed that still sat in the middle of the room. I bury my face in the cool pillow, letting out a deep sigh.
"Do you need anything before I leave?" I hear Aster ask from the doorway. I'm quiet, and I can hear him turning to leave. It may not have been a healthy thing to do, but I could feel myself starting to get attached to Aster in particular. In a weird way, he was kind of giving me what I had always wanted from my parents.
"Hey." I say before he can go. He stops, and I lift my head a little so he can hear me. "Thank you. Becoming a Reaper was never in my life plan, but something tells me you've made this as good an experience as it can be on purpose. I'm glad you were here at the same time as me."
He's quiet for a long time before he mutters a quiet, "you're welcome." And shuts the door.
So far, I haven't regretted my decision.