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[columns][center][item=ghostly aura][/center][nextcol][color=transparent]..[/color][nextcol][color=#00B3D5][font=garamond][size=7][size=4][b]the dim reapers (or, bird brains)[/b][/size][/size][/font][/color]
[size=2]written by Disillusionist
[color=#9494A9]5,631 words[/color][/size][/columns]
[color=#0B1F25]When Voidwalker was born, angels sang, demons fled in terror, and the stars and planets danced with joy. Or at least that was what he liked to tell people.
What [i]was[/i] certain was that when he was born, his parents called in soothsayers, as was traditional in their clan. Many of these dragons soon left, shaking their heads and muttering about, “So much ego, good gods, my Second Sight couldn’t see a damn thing beyond all that.’” A couple, however, stayed and soon delivered their pronouncements.
“He will travel long and travel far,” said one.
“He will be a friend to powerful beings,” said the other.
“His words will heal the rift between the servants of Light and Shadow,” they proclaimed in unison.
Voidwalker’s parents were overjoyed. To them, there was little doubt about what this meant. “Our son, a great diplomat!” they cried, as the soothsayers traded wry looks. “He’ll travel to other lands and be the trusted friend of kings and queens!”
The soothsayers accepted their thanks and returned home, bickering all the way. Meanwhile, Voidwalker’s parents turned to the next step, which was naming him. Another tradition in this clan was to pick the names of newborns out of the mystical Naming Jar, and Voidwalker’s mother and father didn’t bat an eyelid when they unrolled the mini-scroll and saw this sinister-sounding name.
“Who cares if the name makes him sound like a spectral mass murderer. The prophecy says he’ll be a great dragon! Also a peacemaker. There was something about that in there, as I recall.”
Voidwalker probably could have done with a much less creepy name. Or perhaps it would be accurate to say that he could have been named Angelic Sweetheart Goodfeather and it still wouldn’t have changed a damn thing.
Because Voidwalker turned out to be a [i]terrible[/i] diplomat. The soothsayers’ prophecies burrowed into his head and lived there rent-free, kicking out any decent thoughts that dared intrude upon the young Obelisk’s brain. He grew up with a tremendous amount of self-importance, so much that it probably would have made even the Plaguebringer sick.
His parents sent him to Diplomat College, but he took the words he was taught and twisted them to his own selfish ends. Mainly, he used them to swindle people out of money. Lots and lots of money.
“It’s OK, because those soothsayers’ prophecies will [i]definitely[/i] come true and I’ll be protected by kings and queens!” he chortled, boldly ignoring the fact that every single king, queen, sovereign, archmage, et cetera he’d met was already [i]extremely mad[/i] at him.
None were madder than the [url=https://www1.flightrising.com/dragon/38101229]Greenwitch[/url], however. The old Pearlcatcher had been driven from her clan, but she was still fearless, and banishment hadn’t diminished her magic one bit. When she discovered that Voidwalker had swindled away some of her goods, her rage erupted anew.
“I curse you,” she hissed, even as he gallumphed away, potions spilling from his grasp. “You will never know peace!”
[i]”Wander forever, though thy bones grow weary
Wander forever till ye fall to the ground
Wander forever, never rest, never—
Wander forever—to the earth ye’ll be bound!”[/i]
“Yeah, right!” sneered Voidwalker, though he had to give her points for style—no one had ever cursed him out in rhyming verse before.
He forgot the curse eventually—and it stayed forgotten for quite a while, as he continued his travels and met all those glorious folks that the soothsayers had seen in his future (or so he supposed). Some of them had heard of his more unsavory deeds and booted him out of their territory. Others were none the wiser, and they took him on as an ambassador, asking him to help them form alliances with other clans. He was soon sent to broker a peace agreement between two clans on the border of Light and Shadow.
[i]“This is it!”[/i] the Obelisk eagerly thought. [i]“This is where I’ll prove my greatness...!”[/i]
Alas, it was not to be. Voidwalker flubbed these negotiations, and he flubbed them [i]hard[/i]. He’d always been able to talk his way out, but things were different this time. The clan leaders he was addressing were [i]very[/i] displeased, and when Voidwalker’s silver tongue failed him, the entire gathering went off like a volcano. The Obelisk’s retinue was slaughtered, and himself with them.
“Well,” he huffed when it was all over, “that’s that. Wow, could those soothsayers have been any more wrong?”
He sprawled where he had fallen, glaring after the surviving forces as they marched back to their homes. Meanwhile, around him, the spirits of the dead were rising up from their corpses. He could see them, like wispy cobwebs fluttering up to the sky.
“Any time now,” he said, waiting for his body to let him go, so he could rise to the glorious paradise he was sure awaited him. But darkness began falling, and still his soul didn’t rise.
“Hello?” he called out, and this time, there was a note of fear in his voice. But there was no other reply except the chirping of crickets. Somewhere, a coyote howled.
“Gods,” he muttered, “this is going to be incredibly [i]boring[/i], isn’t it?”[/color]
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[color=#0B1F25]Voidwalker knew he was dead. His heart had stopped pumping, so blood wasn’t flowing, and everything about him felt sluggish and [i]wrong[/i].
Rigor mortis set in, and that was a real pain in the butt, because he absolutely couldn’t move, and he was [i]dyi[/i]—er, [i]desperate[/i] to get out of this situation. For one thing, the bodies around him were starting to stink, and he didn’t want to stick around any longer to wait for something to eat him. He didn’t want to think about what [i]that[/i] would feel like.
He had just managed to get his limbs moving again when the reapers came.
They looked like birds, but there was something about the way they moved....Voidwalker saw the first one, a blot of brightness in the night. Every time its wings flapped, sprinkles of light spun away from them, as though it had a bad case of divine dandruff.
“Oh, snap,” he muttered, and concentrated on getting his back legs working again. He already had his front legs under him, and if he could juuuust drag himself into the trees...
And then— “Oh, snap!” he groaned again, more vehemently, because he’d just caught sight of the second reaper. [i]This[/i] one was smaller, but so dark that it stood out clearly against the shadows. It was hopping from corpse to corpse, stabbing its beak into each body.
“Not this one...”
“Not here,” sighed the first. “They’ve already flown away.”
Voidwalker’s front paws slipped out from under him. He hit the ground with a wet [i]splat[/i].
The reapers whirled. “There!” they screeched, their beady eyes flashing with sudden fire. Voidwalker closed his own eyes, praying for a merciful death (haha, [i]no[/i]) as they flapped towards him.
He felt their claws digging into him, and then their words—
“He’s mine! I grabbed him first!”
“His soul’s already flown away. But his heart’s still warm! I’ll crack his ribs open and eat it.”
“Wait, [i]what[/i]?!” Voidwalker screeched. Immediately, the claws released him.
“Blast! He’s still alive.”
“No, he’s not. He’s clammier than a frozen fish.”
“He is? But he’s...” The reapers lapsed into confused silence.
Voidwalker peeked out at them. Their shapes earlier had been indistinct, just blobs of white and black and many fluttering wings. But up close, they looked like birds. The first was a white swan, and like all swans, it had a long, graceful neck and murderous eyes. The second, a raven, had a wry tilt to its beak and an uncomfortably piercing gaze. (Voidwalker mentally dodged the word “hungry”. Or—I’m sorry—[i]ravenous[/i].)
“He’s a zombie,” they decided at last.
“EW!” gasped Voidwalker, who had strong opinions about zombies. They were all right, in their way; he’d just never thought he would actually [i]become[/i] one.
He thought about this as the two reapers faced off, stomping the ground with their little birdy feet. Voidwalker wondered why they weren’t swinging scythes around instead, and then realized that given how close by they were, it was a very good thing that they weren’t.
“I would claim him for Light, but our rules are clear,” the swan said at last. “We cannot harvest this one’s soul.”
“[i]You[/i] can’t,” sneered the raven. “I don’t eat souls. It’s the hearts I’m after—the brighter the better. If I get enough of them, I’ll be able to ascend to my true form!”
“Ascend, [i]sure[/i]. With a mouth that big, you’ll ascend into being a glorious, gobbling [i]turkey[/i].”
They started butting heads. Voidwalker watched them for a moment, and then he pinched their tail feathers and carefully pulled them apart.
“Look,” he sighed, ignoring their invectives (“Unhand me, knave!”—“Burn in hell, [i]witch[/i]!”), “it’s been a terrible day, and I’m very confused. Why are you after me specifically?”
“Well, is this not your army?” The raven waved a wing at the field of chopped-up body parts. Voidwalker took a moment to keep from hurling, and then he managed to squeak out, “Y...[i]es[/i]?”
“Capital! Army leaders have great, strong hearts, exactly what a valravn like myself needs!”
“And I,” said the swan, with a withering glance at her rival, “am a valkyrie. I harvest souls, and yours, good sir, is meant to be welcomed into the embrace of the gods!”
“Really?” said Voidwalker, who was imagining the gods, all Eleven of them, embracing him, or more specifically his neck, with their talons. And possibly punching his face in for good measure.
“Yes.” The swan’s eyes glazed over. “I have been harvesting souls for so many years! Just one more, and I will be able to ascend to my true for—”
“Boo, go get your own lines!”
“You two know each other?” Voidwalker gasped, hurrying to interrupt them before they started pecking each other’s feathers out.
“We’ve met,” the valkyrie snapped. Voidwalker rambled on, “You said you’ve been at this for many years; I’m sure you’ve been all over Sornieth! I’ve been cursed to wander the world as a zombie—you have to help me find a way to break this spell!”
“Why so?” quoth the raven. “I’ve met people who’d kill for immortality like that. Har-har.”
“[i]It hurts like hell, OK?![/i]” Voidwalker snarled. The raven leaned away from him. “My, what big teeth you have.”
“So, is it settled then?” Voidwalker finally managed to get his haunches under himself. He sat up, ignoring the slimy feeling of blood and worse sliding out of his body, and said, “Help me find the witch who cursed me, and I’ll repay you! Look, you—raven!”
“That’s [i]valravn[/i] to you, [i]sir[/i].”
“Give me a break, I can barely move my tongue. Look, once I’ve vacated this body, you can have my heart, OK? I won’t be using it then.”
“You aren’t using it [i]now[/i],” the valravn said, his beady eyes fixed on Voidwalker’s ribcage. The Obelisk just snarled, showing off his very big teeth again.
To the valkyrie, he said, “And I’ll...I don’t know, fling my soul into your arms and you can carry me up to the gods.”
“Possibly,” she said. She was now realizing that Voidwalker expected both rivals to [i]work together[/i]. The Obelisk gabbled out, “Come on, work for those promotions you both so richly deserve! Just one more soul and one more heart, all right?! I mean, you’ve already got me. Go, go, go!”
“‘Go’?! All right, then—where d’you propose we start looking for this witch of yours?”[/color]
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[color=#0B1F25]Voidwalker’s search was long, and he felt he could have done without 90% of it. It was also particularly trying because the reapers were not ideal traveling companions.
To begin with, they were not particularly smart. Sure, sometimes they spoke in profoundly spooooky, doom-laden tones, but when one started digging through the foreboding froth, there wasn’t much meaning to those pronouncements. They just really hated each other’s guts.
Many times, they threatened to quit over such heinous insults as “She’s [i]looking[/i] at me!” or “Why is he still here?!” Voidwalker’s rebuttals to these generally included the words “cowards”, “chickens”, and “Bawk, bawk!”
Neither reaper wanted to see the other succeed, so they grimly stuck to him, and at first Voidwalker thought himself brilliant for taking advantage of their rivalry and pride. But—and this was becoming the anthem of his afterlife—[i]Now He Wasn’t So Sure.
“I’ve done many bad things in my life, but I don’t think they were bad enough for me to deserve[/i] this!” the Obelisk thought. It was a rainy afternoon, and they’d found a cave to take shelter in; but he was sitting outside, in the rain, because the two reapers were still arguing. What made it even more unfair was that because they were supernatural beings, they didn’t get tired of jabbering at each other. Voidwalker had thought about sending them out instead, but had decided not to, on account of the fact that if [i]they[/i] got wet, their feathers would stink for [i]hours.[/i]
“But no more!” he decided, as lightning flashed above him. He appreciated that; he felt like the world was hyping him up. He turned around and—ahem—[i]stormed[/i] back into the cave.
“What?” snapped the reapers, because they didn’t like him either. But he just glared back at them and growled, “Look. This has to stop!”
And then he gritted his teeth and prepared to inflict [i]his amazing diplomatic skills[/i] upon them. He was hesitant to do this because...well, last time he’d done that, it had gotten him killed.
[i]“But hey, the worst has already happened! —Oh gods, I hope that’s true,”[/i] he said to himself. And then he drew himself up, heedless of the wind rattling through his exposed ribcage, and boldly launched into a grand and beautiful spiel about how they were All In This Together and Why Couldn’t They Just Get Along.
“You know, we don’t like you either,” said the valravn, restating the obvious. Voidwalker fired back, “But you wouldn’t dare bail on me because you’re a hecking [i]coward[/i]!”
“I think you actually meant to phrase that differently, but gods darn it, that’s true.”
“Out with it, child,” squawked the valkyrie. And now Voidwalker sighed. He launched into a slightly more honest spiel this time, about how they had to pull together because What if the Witch Kicked Their Butts Into Oblivion?
“Hadn’t thought of that,” the valravn admitted with a shrug. “I mean, I usually confront dead bodies. And they don’t tend to put up fights, you know?”
“But we [i]do[/i] have magical powers we can wield,” the valkyrie said. “The Spirit Realms are strange and dangerous places, and we must always be prepared to protect our passengers.”
“Or lunch.”
“That, too.”
“Can you combine your wonderful spirit powers?” Voidwalker pleaded. “Aww, nuts. I can’t believe I just said that.”
“Fine, we shall work together to aid you. But only once!”
“Just this once!”
“After your soul has been delivered, Obelisk, I shall gain a new and radiant form. I will be allowed to choose those who will stand before the Lightweaver herself!”
“And I will finally be rid of this rickety birdy body, with its rickety birdy legs,” drawled the valravn. The valkyrie sneered, “We all have to start with simple goals, I suppose.”
“Everybody shut up!” Voidwalker exploded. It was a very undiplomatic thing to say, but he was tired, [i]and already dead, for goodness’ sake.[/i] “Tell me more about your amazing spirit powers! It’s brainstorming time! [size=1]Oh gods, I just realized you both have literal bird brains.[/size]”[/color]
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[color=#0B1F25]Voidwalker’s journey continued, and now he, too, talked almost nonstop, because he spent much of his time alternately cajoling and browbeating the birds into working with each other. It was incredibly difficult, because holy moly, the [i]mouths[/i] on those things. But the Obelisk had not sailed through Diplomatic College and several swindle-fests for nothing, and now he used his peacemaking skills 24/7, and then some.
When he finally got them to go one hour without insulting each other, he almost cried with relief, except he was afraid this would make them start yelling accusations of “What’ve you gone and done [i]now[/i]?!” to each other. So he just shut up and smiled in that annoyingly smug way he had.
They traveled all over Sornieth. More than once, Voidwalker found himself grateful for being undead, because he didn’t actually need to eat or drink. (Of course, he was still hungry and thirsty, and every single injury he sustained didn’t heal and hurt like [i]hell[/i], but he felt it was important to look on the bright side of life. Or whatever this was turning out to be.)
But he was very clearly [i]undead[/i], and not all dragons took kindly to him. Even his most honeyed words sometimes failed him. “Look, I just haven’t bathed, OK?!” he screamed at one point, trying to talk down the mob that was approaching with torches and pitchforks drawn. “When you say that I stink of death, that’s really quite hurtful, you know!”
Whenever the mob—multiple mobs, actually, on many different occasions—didn’t back down, the reapers sallied forth to protect their investment. Voidwalker had to admit that it was very nice to see them erupting into fantastic coruscations of light or conjuring madness-inducing illusions, but usually he was too busy dragging his decomposing corpse away to properly appreciate this.
He made sure to thank them later on, however. He praised their magic and guardianship, and he made sure to wave their accomplishments in each other’s faces.
“Valkyrie, that celestial choir was fantastic! You had them throwing down their pitchforks and begging for the Lightweaver’s mercy!”
“It’s Valkyrja,” mumbled the swan. Voidwalker and the valravn blinked. “Whassat?”
“My name is Valkyrja.”
“I thought it was ‘valkyrie,’” burbled the valravn. Voidwalker, who was quicker on the uptake, said, “Don’t the two names mean the same thing?”
“It’s just a thing we do. Whatever. I don’t care.”
“And I,” said the valravn, “am [i]Valravn[/i]!” He puffed out his shadowy chest, and for an instant, Voidwalker just really wanted to swat him. [i]“I was really hoping he’d have another name. Especially one that didn’t also start with V.’”[/i]
Out loud, he said, “And, uh, Valravn! Those eldritch illusions were...Well, they were sick!”
“Thank you.” Valravn’s violet eyes sparkled with joy.
“No, really, they were sick. Awful. [i]Horrifying.[/i] I would have puked my guts out if I hadn’t lost them ages ago.”
“My word, Obelisk, show some respect for your guardians!” Valkyrja snapped. And Voidwalker, for the first time in months, felt a surge of hope and glee.
For many years, the two reapers had been using their magic to compete against each other. Voidwalker didn’t understand why; it wasn’t as though they were after the same bits. He wondered if it had to do with those gods they kept blabbering about.
But now the reapers were working to protect the same thing, and they gained a newfound appreciation for each other’s magic. Compliments began to flow between them more freely, and soon laughter and songs did too. Voidwalker even found himself smiling at times, watching them soar together overhead. [i]“A lovely dance,”[/i] he thought.
[i]“Good heavens...is [/i]this[i] what I’ve been missing out on?”[/i]
The long search for the Greenwitch gave him and his companions much to think about—and much to learn. There was more ahead...but first they had to complete their mission, and free the wayward diplomat from the witch’s curse.[/color]
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[color=#0B1F25]Finally, finally, [i]finally[/i], they found the witch’s lair. It straddled the border between Light and Shadow, right on the edge of the sea.
Voidwalker approached the den, and the witch, sensing his presence, came out to confront him. As far as she could tell, he was alone. He was a shambling, putrid wreck, and she glared at him through her wooden mask, her claws impatiently tap-tapping upon her pearl.
“An old acquaintance...from another life,” she tittered, a smirk snaking across her face. Voidwalker, who’d been about to reintroduce himself, said, “You recognize me? How?”
“I [i]am[/i] a witch, child.”
“Ask stupid questions, get stupid answers, I suppose.”
“A lesson you should’ve learned long ago,” the Greenwitch said with a scowl. She drew herself up, wings spreading menacingly. “How did you find me?”
“I traveled the world for...my goodness, how many years has it been? [i]How many years?![/i]”
The witch hissed. Voidwalker snapped back to reality. He stabbed a rotting finger at her and declared, “During that time, I have learned much about you.”
“Doubtless you think that will suffice in your battle against me,” the witch growled. The air around her grew dark with the building force of her fury. “Come, then! Show me your strength! Show me how powerful you [i]think[/i] you have beco—”
Voidwalker tossed a sack forward. It hit the ground with a clunk. And then he showed the witch one of his true strengths as a diplomat, a skill he really should have used many times before.
He let out a pathetic, woebegone howl and [i]groveled[/i] like the fate of the world depended on it.
“Greenwitch, I come to beg for your forgiveness!” he wailed. “I spent the last...well, there were a lot of them...[i]years[/i] traveling the continent, learning about your craft! With the help of divine spirits, I have brewed new potions, that I may return what I stole!”
“You learned [i]my[/i] craft?” snorted the witch. Contempt and disbelief blazed in her eyes. And disgust moved over her face as Voidwalker crawled towards her, blubbering fetid tears.
“Lift the curse from me. Let me rest!”
“Pah, these potions...I have no interest in your cheap imitations of my work!”
Voidwalker screeched in horror as the witch seized the sack and smashed it upon the stones. Clouds of smoke boiled up from it, and the Obelisk backpedaled, stammering incoherently.
Out of the smoke, the witch’s face emerged, her eyes alight with dreadful green fire. “I no longer bargain!” she spat. “Certainly not with [i]you[/i]! Repent all you want, repent till the end of time! Till the stars turn black and the moon shatters; I’ll never lift my curse!”
Voidwalker’s words were gone. He could only blubber in fear.
But now the witch heard two new voices. The smoke was flung aside by beating wings.
“Then if you won’t,” the reapers promised, as Voidwalker cowered beneath them, “[i]we will[/i].”
The witch was no stranger to death. She had faced it before, had warded it away many times. Her familiarity with it had seen her driven from her clan, for she had offered it to the wrong dragon...
And it came for her now, in a thunder of sorcerous spells and beating, spectral wings.
The witch fell into the sea. Her pearl fell with her, and with a final flash of magic, it shattered upon the rocks below.[/color]
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[color=#0B1F25]“Well, that could have gone a lot better,” Voidwalker sighed as he struggled to his feet. The swan tilted her head to blink at him. “I suppose it could’ve, yes.”
“You were splendid, though.” The valravn bounced up and down enthusiastically. “Absolutely splendid!”
“I groveled and threw a sack of trash.”
“[i]Splendid, I say![/i]”
Voidwalker sighed again.
But with the witch’s death, the curse was broken, and now the Obelisk gasped in delight as he felt his soul finally coming untethered. It was like a great weight lifting off him, like being able to breathe again after nearly drowning. The reapers pressed close together, beaks open in awe.
The valkyrie drew herself up and boomed, “You’re ready to fly, Obelisk! Shall we head to the Lightweaver’s halls?”
“Yes, please!” Voidwalker extended a claw. The swan’s feathers brushed it—and as she’d said she would, she [i]changed[/i].
Brighter and brighter, almost too bright to look at. A [url=https://www1.flightrising.com/dragon/79607940]valkyrie[/url] of angelic radiance! Her hide and wings sparkled in the sunlight, glittering like new-fallen snow.
Voidwalker’s soul bowed low even as his discarded body collapsed in a gelatinous heap behind him. Valkyrja looked down at him, her face stern...and then she chuckled and patted his head.
There was an “ahem!” from the valravn, who was shuffling his rickety birdy feet. “So! If it’s OK...” he began, “I really could use...well. It’s a bit awkward because...well...”
“You still want to eat my heart?” Voidwalker asked, arching an eyeridge. The valravn’s feathers fluffed out. “Look, I was very clear about that from the very beginning, yes? I must consume a certain amount to become a full-fledged—”
“I was just joshing. Go ahead, eat it right up. Seeing you dig through that mess is going to be fascinating.”
“You think so?” Valkyrja asked, as the valravn began tucking in. Voidwalker’s soul went even paler. “On second thought, no, watching this was a bad idea. I wonder if I can still throw up without a tummy.”
“Let’s find out! My word, I think he’s exploding.”
“He is?” Voidwalker watched as the valravn’s outline wavered. It expanded like a cloud of smoke—or an explosion, as Valkyrja had said. Expanding [i]very[/i] rapidly.
And then with a [i]whoomph![/i] of displaced air, the darkness cleared. Voidwalker and Valkyrja found themselves looking up...and up...and farther up...into the face of a gigantic [url=https://www1.flightrising.com/dragon/80008118]wyrm[/url]. His wings blotted out the sun as he spread them, glittering with the light of many stars.
“[i]This is my higher form[/i]!” Valravn bellowed, and his voice was so loud it raised more waves in the sea. Voidwalker nearly fainted from sheer terror, but the valkyrie was very appreciative, and she clapped her hands politely.
“Yes, uh...it’s very nice. [i]Well[/i]!” Voidwalker hauled his composure back to where it belonged. “That’s everyone’s business completed, then?”
The reapers nodded. The Obelisk couldn’t help noticing them aiming sideways looks at each other, but he politely didn’t comment.
“I guess this is it, then.”
“Yes, it seems that this is it.”
“I get to go off to the gods.”
“Wasn’t talking to you,” said Valravn, and Voidwalker wrinkled his nose.
“We shall fly up to the heavens,” declared Valkyrja. “A job well done, Valravn.”
“Aye. You too. You were quite splendid yourself.”
“You’re welcome, I guess,” Voidwalker mumbled, just to check if they were listening. They weren’t. Their eyes were riveted on each other, but though their gazes were intense, they weren’t filled with rage now.
He looked closer, closer. Noted the color of their eyes. And memory, like ice-cold water, began to trickle into his mind.
[i]“No...It couldn’t be...?!”[/i]
“Let us fly, Obelisk!” And Valkyrja wrapped him up in her brilliant wings. Up they rose, higher and higher, until Voidwalker, spitting out a mouthful of spirit feathers, gasped, “Oh, heavens, the prophecy!”
“What prophecy?” Valkyrja asked. But when Voidwalker looked down again, Valravn had already gone.[/color]
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[color=#0B1F25]And with that, the gods welcomed Voidwalker into their halls, and...haha, no, of course not. Some of them really wanted to inflict more curses on him, because he’d caused [i]so much trouble[/i] in life.
And in fact, they cast upon him a somewhat milder version of the witch’s curse. Voidwalker was barred from the afterlife, and doomed to roam Sornieth as a restless spirit. But at least he was no longer tethered to his body, and he wryly decided that it was much better than the years he’d spent shambling around with his squawking spirit pals.
He did run into them a few times. The world is not that wide. “Oh, hallo,” they greeted him as he approached, eager to reminisce about the gross old days. This lack of enthusiasm always deflated Voidwalker, and he paused, looking at Valkyrja—or Valravn, whomever he happened to be talking to at the time. Never both of them together, which he soon realized accounted for the misery.
“You ought to find each other again,” he encouraged them. “How about it, eh? I know where to find our other friend....I mean, I’m busy, but you two should get together sometime!”
But the two reapers just sighed and made vague excuses not to do so.
Voidwalker thought about it. He already knew what to do; he just needed some time to come to terms with it, really.
He spread his velvet-dark wings and flew back to the border of Light and Shadow.
There was a meadow there, bang on the border. A very familiar place. [i]“Aww, they managed to clean the bodies up. I hope nobody remembers that that whole mess was my fault.”[/i]
But somebody did remember. [i]Two[/i] somebodies. Voidwalker clenched his fangs as he hovered above the ground.
And then, with every inch of his spirit, he called out to the gods.
Two goddesses, to be exact. The Lightweaver and the Shadowbinder appeared in that hallowed vale. The former shimmered in the sky above, and the latter rose from the trees. They stood there, rooted in unreality, their fathomless eyes trained upon this foolish, impudent spirit.
“Uh...hi,” said Voidwalker. He’d prepared [i]so many words[/i] for this, but the sight of two eternal deities just drove all thought from his mind.
[i]“Speak, child,”[/i] they rumbled. They weren’t smiting him, at least, and he felt confidence trickling back into his ice-cold soul. With herculean effort, he drew himself up and managed not to run away.
“Noble goddesses, I crave your indulgence! I am here to speak on behalf of two protectors...friends of mine!”
[i]“You mean the reapers? We remember your reapers.”[/i] Ichor dripped from the Shadowbinder’s maw as she grinned. [i]“I sent one of mine to claim you on this battlefield some years back.”
“As did I,”[/i] the Lightweaver chimed in. The two sisters looked levelly at each other, and Voidwalker took the opportunity to choke down yet more fear.
“They traveled together with me, and they also became...friends with each other.” He grimaced. “Friends” sounded so tawdry in this case. [i]“But then again, they’re goddesses. [/i]Surely[i] they’ll get the hint.”[/i]
And the goddesses leaned closer, their faces blotting out the sky. [i]“Is that so?”[/i]
“Oh, absolutely. Would I lie to you? Wait, don’t answer that.”
The Lightweaver’s ears pulled back. [i]“‘Tis difficult to believe. Our spirit servants have despised each other for millennia.”
“They are fiercely loyal to their Flights. For any of them to tolerate each other, much less...[/i]like[i] each other...is practically unheard of.”[/i]
“And yet, here we are. I’m just that good at convincing people to get along, I guess,” drawled Voidwalker, because again, he was already dead, what was the worst that could happen?
He thought he would find out as the goddesses’ gazes bored through his soul. Stripping away his overconfident veneer, stripping away [i]time...
“Ah...we remember you. When you came into this world, we made a proclamation...”
“Yes. Now the truth is clear.”[/i]
“Oh, gods, it is?”
The Shadowbinder grinned again. [i]“Deliver a message to both reapers, Peacemaker. This is what you must say...”[/i]
“Yes, of course! I shall do my best, goddesses. Wow, Peacemaker. That’s quite a compliment.”
[i]“Coming from the Goddess of Lies, you mean?”[/i]
“[i]Wow[/i]. All right, then.”
[i]“On this occasion, at least, my sibling’s words can be taken at face value,”[/i] the Lightweaver snorted, her vast face darkening with a frown. [i]“Now, Obelisk, deliver our words...!”[/i][/color]
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[color=#0B1F25]“How’s it going?” Voidwalker asked Valkyrja some time later. It was always a good place to start. He’d found her haunting the Hewn City, pulling souls out of the bogs and wafting them gently away into the sunshine. Some of them waved as they went. Voidwalker waved back at them.
Valkyrja launched into a tired litany regarding her new duties. Voidwalker really didn’t see what the problem was. The way he understood it, she could just swat away demonic entities and Shade fragments as though they were flies. “Nothing you can’t handle,” he declared, scuttling back towards the trees.
“You truly think so? But my angelic choirs don’t seem to have their [i]oomph[/i] anymore. Didn’t they have more oomph before?”
“I don’t know. I was mostly concentrating on preventing the oomph from getting knocked out of me back then.”
“Come to think of it, most of that came from Valravn’s horrifying illusions...Ah, friend Obelisk, are you well?”
“Excuse me, I threw up in my mouth a little just remembering those.”
Valkyrja patted his head, and she sighed again. “I do wonder how he is faring, sometimes.”
“Pretty much the same as you. Adjusting, trying to fully grasp this entire ‘reapening’ thing. I heard him wailing about accidentally frightening lost souls a while back, something about how he didn’t want them to become even [i]more[/i] lost. Look, why don’t you track him down? You’re a fantastic team, and the goddesses wouldn’t mind.”
“They wouldn’t?” And Valkyrja’s eyes narrowed. “Wait, you said you heard him ‘a while back’.”
“About fifteen minutes ago, actually.” And Voidwalker turned, once again, towards the edge of the Tangled trees.
A vast shape bulled through the bramble. It was dark as the night, shrouded in feathers and tangled-up thorns—but his smile, when he saw Valkyrja, shone brighter than the sun. Her answering smile was as radiant, and her face lit up, all woe and moroseness gone.
“Valkyrja!”
“Valravn!”
And with that, the two reapers flew towards each other and embraced—very carefully, because of the size difference. But Voidwalker looked upon them with fond delight, and also a great deal of exasperation.
There was more he needed to say. So much more, for the goddesses had given him clear instructions to ensure he didn’t flub [i]this[/i] peacemaking mission. But the Obelisk, looking at his two friends, figured that they’d gotten the message already.
So all he said was, “Gods-damned prophecies,” and he shook his head.
[i]“Still,”[/i] he consoled himself, [i]“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to top a literal match made in heaven. Better [/i]late[i] than never, I suppose!”[/i]
With a last smile back at his friends, he flew away to find newer and less frightening adventures. And the reapers danced into the sky, leaving behind them the contented silence of a peaceful, perfect day.[/color]
[right][font=Copperplate Gothic Light][color=#00B3D5][size=5][b]~ The End[/b][/color][/size][/font][/right]
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the dim reapers (or, bird brains)
written by Disillusionist
5,631 words
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When Voidwalker was born, angels sang, demons fled in terror, and the stars and planets danced with joy. Or at least that was what he liked to tell people.
What was certain was that when he was born, his parents called in soothsayers, as was traditional in their clan. Many of these dragons soon left, shaking their heads and muttering about, “So much ego, good gods, my Second Sight couldn’t see a damn thing beyond all that.’” A couple, however, stayed and soon delivered their pronouncements.
“He will travel long and travel far,” said one.
“He will be a friend to powerful beings,” said the other.
“His words will heal the rift between the servants of Light and Shadow,” they proclaimed in unison.
Voidwalker’s parents were overjoyed. To them, there was little doubt about what this meant. “Our son, a great diplomat!” they cried, as the soothsayers traded wry looks. “He’ll travel to other lands and be the trusted friend of kings and queens!”
The soothsayers accepted their thanks and returned home, bickering all the way. Meanwhile, Voidwalker’s parents turned to the next step, which was naming him. Another tradition in this clan was to pick the names of newborns out of the mystical Naming Jar, and Voidwalker’s mother and father didn’t bat an eyelid when they unrolled the mini-scroll and saw this sinister-sounding name.
“Who cares if the name makes him sound like a spectral mass murderer. The prophecy says he’ll be a great dragon! Also a peacemaker. There was something about that in there, as I recall.”
Voidwalker probably could have done with a much less creepy name. Or perhaps it would be accurate to say that he could have been named Angelic Sweetheart Goodfeather and it still wouldn’t have changed a damn thing.
Because Voidwalker turned out to be a terrible diplomat. The soothsayers’ prophecies burrowed into his head and lived there rent-free, kicking out any decent thoughts that dared intrude upon the young Obelisk’s brain. He grew up with a tremendous amount of self-importance, so much that it probably would have made even the Plaguebringer sick.
His parents sent him to Diplomat College, but he took the words he was taught and twisted them to his own selfish ends. Mainly, he used them to swindle people out of money. Lots and lots of money.
“It’s OK, because those soothsayers’ prophecies will definitely come true and I’ll be protected by kings and queens!” he chortled, boldly ignoring the fact that every single king, queen, sovereign, archmage, et cetera he’d met was already extremely mad at him.
None were madder than the Greenwitch, however. The old Pearlcatcher had been driven from her clan, but she was still fearless, and banishment hadn’t diminished her magic one bit. When she discovered that Voidwalker had swindled away some of her goods, her rage erupted anew.
“I curse you,” she hissed, even as he gallumphed away, potions spilling from his grasp. “You will never know peace!”
”Wander forever, though thy bones grow weary
Wander forever till ye fall to the ground
Wander forever, never rest, never—
Wander forever—to the earth ye’ll be bound!”
“Yeah, right!” sneered Voidwalker, though he had to give her points for style—no one had ever cursed him out in rhyming verse before.
He forgot the curse eventually—and it stayed forgotten for quite a while, as he continued his travels and met all those glorious folks that the soothsayers had seen in his future (or so he supposed). Some of them had heard of his more unsavory deeds and booted him out of their territory. Others were none the wiser, and they took him on as an ambassador, asking him to help them form alliances with other clans. He was soon sent to broker a peace agreement between two clans on the border of Light and Shadow.
“This is it!” the Obelisk eagerly thought. “This is where I’ll prove my greatness...!”
Alas, it was not to be. Voidwalker flubbed these negotiations, and he flubbed them hard. He’d always been able to talk his way out, but things were different this time. The clan leaders he was addressing were very displeased, and when Voidwalker’s silver tongue failed him, the entire gathering went off like a volcano. The Obelisk’s retinue was slaughtered, and himself with them.
“Well,” he huffed when it was all over, “that’s that. Wow, could those soothsayers have been any more wrong?”
He sprawled where he had fallen, glaring after the surviving forces as they marched back to their homes. Meanwhile, around him, the spirits of the dead were rising up from their corpses. He could see them, like wispy cobwebs fluttering up to the sky.
“Any time now,” he said, waiting for his body to let him go, so he could rise to the glorious paradise he was sure awaited him. But darkness began falling, and still his soul didn’t rise.
“Hello?” he called out, and this time, there was a note of fear in his voice. But there was no other reply except the chirping of crickets. Somewhere, a coyote howled.
“Gods,” he muttered, “this is going to be incredibly boring, isn’t it?”
Voidwalker knew he was dead. His heart had stopped pumping, so blood wasn’t flowing, and everything about him felt sluggish and wrong.
Rigor mortis set in, and that was a real pain in the butt, because he absolutely couldn’t move, and he was dyi—er, desperate to get out of this situation. For one thing, the bodies around him were starting to stink, and he didn’t want to stick around any longer to wait for something to eat him. He didn’t want to think about what that would feel like.
He had just managed to get his limbs moving again when the reapers came.
They looked like birds, but there was something about the way they moved....Voidwalker saw the first one, a blot of brightness in the night. Every time its wings flapped, sprinkles of light spun away from them, as though it had a bad case of divine dandruff.
“Oh, snap,” he muttered, and concentrated on getting his back legs working again. He already had his front legs under him, and if he could juuuust drag himself into the trees...
And then— “Oh, snap!” he groaned again, more vehemently, because he’d just caught sight of the second reaper. This one was smaller, but so dark that it stood out clearly against the shadows. It was hopping from corpse to corpse, stabbing its beak into each body.
“Not this one...”
“Not here,” sighed the first. “They’ve already flown away.”
Voidwalker’s front paws slipped out from under him. He hit the ground with a wet splat.
The reapers whirled. “There!” they screeched, their beady eyes flashing with sudden fire. Voidwalker closed his own eyes, praying for a merciful death (haha, no) as they flapped towards him.
He felt their claws digging into him, and then their words—
“He’s mine! I grabbed him first!”
“His soul’s already flown away. But his heart’s still warm! I’ll crack his ribs open and eat it.”
“Wait, what?!” Voidwalker screeched. Immediately, the claws released him.
“Blast! He’s still alive.”
“No, he’s not. He’s clammier than a frozen fish.”
“He is? But he’s...” The reapers lapsed into confused silence.
Voidwalker peeked out at them. Their shapes earlier had been indistinct, just blobs of white and black and many fluttering wings. But up close, they looked like birds. The first was a white swan, and like all swans, it had a long, graceful neck and murderous eyes. The second, a raven, had a wry tilt to its beak and an uncomfortably piercing gaze. (Voidwalker mentally dodged the word “hungry”. Or—I’m sorry—ravenous.)
“He’s a zombie,” they decided at last.
“EW!” gasped Voidwalker, who had strong opinions about zombies. They were all right, in their way; he’d just never thought he would actually become one.
He thought about this as the two reapers faced off, stomping the ground with their little birdy feet. Voidwalker wondered why they weren’t swinging scythes around instead, and then realized that given how close by they were, it was a very good thing that they weren’t.
“I would claim him for Light, but our rules are clear,” the swan said at last. “We cannot harvest this one’s soul.”
“You can’t,” sneered the raven. “I don’t eat souls. It’s the hearts I’m after—the brighter the better. If I get enough of them, I’ll be able to ascend to my true form!”
“Ascend, sure. With a mouth that big, you’ll ascend into being a glorious, gobbling turkey.”
They started butting heads. Voidwalker watched them for a moment, and then he pinched their tail feathers and carefully pulled them apart.
“Look,” he sighed, ignoring their invectives (“Unhand me, knave!”—“Burn in hell, witch!”), “it’s been a terrible day, and I’m very confused. Why are you after me specifically?”
“Well, is this not your army?” The raven waved a wing at the field of chopped-up body parts. Voidwalker took a moment to keep from hurling, and then he managed to squeak out, “Y...es?”
“Capital! Army leaders have great, strong hearts, exactly what a valravn like myself needs!”
“And I,” said the swan, with a withering glance at her rival, “am a valkyrie. I harvest souls, and yours, good sir, is meant to be welcomed into the embrace of the gods!”
“Really?” said Voidwalker, who was imagining the gods, all Eleven of them, embracing him, or more specifically his neck, with their talons. And possibly punching his face in for good measure.
“Yes.” The swan’s eyes glazed over. “I have been harvesting souls for so many years! Just one more, and I will be able to ascend to my true for—”
“Boo, go get your own lines!”
“You two know each other?” Voidwalker gasped, hurrying to interrupt them before they started pecking each other’s feathers out.
“We’ve met,” the valkyrie snapped. Voidwalker rambled on, “You said you’ve been at this for many years; I’m sure you’ve been all over Sornieth! I’ve been cursed to wander the world as a zombie—you have to help me find a way to break this spell!”
“Why so?” quoth the raven. “I’ve met people who’d kill for immortality like that. Har-har.”
“It hurts like hell, OK?!” Voidwalker snarled. The raven leaned away from him. “My, what big teeth you have.”
“So, is it settled then?” Voidwalker finally managed to get his haunches under himself. He sat up, ignoring the slimy feeling of blood and worse sliding out of his body, and said, “Help me find the witch who cursed me, and I’ll repay you! Look, you—raven!”
“That’s valravn to you, sir.”
“Give me a break, I can barely move my tongue. Look, once I’ve vacated this body, you can have my heart, OK? I won’t be using it then.”
“You aren’t using it now,” the valravn said, his beady eyes fixed on Voidwalker’s ribcage. The Obelisk just snarled, showing off his very big teeth again.
To the valkyrie, he said, “And I’ll...I don’t know, fling my soul into your arms and you can carry me up to the gods.”
“Possibly,” she said. She was now realizing that Voidwalker expected both rivals to work together. The Obelisk gabbled out, “Come on, work for those promotions you both so richly deserve! Just one more soul and one more heart, all right?! I mean, you’ve already got me. Go, go, go!”
“‘Go’?! All right, then—where d’you propose we start looking for this witch of yours?”
Voidwalker’s search was long, and he felt he could have done without 90% of it. It was also particularly trying because the reapers were not ideal traveling companions.
To begin with, they were not particularly smart. Sure, sometimes they spoke in profoundly spooooky, doom-laden tones, but when one started digging through the foreboding froth, there wasn’t much meaning to those pronouncements. They just really hated each other’s guts.
Many times, they threatened to quit over such heinous insults as “She’s looking at me!” or “Why is he still here?!” Voidwalker’s rebuttals to these generally included the words “cowards”, “chickens”, and “Bawk, bawk!”
Neither reaper wanted to see the other succeed, so they grimly stuck to him, and at first Voidwalker thought himself brilliant for taking advantage of their rivalry and pride. But—and this was becoming the anthem of his afterlife—Now He Wasn’t So Sure.
“I’ve done many bad things in my life, but I don’t think they were bad enough for me to deserve this!” the Obelisk thought. It was a rainy afternoon, and they’d found a cave to take shelter in; but he was sitting outside, in the rain, because the two reapers were still arguing. What made it even more unfair was that because they were supernatural beings, they didn’t get tired of jabbering at each other. Voidwalker had thought about sending them out instead, but had decided not to, on account of the fact that if they got wet, their feathers would stink for hours.
“But no more!” he decided, as lightning flashed above him. He appreciated that; he felt like the world was hyping him up. He turned around and—ahem—stormed back into the cave.
“What?” snapped the reapers, because they didn’t like him either. But he just glared back at them and growled, “Look. This has to stop!”
And then he gritted his teeth and prepared to inflict his amazing diplomatic skills upon them. He was hesitant to do this because...well, last time he’d done that, it had gotten him killed.
“But hey, the worst has already happened! —Oh gods, I hope that’s true,” he said to himself. And then he drew himself up, heedless of the wind rattling through his exposed ribcage, and boldly launched into a grand and beautiful spiel about how they were All In This Together and Why Couldn’t They Just Get Along.
“You know, we don’t like you either,” said the valravn, restating the obvious. Voidwalker fired back, “But you wouldn’t dare bail on me because you’re a hecking coward!”
“I think you actually meant to phrase that differently, but gods darn it, that’s true.”
“Out with it, child,” squawked the valkyrie. And now Voidwalker sighed. He launched into a slightly more honest spiel this time, about how they had to pull together because What if the Witch Kicked Their Butts Into Oblivion?
“Hadn’t thought of that,” the valravn admitted with a shrug. “I mean, I usually confront dead bodies. And they don’t tend to put up fights, you know?”
“But we do have magical powers we can wield,” the valkyrie said. “The Spirit Realms are strange and dangerous places, and we must always be prepared to protect our passengers.”
“Or lunch.”
“That, too.”
“Can you combine your wonderful spirit powers?” Voidwalker pleaded. “Aww, nuts. I can’t believe I just said that.”
“Fine, we shall work together to aid you. But only once!”
“Just this once!”
“After your soul has been delivered, Obelisk, I shall gain a new and radiant form. I will be allowed to choose those who will stand before the Lightweaver herself!”
“And I will finally be rid of this rickety birdy body, with its rickety birdy legs,” drawled the valravn. The valkyrie sneered, “We all have to start with simple goals, I suppose.”
“Everybody shut up!” Voidwalker exploded. It was a very undiplomatic thing to say, but he was tired, and already dead, for goodness’ sake. “Tell me more about your amazing spirit powers! It’s brainstorming time! Oh gods, I just realized you both have literal bird brains.”
Voidwalker’s journey continued, and now he, too, talked almost nonstop, because he spent much of his time alternately cajoling and browbeating the birds into working with each other. It was incredibly difficult, because holy moly, the mouths on those things. But the Obelisk had not sailed through Diplomatic College and several swindle-fests for nothing, and now he used his peacemaking skills 24/7, and then some.
When he finally got them to go one hour without insulting each other, he almost cried with relief, except he was afraid this would make them start yelling accusations of “What’ve you gone and done now?!” to each other. So he just shut up and smiled in that annoyingly smug way he had.
They traveled all over Sornieth. More than once, Voidwalker found himself grateful for being undead, because he didn’t actually need to eat or drink. (Of course, he was still hungry and thirsty, and every single injury he sustained didn’t heal and hurt like hell, but he felt it was important to look on the bright side of life. Or whatever this was turning out to be.)
But he was very clearly undead, and not all dragons took kindly to him. Even his most honeyed words sometimes failed him. “Look, I just haven’t bathed, OK?!” he screamed at one point, trying to talk down the mob that was approaching with torches and pitchforks drawn. “When you say that I stink of death, that’s really quite hurtful, you know!”
Whenever the mob—multiple mobs, actually, on many different occasions—didn’t back down, the reapers sallied forth to protect their investment. Voidwalker had to admit that it was very nice to see them erupting into fantastic coruscations of light or conjuring madness-inducing illusions, but usually he was too busy dragging his decomposing corpse away to properly appreciate this.
He made sure to thank them later on, however. He praised their magic and guardianship, and he made sure to wave their accomplishments in each other’s faces.
“Valkyrie, that celestial choir was fantastic! You had them throwing down their pitchforks and begging for the Lightweaver’s mercy!”
“It’s Valkyrja,” mumbled the swan. Voidwalker and the valravn blinked. “Whassat?”
“My name is Valkyrja.”
“I thought it was ‘valkyrie,’” burbled the valravn. Voidwalker, who was quicker on the uptake, said, “Don’t the two names mean the same thing?”
“It’s just a thing we do. Whatever. I don’t care.”
“And I,” said the valravn, “am Valravn!” He puffed out his shadowy chest, and for an instant, Voidwalker just really wanted to swat him. “I was really hoping he’d have another name. Especially one that didn’t also start with V.’”
Out loud, he said, “And, uh, Valravn! Those eldritch illusions were...Well, they were sick!”
“Thank you.” Valravn’s violet eyes sparkled with joy.
“No, really, they were sick. Awful. Horrifying. I would have puked my guts out if I hadn’t lost them ages ago.”
“My word, Obelisk, show some respect for your guardians!” Valkyrja snapped. And Voidwalker, for the first time in months, felt a surge of hope and glee.
For many years, the two reapers had been using their magic to compete against each other. Voidwalker didn’t understand why; it wasn’t as though they were after the same bits. He wondered if it had to do with those gods they kept blabbering about.
But now the reapers were working to protect the same thing, and they gained a newfound appreciation for each other’s magic. Compliments began to flow between them more freely, and soon laughter and songs did too. Voidwalker even found himself smiling at times, watching them soar together overhead. “A lovely dance,” he thought.
“Good heavens...is this what I’ve been missing out on?”
The long search for the Greenwitch gave him and his companions much to think about—and much to learn. There was more ahead...but first they had to complete their mission, and free the wayward diplomat from the witch’s curse.
Finally, finally, finally, they found the witch’s lair. It straddled the border between Light and Shadow, right on the edge of the sea.
Voidwalker approached the den, and the witch, sensing his presence, came out to confront him. As far as she could tell, he was alone. He was a shambling, putrid wreck, and she glared at him through her wooden mask, her claws impatiently tap-tapping upon her pearl.
“An old acquaintance...from another life,” she tittered, a smirk snaking across her face. Voidwalker, who’d been about to reintroduce himself, said, “You recognize me? How?”
“I am a witch, child.”
“Ask stupid questions, get stupid answers, I suppose.”
“A lesson you should’ve learned long ago,” the Greenwitch said with a scowl. She drew herself up, wings spreading menacingly. “How did you find me?”
“I traveled the world for...my goodness, how many years has it been? How many years?!”
The witch hissed. Voidwalker snapped back to reality. He stabbed a rotting finger at her and declared, “During that time, I have learned much about you.”
“Doubtless you think that will suffice in your battle against me,” the witch growled. The air around her grew dark with the building force of her fury. “Come, then! Show me your strength! Show me how powerful you think you have beco—”
Voidwalker tossed a sack forward. It hit the ground with a clunk. And then he showed the witch one of his true strengths as a diplomat, a skill he really should have used many times before.
He let out a pathetic, woebegone howl and groveled like the fate of the world depended on it.
“Greenwitch, I come to beg for your forgiveness!” he wailed. “I spent the last...well, there were a lot of them...years traveling the continent, learning about your craft! With the help of divine spirits, I have brewed new potions, that I may return what I stole!”
“You learned my craft?” snorted the witch. Contempt and disbelief blazed in her eyes. And disgust moved over her face as Voidwalker crawled towards her, blubbering fetid tears.
“Lift the curse from me. Let me rest!”
“Pah, these potions...I have no interest in your cheap imitations of my work!”
Voidwalker screeched in horror as the witch seized the sack and smashed it upon the stones. Clouds of smoke boiled up from it, and the Obelisk backpedaled, stammering incoherently.
Out of the smoke, the witch’s face emerged, her eyes alight with dreadful green fire. “I no longer bargain!” she spat. “Certainly not with you! Repent all you want, repent till the end of time! Till the stars turn black and the moon shatters; I’ll never lift my curse!”
Voidwalker’s words were gone. He could only blubber in fear.
But now the witch heard two new voices. The smoke was flung aside by beating wings.
“Then if you won’t,” the reapers promised, as Voidwalker cowered beneath them, “we will.”
The witch was no stranger to death. She had faced it before, had warded it away many times. Her familiarity with it had seen her driven from her clan, for she had offered it to the wrong dragon...
And it came for her now, in a thunder of sorcerous spells and beating, spectral wings.
The witch fell into the sea. Her pearl fell with her, and with a final flash of magic, it shattered upon the rocks below.
“Well, that could have gone a lot better,” Voidwalker sighed as he struggled to his feet. The swan tilted her head to blink at him. “I suppose it could’ve, yes.”
“You were splendid, though.” The valravn bounced up and down enthusiastically. “Absolutely splendid!”
“I groveled and threw a sack of trash.”
“Splendid, I say!”
Voidwalker sighed again.
But with the witch’s death, the curse was broken, and now the Obelisk gasped in delight as he felt his soul finally coming untethered. It was like a great weight lifting off him, like being able to breathe again after nearly drowning. The reapers pressed close together, beaks open in awe.
The valkyrie drew herself up and boomed, “You’re ready to fly, Obelisk! Shall we head to the Lightweaver’s halls?”
“Yes, please!” Voidwalker extended a claw. The swan’s feathers brushed it—and as she’d said she would, she changed.
Brighter and brighter, almost too bright to look at. A valkyrie of angelic radiance! Her hide and wings sparkled in the sunlight, glittering like new-fallen snow.
Voidwalker’s soul bowed low even as his discarded body collapsed in a gelatinous heap behind him. Valkyrja looked down at him, her face stern...and then she chuckled and patted his head.
There was an “ahem!” from the valravn, who was shuffling his rickety birdy feet. “So! If it’s OK...” he began, “I really could use...well. It’s a bit awkward because...well...”
“You still want to eat my heart?” Voidwalker asked, arching an eyeridge. The valravn’s feathers fluffed out. “Look, I was very clear about that from the very beginning, yes? I must consume a certain amount to become a full-fledged—”
“I was just joshing. Go ahead, eat it right up. Seeing you dig through that mess is going to be fascinating.”
“You think so?” Valkyrja asked, as the valravn began tucking in. Voidwalker’s soul went even paler. “On second thought, no, watching this was a bad idea. I wonder if I can still throw up without a tummy.”
“Let’s find out! My word, I think he’s exploding.”
“He is?” Voidwalker watched as the valravn’s outline wavered. It expanded like a cloud of smoke—or an explosion, as Valkyrja had said. Expanding very rapidly.
And then with a whoomph! of displaced air, the darkness cleared. Voidwalker and Valkyrja found themselves looking up...and up...and farther up...into the face of a gigantic wyrm. His wings blotted out the sun as he spread them, glittering with the light of many stars.
“This is my higher form!” Valravn bellowed, and his voice was so loud it raised more waves in the sea. Voidwalker nearly fainted from sheer terror, but the valkyrie was very appreciative, and she clapped her hands politely.
“Yes, uh...it’s very nice. Well!” Voidwalker hauled his composure back to where it belonged. “That’s everyone’s business completed, then?”
The reapers nodded. The Obelisk couldn’t help noticing them aiming sideways looks at each other, but he politely didn’t comment.
“I guess this is it, then.”
“Yes, it seems that this is it.”
“I get to go off to the gods.”
“Wasn’t talking to you,” said Valravn, and Voidwalker wrinkled his nose.
“We shall fly up to the heavens,” declared Valkyrja. “A job well done, Valravn.”
“Aye. You too. You were quite splendid yourself.”
“You’re welcome, I guess,” Voidwalker mumbled, just to check if they were listening. They weren’t. Their eyes were riveted on each other, but though their gazes were intense, they weren’t filled with rage now.
He looked closer, closer. Noted the color of their eyes. And memory, like ice-cold water, began to trickle into his mind.
“No...It couldn’t be...?!”
“Let us fly, Obelisk!” And Valkyrja wrapped him up in her brilliant wings. Up they rose, higher and higher, until Voidwalker, spitting out a mouthful of spirit feathers, gasped, “Oh, heavens, the prophecy!”
“What prophecy?” Valkyrja asked. But when Voidwalker looked down again, Valravn had already gone.
And with that, the gods welcomed Voidwalker into their halls, and...haha, no, of course not. Some of them really wanted to inflict more curses on him, because he’d caused so much trouble in life.
And in fact, they cast upon him a somewhat milder version of the witch’s curse. Voidwalker was barred from the afterlife, and doomed to roam Sornieth as a restless spirit. But at least he was no longer tethered to his body, and he wryly decided that it was much better than the years he’d spent shambling around with his squawking spirit pals.
He did run into them a few times. The world is not that wide. “Oh, hallo,” they greeted him as he approached, eager to reminisce about the gross old days. This lack of enthusiasm always deflated Voidwalker, and he paused, looking at Valkyrja—or Valravn, whomever he happened to be talking to at the time. Never both of them together, which he soon realized accounted for the misery.
“You ought to find each other again,” he encouraged them. “How about it, eh? I know where to find our other friend....I mean, I’m busy, but you two should get together sometime!”
But the two reapers just sighed and made vague excuses not to do so.
Voidwalker thought about it. He already knew what to do; he just needed some time to come to terms with it, really.
He spread his velvet-dark wings and flew back to the border of Light and Shadow.
There was a meadow there, bang on the border. A very familiar place. “Aww, they managed to clean the bodies up. I hope nobody remembers that that whole mess was my fault.”
But somebody did remember. Two somebodies. Voidwalker clenched his fangs as he hovered above the ground.
And then, with every inch of his spirit, he called out to the gods.
Two goddesses, to be exact. The Lightweaver and the Shadowbinder appeared in that hallowed vale. The former shimmered in the sky above, and the latter rose from the trees. They stood there, rooted in unreality, their fathomless eyes trained upon this foolish, impudent spirit.
“Uh...hi,” said Voidwalker. He’d prepared so many words for this, but the sight of two eternal deities just drove all thought from his mind.
“Speak, child,” they rumbled. They weren’t smiting him, at least, and he felt confidence trickling back into his ice-cold soul. With herculean effort, he drew himself up and managed not to run away.
“Noble goddesses, I crave your indulgence! I am here to speak on behalf of two protectors...friends of mine!”
“You mean the reapers? We remember your reapers.” Ichor dripped from the Shadowbinder’s maw as she grinned. “I sent one of mine to claim you on this battlefield some years back.”
“As did I,” the Lightweaver chimed in. The two sisters looked levelly at each other, and Voidwalker took the opportunity to choke down yet more fear.
“They traveled together with me, and they also became...friends with each other.” He grimaced. “Friends” sounded so tawdry in this case. “But then again, they’re goddesses. Surely they’ll get the hint.”
And the goddesses leaned closer, their faces blotting out the sky. “Is that so?”
“Oh, absolutely. Would I lie to you? Wait, don’t answer that.”
The Lightweaver’s ears pulled back. “‘Tis difficult to believe. Our spirit servants have despised each other for millennia.”
“They are fiercely loyal to their Flights. For any of them to tolerate each other, much less...like each other...is practically unheard of.”
“And yet, here we are. I’m just that good at convincing people to get along, I guess,” drawled Voidwalker, because again, he was already dead, what was the worst that could happen?
He thought he would find out as the goddesses’ gazes bored through his soul. Stripping away his overconfident veneer, stripping away time...
“Ah...we remember you. When you came into this world, we made a proclamation...”
“Yes. Now the truth is clear.”
“Oh, gods, it is?”
The Shadowbinder grinned again. “Deliver a message to both reapers, Peacemaker. This is what you must say...”
“Yes, of course! I shall do my best, goddesses. Wow, Peacemaker. That’s quite a compliment.”
“Coming from the Goddess of Lies, you mean?”
“Wow. All right, then.”
“On this occasion, at least, my sibling’s words can be taken at face value,” the Lightweaver snorted, her vast face darkening with a frown. “Now, Obelisk, deliver our words...!”
“How’s it going?” Voidwalker asked Valkyrja some time later. It was always a good place to start. He’d found her haunting the Hewn City, pulling souls out of the bogs and wafting them gently away into the sunshine. Some of them waved as they went. Voidwalker waved back at them.
Valkyrja launched into a tired litany regarding her new duties. Voidwalker really didn’t see what the problem was. The way he understood it, she could just swat away demonic entities and Shade fragments as though they were flies. “Nothing you can’t handle,” he declared, scuttling back towards the trees.
“You truly think so? But my angelic choirs don’t seem to have their oomph anymore. Didn’t they have more oomph before?”
“I don’t know. I was mostly concentrating on preventing the oomph from getting knocked out of me back then.”
“Come to think of it, most of that came from Valravn’s horrifying illusions...Ah, friend Obelisk, are you well?”
“Excuse me, I threw up in my mouth a little just remembering those.”
Valkyrja patted his head, and she sighed again. “I do wonder how he is faring, sometimes.”
“Pretty much the same as you. Adjusting, trying to fully grasp this entire ‘reapening’ thing. I heard him wailing about accidentally frightening lost souls a while back, something about how he didn’t want them to become even more lost. Look, why don’t you track him down? You’re a fantastic team, and the goddesses wouldn’t mind.”
“They wouldn’t?” And Valkyrja’s eyes narrowed. “Wait, you said you heard him ‘a while back’.”
“About fifteen minutes ago, actually.” And Voidwalker turned, once again, towards the edge of the Tangled trees.
A vast shape bulled through the bramble. It was dark as the night, shrouded in feathers and tangled-up thorns—but his smile, when he saw Valkyrja, shone brighter than the sun. Her answering smile was as radiant, and her face lit up, all woe and moroseness gone.
“Valkyrja!”
“Valravn!”
And with that, the two reapers flew towards each other and embraced—very carefully, because of the size difference. But Voidwalker looked upon them with fond delight, and also a great deal of exasperation.
There was more he needed to say. So much more, for the goddesses had given him clear instructions to ensure he didn’t flub this peacemaking mission. But the Obelisk, looking at his two friends, figured that they’d gotten the message already.
So all he said was, “Gods-damned prophecies,” and he shook his head.
“Still,” he consoled himself, “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to top a literal match made in heaven. Better late than never, I suppose!”
With a last smile back at his friends, he flew away to find newer and less frightening adventures. And the reapers danced into the sky, leaving behind them the contented silence of a peaceful, perfect day.
~ The End
