She's a rather impressive little creature, Death thought.
Pathetic, naturally, because most humans were.
A brittle, fragile thing. Especially now, as she was swallowed by the vortex of fire and wind.
Gone was the beautiful young woman from the capital. In her place was a warrior scarred horribly by her battles. Her skin was brittle and blackened, like clay dried too long in the sun. Her hair was singed and frayed and had lost significant length.
She was somewhat vain before this, Death remembered, and wondered how she would take the loss of her beauty. Even if she managed to nurse the majority of it back, she would always bear some mark of what happened here.
Humans were terribly strange about marks, and Death wasn't sure where it had come from. None of his children had carried any or cared about them when they left the world of the dead for the world of the living. That they're descendants would care so much was an anomaly that he wasn't sure he liked.
He'd watched over them ever since they'd left. They thought he'd abandoned them, and as much as he'd wanted to, he'd never quite been able to break away completely. He'd molded them from dirt and blood and fire with his own hands, watched them grow from small little things with skinned knees to individuals who thought they could be bigger and better than him.
They couldn't, but Death appreciates the dream.
They'd almost died out so many times in those first few years after crossing the veil. The Dragons hadn't been pleased that his creations had crossed the boundary they'd put in place to prevent that exact thing, but somehow his oldest had talked them out of burning them. Llelo had always been good at keeping the peace between his younger siblings and their father; it shouldn't have been surprising that he was the one who managed to hold a conversation with the dragons that didn't turn to bloodshed.
And it turned out the dragons weren't the biggest risk to his children in the world of the living. Mere existence was more dangerous. They'd kept eating things that they'd never eaten before, and some of them were terribly poisonous. There were other forms of life that subsisted on meat and flesh and blood, and his children were made of that.
Even simply getting injured and bleeding was something they were unaccustomed to. The children of Death had no idea what death was. Or pain or hunger or any of the myriad things he could have warned them about had they stopped just once to ask him.
They're descendants have all inherited that trait from him. No one looks to Death for guidance; they barely look to their own parents, preferring to suffer their own path instead of accepting the guidance from those who have already made the journey.
There's a wisdom to it and an immaturity.
But Death has had thousands of years to grow accustomed to the stubborn strangeness of his children's children, so he's mostly accepted it.
Eir is not the first nor the last of his children that he's checked on in these second lives of theirs. She's always been one of the most dramatic, though, and it figures that a horizon-eclipsing wildfire would be what earned her the right to return home.
She wasn't one of the ones he was ever really worried about failing, but there were times when he'd worried she simply wouldn't want to. She'd always been obsessed with knowledge, with learning and beauty and the creative arts. It's not surprising that she would be one of the ones who flourished in this second life, when humans had finally toughed up enough to allow moments of pleasure amidst survival.
And now all her physical beauty is gone, and he has to wonder if she's going to survive. If she'll find the same pleasure in life now that she did before.
Although, strangely enough, humans can often heal well if given enough time, so maybe she won't have to avoid looking at herself in the mirror forever.
She hasn't even realized she's won yet, still trapped in the swirling vortex of fire and wind, still drawing it in with no idea what's waiting for her behind it.
Somehow, he made his children incredibly stubborn, and it was absolutely not on purpose.
She's almost there now. Most of the borderlands are burned nearly beyond recognition, and Death will have far more than usual passing through the veil when he returns. It's been a long time since so many died all at once, even in the last war here; there weren't this many.
His children's creativity had blossomed into a truly impressive ability to destroy in their children. Something they'd forgotten to take into account all those centuries ago.
But here they were, and every single one of them was still entirely unrepentant, even though they'd at least admit they did miss home.
~ tbc