Her words quickened. â ... Why should suffering be inevitable, for fear and anxiety to always be proven right?â She leaned forward, frustration consolidating into something volatile. âI thought ... maybe my fear was finally being proven wrong. That everything would be okay, and would resolve fine and Iâd get out of this mostly unscathed.â
Death watched her for a few seconds longer, then turned away and grimaced. "I don't know what you want me to say here," he said, a passive grudge not quite keeping out of his voice. "I have done what has been possible, and tried not to do what should not have been. Everything else is out of my control."
"Except it isn't," Karyn protested angrily, no longer hiding her tears. "You say that you're doing what you can, or I guess doing what you have to, but the truth is, ultimately, neither of us would be in this situation if not for you." She sat up, fixing her sights on Death. "Every time I've been hurt or in danger, it's because you got distracted, or stood by, or didn't give me ample warning.
"Even when I was about to die, that first day, when I saw you, you didn't say anything. Definitely not anything before that, even though you must have known about Triste's plans in advance, even though you must have known about me dying for ages, you never told me anything. Hell, you and Life are the whole reason I ended up with the parents I had, and you just used that to tell them not to tell me anything, even going so far to swear my best friend into not saying anything.
"And speaking of Diana, what about all that she's been through?" Her face curled then with building anger. "Everyone I talk to speaks about how there's supposed to be honor and respect between the different nations, but how the hell am I supposed to believe that? You of all people must have known what happened to her mother, how she was murdered. Hell, Triste's not even that subtle about it! And despite that, you did nothing? And I'm supposed to keep trusting you to protect me when you wouldn't even do anything when he killed a queen?"
Her eyebrows creased, tone turning with desperation. "And for what? Just because you wanted to live by the illusion that all these things are happening outside of you? Just because it's what you've always done? What's the goddamn point of that?"
As Karyn had spoken Death had turned his gaze off of her, expression worsening. "What would you have of me?" Death demanded. "To reverse time and undo all bad things with a snap of the fingers? Or perhaps you wish only I could bring back the dead, for you. To unwrite it all, as it would seem I am able, to you."
"Change, Death," Karyn replied, voice flattening with exhaustion. The air bore down heavy, the forest outside gone silent. "That's all I've ever asked of you. For you to finally change."
In response, Death stood. There was no visual certainty, but in the air it was as if Death were gathering his things, retreating into himself. The moment stayed for but a second, the time in which Karyn wished he might sit back down and speak, say something at last not antagonism.
Death instead, turning from her, moved to the door, and said only, "Then perhaps you should ask for something else."