THROUGH THE DARK COLD AND EMPTY DESOLATION.

date: red rain moon, second week location: the black palace open to all

He feels little distinction from the Black Palace’s servants these days, with just how many hours in his day are spent cleaning the mess the remainder of the Conclave had allowed to be made in his absence. There has always been a reason, of course, why it is Judas that Infernum’s elite consortium turns their head towards in times of trial, why it’s his vote that tips the scales, why it’s he who’s sent to represent his people’s interests in other realms. God himself had ingrained in him how foolish a notion serendipity happened to be; it is no matter of luck that Infernum is deemed weak enough to attack when he is away, while countless others of the Conclave remain present and strong.

If not such a grave annoyance, it’d be a compliment.

Seated alone at a grand table in one of the Palace’s many gathering rooms, Judas breathes a brief reprieve in the silence — rare silence, as on this day, just like the countless before it, he leaves the door to the hall unlocked and makes himself available for anyone, resident or visitor, demon or angel, who seeks guidance or answers during such turbulence. How could you let this happen? How are we to know we’re safe? What’s being done to catch them? For days, he echoes the same rehearsed answers to the same predictable, frenzied questions. Those same answers dance on the tip of his tongue as yet another knock reverberates against the heavy set of iron doors, followed by creak of the hinge open and close as his newest audience approaches. It’s a sound he’s heard countless times this week; exasperated and utterly bored, he doesn’t bother to look up from the stack of notes he pores over. “I don’t suppose you’ve come to discuss the weather, have you?”

EVEN within Infernum, there are pockets of the realm darker than others, festering with the black of their sins. The land reeked of death and debauchery, rife with its hellish creatures and their hellish concerns. Concepts well-worn by Ryuk himself, Death feels their form settle into the vermillion haze of the realm. Eyes fall upon him, but slither away as quickly as they arrive, as if they understood that holding Death’s gaze for too long could only result in their demise. 

And to be feared amongst one’s antithesis is to be expected; they are dark where the Angels are light, they are akin to something of a god where the mortals would wither away in the span of a century. To be feared by infernal creatures is to stand a step above the rest, more horrible, more ghastly, more deadly than all else. 

Viktoria felt a tight grip on their shoulder, she felt herself tense for a split second before she recognised the familiar touch of Ryuk. Viktoria relaxed immediately, she was on guard much more than she was considering recent events. 

Viktoria turned to face their brethren, seeing what she can only tell as a discontent in their eyes. “It is only out of necessity, Death,” she said simply. She knew that what she wanted, Purgatory, the Apocalypse no longer could exist. “You must steel yourself. Succumbing to mortal emotions such as temptation do not befit us.”

THE concept that the world would continue to turn even in their presence never failed to identify itself as a failure to the Horsemen’s purpose. They are feared, revered, and sought after by angel, demon, and mortal alike, but to what end? 

Yet, concerning himself with the details of their future seemed inconsequential. Urgency could not be created when forever is preordained without consequence. 

You’ve found me. 

Any mild surprise she feels at their turn is masked, her feline face a picture of nothing but friendly warmth. “Whatever gave me away?” she counters, and needs not manufacture the curiosity in her voice. She has nimble feet - the most nimble - does she not? Yet now as ever, she can silently dance her way to all but the palest horseman. Still, her feet ( apparently not so lithe ) do not pause in their approach, not until she’s close enough to press painted lips to their divine cheek in affectionate greeting. She knows they might not welcome it and does it regardless, because she can. Because she wants to. Because she thinks if such a touch were to linger long enough, she might just discern the power the lies beneath his silken skin.

A quiet tinkle of laughter follows their next words, the sound clouding the air between them as she withdraws. He thinks incorrectly. He is her sole intention. 

Death stalks all; she stalks Death.

They are no easy target, distinct though they are. Death weaves through lands and winds through populations; Ryuk too slips through her fingers more often than she’d care to admit. The pursuit would not be half so fun if they were so simple - there would be no pursuit at all if they were merely ordinary.

Go to the Holy Land, attend the funeral, she had been commanded. My pleasure, she had thought - for what event was Death more suited?

“I rather like them.” she offers, gazing towards the petty idols they speak of, as if they were the source of her amusement. “It shows how young they are, dear Ryuk, how little they comprehend.” The words are dry, delivered in a tone designed to match their own disapproving one. Their disdain is obvious, she cannot help but tease - “And would it not suit me? To be cast in such a form and worshipped?” Frosted-blue eyes blink as she actually looks upon the figure they stand in faux-admiration of – on second thought, it seemed likely that her beauty was beyond the skill level of their artistry. “Perhaps not. You are the more God-like.”

It is said with the flippancy of a demon who was not formed by Him, a divine being with only the most tangential of connections to the God of the Old Testament. She says it lightly, a mixture of jest and flattery, but it is somewhat true. Of the two of them, they are - for now - the more God-like. Though she hums in agreement, divinity is certainly not defined by actions. It is the blood that runs through their veins and the power that’s carried within it. The people do not pay Ryuk enough reverence – including Ryuk themself, harbinger-of-doom wastefully turned mere assassin. “Though I suppose they don’t make a habit of erecting temples for those of your profession”. 

Those words, the slight scorn in them only half-covered, bring to mind an image that has captured her vague interest. Cador’s body, and its peculiar hue. Salome may not be Death, but she has intimate knowledge of corpses. She will not elaborate, merely ask with casual humour, eyes idly trained on their face. “It wasn’t you, perchance? Old Cador?” 

LIPS, hot and adulterous, land square on their cheek; if he were capable of blushing, blood would have betrayed his emotion. It is inconceivable for Ryuk to entertain the concepts of passion and indulgence; still, they define their interactions with the demon.

Beauty, he has learned, could be deadly in excess.

But what of deadly creatures to Death himself? Nothing scared them in this realm, which meant that terror — it bound him, captivated him like a moth to proverbial light. Or in this instance, darkness. “God-like as I may be, your form,” they start, “will exist forever. Long after disaster desecrates this temple and massacre fills the street with blood, rendering these idols mere ash, you will remain. Beautiful. Exquisite. Indestructible.” How illicit those words sound coming from his mouth! And yet — he says it still, perhaps a mockery of the adoration of her other admirers. “Any being, immortal or not, would be foolish to deny your beauty — but the allure is of your own making. A copy would be mere dilution.”

His tone relays nothing but an even incantation. As if he is describing the winds or giving directions, and not waxing poetic on Salome’s existence.

“Mm, not quite my style,” he chuckles. Dark eyes flit up, matching her electric hues. Tension pulled apart at his seams, clawing and hissing its way through his back, but it manifests in a simple twitch of his wrist, a crack of his fist. “I’m not prone to the wild extravagance of your kind, but…” They do not look away. They cannot look away. Behind him, the souls howl. “…I have too much pride in my work.” He does not make it a habit to devour things with teeth (he has no interest in savagery), but at times, the temptation is too much to bear.

AND so the commandments go — thou shalt not murder, thou shalt not covet, thou shalt have no other gods before me — first carved into stone and then inked on a hundred thousand pages, spread far and wide as the credos of God Himself. 

Yet, how the politics of paper could change in an instant. Less permanent than stone, holiness diluted on vellum — after all, the skin is alive, and there is nothing more dead than God Himself. Mortals would starve themselves, flail their bodies, loom in the breath between madness and death, only to catch the faintest whisper of the divine spirit. The closer to Death, the closer to God. 

But what of Satan? Of chaos and destruction, of the immortals and their sins? Demons, either heaven-sent and hell-wrought, touched by God or kissed by Lucifer, shared in their penchant for hellish bedlam, but Ryuk refuses the taut noose of alliance. Suffocation was never his poison, if only because there was never enough blood involved.

Not quite holy, not quite damned. A being rife with violence and terror, plucked from the Holy Creator Himself. Perhaps, it is why he approaches Abaddon with a particular flavor of curiosity. An outstretched hand, fingers curled back — that is to say, are we made of the same doomed stars loaded in our souls? 

Ryuk does not like unanswered questions, left agape like the jaws of hell. 

Nerissa’s lips curling to a wicked smirk at Ryuk’s words, knowing it was most likely the truth than a simple passing in the night. It harkened the shifting of the winds, and Nerissa was ready. She was the harbringer of war, and her blade had never yet tasted the war she had intended for it to. But perhaps, just perhaps — the time was coming for her to finally delve in and taste the sweet flavour of war.

Her fingers tightening as they made their way through the forest, (one could never quite be too careful), she began to chuckle at Ryuk’s reasoning as she nodded a long. Mortals were predictable. Too predictable. And it was intriguing that many of them probably didn’t realise the suspicious cause of Cador’s death at all. It only spoke to their naivety, but also their gullible natures. Someone had covered up the true cause. And this someone probably was hungry for more. This could only be the beginning.

“No doubt. But this harkens a new beginning. Which can only mean one thing.” Nerissa replied as they continued on their pathway, her eyes brightening at the thought of finally being able to satiate the hunger that had been ever present since she had escaped Purgatory. “With the winds shifting, perhaps this is our time for an opportunity.” Her gaze shifting back towards Ryuk she raised an eyebrow as she awaited his response, knowing that wherever War stepped, Death was inevitable to follow.

AND they relish in the way she speaks of destruction, how corporeal her desire for chaos manifested in fully-wrought kingdoms amongst the ones molded of dirt, teetering on the edge of collapse. So fleshy and packed with fiber, he could sink his teeth in and tear away with blood.

Death has never felt so much of a destiny except with War herself.

His eyes wander. Not from Nerissa, but to her — the bevel of her lip, the taper of her neck. They wonder if there is a difference between bloodlust and love. The sinful and sacred. Their hand pulls up, threaded by an invisible line of string towards her face, a blasphemous act of tenderness between two gruesome beings. Did that sully their sentiment?

It is the moment his gaze tempers, the instant they regard his weaponry as protection rather than murder, the thicket hisses and Ryuk jolts back, fingers and mind yanked away from the warmth ( but even so, to deny that the flat of their palm does not sense the heat from her trunk, proximity betraying their emotion ).

But they allow her space to move. It’s breath, only breath they hear, but they wait for something more sinister to emerge from the woods.

There was comfort to be found in the most unlikely of places - the Bog being the foremost of them. It offered solitude when such a thing seemed beyond reach. Always, they were surrounded by others; it was a cacophony of beating hearts and contracting lungs, of muscles that teemed around them. At times it seemed unbearable, to have to listen to the synapses of people’s nerves while biting down on the urge to tug at them, to rein them under her control. So, there was comfort to be found in the Bog, and in the peril that permeated its waters, Romilda was able to find peace.

But then they heard the sound of hooves against soil, the soft exhale of someone that was more man than beast. Romilda drew her cloak around herself, nudging Heimdal forward - only to bring him to an abrupt halt when they heard a voice carry throughout the clearing. If the night sky were to have a voice, she imagined that it would sound much the same; the weight of its perpetual growth bearing upon the timbre of his voice. They chewed on the inside of their cheek as they debated whether or not encountering this hidden figure would be worth relinquishing their time of solitude. Romilda looked over their shoulder, back towards the Holy Land and the throng of raucous noise that awaited them.

They urged Heimdal forward, eyes widening slightly as they found Death himself sitting upon the back of his horse - looking towards them, awaiting. A shiver caressed their spine, their heart beating far too loudly for someone who has looked death in the eye time and time again. They pressed their lips together, fingers tangling into the mane of their horse. “I did not mean to follow you,” she said quietly, apologetically. “On my honor, I did not mean to. I simply wanted to find refuge, for a bit - away from it all.”

Despite their apprehension, Romilda urged Heimdal closer still, peering at Ryuk curiously. “Why are you here? Do you find the funeral rites as taxing as I do?” They glanced about them, face growing warm as a proposal began to form on the tip of their tongue. They bit down on it for a moment, had wrestled it down, until - “Would you care for some company?” A silence fell between them. The longer it dragged on the louder her heart seemed to beat. “I only ask because you - you’re not as loud as those within the Holy Land and I -”

They ought to bury their head in the ground and be done with it.

“We can part ways here, if you prefer.”

HOW many breaths between his aggression and apathy? The slight frame of the woman arouses little emotion in Ryuk; not defenseless enough to inspire pity, not nearly commanding enough for them to erect a defense. Not many, as the friction set in between his shoulder blades crumbles away in an instant, leaving their limbs slackened by their side. Mortals did not interest them, least of all one as blindingly golden-hearted as Romilda Altier — though he supposes the sentiment went either way. Darkness was the absence of light, existence of each hinging on the absence of the other, but like oil and water, they could not mix. One would prevail, and Ryuk had every conviction it would always be him.

But unlike many of the darker beings in the New World, Ryuk is selective with his kill. What could they profit from slaughtering a champion, when the very act poisoned the intention? Martyrdom was a subversion of death, and humans could be kept alive in legends and idols, as permanent as their demise itself. His fingers itch towards the blade at his hip, blinded by the animalistic desire to see her blood. But he only grips the reins tighter, tugging his steed back a step to accommodate Romilda and her companion.

After all, she trembles. Unease is customary ( the murder is never as satisfying when they tremble ), and they brush the hesitance off like an errant fly. However, the flicker of curiosity is not, and Ryuk pauses, marinating in her words. She dares to know his motive. In his unwavering gaze, something sparks — passion, or perhaps, a renewed interest in the sweet-faced darling before them.

“Some may say the very thought is blasphemy,” he starts. “A very day dedicated to what I stand for! — but I must say, it is not so much a day of death rather than the glorification of life.” His voice is full-bodied, even bordering on kind, diverging from the empty, desolate monotone he’d ordinarily use. “Silence is a gift,” he adds, “and one can only prize it until they understand the true price of noise.” They gesture to their head, a reference to their mystical faculty. She must know of it. The most terrifying things were never humble creatures.

AS the rites and rituals come to a close, the land turns quiet. The tears and flames appear to have cleansed the realm of their grief, leaving a void for the stillness ( quivering within the newly-turned earth ) to sweep in underneath their feet. Ryuk has no stake in beginnings, much less when it is marked by life, but they remain in the Holy Land, picking at odds and ends to secure the interests of the Tridium. It’d been boring work, with far too little death to please the Pale Horsemen himself. They pace the grand halls of the temple, unimpressed by the golden effigies erected for the subject’s splendor. Nothing to guard here but stone and paint, yet even the prospect of such an attack seems slim. An upset so soon after Cador’s funeral would be ill-advised, with the Tridium vigilant for any sign of undue chaos. So the hope lingers, stagnant and suffocating — but that is the thing about peace. It exists solely to be disrupted. 

Her entrance is proof to his theory. They sense the spirits before seeing her; not unusual for Ryuk, but for the Vice of Pride, the noise is infinite, relentless. Instead of turning, they extend the trepidation for a moment longer, stopping in front of a nameless statue that he had no intention of learning its title. His fingers touch his ear, willing the souls to cease their moans. 

Death was an interesting thing. But perhaps the horsemen was even more interesting. Mammon’s path had certainly crossed Ryuk’s but a proper discussion was rare given that the two seemed to always be occupied with something. ( Though on Mammon’s part it was mainly in the act of carnage, pilfering or slaughter ) 

They were intrigued - and whenever they had a curiosity, Mammon was unafraid of pursuit. And thus, they had chosen to ignore the somber event entirely ( not like they had given much care in the first place ) and watched for faces of those that they desired to grace. And he happened to be one they chose as a target for their rather mundane passage of time. 

And it is then they acknowledge Mammon’s existence. An utter delight, the game was only becoming more exciting by the second. In the twist and turns of their craze filled mine, sanity barely stood on the border of adept lunacy - they saw this as a moment of hide and seek. And they had been caught - oops. 

“Caught me,” Mammon feigned a look of faux fear and surprise, the palm of their hand dramatically positioned up to their mouth, which was shaped in a cliched “o” ( this was what humans did, wasn’t it? ) 

“I just wanted to see what the great horsemen of Death was doing at this time. Nothing I want in particular,” they said with nonchalance. “As for humiliation, that’s a cute sentiment, afraid that won’t be happening anytime soon.” Mammon’s ego and hubris were long entrenched into the deepest pits of hell - nothing would truly phase them or embarrass them. They were a being with no shame.

 “Where are you going, what are you going to do?” Their eyes radiated with glimmers of mania - they were seeking to play. 

RECOGNITION hits, immediate and suffocating; yet, their tension is practically invisible to the naked eye. Ryuk has always regarded the solace of demons preferable to the company of angels, but even they know to tread lightly on the former’s sensibilities. The Vices are unforgiving as they are joyous in their corruption, and the last thing they need is a target on their back, flashing crimson for all to see. Bad for business, as they say, he is reluctant to make an adversary out of his petty distaste for the other’s demeanor.

“Curiosity can be dangerous,” they reply, turning to face them fully. Arms crossed around their chest, he taps his fingers in succession along the length of his forearm. “But I suppose I’d be naive to think that something as trivial as danger would stop you from doing anything.” He matches his taunt to theirs, though it’s touched with the slightest hint of disdain.

“And what does it matter to you what I’m doing or what I should do next?” they ask, deflecting the questions as if they are nothing more than buzzing flies. “I understand that not everyone can be clever, but surely you’re aware of where we are; what I am capable of?” They step forward, fingers still hitting the steady beat on their arm.

𝐈 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐊 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐀𝐑𝐄...

𝐈 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐊 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐀𝐑𝐄...