#like. technically.

"Nothing from Lizzie?" he asks halfheartedly, and Jimmy shakes his head, his hair jingling softly.

"Her candle is still lit, isn't it?"

It is. Her flame holds strong, and Pix nods.

"She's been gone for too long."

Jimmy snorts. "Miss another one of the ancients?"

"You and Lizzie are not ancients," Pix says. "Aeor is an ancient. You two are baby ancients."

"Immortality is immortality," Jimmy says, almost mournfully. "And besides, I was technically born before the other gods were put to sleep, so I'm practically as old as you."

Not even close. The thirty-three gods of old existed for hundreds of thousands of years before the slumber, and Pix has always refused to count time spent in an egg as time alive.

Then Jimmy shifts, uncomfortable energy practically radiating off of him, and he says, awkwardly, "that's . . . kind of what I'm here about."

Pix sighs, a sigh that sinks deep in his soul. "I know," he says softly.

"I've tried," Jimmy hurries to say. "I tried, Pix. I really, really tried. It's just. . . ."

"I know," Pix says again.

He’s watched his friend try.

"Have you ever lost a spouse?" Jimmy asks after a heavy pause, fiddling with a bead in his hair.

Pix shakes his head, slowly. "I never put myself in that kind of position."

Jimmy chuckles bitterly. "Right. Lucky."

"You and Scott were bound together by prophecy,"  Pix reminds him. "I don't believe that you could have avoided him."

Jimmy looks down, a bit of a smile playing on his lips. "I tried," he says again.

Pix doesn't know what to say.

He did try.

He really did.

He turns back out to look over the underground hall, over the representations of his past identities.

How strange will some future archeologist find these tombs, empty of any remains.

Maybe he ought to be that future archeologist. Bring some of the old stories to the new world.

"I think it's time," Jimmy says quietly, and Pix privately agrees. It's time to move on from the world they knew.

"It's time for what you mentioned. At my wedding," Jimmy continues, and Pix's heart sinks a little.

He hoped it wouldn't come to this.

He always knew it would.

Maybe it is time to move on. Slowly, Pix removes the crown from his head, turns it over in his hands. It's old. As old as Jimmy claims to be. The crown that was forged for the second king of Pixandria.

Maybe it's time to leave the world of the royal and try a new life.

"Are you sure?" asks Pix, as if somehow, he can convince Jimmy to not follow through.

He'd like a friend to spend eternity with.

Jimmy doesn't falter when he nods. "I'm ready," he says with finality.

Pix searches him, hoping for a brief second that Jimmy will suddenly change his mind. He sees nothing new in his old eyes.

"All right."

He turns away from the tomb and he doesn't look back.

-

Jimmy picks a place deep in the swamp, far from the sprawling cities of the Codlands. The earth feels familiar, like perhaps, many lifetimes ago, Pix nursed a young god back to health here.

It's to a patch of muddy grass that Jimmy leads him, under the shade of an old willow tree, the leaves shifting softly in the wind.

Jimmy settles in there, against a tree root, hands clasped loosely over his stomach.

And Pix, ignoring the mud, kneels beside him and cups his face with his hands.

"I don't know if you'll dream," Pix says softly. "I haven't woken anyone to ask."

Jimmy lays his own hand atop Pix's. He’s removed his gloves, Pix notices, scales dotting out almost to his fingernails, bare against the ornate embroidery and beads that decorate his tunic.

Pix drags his gaze away from Jimmy’s hand to meet his eyes when the cod speaks. "I'll dream," Jimmy assures him, a soft, wistful smile on his lips. "I can't wait to see him again."

Pix knows it must hurt. It's been over a hundred years since Scott passed on, and he knows that Jimmy hasn't gone a day without feeling his missing half.

But he doesn't want to be alone again.

Pix holds him there, stares into his brown eyes. He doesn't want to let him go. He doesn't want to lose his last friend.

"When do you want to wake up?"

"When Lizzie comes back," Jimmy decides after a moment.

"And if she doesn't?"

"Then I'll dream about her, too."

There's nothing romantic in his touch when Pix gently rubs his thumbs along Jimmy's scales. He's not going to see this face for quite some time. Perhaps forever.

He doesn't want to forget the face of one of his oldest friends.

"Sleep softly," Pix whispers, and, after a moment, Jimmy's eyelids flutter.

His hand slides from Pix's, eyes slipping into unfocus.

And Smallbelovedfoundbrother, Yimecht, Jimmy, youngest son of the last great sea wyrm and the greatest god Haer, falls into slumber.

And the God of Death, Pix, lays the Codfather head in his lap and ferns over his sleeping body, leaving the Codfather to rest for the next many thousands of years, or until he wakes.