#tw:death

The crown on his head was becoming painful to wear after just an hour of wearing it. He didn't know how the monarchs that he'd seen in the other realm wore them for so long.

Helle had suggested wearing it to match the Yacothian crown she wore, so that when they confronted whoever remained in Abercius' home, they would seem powerful and in control of the situation. Abercius didn't really feel powerful at the moment, and he highly doubted that if his mother was really waiting for him to return, that she'd appreciate seeing her son in a crown.

For an instant, Abercius swore that he saw a shadow move in his aunt and uncle's darkened window across the street, but he tried to push it from his mind. He wasn't in danger. Everything was fine.

"You don't have to go in, Abby. You don't ever have to go in if you don't want to. Do you want me to go in and tell you what I find?"

Abercius was tempted by the offer, but he knew that he could never take it. To be by Helle's side, he needed to be brave in order to face what came at them. He was supposedly protected from the plague by an amulet the Tredonians had enchanted, and he had seen every manner of death in his past life. He could do this. He had to do this.

"No, I'll go in," he assured Helle. "I need to do this. This is my home. Maybe James came back here, waiting for someone to come back. Let's go. This is important."

It was easier with just Helle here by his side. The Tredonians meant well, but Abercius didn't want to share his personal grief over his family with them. They saw this plague as a problem to be solved so that they could go back to their own families; this was Abercius's family. It still felt disloyal to his past life to think of the Pryor family as his family, but it was undeniably true. Just as Helle was working on coming to terms with being a member of the Dean family, Abercius was trying to reconcile being a servant of Death with being a boy who was not a boy, in a family filled with secrets.

Walking in the front entrance was easy enough, after tearing down the caution tape. The house was eerily silent. It had never been this quiet in all the time Abercius had lived there. There was always music playing, cauldrons bubbling, or James yelling down the hall at someone. This was no longer a house, but a tomb, and a tomb was exactly what Abercius was afraid of discovering.

"No one's been here in awhile," he murmured, looking at the dust accumulating on the counters. His mother would be horrified to see the house in such a state. "Not even James. He would have torn this place apart on his own."

"Which means that my parents aren't living in the house. They're not living in town or someone would have said something. They had the plague and weren't able to move, so maybe they were sealed in here with the tape on the door to warn people away."

"That could be true," Helle sighed. She reached out to rub Abercius' arm to comfort him. "It doesn't look very hopeful. I can understand if you want to leave now. I think we can guess that's what happened, if you need to leave."

"No." Abercius resigned himself to the answer he'd always known in his heart was true. "They're probably in the sanctuary where we left them."

It shouldn't have been surprising to Abercius, but upon taking a single step into the church sanctuary in their home, he was overwhelmed by the presence of death. It was a feeling that Absydee encountered every single day of her existence, but it was relatively new for Abercius.

His parents were exactly where their children had left them, their eyes white from the plague.

"No," Abercius whispered. "You were supposed to get better. We were trying to save you. We just need more time. We...we need more time."

Helle stared at the bodies laying before them carefully.

"They look fine to me," she offered. "They don't smell and they're not decomposing, so there must still be hope. Surely we can reverse this."

She wrapped her arms around her partner, trying to be reassuring in a situation she didn't know how to navigate. She'd been alone for much of this life, and the throne in her past life was somehow even lonelier. Comfort wasn't a skill of hers.

"You're kind for trying to have hope," Abercius replied, turning away from the bodies of his parents. "My siblings might try to agree with you, but they'd be wrong. I served the realm of Death, Helle, I know what it looks like. Human bodies can't go this long without eating, nor can they stay in one position for weeks on end. They may look alive, but it is a deception of the Demon of Nightmares. They can never wake up, even if we can defeat Xexys."

Helle's face softened. She didn't even try to argue about death with a former reaper. If Abercius knew his parents were lost, despite their appearance, then Helle couldn't disagree.

"What do you want to do now?" she asked softly. "Do we bury them? Do we leave them here? Tell me what you need from me and I'll do it."

"We leave them here," Abercius decided. "My siblings will want to say their goodbyes and...." He held out his hand towards his parents, closing his eyes as he did so. Nothing happened. "I need a reaper. I can no longer do what is needed. I know the steps, but I'm a part of the realm of Life now. Xexys has tangled magic enough that they both cannot pass on their own. If I hadn't have left my reaper team, they might have survived to fix this. There's no one left to help."

Helle could see the spiral of guilt begin, and intervened before it could get any worse.

"Hey, let's leave your parents here to rest then," she said, pushing Abercius towards the door. "Why don't we get some of your stuff from your room and go home? I'm sure there's things that you couldn't take with you when you left last time. We should get them now, so you feel more comfortable. Maybe you could get something of your parents' to help you remember them too. You can take whatever you need, and when we see your siblings again, they can chose something for themselves. The Tredonians will understand. They seem sentimental too."

Abercius returned to the room he shared with his brother, Brion, only to find that it seemed smaller than he remembered. It was always at least a little cramped with two growing teenagers sharing it, but after the relatively short time that they'd both been gone, the room suddenly seemed tiny.

"So this is your bedroom?" Helle winked at her partner, hoping that it might cheer him up, at least a little bit. "It's cute. I like the ant farm."

"Thanks, it was a school project that I couldn't let go of. Brion and I used to watch them for hours. James threatened to dump them outside once, so they live up high where he can't reach them."

"James always was such a charmer," Helle muttered. "Helena was always a bit wild, but you and Brion were always so well adjusted. I don't know how your family ended up with James. The way he acts would make even the kindest person assume that he was one of Xexys' demons."

Abercius smiled wistfully. She wasn't wrong about James, but he was still his little brother. He had a duty to find him and take care of him, no matter how rotten his past behaviour was. James was probably scared or in danger, wondering where his siblings and parents were.

"That's also not your fault," Helle stated before Abercius got the chance to spiral again. "We will find James, and then we'll find Tiffany and Jason. Our siblings are out there and we will find them. You and your siblings did what you could to survive. Helena and Phuong had their own kid to protect and Brion is there to protect them. You came back to find me, to discover where we need to be to help everyone. This is our path, but we will see our loved ones again. I believe that and so should you."

Abercius nodded absently, no longer listening to Helle's comforting words.

Kohv was born in deep winter eons ago, and unfortunately, he does not remember much of his life with his birth pod outside of the day they all died. He was not very old...old enough that he ate solid food and could speak fine...but too young to have been without his parents. The fragments of that day that he remembers so vivily was how a deep quake rumbled from the sea floor before a terrible tidal wave swept over their migrating pod. He remembers failing to fight the current and the sting of his mother's claws as they raked his skin in a desperate attempt to keep him from being swept away, before the terrible pain of the current dragging him through a brambled tree. He remembers how much his body ached...how bruised he was...how shaken and terrified he was to wake up in that tree dangling over what was left of the cliffside.

He was so scared, and he remembers wailing for his mother for hours. His wails eventually caught the attention of a Pod of Zorphins, who had immediately flooded the area to aid any survivors of the tidal wave. He remembered how the pod stacked themselves one ontop of the other to reach him and remembers the vice grip he held onto the Woman who's arms pulled him close to warm him and examine his injuries. He remembers being so scared of these strangers but so relieved somebody found him, and the gentle way the woman said "you're ok baby, I'm Safi. Don't be scared, I have you, you're ok." as she stroked his head made him feel safe.

He was spooked to the point that he nearly jumped out of his skin when one of the calves of the pod barked at him, "Hi! I'm Loqua! What's your name?"

He was intimidated by her loud voice and nervous about her getting into his bubble, so he could only manage a meek whisper of his name as he tried to use Safi as a shield to hide behind. His attention was only pulled from her when he heard a beautiful yet mournful singing echo from deeper inland, where the other adults were searching for others like Kohv. When he asked what that was, he remembers Loqua dismissing it as just the adults singing as she shoved a shell in his hand and ran down the beach to her own mother, while Safi told him that that song just meant he'd be traveling with them for a while. Back then, he didn't understand but over the years, he learned that the song was a song for the dead and that they found his original pod, but they were gone.

At first, he was scared being with these strangers, but he always felt safest with Safi. He vividly remembers the first day he arrived to the Isles when the pod leaders were discussing what they should do with him, Safi was most vocal about keeping him. It turned out she was unable to have her own calf and was insistent she tend to Kohv, and from that day on, she was his mother. Over the years, Kohv would forget his blood family's faces.

Growing up with the Zorphins was...interesting to say the least. They were so much faster than him and could jump so much higher than him. He often had trouble keeping up with the other kids when he was young. That odd girl, Loqua, however, always slowed her pace so he could keep up. She was insistent that she'd be his best friend and show him all the ropes of being a Zorphin. Honestly, her boldness was more intimidating than her loudness. But fast friends they became. And as Kohv grew, so did his strength, speed, and agility. Eventually, he'd even outpace a coouple of his peers in speed and agility...but not Loqua. No, that girl was like a bat out of hell the way she'd tear through the water with a spear.

Her aggressive temper and ability to bark in such a way you'd feel her voice in your bones would cause a flutter in his stomach. Once they hit their teen years, Kohv and Loqua had this will they wont they cat and mouse game. Were they just flirty friends or something more? The two never really...broke that barrier... Kohv wanted to approach the topic directly, but he knew Loqua like he knew his own hand, and figured she'd like it to be a bit of a game.

Early into their adulthood, just 2 summers after Loqua and Kohv had come of age to place their handprints in the halls of Fa, a pod of Zora just like him migrated through Necluda. It had been over a hundred years since he'd seen anyone like him...it was..odd..and he had a deep yearning to learn about them...to follow them. He'd managed to befriend one of the other young bulls and was invited to join them. And at first, he was terrified to follow so far out of the Necluda sea. But then he thought of Loqua...maybe if he left, she'd follow him and admit her feelings and ask him to stay...or maybe she'd wish him farewell and good luck...either way, he'd have an answer as to what they were. He still remembers that horrible night when to told Loqua he was leaving...the...things she said to him...how angry she was.

"You selfish balloon-headed foghorn blowhole prick! FINE! LEAVE! SEE WHAT I CARE!" Was one of the ...very..colorful things that came out of her mouth that night before she stormed off. It tore at his heart like glass daggers...he didn't think saying he was leaving would anger her so much...hurt her so much...make her lash out like that. He did decide to leave with the other Pilot pod after that night. He didn't really want to leave his adoptive mother or their family or his friends behind. But he was just as pissed off and hurt and upset by Loqua's words as she was, hearing he was leaving, that he knew he needed space, and it would give him a chance to learn about his birth culture.

And to be honest...Kohv hated it with the Pilot pod. They were...fine...the migration wasn't anything hard for him to do physically, hell, he physically enjoyed migrating! He was leaving them in the dust by comparison to how fast he was used to swimming with the Zorphin. No, what truly bothered him was how they acted so much differently than the Zorphin. They were so...quiet. They didn't bellow from their hearts as they traveled, and often him singing to himself or speaking too loudly or breaching the water to flip and splash earned him several off-putting looks from older members. He had made a few friends, sure...Zora his age were curious about him...but he could tell that he was the odd man out. It was so awkward. And his social blunders made him hot with shame. Zorphin were usually so direct or shameless with how they talked or how they courted...he quickly learned this pod was...NOT like that. And even when he gave courtship at least a try to learn...it was just awful and awkward and he really couldn't make two cents of it. He was so used to fin flicking as a sign of interest that he didn't consider it might be seen as gaudy until after he made an embarrassment out of himself doing it.

Eventually, the pod migrated back towards Necluda where Kohv bumped into one of his good friends from the Megapod and he was delighted to see a familiar group of faces and how freeing it was to just yap without worrying about oversharing. He was shell-shocked to learn, apparently, a rumor had gone around the pod that Kohv rejected a pearl from Loqua and that she'd been wearing a black one after their fight. He was gobsmacked because from what he could recall, Loqua had never presented him a pearl, hell they hadn't even done a darlings dance, so this rumor must have clearly been a fib by someone who overheard them fighting. But the more he thought on it, the more he realized...was it a rock she threw into the sea when she barked at him to leave? He didn't catch sight of it...but he heard it...and oh...oh no....that would explain the anger...

Realizing they were long overdue for a conversation, he b-lined for where he knew Loqua's pod would be prowling this time of year. And sure enough, he found her among them. And that conversation was...ALOT. A lot of big emotions alot of bitter feelings that had been festering while he traveled, being released...a lot of overdue apologies and confessions...the shattering of that black pearl in his teeth...and the very passionate aftermath...and as a result of it all the birth of their first daughter Caspia...and Kohv eventually giving Loqua a pearl first thing after she and Caspia could leave cradle cove...then eventually the births of their other children Lyrova, Zalfe, and Dealu...their relationship sure started messy but thank the stars it did not stay that way after.

Things were great over those next several decades. Kohv was a doting dad who was often the "Two weeks is more than fair" to their mother's "you're grounded till you're 160." Eventually, their children came of age and started to forge their own paths in life. Zalfe and Lyrova were expecting their first calves, and Kohv was ecstatic to be a grandpa. But that bliss didn't last when the Great Eel began its rampage. Seeing the harm it was causing his people...the way its poisoned body rotted the Isles and made the Zorphin sick. A deep anger welled up in Kohv, he could not stand idly by while these monsters rot slowly killed his family... how skinny his daughters were so late in their pregnancies as a result of the famine it caused...how many members of the pod fell asleep and never woke up due to how weak they all were. It was horrific.

So Kohv rallied and took the Zorphin who were still physically fit enough to fight, to go after the Eel. It was the only chance their pod had to prevent more deaths without abandoning their home of generations. Kohv new leaving the Isles wasn't an option...the expecting mothers, the children, the sick, and the elderly wouldn't survive migration to a new territory. Killing the beast was the only way and Kohv knew it.

However...Kohv never considered how many of them would die in the effort to kill that beast. Yes they had killed it and the parts of its body that were not covered in gloom was a bounty of food for the starving pod...but the cost to his family to this day weighs so heavily on his heart. He had found what was left of Zalfe's mate, Rilvi...his heart wept, picking up that torn song bead...he didn't know how he'd break the knews to Zalfe...but he had to.