They hate him. He cannot begrudge them this, but this knowledge, irrefutable and old as ages, is why he cannot allow himself to feel. He is callous, cold. He has to be.
He is associated with so many things: darkness, sadness. He is meticulous, detailed, he never misses and he always does his work very carefully.
He is just, the strictest judge there ever could be: there is no way to corrupt him. He does not care for love, and even less for material wealth.
They call him many things. Many things he is, but many things he is not. They call him unfair and do not realise: he never discriminates. Old, young, white, black, sinners, saints, rich, poor, women, men, he takes and he takes and he takes and he never gives back. They call him selfish, but it is they who are selfish: they want too much. He only takes what is rightfully his, never less, never more.
They call him cruel, but he cannot bear suffering. It is why he does not linger, it is why he never stay. It is also why he does what he does, he sets people free. They resent him and they hate him and they fear him. He has never lied: there is one universal truth about live but they close their eyes to it and keep living, living, living. Blind.
He does not care for them, not really, their human understanding, their grasping for things they cannot keep. This is his nature, this is who he is, but he is not the villain they make him out to be.
Still, still; this may be his weakness: he cannot bear suffering. And oh, how she suffers. How different she is from the girl she was the first time he held her in his arms. So bright, brimming with life it pained him, almost blinded him. Though it was slipping from her, she remained so difficult to look at. And as he angled her face for a kiss, she woke, and looked at him, not with fear, but something like friendship, like companionship, gratefulness and begged him not to go.
His Elisabeth, so different and so alike every other silly human. Holding on so tightly to notions as freedom and life and choices.
(He cannot begrudge her her love, for what is it he feels when he looks at her, this desperate fierce desire?)
Now, she is healthy body wise, but there is none of that brimming essence left in her. She is wiry and bitter, hard and old. Hides herself, is ashamed of her lost beauty, and she does not see as she does, that she is still beautiful, so beautiful, beautiful in that frailty and how he longs to set her free, truly, deeply free and to take her away but she refuses and resists and wanders from one place to the other, not free, but lost.
He should have taken her then, that very first summer picnic, before she could meet the man she took as husband, the one that betrayed her with a common whore, and cast her aside time and time again as his mother reigned with cruelty that knew no bounds and took her life and her children away from her.
But he never takes people before their time. And though it is true that for some their time means only months and days while others get years and years, this is not his doing. He is ever patient. What are years to him? What is a lifetime? Empires have fallen for him, kingdoms bowed before his feet, vicious rulers, brave men, all believing themselves immortal; they bled out before his very eyes, spilt their blood for him. What is a little Empress compared to that?
(He does not know. Does not understand.)
So he watches from the shadows, watches her as she wanders, not free, but lost, searching desperately for freedom, for happiness, suffering, suffering.
Time and time again she casts him away. And still, still: they dance.
Until he takes her son.
And then, then; she begs for him- and oh, how long he has longed for her, but not like this. There is beauty in her frailty, true, such beauty, but there is none of the fight he knows and loves her for: she is not giving in, she is giving up. She is choosing not to live anymore but she is not choosing him. He will not have her like this. She will be his, utterly and completely or not at all. For the first time, it is him who refuses her.
"No!" He says, "not like this. I don't want you. I don't need you." He throws her words back in her face and revels in the fear in her eyes: that he will not want her anymore. Up until now, it is a possibility she had never considered and she has nothing to fear. He loves her still, loves her always, but that moment, he turns her away.
Still, still. They dance.
What are years to him? He can wait a lifetime, and for her he will. Empress, queen, she will be his. He will be patient, he always is. It is what makes him who he is, it is in his very nature, and no matter what games they play with him—he always wins.
He never takes people before their time, but he can set things into motion: roll the dices, shuffle the cards…
Sharpen a file.
Whisper a suggestion, publish a tiny newspaper article, let her flee from him, one last time.
Watch it all play out.
And when she falls, she crumbles: she has denied him for years but she barely makes an effort to stay alive. Despite all the earthly grace she possessed, she now stumbles and falls to the ground. Dead.
He holds her in her arms, his Elisabeth, young and beautiful as she once was, the first time he saw her, the time they fell in love.
And finally, finally she gives in. How long she has evaded him, but here she is now, and finally she allows his lips.
So he gives her his kiss- Death's kiss.
And he takes her away.
A/N: The line 'she barely makes an effort to stay alive' is inspired by a fic called All Questions Asked. It's lovely.