A/N: My round 2 Rumbelle Showdown 2017 entry under the pseudonym Thefreedictionary. Prompt: Mile high club, Mirror princess, Fortune telling.
"Do you not wish to be reborn?" he whispers.
"No, I do not," a soft smile graces her features.
She approaches him when his leather-gloved hands creak. Vines of thorns crawl up his frame at her every step.
Taking his clenched hands in hers, she brings them to her lips. With a feather-light kiss on each covered knuckles, his grip relaxes. He releases a shuddering breath and bows his head down. She already knows what his next question will be.
"Why?"
She doubts the oceans are vast enough to hold her answers. Showing him would be the better choice.
He grabs her hand when she made a move to remove his gloves.
"What are you doing?"
"Answering your question."
Touching humans without a barrier is an unpleasant experience. The person's emotions and memories become his own, pushing through his consciousness and clawing at his skin. But he is a desperate man and he wants to know why.
He holds his breath as her hand envelopes his. At the first touch, his body burns from the inside out. He doesn't know if he's screaming or if it's the screeching voices in his head. Something cold and hard is holding him, whispering harshly in his ears.
"Follow my voice. Don't get lost!" comes the warning. He latches on to the voice until the waves of agony recede.
"Open your eyes," the voice pleads. "Open your eyes."
An endless desert of whiteness greets him. Before he could utter a word, something tugs at his hand, leading him to what he seeks.
A small girl sits in a dark room. The moonlight barely reaches the tip of her blackened toes and her face bathes in shadows. The sound of stomping boots springs her to her feet and under the bed.
The rickety window rattles when the door bursts open and invites a tempest. She blows the bed away and rains down on the girl with thunder and lightning.
When the storm abates, carnage paints the floor. "Poison me again and I won't be as gentle. You're a weak coward!" A loud bang of the door signals its departure.
"I didn't do it," the girl whimpers into the dead room.
The same scene repeats itself the next day. This time it is due to a misplaced key. The girl cries to the heavens for protection while kicking and screaming at the storm.
"You're hopeless, just like your parents! No one will help you. There are no deities to help you. In this house I. AM. GOD!"
The storm did not see the kick directed at her groin. It incapacitated her for a moment, leaving the girl wide-eyed and frozen on the floor.
"Why are you showing me this?" the Grim Reaper asks.
"I was livid when she mentioned my parents. They were good people who helped others, and I wanted to defend them. So, I fought back and stopped praying for something to intervene. You don't wait for miracles to happen, you make it happen. That was my first lesson."
Love is supposed to be beautiful and lasting. Love is supposed to be unconditional and precious. These are what the books taught her. She thinks she has found gold at the end of the rainbow, instead, she finds only raindrops.
She should have known it is not love when it begins carving maps on her skin. Then again, she is young and naïve. For too long she holds on to it, letting it dry the blood in her veins. She mutes the warnings of her heart and lets him fool her into believing he has changed and they're heading towards reconciliation.
On their flight to a new start, he plants flowers at the edges of his lips and she eagerly flies towards them. She gives him all that she is while he takes and takes and takes. The disdain on the stewardess' face as they exited the confined space haunts her for days. Her skin has never felt so brittle.
When she tells him of the pregnancy he tells her to terminate it. She tells him to go to hell.
"Grim Reapers cannot kill, but there's proxy killing."
"He got what he deserves: a shot to the groin," the smirk is evident in her voice. "I wanted to be loved so badly that I forgot myself. Through him, I learnt that evil can hide behind kind hands and sweet smiles. But most importantly, I learnt to love myself."
Her child has been a blessing. The little one's laughter can light up the darkest of rooms and her eyes melt the coldest of hearts. She is very much like the princess in her beloved book, a story of a princess in a mirror and her Grim Reaper.
Never can she imagine she's capable of loving someone unreservedly. The seam of her heart threatens to burst from the amount of love it holds. But it never did. If anything, it only grows larger to accommodate it.
"Would you marry a Grim Reaper, mama?" her daughter asks one day.
"I need to find one first."
"I don't think you need to look far."
"What do you mean?"
"There's a red string on your finger. I think he's at other end."
That had been their last conversation before her child's favourite creature swoops down on her. Nightmares that long left her visit her once more and her desire for life wanes.
Going through her daughter's writings helps ease the pain, trust the little one to hide words of love between her books and around the house. Had she known she would not live long?
"She was beautiful. Just like her mother."
"My daughter taught me that things come in pairs. Love and pain. Loss and gain. If they don't, how does one appreciate life and the moments of happiness? How would you know the sweetness of love if you have not tasted the bitterness of pain?"
The first time she sees him is at a bus stop, on the anniversary of her daughter's death. He stands in stark contrast against a colourful backdrop, immaculately dressed in black with a fedora hat in one hand. What strikes her most about him are the deep lines etched on his face, like a man forced to hold a hot coal until it cools.
She sees him next at the community swimming pool. Then it is at a crossing. Same suit, same hat, and same ending: he disappears as quickly as a passing thought. Thinking back on those days, someone always dies within the vicinity. She entertains the thought that he might be responsible, but the local newspaper disapproves it.
Words flee her when she bumps into the mysterious man at a café. Stringing words has never been such a difficult task until that day. Owlishly, he looks at her when she sticks out her hand and invites him to her table. He smiles tightly, probably too polite to turn her down.
Two weeks after her offer, they meet once again at the same café. This time he invites her to his table. The pattern continues over the course of the year. Over time, their tentative friendship blooms into something neither expects.
The first time she bares her heart to him he flees. A week later, apologies fall forth from his lips. She ignores his attempts at building what he destroyed.
On the fourth week, after he came back, she finds him in her home. He speaks, she shouts. He whispers, she rages. Her little apartment has never known such heavy air.
At last, she lets him speak his piece. He tells her of whom and what he is. If he starts believing they have a future, he'll destroy her. Thus is the life of a Grim Reaper.
The tears that she sheds could grow trees that'll sing her sorrow. She tells him that it doesn't matter, that she already knows. A little angel told her about him. His awkwardness, namelessness, and the sudden disappearing acts strengthen her belief.
"What now?" he asks.
"I want to live my life surrounded by love. I want to be brave and make miracles happen. I am not going to force them on you, but I prefer it if you were in it."
Little did they know they have a month of happiness before he is summoned to greet her at Death's door.
Soft and warm hand wipes away his tears.
"Rebirth means forgetting, and I do not wish to forget myself. Those experiences shaped me. They are beautiful. They are ugly. But I chose those paths and I do not regret them. How could I when they led me to my daughter and then to you? Why would I want to forget those I loved?"
He pulls her towards him, crushing her in his embrace.
"It's time to let go, my love."
As is his duty, he guides her to the veil. A brilliant glow surrounds her as she walks through it; she doesn't even look back. And he understands why.