He was there when the seas divided and valleys were born. Kings died, kingdoms fell. Through his tired eyes, he saw all with enthusiasm, eagerness - years turning to decades and decades into centuries. An appetite for experiencing everything, being everywhere grew, and time was all that he had. His soul claimed to be a part of those changes, to fight, to stand among those he once walked with. But soon he learned about greed and power. The glimmer the world held back then slowly faded, the scenes kept repeating with different people, what was new became tedious. People changed and moved, his loved ones perished with a blink of an eye. He could never truly belong anywhere, fear anything. And what is life without something to hope for? Without fear to keep us safe?
There was no safety, and yet no danger. With the dawn of a new era, his ways could fit to society no more, too antiquated, easy to spot. And that damned skin, always shedding, always carmine.
How blessed he was at first to not fear a thing, Death was a pale horse that he rode amicably, the wild beast he tamed. Neither pestilence nor war was able to reach the mounted man, but oh, famine.
Dutch Van der Linde had the glorious neverending life ruined by his constant hunger. Feeding, ironically, was all he had to live for, the only bucket he could fill time after time and still be empty. That and his existence.
A giant hollowness that eated his soul from the inside just as hunger ate his body. Dutch would watch families grow and fade as a kid watch ants carrying leaves. Love turning into hate as they never had to experience saying goodbye too soon, their lives aligned, his did not. So he distanced himself, never allowing to bond with his food, hear their thoughts, wish them to stay. It was easier this way, he didn't need guilty helping corrode his insides as well. Death was no longer something to fear, but to wish. His mind had no ideas left to meet her, seemed like not even Death itself would accept something so rotten.
A famished soul looking for greatness, he roamed the earth, fearing no evil. Dutch had no bonds, no mercy, nothing that could be said to stop his actions. Or so he thought, when pain greeted him once again, as an old friend. A hand much like his own going through chest, squeezing his heart.
"You don't need to do this anymore...", the silver-haired man whispered, "You can come with me, your hands don't always need blood on them, Dutch."
He wasn't surprised by his name being said so carelessly, that man had to be the same as him, his flesh as raw as Dutch's.