Hospitals. One of the few places he could manifest in. He stood by the pink doors of the maternity ward, stoically watching white-clad men carry out the lifeless body of a sixteen-year-old girl. There was a slack absence to her muscles, her limbs like damp rags. Cold eyelids were pulled tightly shut over her once-vibrant eyes, her golden hair forming a halo about her head. An angel, if only. Leaning over to slip a ring of amethyst off her dead finger, he pressed a lingering kiss to her forehead, clenching his fist around the icy circle.
He moved into the nursery, amongst rows and rows of newborns. The little one in the middle caught his eye immediately. Swiftly, he walked over to the pink bundle, reaching out to lift her into his eager arms.
His little girl's eyes were closed, tight as her mother's in death. Yet the rise and fall of her tiny chest showed life, the absence of which in her ill-fated mother. On her head, he could clearly see the beginnings of golden-brown hair. The dark from him, light from her. Suddenly, those eyelids sprang open, revealing twin orbs that were almost extraterrestrial. They began with a circle of the deepest black at the edges, slowly fading into an ethereal midnight blue. An explosion of gold lit up the centre, surrounding the darkness of the iris. As his chocolate eyes stared, a chubby smile spread across the child's face, recognition flooding those strange eyes. This drew out an indulgent smile from him, a rarity for the god of the dead.
But the moment ended quickly. He had to leave. Another kiss to another forehead when he placed her back into the glass cot, slipping a locket around her fragile neck.
"Althea Rosalie Petrova, we will meet again. "