Spoilers for the Revival Arc/end of the series.
Inspired by the gaiden story where Alfeegi wears a black wedding dress.
originally written February 2012
A City of Stars
He wasn't, and then he was, like someone had just cut and pasted him into a whole new universe. The nagging ache in his wrist hurt, but at least in whatever form he'd taken on it was still attached. Kai-stern stripped his glove off to check it out, and yelped.
He was translucent. But in a blurry way, like a window that needed to be cleaned. He raised his hand before his face and yes, he could sorta see right through it; not that there was much to see besides clouds and more clouds.
"I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Dorothy," he said to himself, as there was no one else to hear him, just the quiet expanses of fluffy clouds floating dreamily by, and a thin, winding silvery path disappearing off into the distance. He couldn't see where it went, or if there was in fact anywhere to go.
Still, everything seemed to be in working order. Kai-stern had learned to take his pluses where he could get them, and that was more than he'd had for a while. He'd seen way too much while alive to freak out at being landed in some kind of weird afterlife, anyway; this was pedestrian in comparison to some of the things he'd faced. Who cared if he was a little paler than usual, as long as everything else was still there.
He patted himself down experimentally. Yes, it was. His sword was even still in its sheath, although god knew what he was supposed to do with it here. Maybe there was still a chance he was going to end up in some kind of hell place, so it might come in useful.
He wasn't going to get anywhere standing still, though. He eyed the path critically. Might as well follow it. It wasn't like he had anywhere else to go.
He walked for a long time. Another tick in the pro column was that his new body never seemed to get tired, but he couldn't shake the feeling that he wasn't actually going anywhere. The scenery never changed no matter how much he walked, and he couldn't veer off the path and do some exploring of his own because there just wasn't anywhere to go. The unchanging clouds began to take on a sinister edge, and he stopped, trying to get his bearings. He couldn't even tell which way was north anymore, if there indeed was a north in this place. He shook his compass out of his bag. The pointer spun uselessly, and then stopped as if confused. Figures.
"This is starting to get annoying," he said, and then wished he hadn't. The sound echoed in the still, reverberating off unseen walls until his own voice came back doubled, tripled in a way that made the hairs on the back of his neck prick up.
Maybe this was hell. He'd expected more fire, maybe some brimstone, but this could be torture as well. He flopped to the ground for a change of scenery, but before long he was up and moving again, unable to shake the feeling of being watched by many invisible eyes.
"I could go for a drink," he said hopefully, longing for anything, really, except more clouds, but nothing appeared. It was a long shot, anyway, but he had to try. There was nothing else to do.
Could he even drink in this condition? He seemed solid enough to himself, but he felt different, and there was definitely something weird going on; the last time he checked he hadn't been see-through.
"Maybe I'm a ghost," he said, poking experimentally at a lumpy collection of clouds and watching as his hand passed through them. He could sort of feel it. A light dampness, like when you weren't sure if your laundry was completely dry or not.
"That's the exactly the sort of ridiculous thing I expected from you, Kai-stern," someone said.
"Oh, shut up, Alfeegi," he said without thinking about it, and then did a double-take so hard he almost gave himself whiplash.
"You're late," Alfeegi said, studying a clipboard produced from somewhere within the depths of his long black robes. "No wonder I couldn't find you."
"Yeah, since I've been stuck here. Mind telling me what this place is?"
He might as well as asked if the sky was blue; Alfeegi gave him a look that asked is it painful to be that stupid.
"You're between," he said, as if it was obvious. Kai-stern could practically taste the capital letters.
"And that's what, exactly? You guys should really consider getting some signposts around here."
"Clearly, it's between the upper and lower worlds," Alfeegi said, his voice taking on that lecturing tone it had sometimes (frequently).
"Oh, of course. How silly of me not to notice."
"Your sarcasm is not appreciated. Your situation may be graver than you realize."
"Fabulous. I'm already dead, I don't think it can really get any worse," and Alfeegi's eyes darkened just a shade.
"Technically speaking, I shouldn't be telling you any of this, but," Alfeegi hesitated, "we were friends."
That was about the most tender he'd ever heard Alfeegi sound, but before he had time to comment on it Alfeegi was snapping his fingers and grabbing him by the handof course, he managed to grab the correct, non-painful one, he was Alfeegi, after alland hoisting him up into the air as something swooped out of the air underneath him.
"A magic carpet. How very Aladdin. I see you enjoy your classics."
"If you don't shut up I'll leave you down there," Alfeegi said.
"Can I ask where we're going at least?" he said hopefully.
"To my house. I'll explain there."
"How did you even know who I was? Last time we met I wasn't this colour."
Alfeegi hit him with his clipboard.
When Alfeegi had said house, he, well... hadn't actually expected a house, okay? It was the afterlife; he was expecting something a little different, not a neat little house with the proverbial white picket fence. Alfeegi parked the magic carpet and leaped down, offering him a hand.
"I'm dead, not fragile," Kai-stern said. Alfeegi retracted his hand. The carpet whuffled, and rolled itself up all of a sudden. This was so surreal. He wasn't actually in hell, was he? Being yelled at by Alfeegi for all eternity, that could be hell.
"Very well. Brace yourself," Alfeegi said, and before he had time to react, Alfeegi was opening the front door.
"I'm home!" he called.
Footsteps pattered. Very loudly. Herd of darnas loudly.
"You're back!" something soft yelled and flung itself at Alfeegi. "You were so long, I thought you were going to miss dinner!"
"I'm sorry, I had some business to take care of," Alfeegi said, gesturing to Kai-stern with one hand and ruffling its hair with another. He'd be offended at being referred to as business, but he was too busy staring at the thing that had currently attached itself to Alfeegi.
"Your... daughter?" he asked. God knew where Alfeegi would have gotten a kid from but sometimes you didn't know people as well as you thought you did. The young girl cuddled up to Alfeegi, talking a mile a minute about her day and someone called Duma and this really cute kitten she'd found and how much she'd missed him... she couldn't have been more than five; she barely came up to his waist.
"My girlfriend, actually," Alfeegi said, with the decency to blush.
"Never pegged you for a pedophile," Kai-stern said, and Alfeegi blanched. The little girl turned her big black eyes on him, and he recoiled instinctively. She looked cute, but she gave off a very strong sensation that he really, really didn't want to make her mad.
"I'm not... oh, I'll explain later."
He was saying that a lot, and Kai-stern was going to make him deliver.
"Reema, go call Duma please; I need to discuss something with him."
"Okies!" she said brightly, detaching herself and stampeding back up the stairs from whence she had came.
"What exactly have you been doing?" Kai-stern couldn't resist asking; he hardly ever got the chance to needle Alfeegi since his record was perfectly clean.
"It's a long story," Alfeegi said.
"So basically nepotism got you the job."
"You make it sound so sinister." Alfeegi clicked his tongue and got up to check the soup. The scene was so utterly unfamiliar Kai-stern still wasn't totally sure he wasn't in some strange hell-place. "I happen to be very good at what I do."
"Oh, I don't doubt that." It was pretty much the only thing he didn't doubt - Alfeegi was always going to be competent in anything he did, except for relating to other people, but he'd be boring otherwise. The rest of the stuff, with the death faerie gig and the millennia-old girlfriend who didn't look old enough to read let alone, uh; and the magic carpets and everything else.
"So what about me?" he asked when Alfeegi sat down again, the scent of roasting vegetables permeating the air. At least he could still smell, although he doubted he could eat. "You said you knew, so pony up with the explanation already."
"I already told you, if you could get it into your addled brain," and he was too used to Alfeegi's charming personality for that to bother him. "You're stuck between."
"And that means... what, exactly?" he asked, leaning his chin on the back of his chair.
Alfeegi rolled his eyes, and Reema giggled. They shared a commiserating look.
"As I said before, you're trapped between the two worlds. You can't go to heaven and you can't go to hell. That's why you're transparent. You don't really exist."
Now that was scary.
"What did I do to deserve this?" he said piteously, giving Alfeegi his best puppy-dog eyes.
"I would offer you soup, but in your condition you don't need to eat," Alfeegi said, dishing up three bowls of soup. Too bad; it smelled divine. Now that he thought about not being able to eat, he actually felt hungry, if such a thing was possible. "As I was saying. There's a certain procedure to be followed in borderline cases."
"I'm sitting right here, you know."
Alfeegi ignored him. "DUMA! DINNER!"
"My ears," he said, covering them protectively.
"Don't be ridiculous. You can't be injured, technically you're noncorporeal."
"Somehow I get the sense you're avoiding the issue," Kai-stern said, and knew he'd hit the jackpot when Alfeegi flinched.
"Reema, why don't you explain this to my friend? I'll go upstairs and get Duma. He's probably got his head in a book again and didn't hear me calling." Alfeegi left the room very quickly, leaving him alone with Reema.
"You're Alfeegi's friend?" she asked. Oh hell, he could barely see her face poking over the top of the table. Alfeegi was dating her? Her big dark eyes welled with seriousness.
"I guess you could say that. We didn't always get along very well when we were both alive, but," he paused, "he's very important to me."
"Me too!" she said, exploding into a big smile. "Alfeegi is the number one super most important person in the world!"
Well, maybe he wouldn't take it that far.
"Look, I've been meaning to ask," he said, trying to think of a way to ask that wouldn't be offensive, and then wondering why he was worrying about offending someone with the mental capacity of a five-year-old. "You and Alfeegi, are, uh..."
"Lovers?" she said, her voice taking on a richer, deeper timbre that sounded odd coming from such a small girl.
"Well, yeah," he said weakly.
"You'd be surprised," she said as she metamorphosed, her voice becoming a purr, body shooting upwards, softer and rounder, those big eyes enough to drown in.
"I... see," he said. The apparition across from him was definitely appropriate lover material; hell, she could give Raseleane a run for her money.
"But I like this form better!" she said, shrinking back just as fast to kid-size. "I just don't want you thinking weird things about Alfeegi." She shook her finger at him and damn her, he felt chastised. There was just something about kids.
"I was thinking nothing of the sort," he said faintly, and she smiled.
"Good!" she said, as if nothing ever happened, and frankly he wouldn't mind forgetting the conversation either. "Oh, Alfeegi's got Duma."
Duma, who was very, very tall and had similar facial markings to Reema, stared at him suspiciously as he sat down. Alfeegi banged his spoon into his bowl with more force than was strictly necessary, and Kai-stern suspected there had been an argument about his presence. Reema seemed completely unaware of the tension in the room.
"Let's eat!" she cheered, oblivious to the strain between the two men, and the, well, whatever Alfeegi said, ghost seemed to be the best word to describe his current condition.
Alfeegi smiled, but it looked worried, and Kai-stern resolved to ask him about it after dinner.
"Duma's just concerned," Alfeegi said after dinner when Duma had retired upstairs with a book and Reema was audibly splashing in the bath. "Bringing you here was slightly unorthodox on my part and he's not sure of the repercussions."
The last time Alfeegi had ever done anything that could be described as unorthodox was... well, there was hooking up with a five-year old, but other than that Kai-stern was really racking his brains.
"No way. You didn't break a rule, did you, Alfeegi?" he teased.
Alfeegi had the grace to blush. "It's not a rule, per se," he said with admirable dignity. He turned serious. "But if you would like to put it that way, then yes, I did something that was unusual and not well-thought of."
"Reema doesn't seem to care," Kai-stern mentioned, and Alfeegi's expression turned fond, the way it did whenever her name was mentioned.
"Her methods are rather unorthodox as well," he said.
"So what's so bad about me that I'm causing all this unorthodoxy?" he asked, mostly joking but with a twinge of worry; if there really was something wrong with him-who knew what the long-lasting effects of Revival Water could be, being that no one had ever lived to tell the tale- he could be causing them danger just by being here.
Alfeegi's serious look slammed back onto his face. "Do you understand what being between means?"
"You've only mentioned it a dozen times, so just maybe."
Alfeegi sighed and covered his face with his hand. "It's rather more complicated than that, I'm afraid."
"Of course."
"You are stuck between the two worlds, but you can't stay like that. We have to move you on."
"Hey," Kai-stern said, spreading his hands in a placating gesture, "I'm ready to go anytime."
"Yes, well." Alfeegi leaned forward in his chair, eyes glittering seriously. "It's not that simple. The circumstances of your death..."
And for a moment, he was back there on the altar, wind and sky screaming above him, slipping in blood, Rath's body laid out child-like before him; that one second when he'd decided and everything had faded out white very, very softly.
"As I was saying." Alfeegi coughed delicately, bringing him back to consciousness. "The circumstances are rather... ambiguous."
"I see," he said faintly.
"While technically your death could be classified as a suicide," and Alfeegi's voice wavered just a little on the word, "and therefore you would be routinely sent to the lower world, your sacrifice has not gone unnoticed by Enma." Alfeegi paused, choosing his words carefully. "I can't tell you very much, but Rath was not supposed to die then."
"What, you have a little book or something?" Kai-stern asked, meaning it as sarcasm and then realizing that yes, Alfeegi probably did; how else did he know who he was supposed to be collecting? "So go me, I don't get sent to hell."
"Well, you could still go to hell," Alfeegi corrected pedantically. Kai-stern deflated like a balloon; Alfeegi sure knew how to prick a guy's hopes. "Enma just needs more time to consider. It's usual in borderline cases, as few as they are."
"How much more time are we talking?" Kai-stern said suspiciously, since Alfeegi had his isn't-bureaucracy-great face on.
"Usually it's about six months," Alfeegi said, and if he'd had the mass to actually fall off the chair, he would have.
"Six months!? What am I supposed to do for six months?"
"It is sad you're non-corporeal," Alfeegi mused with an evil gleam in his eye. "I could put you to work if you were." Kai-stern was suddenly really glad to be a ghost. "It may be too much to ask of you, but you could meditate on the nature of your life. Marshal your arguments for the trial."
"I'm going to die of boredom," he said piteously. He couldn't even bang his head against the table properly in this form.
"Don't be silly, you're already dead," Alfeegi said officiously.
"You don't have to keep reminding me," Kai-stern moaned, and Alfeegi's expression suddenly turning apologetic.
"My apologies. Reema keeps reminding me that some people are upset by reference to their death."
He'd never heard Alfeegi apologise for anything in his life before, let alone so prettily.
"What, they got you going to sensitivity training or something?" he asked dubiously, and knew he'd hit the mark when Alfeegi made a face full of remembered pain.
"As I was saying," Alfeegi said primly. "You will have, most likely, six months to prepare for your trial. You are, of course, most welcome to stay here if you like, or you could..."
Or he could spend it wandering around between? Not much of a decision, although he had to wonder if he really was as welcome to everyone else as he was to Alfeegi.
"Why does it have to take so long, anyway? They're all dead, how much trouble can they be?"
"You shouldn't be asking me that," Alfeegi said grumpily, "I'm sure you're going to cause me trouble."
"Would I do that?" he said with an innocent smile, and Alfeegi clunked his dishes into the sink with more force than was strictly necessary.
"Not that you would know a thing about work, I'm sure," Alfeegi said with bite, "but there's a significant amount of red tape involved with posthumous affairs."
"What?" Kai-stern said dubiously, and Alfeegi sighed, the most hard done by person in the universe, like he had a really good complaint all saved up and had been waiting for years to let it out.
"There's such an administrative back-up it's unbelievable," Alfeegi said, crashing back down into his chair with gleaming eyes; Alfeegi was unstoppable when he was getting his whine on. "It takes so long to process a trial, but we just don't have enough personnel."
"Get more," Kai-stern suggested.
"The dead have such deplorable work ethics," Alfeegi said grumpily. "Enma offers a generous salary plus benefits, but we have so much trouble recruiting. No one wants to work when they're dead."
"I can't imagine why that would be," Kai-stern said, mustering a straight face born from decades of negotiations, and he thought for a second Alfeegi was actually going to stick his tongue out at him. He hadn't devolved that far yet, however.
"The point is, as a junior death fairy there's nothing I can do except wait for the higher-ups to give me my assignments," Alfeegi said, looking almost chastised, that familiar frustration he'd seen so often on Alfeegi's face. "I'll see if Reema can do anything to speed things along for you, but at the moment you're stuck here, I'm afraid."
"It's better than some of the places I've stayed, believe me," he wisecracked, but Alfeegi still looked worried.
He woke up once during the night to hushed argument and an admonishment not to wake Reema, but when he came downstairs the next morning, Duma was cooking tomatoes and greeted him with a grumpy but tolerable effort at good morning. Reema was setting the plates out, and stealing occasional glances at Duma. Obviously he had been told to be nice. No prizes for guessing who ran this household.
"I was doing some research last night," Alfeegi said, very cheerfully considering he was wearing an apron, which was the least Alfeegi-like attire Kai-stern could think of off the top of his head, "and I think you should be able eventually be able to take on a more corporeal form. Until then..." He set a big glass of water down in front of Kai-stern.
"Do you have any whiskey at least?" he tried hopefully, but received only a frown from Alfeegi and an expression of disgust from Reema. Duma looked a little more sympathetic, so maybe there was an ally there.
"Okay, water it is." He took an experimental sip. It felt normal enough, but he couldn't really taste anything, not that water had much of a taste anyway. He'd want to try something else before he came to the upsetting conclusion that he had no tastebuds anymore.
The other three sat down to breakfast, which made it that much harder to be satisfied with water. He didn't actually feel hungry, but the food looked so good. He'd never had the chance to taste any of Alfeegi's cookinghell, he'd had no idea he could even cookand everything looked absolutely delicious.
"So what is everyone doing today?" he said cheerfully. If he was going to be living here for six months, they were going to have to start getting along and it looked like it was going to have to come from him.
The other three exchanged serious glances before Alfeegi cleared his throat.
"We all have work, so I'm afraid you'll be here by yourself. Of course you're more than welcome to make yourself at home; use anything you like. There's a library..." he trailed off. "You could-"
"I might try exploring around the area a bit," he said brightly, and everyone looked relieved.
"Well then," Alfeegi said, rinsing his dishes in the sink. "I had better get going."
He waved goodbye to Duma, and kissed Reema tenderly on the forehead. Duma followed him and Reema soon after, in a cloud of pink and ruffles. Kai-stern was alone.
He put his glass in the sink and turned the tap on, watching the water bounce off his hand and collect in the bottom of the glass. It was almost the same colour as his skin. He could feel, a little bit anyway. More like a memory of a feeling-he knew how it was supposed to be, and if he thought about it hard enough his brain could fill in the gaps until it actually felt real.
Too bad he hadn't had this ability when it actually could have been useful. No more freezing his ass off in cheap inns.
He didn't know where Alfeegi kept his glasses and didn't want to anger him by putting it in the wrong drawer (because that was precisely the sort of thing that annoyed Alfeegi) so he just rinsed it and left it next to the sink. He looked out the window. It looked like a nice day, a good day for going out, exploring somewhere, feeling the sun on your skin and the breeze in your hair and knowing you could go anywhere you wanted...
He went and lay down, staring at the ceiling. His bones felt tired. He could swear he could feel a phantom ache in his wrist, and he touched it absentmindedly, his fingertips hovering over the space where his hand wasn't supposed to be. Six months was a pretty long time to be semitransparent when he was already starting to get tired of it. Alfeegi had said he'd get more solid, but how long was that going to take?
He jolted his hand accidentally and couldn't decide if it hurt or not.
Kai-stern closed his eyes. He really was tired. Dying sure took it out of you, and he hadn't been in good shape for a long time before that (longer than he had admitted to anyone).
Six months of purgatory.
Would it have been okay if he hadn't come back?
He let the question roll around in his mind. He'd been willing to die for Rath, and yet here he was, with half of a second chance. He'd bet, and won, on larger odds than that.
He could hear wind whistling in his ears, and closed his eyes.
He slept, or wandered absently through some dreamscape. Even there he was detached, like he was floating outside his body, a mere noncorporeal observer of his own nightmares. He dreamed over the altar over and over again, and when he woke his body was damp with sweat. The knowledge that he'd retained some basic physical functions helped as he splashed his face with water, but there were some things he wouldn't have minded forgetting.
There was the telltale banging of pots and pans from downstairs, so the others were back. Kai-stern levered himself gingerly out of bed, nursing his wrist as best as he could, and forced himself out of bed.
"Welcome back," he said with a weak smile, and everyone turned to the bottom of the stairs.
"Oh, you're awake," Alfeegi said distractedly, stirring something in a pot that smelled of tomato and spices.
Reema latched onto him, talking so fast Kai-stern was amazed she didn't pass out. Duma didn't say anything, just kind of grunted and raised an acknowledging eyebrow, but he supposed that passed as acceptance. He was used to that sort of thing-Tetheus hadn't exactly been the talkative type, either.
He wondered briefly how Tetheus was going. Ruwalk. Lykouleon. Rath.
Probably best not to ask about that.
"Yup," he said. "How was work?"
Alfeegi rolled his eyes. "Don't ask me," he grumbled, and Reema perked up next to him.
"It wasn't that bad, was it?" she soothed.
"It was!" he insisted, and Duma nodded in consensus.
"What happened?" he asked, curious. If there'd been some to-do at work, maybe it had to do with him if Alfeegi was so grumpy about it...
Reema blinked. "I just showed our wedding photos around, that was all..."
"That's all," Alfeegi grated out. His back was turned, but through long years of acquaintance Kai-stern could tell that his teeth were clenched.
"But you're soooooooo cute in them, Alfeegi!" Reema whined. Alfeegi's hair was practically standing on end.
"Can I see them?" Kai-stern asked, intrigued.
"No," Alfeegi said at the same time Reema said "Sure!" and took his hand (her skin was cool) and dragged him up the stairs.
"REEMA!" Alfeegi bellowed, but since he couldn't leave the pot he was stirring, they made it safely upstairs in peace, and Reema pulled three fat photo albums off the bookshelf.
"That's a lot of photos," Kai-stern said weakly, flipping through the book. There were dozens of photos in the same sepia tone, each nicely mounted on black paper. Reema and her dress taking up most of one picture. Alfeegi in a white tuxedo. Reema in a black wedding dress. Alfeegi in a black wedding dress.
"Isn't he cute?" Reema squealed.
"You could say that," Kai-stern said weakly, half-wishing he could just erase the image from his mind. Not that he hadn't seen Alfeegi in a dress before, unfortunately, but there were dresses, and there were dresses and he hadn't seen Alfeegi in a dress and actually smiling before and it was more than a little scary. He flipped the page, more to get away from the vaguely sickly feeling than anything else. In the next photograph, Alfeegi and Reema gazed into each other's eyes like there was no one else in the world, their hands clasped. Alfeegi wasn't smiling, but Kai-stern had never seen him look so honestly happy before. Reema went up onto her tiptoes to look over his elbow.
"That's one of my favourites," she said without any of the usual sugar.
Kai-stern looked back at the photograph, at Alfeegi's tender expression, the relaxed line of his shoulders.
"He really loves you, doesn't he," he said, sneaking a sideways glance at her. She wore the exact same expression as Alfeegi in the picture.
"Yes," Reema said simply.
He closed the photograph album and put it back on the shelf, feeling very tired all of a sudden. It was none of his business if and who Alfeegi hooked up with, but there was something a little wrong about Alfeegi finally being happy only when he was dead.
"Do you love him?" Reema asked suddenly, and if Kai-stern had eaten anything solid enough to choke on he would have.
"Come again?" he said weakly.
"Alfeegi talks about you a lot," said Reema.
"By talk you mean..."
"He tells me lots!" Reema said with a big smile. "About the Dragon Castle, and his friends and his work and Ruwalk and Tetheus and Lykouleon and Kai-stern! Reema died when she was very young so she doesn't really know about that sort of thing."
"I'm sorry to hear that." A calculated pause while Kai-stern weighed up the options and the likelihood he wouldn't like what she might tell him. "What does he say?"
There was the many times he had snuck in and out of the castle... the one time he and Alfeegi had gone on a mission together and he had gotten a little too drunk and Alfeegi had had to carry him home... a couple of times he might have gone severely over budget... whatever way you slice it, he didn't come out of Alfeegi's stories looking too good.
"Oh, that he misses everybody! He was really sad when you died! He was still getting used to being a death fairy then, you know. They tried to give him your assignment but he refused. He was really upset." Reema's face could give a hangdog a run for its money. "I don't like it when Alfeegi is sad. He won't talk to me. He just shuts himself up in his study."
"He's like that sometimes," Kai-stern said faintly, still processing.
"So Reema is really glad Kai-stern has come to stay!" she said, attaching herself to his arm like the world's cutest leech. "Because now Alfeegi won't be so sad!"
"I'll try my best."
She turned her darklight eyes on him. "And you can tell me lots and lots and lots about Alfeegi too!"
"I'm not sure he'd really like that," Kai-stern tried, and recoiled when her hands tightened. He still couldn't feel very much, so she must have had a grip like a snake, and her hands were cold. "I mean, surely a story or two couldn't hurt."
Reema smiled sweetly.
It was hard to know what to do when everyone had gone to work. After his initial reconnaissance-he preferred it to 'snooping' although Alfeegi probably would have choicer words-and a few little discoveries he wished he hadn't made (like that Alfeegi, Reema and Duma all slept in the same bed-what was up with that?), he was really at a loose end. He read a lot: Duma and Alfeegi both had well-stocked libraries, and keeping Alfeegi's words in mind he really did try to prepare for his trial. It was just like any other mission really; you had to know the ground before you went in. He read a lot of histories, myths, fairy tales, anything to do with Enma or that mentioned how his sentences tended to get handed down. There wasn't much material on the latter, and Kai-stern chose to not think that that was because they had all been sent to hell.
Other than that, he pottered. He cleaned. He was even more of a househusband than Alfeegi. Alfeegi had started to get grumpy because there wasn't enough left for him to do around the house. Who knew Alfeegi was so attached to his dustpan? The only other thing he could think of to do was play card games with Reema, and since he had to let her win every time because she sulked otherwise and that brought Alfeegi's wrath down on him, he was spending a great deal of time twiddling his thumbs. He played chess with Duma sometimes, but dying seemed to have dulled his strategic thinking capacity and after a few embarrassing defeats he wrote it off as a lost cause.
Today he was sitting outside leafing through one of Duma's dusty old books he'd found wedged at the very back of the bookshelf where even Alfeegi's magical cleaning powers wouldn't have reached. He couldn't read this dialect very well, even after his officer training, but he had time now, and a dictionary.
Reflect on your life. Marshal your arguments for the trial.
Kai-stern sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose, and set his book aside. The chair creaked slightly beneath him, the sound a reminder in the quiet that he was utterly alone.
Did Enma really know everything? Had everything he'd ever done been written down in one of those black books? The times he'd drunk too much on the job... Lykouleon had never known, but would Enma? It was ridiculous to feel embarrassed about something he'd done two hundred years ago. He felt himself flush, and hoped that meant he must be becoming more corporeal. He touched his cheek, felt the faint heat there.
If he was going to be sent to hell after all, he guessed there needed to be a physical body to punish. He examined his wrist. The memory of the ache still lingered, but he could almost forget about it if nothing called it to mind. He was sure his skin colour was more solid than before.
He got up and went inside to the kitchen, turning the hot tap on all the way, yelping as it scalded his hand. A lot more corporeal, then. He did the math in his head. Three months had passed, almost to the day. Three months of living with his dead coworker, his dead coworker's prepubescent girlfriend and her disapproving brother. The kind of story even Kai-stern couldn't have concocted when he'd been alive.
His moratorium was half gone, but whether he'd used it effectively he couldn't say.
The lack of news from below bothered him, but none of the three would talk about work, no matter how much he wheedled or promised to play dress-up with Reema. "It's top secret, of course I can't tell you. These are matters of life and death," Alfeegi had only said, annoyed. But Alfeegi had to know what was going on at the castle; Kai-stern had gleaned enough from overhearing hushed snatches of conversation that Alfeegi had been there, that the situation was far from optimal, accompanied by frantic turning of pages of Alfeegi's little black book.
The lock on the desk in Alfeegi's study gave way after three seconds of guilt and ten of fiddling with Reema's hairpin. Knowing Alfeegi, anything of real importance would be at his work office-assuming he had one, Kai-stern's intel was still lacking in this regard-but there had to be something of use there.
It was tidy, of course, everything immaculately filed and labeled, which only made it all the more accessible to the slightly unscrupulous. Kai-stern made a mental note of the layout so he could return it to its previous state once finished, and then flipped open the folder on top. It was filled with copies of Alfeegi's employment records-his contract, insurance, code of conduct employees were expected to follow. Even dead, Alfeegi never stopped working.
The second was even more boring, insomuch that it was in a language he didn't understand, no matter much how he consulted Alfeegi's handy rack of dictionaries. The furious scribbling in the margins hopefully meant that it was equally difficult for Alfeegi to understand as well.
The idea of Alfeegi having homework made the corners of his mouth turn up. Only slightly.
Alfeegi also had a variety of spare quills and ink bottles, and three spare clipboards with matching little black books. There was nothing written in them yet, but they all had the same boxes to be ticked: name, location, time of death, cause of death, destination of the deceased.
Kai-stern flipped through the pages idly, wondering what his entry read. He couldn't remember anyone coming for him although he knew it must have happened; only that Reema had told him that it hadn't been Alfeegi, that Alfeegi had refused his assignment.
It was somewhat surprising he'd been given it in the first place, but then again maybe they'd never heard the term conflict of interest in heaven.
His fingernail idly shaped the fourth little box: suicide.
A stirring from downstairs indicated the return of the trio, and Kai-stern hastily replaced Alfeegi's things in their proper order before going downstairs to greet them.
Had it been?
And yet, here he was.
Alfeegi was in a visibly bad mood, which wasn't unusual for him-but it was here, with his perfect white picket fence and vegetable soup. Alfeegi could run hot or cold: when angry he was viperous and known to throw things; other times he just closed himself off entirely. It was a shame that out of all of them Alfeegi was the best at reading people, because it was impossible to tell what was going on in his head. Alfeegi's anger was frequently a camouflage for whatever it was he didn't feel like telling you at the time.
Duma excused himself quickly after dinner, saying he had an engagement, not that Kai-stern could blame him. Even Reema had sensed it, and was three hundred percent quieter as she and Alfeegi shared the after-dinner cleanup. Feeling out of the loop, Kai-stern waited until Reema had disappeared before he crept back upstairs to Alfeegi's office.
"I see you broke into my desk," Alfeegi said with curious indifference to the fact he had just sprung Kai-stern doing something obviously sneaky.
Kai-stern gulped.
"It's all right. I knew you would eventually." Alfeegi turned the key himself, stowing something small and black away.
"Research?" Kai-stern tried, but Alfeegi only snorted and gestured for him to sit down before locking the door.
Kai-stern's stomach was turning into knots even a sailor couldn't undo. Not even Reema's cuteness could save him now.
Alfeegi refused to sit down, pacing back and forward the line of his desk. "I'm not allowed to tell you this."
"But yet you're going to," Kai-stern said, leaning back in his chair. "Are you not?"
Alfeegi wavered.
"You have changed."
Alfeegi's mouth trembled, and Kai-stern quit the teasing.
"It's Lykouleon," he said, looking very determinedly at a fixed point in the wall.
"What about him?" Kai-stern said without thinking about it much, and Alfeegi just looked at him. "What has he done-oh."
Alfeegi sighed and leaned against his desk.
"And they want you to? You know."
"Unfortunately so." Alfeegi's fingernail traced the shape of the lock Kai-stern had forced open earlier.
In some ways, the news wasn't unexpected. Alfeegi didn't talk about it much, citing security concerns, top secret and whatnot but from what he'd gleaned the situation wasn't good at the castle. Lykouleon had been in bad shape for a long time before that.
And still... he felt cold all over, which was the most sensation he'd felt in a long time.
"It's not just that," Alfeegi said, each word dragged out with tooth-pulling slowness. "This was delivered today." He handed Kai-stern a thick envelope, creamy paper printed with gold, and Kai-stern didn't need to know what was inside to know he wasn't going to like the news-Alfeegi's face, and the scarlet seal on the back told him everything he needed to know.
The letter inside unfolded itself in his lap: an official summons. For tomorrow at nine o'clock.
"You guys do like leaving things to the last minute," was all he could think of to say over the suddenly too-loud pounding of his heart.
Alfeegi covered his face with his hands, his body trembling with wordless shaking. Kai-stern couldn't tell if he was laughing or crying. After a while he looked back up at Kai-stern.
"Of course I can't tell you the precise details of Lykouleon's...but we're also expecting another significant arrival on that day," and Alfeegi's mouth turned up at the corners just for a second, eyes burning gold with pride.
Kai-stern cheered inwardly for Lykouleon finally taking Nadil, that bastard, down, but was soon deflated by Alfeegi's next words.
"Anyway, we have to be extra careful with rulers, so that means you were bumped forward to give us more time."
"I resent the implication that Nadil is more important than I am," Kai-stern said, but couldn't make much of a joke of it. Alfeegi's eyes were tired and worn-out and he didn't even smile. "Okay, so what should I do?"
"I took the liberty of fetching more suitable attire for you," Alfeegi said, producing a parcel seemingly out of the volumes of his robe. Kai-stern peeked inside-it was his official Blue Officer uniform, which he had probably worn once his entire life. "But otherwise, I'm not allowed to give you any advice or coaching. You're on your own from now on. Technically I shouldn't even speak to you." He paused. "Do try not to do anything stupid."
"Roger that," he said faintly. Alfeegi sighed, and folded his arms. This time he produced a tray.
"This is for your dinner," he said, and placed a handful of neatly-wrapped riceballs on the desk. "Try not to get my books dirty."
"You're not eating?" Kai-stern said.
"I have too much to do!" Alfeegi said with a snap and crackle to his voice. "Just... get ready. It will be like nothing you've ever felt before. Don't underestimate Enma."
"Gotcha," he said breezily, to watch Alfeegi bury his face in his hands. "Alfeegi. I haven't been sitting on my hands for three months, you know."
"I do realize that," Alfeegi said, muffled. "I also think you don't understand how serious your situation is."
The same words Alfeegi had said to him months ago.
"For all you know, you have less than ten hours to live," Alfeegi went on.
"Oh," he said. A moment to digest that. "What happens if, you know...?"
"You'll be sent to hell, of course. Enma doesn't like exceptions," said Alfeegi, king of the matter-of-fact.
"You could try to be slightly more upset that you might not ever see me again," Kai-stern said with a pout and a tease and the taste of hysteria low in his belly. The words sounded much scarier once he had released them into the air between them.
"I've had much more time than you to become accustomed to the idea," Alfeegi said with a note of bitterness. "Just... don't screw it up."
"Alfeegi..."
Alfeegi sighed. "Reema has become quite used to having you around, and I think Duma appreciates not being stuck with Reema and I all the time."
"That's such a romantic way of saying, 'I really care about you, Kai-stern.'"
In a previous life Alfeegi would have sent inkwells flying at such a remark. but new, mellow Alfeegi took it all in stride. "I said no such thing," Alfeegi said haughtily, and excused himself before Kai-stern had a chance to respond to Alfeegi's remarkable outbreak of what could only be called caring.
Kai-stern fingered the blue sash on the coat, remembering the first time he'd worn it, when he received the Blue Dragon Ball, his throat tight from the collar and his heart in his shoes, sure any second now that someone was going to say this was a joke, find out he was a fake, a human fake at that; Lykouleon's hands steady on the box and Alfeegi's face stern as he read out the vows and Kai-stern parroted them back. That had been before Rath, before Tetheus; even Raseleane was still new to Lykouleon's side then.
He tried to remember how many years ago that had been, and gave up. He felt suddenly tired, like his legs just wouldn't cooperate, his wrist sending up little fireworks of pain.
He put the parcel aside, not folded quite as neatly as it had been, and rummaged through Alfeegi's bookshelf. And poured himself a drink. For Lykouleon. If it tasted rather salty, well, he could only hope that Reema knew how to comfort Alfeegi better than he did.
As per Alfeegi's meticulous instructions, no one was home when he woke up, but breakfast had been set out for him. Attacking the crusty bread and Alfeegi's homemade jam, the words 'last supper' couldn't help but come to mind, but he did his best to extinguish them before they made him feel any more miserable than he already was.
He'd thought about leaving a letter, a note, at least a thanks for having me, but that felt only too final, and was also so significantly out of character that Alfeegi was unlikely to be pleased.
His concession to his guilt was to wash and dry all the dishes, which Alfeegi always most violently insisted on doing by himself, and to lock the door on his way out, leaving the key in Alfeegi's neat little red postbox.
He'd left the uniform folded on the desk. Screw Enma. Everything he could have done, he'd already done. Enma could judge him on that. He was ready when the magic carpet, undecorated and unrelentingly black and piloted by no one, arrived to pick him up.
He hoisted himself up and waited for his judgment to come.
He wasn't really sure what to expect when the carpet dropped him off, but secretly he had been thinking something along the lines of dark and spooky, maybe smelling of sulphur; you know, something hell-like just to remind the unlucky sods who had to come here what was lying in wait for them.
Instead it was a stately white building with a plaque reading 'Judgments Hall,' a gold knocker and a death fairy in full uniform (including the requisite cap and gloves) waiting for him. Service with a smile, unto death. Maybe he should have worn his uniform after all.
"Blue Dragon Officer Kai-stern, yes?" the death fairy said brightly, making a note on her clipboard when Kai-stern nodded. "I apologize most sincerely, but we're running slightly behind schedule this morning, so please take a seat in the waiting room and wait until your number is called," and she handed him a little ticket.
Hurry up and wait to get sent to hell. Great. "What's causing the delay?" he asked out of sheer curiosity. Did Enma get confused?
"Emergency cleanup," the death fairy said with unseemly relish, showing her teeth.
"Great," Kai-stern said faintly, wishing he hadn't asked, and went inside.
There were three others in the waiting room, all with that grey, not-really-there tinge to their faces. Kai-stern smiled and said hello, but no response. One had his face buried in the today's paper (what a relief to know they had the newspaper even in the afterlife); one was feverishly reciting some kind of prayer under his breath; eyes maniacal, and the other appeared to be fast asleep. Well, hell was a busy place, what with being constantly tortured and all. Maybe Kai-stern should get some shuteye too while he was waiting.
He leaned against the wall and closed his eyes, trying to ignore the gnawing hole in his stomach.
Some part of him was relatively sure that he wasn't hellbound. There had been nothing in his parting with Alfeegi that indicated that he thought Kai-stern was destined for an eternity of torture; surely Alfeegi would have been more upset if he really thought he was never going to see Kai-stern again (after all, there was no modicum in Alfeegi's emotions). But he hadn't been confident, either, and Alfeegi was always confident in his own judgment. Which meant there was room for doubt...
He sighed and covered his face with the newspaper.
"...number seventy-five! Number seventy-five!"
Something was jostling his shoulder roughly and Kai-stern opened his eyes.
He opened his eyes.
He'd fallen asleep!
If he didn't get sent to hell, Alfeegi was going to kill him.
"If you would care to follow me," the death fairy said with increasing degrees of frost, and Kai-stern put down the newspaper and followed her into the hall.
"Do you have any weapons?" she asked, patting him down most industriously. "Notes? Books? They will be restored to you at the end of your trial. Should you not return, your belongings will be disposed of." She gestured for him to remove his belt, his glasses; anything metallic went into her little basket.
"I can't see without my glasses," he said pitifully.
She gave him a condescending glance. "That will not be an issue."
Before Kai-stern could ask her what that was supposed to mean, she was shooing him towards the massive ornate doors to the main hall. His stomach suddenly twisted in panic.
Alfeegi! -the doors closing behind him.
It was pitch black. He couldn't see his hand in front of his face. He stumbled, fell against something hard. Reaching out cautiously, he felt worn, smooth wood under his fingers, and sat down in the pew. The lights magically came on, although he couldn't see how. It was so blindingly white it burned, and he shielded his eyes.
Blue Dragon Officer Kai-stern
The voice came from somewhere in the hall; or somewhere in his head. It was bonecrunching in its agony; had he not been sitting, he would have fallen to the ground. His ears rang with it; his head wasn't big enough to hold the sound. He clapped his hands over his ears helplessly, but it was no defense; the din was going to deafen him.
Prepare yourself
He didn't scream; he couldn't breathe. He slipped from the pew, kneeling on the ground, resting his forehead against the wood for some kind of stability.
You will be judged
...and he was cracked open.
"Are you trying to kill me or something?" Kai-stern complained, loosening the knot in his tie that Alfeegi had just tied. "Because you guys already tried that. Also, I do actually know to tie a tie."
Alfeegi withdrew his hands. Reema turned those lamplike eyes on him, and he sighed.
"Of course I appreciate your very kind assistance, Alfeegi," he said, tongue firmly in cheek. Alfeegi twitched, but Reema smiled beauteously.
"I don't even know why I'm bothering," Alfeegi said, all but throwing Kai-stern's jacket at him. "Given that it's your first day they'll inevitably have you in the archives seeing if there are any cases where people are due to miraculously come back from the dead. You're going to get covered in dust," followed a sour look that hinted at Alfeegi's future hardships via Kai-stern's dirty laundry.
"But Kai-stern's so smart! I'm sure he'll make detective in no time!" Reema chirped, and Kai-stern felt vaguely nauseous, as if next she'd be inviting him to be the fourth person in their bed.
"Don't even think about it," Alfeegi, who could always tell what he was thinking, muttered next to his ear. He pinned his badge on, managing to (deliberately, Kai-stern thought) stick him in the process. "And don't even think about looking for your file, because they won't let you see it."
"I never considered it, of course," he lied smoothly, flipping his tie down and collar up. It was cold in heaven these days.
Duma took out his pocketwatch. "Certain of us are going to be late, if we don't get moving.
Alfeegi grabbed the watch out of his hand with a look of horror. "How did it get so late? You're going to be late for your first day of work!"
"Begin as you mean to go on," Kai-stern said sagely, and picked up his briefcase. His tie was already beginning to annoy him.
"You do remember where the building is," Alfeegi said. If he panicked anymore, he was going to start hyperventilating. He saw Reema rub his hand soothingly out of the corner of his eye. "Don't you?"
"Yes, Alfeegi," he said as gently as he knew how. "No, I will not make any appropriate jokes about getting sent to hell. Yes, I appreciate the chance to start over. Yes, I'm excited about working in the Suspicious Deaths Investigation Squad. Yes, I'm extraordinarily grateful for your intervention on my behalf. No, I will not get drunk at the welcome party. No, I will not make any complaints about how abysmal the pay is."
"As long as we're clear," Alfeegi said, deflating like a balloon. "I'll leave supper out for you, since I doubt you'll be home in time for dinner."
"Much appreciated," Kai-stern said, making a miniscule adjustment to his tie and leaving off when Alfeegi's hand started to twitch. "I'd better get going then."
"I'll come with you part of the way!" Reema chirruped, taking his briefcase and practically dragging him out the door with the other hand. "Let's go! Let's go! Bye bye Alfeegi! Bye bye Duma!"
Alfeegi's face could only be described as an anxious parent on their child's first day of school (or in Kai-stern's case, terror that he would do something inappropriate and end up getting sent to hell after all). However, he rallied admirably and managed a sullen wave and an admonishment to "Be careful!"
"We're going to be late!" Reema said as she called up the magic carpet. "Let's go fast! Alfeegi never lets me."
As they gained altitude, Kai-stern heard the shutters being thrown open and Alfeegi yelling from the second floor, his words lost in the wind.
Reema winked at him conspiratorially.
Kai-stern took his tie off and shoved it in the depths of his briefcase.
"Here we go~~~" Reema cheered, and the carpet picked up speed, the kind that made his eyes water as he faced into the wind. He was aware he must be grinning like an idiot, but couldn't seem to stop as he felt the breeze against his skin, the buzz of air rushing by his ears, Reema giggling next to him.
And so Kai-stern, Level 1 Officer of the Suspicious Deaths Investigation Squad (Eternal Kingdom, Building 291, Block 43), Former Blue Dragon Officer (RIP 1432) began the rest of his life.