His first breath burns like acid in his lungs, and he chokes on it. He was dead, was sure he was dead, because Death is certain. Death is dependable.
Though not as dependable as her, apparently.
His skin fits him perfectly, better than the skin he wore previously, and he thinks to ask how she managed that, but he finds he doesn't quite care at this moment. They beat death. He tells her as much, but she shakes her head, ebony cascading waves of hair gleaming in the too bright sun.
"Stolen is not the same as won. This isn't a victory, it's a debt, but it's one I'd pay a thousand times over. You'll be by my side always, won't you?"
He tells her yes, the words so simple and bare and truthful he doesn't even think before he says them.
"Good. I'll happily play the role of a thief."
She found a book, she tells him, a book of God's blueprints, the book that made his bones iron and his teeth savage. He reads with her, meets Index and whispers that maybe it was his rejected blueprints, salvaged from the burn pile and bound in thick leather. God, arrogant but embarrassed, decided to hide the shit from the rest of the world until some unfortunate souls would come upon it. She chides him gently, pinches one of his cheeks as his laughter turns to a scowl, and tells him that he isn't very far off.
It was a friend of God, of the Lord of Death, who wrote this book, every word damning him further, every creature created an abomination.
"But you see," she murmurs, her voice quiet and commanding attention, "Our God, Lord Death, he has a penchant for all things dangerous and different. Especially if he finds them useful."
Useful?
"He's especially interested in tools with beating hearts."
A chill runs through him, cold and metallic, the flesh of his knuckles peeling back to bare blade, body new but sensation familiar as ever.
"Death was determined to steal you from me. Death is greedy, claims more than he is due, but you are not his to take."
He grins, tongue and teeth sharp as ever.
"Fuckin right, I'm not."
.
It's a few years of calm before much of anything happens. They never stay in the same place, but never progress, almost complacent in their nomadic ways. His palms always itching, fingers always twitching to do something, but he is nothing if not loyal, and when she tells him to do nothing, nothing is exactly what he does. Every evening she scatters, leaves him with a grossly maternal kiss on the cheek before scatting herself into the shadows. He watches as the ground writhes in the storming swarm of her, sits on his hands until she skitters back into his presence hours later.
He never bothers to ask what it is she's doing. He's smart enough not to voice stupid questions, even if those stupid questions are a perfect reflection of his quandaries. Mercy always finds him anyway, her smile always a bit smug and affectionate as she finally explains herself.
This time, it goes on for a long while, and it roils around in his blood, his questions, his frustration at this stagnation, his anger at his apparent uselessness. She brought him back for a reason, that much he's certain of, but if it was to bum around with his thumb up his ass, then he's pretty sure it wasn't worth stealing from God.
His thoughts chase their own tails, running in circles that expand and contract and waver, but never break. His soul vibrates, violently and impatiently, and she finally takes mercy on him.
"I've found a place for us. One God had abandoned."
And he's reminded swiftly of why it is he places so much faith in her.
Sounds like they'll feel right at home.
.
The village is small, fearsome in their fearfulness, but the town adjusts. Men of stone patrol the streets, clumsy and lumbering, but absolutely determined in their ways, whatever their makers may have decided their ways should be. Blind, empty stone sockets see through him in a way he's only ever know from her, and it's unsettling. Twitching fingers find their way into a pair of enchanted gloves he 'inherits' from an elderly gentleman, whose soul tasted of anguish and resentment for the world and surged with the knowledge of bending the earth to one's will.
He molds for her a stone companion, and it stands guard at the foot of her bed where he would never be so arrogant to place himself. She makes him teach her the ways of the magic.
A pinprick of his fingertip against hers, her blood splashing the soil, smoking and spreading through the veins of the earth like the prettiest of poison. His gloved hands mix it, mold it into a crude clay spider, and the smirk that curls her lips belies the her delight.
"What do you want the little bugger to do, Ara?"
"Whatever it pleases," she replies, always one to stump him with little to no effort. "I have an idea."
.
They leave their home for two weeks, travel from place to place, collecting a soul here and there, spitting in God's face. He doesn't ask, but she tells him anyway.
"Death and I have a little agreement. It's shaky at best, but I have knowledge he craves, and everything has a price."
"What's yours?"
"Freedom and your life is all I asked from him. I believe it to be a fair trade for what I've given him. He always thought his dear friend Eibon was a fool, but it seems time tells all truths. All I taught him is what he never cared to hear from his foolish friend. You and your departed son are no longer the only ones of your kind."
The jealousy that washes over him is intense and unkind, but short lived. She remains with him as her only constant companion, has since they first met, and his jealousy is unfounded at best. He fixes himself a confident grin.
"I don't mind a little competition."
"Lying doesn't become you, you know. But even so, worry not, you know you'll alway be the first of your kind and the only I trust. I suppose that will have to be enough for now."
His muscles prickles uncomfortably, needling at his skin insistently before settling into a calm buzz, the incredible knowledge that he is her most trusted shivering excitedly beneath his skin. It is enough, will always be more than enough, and though joy has never suited him, he thinks that maybe he's content.
He answers her without pretense or bravado, "When has it ever not been enough?"
She runs her fingers through his hair, tucking some behind his ears, and if it were anyone else, they'd loose their hands, but it's her, so he scowls and grumbles, but in a quiet place within his soul, he knows that he is content.
.
But everyone pays the piper eventually. The forces that be get their pound of flesh one way or another, and nothing good ever comes to fruition without some sort of loss, some sort of pain caused. Their weeks were spent collecting listless souls, drifters and weaklings;, they're amongst the best he ever knows. After the first few souls are swallowed, it seems to get easier. He ends something that never began, a life wasted, and he uses it to grow, evolve, divide and conquer. Never does he take from those who deserve, and for whatever reason, that seems to be enough to calm his moral confliction.
His blade grows sharper, his enchantments more powerful, and with every forward bound he makes, she seems to thrive off his energy. The most pleased he ever sees her is the moment after he swallows a soul. Her eyes seem to gleam with something from within, something like pride, he thinks, and he's not arrogant enough to expect it, but he's selfish enough to crave it. Her approval is addictive, and he's unsure of what he would be doing with his life if not for her.
It's a strange fluke of a moment when he actually contemplates it: a life without her. What would he be then? A shell? Nothing at all?
What had he been before? Only a child, incomplete and unsure and oh so very sick. He wouldn't have survived a whole six years before the lung rot claimed him. Death would be a soul richer and he would be gone. She gave him his life, and so he's dedicated it to her. It seems only logical.
"You're awfully loud for someone who isn't speaking," she tells him while he's caught in this reverie, and the biting sarcasm in her tone is so satisfying.
He's eaten two fresh human souls that day, and one that once belonged to a rabbit. All his senses are alight, over sensitive and incredibly sharp. The scent of newly birthed soil and slowly brewing storm wraps itself around them, the leaves crunching underfoot almost deafening.