"O Death, rock me asleep, bring me to quiet rest, let pass my weary guiltless ghost out of my careful breast."
Anne Boleyn, Queen Consort of England, c. 1501 - 1536.
"Grief is the price we pay for love."
Elizabeth II, Queen of the Commonwealth realms, 1926.
Death stood still, hovering amongst the stars as if they were so many fireflies fluttering through flowered fields. His eyes slowly closed as he floated serenely on the winds of Andromeda, basking in the vacuum that was Space. Such relaxation was a rare treat for the Dark Angel - though it was a fraction of Time smaller than a nanosecond, it was much needed.
His being unwound itself as he reverted to his most familiar form - that of one Lord Hamish Ascot, Esq. Formerly a smallish man of large ego and delicate digestion, a man fond of proper behavior and high society. Hamish, dressed in his favorite suit, twirled the Grim Reaper in his hand - between one revolution and the next, it converted itself into a fine, black-topped walking stick.
"Right then, now that we are quite a bit smarter looking, it's time to go for a visit," Hamish murmured to himself as he tidied his ascot and daubed the perspiration off of his top lip with a fine handkerchief. Behind him, the Cursed Lovers, Altair and Vega, spun around each other in a fine dance as they drew nearer - they were intent on their annual reunion and could care a whit for either Death's or Hamish's presence.
"I feel like I'm forgetting something though - ah! Of course! I should never enter a lady's presence unannounced. Especially her Eminence Quite rude, quite improper."
Suddenly, at the apex of Altair and Vega's reunion, both stars began to glow hotly - fiercer white than ever before. From the heart of the stars, two small specks flew out, streaking like comets as they slowed and hovered over Hamish's shoulders. With a burst of illuminated stardust, two dun-colored mourning doves began to circle his head, cooing loudly. Hamish smiled as they landed on his shoulder, their low calls vibrating through their plump breasts.
"They are beautiful!" cried a bright voice. Over his shoulder a clear, white luminescence grew brighter. A light touch on his shoulder brought a wry smile to Hamish's thin, pale lips as he remembered the first time he had heard that wondrously, hopefully, brilliant voice.
[~~~]
Mirana, the White Queen of Underland, was ill - ill with a disease that had no cure. Of course, there was no true cure for the passage of time and she had been aging for quite a while now.
There was also no cure for a repeatedly broken heart like hers. First with the death of many of her subjects as her sister, Iracebeth, seized control. Then there was the uncontrollable madness that had claimed her closest friends and most loyal subjects, followed surprisingly swiftly by banishment of her beloved, if crazed, sister and the loss of her Champion. She had thought that mayhap she and Alice could have become quite close confidantes - it would have been so nice to have someone to honestly discuss feminine subjects with! But alas...
Once Alice had left and in spite of the Hatter's obvious heart-ache, her time had quickly been swallowed up in the intricacies of ruling the land. She lost track of her dear, mad friends from the Revolution for many a year until she first began to manifest signs of her disease. Somehow, the deep, hacking cough was a more effective schedule-clearer than a royal holiday decree. She swiftly found herself with oodles of free time while she worked to diagnose her own symptoms.
Sneaking out of the palace had never been easier now that she was her own patient - she needed sunshine, fresh air, good food after all. Delicately nested in her coach drawn by her favorite white horses - who just could not stop asking her if they were jolting her too much - she had eagerly set off for the Everlasting Tea Party.
Even she, as Queen of a land that shirked the word 'impossible' as a futile limit on the boundaries of one's imagination, could never have dreamt of the scene she'd found. Amidst spilled food and ruined crockery was a liquid she'd been avoiding for years now - blood. It trickled from the Cheshire cat's ruined face and from Mallymkun's tiny hand between his tightly clenched teeth. It dribbled from Thackery's tongue-less mouth in small rivulets. It coated the once-plush lips of the Hatter like rouge on a young courtesan's face.
"Oh, my, I am terribly sorry about this! It's a dreadful scene - too much for someone of such nobility as yourself! Please, Queen, shield your pristine eyes! No, wait... Steel yourself, Hamish, she can't see you..."
Mirana turned suddenly and bit off a shriek before it could leave her lips. Behind her stood a rather dashing gentleman with red hair and alarmingly blue eyes. He looked just as shocked as she did at her sudden motions. The White Queen, ever a master at controlling her facial reactions, quickly smoothed the nervousness and fear from her frame. The gentleman did the same, with slightly more difficulty. His fine red eyebrows furrowed a bit in what appeared to be puzzlement.
"I beg your pardon, your Eminence. I truly did not mean to frighten you. I...well, usually I am in the rather unique position of being ignored by most people," the red-head apologized most beautifully, his manners as brilliant as his eyes. Mirana felt her pulse race uncertainly and her face flushed as he bowed gracefully.
"Allow me to introduce myself, your Majesty - Lord Hamish Ascot, Esq., also known as the Dark Angel of Death."
The White Queen could not stop her hand from fluttering to her throat as the elegant man straightened himself. Mechanically she held out her other hand towards him, allowing him the benefit of greeting her skin to skin - a royal treat not offered to many. The Dark Angel? Here? But if he were here, why in the name of the White could she possibly see him-?
"Alas, your Majesty - and please believe me, it gives me no pleasure to say this," Hamish began again as he took her hand. Her frail flesh crept immediately with goose-bumps - his hands were abnormally cool and dry. Far too unusual for even a resident of Underland. His lips descended lightly on the back of her fingers and oh! The goose-bumps were soon gone, scorched by a sudden, passionate fury even as he continued to speak.
"Again, I am dreadfully sorry for this...but if you can see me as I am now, then I must advise you to get your affairs in order."
"My affairs?" Mirana answered, stupidly in her very honest opinion. As a healer, she could figure out what the angel meant. His crystalline eyes darkened sadly as he watched knowledge seep into her own dark lenses. He shifted his weight a bit nervously and ducked his head. His black wings unfolded themselves only to stretch upwards and outwards, momentarily blocking the sunshine and its life-giving warmth.
"Dear Queen," the angel began again, his head bowed in sorrow. "I regret to inform you that I will soon be making a personal call - and I shall be the final visitor of your entire lifetime."
[~~~]
"Good day, Life," Hamish greeted the angelic being hovering over him. The small, translucently pale girl carefully flapped her large, white wings as she brought herself over his head, her downy wreaths of sweet-smelling hair swirling behind her like nebulae.
"Good day, Death," Mirana replied, her voice strangely fitting even in her child-like body. Her simple, white shift floated around gangly, knobby-kneed legs and grass-stained ankles - she'd obviously taken another romp through Elysium. Her slender arms carefully coddled the two star doves in her tender embrace; neither Altair nor Vega looked like they had ever had such a comfortable nest in their extensive lifetimes.
"Both of them look magnificent, you know," Mirana continued as she settled herself opposite the darker angel. "They thank you most kindly for making this day even more special."
"Fiddlesticks," Hamish replied dismissively as he conjured up a neat, round table and suitable chairs for both of them. He busied himself with the tea preparations while Mirana released the birds and kicked her heels in delight. "I was simply fulfilling your request. You should know that I generally do not indulge in such frivolities-"
His breath - if he had still had a need to breathe - would have caught in his throat as he watched her upraised face follow the birds. Since that day, it had always been like this - he, struck dumb, enraptured by her iridescent beauty. Even when she changed her appearance to that of the sickly, adult Mirana, he was still her captive audience.
"Please, Hamish," she uttered softly, her face blossoming with pale pink roses in her cheek. "I am still quite unsure about my appearances. I do not see this beauty that you speak of so often."
Hamish - Death - smiled. This refreshing innocence was part of what had ensnared his heart, even though she continuously tempted him as a result. Well, she had when she was still alive.
[~~~]
Mirana had dismissed court early for the day to save her dignity and that of her courtiers. The insuppressible cough had loudly and suddenly reared its ugly head while she was settling a land matter, ripping through the delightful background music and shattering the White Lie she had painted regarding her well-being.
Across the court, before the coughing got so bad that she was forced to squeeze her eyes close and clutch her chest in agony, she saw the dark angel's avatar. Lord Hamish Ascot bowed low, his stunning eyes locked on her pain-racked frame. Those burning cold eyes were the last thing she saw before she swooned.
When she awoke, she was in her own chambers, strewn over her chaise lounge. Her body was swaddled in her white bed-sheets while the crisp evening breeze filtered threw her balcony doors. In the light of the full moon, a male figure was silhouetted on her wall. When she first looked upon the spotlight of moonshine, she swore that the shadow was stopped and bent, holding onto an impossibly immense reaping sickle. She blinked and rubbed her eyes. When she looked again, the erect figure of a man of middling height was resting on the wall.
Ignoring her deceitful eyes for a moment, the White Queen chose to remove the encasing sheets. She felt feverishly warm, her whole body hot and dry like the home of a Bandersnatch. Large hands gently set her own futile appendages aside and swiftly released her from her cocoon. Indeed, if this was how Absolom had felt in his own pupa, she was very glad to never have been born a Caterpillar!
"Forgive me for my impropriety, your Majesty," the smooth, cultured voice intoned from a nearby chair - the back had been turned away from her sleeping form, but was still close enough that a normal person should be able to notice her breathing. "But I was forced to remove your corset and bustle in order to make you more comfortable."
"That is quite alright, dear Lord Ascot," Mirana replied breathlessly - she could feel the cough building back up in her lungs and throat as the sheets were unwound. Wordlessly, the gentleman handed her a glass of water, his gaze averted from her unrestrained bosom. She found the voice to be slightly hypnotic and the hands were smooth and wonderfully chill on her flushed skin. She could not help but blush at the risque nature of the moment.
"I must admit, this is the first time that I have found agreement with my Champion on the demerits of good whalebone corsets," she continued as lightly as possible once a few sips of water had cleansed away the sputum in her system. "Alice was forever railing against them."
"And stockings," Lord Ascot added, his melodious voice faintly tinged with profound sadness and amusement. After a quick and cautious peek where he confirmed that the queen had rearranged herself more comfortably under the sheets, he quickly turned the chair back to face her bedside before continuing the conversation. "She loathed those garments more than any proper lady should. She would compare the wearing of them to the act of donning a codfish as a headpiece."
Mirana could not help herself despite the myriad number of questions that sprung unbidden to her lips. Was this man really Death incarnate? Did he know Alice well? How was her dear Champion? What had he been doing at the Hatter's Tea Party? Were all of her friends truly deceased? If so, how soon until she join them? All of those queries fell to the wayside as the image of Alice, clad in her fine, Jabberwocky-slaying armor and wielding the Vorpal Blade, was peculiarly beset with a talking cod for a helmet. Her faint, tinkling laughter chimed through the air merrily.
[~~~]
"If I had known that Death was such a charming fellow, I'm sure that I would not have worked so hard against you," the divine tea party guest murmured sweetly before sipping her warm tea. "I would never have imagined that he would be able to sweep me off of my feet so thoroughly."
Hamish could not help himself - his face flushed the bright pink that was the signature flaw of every embarrassed red-head alive. While he could quite naturally understand that Life was beautiful and to be cherish with marked respect if not slavish devotion, he had never understood the mortals that found him equally as entrancing. He was dark, pale, brooding, painful, thieving, something to be avoided for as long as physically possible. His face mirrored his eternal confusion.
"You are beautiful. The problem is that your beauty is hidden from humans under layers of ugly descriptions and their own fear of the unknown," Mirana explained earnestly, her thin hands grasping one of his own as tightly as she could. She quickly kissed the back of the hand, then pressed his cool palm to her warm cheek.
"When you came for me, at the end..you were exquisite."
[~~~]
Hamish sat quietly in the ornate, claw-footed wingback chair, his frame not even dimpling the plush white cushions beneath him. His gaze was inexorably locked on the small, withered woman who hacked up her life's blood in large gobbets, her chest barely having time to recover before another spasm of coughing wreaked havoc with her body. She had long ago dismissed her attendants after having her ladies-in-waiting prepare her hair and face and dress her in her re-coronation gown - complete with corset and bustle.
"It will not be very long now," he quietly stated once there had been a lengthy enough pause in her wheezing. Mirana flopped back, exhausted, onto her chaise lounge. She had had it set up on her balcony where she could watch the moonrise one last time, despite the chill of the nigh-endless winter that had befallen Underland. With the great care that usually betrayed the dizzying aftereffects of such vigorous coughing, she turned her head towards the spot where he sat, half-sunken in shadow. A small droplet of blood hung tenaciously onto the corner of her lip - one lone escapee from the uncharacteristically black hand-kerchiefs that she had been using for a few years now.
Hamish could not help himself. Before she could blink, he was towering over her, his icy hands and eyes wiping away the bloody mar on her perfection. Stumbling over his own actions, his voice trembled as he drew his hand away. Unconsciously, he lifted the claret drop to his own lips, where he tasted her chastity and purity first-hand.
"Have you arranged for your successor?" he asked solicitously, eager to avoid the greatest temptation he had ever known in her large, doe-like gaze. "I could send them a message of sorts - prophetic dreams of ill-tidings are a specialty of mine, unfortunately."
She barely had the strength to speak any longer, so she did not waste it on idle words. She merely nodded her head as best as she could while pointing vaguely at her writing table. Hamish understood immediately upon viewing a stack of sealed letters on the desk. Sighing loudly - a great, heaving, despairing sort of sound like that of the Bandersnatch when the creature saw Alice's shape in the moon - Death shut away a sudden wash of tears. Eventually, he took on his most officious tone while he removed a black-coated pocket-watch from his waistcoat. He opened his eyes as his thumb quickly flipped the watch's cover.
Mirana did not need to see the crestfallen look on his face to know that the inevitable had come to pass.
"It is time. Have you any last requests?" Hamish asked crisply, his voice as sharp and biting as the wintry wind outside. Mirana, eyes still up-cast and large, silently motioned for him to come closer. Leaning his ear down till it almost touched her lips, he listened cautiously to her desires.
"First...dear Hamish...dance with me. And, then..."
The last of her words were too faint for any mere human to take in, but they made the dark angel blush. Standing and taking her with him, he nodded as a celestial orchestra began a simple waltz. He bowed and she curtseyed. They took each other's hand as she clumsily stepped onto his feet and fell against his chest.
As gently as possible, he glided around the room with her, his other arm securely fastened around her waist. Despite the smoothness of the dance, her hair streamed behind her, a traitorous reminder of how quickly they were actually moving. Each step was made so swiftly and with so much grace that Mirana felt as if she were flying, high in the sky in the midst of an enormous cloud. Hamish watched as her skin became nigh-transparent, her china-white features slowly fading to a deathly gray as her breath was ripped from her aching lungs.
"Ham...ish!" she cried as loudly as she could - it was still no better than a whisper. "Now, please!"
Whirling to a stop, he clutched her close to his own chest, his heart full of anger and self-loathing as lowered his head to hers. Ever so slowly, they shared both their first and last kisses of her lifetime. As his lips touched her own, he robbed her of her last breath, her warmth, her color, her spark, her inherent muchness.
He robbed himself of the woman that he most wished he could have met while he was alive.
[~~~]
Mirana carefully caressed his hand as his tears stood still in his eyes. She felt honored that he could share himself fully as they were - many often thought that Death was heartless and dispassionate, a description that was so far from the truth as to be a outright Lie.
"It is not your fault, Death!" she whispered into that cool palm, her own hurt present for any existence to hear and understand. "You are maligned by those who would trick humans and make them covetous, envious... Look now at how you guide the Hatter and my Champion towards a second chance! I know what you are, I know the truth of you as do all the others-"
A single, frigid finger to her lips calmed the angelic personification of Life. Hamish swiftly gave her a peck on her cheek and stood up from the table. Bowing extravagantly, he held out his hand to her, as he had so many years ago.
"I would be most honored, your Majesty, if you would grant me the boon of dancing with you," he declared most formally - he was smiling once more, even though the tears still shimmered on his eyelashes. "After all, what point is there to a wedding anniversary if neither participant has fun?"
The silvery, bell-like laughter came unbidden to her lips. With far less grace and much more enthusiasm than ever before, she earnestly placed her hand in his and lightly jumped to her feet. Twirling, both black and white wings shimmered with laughter and tears as they mingled together, their eyes shining with the combined light of Altair and Vega.