Disclaimer: I just own Echo…She's my baby!
Crappery: It's been a long time, but school and family life have intruded. I mean, I'd far rather live in my imagination…But that's a bit hard in this day and age. Nothing really to report, just review!
Nikka Malfoy: The names are meant to be vague, because if you think about, names aren't important to Death. People are pretty much all the same to her, they all look like everyone else with the exception of a special few…
Alcapacien: Ah the wonders of adjectives…Names are superfluous!
Silly Bandit: There is an interaction in this chapter! Five characters are interacted!
Drifting-Ashes: Yeah…Just an example of human cruelty.
Lorett: Yeppers, people from Hogwarts are mentioned in this chapter…
Queen of the Insects: No…She's more based on one of my good friends in real life, course, she doesn't know it but it's all the same. Hundreds of souls are about to die and she was called to be there. She's not sure when it will happen, but it will. I don't really feel like writing it right now, soo…yeah…
Mojo the Rock Chick Munchkin: I know it's been down for like a week! DAMNIT ALL!
The Grape Vine
Chapter the Fourth
I sat still the rest of the night, silent images of abhorrent cruelties that only a truly perverse psyche of a human could
create flitting across my mind's eye. The sun dawned and what I thought was a ceramic cockerel on the mantle above the
fireplace let out the most obnoxious croaking noise that I believed was thought to somehow resemble the crow of a healthy bird. I
donned the clothes I had purchased before this little…excavation into the daily life of a soon to be dead. An empty book bag was
slung against my shoulder as I silent left my hardly adequate suit, ignoring the call of 'salacious wench' by the mocking
portrait. I was in a foul mood and a small, miniscule, part of me pitied any who wronged me that day. I leaned against one of the
large doors leading to some Great Hall, letting my hip bear the brunt of my weight. Hundreds of chattering children happily
devoured food, all totally unaware that something far more powerful than any of the little seedlings of power they had was
standing in their midst. It made a wry smile tug at the corners of my dark lips at the realization that at a single thought, I could
blow this place into oblivion and prematurely end so many lives. The smile morphed into a cruel smirk when I saw a ghost float
past me. I remembered that one, those thick ruffles of fabric expensive enough to feed a starving village for months nearly
drowning his costly doublet.
"Nicholas." My voice came out like honeyed satin.
He froze, causing a student trailing after him to walk through his pearly essence. He turned slowly to see me, his ghostly eyes
widening until they appeared buggy.
"Surprised to see me love?" My tone changed from sweetly loving to malicious and spiteful in the time it took for a life to end,
which coming from witnessing millions, took little time at all.
"I-I…" He stammered, completely lost for words.
"What didn't expect to see your thought-to-be-dead-by-your-own-hand-lover ever again?"
"Y-You…"
"Died? Merely lay there like the angel you commonly referred to me by as you stabbed me? I hardly think an incomplete beheading
was a just punishment for you transgressions…If they'd merely looked in the shadows of a seedy tavern or behind the wispy
silks of a Persian palace, I would have been found to give testimony against you."
"B-But…"
"Death got your tongue? I seem to remember you being far more eloquent…"
"Why are you here? I thought I told you I never wanted to see you again!" He interrupted, suddenly regaining his ability to speak.
One of my perfectly curved brows lifted. "Don't flatter yourself." I snarled harshly. "After what you did, not even a direct order
from the Creator Herself would make me willingly or otherwise consort with you."
"What I did? Give you a home when you needed it most, fall in love with you and eventually wed you?"
My blood ran cold and I clenched my fists, my sharp nails digging into my flesh. "You murdered my…" I was stopped by the
harsh metallic clanging on a magical bell. "Don't think this conversation is over Nicholas." I stressed his name before turning on
my heel and striding out of the doorway.
I seethed as I stormed to my first 'class', the sheer outrage I was feeling causing my stomach to churn. He was one of the few
people I refused to accompany in their last moments before the great beyond claimed them. Luckily, the Creator, who is not as
chaste and naïve as most think She is, understood and he was never taken. For that is the outcome of those I will not see in their
final moments, they remain forever on Earth, forbidden to ever know what comes after their short time alive. They became
ghosts. I sat down in the back of some classroom, dropping my weightless bag onto the ground beside me. My eyes grew blank
as I remembered, one of my hands drifting to my flat stomach. Once a heart is utterly broken, nothing can make it truly whole
again. I took a deep breath as I fought tears. They were inappropriate and it was pointless to shed those salty droplets. It was
all in the past and nothing I did would ever bring it back. Somebody cleared their throat above me and I slowly looked up, my
purple hues suddenly blazing with the foulness I desperately desired to inflict upon the world.
"What do you want?" I growled.
"Why were you talking to Nearly Headless Nick Slytherin?" A boy with messy black hair and startling green eyes looked down at
me furiously.
"Nothing that concerns you." I was sorely tempted to call him child, but considering that I appeared to be his age, it might not be
the most intelligent thing to say.
"Answer the bloody question!" A ginger haired youth snarled, his wand out and pointing at me.
"Or what? You'll curse me with that…fish?" The stick of wood had turned into a rather smelly haddock in my pause and he
dropped it in horror.
"How…"
I merely smirked and flipped some of my inky, blue black curls over my shoulder and leaned back in my chair. A girl with bushy
plain brown hair whipped around and screeched at the teacher.
"Professor!! The new girl used magic against Ron! She turned his wand into a fish!"
Within seconds a stern looking woman had descended upon me, her grey hair pulled back in a severe bun that appeared as if it
would give her a killer migraine.
"What is this I hear about you using your wand against another student, Miss Grey?"
For a half second I was stunned that the girl was anal-retentive enough to freak out at such a small display of power and
turned my face up to the professor. My eyes were big and my lower lip was pouty, as I gave her my I-am-so-innocent-and-
everyone-is-out-to-get-me look.
"It is perfectly erroneous Professor. I don't see any fish anywhere…Just a slightly scuffed wand lying abandoned on the floor.
You can't punish me for something I didn't do."
She opened her mouth to say something and realized it was pointless, turning on the girl. "Miss Granger do not falsely accuse
your classmates."
"Yes Ma'am." She said demurely and waited until the woman had retreated to her desk before glowering at me. "Don't think this is
over you Slytherin scum. I'll make sure that you get what's coming to you."
The trio left my general area and I slowly drew my legs up, pressing my thighs against my chest. People, especially rancorous
girls, could be so malicious. The bell clanged and the woman cleared her throat, getting the class's attention.
"I will spare you the customary beginning of the year speech, in favor of learning what I must re-teach you all. Miss Grey,
please come up to the front of the room." It figured, this teacher was also vengeful.
Noiselessly I unfolded and rose, walking with an ethereal grace I moved towards her, keeping my head up.
"Where is your wand girl?"
I had not seen the point in procuring one of those feeble little wooden rods, seeing as I did not need it to channel the raw energy
living within me. Simply creating the illusion of one, I drew my 'wand' out of my robes and held it daintily.
"Good, transfigure this quill into a white rabbit."
Muttering under my breath how much I disliked her and the pleasure I would receive when I came for her soul, making it sound like
a spell, I flicked my 'wand' changing the inner essence of the plume, truly morphing it into a living and breathing albino rabbit.
"Good, now my desk into a unicorn."
There were gasps from all around the room and a screechy voice rose up from the multitudes. "But Professor McGonagall isn't
it illegal to transfigure anything into an endangered magical species?"
"I merely wish to see if Miss Grey can do this, unless you wish to take her place Miss Granger?"
"N-No Ma'am…"
"Well?"
A scowl settled onto my features and carelessly flicked the mirage in my hand. A soft puff of displaced air and beautiful,
flawless unicorn whinnied quietly.
"Your unicorn Professor. Too bad you won't be able to touch it." I said coldly, all too aware of the dark things she had done.
"How dare you…Detention with Mr. Filch at seven o'clock tonight."
"Whatever." I muttered flippantly, striding back to my far desk.
In all actuality, I really did not give a fuck if the old cow assigned me one hundred detentions. It's not as if I was actually
going to go to it. If I had learnt anything in the eons I had spent as Death, it was that I bowed to no one, not even the Creator. I
had become as powerful as She in my own way, stronger than She ever believed powerful. I was Her equal and She knew it.
I felt many pairs of eyes on me as I settled myself against the hard back of my chair and I let my dark gaze meet pure
mercury. He smirked at me and blew something in his hands toward me. I watched without interest as an origami dragon
fluttered over to me on fragile wings and the moment it landed on my desk, my hand came up and crushed it. I flicked it onto the
floor and leaned back, my attention meandering from the monotonous words of McGonagall.
My first day at 'school' drew to an uneventful close as I headed back to my room, seeing it pointless to make an
appearance in the Great Hall. Just as I was approaching my portrait, a spectral figure came out of the grey wall near me.
"Fancy meeting you here." I snapped.
"L-Lillia…What a p-pleasant surprise…"
"We aren't going to have this conversation here." I flicked my fingers at him and the smoky outline disappeared, solidness over
taking. "Much better, this way you can't get away." I grabbed his forearm and dragged him past the portrait, ignoring its look of
horror.
I threw him down into one of the armchairs, trying to fight the need to implode something. I closed my eyes as I emotions I had
not felt in centuries well up inside of me and then simply looked at him, hues filled with unmentionable pain.
"Why Nicholas, why?"
He bowed his head and rose to his feet, watching me with familiar compassion. "I am sorry for cutting your life short, although I
do not understand how you appear to be no older than the Seventh years here and yet were my wife so many decades ago…"
"Answer the question." I said through gritted teeth; I had loved this man a long time ago, all I felt now was resentment.
A quiet sigh and he reached out to touch my face with solid fingers. Instinctively I jerked away, my skin crawling at the thought
of contact with this man. His hand dropped to his side as he stared at me.
"I never stopped loving you." I snorted. "I know you cannot believe me, but my mistress...She led me to believe that you were
lying with Baron Eglamour and that the child was his…"
"That sordid whore, did you not know she just wanted your money?"
"Aye, I realized it as I was being led up to the block. She was standing in the crowd, laughing at me. None of it was true and little
Echo was dead…"
"I know." I whispered.
I had been 'dead' for no more than an hour when I felt another soul needing to be taken. I silently acquiesced to the summons and
for the second time in my long existence, I had cried. Where my tears of purest blood fell, immortal roses grew. For all I know,
the blossoms of forever still exist, twining about whatever wreckage and debris that are the remains of my home of long ago. I
swallowed thickly and looked up at him, seeing the question in his eyes.
"I am Death." I murmured quietly.
His expression darkened and he drew back, putting feet between us. "That cannot be…I would have known if I had lain with Death.
Your heart beats just like mine and your skin is warm…It is impossible."
"Nothing is impossible. You found me when I was vulnerable and I grew to love you…"
That was not the best thing to say.
"You loved me? How can Death love? It suddenly all makes sense now…Why you would suddenly have to disappear or why you
weren't in our bed when I awoke in the middle of the night. It only made Amelia's story all the more convincing!"
"Please…" I whispered.
"I do not want your love, demon lover. I want nothing to do with you. I am actually glad I destroyed your offspring."
"She was your daughter too!" I cried as my heart clenching. "You murdered your own child!"
He laughed coldly. "That was no daughter of mine. You lay with the Devil and grew heavy with his spawn. You were just as
unfaithful to me as my beloved Amelia said! Never did you honor what you promised in our vows! What did you do when you
disappeared on our wedding night? Hardly had I penetrated you than you disappeared! Adulterous wench!" He bellowed, striding
towards me with his fist lifted as if to strike me.
Amethyst eyes widened with explosive ire as I raised my arms and pointed my tingling hands at him. It was time to relieve some
of the pressure inside of me.
"Goodbye Nicholas."
He faltered and a fragment of a word escaped him before a sheet of power erupted from my fingers, a ray of bloody crimson
morphing, twisting with ginger and gold, approaching his still form. It wrapped around his newly restored form, tendrils of heat
licking at tender skin. Screams of purest agony reached my ears and pleasure of darkest, most depraved kind flooded my veins.
He twisted in vain, dropping to his knees as the fire consumed him. In his last seconds before his eyes melted into puddles of
sightless, colourless goop, blinding rage was understood before an animalistic wail of untainted torture echoed and then there
was silence. All that remained of Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington was a pile of ash on my sable carpet. I stood there for a
moment, looking at the residual traces of my deceased husband before sitting, albeit shakily, in my armchair by the cheerfully
crackling fire.
I am unsure of how long I was there, but the next solid thing I remember was the feeling of warmth and love washing over
me. I let out a humorless chuckle through my nose.
"Creator."
"Death."
"What brings you to my humble abode? Not here to give me another duty to carry out in your name? The Spanish Inquisition
must have been enough to satisfy you for at least a millennia…"
"You know that I know that that was a mistake."
"Just like that meteor that killed the dinosaurs and near extinction of mankind when you decided to breed earthlings with
Martians? You still haven't gotten around to planting life back on that deserted planet, have you?"
"Child…"
"Do not call me that, you know that I am your equal."
"I still created you."
"True, but through the eyes of power, you are not my better."
"I am not here to fight with you."
"Except that seems to happen whenever we are present together."
"Just allow me to speak and I will leave you!"
"Go ahead, it's not like time is being wasted."
"You understand the pains of loving, you were not created with the capacity to love-"
"Despite the fact that I loved my child."
"-you must be careful not to fall into such a nasty pit again. It would be dreadful if you were unable to continue…" She carried
on as if I had never spoken.
"Although it would be impossible for me to die, remember? You made sure of that." I looked up from the fire and blessed angrily.
She was gone.
"Fine, fuck you Creator…We'll just see who's the most powerful entity, won't we?"
Tension between the Mistress of Darkness and the Creator…What is unraveling? Nobody knows!
Your Lord and Master;
Foamy the Squirrel