death and their lover

Lon'qu has walked with Death by his side since his youth.

A/N: From otpprompts on tumblr: Imagine an AU where Person B of your OTP is Death. In this world, Death releases souls from their mortal bodies with a kiss. Somehow Person A and Death meet (Death taking a holiday, Person A can somehow see Death when they come for a loved one, etc.), but they spend their time together knowing that their first kiss will also be their last.

He first meets them the day that Ke'ri dies in front of him, arms outstretched, as if she could be the impassable wall to shield him from their approach. He is close to death himself, collapsed in the field with his vision sliding in and out of focus.

In Chon'sin legend, Death is a judge with a scowling red face and with a large black book filled with a record of all human deeds that children were taught to fear. But the one who came for Ke'ri, who bore her up in arms as black as the night sky, who pressed their glistening gold lips to that child's bloody mouth, is nothing like the idols in the temples.

He tries to scream at them, swinging his only weapon, his desperation and rage, as Ke'ri stills in their arms. Yet he cannot even choke out a single word as his body spasms with pain from ugly men with greased blades. Death, after laying down that faded diminished body, looks at him with deep deep night eyes and approaches.

They are beautiful, stunning, beyond words. The grass around their feet wilts when they press down and springs back to life as they leave. Lon'qu can already feel his own breath turn cold with each step of their approach. His eyes are glassy and his body refuses to move as they lean in, close enough for him to feel the exhale of Death's breath.

"It is not your time, brave little warrior, but you will surely suffer more. I can free you now if you would like."

Their voice rasps and slides, quieter than Lon'qu would have expected. They are soft soft a beckoning of oblivion. Their lips gleam with moonlight and sunlight all at once and the last breaths of lives across the world tints their mouth. Lon'qu can see the allure in being crushed to stardust between their teeth. Yet his heart strains, his breath labors on, in a furious effort to keep him alive. They are terrifying in their depths, unfathomable and full of finality, and he can't-

"She died…for me." he manages to wheeze and it feels as if his lungs have caught aflame in his chest.

And now Death's expression changes for the first time and he realizes their face, what he had thought was ethereal and cold, had only been full of weariness and tinged in regret. When they smile, it is as if he had looked to the vastness of the night sky and in one awe inducing, breath stealing moment, the moon had winked at him.

"I hope we do not meet again for a long, long time, Lon'qu." Death says and pulls their lips away. They leave Lon'qu aching in loss, mostly for Ke'ri, but partially for the crushing loneliness and he is delirious with pain when he says-

"…stay."

Death allows themself a sad smile. Many have asked them to comfort them in their last moments but Death is not comforting. Death is exactly as they are- an end with no time for reflection or emotion.

Yet even as the last vestiges of consciousness leave Lon'qu's eyes, he holds them there, unable to tear his gaze from Death's face. Before they realize it, Death sits down by this boy, half dead but certain to survive this and many fights to come. They gather his bruised and bleeding body in their white robes, pure and forever unstained. Lon'qu has gone limp in their plump arms, alive, heart fluttering, and Death presses one hand to their own chest, where nothing but void rattles in their rib cage.

No other scavengers dare come near so long as Death remains in the area. They brush one charcoal finger against their lips and, because Death knows all the wishes and regrets of those that pass, they flick dust onto Lon'qu's sleeping face and rain down on this boy Ke'ri's last thoughts.

Live.

When Lon'qu awakens, body just strong enough to stagger back to the slums with Ke'ri on his back (he could never leave her behind even as the stench of Death overwhelms him and all who dare approach), his eyes drip with the golden sand of Death's mouth.

They meet again many many times in the future. No one else notices them or perhaps they do but they do not see Death as Lon'qu does. Fellow warriors only see how clean Lon'qu's kills always are. Death trails behind his sword on the battlefield, pressing their lips and palms to the ones he has killed. When he asks if there is a difference, he hears Death laugh for the first time and it is as if a star faded out with the expansion of her diaphragm. It should have chilled Lon'qu to his bones. Instead he wishes he had heard it earlier.

"Call it a vanity, but I do not like to kiss those filled with malice in their last moments."

He joins the Shepherds and he begins to see Death more frequently as the war erupts between Ylisse and Plegia. The tactician of his new army reminds him of them although her eyes do not have that same eternal darkness and her mere presence brings a cold sweat to his neck. He is not sure when he began to fear women more than Death themself and the irony is not lost on him.

They look more harrowed each time Lon'qu sees them, flitting from mouth to mouth, and blood begins to stain their arms shiny red. The Risen, they mention in passing as they stumble forward on the Plegian sands, make them uneasy. Perversions of nature, of arcane laws that Death will never explain and are beyond Lon'qu's comprehension, drain them each time those corpses awaken. There are people who should not be alive, they confess to him, people who should have left the world long ago and the way they cling onto the world by the tips of their fingers stretches them apart little by little.

By the end of the battle, as Death collects the dying wounded, he waits for them.

The tactician comes instead, worried for his health and weary from another hard-won battle. She distracts him with dark jokes that he cannot hold a laugh back from and quiet musings. If he does not look at her directly, he can choke down his instinctive fear. There are some like him that walk with Death on their shoulder and he wonders if she realizes how much Death clings to her, from her words to her breaths to her lips, not golden, but brown and plain. By the time she leaves, forcing a promise of more time together in the future out of him, Death is nowhere to be found.

The fury of the last days of war occupies Lon'qu's entire attention and he does not notice until later he had not seen Death even from afar. An exalt falls and he is reminded how the only judgment even a saint like her receives is a kiss.

Then peacetime comes and another war and before he knows it, he is in love with a tactician who kisses him with lips that looked like gold in the firelight and they do not steal his soul, only his breath. He begins to fear meeting Death again, to see them draw up his wife's lips or any of his comrades and he tries to choke down the wretched feelings. And still they do not come to his side even as he kills and kills and kills.

The world is falling to pieces again as a new war, not for a nation, but for the preservation of humanity, swallows them all. His tactician rampages across the battlefield, intent on severing her ties with her hated destiny by killing all that draws her back into that fate. Lon'qu is caught up in her exquisite path of destruction, torn between his worry and his admiration.

Then Death returns and Lon'qu runs to them before he realizes they stand behind his wife as she rips apart the ones that would have her be their apocalypse.

In the wake of the battle, he comes to them. Death is bitter as they see him coming, covered in the refuse of battle, of their scent.

"Why do you follow her now?" Longing fills his voice before he can stop it.

Their golden lips twist into a wry smile even as their eyes . "Brave little warrior, do not have a love affair with Death. It will only bring you to my lips and then you will come to nothing."

"Then will you take her from me as you did Ke'ri? Will they all go to you while I can do nothing but wait-?" Lon'qu hisses and he is not sure what he wants, Death is no future, the present flees too quickly, but he cannot stop his racing heart that wished to live and longed for Death all the same.

"…You two are so similar, loving what you should not, pulling away from me to live and yet never letting me go." Death murmurs and Lon'qu realizes they speak about their tactician, who once dealt in death and now has found herself saturated, enamored, rushing towards those night black arms.

"Yet you are the one that always come back."

Death freezes and then laughs. Around them, the torches flicker, the bones on the altar sigh, and the stars rattle in the sky. They come near and the white of their teeth crescent against the blood red of their mouth. Their eyes curve at the edges and Lon'qu sees the same grim weariness in their eyes as he has seen in his wife. Black hands snaking out of white robes touch his hands and their skin is clammy and soothing. And Death leans down and he reaches for those dusty aurelian lips.

"Death's love is a curse. Many would call you unlucky." They mutter. And Lon'qu can see now how much Death looked like his tactician or rather his tactician looked like Death and of course he knew all along, those that wanted to mold that spit and fire into their own cruel, violent Death. It is why they walk by her side now as each step brings them into one.

He breathes across their lips and Death sucks in that bit of life he dedicates to them, turning his strength to mist scattered across the universe. He cups their face and puts their foreheads together, a pinpoint of light and heat guttering in the vastness of space. Death closes their eyes and Lon'qu smooths away the millennia of wrinkles and closed curtains.

"I will live." That had always been his vow, since they had first met, and even as his heart aches, his voice does not waver. Death pulls away and nods approvingly even as he sees their sadness.

"When I come for you, it shall be for an old lover then."

On top of the dragon, Death comes for their love as promised. Lon'qu watches, filled with pain, sadness, helplessness, and the tiniest bit of envy, as the tactician that refused to become Death herself grabs Death by the collar and kisses her deeply.

They sigh into her lips and Death's hands tangle up in her hair, tugging at the strands that glowed fire bright in the falling sun. Ichor from Death's mouth smears across her face as color drains from her cheeks and her body fades away bit by bit. She pulls Death even closer, her dissolving hands leaving ashy handprints on the white cloth, clinging, needy.

Lon'qu cannot help himself and screams out, because he loves her and them and Death is always leaving, just as she finally burns herself into nothingness. Death stands there, arms empty, with tears down their face and golden dust falling from their lips.

As they turn to leave, Lon'qu catches their hand and he can feel his wife's fingers in the grip of Death, curling against his.

"They said we could bring her back. Is this true?"

Death wraps him in their cold bright arms, this boy of misfortune that always stood in their shadow and found love instead, and carefully allows him to feel the hollowness in their chest. Finally his tears come, sliding off his nose and running comets down their shoulder.

"I will treasure that memory of her long after all of you have become rocks and earth and air. You and her who love me like no other." Death murmurs. "I will kiss you like that when your time comes."

Lon'qu breathes, ragged, but alive, into their neck, to Death's old old sad smile.