Saari gagged as her head went under again. She thrashed in the water, her head briefly flashing above with a gurgled cry before ducking again.
Everything burned, her vision was pink. Instinct finally prevailed and she inhaled, a deep gulp, allowing the fiery cold water to fill her lungs.
The pain was immense, sending bright, blinding flashes shooting through her… then ebbing away. Her vision became a window, a box framed with black, flying further and further away.
Still struggling, she reached for the window, thrashing towards it. Despite her efforts, she continued to sink. After a moment, her thrashing slowed. She felt something woosh through her body, an invisible blanket of energy that she passed through feet first. Breathing was easier and slower. It happened again. The twinge in her chest went away, and her eyelids began to drift. She calmed with every inch she fell, with every wave she passed through, until finally, the black surrounded her, and she went still.
She drifted after that, the window a mere speck in the distance and fading.
~*~
The people watched intensely, their eyes fixed on the body as it shifted. Trickster stood to the side with his arms crossed, a crooked smirk on his face as he watched them. The body stood up, and the crowd erupted in a frenzy of desperate, erratic murmuring. The smirk turned into a grin as he stepped into view of the crowd once more.
“See? No issue. Just take the choco-nut and die. The nut will overpower the force of death and act like a bungee chord. Before you actually go through the gates, Boing! Back to life.” The crowd was still more or less gaping at the man who was supposed to be dead. Some were even rude enough to stare at the knife lodged in his chest, Trickster observed. Trickster sighed and clapped his hands, the thunder resulting grabbed everyone’s attention.
“Glad I have your attention. Here’s the deal. You get three days with this bud here. You decide you like the path, you go pick an almond from that tree there.” He said, pointing at the empty ground. The people starred at the spot he indicated in confusion. “You know the code for what comes after. Enjoy!”
With that, Trickster vanished, leaving the spot empty of a chocolate almond tree and leaving the people to decide for themselves. The moment he was sure everything would go as planned, he stole away to the gardens, shifting forms to match his brother as he did.
~*~
Limp and relaxed, she almost didn’t notice the grass under her head. Saari didn’t even bother to stir when she heard the footsteps, indeed, she only stirred when the person cleared their throat. Making a questioning sound, she opened her eyes. Her lids felt like they were being pulled down by invisible hands. She was going to fall asleep if she didn’t get up, so she crawled to a standing position. The stranger in the cloak cleared his throat again.
“Yo.” He said.
She blinked. “Yo?”
“Yoyo. Got one? Never mind. Death, at your service as he deems fit.
She smiled at that and stood up, holding out her arms. He grasped her elbows and she grasped his in greeting. Eventually, Death released her arms and his hands disappeared in his cloak.
“So... being dead’s a pain in the ass, ain’t it?”
Her brow furrowed. What in the Goddess Jen’s name was an ass? The gods certainly had a strange way of speaking. Death groaned and waved a hand in the air.
“You know what? Scratch that. Start over. I’m Death, and I’m here to offer you a second chance at life. What d’you think of that?”
She thought for a moment, then shook her head.
“I am… confused. Do all souls go back?”
Death shrugged. “Some do, some don’t. Why? Don’t you want to? I mean, geesh, drowning like that… not much of a chance to say G’bye to your family, neh? Look, four chocolate almonds, four days. Every one you eat is another day not dead. I’d go for it.”
“But… are you not-”
“What, just ‘cause I’m the king of Doomsville means I need to love it? Psh-ah. Right. You, sport, are one lucky chickadee. You can come and go as you please. Me? Nope. Stuck with the lively dead. Party every night, I’m sure.”
“I… what?”
“Ex-actly. So. Take the almonds or go be dead for a while?”
“Wait- stop. If I took the almonds, I would live again. What favor do you ask in return?”
“Nada.” At her puzzled stare, he added, “Nothing. Just take the almonds, live, die, kazam! Done deal, little-to-no catch. Got that all?”
She looked at him strangely for a moment.
“You want me to… fish for you?”
He blinked, wondering how she had come to that conclusion, but waved it away.
“Fish all you like, but I’m not much a sea-food person. So. Almonds?” he asked, thrusting he had out again
She held out her own hand, and when he didn’t give them to her, she looked up, puzzled once again. He shrugged.
“Laws and all that junky-jazz. You gotta take ‘em from me ‘of your own free will.’”
She furrowed her brow, not making sense out of any of this, but took the almonds from him. She threw one in her mouth and locked the others in her fist.
“See ya.” He said as she shot upward, flying faster than a rocket.
~*~
Trickster smirked as she took off. Death’s almonds and his chocolate. The two of them were finally working together, albeit through their food, and the fact that one of them wasn’t aware of it. He sat back and sighed. His brother really needed to discover a pair of Levi’s and a T-shirt. This robe was murderously hot. He sighed again and began cleaning his fingernails while he waited for the next person to fall into the river. Death was going to be thoroughly entertained untangling everything for the next few centuries or so…
~*~
Death seethed at the mess before him. Trickster had often overstepped, but this… this… this had no word yet. His eyes flicked to a Shadow girl. Her name was Amora, not yet thirteen years of age. Not supposed to die for another fifty years. And here she is, not only a dead person, but a living-dead person, wandering around outside of his gardens. She escaped his gardens when she should never have been there in the first place. So what was he to do? Souls may leave his gardens only when they reincarnate. Amora should not be Amora if she’s back. Law required him to bring her back. Law forbade her to enter the gardens for rebelling against him, and law forbade him from taking her there because she was not yet at her death time. Illegal to take her, illegal to leave her.
Death groaned. No doubt Trickster was having a jolly laugh at this. Ciah. Tomor. Kirk. Kent. Amali. For the sake of the gods! The whole town was bloody shadow!
He rushed a hand through his hair. He was far too old for this. Where was Jen when you needed her? He sighed. All he could do at the moment was contain the situation somewhat.
Taking a breath, he looked at the mountain. More than fertile, the mountain was a strain on his energy anyways. He inhaled deeply, sucking away the life on the mountain. He inhaled again, and once more. There would be no reincarnations here. Any births that did occur would be stillborn, soulless beings.
It was death the Shadows had concurred. Life was still a god over them. Death turned to the fields surrounding the mountain and blew out, sending the life that he had taken to them. He would guess, and rightly so, that the fields had never seen better days. The life span jumped up, the crops were good, and the animals bred extremely well.
He didn’t stay to admire his work for long. Knowing Trickster, he was probably in the gardens right this minute, sending souls back to the living.
~*~
Saari woke up on the funeral bed in the middle of the procession. She sat up immediately the moment the smoke tickled her nose, nearly falling off the moving platform. There was a collective gasp when she sat up, and those carrying her bed came to the halt, looking up at her with gaping faces.
“Do not burn me! I am not dead, do not burn me yet, please, let me off of here, do not burn me!” She begged in a flurry of words. Nobody moved. They all starred at her, silent. The people carrying her funeral bed set her down on the ground and quickly stepped away from her, starring. Saari stood up and looked around. Nobody moved.
“I am come back from the dead. Death has granted me four days among you to say my good wishes for the morrow.”
Still they were silent.
“I mean no ill will. I will return to Death in four days time. I have just returned to say my good wishes. Nothing more.”
Someone started sobbing, but Saari couldn’t see who through the crowd.
“Trick Witch.” The words were whispered from behind her. She paled at the condemnation. Trick Witches were banned from society, entering towns at pain of death.
“No! I swear it on the Goddess Jen’s name and my own. It was Death who granted me life again, not Trickster. Never Trickster. I would never take a thing from him.”
There was a commotion in the crowd in the direction of the sobbing. Saari turned to see a red-faced woman throwing herself through the crowd.
“Saari! Oh lady Jen! Saari, Saari, Saarisaarisaari!”
Saari returned the breath-taking hug her mother embraced her in and began to cry as well.
She ate the rest of the almonds when she got home, being sure to suck every last bit from her teeth, determined to make her stay last as long as possible.
“I can not stay. I’ve only four days with you.” she said when she was done cleaning her teeth.
Her sister’s eyes glazed, but she turned away before Saari could read them.
“I am glad you came back, though. It was horrible… finding you there… floating…” her sister choked, ending her speech.
“We are all glad you returned for your few days, Saari.” Her father said, smiling at her warily. “But how did you do it?”
“I did nothing.” She said, holding up her hands. “I ate the almonds, as Death bade me do, but nothing more.”
There was a lull at the table as they finished their meals before Saari’s sister asked the question.
“What’s it like to die? What are the gardens like?”
“Ama!” Her mother chided instantly.
“It is nice. You float down, like a leaf in the fall. You slowly sink through the air and become very relaxed. It only hurts at first, then you do not feel anything… just calm and sleepy.” Saari said, ignoring her mother’s interjection. Ama looked down at her plate.
“I am sorry for making you speak on such a subject. It was wrong of me.”
“Not at all, really. I do not mind in the least.”
~*~
The rage that gripped Death upon entering the gardens was indescribable. Nearly half of his souls were gone. Half. He didn’t bother wandering around the gardens, using sight and hearing to find Trickster. Instead, he scanned the gardens with his mind, finding the intruder and leaping to where he was sending yet another soul away.
That did it. Grabbing a handful of lightning bolts and not taking the time to aim, he hurled them at the Trickster’s feet.
“THOU ART AN IMPOSTER! Thou hast no soul, thou hast not morals, Thou art outcast!”
“Hey, Death, mind cooling the old-speak?” Trickster asked smugly, easily side-stepping the bolts meant to turn his feet to ash.
“Death shall ‘cool’ on the old-speak when he damn well pleases! Get out of my gardens, Thou filth! Thou imposter! Thou-“
“Dude. Chill. What’s a couple ‘o souls betw-“
“I shall chill thy bum across the universe!” Death shrieked. Before Trickster could flinch at his brother’s misuse of the slang, one of the bolts found there mark in Trickster’s shoulder. Fire swept through him, leaving smoldering embers in its wake. Trickster screamed. Before he could fall to his knees, another bolt hit him in his thigh, knocking him over. Through his shrieks, Trickster frantically tried to call the energy needed to transport him back to his realm. Another bolt landed in his arm before he was able to do it.
He was reduced to a sobbing, screaming heap on the ground when he re-appeared in his realm. The realm, belonging to him, reduced the pain somewhat, allowing him to form basic, primitive thoughts, but not enough to save him. He knew the pain would last as long as the energy from the bolts was in him, and after taking a breath, tried to push it out. His concentration was broken by a sharp stake in his thigh where the bolt had hit. Even Gods weren’t immortal to wounds. He needed to purge himself now. If the energy stayed in much longer, he would be nothing but ashes in the wind. Paling, he took another breath and tried again, this time succeeding it pushing the energy out through his pores.
He pushed several more times until he was sure the energy was gone. Panting, weary and worn, he crawled to the edge of his realm where he watched Death. His brother was never one to hesitate setting his wrongs to right. Trickster was about to start worrying when he saw it: a flash. Death had called back a soul, and Trickster felt the energy return a bit. There. Another. And another. He laughed as his strength returned until the whole of the globe was flashing with light.
Death’s first action was to send the soul Trickster had been talking to to the gardens where it belonged, but not before he confiscated the vile chocolates that had caused him so much grief. His next task was to call his souls back. Luckily for him, they were on a temporary leave. The shadows were out permanently. One by one at first, they filtered through, then in groups of five and then in groups of ten. The groups became larger until he had enough to fill a small village wandering through his gates.
~*~
Saari snuggled down in her bed, exhausted by her day. She had chased chickens with Ama, played tag with her friends, had helped her father with his work, had helped her mother with her work, and had played a number of ridiculous games invented on the spot by her sister. She expected the next day to be much the same… and the next… and the next, until she had to go back…
The next thing she knew, she was falling through her bed, again drifting through the air. Her first reaction was to panic. It had only been one day! Her next thought was that there must be a reason. Perhaps Death needed to talk to her. The falling didn’t have as much of a calming affect on her this time, she noted.
~*~
Calmer now, Trickster smiled as Death called back his souls. Losing life suddenly was hard on anyone once, but the gardens tended to null that. Losing twice, however, and the second time occurring for no reason at all with no warning, when they had been promised more time…
It didn’t make matters better that the souls believed Death to have given them the almonds in the first place, and that he was breaking his promise of a four-day vacation. Trickster smirked. The gardens would be chaos for a while.
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