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reviously "Letting Go":...
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Death prowled in the streets of Eudraid, a shadow coming down through the marketplace. It was in the night that he came, for he loved the darkness and was used to it. Hell itself was dark – but it was not cruel, as people thought it to be. Nor was Death cruel, not like the ancient gods of blood and agony and sacrifice. He was a gentle god who took pity on pain - and tonight the Death came to Eudraid.
There were no people out this late, which suited him. He went down through the abandoned stalls of the marketplace, the striped canvas of the hangings rippling and billowing in his chill wake. At the gate to the inner city, he came upon an old, wizened beggar who was staring up at the moon, almost wistfully. When the shadow of the Death approached him, he did not shy away, just smiled wryly up at the figure as if to say Yes, so it’s death, but what can one do about it? It occurred to the Death that the man, so long from home and whatever family he might once have had, was not in his right mind. It didn’t matter – sometimes the desperate saw something more clearly than others; sometimes they were merely less afraid to face it. It was not the beggar’s time. The Death stood still and considered him for a moment, then dropped him a single coin and said "Not tonight, my friend". The beggar snatched up the token wealth, quick from habit and necessity, and looked after him almost crestfallen as the Death moved softly on.
The Death, for his part, knew his way around the city. He had been here before, attending to this or that, and he went immediately down along the old way; the old way, the back way – people called it different things. It was a low and abandoned street, set into the rock where the river’s tides washed periodically over the stone and ground it slowly smooth. He went up that damp way and into the houses of the city where the wealthy lived and were happy among the excesses and extravagances of their station. One house in particular caught his eye - it was a grand one, lovely stone and a fine garden which left the tendrils of vines trailing over the fence and curling up the dark pillars. Such a wealthy family owned the house that there were guards; he faded to shadow and past them in the regal glory of invisibility. They did not see but they felt the chill, and blessed themselves.
Into the hall the Death slipped on a silent breeze, which made the candles gutter. There was a wedding feast going on in the great hall, fires blazing and rowdy laughter, music and dancing. He disliked the commotion – death seldom came into such public places. The noise of the gathering drove him upward, up into the cool dark of the second floor. The dusty, wooden floorboards did not creak beneath him, for his strides were as a silent as his presence. It was on the second floor that he found what he had been looking for; the thing to which his sense for the dying and pain had led him. There were two sisters in the first bedroom, combing their hair and getting themselves ready for bed. And at first, they did not see him.
The dark haired one sat on the edge of the bed with her legs drawn up and her arms about her knees, watching her sister fumble with her ribbons. She sighed to herself and a after a little while said, emotionless, “Can you believe the noise they’re making downstairs?”
The sister finally tamed her ribbons and shook out her golden curls. “They have reason to celebrate, it’s not everyday that someone gets married.”
“It’s not everyday that someone can’t hear themselves think, even a floor up, but you can see they don’t care about.”
Her sister let out an exasperated sigh. “Oh Mila,” she started, as if they’d had this conversation before. “Just let them be, hear? When you get married, are you going to have a feast in utter silence with no music, dancing, or laughter? People are going to have to breathe, you know.”
The one with the dark hair, dark as the Death's own eyes, flopped moodily off the bed and went to the window. She hugging her sleeveless arms to her against the cold. “What if I don’t get married?” she asked in all hauteur.
“That’s ridiculous!”
“It is,” Mila admitted, climbing back on the bed and bouncing a bit. “But if we get married we won’t be able to see each other anymore. We’ll have to go live with our husband’s families. You’ll be some beautiful duchess and I’ll be some great lady and we’ll have our own households to run, and we’ll never get to be together.”
“We could marry handsome twin brothers. Then they would have the same inheritance and we’d live in the same house and we would still do everything together.”
“But what if the men we fall in love with aren’t twins?”
The light-haired sister shrugged, as if this hardly had an effect on her plan. “They will be,” she said, and threw a pillow at Mila, who fell over, giggling. “They have to be.”
“And we’ll always be together then, right?”
Her sister finished brushing out her hair and flicked it aside to grin at Mila. "Right.”
The dark-haired girl smiled and rolled off the bed on her feet. She was drawn inexplicably back to the window and pulled the curtain back. “It’s very dark out there,” she said after a little while.
“Night is,” said the other.
“But it’s a miserable dark – I don’t like it.” The girl stayed contemplating the street below for a few more moments, the river street where death had walked that very night, then spun suddenly around to seize a brush. “Do you think it’s getting cold in here?” she asked. Her eyes, dark as the loathed night of Eudraid, moved past the dresser to the doorway. And saw the Death standing by the hangings of the bed. She threw the brush down and blundered for a corner, almost as if she was trying to tell if the figure in the bedroom was terrible enough to ellicit a scream - her sister didn’t see. The light-haired one stared at her like she’d lost her mind. “What’s the matter with you?” she asked as the Death moved past her shoulder and crossed the room. The girl shuddered at the touch of cold but she didn’t turn and she didn’t see him even when he passed her. “Mila? Mila, what’s wrong? Tell me what’s wrong!”
Mila was in her corner, sunk down against the floor. She hid her face in her arms, terrified now by something that her sister could not see, and dared a glance up at the shadow. There was vague recognition in her face. She knew why he was, if not what, exactly. “Go away,” she whispered into her arms. “Go away, go away.”
Her sister grasped her shoulder and shook it. “Mila? Mila, honey, there’s no one there. Look, see?” She half turned and waved her hand about in the air. It passed through the still air that was the Death’s arm but did not touch him. Mila started to cry, edging toward hysteria. As she gasped for breath between sobs, she tried to talk to her sister. The golden-haired girl could not understand her.
“Come away,” the Death said to Mila. “It’s time for you to come away just now.” But he waited – for he was a kind and gentle god, forever childless; his heart melted at the sight of her misery. “I shall give you a moment,” he said. “But then you must come.”
Mila made no indication that she had heard him. She put her head down against her sister’s shoulder and held onto her, her tear-streaked face peeking out through tangled hair.
“I’m so afraid,” she whispered and closed her eyes tightly against the tears. Her arms frantically locked around her sister’s neck and held on.
“Hell is a dark place,” he granted softly. “But not cruel.”
“Hell?” she asked, her voice fading. "I don't want to go to Hell."
“I will walk there with you,” the Death said. “And it won’t hurt.”
He went to her as her sister pleaded and begged – stop talking about that terrible thing, don’t talk about hell, what’s gotten into you? Mila, can you hear me? The words sounded distant and unimportant, a million miles away. Mila let go of her by degrees and pulled herself up against the wall. Her sister’s rambling voice grew shrill as the Death came to her.
“Can my sister come with me?” the dark child whispered at the last, when he was right before her, his shadow falling over her hair. “We said we’d always be together. Always. No matter what. And...” She was trembling again. “And I don’t want to go without her.” She put her fingers over her face again, shivering, and slowly let them drop.
The summer haired child shook her and slapped her, crying now. “What are you saying?” she cried. “Who do you see?” Mila pushed her away, but gently, tears still in her eyes and her cheek bright red and stinging from the smack. The sister clutched at her arm, pulling her.
“No,” the Death said softly, at last, considering it. “But someday. Someday she’ll find you. It would be unfair to her to have her come now.”
“When will she come?”
“When she has lived out her life,” said the Death, though it tore at his heart “and she can bare the strain and weight of it no more. Then she will come.”
“Why only then?” Mila whispered, sinking down again as if pain, into her sister’s arms. Yes, the sister was crying, smoothing her hair. It’s okay, just sit here Mila. I’m here, I’m here for you. We’ll go get Dad then, he’ll know what’s wrong. Please, Mila, please stop talking though. No more about hell.
“Because,” the Death told her. “You are of a different nature. You see so much; you feel so much, you were old before you were young. Your sister is still a little girl. The little girl you should be, and never were. You are so tired even now, child, must you wait so many more years to realize it?”
The girl sniffed and stood up, pushing her hair behind an ear. “No,” she sighed finally, reached out and took the hand he proffered to her in the dark. She gripped his fingers, hard, as he drew her soul close to him and her sister kept screaming. She was aware of the body she left curled up on the floor, tear stains still drying on its pale cheeks. The Death gathered her to him, smelling of darkness and peace and age. “The dark is not so bad,” he promised her, and so it was not.
In the bedroom, the summer-haired child sobbed in the corner with her sister’s body in her arms and tried to get her breath. When she did, she screamed. As he faded into shadow, the Death covered Mila’s ears so she would not hear it and the people came running at last, a frantic pounding on the stairs. Mila murmured “Is she all right?”
“She will be,” he said. Though as the Death brought Mila down into a still sort of night, his heart ached more at pain of two little girls letting each other go than it had in many ages.
The summer-haired child was still sobbing as Death went into hell and though she could not see him, she screamed after him “I would have gone. Can’t you see that, I would have gone with her.”
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