All Hallows' Eve
War.
That was what the humans had coined the mass migration into Death’s domain by their own hands. When the sands of one was cut short by another, and returned behind the veil all too soon. War, often defied the Fates.
While the Fates were fast weavers, twisting the stories those would later tell Death with an unseeing ease. They were not all knowing. Humans, while they usually followed a script well enough that no one would notice a slight change, often acted outside of the Fates design.
This was why those blessed by the Fates, seers they had been named, often saw multiple outcomes or got things wrong outright. It was not that they were wrong, but that it was nearly always guesswork when a humans will was in question.
When this sort of thing happened with one or two individuals, it was easily adjusted for. War, was never easy.
Humans became far too unpredictable and the Fates strands began to drop in their stitch work. Wizards and Witches alike came to their end too soon. Children have stories with holes woven in or are given an incomplete destiny to account for the horrors of those before them.
All that to say, war was a mess and entirely of human design.
Death had taken to reminding those who passed of this fact when they argued that their “fate” had been to follow through with the horrors of their idiotic ideals. That, “Fate,” had nothing to do with human kinds inability to coexist and that Death had a job to do so if they were quite done they might as well be useful and deposit their sands so that Life had a sliver of a chance at fixing this all.
So, Death had become a tad bit overworked and reactive. That was to be expected when the first of the current war passed through Death, wearing Death’s own name as a fear tactic and demanding that Death applaud them. Death had almost laughed.
That had been years ago, and now Death was, well, not tired. Death and Life could not feel. Not the same way those who were gifted sand could. Death was not tired, but they were quite ready for this current war to come to its end. Though, Death would never voice this. They knew the Fates were doing their best to weave that possibility into the world and finding it quite challenging at the moment for one reason or another.
That was why, when on one particular still All Hallows’ Eve, when Death felt a tug from one so familiar, well, Death could hardly ignore the moment a dear old friend passed through the veil, could they?
When Death, following the pull to the family in question, found the scene of one such early end they hesitated to do their job. The descendant of a once old friend lay, sands of a life yet to have been lived pouring from his still frame. The sticks so often favored by those of magical blood lay peacefully on the table just off to the side of the large doorway. A bright and tainted green oozed from the body and into the sands like so many before.
The killing curse.
So wasteful, such a devastation to the Fate’s designs and dishonor on Life’s creations. Death held no emotions that humans had, but in this they could admit to a slight heaviness to their timeless frame as they scooped the sands and poured them into the veil. Death always watched the stories of this family, and the heaviness only grew as they took in that final moment.
A tug, not so demanding yet still present, pulled Death to follow up the stairs within the still house. As Death entered a small nursery, they once more hesitated at the sight before them.
A woman, no older than the man Death had just collected, lay oozing the same green tarnish into sands that had yet to be lived. Her face was wet, tear stained, and twisted into a scream that would have wrecked the heart of any, if they had one.
Death, had no heart, and thus moved to push her sands through the veil with no feelings beyond a hope that the unity between the two fallen would at least ease her pain. It was then, that Death noticed her fates strings still very much alive. Odd, as those typically severed the moment the sands bled out. It seemed that the woman, Lily she had said her name to be, had woven her own magic into them and tethered her being to the land on the living.
To that, of a child.
As Death neared the crib, they took in the child that seemed to watch Death’s every move with no ounce of fear. Strange. As it was, Death had not formed into the mortal plane of existence since that one fateful day. Though, that never stopped those who were on the cusp of their end from seeing Death.
It seemed, that this child was just that. It was not dead, not yet, but it was dying. The child’s sand, once so full and bright, was pouring out fast and the color was fading.
Still, it sat there. Its green eyes, so much like the green that stained the sands from its own family, were unblinking in its determination.
Death knew the child would soon join its family. That whatever had buried itself, thinking that it was hidden in the child’s sands well enough that Death had not seen it, would then either inhabit the vacant husk or perish with it. The child was to be just another to fall too soon.
In the pit of Death’s very being, there was a shift. It was slight. Not even noticed at the time, but as the child continued to bleed sands mixed with magics even Death knew not, a choice was opened. One Death had never thought of before, and the likelihood of it happening again were possibly the same odds of an entire new universe forming and growing the exact same way this one had to bring Death right back to this very moment.
This child, the descendant of the only creature to have cheated both Death and Life, was now stuck between the two.
Death watched as whatever weird lights in the sand of the child began to pull pieces that fell back into the vessel. A constant circle that kept it alive, as long as nothing tipped the scale. It was not a solution, and the child would die within the night.
Despite that, the strings of Fate seemed to be weaving, in real time, thousands of loose strands into the infant. As if they could not see that Death would take it before a single strand was resolved. Millions, so many fates and destinies dependent on this one, dying child.
Death, was curious. Why this child?
Every war, every conflict, even every time of simplicity, the Fates always chose a handful to weave into the direction of the worlds they knew. To bestow greatness, or great pain, and to pull the times along. They always chose multiple, with good or disastrous results, but spread out to account for unpredictability.
This child.
This dying child, now held tens of millions of fates buried so deep into their being that to take them through the veil somehow felt like an act against the creations themselves. A singular being, could they really be this important?
Well, think of the stories a worlds worth of fates would bring.
Death, with the excuse of doing this out of curiosity, and nothing else, took the child into their arms. They raised the child up, far higher than any living thing stood, and tucked them close. With a rather uncanny likeness to the bones found in humans, Death moved their hands to pull the sands free from the child and suspended in the space around. Letting the vessel lay lifeless in their arms, Death turned the sands container around until they located the fracture to the spirit, a lightning shaped abrasion along the head of the infant.
Here, the spell had worked to cut right through the vessel without lingering on the usual fatal targets. Instead, that cursed magic worked to sever the sands of time to the vessel, creating a swift end. Such a waste.
With a flick of their own power, something akin to magic and yet far older, Death sealed the interior of the vessel. Unable to remove the initial impact from the physical body, it was seen as a minor issue to that of literally dying. Once they were sure the infant would no long pour the sands the instant they entered, Death worked to return that which had yet to bleed from the boy.
Finding the sands far too empty, Death decided to break yet another unwritten rule, and borrowed back the time lost by the child’s parents. Satisfied that the child was alive and no longer a part of Death’s own domain, Death laid the sleeping bundle back where they had found it.
"Ⱦⱥҟē ⱦħīꞩ ⱥꞩ ⱥ ꞡīӻⱦ, ɏꝋᵾꞥꞡ ꝋꞥē. Ⱥ ꝋꞥȼē ꝋꝟēɍ ⱥȼⱦ ꝋӻ Đēⱥⱦħ. Īꞥ ēӿȼħⱥꞥꞡē, ƀɍīꞥꞡ ᵯē ꞩⱦꝋɍīēꞩ ⱳꝋɍⱦħ łīӻēⱦīᵯēꞩ."
Though Death knew the child would not understand, nor remember any of what had transpired, it was so rare they got to speak into the living realm.
Life, might be upset once they learned of these events, but would soften with time. The Fate’s were almost certainly confused when they wove the world into the dying husk of a boy. Could anything really fault Death for being curious to what this one child, a descendant to those who had long ago fooled all three, would bring?