I feel a breeze... The Wind... again.
But not the kind that brushes past. Not the kind that leaves no mark.
No… this is breath with intent. With weight. Like something gathering the last of itself to become real.
And I… I stand there, open, watching the sky tremble.
It comes toward me... not like an arrival, but like a decision.
And then—
He falls into me.
Not wings. Not gale. Not silence.
He is body. He is breath. He is The Wind.
And he has chosen form again.
My arms catch him before my mind understands.
He collapses into my chest, and I collapse into awe.
His skin is cold with exhaustion. His ribs flutter like sails torn through. He shakes—not with fear, but with… completion.
“You’re here…” I whisper.
But the words feel too small for his weight.
He holds me. Not as if I vanished… but as if he had.
And I was the proof he’d made it back.
Then— light. motion. Pain.
As he presses his palm to my sternum.
And I… I burn.
Not fire. Something older. Something true.
It isn’t just memory...
It is…
Return.
It pierces. It blazes. It hurts.
Everything. All of me. At once.
“Would you like to have a body?”
My answer had no sound. But he heard it.
His fingers traced the curve of something I had never had before— shoulders, jaw, hands— and made me into someone who could be seen. Could be touched.
Tangible.
I remember the way he looked at me afterward.
Not surprised. Not proud. Just… glad.
“There,”
Wind had whispered, voice barely breath.
“You are the most beautiful being I’ve ever seen.
Fitting… since the end is the most beautiful of all, just before it becomes nothing, but a memory.
Memories are beautiful, but never as beautiful as the real thing. Never as beautiful… as that final moment.
Before they can never be so beautiful again.”
And I… had looked at the hands he gave me.
At the shape that wasn’t mine, but... felt like it had always waited.
To make the end beautiful… It felt wrong… Too tragic.
But I believed him.
Because... at the very least, he believed it.
I remember… being held. Quietly. Often.
By him.
The Wind who never stayed, yet always returned.
I let him go. Every time.
We watched endings together.
He whispered lullabies into the mouths of storms,
And I gathered what they left behind.
There was no fear between us.
No shame.
Only gravity.
We were gods not of dominion, but of passage.
I was the stillness, he was the change.
And together... we made that journey to the end mean something.
Going slowly.
Giving the weary a peaceful farewell to the long road they traveled.
Until—
A warning.
Not heard—
Felt.
The sea stiffened. The air lost taste. Something vast and jealous rising from below.
I was waiting for him, Wind, as always. But he didn’t arrive...
She did.
I don’t remember how I fell. Just the cold. The weight.
The pressure of water that didn’t wet the skin— that crushed thought instead.
I fought. I know I did.
But she was prepared.
She spoke in tones I didn’t recognize... as if she had rehearsed this moment for centuries.
“You were never supposed to exist. He made you seen. He made you beautiful. He gave you what he refused me. It’s time for justice. It’s time to return… to nothing.”
That was when the pain began.
She didn’t strike me with waves.
She struck me with malice I had no armor for.
She tried to destroy me.
She tried...
and failed.
She screamed.
Not in fury. But in the pain of unwanted revelation.
“How unfair…” she hissed. “Death can take everything— yet cannot be taken? Not even that body you don’t deserve? He gave you a form that can be seen, can be felt, can breathe— yet cannot drown?”
And when obliteration of my shape failed…
She turned to erasure.
“Feed me those precious memories, then. If I cannot end you, I’ll hollow you. What use has the oblivion for memory anyway? For the guise of love? Your memory is nothing but a debt to me. Let me devour your sins from the inside. If you can’t return to nothing— then at least surrender yourself to the justice of emptiness.”
She reached inside.
Not with hands. With authority. With certainty.
She wanted to shatter me from within.
But the interior…
Was still me.
And she could not destroy Death.
And then...
She paused.
Her grip faltered.
She had reached my memories.
And inside them, entwined,
She found him.
The shimmer of Wind.
Not just shaping my form... binding my being.
“How dare you carry him inside you,” she seethed. “You thief of spirit!”
I felt her hunger. She wanted to tear it out. To consume it. To make his soul hers.
But my spirit rose, though wounded, and wrapped around that gift like armor.
We would not be severed. Not then. Not now. Not ever.
She howled.
And in that fury, she did what cowards do when gods will not die.
She divided me.
Split the internal from the external.
The memories— our laughter, our names, the moment he called me beautiful, the way he looked back when I let him go— she ripped them from me and buried them beneath everything.
And into the hollow that remained within my shape, she poured herself.
“You are death,” she whispered. “Nothing more. You carry out my orders. You fetch and return what belongs to me. Until I am given shape— you are my shape. You belong to me. You are a thing. My thing.”
She sealed the vessel.
And I walked.
I became not Death. But the action of taking.
Her blade. Her puppet. Wandering. Eternal. Obedient.
Unknowing.
And she kept me from him.
Because he would have known.
He felt the silence. He searched.
But she was clever.
And I was...
Hollow.
Until now.
Now... He gave it all back.
My knees buckle. We fall.
He lands atop me, trembling, gasping, radiant even in his fatigue... As if the act of giving had drained all the energy he had left.
And I…
Am still.
Frozen in recollection. Flooded with emotion.
Awake. Alive. At last.
The ground beneath us does not crack.
But I do.
The two birds, Alcyone and Ceyx...
They land beside us.
They do not sing. They simply look… at me.
They witness… who I am becoming.
The Wind whispers,
“He just needs a moment.”
He’s right. But he needs this moment too.
What did you endure, old friend? To restore…
The I that was buried is stretching.
Untwisting.
Returning.
I remember who I was before she erased me.
Before Fate sculpted silence into obedience.
Not her weapon. Not her silence. Not even this nickname—Death.
No…
I was— I am—
Oblivion.
And he is—
Transformation.
Transformation, The Wind, my…
I hold him.
Tighter.
He brought me home.
After we had been separated for far too long.
He rests on my chest, breathing slow.
I don’t think he even notices he’s crying.
Neither of us move… except to hold one another closer.
After what could have been years, he lifts his head and looks at me, like someone seeing dawn for the first time.
He smiles. Softly.
“Do you remember me now, old friend— my dear, Oblivion?”
I don’t need to answer.
Because he knows.
Alcyone and Ceyx perch upon the railing as the two of us lie here… still recovering.
From the strain. From the twisted story. From forgetting what we were made of.
Alcyone and Ceyx watch. Still. As if afraid movement might shatter this moment.
But it's not fragile.
It’s real.
We’re not fragile.
We heal.
For now... we are whole. Thread returned to spindle. Name to breath. Memory to soul.
The silence that follows is not empty. It is earned.
It is not a will, stolen.
It is a moment, shared.
It has been foretold, by the Repeater, the truth—for once—that actions have consequences.
It has been foretold—by this Fate—the truth, of course— that all debts must be paid—
In full—
̶̡̨͍̱̹͙̩̠̗̕͜ ̷̨̜̖͖͇̗̼̟̘͖̘͖̲̒̍͋̓̐͆̀̽̓A͠N͞D̵͡ ̷W͟͡I̸͘T͢H͡ ̸IN̷̴T̶͝E҉̶R̕̕E̵̷S͏͜T ̴̡̧̡̢̛̳̭̜͎̠͈̤̫̹͖̘͈̜̫͖̗̲̳͚̯̯͇̠̼̤͉̰͚̮̞͔͙̬̄̒̀̀̀͆͛̓͆͆͐̂̄̅̑̔̌̔̀͒̔̃̀͘͘̚͜͝ͅͅͅ ̶̨͉̗͖̖̱̝͓̬̤̮͈̱̉͌̏͐̾͂͒̌̅͑́̈́̃̊̔͗̽͗̎̅͊͒̒̽̔̍̎͋͊͋́̃̾̓͋͑̑̒̋̅̊͛̓̍͘͘͝͝͝͠͠͝͠ͅͅ