Death's Fated Love

"You can stop undressing the Grim Reaper with your eyes now."

"I thought you said it was rude to call them that. They're called Guides."

"That doesn't stop you from calling me Rumplestiltskin."

Selene looks away from Nic, the King of the Reapers, standing at the reception desk, and looks towards her father with a smile. 

"Okay, Grumpy," she chuckles.

"Calling me a dwarf is no better—"

"Where are we anyway?" She asks him.

The two guides placed hands on their shoulders and instantly they were transported to another place, but instead of to the deathbed of someone, they stood in a lobby of place that looked very much like a normal hospital to her.

"Look closer," Carrington says to her, leaning in to whisper. "It is a hospital, but for creatures like me."

Selene takes a deep breath and focuses, straining her eyes to see what they normally can't, but Carrington can easily as an imp.

The nurse at the front desk slightly changes, but it's like she has a projection over her. The image on the projection is of the nurse Selene initially saw, but beneath it, the true features are revealed. Pale green hair made of leaves, brown wooden skin, and vines circling her hands.

"Is that a nymph?" Selene whisper-asks to her father.

"Yeah, and over there is a Naga, and there is a Caladrius."

Selene's eyes widen in wonder as she looks around to find the Naga, a creature she's only seen in the fairytales Carrington used to read to her as a child.

"This is a hospital," Carrington smiles, "but for others. Fae, yokai, gods."

"Gods?"

"Something like that," Carrington says. "You'll see what I mean."

"Then why the glamor over them?" Selene asks. 

"Sometimes, humans stumble through. If they're desperate enough of they've unknowingly made friends with some mythical creature, like you. We wouldn't want that human running around and saying that they received some ambrosia. Then humans would swarm and more than likely destroy it out of greed."

Before Selene can ask anymore questions, Nic walks away from the receptionist desk and towards them, holding something out to them. Carrington takes one and Selene takes the other, looking down at the blank visitor pass. Just like an actual hospital.

She looks to Nic's suit to see his visitor pass, but unlike them, he has a badge on a lanyard around his neck. No picture, but a name, Nyx. 

Carrington takes her sticker and sticks it to her, drawing her eyes away from Nic's badge. 

Nic walks away and Carrington follows, Selene following behind them, and the other Guide bringing up the rear.

They pass up rooms with people laying in beds, but they don't stop to give Selene enough time to look past the glamor. They walk until they're past the regular rooms with multiple beds, past the single rooms, and then to VIP rooms. 

Nic stops in front of a door and opens it, sweeping his hand to let them in first. Selene follows Carrington in, looking around the room to see almost every corner filled with some kind of greenery.

The door closes behind them and Selene looks back to see only Nic behind them. She eventually glances into the room and discovers a man who is quite enormous inside. 

She focuses on seeing past the glamor but nothing changes. Isn't until she stops trying that she really sees him, features that couldn't be human. Pink skin, with pinker rosy cheeks. White hair that looks more like clouds than curls. He's a giant, his body and bed taking up most of the room. 

Carrington walks to the bed and sits in the chair beside the patient, making him look even smaller, like a young toddler next to Andre the Giant. He reaches out his hand, and Carrington takes it.

"You're no longer a Reaper, yet you send them to my door. Almost scared me to death, thinking that I'm dying," Carrington chuckles. 

The big man smiles at his imp friend. "You are not the one dying, I am."

"Impossible. You are a higher power now. Higher powers can't die."

"No, not unless they want to."

Carrington squeezes his friend's hand and leans closer. "And you want to?"

"To be reincarnated."

"You're going to be reincarnated? For what? As what?"

Selene watches their conversation in confusion, but Nic distracts her by tapping her shoulder and pointing to a chair on the side of the room. She sits down, and Nic sits in the chair beside her. 

She tries to see if he has a glamor on him too, but only his hands change. She looks down to see skeletal hands. She looks back up to see him looking at her too.

His eyes are brown, darker than the honey brown of his skin, and they shine as he looks down at her. She notices how much taller than her he is, even sitting. She takes in his straight nose and plump lips. Memorizing his face all the way to his curly hair. 

"A Guide is a job. Being Nyx, the… boss of the Guides—or the King of Grim Reapers, as your father calls it—is more like a job. Something you're assigned in your afterlife, for reasons. Before I was Nyx, he was," Nic says, nodding towards the man in the bed. "When he… graduated, instead of being reincarnated, he became a higher power in charge of destiny. In charge of people's fate, or fated love. He's Cupid, the real one."

Selene looks at the man and her father.

Cupid smiles at Carrington, lighting up his pink eyes. "For love. My destined fate is going to be reincarnated soon, so I shall reincarnate with them. As for who I will be, or what I will be, I don't know."

"And what of Selene?" Carrington asks. "The power you used to keep her alive?"

Selene's ears perk up as she hears her name. Nic's ears perk up, too. 

"Sorry to interrupt, sir, but earlier it was said that she could not die. It's just… that's a power of Nyx, not Cupid, and it isn't meant to be used unless it's serious and you can only use it once. When I became Nyx, I didn't get that skill." Nyx stands up to move closer to the men, but Selene stays in her seat. 

Cupid looks at Selene and then looks at Nic, still smiling. "That is because I borrowed it from you before I left, and held it, just for this task. My first, though it took years to fulfill."

"I don't understand."

"I know," Cupid says, "All will be explained in due time, but for now, there are other tasks at hand. Imp, when I die, this borrowed power with go back to Nyx."

Carrington's back stiffens, and slowly he sits up, slowly shifting to look at Selene. "That means… if my daughter dies… she really dies?"

Cupid nods, for the first time not smiling, using both hands to hold the Imp's hand.

"An imp with a human daughter?" Nyx asks.

"I know what you are thinking, but I'm really not like Rumplestiltskin. I did not steal her or win her in a bet. I adopted her, legally, per human customs. I've got the paperwork from the Louisiana courts to prove it. Though she's a little more than human."

Nyx looks at Selene, confusion clouding his eyes. 

"But now you're saying she can die?"

They can all hear the sorrow in his voice and it makes everyone look back to that side of the room, toward the Imp and Cupid.

"All humans die," Nyx says.

Carrington turns around quickly to shout at the King of Grim Reapers, but Cupid stops him, looking at Nyx himself. 

"Your time is coming too, Nyx," Cupid says.

Nic's eyes are wide, and his mouth opens and closes, saying nothing, before struggling out, "My punishment is finally ending? Will I learn what crime I committed?"

"All in due time." Cupid looks between Selene and Nic again. "But it isn't for me to tell. I haven't dealt with death and judgement for a long time. My job is love."

"Cupid needed to borrow the power over death for one human's love?"

"All in due time," Cupid says again. "Now, I'm getting tired, and must talk to Carrington alone. Death, please take Selene back home."

It looks like Carrington wants to disagree, as he looks at Selene, and then at Nic. He looks like he wants to jump out of his seat before his eyes widen and he smiles. But slowly Selen watches as her father's smile falters and he looks sad. He turns back to his friend.

"Is it time already?" Carrington asks, "but she's so young still."

Cupid nods to Nic and Nic lays his hand under Selene's elbow, helping her stand from her chair and out of the door. When they're gone, Cupid looks at the sad father.

"This life was hard for her, but she will die happy, with a father who loves her, and when she reincarnates, she will have love."