Had she died? She feels so… Limber and free. This isn’t the cave she and Homer had settled in for the fight either. This was some other pce, even darker and lonelier, and she was floating slightly above the floor. If it was a floor. Maybe it was a bottomless pit, the pitch bck darkness beneath her not availing to either answer.

  Her eyes adjusted to the darkness eventually. Onyx walls, onyx pilrs… The whole room (building?) felt like it was made for this state in mind- where your eyes have adjusted to the darkness. It was still murky and a little hard to navigate, but the surfaces did have an odd dim glow to them now, like she was walking through an all bck painting with thin white lines to indicate where the walls and pilrs were.

  ‘Walking.’ Floating. She’s still not sure why this is- she can’t really control her vertical movement. Occasionally she dips higher or lower, like she’s kinda getting it and then she isn’t- but she feels like she has to keep going. There’s something deeper in this citadel of onyx dreams that calls for her. Despite the darkness and the ck of light sources she can tell her shadow lies ahead, as if taunting her, begging her to follow…

  … It’s not just a “feeling". The shadow actually is raising its hand to beckon her down a hall or through an archway. This should fill her with unease, but she feels such an odd crity here. And she can see things in the darkness the further she goes. Other wanderers like herself, all following their own signposts- some their own shadows, others tracing their hands on the wall, some audibly talking with someone in nguages she can’t understand.

  Eventually she comes across a more open space. Still enclosed, she can see walls and a ceiling, but beneath her is something different from the seemingly endless pitch bck darkness- ground. Even the soil and grass is still unnaturally nocturnal in shade, but she can tell there is a difference… Especially when her eyes trail across the pnt life growing out of the soil. Or can this be called growing?

  It felt like everything that sprouted from this soil was in an eternal state of eventual decay. Flowers sprung from the ground, but their stalks were wispy and the petals had drooped and lost much of their color. Old trees sprung to form intricate ceilings of branches above her, but the branches were either empty or held onto by almost dead leaves in deep colors of brown; even the beautiful autumn had left, leaving behind only true death.

  Long dead vines have grown across the walls, skeletal fish swim about in the pond as if they were alive- no, not skeletal, now that she kneels down to look she can see that these fish are more rock than bone, like they’re… Living stone?

  There’s beauty to this stasis at the very edge of life and death, though. Dying can be just as beautiful as living, and despite the harrowing state of the pnts and the fish, she can tell they do not suffer. They merely are. One day she herself will be like this, old but content. She can still see the grey tones of her skin now.

  … She can see a lot, actually. Like her eyes have fully adjusted and turned dark into light.

  At the very center of this garden, under a truly old oak that has bent itself to lean to the right, branches dangling downward with more of those truly dead brown leaves forming a curtain of sorts sits a woman- a woman…? She believes so, at least. A feminine form, in long velvets that cover her form. Skin tones darker than even the pitch bckness that she’d seen here before, eyes closed, head turned downward. Napping, maybe?

  Something about her felt different from all the other wanderers she’d seen. They were all searching for something, yet she didn’t- she slept, rexed, like she owned this maze. Maia doesn’t even think about her movements, her approach slow and quiet and above all instinctual, mesmerized by the figure in front of her.

  She didn’t wake from the approach, but Maia wasn’t sure about what to do from here. Should she wake her up and ask for directions? Or of her purpose here? She still didn’t even know where she actually was… In the end, she takes a seat on a chair opposite of the figure, rexing for a moment. Metallic as the seat may have been, it felt oddly comfortable.

  Maia wants to touch her. It’s an odd thought. Not the sort of touch that’s bad, no, but like… When you’re a child and see a magnificent statue and you feel the urge to touch it a little just to see if it’s real, right? With this closer perspective, Maia could tell that she was quite pretty. A long face, defined cheekbones, A full figure commanding respect, and quite tall- if they were to stand side by side, this woman would likely dwarf over her by two or even three heads worth of height.

  That made her oddly bashful for whatever reason.

  Between them sat a little table- common for gardens she’d seen in the few picture books her parents read to her when she was little- although the only thing on it was a kettle and a cup. Maybe she should take a sip…? That seemed impolite, though.

  But she feels a draw to it. There’s a curl of scented steam escaping from the kettle, it smells sweet and like home, like her hovel, like the forest… It smells of mother and father and the floral scent she remembers from back when they tended to the flower patch together, and of the nicer times. Of nostalgia and gone-bys, like it’s calling her.

  She’s pouring herself a cup without thinking, staring at the swirling liquid within with an entranced gaze of wonder and whimsy that makes her feel young again. Drinking this is going to make her happy, she thinks. It’ll take her back to simpler times when her skin wasn’t grey and she wasn’t killing living beings just by existing in the vicinity.

  Just as she’s brought the cup to her lips, her dozing companion wakes up, pure white eyes glowing like twin full moons staring right into her soul.

  “I wouldn’t drink from that if I were you, mortal. It’ll give you a sweet, instant death and send you to the lifestream. Pure, distilled nostalgia is dangerous for the mind.”

  Mere inches away from death. Maia stares, entranced and scared, the sweet scent of past years filling her nose and her brain with images of sweet nothings long whispered into the air- and then she puts the cup down, hand shaking enough to make it ctter. Something about her voice breaks the trance and returns her to the present, to this castle of oblivion.

  Once again the darkness has become total, the dead trees have become horrifying jailors of a cage made of their own branches, the dead grass underneath has lost its appeal in this moment, and she can only see the twin pale moons ahead of herself.

  “I- I-”

  Where is she,and who is this.

  “It’s a byproduct of the process of death. Human minds fray at the seams and they flow here, where they end up either harvested by me and mine or destroyed in the ether naturally. We brew it into beverages or bake it into loaves. We don’t need to eat, but you mortals don’t really *need* to eat cake or drink tea either, do you?”

  While Maia keeps staring into the darkness mouth agape, she can see a hand reaching out from it to take the cup- and then it disappears, the veil so total she can barely see inches in front of her. But there’s the gentle sound of someone taking a sip, and a satisfied sigh after as the cup is pced back down.

  The sweet scent of years gone still lingers, but most of the swirling liquid is gone. Nostalgia undone and enjoyed as it should be.

  “That should kill you, shouldn’t it? P-Please, don’t die… I don’t want to see anyone die in front of me again…”

  Her voice comes as a whimper, meek and lost as she once again remembers the events of yesterday. The harpy. The way it died. The way she asked Homer to bury it, despite the usual harpy rites. She knows what she’d done was disrespectful, but she was so scared. Panicked. She just had to do it that way, she thought. She had to send her to the lifestream. What if being burned wouldn’t do that? She had to make sure.

  She just-she had to make sure the harpy would have a proper afterlife.

  “Kill me? If I were to die, that’d be interesting… Interesting yet impossible. Some things are beyond the idea of dying. I’ll be fine. But your concern is appreciated, mortal. Both for me and the soul of the one you’ve killed.”

  I’ve killed.

  “I- I… I didn’t… I didn’t do it intentionally. It’s this curse that pgues me, the one that makes me look like this, the- the… The birds kept dying, and the flowers withered, and now I… I don’t want to kill things. Or people. I don’t want to. It wasn’t my fault. It’s not like I wanted to-”

  She did want the harpy to let go, though, and to leave her alone. Despite her dedication to the sanctity of death, she didn’t want to die! She wanted to live! She had a mission, and she wanted to live even beyond that! She could feel the hot tears running down her cheeks…

  And a sudden cold hand on one of those cheeks, onyx thumb swiping a tear away. In her panic and despair she hadn’t noticed that the figure had leaned forwards, twin moon eyes now so much closer. She could tell there were no details to them. No limbal rings. Just pure white gems radiating light, staring right into her soul.

  “This curse?”

  The voice sounded sorrowful now. Or contemptive. The earlier factual confidence, that pin tone- gone and dusted, repced by something akin to regret.

  “Many would call it a blessing. The eye of a god has stared at you for so long that it’s influenced you. Mortals like you don’t usually exist. To be like a god involves having the blood of a god in your veins, and yet, you are…”

  She trails off again, but that thumb doesn’t stop moving, gently wiping away all tears until Maia’s face feels dry again. The hand then leaves her- she feels oddly lonely now- and the eyes close for a moment.

  “I’d brought you here to try and comfort you, but I may have overextended my hand. But this was the strongest our connection has ever been, thanks to you dealing Death through my blessing, unintentional as it may have been… Aaah. How embarrassing of me. I've grown sentimental.”

  Maia wasn’t stupid. This woman knew more about her than a stranger ever could, and she seemed intimately aware of both her affliction and the situation surrounding it. *her* blessing. *she* has grown sentimental. So on and so forth. But when she tries to open her mouth, nothing comes out. She’s too scared. She’s talking to *her*, isn’t she. This has to be-

  “I ought to send you back and wait for a better time for this meeting. You’ve so much promise, so much… So much to care for. But I’ve overreached in an attempt to comfort you. I cannot make you forget, but I urge you to know this, and this only: it’s not a curse. It’s merely the devoted attention of a very lonely god.”

  And just when Maia is about to finally get the words out of her mouth, it all shatters. Quite literally. The chair, the figure sitting opposite of her, the ground underneath and the pace above as she falls and falls and falls right into the darkness, yelling soundlessly into the void until she hits the ground and she

  wakes up gasping to the sound of birdsong and her own yelling. Homer’s squatting down in front of her, waving his hands.

  “Woah, woah, woah. Easy there, little miss… It’s just me. I know I’m not the most pleasant thing to start the morning with, but it’s just me.”

  If only Homer knew that he was likely the most pleasant thing she’d seen in her life in this moment, lurching forward and hugging around his leg as she hacks and coughs, spit and dust leaving Maia’s mouth. He speaks, but she cannot hear him. All she can hear is her voice.

  …She must’ve just met Death.