FIC: Death's Kiss ~ Marvel ~ Death-centric

[batsutousai]

Title: Death's Kiss
Fandom: Marvel (movie 'verse)
Author: Batsutousai
Rating: T
Pairings: Thanos/Death
Warnings: Death-centric, Ragnarok-centric, reincarnation (after a fashion), character death
Summary: Sometimes, when she is lonely or bored, she picks a favourite and gives them a gift. The only uncertainty is what they'll do with it, and therein lays the thrill.
Disclaim Her: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Marvel. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

A/N: akuma_river asked, after reading Still Carrying the Past, how Loki came to remember his past lives, and what decided who else would remember. And I sort of stared for a bit, because I'd never really thought about it.
And then I realised that I'd never thought about it because I already knew, somewhere, somehow, the whole history of this curse. And I should probably share that with the rest of you.

This fic is very Death-centric, and she's really the only character. Loki and Thanos appear in passing, but only seen through her eyes, and they're given no names. For Death doesn't have a use for names.

-0-

She couldn't remember when it started, only that it had always been. Cycles and circles and death and life. Those alive called her cruel, but she was the kindness of a mother's embrace, the warmth of a long-forgotten home, when Life finally let them from his clutches, yet they would never agree that he was the cruel one, not even when free from torment.

She wondered if that had ever bothered her, but it was a passing thought, come and gone before it could fully form.

She couldn't remember when she first picked a favourite; he may have always been. A man of red skin and a gentle smile, he sang to her as they waited for the cycle's end, and she gifted him with memory, so he might remember what songs she loved best and sing them again. So he did, and he did and he did. Sometimes, even before he died, he would sit in silence on a battlefield and sing to her, and that made up for the way he lived longer and longer and longer.

The longer he lived, the more others died. At first, she thought it grand, for now she had so many more to pass the time with while he was away.

But the more he remembered, the more he killed, and the slower he died, until it seemed almost that he was avoiding her.

A lover scorned, she found a woman who had brought him to his knees and gifted her with memory, begged her to send him back to her as quickly as she could, and she did. She did so once, twice, three times. And then he killed her before she could even taste life and she cried for a cycle in Death's arms while they watched him destroy.

'He is too cruel,' the woman whispered into Death's breast, 'Like Life personified.'

And Death, who knew Life well, said, 'Perhaps he is.'

She looked on and on for someone new to bring her love home, but they didn't last for long, when they managed at all, and she soon stopped trying, stopped paying him any mind whatsoever.

She found other favourites: A woman who braided flowers in her hair, a group of children who brought her into their games, a man who wrote her sonnets of skulls and bones. Sometimes, she gifted memory to them, sometimes she did not.

Sometimes, they treasured that memory, used it to bring her amusements in the forms of new words and songs, or created new life so she might enjoy new faces in their death.

But sometimes... Oh, sometimes, they woke to life and tore out their own hearts, falling, crying, against her breast, for Life was ever cruel.

She wasn't sure when she became aware of the babe, crying in a corner and shaking blue. She wasn't sure, either, which of her favourites caused him to grow to a man in a different skin; a man who sent her so many souls without remembering her warmth, who brought the end once, twice, a dozen times before her lover found him and ripped him into nothing.

'This duty is mine,' he had snarled as that babe-turned-man dangled in her lover's grasp, unknowing of what he spoke, because he remembered not the cycle's end he oft caused.

And Death, who had grown to adore her babe-turned-man, whispered at last in her lover's ear and said, 'He pleases me.'

'I would please you,' he replied, but he let her babe-turned-man down and he coughed and rubbed at his throat. And his eyes like Life burned with hatred and a refusal to bow to anyone.

So long as she whispered against her lover's ear, he let the babe-turned-man alive, though he would always find him, would show him how cruel Life was.

'Death is kindness and love,' he told the babe-turned-man. 'She is your salvation, and the only reason you're not in her embrace.'

'What demented sort of sense was that supposed to make?' the babe-turned-man spat back, always unbending.

Her lover grabbed him about his throat, red eyes blazing, and shouted, 'She is mine!' and snapped the babe-turned-man's neck.

Death cradled her new favourite as he recovered. And he stared up at her unseeing through Life-coloured eyes turned so very dead, because Life was most unkind to him.

It became a game, an interest, to see what words, what promises of her love, would bring her lover to kill the babe-turned-man, and which would have him let free.

It was in freedom from her lover that the babe-turned-man found someone to live for, someone to face down her lover for with a smile instead of a scowl.

And Death wouldn't wish to see her babe-turned-man's dead eyes again, cradled in her arms and pleading to remain there forever-more, though her lover would surely make it so. So she gifted him with memory.

She didn't realise how deeply her favouritism had run in him until he gifted memory to another; clinging to newly discovered kin so tightly that he didn't see her lover in a rage behind him, sword severing him straight through.

She didn't mind when he brought his own lover to remember, may have even helped him along, because she was fond of him and his refusal to bend, the light of Life in eyes the colour of such.

And when he sent her her lover at long last, his lover and others at his side, she pressed a kiss to his cheek and laughed as he shuddered.

She wondered how many cycles he would be able to send her her lover, wondered if he would last beyond any of the others.

Sometimes, Death picks favourites. And, sometimes, she gifts those favourites with the memories of their forgotten pasts, because she has a lover she just wants to come home, and he needs help on his way.

The Ragnarok Series:
Part One: Haunt Me ~ Loki
Part Two: Still Carrying the Past
Part Three: Death's Choice

..