Page 10 of Death’s Gentle Hand

Breathless, Becoming

Cael

C ael walked through the streets of Varos in a form more solid than ever before, each footstep leaving faint impressions in the dust that gathered in doorways and alley corners.

The transformation unsettled him on a level deeper than thought—he could feel himself being drawn down, slowly anchored to the physical realm by forces he was only beginning to recognize, pulled by a gravity that felt at once dangerous and necessary.

His breath created small clouds in the cold night air—visible proof of lungs that shouldn’t exist, a metabolism that defied every cosmic law.

The sensation of air moving through his throat was strange, almost luxurious, each inhalation drawing in the layered scents of Varos: coal smoke and human desperation, the metallic tang of time-magic bleeding from cracked foundations, the green hint of hidden gardens where hope clung on, stubborn as weeds.

The weight of his footsteps was a marvel and a threat, foreign enough to make him pause and study his own feet with a child’s wonder.

For eons, he had passed through the world like mist, insubstantial, untouchable.

Now he felt the resistance of stone beneath his soles, the air pushed aside by his passage, small eddies in the ever-present fog swirling in response to his existence.

Most mortals still could not see him, but his presence sent invisible ripples through their lives, enough to quicken his new, uneasy pulse.

Children playing in narrow alleys would pause mid-laughter, suddenly glancing over their shoulders, caught by a chill with no wind.

Dogs and cats grew restless as he passed, hackles rising, their gaze tracking him as if they glimpsed a shadow trailing just behind their world.

A tabby cat arched and hissed at what its owner saw as empty air, prompting a nervous mutter and a hurried step.

The sensitive shivered, pulling their coats tight against a chill that had nothing to do with the night.

A time-debt worker stumbled as Cael brushed past, blinking as if the world had blurred around the edges.

At a market stall, an old woman selling herbs locked eyes with him for a heartbeat—her pupils wide with a terror she could not explain.

“Death walks tonight,” she whispered, and Cael felt a tremor of something dangerously close to guilt. They sensed him—not with sight, not yet, but with that ancient animal intuition that recognized the weight of his presence in the world, like a stone dropped in still water.

He was becoming real, and reality carried responsibilities he'd never had to consider before. Every step toward true corporeality was a step away from the cosmic order that had defined his existence since the beginning of time.

The streets of Veil Row at night revealed patterns he'd never noticed during his brief appearances for Reapings.

Cael moved slowly, taking time to observe the intricate web of mortal existence that played out in shadows and candlelit windows.

He saw time-debt collectors hammering on doors, demanding payment in years that couldn't be spared.

Children huddled around braziers fed with coal that smelled of temporal displacement, their faces prematurely aged by proximity to corrupted magic.

But he also saw acts of quiet kindness that pressed against his forming heart, tightening it with unfamiliar ache.

A baker leaving bread at doorways, a musician playing soft lullabies to cold, listening children, an old man pressing his last time-crystal into a desperate mother’s palm.

These brief lives—once just marks on the cosmic ledger—were knotted together in ways he’d never learned to see.

They suffered, yes, and died and grieved—but they also chose, again and again, to love, to hope, to sacrifice. None of it made sense in the cold economy of endings. But here, in the slow burn of living, there was meaning.

How had he moved among them for eons without seeing the intricate connections that bound them together? How had he missed the beauty in their temporary nature, the way they created meaning despite—or perhaps because of—their mortality?

The questions multiplied with each step toward Damian's clinic, and Cael found himself both eager and apprehensive about what he might discover tonight.

When he reached the familiar building, Cael found Damian exactly where he'd hoped—working late by candlelight, his hands moving with careful precision over a patient who lay still on the examining table.

But tonight, something was different about the scene.

The healer's movements were less steady than usual, his breathing irregular in ways that suggested distress.

Cael moved closer, his form becoming more solid as his attention focused.

Through the walls, he could sense the now-familiar signature of absorbed pain, but it was stronger tonight, more chaotic.

Damian had been pushing himself beyond his usual limits, taking on more suffering than one mortal frame could reasonably bear.

The sight of Damian—shaken, hunched, pushing past his limits—stirred something hot and unfamiliar in Cael’s chest. For long moments he could not name it. Concern. Worry, not as a cosmic function but as a personal ache for this one mortal’s wellbeing.

When had a Reaper ever felt such a thing?

Damian finished treating his patient—a young man with time-burns across his arms—and helped him to the door with movements that spoke of bone-deep exhaustion. As the patient left with grateful thanks, Damian locked the clinic door and leaned against it, his breathing harsh and uneven.

Cael watched him slide down the door to sit on the floor, head in his hands, shoulders shaking with the effort of containing whatever he was feeling. The raw vulnerability of the moment made Cael's newly forming heart race with unfamiliar urgency.

“I can't keep doing this,” Damian whispered to the empty clinic, his voice rough with exhaustion and something that might have been despair. “There's too much pain, too many people who need help. I'm drowning in it.”

The words hit Cael like a revelation. Here was proof that even the strongest mortals had limits, that compassion itself could become a burden too heavy for one soul to carry.

He'd observed Damian's work for days now, marveling at his ability to absorb others' suffering, but he'd never considered what that constant exposure to pain might cost.

Without thinking, Cael manifested more solidly, his form taking on enough substance to be visible in the dim candlelight. He didn't plan to reveal himself—the impulse simply overcame his usual caution.

Damian's head shot up, his sightless eyes tracking toward where Cael stood with uncanny accuracy. “You're here again,” he said softly, and there was no fear in his voice, only a weary sort of recognition. “I can feel you watching me.”

Cael froze, uncertain how to respond.

“You are harming yourself,” Cael said at last, his voice reverberating through the dim clinic like a bell struck in fog. “The pain you carry is unraveling your mortal shape. You cannot keep absorbing so much—your frame is not made for it.”

Damian let out a sound that might have been laughter if it hadn't been so hollow. “And what would you know about mortal limitations? You're not exactly human, are you?”

The observation was stated without accusation, more curious than afraid. Cael found himself studying Damian's face, noting the lines of exhaustion around his eyes, the way his hands trembled slightly from magical overexertion.

“No,” he admitted. “I am not human. But I have been... observing you. Learning about your methods. I do not understand why you choose to carry such burdens.”

“Because someone has to.” Damian's voice was matter-of-fact, as if the answer was obvious. “Because people are suffering, and I have the ability to help them. Because walking away would make me complicit in their pain.”

The simple conviction in those words struck Cael with unexpected force. Here was someone who saw suffering not as an inevitable part of existence, but as a problem to be solved, a burden to be shared. It was the antithesis of everything Cael had been created to embody.

“But at what cost to yourself?” Cael asked, genuinely curious about this mortal's reasoning. “You absorb their pain, but you do not release it. It accumulates in your body, your spirit. Eventually, it will destroy you.”

Damian was quiet for a long moment, his head tilted as if considering the question from new angles. “Maybe,” he said finally. “But if I can ease their suffering, even temporarily, isn't that worth something? Isn't that better than doing nothing?”

“I do not know,” Cael admitted, and the honesty of the statement surprised him. “My function has always been to end suffering by ending the sufferer. Your approach is... foreign to my understanding.”

“What are you?” Damian asked, but his voice held curiosity rather than fear. “You feel cold, ancient. Like winter made conscious. But you don't feel cruel.”

The description was more accurate than Damian could know. “I am what mortals call Death,” Cael said, expecting fear, rejection, the usual mortal response to his true nature.

Instead, Damian nodded slowly, as if the revelation explained things that had been puzzling him. “That makes sense. You've been drawn to my work because it's the opposite of yours, haven't you? I preserve life, you end it. I absorb suffering, you eliminate it.”

“Yes,” Cael said, though the word felt inadequate to describe the complex mix of curiosity and confusion that Damian's methods inspired in him. “I have been trying to understand your choices.”

“And what have you concluded?”

Cael hesitated, unsure how to articulate thoughts that challenged everything he thought he knew about existence. “I am beginning to think that there may be value in approaches I had not previously considered.”