'I think you might do something better with the time,' she said, 'than waste it in asking riddles that have no answers.' -- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Kilan was in love with Death. Varan was dead, Death may or may not be coming to take him to the Land of the Dead tonight, he was having a minor mental breakdown, and he was in love with Death.

He had promised Varan he wouldn't become the latest of their family's many madmen. He suspected he was breaking that promise. Someone who fell in love with the embodiment of Death could hardly be called sane.

Death didn't come that night. He didn't know if he wanted her to or not.

She didn't come the next night. Or the next. Or the next. For almost a year, he heard and saw nothing of her. And then, one night, there she was.

~~~~

Contrary to what certain inhabitants of her realm insinuated, Death was capable of feeling fondness for people. She was on relatively good terms with most of her husbands, viewed her Reapers with the sort of amused exasperation a mortal employer might feel for a well-meaning but rather incompetent employee, and enjoyed the never-ending drama various dead souls provided. Most of all, however, she was fond of her children. And of all her children, she liked Pestilence the most.

Even if his appearance and sartorial choices at any given time occasionally made her question his sanity.

Unlike his mother and most of his siblings, Pestilence did not have a "default" appearance. Instead, his appearance changed according to his whims. Sometimes it reflected the symptoms of whatever disease he was currently spreading. Sometimes it was simply whatever appealed to him at the moment. And sometimes it was so bizarre that she had to wonder if he had been staying with Insanity when he selected it.

"Are those branches growing out of your face?"

Right now, he looked like an old man with purple skin(!) and bright red hair(!!) -- and something very strongly resembling branches sprouting from beneath his eyes. Death had seen some truly outlandish sights over the millennia. Her son, it seemed, was trying to be numbered among the oddest.

"Of course not!" Pestilence looked offended at the very suggestion. "They're twigs. And they're not growing out of my face, they're extensions of my cheekbones."

Death closed her eyes and counted to a hundred. "Why?"

"Because I want to! I think it makes me look more intimidating."

Death gave up. There came a time when she had to admit her children were quite simply mad, and there was nothing she could do about it.

"Why are you here? If I remember correctly, there's supposed to be an outbreak of diphtheria on Earth."

Pestilence tried to wave a hand dismissively. This proved harder than it should have been, because his poison-green mantle was too heavy to allow easy gesturing. He had to settle for a motion half-way between a shrug and a wave.

"I heard rumours," he said instead of answering.

"Really. About what?" She could guess. If there were two things both mortals and immortals had in common, they were a fondness for gossip and an inability to mind their own business. Every time she so much as looked twice at a mortal man, a flock of little birds otherwise known as her Reapers carried the news to the other side of the universe before a day had passed on Tzadkl[1].

"You and some mortal again."

A surprising flash of irritation struck her at hearing Kilan referred to as "some mortal". Didn't Pestilence know that every mortal was unique, and Kilan even more so than most?

She got up from her throne and took her scythe from where it rested against the throne's back. "Walk with me."

~~~~

The Land of the Dead was a curious place even to Death. She added new spaces to it as more souls arrived, but the souls themselves shaped the areas they had chosen for "theirs" according to whatever fancy struck them. As a result, a desert could be right next to a rainforest, and a land of eternal spring next to a land of eternal winter. Depending on the imaginations of the inhabitants, in one area water might flow uphill, while in another there might be cats playing chess.

Death was endlessly amused by her subjects' creativity. Pestilence was rather less so.

"Mother," he said quietly, gazing open-mouthed at a flower bed almost as colourful as he himself was, "do those flowers have faces?"

"Of course we have faces," one of the flowers said huffily. "How could we see if we didn't?"

Pestilence blinked. "Talking flowers? Mother, what have you done to this place?"

"I did nothing," Death said calmly. She had long since stopped being surprised at the odder features of her kingdom. "The souls do it all."

Her son looked at the flower bed again and shook his head. "Anyway, about this mortal--"

"His name's Kilan," she interrupted.

He raised an eyebrow. He must have learnt that trick from War, and it was just as irritating on him as it was on her. "From that name, I guess he's a Caranilnav. Another one! That family keeps us almost as busy as those... what were they called again? The ones from Earth who poisoned everyone in sight?"

"Borgias," Death supplied helpfully.

"Yes, them. Only the Caranilnavs won't go away. They're worse than my plagues!"

"Everything ends someday," Death said with the certainty that came from being the end of all things. "Even the Caranilnavs."

Pestilence shrugged as if to say that was all right, then. "Why this one? What's so special about him?"

Death thought of a hug, and a boy willing to bargain with her and long for her when he thought she wasn't there, and the dawning light in his eyes when he looked at her in the temple. "Nothing you would understand. Now, don't you have diseases to spread?"

~~~~

When Death came to Kilan, he didn't greet her with a hug, or with any hint of joy at all. He looked at her as if he was utterly miserable and she was the cause of his misery. She paused and tried to remember how long it had been for him since they last met. Existing outside time as she did, she could not at first remember how long ago the funeral had been. Was he still mourning Varan? No, it had been almost a year; surely he would have recovered from now.

She looked at him again, puzzled. He looked back almost defiantly. Then she understood.

Death was no stranger to desire. She had collected the souls of more mortals than she cared to remember when they were engaged in... certain activities. There was a misconception among certain mortals that War took the most lives. This was nonsense. Love and its associated horrors were responsible for more than half of the souls she gathered. She had even felt desire frequently enough herself, as the sheer number of her husbands proved. Therefore, she knew quite well the meaning of the look Kilan had given her in the temple.

It was slightly alarming, however, that he had the same look in his eyes now, at the same time as he was glaring at her as if... well, as if she'd killed his sister.

Oh dear. Why were Caranilnavs so complicated?

"Well?" Kilan asked, still scowling. "Did you come here just to stare at me?"

She pulled herself out of her thoughts. "I thought you might wish to see your sister."

"Why didn't you think that a year ago?" Kilan muttered. In that moment he looked more like a sulky child than a man of almost nineteen.

Oh dear, Death thought as she held out her hand. This isn't going well at all.

~~~~

Marin had said once that he didn't understand Kilan. Kilan could sympathise. He didn't understand himself. He had spent months longing to see Death again. Now she was here, and he felt annoyed instead of happy to see her. To make matters worse, his heart and stomach seemed to be tying themselves in knots or trying to switch places.

When he took her hand, his heartbeat sped up until it was pounding in his ears at the feel of her skin beneath his fingers. He wanted to pull her closer to him, he wanted to hold her and never let go, he wanted... he didn't know what he wanted!

When they arrived in the Land of the Dead, he let go of her hand as if it was red-hot metal and took a step away. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her look at him quizzically.

"I will never understand mortals," Death said as if musing aloud. "You desire me, and yet you shun me. Why? Surely you understand that in taking Varan I was merely doing my duty."

Kilan's eyes widened. His words tumbled out so quickly they got tangled up with each other. "You know? But-- how do you-- This has nothing to do with Varan!"

"Of course I know. You've hardly made an attempt to hide your feelings." Death looked distinctly aggrieved. "And if this isn't about her, than what?"

Kilan tried to put his thoughts into words. All that came to mind was, "You're Death!"

She blinked slowly, as if trying to puzzle out his meaning. "What has that to do with it?"

"What has--" He broke off and took a deep breath. The air in the Land of the Dead, though breathable, was cold and stale with an undercurrent of something like decay. "I am alive. You are the embodiment of Death. Quite frankly, loving you is uncomfortably like necrophilia, and that's without the creepiness of the age difference and everything else. I don't even know you that well!"

Death was silent for a moment. "So, if I understand you correctly, you are in denial about your feelings because of who I am?"

"Yes!" He almost added that there were no feelings, that this was all a momentary lapse into the madness that had so plagued his family, but that would not only be a lie, it would prove her point.

"I see." She relapsed into silence. At last she looked up and held out her hand. "I will have to think about this. But in the meantime, I will take you to Varan."

~~~~

Mortals as a rule were rarely dull. No two were ever exactly the same. They were often despicable, always incomprehensible, and frequently amusing, but rarely dull. There was a difference, however, between merely not being dull and being truly intriguing, worthy of further attention. Kilan was one of the latter class.

There was, unfortunately, a fine line between intriguing and infuriating. In the past hour, Death had become more closely acquainted with that line than she ever wanted to.

Varan was helping Ranoryin build a replica of some town or other -- Death hadn't paid much attention to their explanation, being rather preoccupied with the sudden influx of souls after a tsunami on Ngmerri. Right now they'd called a halt in the middle of a half-built hall and were having tea with Kilan. Since she had nothing better to do and no crises demanding her attention, Death had turned a windowsill into a settee and was half-dozing, waiting for the time to return Kilan to the Land of the Living.

Curiously, despite paying no attention to their conversation, she was hyper-aware of the glances Kilan kept shooting her way. She couldn't tell what he was thinking from those looks, which was most baffling of all. Living mortals were always perplexing at this age, she remembered now.

She was distracted from her thoughts by the telepathic equivalent of someone taking a battering ram to a door. She stifled a sigh. That could only be War. Her children all had different ways of announcing their presence -- Pestilence would wait politely on the borders of her realm until she told him to come in, Insanity wouldn't remember to announce she was there at all, Famine would -- metaphorically -- knock once and push his way in, and so on -- but only War arrived as if attacking an enemy fortress.

Her daughter was waiting for her in the throne room, pacing around as if offended that Death was not already there.

Unlike Pestilence's garish, ever-changing forms, War always looked the same: a tall woman with dark red hair, wearing a suit of armour stained with dried blood and with a veritable armoury of weaponry about her. Death occasionally wondered if War let her "clothing" and accessories remain covered with blood simply to prevent them blinding anyone unlucky enough to look right at her.

"Hello, Mother!" War boomed, as if Death was at the other end of a noisy battlefield instead of standing less than a foot away in an otherwise-empty room. "You won't believe the rumours I've heard!"

If it weren't beneath her dignity, Death would have face-palmed.

~~~~

Kilan's latest problems began with an announcement Særnor made over dinner.

"Arásy," he said to his wife, looking at Kilan, "it's time that boy got married." Kilan choked on his spoonful of soup. "Marin is married, and so was Varan." Særnor's face briefly clouded over, as it did every time he thought of Varan. "Now we should find a wife for Kilan."

"I don't want to get married!" Kilan exclaimed before he could stop himself. "I--" He broke off there. What more could he say? I'm in love with the embodiment of Death? That would only make everyone think he was mad.

His parents looked at him as if he had grown a second head.

"You must!" Arásy said. "You know you must. I've been thinking about it since you turned eighteen, and I think the Duchess of Odgeiros would make a suitable wife. She comes from a family that is rich, well-connected, and--" She smiled wryly, "--not too closely related to us. I believe you've already met her."

Kilan dimly remembered meeting the Duchess at Marin's wedding earlier that year. The only thing he remembered clearly about her was the tiara encrusted with rubies she had worn. It had shone like a beacon through the entire ceremony except when the sun had been behind a cloud. A woman with such gaudy tastes was not a woman he wanted to marry, he thought. But then, even if the Duchess had been a perfectly sensible woman, he would still not want to marry her. She was not Death.

Yet, why shouldn't he marry? If he intended to wait until he died in the hope he could marry Death... well, he would probably have a very lonely life, to say nothing of the gossip that would spring up about him. And even if he waited, did he really want to be just another of Death's many husbands?

"I suppose she'll do," he said with no great enthusiasm.

And that was that.

~~~~

Zjurkyu, the year 2529

Storm clouds gathered over the empire. In the capital, the Empress was preparing to assassinate her husband. But in Zjurkyu, life went on as normal. And in the Grand Duchess's household, everyone was preparing for Kilan's wedding -- even though he had yet to met his future wife face-to-face.

It took very little time for news from the Land of the Living to reach the Land of the Dead. The ink on the engagement agreement was hardly dry before Death had heard of what was planned.

Her first reaction was fury. How dare Kilan choose some mere mortal when they both knew he wanted her? Her second was a wry sort of amusement. This was what she got, she supposed, for leaving Kilan to sort his thoughts and feelings out on his own. Now she had this mess to deal with.

She hadn't intended to visit Kilan tonight, but in light of recent revelations she changed her plans.

~~~~

"The Duchess of Odgeiros is involved in smuggling."

Kilan almost jumped out of his skin. When his pulse returned to normal and he was sure he wouldn't drop dead of a heart attack, he gave Death the most frigid glare he could manage.

"What are you talking about?"

"I just told you." Despite being the one to show up uninvited and announce her presence with a non sequitur, Death had the audacity to look at him as if he was incredibly stupid. "The woman you intend to marry is a criminal."

The sensible thing to do would be to stay calm and ask for evidence. Kilan was not feeling very sensible right now. Without consulting his brain, he blurted out, "And the woman I want to marry is a murderess!"

An uncomfortable silence fell. Death's face went through a series of complex expressions before settling on something oddly similar to jealousy. "Who? Where is she?"

"Right in front of me," Kilan said miserably.

It was Death's turn to gape at him. Then she grinned. "Oh, I see. Well, then, I have a solution. Marry me, and forget about that mortal."

A treacherous part of Kilan's mind performed a victory dance at these words. The saner part was immediately suspicious.

"Why should I marry you? Do you expect me to believe you love me?"

"Love you? Of course not. But what has that to do with it? Do you think that half the people who get married are in love with their spouses? And of the ones who do think they're in love, how long is it before they grow tired of the husband or the wife they once thought was the centre of their universe? No, I do not love you. But you want me, and you are interesting enough for me to want you--" Kilan felt mildly insulted by that statement, but dismissed it as there were more important things to worry about, "--so I see no reason why we shouldn't get married."

"Here's three, just off the top of my head," Kilan retorted. "One: you're the embodiment of Death and I'm a mortal. That would render the whole "till Death do us part" vow null and void. Two: if I went around saying I was married to Death, I'd be in the nearest asylum before I knew where I was. Three: I don't want to die yet."

"No one said anything about dying." Death looked mildly puzzled by the mere suggestion.

"How could I be married to you without dying?"

"Easily. We simply exchange vows, or whatever your people currently require for a couple to be considered married, then you stay in this world and I stay in mine except when I bring you to my world, and you can spend the entire time talking to your great-aunt's husband's second cousin's grandson's dog if you want to. Though of course we would have to consummate our marriage at least once or it wouldn't be a true marriage."

Kilan made a noise that suggested he was about to choke. "C-Consummate?"

"You do know what that means, don't you?"

"Of course I know! But you-- I-- we couldn't-- That would be just--" Many words came to mind. Gross seemed the most fitting, but it sounded rather childish. Disturbing was too mild. He considered using perverted, twisted, or sick, before finally settling on, "--wrong!"

Death raised an eyebrow. "Despite what you seem to think, I myself am not dead, and so sex with me would be no different to sex with a mortal woman."

Kilan's face turned bright red. This was not a conversation he wanted to have, especially not late at night, when he was tired, his head hurt, and Death's presence was worryingly distracting.

"I am not marrying you. That is final."

She shrugged as if to say it was of no consequence. "If you insist."

Chapter Footnotes:

[1] Tzadkl = A planet which orbits its sun at a very high speed; one day on it lasts less than half a minute on Earth.