“It’s just a test. A simple one. All the kids have to take it. It’ll help us teachers know how special you are so we can teach you how to be the best you can be.”

“I already know what I’m going good at.”

“Malgenia put that frog down and take this seriously.”

“Okay.”

“What? Why did you pick up a dead frog?”

“I didn’t.”

“Do not lie to me I see it there right in front of you!”

“I’m not lying. It wasn’t dead when I picked it up.”

“So it just happened to die in your hands? Did you squeeze it really hard?”

“No. I just touched it.”

“Frogs don’t just die from being touched.”

“Not when other people touch them.”

“You’re saying you can kill frogs with your touch.”

“No.”

“Then what are you saying?”

“I can kill anything.”

“You are not one of the Blessed of Death, Malgenia.”

“I know.”

“Death blessings are very special. Only very responsible people are given them. You can’t pretend to have something like that. People will be very upset.”

“I’m not pretending. I don’t need a Blessing.”

“Then how did you kill that frog.”

“I asked it to die.”

“What? Why?”

“Because that’s what makes me special. Do you want to see?”

– Death Touch Malgenia’s last conversation with her Elementary studies teacher.

When I was one her Deaths, I’d always thought Malgenia had a supremely subtle wit. So many of the things she said which were earth-shatteringly momentous to us would be couched in the most understated of quips. What I learned later, after she was gone, was that she hadn’t been subtle or witty, she simply didn’t care and couldn’t be bothered to engage with any of us as though we really mattered at all.

Don’t get me wrong. She was also delighted with us and she did cherish us. It was just that she cherished us not for who we were but rather the sort of things she would learn from our deaths. We were delicious and delectable presents she would get to open only once, and the more she knew us in life, the more fascinating she would find our passing. At least to a point.

Which had puzzled me from the moment I found that lurking in her memories. 

Malgenia was gone, saving her hadn’t been an option even if I’d been misguided enough to attempt it. What I had that remained of her were fragments and puzzle pieces, which was much the same state she’d left the gods in, except for the part where she was ultimately a mortal woman and finite in a manner the gods had never been.

Where a god like Diyas was still capable of thought and speech and personhood, what was left of Malgenia had lost all of those things. Her will, her vital force, her awareness, none of those were left in the pieces of her which haunted the dark corners of my mind. 

I could see bits of her past and could hear echoes of her thoughts, but there were questions she would never be able to answer. Questions like “why, after almost an entire world had died, was she still searching for new revelations in anyone’s deaths, much less the deaths of those who’d sworn their hearts and minds to her?”

In a sense that had been my greatest gift to her. She was at last beyond the veil she had always wished to peer though but which her position as a Neoteric Lord would have forever denied her. It was my curse upon her that what had passed beyond the veil could no longer understand the gift she’d been granted, nor why she’d striven to reach it for so long.

Someday I would see her again. I wasn’t immortal and I had no desire to become so. Would I forgive her then? I had no idea. I definitely wasn’t ready to yet, but I’d loved her once so clearly I was fool enough to do almost anything.

 “She’s spending a lot of time not doing what she came here to do. Do you think we should let her continue?” Inhibition asked.

“If she didn’t spend ninety percent of her time in her head, we would get lonely,” Beauty said, which wasn’t why I let myself get lost in my thoughts so much. It was just so much nicer to think about things than to actually do them.

This isn’t something you need to rush, Diyas whispered to me. If you’re not ready yet, then let yourself take the time you need.

I can’t, I said, speaking only to her. Vitor will start to suspect if I don’t choose a candidate soon.

Vitor thinks his sister is mad. Erratic behavior will provoke his annoyance, but not his suspicion. Diyas was right about that. I knew it. But I also knew I had to act sooner than later.

Why?

Why?

Because I am afraid to.

Communion is an act of faith. Sharing what is true about ourselves, even when that truth doesn’t do us credit. It’s a dangerous thing to have faith in other people. Malgenia proved that the communion we offer can be twisted against us to the most horrible of ends.

But with my god? For as willing as I am to push back on her, that communion, that honesty had to underlay everything else about our relationship.

Because I’m afraid to do this, I said. I’m afraid to become what she was, and I know if I let myself give into that fear, I’m going to collapse into a ball so tiny and dense that I’ll never be able to do anything but run away from all the things I saw her do. All the things I could do.

Pushing forward for yourself may be what you need, I ask only that you listen and give yourself the grace you give to me.

You’re a god.

And you are my Blessed. The Blessed of Healing. Accept that you need healing as much as anyone does.

Isn’t that a miracle you can just give me?

All healing is miraculous, but some takes longer, and some will only happen if you let it.

Someday, maybe in some other world, things will be that simple.

I didn’t say that Diyas. Arguing with one’s god was occasionally productive but I knew down into Malgenia’s bones that it would not be in this case.

“So are you going to tell her today?” Inhibition asked. She wasn’t referring to Diyas. She was talking about Death of Responsibility, whom I had been studiously avoiding staring at.

Sometimes Malgenia’s airy disconnection from reality was quite handy. Avoiding Responsibility though was something I could only do for so long.

“What would you wish be done with the illustration you are making of me,” I asked Death of Clarity.

What?

I couldn’t just walk up to Responsibility and drag her away. Malgenia always moved in languid circuitous circles around every idea and whim she had. At least when it was convenient for her, so who was I to pass up a similar convenience.

“It will not be worthy of you My Lady,” Clarity said, her eyes downcast and affixed on the sketch pad in front of her.

“It only matters that it be worthy of you,” I said, as though there was any doubt it would would be.

We’d studied historical artists a few years earlier. Our instructor had broken down the techniques of the great masters of the unfallen world and had shown us the masterpieces which Malgenia retained for her personal viewing pleasure. I’m not going to say that each and every one of them were talentless hacks by comparison to Clarity, but I would have flushed every one of their great works down a sewer drain before I would have given up one of Clarity’s hastiest sketches. 

“May my hands reflect as much of your glory as they can hold,” Clarity said, notably not answering my question, because we weren’t really meant to give direct answers to Malgenia when a show of deference and devotion could be made instead.

Had Malgenia ever gotten tired of that? I hadn’t seen memories to suggest either alternative but I had to imagine she had. I’d been listening to statements like that for less than a hundredth of the time she had and I was already sick of them.

“Be honest, you were sick of statements like that even before they were directed at you,” Reason said and I couldn’t argue with her, though I would have done so without reservation when I was living my own life.

“Your hands are a delight and a gift beyond measure,” I said. “They will never fail you.”

It was a very Malgenia sort of thing to say, which I dearly hoped would cover up the true ardor which lay behind the words.

“Show me the image when it is fully rendered,” I said. “You need not wait for me. This is your invitation.”

Meaning Clarity was free to seek me out whenever she felt she’d completed the piece she was working on. Which she wouldn’t do despite how much I wished she would. Malgenia’s presence was a dire aura to be held within. We all craved its touch but it was so intense, even spread among all her Deaths, that we couldn’t bear it for long. The prospect of facing it alone daunted almost all of us, and while Clarity was many wonderful things, a glory seeker was not one of them.

I rose from the seat I’d taken on one of the tree roots to pose for Clarity’s drawing and moved to inspect both the arboretum and the passions I’d commanded the Deaths to pursue.

Many of the Deaths were reading. Filling our heads with knowledge wasn’t a universal pursuit among the Deaths but was a predominant pastime for many of them. Of the remainder, most of the rest were engaged in various physical endeavors; complicated games of hunter and prey, distance running, wrestling, and the ever-popular magical duels. In truth most of the Deaths who were reading were studying topics which would enhance their arcane repertoires, but more than a few were ready for more practical tests of their capabilities.

Responsibility was not one of them though. She was part of the small group of Deaths who pursued their passion through meditation.

I’d asked Responsibility about that once, since I had never found meditation to do anything except leave me with nothing to quiet the storm of voices in my head (and that was before there had been literal other voices sharing the space with me). Her response had baffled me then and continued to baffle me.

“We don’t look for silence and stillness in meditation. We look for action and resolve and where peace ends.”

I tried punching her in the face a week after that while she was meditating and that had not been a brilliant idea. I mean, I got the hit in but just the one. It was a month an half before the last of the bruises faded away. Apparently helping her find where peace ended was not what she had been looking for.

Part of me was entertained by the idea of greeting her like that again, but the rest of me found the idea revolting. Hitting her when she was free to hit me back was one thing. Hitting her as Malgenia was so wrong it was nauseating.

So I did something even worse to her.

“Hello my Death, will you walk with me?” I asked her. She wasn’t mine of course, but Malgenia rarely addressed us by our given names.

“Me My Lady?” she asked, eyes snapping open and a flicker of abject surprise rippling across her face.

“Hmm, yes, I do believe so,” I said, as though I was tasting the idea to see if it remained palatable.

“Of course My Lady,” she said rising to her feet so quickly she nearly cracker her head on an overhanging branch. 

I began walking, leading us away from the other Deaths, much to their nervously repressed dismay. We were all terrified of Malgenia appearing but her departures were far worse. The absent sun leaving our lives to wallow in the darkness of her absence.

Responsibility kept up with me, walking two paces behind me as an unthinking show of deference. The arboretum wasn’t large, according to Malgenia’s definition of large, but we were still able to wind among it’s trees for a quarter of an hour before we came to one of the many fountain features where water summoned across the planes was piped in to sustain life on our dead world.

I spent a few minutes at the fountain, swirling my fingers across it’s surface lightly and tuning out the Deaths in my head before turning to Responsibility, who I’d left waiting pensively behind me.

“Oh. Yes, you. I believe you are ready.” It was the same speech Malgenia had given to me and I had the rest of it burned into my mind, ready to go with perfect inflection and timing, except for the unthinkable occurrence which transpired.

Responsibility interrupted me.

“I am so sorry My Lady,” she said, standing firm, and defiant, and completely terrified. “But I am not.”