Chapter Text
Scar peeked his head above the void near the cliffs district, before he beckoned Death to follow him up. Pearl had invited the two to the Lantern Lighting, an annual celebration involving… well, lanterns. It was a cliffs-only event, so Scar had never been, considering he was a member of the nether district. Both he and his god would be going in blind.
Speaking of gods… Death wasn’t following behind him. The reaper sighed and turned around with his hands on his hips. “Hey.”
A burble accompanied the pair of void-blackened eyes that peeked out of the darkness, looking almost sheepish, though he couldn’t really tell. A pause, “...Hi, Scar.”
“I noticed you weren’t coming up.”
The eyes crinkled a bit. “How astute an observation for you to make.”
Scar sighed, “Pearl invited you! We got that sweater specifically for this event, even. I know you don’t do the… best in crowds, but I’ll be with you, keeping you safe and all that.”
Something shifted in the god’s expression at that, but it quickly passed. “Alright, fine. But only if I’m holding your hand the entire time. I don’t want to lose you.”
“Deal,” the reaper said, holding out his hand to Death. The god took it to hoist himself out of the void.
His hand was cold.
Pearl met them at a side street they had agreed upon beforehand, and then they were in the crowds. Foreign smells filled Scar’s senses, various stands beckoning to them with bright lights and loud voices.
“Kebabs, fresh and ready to munch on!”
“Trinkets and baubles!”
“You, sir, you look like you’re interested in my latest product!”
“Free samples, right this way!”
Pearl gently steered the two away from the shiny stalls and further into the crowds. She laughed at the disappointment on their faces, “It’s not that I don’t trust you to be wise about your spending, it’s just that… I don’t trust you two to be wise. In general.”
“But Pearllllll…” Death groaned, trying his best to produce puppy-dog eyes. She just looked at the god, unimpressed.
“You wanted to light the lanterns, right? We have to go this way to do that!” she explained, giving Scar a pointed look. Ah.
So maybe the reaper had also agreed to go to the festival because he had heard the lantern lighting was especially romantic, and he kind of sort of liked his patron god. A bit.
His hand unconsciously tightened its hold on Death’s.
“Fine…” he relented, “Lead the way.”
Pearl grinned sharply and pushed her way through the crowds and stalls to come to a stop next to a more permanent shop nestled in between a bookstore and an apartment building. It had end crystals glowing ominously in the window, and more magical objects seemed to lay within the store’s depths as well. A sign had been posted by the door that cheerfully announced lanterns were for sale inside. The human twirled around to face the god and the reaper, hands held behind her back.
“Well?” she said, “Want to head in?”
Death shifted beside Scar before he moved forward, hand slipping out of the reaper’s grasp. “Pearl, going inside a magic shop is worse than being surrounded by stalls. We won’t make wiser financial decisions here than we would out there, considering magical items are usually overpriced either way.” His arms at crossed themselves, sweater sleeves burying his hands and arms in the soft material. Voidlike wings, smaller than usual, raised slightly in a questioning posture, as if they were shrugging.
Scar quirked his eyebrow at the god, “Is it really that big a difference in pricing?”
Death mumbled something unintelligible before he pushed past Pearl and walked inside the magic shop, sending the bell atop the door into a tinkling rhythm. The human laughed at the god’s dramatic exit, “Oh, I didn’t expect him to get so irritated with pricing , of all things!”
The reaper gave her a solemn look, “One must never underestimate a god… especially one such as Death, unpredictable and powerful in equal measure.”
“One must also never bring up the state of the economy in the presence of said unpredictable and powerful gods, lest they wish upon themselves a swift end,” Pearl responded in an equally grave manner before she burst out laughing. Scar joined her after a beat, and they entered the store arm-in-arm to be greeted with magical trinkets of every variety, size, shape, and color.
Death had gone off somewhere, presumably following whatever path his shiny-obsessed brain charted based on what he saw first. The god would most definitely get lost at least once and loop his own path multiple more times past that before he regained any semblance of coherent thinking past “shiny object must grab.”
That was fine. Scar needed time to find the perfect lantern, anyways. Upon entering the shop, he shut his eyes tight in the hopes that he wouldn’t get distracted, which worked surprisingly well; perhaps the real solution to his poor time management skills was closing his eyes. Pearl guided him to the lantern section of the store as per his request before she, too, disappeared into the gaping maw of its magical inventory.
When the reaper hesitantly opened one eye, he was greeted with an assortment of unlit lanterns all in various shapes, sizes, and patterns. Here was a tree, long and rectangular. Here was a midnight sky cut through a cylinder, short and stout. Here was a single flower reflected in a cubical lantern, all whorls and layers. For whatever reason, there were completely plain lanterns off to the right, no designs to be seen, no funky shapes to be remembered by. Slightly rectangular and nothing more, simple in a way most things wished to be but couldn’t achieve.
They captivated Scar.
He gingerly ran his finger along a papery membrane before he picked one up, testing the balance and weight. Though plain, they held some sort of childhood nostalgia that the designed ones didn’t, despite Scar never being to the lantern lighting festival. His mind made up, he shielded his vision on the way to the register to the best of his ability - the reaper wouldn’t waste any more money or time than what was needed. It wasn’t that expensive, all told, though he did end up buying a snack at the cash register on nothing but impulse.
Eventually, Death and Pearl escaped the shop, too, and they all headed down towards the cliffs where the lanterns would be lit. Just as they reached the edge of the cliff, Pearl stood stock-still before swiftly walking away with a, “I have to go to the bathroom!”
This left Scar alone with his patron god. All he had to do was not panic. Easy-peasy.
“Well,” Death said, “She sure left quick. Do you want to… light the lantern now? Or wait for her to come back?”
The reaper tried to shrug nonchalantly, “She knew the risks. Do you want to hold it, or should I?”
The god regarded him for a moment before he grabbed the kindling from Scar. He glanced at the brunette, “Don’t move around too much. I wouldn’t want to burn you.”
With that, Death moved impossibly closer to Scar to light the lantern. He could almost feel the cold of one of the god’s wings brushing against his leg and the freezing fingers that were catching a spark against the lantern’s wick.
Finally, it caught, and the sweatered man pulled back. “You can send it off now, Scar.”
The reaper let go, and the lantern caught the breeze before flying up into the night sky. He watched it go before he stole a glance at Death.
His black wings were relaxed, primary feathers brushing against the grass that rustled in the cliffside winds. The warm glow of the festival behind them reflected in his hair and filled his eyes with golden light as he watched their lantern float into the sky and become another star. Scar couldn’t understand how people were afraid of the god.
Though he was the incarnation of decay and destruction, Death would always be beautiful to him.