Chapter Text
Death isn’t something Flame encounters every day. Being a fighter, you’d think he’d be used to it, but no. There’s death and then there’s Death.
death is normal, familiar, even soothing. death is pulsing potions in an arc above his head, bittersweet chunks of golden apple in his mouth, crimson blood against shimmering netherite. death is something Flame doles out aplenty daily; a black blindfold and sharp canine teeth glinting in a grin is the last thing his opponents see. It’s why the Grim Reaper has a blindfold wrapped around its eyes in the spawn-regions.
Death is utterly terrifying, debilitating; it wrecks Flame’s world, turns it inside-out, wrong into right. Death is-
the walls of an ice cave rising above him as he walks through, his footsteps echoing in the gloom - can’t see three feet in front of him. “Lomedy,” he begs to the ashy mist. “Lom?” His voice echoes and echoes, mocking him. He feels wrong, intensely out of place - blaze hybrid in one of the coldest places known to man. Life in a graveyard.
Fragger lights up in reaction to his agitation, the bright flames dancing in the corner of his vision. The light glows on the mist instead of penetrating it, turning it golden. For a moment, he thinks he sees Lomedy, spooked golden-gray eyes and still wearing his now-tattered favorite farm shirt. And Flame will sprint to him and hug him close and never, ever let him go and say “Shshshshhh, it’s okay, Lom.” But there’s nothing and nothing and just more sandy fog.
And he bumps into someone and he says, “Lomedy!” but then it’s Flowtives turning to him with cold killer’s eyes and he’s next to a grave and it says Lomedy and Flow places a wilted, faintly glimmering torchflower on the grave. It reminds Flame of a dead butterfly - the way the golden wings would shiver a little before finally going still. It reminds of Flame of lifeless golden eyes and a bloodstained yellow shirt. It’s this impossibly gentle gesture that breaks Flame, shatters him into a million pointy shards.
Death is-
netherite fully-stacked soldiers dropping like flies around him, their items flying into the sky like a macabre parody of the pinata Mane made for Flame’s eighth birthday. Dead bodies and loot alike becoming the candy.
“Lomedy. Lom, it’ll be fine. You hear me? It’s gonna be fine, just double hand - double hand totems. Okay?”
And there’s a terrible empty void where Lomedy’s cheerful voice should be; a gaping hole where swaying windchimes should be; a missing puzzle piece. It’s like a chunk of the universe has just cleanly fallen out and left Flame with a hole in his head to think around.
“Lomedy. Lomedy? Lomedy? Are you okay? Lomedy?”
No reply. He pulls out his communicator and starts scrolling, yellow leave messages and white death messages blending into dull honey, the color of the dead butterfly Lomedy found one spring day. Maybe Lomedy’s the dead butterfly, limbs splayed out at awkward angles somewhere on the ground below him, glazed golden eyes the color of the butterfly’s wings.
Death is Lomedy’s dull glassy eyes. Death is a lifeless butterfly on a lovingly handmade path.