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The Reaper stood atop the fresh-cut cliff, dark rock ticking cool beneath her feet. Far below, the blackened plain stretched away into distant plumes of smoke. The slain phoenix's ashes were lost already on the breeze, their distinctive acrid scent – like the harshest, driest white wine – fading under more mundane odours of char.
That was the world, now, as it always was after the phoenix's final flight. Here, where she had finally fallen beneath the Reaper's scythe, no green thing remained unburnt. Elsewhere around the globe there would be scattered pockets that had escaped the firestorm of their duel, and new life would spread from them in time. Somewhere, too, would be the phoenix's egg, but the Reaper knew better than to go looking for it.
It had been, all told, a magnificent duel. Its script was written now across the face of the globe in the new mountain ranges thrown up by the Reaper's scythe. The lesser creatures, the transient mortals of the forests and coasts, had gazed in awe and terror at the blazing heavens until the flames had claimed them too. If the Reaper felt the underlying frustration of the inevitable rebirth, there was nevertheless also pride, the fierce joy of earned triumph and stinging exhaustion lingering in her blood like strong spirits.
Until next time, darling~~ The phoenix's last words rose unbidden in the Reaper's ears. Why did she always have to say something like that? Her accent changed every time – this time it had been full of vowels, more vowels than any syllable could rightly hold – and the words, the language, but it was always the same sentiment. Even with the full bloodied length of the scythe-blade through her chest and spine, she always found breath to say it.
The Reaper found her face tight, like she'd just bitten something sour. She bowed her head, feeling her gut crease as her shoulders deflated, and kicked a toe at the still-warm rock. Her boots were pitted and scarred, the hem of her cape and dress tattered. She, too, would need some remaking for the new age.
Why those words? Why, always, the haughty smile, the knowing eyes? Some secret lurked in the phoenix that the Reaper had never grasped. Something mortal, perhaps? What did death show to everyone but death herself?
The Reaper's head hung low, the point of her scythe now resting on the ground, her fingers limp on its shaft. She was two people in that moment, one a spirit of death with still-singing blood, the other… the other standing on a cliff above a blackened, lifeless plain, facing untold centuries before she would again see fire, or life, or violet eyes smirking with unreachable knowledge.
Eventually she moved again. The wretched bird would be back eventually. There were preparations to make. New languages to prepare to learn. When the phoenix spoke to her again, she had to be sure she understood.