Archive of Our Own

Humans cannot see Death.

Death can choose to show herself, of course, can choose to walk the world in a semblance of normalcy, to speak with people whom her gift will not touch for years to come. But in the moment when she confers that gift, no one can see her but the recipient.

Or.

That is how it is meant to work.

“Knew you’d show up,” says Hob Gadling, leaning against a fence post with his injured comrade’s head resting in his lap. “Only a matter of time.”

Death stares at him. At his torn tunic and battered leather armor, sword discarded in the mud. At the other young man he is holding, pierced through by a spear, minutes from death. The one she is here for, the only one who should be able to see her, once he passes.

And Death… does not quite know what to do about this. Mortals should not be able to see her, not when she is not explicitly allowing it. They should not be able to see her working.

“So, what?” challenges Hob. Spits it, really. “You going to take him now, Death?”

And the thing is.

Nobody ever addresses Death directly like that.

Everyone knows who she is, of course, when their moment comes. But this is not Hob’s time, and still he addresses her like she’s just a particularly disliked tavern guest, rather than the cosmic force that she is.

“We’ve met,” he says, before she can guess. “You took my little sister. Been fifteen years now, but I don’t forget.”

Neither does Death, she knows all of her charges, stretching back across time. “Cecily,” she says. She pictures the tiny girl, looking up at her with wide eyes as she stepped away from her plague-ridden body. She remembers, too, the older boy, there at his sister’s side with no fear of illness nor anything else.

“Didn’t say anything, then,” Hob says, still looking at her with that anger, that disdain. “But I’m saying something now.”

“You saw me then?”

He nods. “Angel of Death. I knew what you were. Couldn’t be sure you wouldn’t take me, too, if I said so.”

Death sits beside him in the mud, curiosity getting the better of her. “You no longer fear this?”

Hob shakes his head. He’s wounded, she can see that now, a dark gash stretching up over his collarbone and making his breathing hitch with each movement. It’s not fatal, though, and he doesn’t let up his grip on his friend. “I’m not afraid of you. Strike me down for it, if you dare.”

“I do not act out of vindictiveness, Hob. It is not your time.”

“But it’s his?” he challenges.

Death nods.

“Why? And, yes, I bloody well know he’s got a spear through his chest, alright, but why does it have to end like that? Why can’t we just… continue on?”

“It’s the way of things,” Death says.

“Ah, yes, the you’ll understand when you’re older answer, I’ve got that one enough times from my mum, thanks,” Hob replies, bitter and harsh. “I’ve seen men die, I’ve killed men, I’m plenty old enough and I think I deserve a better answer.”

“There is no better answer, Hob,” Death says. They don’t have much time here; her charge’s pulse is slowing, and soon she will devote her energy to him, and leave this place.

But she can’t help but feel… it’s not quite a sympathy, for Hob. Death feels sympathy for everyone she encounters in her work, whether they are the ones losing or the ones lost. It is… more like admiration. For his daring to carve at the veil between this life and the next like it means nothing at all.

“Life goes in cycles,” Death tells him. “Nothing in this universe can be permanent. It is because of death that we have space for birth, for growth. The world must not remain stagnant. And there must be consequence: cause and effect, beginning and ending.”

When she finishes speaking, Hob is, of all things, smiling at her. His bitterness seems to have faded. “That’s a damn good answer,” he says.

Death studies him, and can’t help her fondness at what she finds. “You disagree with me, though.”

“Yup,” says Hob, cheery about it.

“Disagreeing with Death about death?” she asks, and his smile only widens.

“If I’m to be so bold as to defy you then I may as well disagree with you as well. What makes you the only authority on the matter, anyway?”

Death should be offended. She really should. She should feel disrespected. But all she really wants is to laugh, congratulate Hob on his astronomical self-confidence on this matter, and maybe buy him a pint of ale.

“Time will be our answer,” she says, and stands, for time has also run out.

Hob can’t see the soul of his friend, only Death herself, which is probably for the better. As she gathers the young man up, Hob watches her. He doesn’t try to stop her. The deep-seated rancor he’d held seems to have eased a bit.

“Where are you going, then?” he asks.

“You know I can’t tell you that,” Death says, and Hob grins. “But your friend will have a guiding hand along the way.”

He seems satisfied by this. “Just so you know,” he says as she turns to go, “whenever my time is, you aren’t going to get away with this so easily. I’ll fight you if I have to.”

Death can’t help her smile. Somehow, she doesn’t doubt it. “Then for my sake, I hope that day does not come for many, many years, Hob Gadling.”

His charmed grin is the last thing she sees before she takes off.

“I do not understand the point of this exercise,” says Dream, trailing behind her like a shadow that’s decided to have a personality of its own and become disgruntled.

“Humor me,” Death says, pausing to take his arm. “I think I can be allowed to drag you out of the house at least once a century.”

Dream grumbles, but lets her pull him along.

“Our purpose is to serve living things,” Death continues, stepping through the door of the inn. “That means you have to know living things.”

“I can serve from afar,” says Dream, just as taciturn as before. But he doesn’t disappear in a flash of sand, so Death counts it as a win.

“Well, if this all goes horribly and I ruin your life you can just make a new nightmare about the perils of social interaction, okay?”

Dream nods, a gleam in his eyes, and Death has a feeling that might be happening either way.

They make their way further into the room, collecting drinks from a passing barmaid. The inn is full of its usual types of patrons. Death spends most of her time around humanity, around living things more generally, although she doesn’t often interact socially. Mostly, she works, and observes as she does.

But it’s important – and this is something Dream doesn’t seem to understand – to take a few moments off from work to understand why you’re working in the first place. Perhaps something in this outing will serve as a reminder.

She scans the crowd, and—

Oh. Oh, she recognizes one of those faces. What a funny coincidence.

Across the tavern, Hob Gadling catches her eye. Recognition sparks there. He grins.

“You know,” he drawls, loud enough for her to hear, looking around at his mates, “everybody’s dying nowadays. They just go, like it’s inevitable. Well, not me. I’m not going to die.”

He’s directly antagonizing her, but Death can’t help her fond smile. This man.

Dream looks in his direction, pure disdain on his face. “Deluded and disrespectful,” he mutters. “Humans are always craving more life. Would that they but tasted true immortality, they would soon swallow their words.”

Death looks between him and Hob. She’s only spoken to Hob once, but she hadn’t gotten the sense that he was being flippant about not wanting to die. And he is… he’s interesting. Death is curious how he might take the prospect of having his wish granted.

“Do you want to find out?” she asks Dream.

Dream is still looking at Hob. “You would withhold your gift?”

“Why not? Can always give it to him later if he changes his mind.”

“He may be driven mad,” Dream observes, in the same tone he might say, it is raining outside.

“Might,” Death agrees, and doesn’t say that she thinks Hob might be quite mad already. “Might not.”

“Very well, then. Let us experiment.” And he strides over to Hob’s table, presumably to inform him of his new circumstances.

Hob is fixated on Dream as he speaks but his gaze turns back to Death once Dream turns away, curiosity and wonder in it. Bit of suspicion, too.

Death tips her head, beckoning him, and he follows her out the back of the tavern. He leans against the wall, arms crossed, casual as anything.

“Just to be sure,” he asks, “you aren’t here for me, are you?”

Death shakes her head. “No, this is just a social call. I didn’t know you were here, actually. Happenstance.”

“Well, good.” Some tension she hadn’t realized was there eases from him. “I’d hate to have to fight. I think I’ve decided I rather like you.”

“Oh, you’ve decided that?” she says, charmed despite herself, and he nods, smiling.

“Never thought I’d say that about Death, but here we are.”

“I think I’ve decided I rather like you, too, Hob Gadling,” Death says, and he smiles, soft and easy. He really is quite charismatic, but it’s not intentional or forced. He’s just full of life, and it shows.

“Good,” says Hob. “Speaking of which – did that weird pretty one belong to you?”

Death laughs at this description of Dream. “In a sense. He’s my brother.”

“Ah. See, if I picked you out of a crowd, I’d have thought he was Death. So that makes sense.”

“He gets that a lot.”

“So, was that—” Hob rubs at his neck, thinking. “Was that… challenge, or whatever it was, was that serious? Or just jesting?”

“Serious,” says Death, and all at once he looks hopeful. “If you wish to take it on.”

“If? Death is standing before me, offering eternal life, and you say if? Come on, now.”

“I thought you’d say that. Bragging about besting me, and all.”

“Eh, what are some jabs between friends,” he says, then looks a little guilty, like he might have stepped too far.

Friends. Hob had called them friends. Death does not have a lot of friends, it doesn’t really come with the profession. She finds she likes the sound of it.

“Friends, then,” she agrees, and he smiles. His smiles are so sunny. “One caveat, Hob – you can end this game at any time. I will not withhold my gift from someone who asks. Call me, and I will come.”

Hob scoffs. “No offense, but I ain’t tapping out. Even if we are friends now.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” She truly is. Hob is… something else. It cheers her, to think that he won’t simply leave in fifty years’ time.

His gaze slants back to the doorway of the tavern, thoughtful. “So, about your mysterious brother… do you mind if I…?”

It takes Death a moment to realize he’s asking if he can proposition Dream. She laughs so hard she has to lean against the wall. “Oh, Hob, you are welcome to try.”

He grins, a rakish thing she can’t wait to see Dream’s reaction to. “Who is the brother of Death, anyway?”

Death shakes her head. “You’ll have to get his name out of him. If you can manage it.”

“Challenge accepted.” He salutes her, backing away towards the tavern door. “Until next time, my friend.”

Friend, Death thinks. How charming is that?

She watches as Hob leans against the wall in the tavern, chatting up Dream with all the boldness with which he’d first confronted Death. Dream looks deeply shellshocked, which for him manifests more as a tight stoicism. Hob doesn’t seem put off by it. Of course he doesn’t. That man…

Eventually, it seems that Dream rebuffs his advances, which, again, doesn’t seem to faze Hob much even as he retreats. Death doesn’t need Dream’s powers to tell what he’s thinking. I’ll see you in 1489 and try again.

For all his silence and stoicism, Dream’s gaze lingers on him as he walks away.

Maybe this little game will benefit someone other than just Hob, too.

Death runs into Hob a few times after that. He’s still a soldier, after all, and no stranger to death. She sees him less once he transitions into a quieter field, which is good for him, she thinks, but sad for her. His company is always cheering.

Immortality seems to suit Hob. Death had been more confident in him than Dream, but even she had been unsure how long he’d fare, if he would tire. Human life is hardly easy, after all. But it’s been a century now, and he seems happier than ever.

She drops in on him shortly after his 1489 meeting with Dream, curious how it went. She knows he still wants to live, so she’s really more curious how he fared with Dream than anything. She’ll get no detail from her brother.

He hands her a glass of ale when she appears in his house, which is… it’s both amusing and touching to receive hospitality. Death is not usually… wanted.

“I have to say,” he says, “it’s kind of nice to see you not standing over a bloodied corpse.”

Death sips her ale. “Are you saying you want more social calls?”

“If you like. It’s what friends do, isn’t it?” He sits down, gesturing her to follow. “Though I’m sure the work of Death never ceases.”

“No, but I can make room. Your company is enjoyable.”

He smiles. “See, you are so much more personable than your brother. It’s fascinating.”

This does not sound like a criticism of Dream at all. Oh, boy. This is just getting more and more interesting.

“I came to ask you about that,” she says. “Indulging my curiosity and my rights as an elder sister to be meddlesome. How did it go?”

“Work in progress. Still didn’t get a name,” says Hob. “But I’ve got time, haven’t I?”

“You really don’t give up, do you?”

“He hasn’t told me to give up. So no, I don’t.” That rakish grin again. God. “Besides. I—” Here he falters, tugging at his ear, embarrassed, perhaps. “I… like him. Damn me to hell, but I do.”

This man. She hopes Dream knows what he’s gotten himself into.

“I can’t read his mind,” she says. “But I’ll just say that if he didn’t like you, you would know it.”

He smiles and touches his lips, lost in thought.

“I will say this, though, Hob,” Death adds. “My brother can be… stubborn. And slow in allowing things. I wouldn’t want you to deny yourself happiness in this life on his account. You have no shortage of time.”

He opens his mouth as if to immediately rebut this, but reconsiders. “I will… keep that in mind.”

Hob sips his own ale, quiet for a moment, then shakes himself out of whatever thoughts he’d gotten caught in. “So, how do you fare, Death?”

Death is… thrown. “How do I fare?”

“Aye. Well, death is… death, I suppose, and Lord knows there is always much of it,” says Hob, watching her with a curiosity and compassion that Death can’t recall being directed at her, not in recent centuries, anyway. “But, clearly you are a person, too. So, how do you fare?”

“…As expected, I suppose,” she says. It’s not something she considers much.

“Hopefully what’s expected is well,” Hob says, frowning at her. “Can Death – Death the person, I suppose – even take a holiday?”

Death chuckles. She is not really a person, but she understands what Hob means. “In my personified aspect, yes, occasionally.”

“That’s good.”

He seems a bit troubled, so Death adds, “Deaths do not weigh on me the same way they do humans, Hob. It is simply my function. I do not like to see suffering, but guiding souls through death is what I do.”

“Yes, it makes sense you’d have rather a different perspective on it,” he agrees, in better humor again. “Still. There are so many fascinating things in life to see, eh? Even Death should get to experience some of it.”

“Perhaps I’ll accompany you on an outing someday, then,” she says, and he grins.

“I would like that.”

Concern over her well-being, anthropomorphic personification of death and all. How about that?

Hob invites her to his wedding, and what a thing that is. Death is not usually wanted at weddings, though she has, in a sense, crashed them. But at Hob’s, she is meant as a guest, and it’s… unexpectedly touching.

She doesn’t stay long, just for the end of the ceremony. Her presence tends to disconcert people, and she doesn’t want to upset the atmosphere. But she watches the vows, watches Hob beam at his new wife.

He’d taken her advice, in the end, and married a mortal woman – at least for this lifetime. Death is glad of it. She knows he still holds a candle in his heart for Dream, probably always will – but that’s okay, he contains multitudes, is what she’d been trying to make him understand. It does not have to be one or the other.

And who knows. Maybe this’ll be a wake-up call for Dream to get his act together.

Or not. She does know her brother.

She finds Hob in a side hallway, right after the ceremony, and congratulates him.

“Wasn’t certain you’d come,” he tells her, casting her a smile. “I know Death and weddings probably don’t mix.”

“Ideally, not,” she agrees. “But I was touched by the invitation. I cannot stay for long. I am… very happy for you, Hob.”

“Me too.” There’s a shadow deep in his eyes, though, she sees it. The shadow of a man who knows he will outlive his family. Her shadow.

She only hopes it doesn’t prevent him from enjoying this while it lasts. Knowing Hob, it won’t, he will enjoy and enjoy and enjoy – and burn at the end if he has to. He doesn’t do life by halves.

She wonders if he’ll ask. For her leniency, for his wife, for any future children there might be. He doesn’t, though he must have thought it.

Even for a friend, Death’s answer would have been the same. Hob may not understand why, but then, it is not for him to understand why. That is Death’s responsibility to carry.

Or maybe he does understand, for he doesn’t ask.

“Remember something, for me,” she says, and he nods, looking at her curiously. “Not for now, but for later.”

Now his expression is shadowed, but still, he nods again.

“There is no fairness in lifespan,” Death says. “But there is fairness in death. No matter what, I am always there for those who pass on. I do not pass judgments. There is always a kind hand at the end. Do you understand?”

He tips his head in acknowledgment. “Thank you.”

“I would never, ever tell you not to grieve, but you need not fear,” she adds.

“I believe you,” he says. “And… can I ask you a favor?”

She stills, but he adds, “Not… that. I already know that… you can’t.”

“Go on,” Death says.

“Will you fetch me? When the time comes. If I’m not already there. So I can say goodbye.”

This is… not something she can make an unequivocal promise on. It depends on the circumstances of those deaths, how they are written. But…

“I will try.”

Maybe sometimes, she can.

He smiles, pained, but grateful. “Thank you.”

Death will always regret that she didn’t see Hob again, not even for a brief social call, before his wife passed. Ten years was nothing for immortals. She’d expected it to be longer. She’d hoped it to be longer.

There is no need to fetch him; Hob is already sitting by his wife’s bedside. Midwives are flitting about, but it is already past the point of their being able to help. Perhaps in a few hundred years’ time, there would have been more to be done.

Hob seems to know it, too. He looks utterly exhausted, methodically wiping sweat from Eleanor’s brow. Death had expected him to rage until the end, would not have even been surprised if he’d tried to hit her, but all the fight seems to have gone out of him.

“Death,” he says quietly, as she steps up to Eleanor’s bedside. “Knew you’d show up. Only a matter of time.”

“I am sorry, Hob.” She sits beside him in an empty chair. She does not offer any platitudes like, they didn’t deserve this. Death is not about deserving.

“Me too.” He tips forward and rests his head on Eleanor’s still arm, breath gusting out of him in a heavy whoosh. “I knew,” he murmurs, “when I… but I didn’t know.”

“There was nothing you could have known,” Death says. “And you’ve done all you can. You have loved them. They will carry that forward.”

“There is a forward, then?” he asks.

“There is a forward,” Death says, though she can’t offer any more details. There aren’t details, really, not any that are set in stone across all of humanity.

“Okay.” It’s awful to hear him so dispirited. Death really wishes he would just yell at her, but instead he just turns his head and offers her a pained, teary smile. Then picks up Eleanor’s hand and kisses her knuckles. “Okay,” he says again.

Eleanor goes with her first. Even for Death, who has been part of every possible way there is to leave this plane, death during childbirth is particularly affecting. The cycle of life breaking midway through.

Still, she is used to it. She takes Eleanor’s hand and pulls her up.

Eleanor looks around the room. Blinks, seems to come back to herself. She takes in her still body lying in the bed, and Hob slumped over her.

She does not seem surprised, though her expression creases in pain, and Death reflects that no mothers, no women, are strangers to this tragedy, or the fear of it. “I had hoped I wouldn’t,” Eleanor says quietly, looking down at herself. “I had hoped… it was easy for me, last time.”

“I’m sorry, darling,” Death says, and Hob’s head snaps up at the sound of her voice. Eleanor looks at him. Hob looks back at her, though he can’t actually see her. He just knows she’s there because he can see Death, can hear her speaking.

“You must be his mysterious angel,” says Eleanor, looking from Death to Hob and back. Even in the face of death, she has a calm and mature way about her. An old soul. She can see why Hob, so out of sync with humanity in his own unnatural age, would have been drawn to her.

Death wonders if it’s Dream Hob has spoken of, or her, or both in some meddled combination. Is Eleanor the only one he’s told of his immortality? It would make sense. She’s glad he’s had at least one person he could be honest with.

“Patron of his greatest challenge,” Death says, “yes.”

“Always spoke of it as a gift, despite everything,” Eleanor says. “Not sure I could handle it myself. Though I would have liked… more.”

“I know,” Death says softly.

“Can he see me?” Eleanor asks, and Death shakes her head.

“Only me.”

Before Eleanor can find any more words, Hob says, “Can I…?”

Death… kind of isn’t supposed to do this. But she relents with a tip of her head.

“I won’t keep you,” Hob says, eyes fixed on where Eleanor is standing. “I know by now that that’s… that it’s not good. To keep you. So I’ll just say…” he scrubs a hand through his hair, letting out a jagged breath. “I trust my friend Death, here, to take care of you. Take care of you both. So it’s gonna be okay.”

Death’s voice gets caught in her throat, so much that she can’t immediately relay Eleanor’s response. When Hob’s brow pinches, she finally manages to say, “She says she knows you’ll take care of Robyn.”

Hob nods. “I will. I love you.”

“I love you,” says Eleanor, and by extension, Death.

“My baby…” Eleanor says, looking again at her body on the bed. “Is she coming with us?”

She sounds torn about it, and Death understands. No mother wants her baby to die, but no mother wants to be parted from her baby, either.

“She is, I’m afraid,” Death says. Normally, she takes souls separately, but she supposes she can make an exception. They have passed together, they can stay together. “Would you like to hold her?”

Eleanor nods, lower lip pinched between her teeth.

The baby is still in her womb. They will be buried together, forever entangled. She feels for Hob, again, that he will never get to hold her.

Death lifts her out. The baby is quiet, but her little eyes are wide, looking around at them. She’s small, not quite ready to be born, and now never will be.

Death hands her to Eleanor.

Eleanor cradles her close, looking down at her with a smile in her eyes, despite everything. “Hi, little one. We’re going on a little adventure. Not the one I wanted for you, but at least we’ll be together, hm?”

God. Hob really does know how to pick a person to love.

He’s looking in the approximate vicinity of where Eleanor is holding the baby. He must have realized Death had picked her up. “Is she beautiful?” he asks.

What baby isn’t? For it is not physical beauty that Hob speaks of.

“Yes,” says Eleanor. If she were still corporeal, she would be crying. “So beautiful.”

“Yes,” Death repeats, so he can hear. “So beautiful.”

And Hob smiles, despite everything.

And that’s all they really have time for. Souls cannot stay on this plane for long, once their bodies have died.

Death takes Eleanor’s hand. Eleanor nods at her and, with a last, longing look at Hob, who’s looking back, they are off.

Once she’s done her duty by them, Death goes back to do her duty by Hob. It’s not something she does. Her duty is to the dying, not the living. But they are, despite everything, friends.

He’s still sitting where she left him, holding Eleanor’s limp hand once again. Death sits beside him. He doesn’t look up.

“Wasn’t sure you’d be back,” he says.

“We are friends,” Death says, though it sounds incredibly hollow, considering everything that’s just transpired.

“We are,” he says, faintly. Then, “I don’t know how to— how to handle this, Death. The world is cruel, don’t I know it, but this is beyond…”

He trails off, and he is crying properly now, tears streaming down his face, though he doesn’t wipe them away.

“So many babies die,” he says. “Mothers, too, I—” he runs a hand through greasy, disheveled hair. “Do you think it will be better in the future? Because I haven’t seen that much improved. Not in my time.”

“I imagine so, yes,” Death says. Dream would be able to answer this question for him better. Dream would be able to tell him what doctors might be imagining solutions to the problem, what midwives were dreaming of new ways to care for their charges. Hope for the future is Dream’s business, whether he accepts it or not.

She wishes Dream were here. She has a strong feeling Hob would find even his stoic pretense at apathy comforting. Caring for others is strange like that.

Though it’s likely this is not a scene that Dream could handle, now or maybe ever.

“Let’s hope so,” Hob says, and presses his forehead into Eleanor’s arm again. “God, let’s hope so.”

It feels wrong to hug him, when she is, in some inevitable way, responsible for his suffering. But she does it anyway. She wraps her arms around him, stays with him while he cries. She’s never seen him this broken, but he does not ask her to take him, too. And that is something.

She supposes there is still Robyn. She cannot possibly imagine Hob giving up on his immortality while he has his son to take care of.

Whatever point in the future she has to take his son, too… she hopes it doesn’t break him permanently.

Robyn’s death, too, is sooner than Death had anticipated. So soon.

And she cannot bring Hob to him, this time. He dies too quickly, almost immediately after a blow to the head, for Hob to be able to say goodbye. Should she bring him any earlier, he would, of course, interfere, and that is not how Destiny’s book is written.

In some ways she is glad of it, that he does not have to witness the blood splattered on the floor, the heavy weight of shock in the air, the sightless gaze of his child. Though she knows Hob is no stranger to these things.

She helps Robyn through his terror. She does not tell him that she knows his father. It will only confuse and frighten him further. Instead, she just offers a gentle hand, as she does to all her charges, and escorts him away.

Afterwards, she does what she never does.

She goes to deliver the news of a death.

Hob’s home is warm and bright when she arrives, the fire in the hearth chasing away the grim night. Death feels like a wind come to blow it out. Like adultery come to a marriage. Like locusts come to a harvest.

Some friend is she.

“Oh, Death!” says Hob, cheerfully, as she walks through the door. “Welcome. I wasn’t expecting you. Not that I ever really am, I suppose, but—”

He sees her face, and his cheer fades, replaced by sympathy and worry.

“What happened?”

And Death realizes that she— that she’s crying. No matter that she does feel compassion, and sorrow for them, she never cries for her charges. And she is not crying for Robyn now, she realizes.

She’s crying for Hob.

Her friend. Her only friend, outside family, if she’s being honest. Her friend who she keeps hurting, over and over, simply by dint of her function.

Death sees unimaginable suffering every second of every day but somehow this is her breaking point.

Tears spill freely down her face, and Hob steps over to her, laying a hand on her shoulder. He doesn’t know this is about him, she realizes. He doesn’t suspect. He thinks it is simply she who is suffering.

Death can’t manage to speak, to tell him the truth.

And then Hob fucking hugs her, and it’s the worst possible thing she can imagine.

“Stop,” she says, when she can finally find her voice. “Stop, Hob.”

He pulls away, still holding onto her arms, brow furrowed. “What is it? What’s happened?”

Death had never thought that she, herself, Death, would be finding a moment of death difficult. But here she is. Not wanting to say it. Not wanting to admit the consequences of her own function.

“Robyn,” she says.

Hob understands instantly. He startles back from her, dropping her arms. “No, he’s— no, you’re lying to me.”

Death does not lie.

“No,” Hob repeats. “He’s so— he’s so young, not him, too, not him.”

There are no tears, yet. Just shock and denial. Death hates herself for bringing this to him.

“I am sorry, Hob,” she says.

He lets out a shivering breath, clenching and unclenching his hands at his sides. “He just— he just went out with his mates, I don’t understand—?”

“A fight,” Death says. “An accident.”

It happens as easily as that, sometimes.

“How is that possible?” Hob says numbly. And then, even quieter, “You didn’t come get me. You said you would come get me.”

“There wasn’t time,” Death admits. “And… you would have interfered.”

He looks back up at her, eyes blazing. “Damn right I would have interfered! He’s my son!”

“Exactly,” Death says, quiet as the dust motes falling around them. “It is not my place to facilitate that. It was his time.”

“His time,” Hob echoes faintly. “Are you saying you just know when everyone’s going to die? No changing it?”

“It is written in the book of Destiny,” Death tells him.

“Oh, it’s written? So what, it’s set in stone from birth to death?”

“No. The book can change.”

“Great. That clears it up.”

“It’s not for mortals to understand, Hob,” Death says, but this doesn’t help at all.

Hob scoffs. “Oh, I’m sure. It’s not for mortals to understand, just be subject to. Of course. The whims of fate. Of course.”

“Yes,” says Death, because, well, yes.

“No,” says Hob. “Fuck that.” He looks furious, now, and Death supposes she should have expected that. And if he needs to take his anger out on someone, millions of people are already angry with Death every day. And millions more will be tomorrow.

But Hob doesn’t rant and rage at her. Instead, his expression turns cold, and he stalks to the door, leaving the house and slamming the door behind him. Going after Robyn, she assumes.

She doesn’t follow him.

She does stand in the warmth of his living room for a long, long moment, looking into the fire. Feeling as she blows it out.

Death has been wondering, for some time now, if Hob might call her. Hob’s will to live is immense, but so much loss in such quick succession is a lot for any man to take. So she had wondered, off and on.

Still, it’s a surprise when he does.

She goes to him, of course, as she promised. And as she does she realizes that this is not quite Hob calling to her – there’s a part of him that’s in screaming pain that is, instinctually, but a deeper part of him, the part that’s truly Hob, is pushing back. Fascinating and troubling.

She finds him crumpled on a riverbank, chest heaving, coughing and spluttering. His hands are bound. He’s drenched and shivering. Death’s heart clenches in sympathy.

“Hob,” she calls.

He startles, flinching away from her, then eases when he sees who she is. The exact opposite response to what anyone else would have. “Death,” he greets, teeth chattering, “not the best time for tea, I’m afraid.”

She crouches beside him. “You called me.”

His eyes widen. “Shit, did I? I mean, I did pass out for… a while… but I didn’t mean—”

“I did sense conflict in it,” Death agrees. “You must have been in great pain.”

“That’s one way to put it.” His chest is still heaving. “Help me up?”

She pulls him upright and lets him lean against her. He keeps shivering. “What happened, Hob?”

“Complacency.” He spits the word, she thinks at himself. “Persecution. Let myself get mired in… oh, I don’t even know. And this is the result. Witches. Can you believe such a thing?”

There are many things that Death can believe, she has seen it all. “The world can be very cruel, I’m sorry you’ve been so at the brunt of it, recently.”

“Yeah,” he says, squeezing his eyes shut. “I was mean to you, last time we spoke. Sorry about that.”

Death has been leaving him alone since Robyn passed. She hadn’t thought Hob would want to see her, and she thinks that for a while, she had probably been right. “It was a very hard time,” she says.

“Yeah,” he says, again. “Deep down, I know it’s not your fault. But.”

“But,” she echoes.

“You get blamed a lot, I bet,” Hob says. “For a lot of things.”

“That is how it is,” Death says. “Humans interact with me, with my function, as they can. As they need to.”

“I suppose so,” Hob says. “Seems a shame, though.”

“It is my function to serve them, not theirs to serve me,” she says.

“I suppose,” Hob says again. “I have been… learning, quite recently. Quite viscerally. What men are willing to do in service of what they think lies beyond you. You’re aware you have several rather terrifying cults?”

Despite herself, Death chuckles. “Is that how you would describe it?”

“After being chucked in a river by one, yeah, pretty much.”

“Then I apologize on their behalf,” Death says, and Hob laughs.

“I suppose I should properly ask,” she continues, “considering you called me here. Do you wish to die, Hob Gadling?”

“That’s your brother’s line,” he teases, and she’s cheered by it. There’s something still shadowed, still haunted about him, probably will be for some time. But she knows his answer before he says it. “No, I don’t. Could do with a friend, though, if you have the time.”

“I can make time,” Death says.

She could not help Hob when his family died. But she can help him, just a little bit, now.

“Come on,” she says, “let’s get up.”

Many, many years later, when they’re having lunch together, a more normal situation, a better situation, Hob says, “Maybe I can come with you while you work, sometime.”

Death stares at him, struck speechless. “Come to work with me?”

“Yeah.” He shrugs. “Can’t help, obviously, but could keep you company. You always work alone, don’t you?”

“Yes.” She frowns. “Hob—”

“I won’t interfere,” Hob says. “I promise.”

It would, Death thinks, not be… unwanted, to have someone with her, every once in a while.

“I am willing to… try it,” she says, slowly, and he grins. “So long as you keep a bit of distance. Death is a… delicate time.”

“Promise,” Hob says, making a crossing motion over his heart.

Hob does, indeed, come along with her some time. He wanders with her as she goes from appointment to appointment, hanging back in touchier, more private moments, so as not to confuse the dying, staying closer in more public times but blending into the crowd. And in between, he lets her speak, lets her talk about her work, and its challenges, and its importance.

Death does not often speak about her work with anyone. On the occasion that she might, they often assume they know everything about it already. Who does not know about death?

In truth, nobody knows about death. Not truly. Even Death herself, endless and infinite and powerful in her domain, occasionally finds herself surprised.

Once, she knows, Hob had had a disdain for death. She doesn’t think he feels that way anymore. Oh, he still wants to avoid it. But there is a respect between them, long cultivated despite tragedy after tragedy. Respect for her station, her office, and the necessity of it. Just as Death respects his passion for avoiding it.

“Your work is very lonely,” he observes, as they reach his doorway again. Death will continue on into the night, but Hob is only human and cannot accompany her forever. “Even though you see people all day long.”

He is not wrong. Death spends most of her time by herself. She speaks to many people, many creatures, offers comfort at the end, but these are not reciprocal relationships.

“Part of my job,” she says, “is… to hold loneliness. Death is a very lonely time. A frightening time. Walking off into the dark by oneself. My job is to carry it for them, just for a moment.”

Loneliness, solitude… they live in her, deep in her bones.

“Brave,” Hob says, which is absurd because death is not frightening to her. She is Death.

“It is my function,” she says.

He takes her hand, presses it between both of his own. Looks at her with those soulful, lively eyes of his.

“Don’t be lonely all the time, Death,” he says, and she takes that, and holds it. Like a gift she can’t quite find the point of. And then they part.

“Where is Dream?” Hob demands, the moment she steps foot in his house.

Death… hadn’t even been aware he’d gotten a name out of her brother after all this time. She hasn’t spoken to Hob for a few decades now, too occupied with the escalating and escalating and escalating deaths.

She hasn’t spoken to Dream either, partly due to his own taciturn nature, partly due to… obvious reasons.

And then Hob had summoned her by mentally chanting something like hey Death come and off me or some such thing, and, well, when one gets a summons like that, one goes. She had promised Hob, after all, even if she suspected this was not a genuine request.

Indeed, he does not seem to want to die, though he is visibly distressed. “Where is he?” he repeats, when she doesn’t answer immediately. “You must know, at least.”

“What makes you think he’s anywhere in particular?” she hedges. If only she could tell him, but she can’t help unless Dream asks – and he won’t.

“That answer means you know,” says Hob, stepping closer, eyes narrowed. “Where is he, Death? I know he— you both— don’t operate on normal human timescales, but this is too much even for him.”

“Maybe he’s just ignoring you, Hob,” Death says, snappy in her own uselessness. Goddammit, Dream. “You know how he is.”

“He’s not ignoring me,” Hob says firmly. “Not for five years.”

Death stares at him, flabbergasted. “You only meet once a century!”

“Not anymore.” He rubs his forehead, suddenly exhausted. “God, but you’ve missed a lot.”

“I’ve been a little busy cleaning up Europe,” says Death, tight.

“Fine.” Hob grits his teeth. “Don’t help, then. Just tell me what you know, and I’ll help.”

Death nearly groans in frustration. Of course she wants to help Dream, of course she doesn’t like to see him suffering. But it’s not like he’s in existential peril, and five years is nothing for them, they are Endless.

If Dream asks for help, then she’ll help. Of course she will.

Hob keeps looking at her, annoyed. Then desperation starts to seep into it. Death doesn’t know exactly what they are now, what’s shifted since she last spoke to either of them – and she doubts Hob wants to be interrogated about it right now.

But perhaps…

Death is not allowed to interfere with Dream’s affairs. But… maybe she’s allowed to interfere with Hob’s. Just a bit. And Hob has clearly made Dream a part of his affairs.

She strides over to Hob’s desk and finds a spare sheet of paper, scribbling a note. She feels clandestine and ridiculous doing it, and wonders how offering such simple aid could have come to this.

Hob watches her, not interrupting. She hands him the note.

There are rules that prevent my involvement.
Find Roderick Burgess.
Do not speak of this.

He reads it, then looks back at her, evidently confused, but he just nods. A spark of hope in his eyes.

Three weeks later, Death feels it when Dream is freed.

Six weeks later, Hob tracks her down in a hospital to yell at her.

Death, in her personified aspect, is not present at all deaths, but her essence is. Hob’s strategy of striding into a ward and yelling, “Death! I know you’re in here!” manages to be pretty effective at summoning her actual aspect, if only so she can prevent him from being committed.

“What happened to the quieter communication?” she hisses, dragging him down a side hall.

“I got kind of sick of pretending I was going to kill myself,” says Hob – unnaturally humorless, for him. He pulls his arm away and turns to her, expression thunderous. “How could you have just left him there?”

“He did not ask for my help, Hob,” Death says, trying to be the calm one but rapidly feeling anything but.

“And that means he should be left there? For years?”

“We may be Endless, but we are not limitless.” She supposes he knows what Dream is, by now. If not, now he does. “There are rules governing our existence, just as faced by any other being.”

“Rules,” Hob repeats, flat. She’s never seen him look at her like that. She took his dead child from him, held her when he could not, and she’s never seen him look at her like that, like she’s utterly incomprehensible and vaguely disgusting. “He’s your brother.”

“It is precisely because he is my brother that there are rules.”

Hob laughs, high and unpleasant. “You think I wouldn’t have walked straight into any hell to save Cecily when she was sick? You think rules would have stopped me?”

You can make those claims because you are human, Hob, Death thinks. Do you know what chaos would fall upon the world if I did the same?

Humans always seem to think she is all-powerful. When really, what defines Death is her utter lack of agency. She serves living creatures by walking them through their final days. She does not change those days. She does not change anything.

“I can’t believe you,” Hob says, and then he’s pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes, pushing back tears. “God. Years. How much longer could it have been if—” he cuts himself off, as if in unconscious deference to her request not to speak of this.

“Come.” She guides him to sit down, and sits beside him. “I know you care for Dream, and I’m glad. And… I suppose he now must have admitted that he cares for you, though I can’t imagine that was easy to get out of him.”

Hob laughs, teary. “Like yanking teeth.”

Death squeezes his hand. “But what you need to understand is that we, Dream and I, we are concepts, entities, beings, I suppose. But we are not people.”

“Yes,” Hob says, serious again, looking into her eyes with that deep concern of his that makes her feel cared for more than she should be. He takes her hand between both of his own. “Yes, you are.”

Death starts to interject, but Hob shakes his head, cutting her off.

“I know you’re not human. But you are people. Can’t you see it?”

Death frowns, and Hob continues, more and more serious—

“Dream has feelings, even if he pretends he doesn’t feel anything other than haughty superiority. You have feelings.” He taps her heart with a fingertip. “Why can’t it be both? Why can’t entities be people, too?”

“Perhaps you should have been a philosopher, Hob,” Death says, and Hob chuckles as if this is funny when she’d… meant it rather unkindly, actually.

“That’s such a Dream trick,” he says. “Swerve around the personal like that. See? That’s such a siblings thing, to mimic each other like that. That’s a person thing, Death.”

“I see you’re going to be unswayable as usual,” she says, rather than address the way Hob’s words have… pushed on something in her heart. Something she doesn’t want to touch lest it bruise.

Hob laughs. “Oh, no, you know me, I’m very swayable, just not on the matter of whether my friend and my love are people.”

Love. By the Creator, she really has missed a lot.

And no wonder he looked like he wanted to deck her when he got to the hospital.

“I will consider your take on the matter,” she says, and Hob laughs again, lighter by the minute.

“Is that what Dream said, too?” she guesses, and he nods.

“It’s all a work in progress,” Hob says. “But I’m determined to win.”

“You always are,” Death agrees, smiling fondly. “You are the most determined person I’ve seen in… a very long time, at least.”

“What a compliment.” He seems genuinely touched.

“You will need it for Dream,” she says and he laughs.

“Don’t I know it. Bloody impossible creature.” He tugs on his hair, shaking his head. “Fuck I adore him.”

Dream is very good at shaking people off, both intentionally and unintentionally, but somehow Death thinks Hob will not be shaken off. “Good,” she says. “Take care of him. If he’ll let you.”

He looks at her, and she knows what he’s thinking. How she hadn’t rescued Dream when he needed it. Hob doesn’t understand how much worse things could have gone if she had, without his permission, but maybe he doesn’t need to. He’ll help Dream, she knows, and there are no restrictions on him doing so.

“I will,” he says.

“You’re going to have to go through me this time,” Hob says.

He is standing between her and her charge. Her charge who she had never wanted to take, who she had hoped never to take. Who she had somehow known, deep down where she didn’t want to investigate it, she would inevitably have to take.

He is standing between her and Dream.

“I’m serious, Death,” Hob continues. Rain soaks his clothes, flattens his hair, streams over his face, obscuring any tears that might have fallen. There’s something truly dark in his expression, grief and anger, terror sharpened into desperation. “I don’t like to spill the blood of friends, especially not a friend I care so deeply about. But I will fight you.”

“I don’t want to be here, Hob,” Death says quietly. “You know that.”

“Then don’t.”

“It doesn’t work that way.”

“Why not?” Hob demands, angry, furious now. Death is furious with herself, too, for what she has to do. “We keep arguing about this. I have never gotten a satisfactory answer. Isn’t it your power we’re talking about?”

“I don’t control the universe!” Death snaps. “I cannot just bend things to my will! I am not God.”

“He’s your brother,” Hob whispers. He scrubs a hand over his face, futilely wiping away the rain. His hand is shaking. “He’s— he’s the love of my life— please— you have already taken everyone else, just allow me this one— please.”

That is not fair. That is so not fair, but Death doesn’t say so. Hob has been kind, gracious, a friend to her, for six hundred years, she won’t hold one moment of unfairness and cruelty against him. Not when it’s about this.

Her best friend. Her only friend. And her little brother.

For the first time in a long, long time, Death wishes she could take her power and carve it out of her chest.

“You did it for me,” Hob pleads. “For no proper reason other than a— a bet, a game. Can’t you do it for him?”

“There are greater forces than me at work here,” she says. Rainwater drips down her nose. She can see Dream behind him, sitting on the edge of the cliff, a crumpled raven of a thing, and she wants to go to him, not as Death, but as his older sister. But as always, her presence inspires only grief and tragedy.

Hob’s jaw clenches, painfully hard. “Fine. A fight it is, then.”

“You can’t fight Death, Hob.”

Hob laughs once, sharp, with none of the humor of the first time he’d declared he’d defy her. “Watch me.”

He has learned, these past years, to manipulate some of the Dreaming’s power, some of Dream’s power. He turns to look at Dream, a look that’s wistful and loving, finality in it. And when he turns back, there’s a gleaming sword made of dreamstuff in his hands.

A sword. A sword.

Death recalls that young soldier she’d found on a battlefield, so long ago. The only one out of millions who could always see her. She remembers the boldness, the challenge, she remembers the bravery, the foolhardiness, and she remembers the charm, the good humor in the end, despite it all.

None of that remains here. His stance, his grip, is that of a practiced swordsman just stepped off the fields of Agincourt, but the look in his eyes is weathered, knowing, battered. There is no boldness, there is no bravery, there is only feral desperation.

At long last, she and Dream have learned what immortality does to a man. It is not the insanity or suicidality that Dream had predicted, nor the tiredness that Death had thought might eventually fall. But it is this:

A lack of pretense. A narrowing of stakes. A blaze of unimaginable grief. And a heart that is willing to carve itself open for what truly matters.

Just as he was that day so long ago, Hob is still willing to fight to the last breath.

It’s just not his own breath that he’s fighting for.

Water streams down the blade of the sword. Hob meets her eyes, and there is so much pain in them, and she cannot help but feel that she put it there, even if this, as so many things, as most things, really, is outside of her control.

Her own heart pounds and aches, too. Dream, Dream, Dream.

“Gather up a weapon, if we’re doing this,” Hob says, tears now mixed with the rainwater on his cheeks. “I won’t fight an unarmed man, Death.”

Death considers letting him strike her down. It would not kill her. It would barely even hurt. But it might offer some catharsis.

But, then again, what kind of catharsis is hurting a friend?

“No,” she says, “I won’t fight you, Hob.”

She takes a step forward, and Hob levels the point of the blade at her neck. His arm is shaking, but she knows, somehow, that if he truly strikes her, it will land powerfully and true.

“Don’t,” he says.

“I’m sorry,” says Death. I’m so sorry.

She takes another step, and now the sharp point of Hob’s dream-sword is pressing into the hollow of her throat.

Death’s job, her function, can be challenging. It can be a burden. But never has she felt like she was in the wrong. It is the way of things, it is life.

She feels in the wrong, right now.

Perhaps she wants Hob to strike her down. Perhaps that would be catharsis for her.

But then… he wavers, a thought occurring, the point of his sword lowering.

“Let me take him,” he says.

“Take… him?” Death repeats.

“Dream can take souls to the Dreaming, right?” Oh, God, he’s determined now, he’s got his mind set. “So why can’t I? Take one to the Waking?”

“Because you’re human, Hob,” says Death, as if that’s ever stopped him from doing anything before.

“So?”

So. So, indeed. Hob is so painfully human that sometimes it spills past the borders of what constitutes humanity and into something else entirely. Something more than human.

Could—

Could a man who’d walked so long beside Death, beside Dream, really be considered human any longer?

“Let me take him,” he pleads, increasingly hopeful at her hesitance.

“He won’t be Dream anymore,” she warns.

Hob shakes his head. “He’ll always be Dream in the way that matters to me.”

Hob is going to be the death of her. But he’s practically glowing now, gleaming with hope, and she thinks he just might be able to do it, might be able to claim a soul despite being human – more or less.

She sags, but it’s mostly relief, a release of infinite tension. Honestly, Death will take any out she’s offered, here, no matter how unlikely.

“Take care of him,” she says.

Tears spill anew over his cheeks, but they’re tears of joy, of relief now. The sword vanishes from his hand, back into sand. He turns and runs, back over to Dream at the edge of the cliff, and Death watches them, then follows at a quieter pace.

She doesn’t know how to breathe. She doesn’t know how to handle this. This tragedy being heaped upon her shoulders, this grief.

When she reaches them, Hob is gathering Dream against his chest. “Hob,” Dream murmurs, numb, letting Hob maneuver him with a discomfiting level of sedation, “I do believe I have an appointment with my sister.”

“No, you don’t.” Hob presses his face into Dream’s sopping wet hair. “You don’t. I’m going to take you home, okay? I promise.”

“You should not make promises that will break your heart,” says Dream. He wraps an arm around Hob’s back, hand clutching in his shirt.

Hob chokes out a laugh. “Promises don’t break my heart. You break my heart, you bloody idiot. Every damn day you break my heart. I love you so much.”

Dream makes a soft sound against his chest.

Death kneels beside them on the wet grass. “Dream.”

He looks up at her, resigned. “My sister.”

Death has no idea how they ever let things get this far. It’s a great failing, but one she has no idea how she could have corrected.

Maybe she can correct it now.

“Go with Hob,” she says, and Dream’s brow furrows in confusion. “It’s okay.”

“I do not… understand.”

“Just this once,” Death says. Gentle, so gentle with him, right now. “Trust us and listen, okay? Let us handle it.”

“I do,” says Dream. “Trust you. Both.”

“Good.” Death takes his face between her hands, leans in and kisses his forehead. “Go be at ease, Dream.”

He is understandably still confused, but leans into her touch.

When she pulls away, Hob meets her gaze and nods, offering her a wavering, relieved smile. At once, it’s like everything is fine between them, again. Like everything is forgiven. This man.

“Go,” she tells him, and then they’re gone. The Dreaming shakes in Dream’s absence, then settles again. Of course he already made accommodations, fucking idiot, Death hates him so much.

She loves him so much.

She sits in the grass for a long while, by herself. The rain has stopped, but water puddles around her. Her hands are shaking.

She presses them into the grass. The preternaturally green grass of the Dreaming, soft as animal fur, even sodden as it is. The unnaturally dark sky, stormier than should be possible, roiling with it.

The Dreaming, she thinks, is like ball lightning. So bright, so blinding, so electric and beautiful, that it hides the fact that it’s about to fizzle out.

She doesn’t know what she should have done. She doesn’t know what she could have done. As she so often has, recently, she feels powerless, caught in Destiny’s web.

She is Death. She facilitates the end. She shepherds souls to the great beyond, to the final light, to Heaven, to Hell, to Asphodel, to reincarnation, she mans the boat, she does not change its direction, she does not change, she does not change, she does not change.

If this is the result, the impotence of that… then she understands, for this moment, why Dream had so wanted to be free of it.

She wishes she could have saved him. But it is not for her, for Death, to save. It is not for her to heal, not truly. It is not for her, she only knows death.

But Hob. Hob knows life.

So maybe he can.

It’s months later when she finally finds the fortitude to see Hob again. She’s seen Dream once or twice, checking in from afar, but with Hob… for all that there seemed to be forgiveness in the end, she couldn’t say for sure if it was true, or if Hob’s feelings would come crashing back down later. She couldn’t help but feel that she’d failed all of them.

Eventually, she finds him on the roof of the New Inn, where they’d taken to watching the sun rise and set these past few years. Neither of them fears falling, after all.

“Death,” Hob greets her, when she appears beside him. He smiles over at her. “I’ve missed you.”

Death could honestly sob. Would have, if this had been a few months ago. She’s regained some of her composure, since then. “I’ve missed you, too, Hob. I wasn’t sure you would want to see me.”

“I wasn’t sure you would want to see me,” says Hob. “I’m sorry for, well.” He cringes. “Threatening you with a sword.”

Death surprises herself by laughing. “Definitely a low point of our friendship,” she says, and he smiles, put at ease. “But when I think about it, there’s no one I’d rather have around my brother than someone who’s willing to duel Death herself.”

He chuckles, but sobers quickly. “I said cruel things to you, things you didn’t deserve. I’m sorry.”

“If there is one thing I’ve seen in my time,” says Death, “it is that grief makes desperate monsters of us. You were forgiven as soon as you said it. And I hope you can forgive me.”

“Dream explained to me a bit, about the Old Laws and such,” Hob says, twisting his hands together. “So… I get more how it could have gone really badly. For both of you.”

“How is he?” She knows the shape of it. But not the detail.

Hob’s mouth presses into a line. “…Managing. I think. We’re managing.”

“Do you regret it?” Death asks, though she thinks she knows the answer.

“Dream has caused me more heartache than any person I’ve ever known.” He’s looking out at the sunrise again. “Which is to say, no, I’ve never regretted a second of it. I definitely don’t regret whatever the fuck I did to get to keep him, which I still don’t understand. I’m not really human anymore, am I? You couldn’t have possibly let me take a soul if I was. Even if it was your brother’s.”

All that lingering anxiety spilling out in a rush of words. Fear, she thinks, that Dream will still be taken from him, which hopefully she can assuage.

“You are, and aren’t,” says Death.

“That clears it up.”

Death laughs, and Hob chuckles, too, and it’s amazing, how easily they’ve slipped back into friendship after that horrendous fight, after Hob had threatened her so violently on Dream’s behalf. She supposes there is something to be said for six hundred years of foundation.

“What am I, then? If you even know.”

“Sort of like a patron saint, I think.”

“A saint?” Hob echoes. “Wow. Never been called that before.”

“A protector,” Death clarifies.

“Of what?”

Death lets the rising sun caress her face. She sinks into this moment of ease with a friend, the only one she has. “Life.”

Hob opens his mouth to speak, then closes it again. Struck silent, for once. But then a small, pleased smile finds its way to his face.

“Are we going to have a dramatic falling out now?” he asks.

“Life and Death are not enemies, Hob.”

He muses on this. “Hmm. They are what, then?” He looks at her out of the corner of his eye, and there’s a hint of that wild boldness back in him, the young man who’d seized immortality with his bare hands. “Friends?”

“I believe so,” she smiles. “Yes. Two sides of the same coin. Hand in hand in the darkness.”

“Hand in hand,” he echoes, and takes her hand. The warmth of his palm is grounding. “I suppose you’re right. What would life even be without death, anyway? Or death without life. And so on and so on.”

“Now you’ve got it,” says Death.

“Still not going to let you win, though,” he says, swinging their hands between them. “Can’t let the game end.”

“No, I’d hope not,” says Death, smiling, because he is… oh, this man. “I rather like having you around.”

“I like being around,” Hob says.

But then he goes quiet, thinking, and she can sense his thoughts drifting downstairs. Drifting down to Dream.

“Life,” Hob says, quiet. “Living. That’s what I’m supposed to do, to protect?” He swallows hard, and his next words come out choked. “Then why did I fail him so—”

Death lays a hand on his back as he stares sightlessly out at the horizon. “You didn’t fail him, Hob.”

“I did, I must have, or else why didn’t he want—?” He shakes himself. “Some saint am I.”

“You saved him,” Death says. “I could not have.”

“I don’t want him to need saving,” Hob says.

“Neither do I.” She contemplates the sunrise with him. “Life is easy for you. To want, I mean. You know what I mean. It is your purpose. And death is easy for me.” She sighs, squeezing his hand where they’re still intertwined. “Neither is easy for Dream.”

“I know,” Hob says. “Oh, I know. But I don’t know how I’m supposed to— how I’m supposed to fix it, I don’t feel like I have any powers, or—”

“He doesn’t need you to be a saint, Hob,” Death says. “Maybe he needed one in that moment. That one moment. Now I think he just needs… an example. And… someone who’ll love him even when he gets it wrong. Because he doesn’t have that. He never has.”

“He will now,” says Hob, determined again. That unstoppable young soldier she’d met, way back when. “Do you even know how long I’ve loved him? Almost as long as I’ve loved life.”

“And that has been a long and fierce love,” Death says, smiling to think of it. Her friend who continues to defy her, and her every expectation and belief, and stays by her side nevertheless. Who walks with her, even and especially when it gets dark.

“Yes,” Hob says, offering her a remembering smile. “It has.”