Chapter Text
Name, Anne Nova. Height, 5’8. Age, 22. Family, none. Lover, none. Date of birth, April 10th 1996. Date of death, August 17th, 2004. Soul collected…false.
Anne Nova should have died years ago, yet she did not. She should’ve died when she was 8, but judging by this file… she was still very much alive.
Casper was the new reaper assigned to this impossible case, and staring at the file connected to it made him frown. He had been a reaper for a few years, not as long as others, but long enough to establish himself as formidable. Thus, to him, it made sense that he’d be the next poor sod to be given this task. Many reapers had been bested by it, had passed it on to the next and next ones. Casper decided he’d take the threat of losing his life seriously, and scope out the competition.
In other words, he was going to scout out this Anne Nova. He located her home, the same house she’d been raised in, which was the farmhouse of a horse ranch. Once upon a time, the ranch was lively and filled with the laughter and love of a loving family, but when Casper arrived, glamoured to look like a raven, it was silent.
Casper was confused—why was it this silent? If he didn’t know any better, he’d have assumed the tenant dead. But the tenant wasn’t dead—she was just not home.
The farm was uphill, and the front of the house faced a lonely road. There was a mailbox by the front porch, and a big pine tree in front of it. It was quite picturesque, and not a bad place to wait for a target. Casper didn’t have to wait very long, either. After a while, two people’s voices could be heard in the distance.
“You’re throwing your life away!” said a rougher, female voice. “This is the third time this month already! Next time I’ll probably find you already dead—probably of alcohol poisoning!”
That was promising. Maybe nature was still shooting it’s shot! Or maybe she was suicidal.
“Ayla, please,” a lighter, more tired, voice groaned. “What do you even care? It doesn’t effect you.”
“You’re dumber than I thought if you think I don’t care what happens to you, Anne.”
With that, they rounded the corner, and Casper caught a glimpse of her. Objectively speaking, she was impossible to over look. Her aura waned and waxed, shifted and was iridescent, a non-solid. Ayla made this fact even more obvious, due to how solid her own aura was.
Even so, and without the oversized leather jacket, decked out in chains and pins, thick combat boots, fishnet tights and the very form-fitting red slip dress, Anne would be hard to ignore. She had brown skin, scattered with patches of white—vitiligo, Casper realized. She had dyed her short curls bleach blonde, but her auburn roots were still visible. Her makeup—black eyeliner and eyeshadow, red lips—was smudged and messy, and there was an extreme exhaustion about her.
“Well, you shouldn’t,” Anne hissed, brown eyes narrowing as she frowned. “I bring nothing but death and violence. You should be running for the hills.” Casper nodded—that was an accurate assessment.
Ayla, in her sleek black jeans and blouse, glared. “Is that really what you want? To kill yourself over losing that narcissist of a man—”
She turned to glare at Ayla, “You don’t get to tell me how to cope with my grief.”
“Anne, this isn’t grief, it’s madness —”
“Then let me be mad!” Anne shouted, and Casper could hear the teary waver in her voice, “let me go insane! And leave! I don’t need you, and I never have! So just stop playing mother and get lost !”
Ayla and Anne stood there, silent. The air was tense, and Casper figured there was a big part of the conversation he missed. Anne turned her back to Ayla, facing Casper.
“Fine,” Ayla whispered. “Die alone, then.” She turned and walked away, and Anne watched her go.
Once you could no longer hear the clicking of heels in the distance, Anne screamed. Her nails dug into her hair, she knelt down, and she screamed. Tears welled in her eyes, but they didn’t fall. Casper glanced away. Even though he was here to prepare to kill her, this felt personal, and not like something he should be witnessing.
But then Anne lifted her head, crossing her arms on her knees—and she spotted him. Obviously she couldn’t really see him, just the raven he wanted her to see, but her demeanor softened all the same.
“Oh,” she said, “hey there, buddy. You lost?”
No , Casper thought, I am exactly where I must be, mortal.
“Most birds take flight at loud noises, but you’re smarter than that, aren’t you?” she smiled, and Casper thought she was glowing. Then she sighed, and the exhaustion returned. She sat down on the driveway. He stayed on the porch.
“It’s so dumb,” she hissed. “All of this because I slept on a stranger’s couch. Was I so hungover I was still legally drunk? That’s neither here nor there. She’s overreacting. I won’t die, certainly not of alcohol poisoning. Not after everything else I’ve survived.” Casper rolled his eyes. She was taking a lot of credit for his predecessor's work here! She smirked, “I should be classified as an omen of death at this point. Like you, and black cats and big black dogs.” Her smile fell like an anchor, heavy and disruptive.
“My grief is mine to deal with,” she said. “Ayla has no place telling me how to go about it.” She frowned, brows knotting, “right?” Casper tilted his head at her—was she really asking, or just rambling, yearning for justification?
Anne shook her head, and stood up, “I think I finally lost it. I’m talking to a corvid.” She walked up to the porch and passed him to unlock the front door. But she glanced at him where he was still perched on the mailbox as she passed. She hummed, then walked into the house.
His first impression of her was… messy. It was a confusing mess, to be honest. She didn’t look, or talk like the type to survive this long, despite the odds, but when she smiled, she radiated life. Not to mention her odd aura and the air of exhaustion she gave off. In spite of her appearance, she was lively and active. There was a darkness around her, but under that layer, was light—radiant, beautiful light.
How confusing. He hated it. He didn’t understand it, didn’t understand her, and that fact felt like the worst part of it all.
He watched her through the cracks in the curtains. He only caught glimpses of her walking back and forth, and after a while, decided he needed a new vantage point, but as he was about to get up, the door opened, and she emerged—with a bowl of water and some seeds. She placed both down, and smiled at him, then went back inside.
Ah. There it was. The life he caught of glimpse of earlier. She did well hiding it, but at her core, this girl was kind.
And just like that, Casper felt a little more confident. Kind people were easier to pass on.
At least, they usually were. If she was still alive, though… he tensed. This wouldn’t be easy, and he could never assume it would be. As soon as he expected simplicity, he’d fail.
He flew around the house to sit outside her windows. He followed her movements into the living room, and past that into her office. It was big and roomy with a proper desk setup, as well as a mannequin and boxes of fabrics and a guitar and a keyboard. It was the office of someone who had never made up her mind on what to pursue.
He watched her go from playing video games to writing to playing her guitar to doodling dress designs before leaving. This girl was nothing so special, aside from how aware she was of her connection to death. Many humans joked about death and assumed themselves tied to it—she really wasn’t unique.
She too, could die, Capser thought. And he would be the one to prove it.