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“Did you know I was an omen?”
Fool's Gold blinked confused. He looked at Aesop who stood at a bridge, hands on the railing. He wore black high waisted pants, cinched and forming his small body. His white dress shirt was neatly tucked, and his grey hair was open, draped over the shoulders. His gloves though were black.
This is a dream, Fool's Gold thought, noticing how the sky was dark yet things were bright and how everything was perfectly silent despite them being near a running river. And Aesop was just… a bit too pretty like this.
“An omen?" He asked, and Aesop nodded his head. “Omen of what?”
Aesop looked down to the water, leaning onto the railing with his forearms, clasping his hands. “Of death, of course.”
“I already barely spoke to people,” he started, and Fool's Gold slowly approached him to be at his side… but something felt off. “I was barely outside of the morgue. Only when I had clients or errands to run. I often stocked up on simple things to not have to go out. I disliked people that much.”
He looked up, hand moving up and seeming like he's in prayer, his hair ever so slightly moving back. “And so I became a rare sight. The Embalmer who only came out in the evening, when things are colder.”
“How's that make you an omen?” Fool's Gold blurted, tilting his head. He didn't follow superstitions as much as one would believe. Miners often did, praying to one god or another, or thinking a special specific coin in their pockets will prevent a cave-in.
He didn't see any logic in that, and thought of it as wishful thinking, delusions that keep people going. And to think those spread outside the mines too was rather… humanizing.
But to make a person that?
“I am an Embalmer. I look after the dead and dying.” He stopped the motion of a prayer to adjust his gloves, dark enough to obscure the detail of his fingers which Fool's Gold always envied the dexterity of. “What is more scary to the normal person than death and dying?”
“Hunger,” Fool's Gold blurted, thinking of other possibilities. “Poverty, scrutiny, plenty of things while you're alive.”
“Maybe,” Aesop admitted. “But death gets everybody in the end. You just don't know when, most of the time...”
Aesop stepped away from the railing and approached Fool's Gold. And the hunter didn't know why he felt so on the spot with that man.
“...but sometimes you do.” The Embalmer looked up at Fool's Gold, then at the hole in his chest. “That terrifies people endlessly.”
Fool's Gold squinted at him, rocks grinding together in correspondence of his anxious feelings. He watched Aesop's grey eyes focus on him, and there was a certain coldness in them. It felt off. It all felt off.
“They thought that when I am close… someone soon would need me. And they weren't wrong.” Aesop looked away as he brushed his hair out of his face and walked past Fool's Gold. Reluctantly, he followed after him.
“I only really went out for my clients demands or if I had to meet clients… In times of illness I was out a lot.” Aesop fidgeted with his hands, constantly adjusting his gloves and then brushing back his hair. Fool's Gold knew those little quirks, adored them even, but something tried to force that affection down.
“After my father died I had no reason to go out anymore to events or anything. I was devoted to my work. And devotion comes with sacrifice.”
Fool's Gold grunted. “What sacrifice? Your humanity?”
He already knew the answer. Aesop didn't respond. No nod, no shake, no shrug, no look. Just the same fidgeting as before.
“Women held their children away, sons pulled their elderly fathers to another road, the ill quickly turned away from me like I would infect them worse,” Aesop's hand eventually folded in front of him, an attempt to remain calm. “It was like my very existence was going to bring misfortune.”
Fool's Gold frowned. He didn't know if he felt a wave of caution towards Aesop or pity.
“I couldn't really say or do much against it,” Aesop forced a shrug. It didn't look natural, more of a slow imitation of what he saw people do. “It kept people away, and filtered out my clients. I was used to being alone anyway.”
“But did you like it?” Asked Fool's Gold. He watched as Aesop turned to him, eye now carrying warmth again. A warmth he was used to seeing. “You can get used to it, but it's a different thing if you like it.”
He himself was lonely. He knew it, felt it, and very much prided himself in that sometimes. It was something he needed for survival. But loneliness can get miserable quickly.
Aesop looked at him then the ground, then his torso then his hands. He fidgeted again. It was so lively of him. So human in Fool's Gold's eyes. To think of him as a concept rather than just Aesop felt off. But this whole dream felt off.
“I don't know any other alternative than that,” he admittedly, and Fool's Gold huffed a laugh before walking over and kneeling down to him, grabbing one of Aesop's hands with his gloved one.
“You know me,” he used his other hand to remove the black glove off of Aesop's hands, revealing his pale fingers, his palms just slightly pink. He forced Aesop's hand on his face, feeling his warmth across his face, grounding even further the fact that he was a human and not a figure of stories. “You know my company.”
Aesop stared at him, one hand cautiously raised while the other on the hunter's face. An agonizing amount of time passed until he finally reciprocated, his thumb rubbing along Fool's Gold's cheek, making him grin properly again.
Aesop though slumped.
“I need you to know that they were right,” Aesop whispered, not moving his hand away. Fool's Gold squeezed his hand on his face further, not letting him let go. “I did bring death closer to many. I did usher it closer. I was its harbinger. To some extent I might still be it.”
“I have brought it upon others too,” said Fool's Gold, moving his face to the palm of Aesop's hand, kissing it and resting his lips on it. “And in this form I bring even more. Don't act like you're the only sinner here.”
“But would you still stand me?” Aesop asked, voice now a whisper. “If I truly was just an omen? If I just foretold you of your death?”
“I'm already dead,” Fool's Gold chuckled, using his rocky hand to pull him in, now resting his face on Aesop's chest. “You'd simply be there for me.”
Fool's Gold grinned both hands grabbing Aesop's waist. “Besides,” he forced him closer, pressing him against his body. “-no mere omen can be this warm. But a human can be.”