Chapter Text
The first things Mitya felt when he woke up were soft grass beneath him, a gentle breeze tousling his hair, and a stabbing pain in his hand. Those first two things were particularly concerning, since the last thing he remembers is laying on his bed. In Snezhnaya. Which is significantly colder than the warm, pleasant weather of wherever he is now.
He can't remember exactly what he was thinking about before he woke up here, something he now recognizes as a sign that the curse of death caught up to him again, but even that doesn't explain everything. Whatever gap there is in his memories doesn't explain how he not only got outside but wound up in a place he can already tell isn't Snezhnaya. This can't simply be a dream either, based on how the palm of his hand feels like it has been torn open.
Cracking open an eye and lifting his aching hand to assess the damage, expecting to see an injury of some sort, he instead startles into a sitting position at the sight. A pulsating red glow was emitting from the symbol he had scratched into his palm back at the theater. Up until now, all it had done was exist on his hand. It didn't heal or fade or do anything at all. He had felt this same stabbing pain before, every time he had fallen to the curse of death since he had carved the symbol into his hand, but he had never noticed it glow in any way before. Could it be reacting to the presence of the Ruler of Death? If it was, he had bigger issues than waking up in an unfamiliar place.
And unfamiliar was putting it gently. Now that he was awake and looking around, Mitya found that the surrounding architecture was unlike anything he had ever seen before. The sky above him resembled a clear, starry night, if the night sky was red and contained glowing eyes, but his surroundings were by no means dark. The structures around him were strange, covered in symbols of eyes and four-pointed stars, and sat upon floating islands. From what he could see from where he was sat, underneath the islands sat a blanket of dark, rolling clouds. If he had to guess, he was in the domain of the Ruler of Death, and a more personal one than what he saw at the theater.
The most off-putting thing was just how silent it was. He wasn't expecting to hear signs of people, but there wasn't even the sound of any animals or even of some form of machinery. There was little more than a soft rustle of leaves in the wind. It made sense when he thought about it, and he wouldn't imagine that the domain of the Ruler of Death would be... well, lively. Still, it was definitely one of the creepiest places he's ever been.
He was brought out of his thoughts by his scarf yanking on his hair (to which he responds with what is definitely not a high-pitched shriek) and pointing insistently ahead.
"You didn't have to pull on my hair so hard, you know..." Mitya grumbled, rubbing his aching scalp and shooting a glare at his scarf.
His scarf, as usual, offered no response to his complaints, continuing to insistently point forward. Mitya sighed and got to his feet, briefly wincing at the cracking sound his knees made as he did so. He didn't immediately see a way out of this place, so it probably wouldn't be that bad of an idea to check out what his scarf was trying to get his attention about. If he was lucky, maybe he would find a way out.
Looking where his scarf was pointing and squinting a little, he could make out the sight of what seemed to be some sort of gazebo just up ahead. Taking a step forward, he let out a faint hiss as the pain in his hand increased slightly. Not a great sign for what awaited him at the gazebo, but his scarf seemed to grow more insistent, going from pointing ahead to grabbing onto him and attempting to pull him forward.
Gritting his teeth, Mitya continued his walk forward, the pain in his hand gradually going from present but mostly ignorable to bad enough that he could barely think about anything other than how much it hurt and he felt like he might cry as he stumbled forward. Every time he stopped, overwhelmed by the pain, his scarf yanked him forward again. It felt like the pain was crawling up his arm, digging into his skin like barbed wire.
Using his good hand to wipe the tears from his eyes, he saw that the symbol on his palm was glowing even brighter than before. Worse yet, there were more glowing eyes on his hand. Fumbling at his sleeve to roll it up, it was the same case for his arm. While the symbol on his palm glowed the brightest, he couldn't help but feel like the other eyes were moving. Maybe it was just the pulsating light, or the pain was messing with his mind, but he could swear that the eyes were looking around, at times even blinking.
He didn't know how much more distance was between him and the gazebo, too focused on keeping himself standing to look up, but he definitely wouldn't be able to handle anything worse than what he was feeling right now. He couldn't even handle this amount of pain, to be perfectly honest. With each step he took, he felt like he was getting closer to vomiting from the pain.
His shoes hit paved stone eventually, and he immediately proceeded to trip over his own feet and crash to the ground, his stomach lurching. He rolled onto his side and clamped his good hand over his mouth, putting as much focus as he could into not throwing up. The world seemed to shrink to the awful, radiating pain from his arm and the smooth stone he was curling up on.
The pain seemed to grow even greater, despite him not moving anymore, and he curled in on himself further. He just barely had the awareness left to realize that his scarf had stopped tugging on him by the time he reached the stone, now instead laying limply across him.
Something settled on the ground next to him, not that he had the energy left to see who or what it was (he could make an educated guess, though). That something made some sort of noise, but everything sounded like he was deep underwater.
Long, sharp claws touched his head, gently combing through his hair in an admittedly soothing way. As soon as those claws had made contact with his head, the pain abruptly stopped and Mitya sagged like a puppet whose strings were cut, all of the tension leaving his body at once.
He blinked hazily up at his clawed savior, seeing a pale face surrounded by even paler hair, a pair of red wings covered in eyes just behind her. Eyes the color of dying embers with a flower-like shape made of seven petals calmly blinked down at him. He had seen those eyes before, when he and the Traveler had revealed the Grim Reaper pretending to be Alyosha. It didn't matter that he had never seen her in this specific form before, it was very easy to tell exactly who she was.
The Ruler of Death gently covered his eyes with her hand, and Mitya was overcome by a wave of sleepiness that he couldn't help but sink into.