didi! (i_happen) wrote in we_coexist, @ 2009-02-04 20:59:00 |
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Entry tags: | death of the endless, madame xanadu |
The Conciegerie
Who: Death and Madame Xanadu
What: Madame Xanadu receives a little moral support.
"I didn't call for you."
"I know."
"We have an agreement."
"I remember. Do you?"
Xanadu remembered her cell within The Conciegerie perfectly; the smell of sewage and death, the rats vicious and diseased, the slop in her tray that came through a slit underneath the door. Her dream recalled each detail perfectly, down to the peasants' dress she wore, her modest trinkets of gold jewelry in her ears and on her fingers, the scarf that wrapped her hair.
Death was there too, just as Xanadu had seen her last. Her dress would have been as beautiful; fashionable as any worn in Marie Antoinette's court had it not been black as pitch down to every last thread and the sleeves and lace in shreds as though also a victim itself of France's revolution.
The second eldest of The Endless smiled: "A natural death; I won't come to collect you for natural causes. If Red has her way, however, your death will be far from natural."
"So that's it? You've come to collect me?"
"Nope! At least not yet. Just here for moral support."
Death's cheerfulness annoyed the seer. She crossed her arms and turned away. Death was not completely unaccustomed to this response and waited it out, like a patient mother with a petulant child.
"You could bring help."
"You know that I won't. I mean, if someone called me up and said, 'Say you haven't seen that nymph with the magic shop, have you?' then I might. I probably wouldn't though. It's really not the sort of thing I tend to stick my nose in."
Madame Xanadu was silent, her look sour.
"Well, would it be so terrible if you did die? You have lived a long time. Longer than the rest of your kind, certainly longer than anyone you've helped."
"There's still more to be done."
"For someone else, maybe."