Re: first class ; baths
"Peace." The word slithered on a blackened tongue and was exhaled from lungs long since rotted from disuse. Were that Death could find peace as humans could, the calm after the struggle, rippled water stilling in the quiet. He thought he might like the prospect of bestowing freedom from the shackles of the living and though he knew exhaustion, as those on the edge of death felt, it was of a different ilk. What was tomorrow to one who had experienced a thousand tomorrows, each one the same as the last? Tomorrow brought last breaths. It brought the sudden, swift severing of cords and it brought slow agony, it brought loss and heartache death. Always. He was a constant. "Perhaps one who is ready, as you say, is aboard tonight," he said, but it was mere words. Not hopeful, for he did not hope. There was nothing to hope for.
Did God bid him? Perhaps. Or perhaps it was the universe itself, something older and deeper than gods worshiped by man. "Not who," was his response. "What." That sounded right. Life and death, balance, equations calculated by someone or something not him; he was simply fed the results and did as they foretold. "No one asked. I had no choice. I was, and I am." Death watched the water ripple, thinking of goodbyes and preparations, and he watched the water give him a wide birth, circling round his feet as though it was alive and knew better. He stretched a bone-thin hand over the baths and beckoned forth a thin swirl of water, which froze as soon as it came into contact with his fingers. Water could not die but it could freeze, crystallized and unmoving, and he lowered his hand slowly with the creak and shudder of bones and aged things. "Why do you want to live? What keeps you clinging to your life?" Perhaps he had loved ones. Love. An unbeating heart could not love, or be loved. Had he known love? He could not have, but Death had the unshakable sense that he had. That there was someone, somewhere, who was his, or who should have been.
But no, it could not be so. Death could not keep the souls he reaped. He wished to, secretly, just one, for even he grew lonely, but he was denied a companion. Perhaps, though, perhaps the entire boat was meant to die. Perhaps it would sink, and amongst all those souls surely he was owed one, just one. He wondered if the boy would stay-- but no, he did not wish to die. Worse than to be alone was to have a companion tethered on a leash, wishing to be elsewhere.
He would keep one. Here, tonight, he would. No God nor Devil could deny him that.
The frozen water shattered into a million tiny shards of crystal, and Death's hood shook. "I do not feel." A lie, but wouldn't they laugh to know that he was lonely? The boy spoke to him as a friend might, and it was temptation, something he did not have but wanted, whether he was meant to or not.