"What is this?  Who are you?"

"Know, Amdalae Klavinen, that I am Entropy Shanir, I am Death Incarnate!"

"Good, good, now leave me alone."  Gosh, that's not a costume!  Ayah! He really is a set of moving bones!  And the kittens, so many kittens!

"I'm afraid that's not possible.  Too much time has passed."

"Time, passed?"

"Since your death.  Now I can either reap you, for the harvest of souls, or call you to duty, to service, as one of my Mindbodies."

"Mindbody?"

"Ah, yes, you know the right word in this century, it's Avatar.  My avatar, my representative in this broken-down world."

"Why would you do that?  Wait, ohmigosh, I'm dead?"

"Gosh has nothing to do with it, but yes, you are dead.  Biological processes halted, well, those under your control, at least.  My friends..."  He pointed to one of the cats.  "Think you can be of some use.  Lambeau here, especially, wants you to pet him."

"Lambeau, huh?  Such a handsome young cat."  She scratched the cat along the back of the neck, generating a purr too large for such a young kitten.

"Be not fooled, Lambeau has been with me for millennia, he is the first cat to ever be domesticated by your kind.  He loves humans, gullible humans."

"So he's the one who learned to purr first?"

"To imitate human children?  So, he says, and it'd be quite in character.  His daughter, however, says he's lying, that she invented it."  Said daughter hissed at the younger-looking cat, out massing it by half, Lambeau just pulled his ears back slightly.

"He's his mental age, at a time of great import to him, so are all creatures here.  Which is why you're 16, that birthday party where you got that apprenticeship."

"I was wondering, but you knew that?"

"I have done this a few times..."  He paused.  "Most of you go through the same sets of questions, until..."

"Until?"

"Until I ask my question.  Amdalae Klavinen, will you be my champion?"

"Champion of Death?  Doesn't seem like you need much help."

"No, not quite that, I am Death Incarnate, I am lived-in death.  I am a Monster, but a polite Monster, habituated to single doses.  None of this mass-starving, these pandemics, these weapons of mass destruction."  How he could sneer with only a skull she couldn't imagine, but that sneer, it had a physical presence, it was emotion made manifest, an emotion she wouldn't have credited death with.

"And why you need my help?"

"Because I am dying.  Yes, death is dying.  I only have a millennium left."

"Of what?  What could kill death?"

"That is your task, find out what is killing me.  Understand it."

"And stop it?"

"Only if you think the cost is not too great.  I've been Death a long time, I can think of resting.  Of my purpose having been fulfilled."

"Why don't you investigate?"

"I did, at first, but I discovered it shortened my span.  The more I exerted myself, to find answers, the more they escaped me, and the shorter my time remaining became."

"I am dead, how can I help Death?"

"A Champion of Death, a Death Knight?  You will be like me in visage, bones, cartilage, but no flesh, vestigial skin.  Armoured in the Suit of Meginjord, you will fear no physical harm.  Who, even a God, could attack bones arrayed in a suit made of the cold of night, after all?"

"Surely, you know something of the condition?  Is it a foe's doing?"

"Death has, or at least had, no foe.  If I do now, it is a new condition, and kept hidden from me."

"And if I do this?  When I am done, what happens."

"If I cannot be death, and you found what caused this, you may succeed me.  If you do not discover the cause, you will re-enter the rolls of the dead as the mortal you were."

"And if you keep on being death?"

"Then you add my company, and that of those kittens I keep with me, to the pleasures of eternity."

"Squawk!"

"Oh, and this is Soh, he's our raven, he likes cheese."  The skeleton was already feeding the bird some.

"Not any more!"  The corvid apparently spoke much like a parrot would.

"You say that, but you keep eating it!"

"Not any more!  Nevermore!"

"Nevermore, is it real?"

"Nevermore?"

"The land of Dawn, where Hyperion hid his wife, Bling, while she was with child."

"Hmm, yes, it is real, why do you ask?"

"Is your raven prophetic?"

"Sometimes...  You, may be onto something.  I never could find Nevermore, due to its great curse, trying to find it, I only could make my life... shorter, when I did, years ago.  How come I didn't remember!"

"Maybe whoever is hiding there is trying to augment the curse, to prevent being found."

"I ask again, Amdalae Klavinen, will you be my champion?"

"Yes, if you will have me."

"I ask again, thrice asked, as is proper, Amdalae Klavinen, will you be my champion?"

"I will, and I will take the task of solving this mystery, as you knew I would."

Two-hundred and twenty years later, and I am still looking for Nevermore.  Oh, I've had some small successes, and now I know Hubris, those creatures of mystical, elemental mischief, are behind the curse, and hiding in Nevermore, but, like all creatures of darkness, I cannot enter.  Death would frighten Hyperion any day, but when and where his lover was hiding to give birth?  Death could  not be allowed within a million leagues.

"Wake up, Amdalae."

"I'm thinking, not sleeping, Angeveult.  Did Candice finish bathing yet?"

"Yes, it's Sylvio's turn now."  Law, Fate, the Sun and Death, united against Hubris.  It surprises me daily how attracted I am to Sylvio, he's still so apparently mortal, while I certainly am not.  But he has seen me in Death's realm, thankfully, I am a different person than when I met death, my defining moment is older now, and he, seemed to like what he saw.  I wouldn't mind going peeking, either, but we have business today.  With Amhotep, Hubris of the Storm.

"Ok, Candice?"

"Yeah, bone-girl?"

"We have a plan?"  She always called me bone-girl, just to get a reaction, I had stopped giving her one.  Reacting to that overgrown doll only gave her ammunition.

"Yeah, the storm hates the sun, you'll distract it, while I dive bomb into its parent clouds, dissipating them with my power of Solar Fury."

"And if that doesn't work?"

"..."  It didn't happen according to this plan, or any other we made that day.

"Amdalae, thank you."

"Save your strength, I don't know if the kittens are safe for someone like you, right now."

"The kittens?  What kittens?"

"The kittens of death.  There are 4502 kittens on this plateau right now.  The purring is deafening."

"I can't hear a thing, must be something to do with being a part of death."

"They... Oh they don't respect the law at all, do they? Lambeau, you little scamp, don't bite Sylvio's shin."

"Ow!  Well, it definitely felt like a kitten's bite, something small and cute, not life-threatening, I hope."

"It's not your time, I'd know.  Candice?"

"Yes?"

"Are you going to make it?"

"Yes, just need a few more hours sunbathing, and I'll be fine, what about Angeveult?"

"What do you care, you used him as bait?"

"I know Hyperion, Amdalae, I know the Sun, only if I pretended he was dead would the Hubris corrupting the ancient defender of this place be able to be defeated.  Will he be all right, the little shrimp?"

"It's not his time, I'd have known.  But it was closer than you have any right to be smug about."

"I'm not smug, and I'm sorry, will you tell him?"

"You're telling him yourself, or you're talking to the big guy."

"The big guy?"  Candice looked where I was looking, I knew she wasn't missing my focus on the pile of bones that had granted me power.  "Hyperion will hear from Omega, unless you apologize to Angeveult,  Candice, why are you so dense?"

"I'm... not good with people ok, I have no idea what to say, most of the time.  Angeveult..."

"Angeveult is the calmest person we both know, he will understand."

"It was fate, but still, I was in shock.  I'm not usually burned to a crisp, or close enough to fool an outside observer."

"I'm sorry, Angeveult."

"That's a good start!"

"What?"

"You managed to get my name straight, maybe I should nearly die more often."

"You can't!"  She looked furious.  I hated spying on them like this, but I wanted to make sure Candice did apologize.  She had been called gift of the sun, burden of the sun was more like it, most days.

"What did I say?  I was joking!"

"Just don't you dare die, ok?"  He had this glass harmonica, and was playing, damn, that sounded nice.  Oh, she's warming up to him too, good, stupid stuck up gift of the sun, can't see what's good for her right under her nose.

"You're the only person who could make that happen anyway, it's not like being a champion is making it easy for  me to die.  Only your Solar Flare actually managed to get through my new skin since I got it.  How does that work, anyway?"

"The sun created everything, what it created it can take away."

"That's not like Death, though, is it?"

"Death and the sun have this complicated relationship.  Hyperion tries to keep death away, Death tries to keep Hyperion humble.  Win-win."

"What, that simple?"

"That simple, what next, Gift of the Sun?"  How did he manage to  say it without smirking, or without sounding insincere?

"I don't know, I healed up, we got that one hybris hidden in heaven, but I guess there are others."

"Sign me up."

"You want to keep fighting?"

"I just want to keep you around."  Ok, I don't need to stick around, and while she's probably only slightly smarter than a box of rocks, he's smart about the stupid risks he wants to take, and I bet, knows just what he's getting into.