Dead End 2: Deathly Di-Di-Doo Ch.3 (Patreon)

[Dreaming of Life]

— Saera Targaryen —

“I belong nowhere but at his side. Stop me, stall me, stymie me even slightly, Father, and I will ensure this dynasty burns around you,” Saera hissed.

King Jaehaerys sat upon the Iron Throne — a figure so small upon that monstrous mountain of magic and conquest and ruling unity that smoldered like a sinister beacon in Saera’s dreams; it was easy for her to forget the larger-than-life figure atop the pyre like that, easy for her to defy a mere man, even Father and King, when he did not realize he was being outshone by his own seat.

So proud, so regal, he still dominated the mostly empty throne room to most eyes. Mother sat in her own throne, so much more visible to Saera, and the nameless, faceless Kingsguard knights, forever mere pawns in her dreams, stood at perfect attention.

Saera had been brought before him in the wake of his failed attempt to return Sean to his ‘proper’ place in the world. She had not been present for the scene the unsuccessfully returning pawn had made before the rest of the court. Father had ordered her secluded from public eyes and escorted everywhere, for he had it in mind that she would go chasing after Sean if given the barest chance.

He was right, of course.

While Father may be distant at the best of times, he was anything but dull. He still didn’t give her enough credit or consideration, though — ignorant of his own daughter. He could lock away her person, but he could never lock away her dreams.

Everywhere and everything and everyone Sean touched, Saera dreamed.

Her twin, her other half, her other wing, her anchor and sail, her heart and soul and every ambition — hers; the only spark of meaning in her life, the only real light in the darkness of dreams, the only obsession she would accept, the only madness she would court, the only-!

… The only song stuck in Saera’s mind, since birth and her first moments of awareness and her first dreaming. Now, it was missing.

He was out there, she knew, whole and hale and thriving without her. The life they’d shared wasn’t enough for him, and even if she’d come to understand it, that idea still burned Saera like dragonfire.

The rest of the family reacted to his flight from court in ways Saera couldn’t bring herself to care about. Aemon fretted over the practicalities of a prince surviving alone on the road. Baelon and Alyssa took their dragons searching as if they could hope to find Sean from the skies. Maegelle and Vaegon were no longer in the Red Keep, but Saera dreamed of the former praying for Sean with tireless vigils and the latter, somehow, burying himself even deeper in tomes within the Citadel.

Daella, if she still lived, would have wept. Saera found herself listening for those pitiful, insipid cries at times. The only place she heard them was in her dreams.

***

Daella cried out in her last moments. “Mother! Father! Aemon, Aemon! Oh, Baelon and Alyssa and Maegelle! Oh, even Saera! It hurts, it hurts! I will not live to see dear Aemma grow! I-I can only hope…”

Her cries changed with the eddies of the dream, “He was not good to me, but he did not treat me poorly, either. Sean… I shall miss our days in the gardens. Saera… You mustn’t give up hope.”

“As if I would!” Saera snapped back. Daella never heard her-…

***

Mother kept herself busy so she would not collapse from worry, and at first, tried to coddle Saera with her company. Saera would never — never — admit it to anyone but Sean, but those attempts were… appreciated if awkward.

Father, meanwhile, showed no such sentiment for his fourth son. He simmered at some disrespect he found in Sean’s actions, and the whispered implications that he couldn’t control his own house. He saw Sean’s flight from court as a slight to be rectified and erased. The King, naturally, was selfish and prideful, qualities that served him well when He was the Realm. They did not serve him well in matters of family.

“Saera,” Father said, his royal voice absolute. “You will do nothing of the sort. The last thing I need is another wayward child. The realm would speak of elopement or madness, and I will not court those rumors.”

He passed his sentence, “This was fruitless. I see that now. Reconfine the princess to her rooms. Station a guard at her door at all hours. Make regular checks of her person. She is not of her right mind, but it will pass.”

Mother tried to speak on her behalf — something not even Saera could’ve dreamed of before Sean’s flight — but Father would not change his mind. That was fine. Confinement served her well. The less time she spent in the public eye, the more time she could spend dreaming.

‘Pass’. ‘It will pass’… Saera scoffed at the notion. How could madness, how could dreams, how could the absence of the only note in the song that truly mattered to her ‘pass’?

She’d been mad her whole life, and she wouldn’t be surprised if Father had never noticed. He had no time for her and her twin, for most of his children apart from the eldest sons. The realm prospered like never before under King Jaehaerys, First of His Name, and his house rotted from neglect.

Her father was a king, and her king was a fool of a father.

Saera didn’t have the time or energy or care to humor him more than she must. More pressing matters, matters of her other half, held her full attention, both waking and dreaming.

***

Eggs that did not hatch when they should. A dragon brooding overhead, gentle and coddling. Another that flew through the skies, casting his gaze upon the land all around.

The dragon in flight looked with expectant, royal eyes, and the land bloomed, and the clutch withered. Flames from the sky, none intentional, scoured potential. In the wake of those flames, the eggs finally hatched. The dragons that emerged from them were many and varied: some mishapen, dying before they could live, and some perfectly formed with the weight of the world on their shoulders, and some still rebellious and mad — twinned hatchlings chief among the last.

The twinned dragons had no eyes for their sire in the sky; they only had each other. Just as it should b-…

***

She’d known Sean’s flight from the dream was coming, but she couldn’t have stopped it; he didn’t see her as she saw him. Not yet…

When Sean disappeared, Mother came to question her first.

“Do you know anything, Saera?” She’d asked, so gentle, so wary of her own children.

“More than you could ever ken,” Saera had sneered in reply. “But here, Sean acted on his own. Do you think I would not have followed him in an instant if I could?”

Instead of asking futile questions of ‘where’, ‘why’, ‘when’, and so on, Mother had impressed Saera then, “… Will he return to us?”

Serenity and a rare smile came over Saera as she’d answered that, “Better than ever before, a dragon breaking free from its egg and rising through the lively currents of the wind. We will hardly recognize him. It will be beautiful, more so than any other note in the song.”

Mother still worried; Saera knew. Aemon worried, and Baelon worried, and Alyssa worried, and Maegelle worried, and Vaegon worried, and Daella… would have worried, and Viserra, young as she was, worried; all in their own ways. Saera did not.

***

The other half of a soul, the better half; Saera dreamed of those notes spiraling into the world.

They changed the song, irrevocably. When they were heard, the world was left brighter to Saera’s dreaming eyes. A flirting woman from the scandalous sands, a bold and fearless child daring to follow like a curious shadow for a time, a faithful man changing his mind from preconceptions and biases and assumptions when confronted with truth he hadn’t known.

All the while, the notes grew to a glorious crescendo. Distantly, they called to Saera, holding all of her attention without ever realizing it, even now. A blue shadow passed through the dreams beside her, beneath her, watching alongside her; Saera and that shadowed dreamed of how they could add to-…

***

As much as Sean’s flight stung and burned and cored her very soul, she knew it was exactly what he needed to find the notes that would fill out his solo. Immediately, her only true concern became how she would turn that solo into the duet she dreamed it could be.

Confined for good so she couldn’t run off as well to do just that, Saera knew her cue had come.

Sean’s obsessive search through lost magicks had done more for her than it’d done for him, and she put all they’d found together to good use.

She tracked Sean in directed dreams, all his adventures and how a lively fire surged within him due to them, until she could bide her time no longer. Saera needed to make herself part of his song again — for the first time, perhaps, given how she now witnessed his opening eyes.

The Kingsguard stationed at her door checked on her regularly, just as the king commanded; he would only find her seemingly asleep, clueless of her dreaming preparations. And when she finally slipped out of bed into the hidden passages within the walls of the Red Keep, she left a candle fed by her own blood that would project that same scene until its wick burned out.

Her dreams were waking now; she danced a blurring line through the world. The darkness of the hidden passages didn’t hinder her, the crowds on the street where she emerged didn’t notice her, and the alarm of a runaway princess didn’t ring.

***

A ghostly trail emerged to her dreaming senses — a path already walked and notes already changed. They were meaningless to the wider song, so… common. They were anything but; the source of that ghostly trail came to realize that, and if he did, how could Saera deny his lived experience?

Her eyes opened further, even as they lidded closed. Blacksmiths pounded metal into the glorious shapes of human invention, for the love of the craft, for simple livelihood, and for the orders of lords so high above them. Whores spread company to all the stratums of society; lord and sailor, knight and baker, master and cutthroat, each was as lonely as any other, and none more so than the whores themselves.

She dreamed of all the lives in the winding streets, every twist and turn in their meaningless solos. Even if she saw them, she only had eyes for one-…

***

Saera, awake and still dreaming of a destined duet, put out the call for the instrument she would need most. It was answered with a dreaming croon, mournful but curious, and she raced to meet it. She danced that blurring line straight into the depths of the Dragonpit.

Dreamfyre was already awaiting her arrival. Dreamfyre had always been waiting for her. Saera realized that in a rush, a jolt like falling that broke through the blurred line of her waking dream.

Dreamfyre was a great and terrible beacon of flaming power in both Saera’s waking and dreaming eyes that patiently peered down upon her. The dragon’s blue was one with the color of a clear, cloudless sky, shimmering with intangible dreams. Spikes and horns decorated her scales, each reaching for the sky regardless of its origin point on her form.

Saera didn’t quail before her dreaming totem’s gaze; she set her shoulders and the maddened determination within, “For Sean. I need you, Dreamfyre. You will be my wings in the dreaming, and I will be your feet in the waking. Take me to the song I seek, and I shall never abandon you.”

The dragon dwarfed her. Saera was a speck before her bonfire, colored the ethereal blue of dreams. Still, she reached forward with a hand that no longer seemed as real as Dreamfyre’s dreaming wings. Magic reached back, roused from the dragon’s fiery core of power; Saera felt it. When they finally touched, Dreamfyre’s dreaming became real, and Saera’s reality became nothing more than dreams.

***

Peace and progress… for now. There would be stagnation to come, and then regression: a great and pathetic waning in the decimated aftermath of dancing dragons.

Saera saw madness, so much more mundane than hers and Sean’s, at a most pivotal point to come — in father and in son and in daughter and in grandson, so much fire, so little ice. She saw exile and secrecy; she saw both seeking to fulfill some climax to the song. She saw a rebirth in flames under a red comet, and another rebirth in flames under a terrible, unbreaking blizzard. Would it be-?

Saera didn’t care. Some future she wouldn’t live to see? It bore no hint of herself, and more importantly, no hint of her other half; Saera shredded those irrelevant prophecies from her mind, turning to direct the dreaming with the power of a claimed dragon as her shadow.

“Show me my other half. Show me our duet!” The dream danced backward; Saera and Sean twined together so closely, so carnally, on Dreamfyre’s back-…

***

Glorious dreams, directed and focused through Dreamfyre, filled Saera’s mind. Their contents were maddening, even to her, but in the best of ways. Saera couldn’t wait for them a moment longer. She commanded a dragonkeeper to saddle her new dragon — Father would discover her flight soon enough regardless — and mounted Dreamfyre.

With powerful beats of her wing, Dreamfyre took to the skies, and with dreaming direction, Saera rode hard toward her proper place in the song.

There was nothing like flying, she quickly found — it was a dream. She soared, free and focused. The land below fell away, all the irrelevant concerns; only Sean remained in sight of her mind’s dreaming eye. The visions of chaos left behind were ignored: Father’s fury, and Mother’s worry, and Baelon and Alyssa being sent after her. They would not catch Saera and her dream.

She flew through the night and into the next day. Saera and Dreamfyre sustained themselves on dreams alone, magic flowing symbiotically through their new bond.

The Crownlands gave way to the Reach and its fertile wealth. Saera tracked Sean’s song along its roads from above. Her waking eyes saw features her dreaming eyes had already seen. With her single-minded, madly sharpened focus, the destination she sought came upon her before she realized it.

Oldtown rose on the horizon — it was a center of dreams. The Hightower shone to her senses, even though the beacon was not lit at midday. The Starry Sept twinkled like its namesake. The Citadel was indomitable and secure, a fortress of enlightenment.

Saera only had eyes for one song in the dreaming landscape. Even if Oldtown boasted two more that she recognized, her twin’s notes were unmistakable from any distance. In the waking, Dreamfyre roared to announce her presence, and in the dreaming, Saera called out in the same way.

She landed outside the city and waited. The lords of Oldtown came out to greet them. Saera dismissed them with a snarl from Dreamfyre. Maegelle, in her septa robes, came to greet her similarly. While Saera didn’t snap at her gentlest sister, she did ignore her all the same. She would speak to Sean, and no other.

An hour passed without him making an appearance. Saera tried not to worry, but she did. Maegelle saw it; she distracted Saera by praising Dreamfyre. Despite her maddened, desperate focus, Saera couldn’t help but preen right along with her new dragon.

Eventually, thankfully, the specific song she sought began to rise. Sean emerged from Oldtown, making for quite the sight — both to Saera’s dreaming eyes and to the dull, sightless witnesses she’d gathered.

Unlike the lords of Oldtown — the Hightowers, their guests, and retainers — and unlike the faithful, Sean didn’t come forth on horseback or within a wheelhouse. He walked on his own two feet, alone. He was so small; to Saera, he was larger than life itself.

Maegelle did Saera and Sean the favor of keeping the unimportant bystanders out of their reunion, though only after chiding Sean for not coming to see her when he first arrived to Oldtown in secret.

“’Tis good to see you well, Brother, but where have you been? Do you think yourself too good for your poor sister in the faith?”

“Too craven, more like,” Sean sheepishly replied.

Maegelle’s chiding gaze softened at that, “Well, we’ll have to fix that. After, however. Saera has come all this way for you. Don’t keep her waiting.”

Saera held her breath as Sean approached. Her other half… Her heart soared as if she was still atop Dreamfyre. There was a touch of dread, too, illogical as it was.

That dread died when she saw Sean’s eyes on her — truly on her. He saw her. Just as she’d dreamed, he’d found exactly the notes he’d needed to expand his song, exactly the experience to see past his tortured self. He saw her.

“Saera,” Sean smiled.

He smiled. It was the first she’d seen from him. She was taken instantly.

“S-Sea-…” Her voice caught in her throat, coming out thick with emotion. “Mine twin.”

“Always,” Sean said — so gentle, so meaningful, so aware of her. “I see that now. I didn’t before… I’m-…”

“Never apologize to me!” Saera snapped. “Do not insult us. We are one, Sean; one heart, one soul, one song. I will take nothing less than everything you are: every insult you pay me and every honor, every trial between you and I, every triumph of us. Every moment we share is meaningful, Sean; don’t try to take back a single one.”

Sean stared at her, stunned, for a long moment before laughter bubbled up from his throat, “That’s some demand! I-… I think I understand, though. The experiences of Life, it wouldn’t do to diminish any of them, would it?”

“Not between us,” Saera proudly proclaimed. “Now, I’ve watched you from afar for long enough already. Not a moment longer. I will join you in your song, Mine Twin. Wherever you take it, however you wish to dance, dreaming or waking: lead and I shall follow.”

“Watched me?” Sean blinked; Saera could practically see his mind returning to past moments when he was still so blindly searching.

He groaned, “All that effort, and magic was right beside me all along. Oh, I’m a fool.”

“Mine,” Saera declared. “And if you are, so am I; yours, for I am lost and blind and mad and meaningless without you.”

Sean sighed, “… I know the feeling. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, much less you.”

“Then don’t,” Saera snarled. “Take responsibility, Mine Twin.”

To her utter surprise, a delight that rocked her very core and sent dragon wings fluttering in her womb, Sean blushed.

Like the smile, it was the first such expression she’d seen from him. Like the smile, she was taken instantly.

Sean of Opened Eyes was better than any dream.

***

Saera helped armor her twin in full plate, every motion made with care. He was going to war for the ‘small’ stories, as he called them. Smallfolk wronged, and the pair of them happened to be passing by. The lord responsible would accept no punishment, no judgment, until Sean challenged him to trial by combat.

“Let the Seven decide your punishment, for I have already judged you guilty.”

***

Ironborn of the worst sort terrorized a coastal village, claiming their Old Ways. Saera and Dreamfyre burned the wretches’ ships behind them; Sean led the defense on the ground. He’d rallied the village to defend their homes, their families, their ‘small’ stories. Saera had never seen men more inspired.

“Give no quarter, no mercy, for they will give you none in turn! They fight to rape and loot and destroy! We fight to LIVE!”

***

Weirwoods, some of the last refuges of the Old Gods south of the Neck, whispered to the wind. Sean and Saera and their guide knelt beneath blood-red leaves, their hands upon bone-white bark. Saera’s dreams were restless here. Even Sean could hear… something.

“For the Living…?”

***

Song and revelry ran deep into the night. Sean and Saera kept each other company at the back of the room. Ser Robin had gotten up to correct his own song and hadn’t come back down since. His voice was passable, Saera supposed, but the true enjoyment came from his redeemed commitment to Sean’s dream. One song ended, and another began, telling the tale of a wayward royal pair.

“Prince and Princess of the People, can you believe it? What have we done to earn such acclaim? Have we not just… lived?”

***

Saera told a pestering, troublesome gnat of a noble lady exactly when and how she would die. It was mummery, of course. The lady’s notes were not so important to the song that Saera would dream of them. But still, it served her right, the upjumped wench.

“Fancy me? Did she? That was rather foolish of her with you by my side, Saera.”

***

Though they maintained their distance, tragedy came calling them back. Sean took the news of Alyssa’s death hard, lamenting that he hadn’t known her story better. He took Aemon’s death harder, for he’d cared for Sean at his worst. He took Maegelle’s death the hardest, for their dynasty had produced no soul as quintessentially good as her.

“I… I think we should at least write to Mother. She doesn’t deserve to weather grief alone.”

***

The lords of the realm had grown too comfortable with the long stability of their father’s reign. As much as Sean tried, as many lives as he touched, Saera knew he was growing frustrated at how little the song changed.

“I need to open their eyes. I need to make them see. They won’t ‘lower’ themselves as we have… so perhaps some higher power is needed.”

***

Gael died, and they hadn’t even known her. Sean regretted never taking the chance, never even meeting her, never being more than a line in her story. They received news that Mother was wasting away on Dragonstone. They gave her company and solace in her last days — even Saera treated her kindly, for she remembered how Mother had made the effort when Sean first ran.

They met Aemon’s daughter there — fully grown and slighted by Father’s preference for Baelon as heir — they met Baelon’s sons — jolly and wild — and they met Daella’s daughter — so boring, so tragic, so… like Daella that Saera would deny her heart ached. Sean was bewildered when Baelon’s son, Daemon, seemed to idolize him, and Saera was similarly bewildered when Aemon’s daughter, Rhaenys, seemed to idolize her.

After Mother’s death, Sean set his mind upon true change, doing something — anything — to take control of uncaring fate. He claimed Sheepstealer, a brutal beast of a dragon. The people loved him even more from there, but the lords? Oh, how they feared him, sheep that they were.

“Adorably fugly, but so spirited. So common, so lively, real as a dream. He’s perfect.”

***

Saera dreamed of more tragedy still for their dynasty, and it came in due course. Baelon died. The King’s succession was in question. A Great Council was called. Some lords favored Aemon’s line, and some favored Baelon’s; Sean’s claim was the strongest by the precedent Father had set, but their journey of ‘lowering themselves’ had not left them favored, and Father himself had never loved them as he did Aemon and Baelon. Still, with two dragons at their back and the love of the commons, if not the lords, they attended the council.

The end of their duet came calling there.

***

Saera did not dream of how she died, but she did dream of what came immediately after for her and her twin. Faces stolen, they lived on in a twisted half-life for a time, watching as those that came to wear their faces acted as discordant notes at the end of so many songs. Sean was still beside her, so Saera didn’t despair.

And when they’d both had enough, both seen enough stories ended by their stolen Faces, Saera led them, dreaming, back through faint bonds to their dragons. In the dreaming, the dragons turned on the Many-Faced God’s gestalt of false death; the Faceless Men and their god burned.

Saera, her story immortalized forevermore within Sean’s, passed in singing, dreaming, burning peace.

“Together until the last dream. I could not have asked for a better Life to live again.”

“Go,” She told him, her last words in his song. “Carry me into another. I shall dream of you, Mine Twin. Always.”

IIIII

— Didi —

With a content sigh, Didi released the conceptual working she’d been weaving into the mirror. Sean acted as the conduit that allowed her to reach back and know the Deaths of his distant Life; it was thanks to him that she was able to touch the very first of her Hand’s lives, and there was something special in that. She certainly wouldn’t have known to reach so far afield without his help.

Looking around, Didi saw their audience in various stages of closure, witnessing the end of a paired story. Saera and Sean had lived a full life then, and with Didi’s help, that life had been laid bare.

The latter half of it — most of their life together — was a dreaming thing, but no less real for it. The stories within were true to Life. Her Hand had been so… so young then. Still, he didn’t disappoint. He would never disappoint.

Didi only regretted that, so many times before, she hadn’t been there to walk him to his eternity, even if it only would’ve been temporary given his unique nature.

Turning to her, Sean gave her a grateful smile, “Thank you for that, Didi.”

She smiled right back, “No, thank you, Sean. Saera deserved to tell her part of your story in that Life.”

Sean’s smile turned slightly forlorn, “She certainly did. Even after all this time, I don’t think I fully knew it, knew her until now. That First Life really was foundational; it’s still opening my eyes now.”

“Is it weird that I thought she was… madly reasonable?” Alice asked. “Like, was she even ‘mad’ at all? Or did she just see more than anyone else could realize?”

“Truthfully, I think she was too sane rather than the opposite,” Hecate put forth. “From the outside, however, that sanity can be unmistakable from madness at times.”

“Dreaming eyes that pierce the future,” Jason nodded in agreement. “I don’t envy her.”

“(￢﹏￢;)” Cass pouted and made her dissatisfaction known. ‘I didn’t see nearly as much twin-cest as I wanted to…’

“It was there,” Sean chuckled. “I didn’t show it much, given polite company and all. But it was there. Slow to come, though. I resisted the call of my family’s ways in that life for quite a while.”

“Why even bother?” Barbara asked. “Like, genuinely. I didn’t think you would have much of a problem looking past blood relations.”

“Now? No,” Sean shook his head in confirmation. “But I’ve seen much more now than I had back then. Little things like ‘incest’ tend to lose their taboo after long enough lived, especially when reincarnating. Back then, though, I was just coming from a completely mundane Life, so Saera had to put in the work to wear me down.”

“((╬◣﹏◢))” Cass glowered. ‘And we didn’t see the fruits of her labor! I demand compensation!’

Sean smirked, “How about a roleplay night, just the two of us?”

“◤¬ ˒̫̮ ¬◥” Cass adopted a thoughtful expression that quickly turned mischievous. ‘Heh… Not two. I want the whole experience. It’s three — you, me, and Didi — or nothing!’

Didi chuckled but refused, “Very much not my cup of tea, unfortunately. I do have siblings, you know? I fear even simple roleplay would get… awkward for me quickly.”

“<(￣ ﹌ ￣)>” Cass frowned playfully. ‘Fine… I’ll settle for Gothboy-Bro and Simmy-Sis. But-! Sean has to play the Devil-Bro to Simmy’s Angel-Sis! I need that contrast, that CULTURE!’

Simmy cocked her head, curious as ever, “[Query: Experimentation? Query: Roleplay? Deception, Benefit: Unclear. Query: Purpose?]”

“(⌒▽⌒)☆” Cass beamed a smile. ‘Because it’s fun, of course!’

“[… Personal comprehension lacking. Solution: Experimentation, Agreement…]” Simmy nodded before giving in to her curiosity again. “[Query: ‘Devil-Bro’?]”

“（☆ω☆*）” With stars in her eyes, Cass practically teleported to ‘whisper’ in Simmy’s ear. ‘Oh, let me enlighten you, Angel-Sis~!’

Leaving them to their definitely-not-plotting, Sean turned back to the rest, “And that was my First Life. It’s not the ultimate foundation that everything I am now is built upon; I experienced too much more afterward to rely solely on Life One, of course. But it was important. So very necessary.

“After Life Zero and my first reincarnation, I was lost, as you all saw. I looked only inward. The rest of that Life taught me to look outward; it taught me that my own story is just one of many. The fact that it continues after each death doesn’t make it more worthwhile than any other — not any deeper, just… more expansive.”

“A valuable lesson, Brother!” Savage declared. “I shall put it to good use! On the morrow, I shall find a ‘small’ story, and exalt it, elevate it, as it deserves! I shall take a grandmother to pleasures forgotten, thought left in her youth! I shall take a green warrior under my wing for the first time in centuries! I shall throw myself wholeheartedly into the stories of HUMANITY, YES!”

“That is so not going to end well for the poor souls you choose,” Barbara deadpanned.

“… Dibs,” Damian ‘panned, just as dead.

The idea of that claimed ‘dibs’ seemed to tickle Savage pink, “Oh, Ra’s will hate that! Perfect! Beautiful! Glorious! I shall steal his grandson’s ‘small’ story right out from under him and make it as ‘large’ as my own!”

He grinned, “You will be my greatest student, young Damian! I will teach you to surpass the Demon, that arrogant whippersnapper!”

Sean laughed, “I’m glad I could inspire you, Savage. Honestly, I would hope I inspired all of you to look at the lives, the stories, all around you with new eyes.”

Jim shook his head, “It is a bit too easy to forget that every person lives a life all their own in a city like this.”

“But we never should, never fully,” Didi said softly. “A Life is a Life, no matter how it’s lived, and a story is a story, and… a Death is a Death. Personally, I can never forget that, and I would never wish to.”

“Then… if we kill someone, if we end their story…?” Jason began, hesitant and nervous. “Do you ever hate us, Didi?”

“Hate?” Didi blinked in honest confusion. “What is there to hate?”

“The ending of one life in favor of another?” Riddler put forth. “Or even more selfishly, just for some cruel whim or another? Or lives snuffed out by pure chance and misfortune? Or all those responsible for souls that pass… before their time, without getting the chance to experience life?”

“Murderers,” Penguin nodded in agreement. “Some of us are guilty, plain and simple.”

“And I bear no anger towards killers,” Didi reassured, keeping her voice gentle and genuine. “Not for the lion killing to eat nor the madman killing to kill nor the supernova killing in Death.”

“I bear regret, yes,” She smiled sadly. “So much regret, for each and every Life. But I don’t blame any killer, and I certainly don’t hate them. Life and Death, by chance or by purpose, inevitably go hand in hand.”

“Death is kind,” Sean praised. “Even to the most unkind souls and the most unkind circumstances.”

“Every story ends. And when they do, Mom remembers all of them,” Alice said.

Didi wanted to coo over her, but she stayed her hand; it wouldn’t do to ruin Alice’s moment there. So young, and yet, she was already turning so wise. Didi would make sure Alice knew how proud of her she was later, without embarrassing her.

Jason sighed, shaky but reassured, “… I really shouldn’t have expected anything less from you, Didi. I’m sorry for doubting you.”

Didi waved him off with a small laugh, “I’ve borne worse, many a time.”

“And still, you treat the assholes the same as the good ‘uns,” Harley said, uncharacteristically serious.

Ivy shook her head, “She really is too good for us.”

“For this whole universe,” Sean agreed. “All the ‘small’ stories here, we’re blessed to have Didi at the Beginning and at the End.”

Didi demurred, “It’s simply what I am: Death and Conception.”

“No, even then,” Sean denied, coming over to embrace her from behind.

Didi leaned into him, content and hearing him out. Who embraced Death…?

“Even then,” Everyone may have heard him, but his words were for her, truly. “You are something special, Didi. I’ve met your siblings. You could be as uncaring and distant as some of them in your duties, but you aren’t. You are good to each and every soul you meet. You, Didi — not Death, not Conception. Your concepts could have come in many forms. I’m glad they came in yours.”

Didi smiled. Sean. Sean Caine, her Hand, her Prince Consort: he embraced Death.

She shifted around in his arms and repaid that commitment, embracing him in turn. Her hands clutched his face, so lovingly, and brought it down so his lips would meet hers. She pressed all of herself into the kiss. She made sure he knew her Endless existence was better with him in it, too.

“I wasn’t always this way, you know?” Didi whispered, barely breaking the kiss to speak against his lips. “I have a ‘small’ story all my own, just like any other, just like all of yours. Once, I frightened the stars, and once, I even let my concept lapse. Would you have loved-…?”

Sean silenced her with a renewed kiss, fiercely telling her how stupid her half-asked question was.

“We may have met in person at the perfect time for both of us, but I loved you long before, Didi,” He told her. “So, always. No matter what form you take.”

Then, he smirked and quipped, cupping her butt to lift her into his arms, “This form does happen to be my favorite, though.”

Didi couldn’t stop the smile that must’ve bloomed on her face, “… The perfect time, hmm?”

“In Death and in Conception,” Sean affirmed. “So used to both, and so in need of something more. We found it together, my Death.”

Behind them, their forgotten audience made themselves known again, Harley flatly stating, “Anyone who tells them to get a room, I’ll cut’cha, capeesh?”

“… I don’t even like cutesy romance, but this shit is so pure I can feel my soul healing,” Two-Face agreed.

Endless as she was, Didi knew embarrassment, too. She blushed and tried to get Sean to put her back down. He denied her that, laughing and spinning with her still in his arms. Didi could do — or wanted to do… — nothing but hold on tight.

Distantly, present everywhere there was Death and everywhere there was Conception, ALL of Didi spun along with her ‘prime’ iteration in Sean’s arms. The distraction, momentary as it was, left every Didi with a fond huff.

Immediately, however, she turned back to the Endless Beginnings her concept witnessed and the Endless Ends, omnipresent for two lines of Life’s every story.

A girl born in flight on Tamaran, caught by her father and twirled so the world could hear her first cries.

A seal pup caught as prey by an equally juvenile orca as the latter learned to hunt.

A star’s explosive Death and all the Conception it would seed.

An artist who’d found success in their craft too late, leaving an apprentice who vowed to do his master’s work justice; Didi kept the artist around just long enough for him to hear his apprentice’s promise.

A father, a sister, an orphan, and a boss who valued his goons, all killed by Ciri and her Edgerunning crew on a contract; Didi walked all of the deceased to their eternities.

An unlucky boy in the emergency room, flatlining and so scared as the darkness crept in all around him; Didi stayed by his side, holding his hand, until the professionals resuscitated him.

Klarion (… Bum Bum Bum… the Witch Boy!) reading a tome that touched on Cheating Death, though he hadn’t gotten to that bit yet; Didi appeared over his shoulder as a warning, giving him a disappointed frown that had him freeze, sheepishly smile, and burn the tome then and there.

A dying Green Lantern in a sector distant from Earth, passing the torch (quite literally) to a hastily chosen successor; Didi assured her that her choice was well made as she walked the soul to eternity.

A woman who wanted nothing more than to be a lover, praying to anyone that her lover’s seed in her womb would take; Freyja heard the prayer and decided to grant it, but sought Didi’s approval for the blessed Conception first — given with a smile.

Sean’s partner Mew, a recently frequent sight in Didi’s duties, giving life to the whole of its kind in a new ‘verse with Destruction’s aid; Didi waved at her brother, and he waved back, the first earnest smile she’d seen from him in years on his face.

 A trillion-trillion insects, a trillion-trillion birds and fish and mammals and nigh-infinite alien clades in Death and Conception, their stoires no less alive for their lack of sapience.

Didi witnessed every Beginning and every End, Endlessly.

All of Life’s stories, all so ‘small’, all a universe unto themself. Death smiled and cherished every one.