4- Tauluthet

Tauluthet was one of the thirteen Reapers who worked directly for Death. They dealt primarily with premature and unnatural deaths. Each Reaper had 30 Shepherds working under them. It was their job to deal with natural and expected passings, the ones that required little effort, as Shepherds were single-minded creatures who didn't deal with anything unexpected well. The last in Death's employ were the Yioaleu. Tau had described them as lovely creatures, both in temperament and duty. What he had meant by that, Quayleigh never did understand. It was their job to move the dead onto their final destination, be it oblivion or a good scrub in a cleansing pool before their energy was returned to the river of life. Amongst the ranks of the Reapers, Tauluthet was number 13.

*************

Quayleigh's body shuddered at the sight of him, nearly causing her to drop the case of water she was holding. He was not as she remembered him the day before. He was no longer just another man, fallen on hard times. He was a lost Reaper, trapped in a realm for which he did not belong. He was intense, lithe and handsome beneath his disheveled appearance. His eyes were keen, and direct, darker than they had appeared before. His skin had the distinct tan pattern of a person who simply walked outside for too long. It was unintentional and uneven. He looked hungry; his cheeks gaunt. Yet his lips were firm and smooth; he had been drinking the water he would buy. He was kind, moving towards her to help her with the water, and yet she knew him to be wholly dangerous. A messenger of woe and heartbreak for those capable of seeing who he truly was.

Tau took note of the look in her eyes, they were wide, welcoming, and intrigued. The glossy white of her left accentuating the dark blue flecks in her hazel. For the past eight years, he had been in communication with this woman, who was now standing barely a foot before him. She had always been the one to initiate the conversations, as that was simply the way it had to work. Reapers could not use magic, at least not the same magic humans could.

Every time a session would begin, to Tau, it was if she had connected directly into his mind. A soft green orb would appear in front of him, creating a small window, a hole in the veil between their realms, that would open up and surround him, allowing him to see everything the green touched. To him, it was if he was in the room with her, offering a shaded view of her slender, often naked form, and the carefully prepared ritual on the pristine surface of a wooden table. He would watch as she would write her questions, the words appearing as the scraps of paper were placed into the bowl. And with each question, the rituals sacrifice would sink further into the blood, passing through into his realm, a little at a time, until it would come to rest against the boney surface of his hand; a precious gift from the woman willing to communicate with him. To respond to her questions all he had to do was dip his finger into the bowl and scrawl his answers onto the paper. Her smile at his responses was often the greater gift, as he didn't understand what it meant, or why it happened, but it gave him something to ponder on, and that was a rare occurrence in the land of the dead.

With no perception of feelings or emotions, the strange sensations that would accompany these interactions simply moved through him, like static passing through the core of his bones, unnamed and undefined. However, he wanted it to happen more. He knew the word enjoyment, and he often wondered if this was what it meant. And he would look forward to the next time it would happen.

Emotions and feelings were more foreign to a reaper than a beating heart, and now, that too, was something he had, along with a human face and body. He was almost incapable of identifying what he was feeling but responded as one would expect.

Fear was one he had become all too quickly familiar with after seeking out Quayleigh for the first time. Being the only human, he knew, it seemed logical to find her, once he realized he was still in the same district that he had been assigned by Death, in the other realm. They may have looked different, a barren waste to a vibrant city, but nature had a way of replicating itself, always being in a state between life and death and Tau was excellent at recognizing trees, there was something about the designs on the bark that had always piqued his interest. The large, skinny maples that grew along the residential streets, were how he managed to locate the Liebman convenience store when he first set out to find her.

The initial time he saw her, it felt to him as if his new heart had stopped. She was even more captivating in person, and to him, she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He watched her slender fingers push a strand of glossy hair behind her ear. It made him wonder how soft it would feel, and curious about its smell and taste. Having experienced none of these things before, such wondering has become common place to him, along with the reasons behind all the basics he had struggled with- hygiene, eating, and dressing. Most of which he barely managed.

Even navigating through the immediate surroundings, he had found himself, had been difficult. While his body was one size, his mind had yet to grasp the concept or bothered to compensate for the mass discrepancy. It had taken him nearly a week before he managed to leave the place and he would have remained longer if he felt that he could have learned anything more from it. Whoever he was, had left notes behind. They were basic instructions, most of which made no sense to the thing that he was. They offered little help to his struggle, and in the end, he relied more on his previous experience in the realm of the living than he did trying to decipher the information fastened to nearly ever surface he encountered. He knew he had to eat and drink in order to keep his body functioning, and amongst the items left to him, water and chocolate bars seemed to provide him with what he needed with the least amount of mess and no complicated preparations. His habit of purchasing mints came from witnessing the way they were passed about at crime scenes. They seemed to be the thing one eats when near the bodies of the dead, and he was still a reaper, despite his situation, he still had a job to do. Although now it had become far more difficult, exponentially so.

Now courage had never been something Tau had had, which meant it was also something he had never lacked. In the realm of the dead such a concept was moot. One did one's job, rarely more, nothing less. Experiences simply were and provided no sense of feeling. Like courage, fear was something that simply did not exist to him, but as a human, Tau quickly learned that it was easier to run away when his heart began to beat rapidly, and water began to escape through the palms of his hands and under his arms than it was to stick around and confront what was causing the reaction.

As odd as it was, Tau had failed to find his way back to the place he had arrived in. While searching for it, he had come across the homeless camp off of Caldwell Street and found it more to his liking. The people were kind to him, helped him in the ways of living on the streets, and took no offense to any of his bizarre behavior, possessive nature, or poor condition.

As a reaper he had no need to eat or sleep, he had a home, but it was only a place to visit when there were no souls to collect. It was the place where messages were left from other reapers or the many shepherds that were under his command. Messages were rare though, so he preferred to wander. His district was one of the smaller ones, based on population, and although he had 30 shepherds assigned to him, as all Reapers do, he had ten of his sent to the third Reapers district to help compensate for the human's fascination with clustering. Something he hadn't understood until now. He felt drawn to be near those of his new kind. Humans who accepted him, and he felt compelled not to be in the same space as those he felt were somehow better than he. Although he had no understanding as to why. So, when it came to Quayleigh, he kept his distance. He felt unworthy to even be in her presence, and she hadn't recognized him on sight. He would have said something to her sooner, but his throat always seemed to close up at the thought of doing so. He could hardly even look at her because he felt ashamed to stare. His insides would churn, and his body would react in ways with her that it did with no other, and he didn't understand any of it. He was confused, startled, and afraid. Every three days or so, he would attempt again, and each time it was no better. He had watched what others had done, and eventually after several failed attempts had managed a simple, 'Hey.'

"Hey," she would reply, and his chest would tighten, and his heart would feel as if it were to explode. She was speaking to him, for him, and the elation was near more than he was capable of bearing. As much as he wanted to say more, this was all he could manage. In a small way, he was pleased with that alone. Her voice was the sound of angels singing, completely different from the normal harmony it held when she spoke to others. He would always smile at their interaction, pay, and then leave. He would hide for a few days afterwards trying to figure out what and why things had happened as they had. The emotions, the physical responses he couldn't grasp, and he knew he had to try again. It got easier with every attempt, and he became more comfortable being human the more he tried.

He watched over Quayleigh from a distance. He found new sensations, and emotions that came with his new form, and when she reached out with her ritual, it somehow still worked the same. Only now he had a name for the sensation for which he was so familiar- It was excitement.

*************

On that previous night, Tauluthet could sense something was wrong. He had seen the look in the eyes of those things. He had heard the way they had spoken of Quayleigh, calling her the skinny chick with the fucked-up face, or simply the damaged one. The creature known as Three, had a particular fascination with her, watching her in a manner that even Tau thought wrong. Three had verbalized what he thought she would be like in bed. About how he had thought about ravaging her and bragged to his companions about how he would take her for a night, but ultimately couldn't keep her because the scar made her too hard to look at. He found it unfair that he would have to hold her face down so he wouldn't get turned off. That night, Three and his friends had been drinking. They were being obnoxiously loud when Tau came across them. They were in the alley behind the hardware store across the side street from Liebman's convenience. Tau had been standing in the shadow of the tree on the corner listening to drunken ramblings. They ignored him, to wrapped up within their own conversations to notice his presence. They were making plans; Tau didn't like what he was hearing.

He had been waiting for the last customers to leave the store before entering. He knew his appearance made others uncomfortable, and in that made him feel even more awkward and anxious. He had been preparing all day to be alone with her, and that night he preferred if there were no witnesses. He didn't want anyone but her around, in case he stuttered, in case he misspoke, in case he had to interfere.

His words came out smoothly, he had a reason to speak to her, he had to warn her of what was transpiring outside, and in that, he spoke to her for the first time; really spoke to her. She asked for his name, he was too frightened to say, mostly because he didn't know how to answer. IF he had told her the truth, would she be afraid? Would she listen? Would she do something more terrifying like want to touch him? He wasn't prepared for any of that. He couldn't even imagine someone like her, ever wanting to truly be close to something like him. He had no means by which to judge himself worthy of her, just a feeling that if she knew, she would be repulsed, and that would hurt, even more than just the thought. So, in his foolishness, he was cryptic. He wanted her to know, he just didn't want to be the one to tell her. She was brilliant, and in the end, he knew she would figure it out. That night proved it.

He had waited to see if she would listen to his warning. His heart sinking further with each moment that passed. He could hear the escalation, the desperation, he could feel the tension, like spiders crawling over his skin. Someone was adding fuel to the fire, turning it into a blaze, thugs wanting to become full blood gang members, their desires to escape into the city, their hope for a different future relying on destroying an already downtrodden life.

Normally, Tauluthet wouldn't be allowed to interfere. The world of the living revolved around a different order, and it wasn't the place of a reaper to make these sorts of decision. But what could possibly deny him now? He was in the realm of the living and all he wanted to do, was everything it took to protect Quayleigh. In his conviction, into his hand from the particles of air coiled in shadow, his Reaper's blade drew forth. Cold steel vibrated beneath his fingers, the wind humming at its edge. The demonic looking scythe, Uroxuz, was a gift from Death, proof of his position as the leader of the thirteenth district in the realm of the dead. It should have been impossible for it to materialize into the hand of a mortal, but like him, it had changed. It had weight, and texture. It was smooth, and the crescent blade, was sleek and dreadfully sharp. It was rare for a Reaper to have to cleave a reluctant soul from its body, but in this new materialized state it felt hungry, and who was he to refuse. Technically, claiming souls was his job after all.

*************

There was a strange sense of calm radiating through his system when the green glow appeared before him. Tau wanted to tell her, 'Your name is so lovely. I'm glad I can pronounce it right.', 'I'm so happy that you figured it out, but I knew you would.', 'I wanted to see you too! Can I come over now?' but that wasn't how these sessions worked. The connection to him was stronger than the one from him. She didn't know that it was her energy he had to use to write his responses, and he wasn't particularly good at writing either. His hands were completely different now, and they lacked both the pointed tip, half their length, and an extra bend. While he was pleased by being able to feel more, the plump, sweaty nature of his new hands made him trepidations about interacting with the bloody bowl. The cold liquid has an unusual feeling, although he had adapted to it, but on this night, this session, her questions made his heart race.

The questions swirled in his mind, and he contemplated lying for the first time, causing him to think about his answers. He had desires about what he wanted her to ask, and how he wanted her to respond to what he was saying. He had never gone through such mental gymnastics before, and that alone caused him discomfort. He had always been honest and open with Quayleigh. For what reason did a Reaper have to lie to anyone about anything. The very concept of lying seemed as illogical to Tau, as disobeying the rules of one's job. But here, he wasn't even sure of how his job worked anymore.

'You're here. I want to see you! I want you to explain it to me in person. Will you do this for me?' Clutching his chest, Tau didn't understand how such incredibly simple words could cause his heart to pound so intensely that it brought tears to his eyes.

'FOR YOU ANYTHING,' he had responded just in time, the cockroach, now dead, firmly in the palm of his hand, he placed it in his pocket and carried it back to his box at the camp. He was exhausted, a feeling he had become annoyed with as he was uncertain of how to stop it from happening. He had hoped she would have invited him in, but the session had run its course before he could see her next question.

Tau had been given his carboard box by a man named Willy, who had found a newer, better one, shortly after Tau's arrival, and was happy to pass it along to another man in need. In exchange, for his kindness, Tau had given Willy a chocolate bar and a package of mints. Joy wasn't an emotion that Tau had yet become familiar, but in that exchange of boxes, he found it satisfying when Willy smiled at him over such a simple thing as a container of mints. In a way, Willy became a friend. He liked to talk and his smile made Tau feel more welcome than he should have. Inside his little box, at the far end of the homeless camp, covered in torn black plastic tarp, Tau had an old, dented mental tin to which he added the newest gift from Quayleigh, before closing his eyes and drifting off to sleep.