Should Never Be

The winds carry a message, words whistling incoherently. Sometimes they were mourning, mostly they were mourning. That was how mortal poets interpret it mostly, thinking that the voices not heard by anyone will be brought to them by the careless dancer of gales.

Mori Calliope dipped her feet into the water, the mites of sand washed away by the refreshing water blossoming in the desert. The shrubbery housing the edges of the pond, the palm trees dancing along to the wordless winds and the shine over her pale skin.

A seldom smile stretches itself upon the grim reaper's face.

Yes, this was a pleasant feeling, she thought. A grim reaper had no need for a day off from work. They do not tire, they do not need to eat or drink. They reap and guide the souls to the underworld where they shall be judged. Humans would call it corporate hell.

The only time that can be called a break was the journey between the mortal coil and the afterlife. Limbo, people call it.

Limbo was a strange place, ornate and ethereal yet vicious and deceptive at the same time. The journey was always different. A gentle stroll over a meadow of flowers that sprung into butterflies can very much manifest into a cesspit of screaming whirlpools with hands trying to rock the boat. Whom the scythe carries in its chine will reflect upon the environment, their sins becoming the lighter to so many travesties or the hush to a childlike wonderland of comfortable dreams.

Creativity, the escapism and the damnation of humans.

Limbo was ruled by no one, a place of free reign. Only grim reapers can walk on the thin balancing rope that is Limbo, for they themselves were born from the mystic and static nothing of it. A dark, cold and gentle place. A blinding, burning and harsh place. Home of the grim reapers, home for Mori Calliope.

Or that was how she interpreted it.

The grim reaper blinked into the perception of a face when the steady water her feet embellished in had bumped into something. A pair of eyes, not a conscious soul. Moving its legs, paddling through the water gently, bumping into the wall of sand. It was like staring at a bugged machine, a failure in coding, unable to overcome such a trivial obstacle.

Now that Mori had taken a closer look, the gem embedded right on his sternum, there was a prominent slit in the middle. Black swirls, odd ones circulated or emanated from it, like a haze that revolves around it. As if someone swatched paint over another, merging into another hue slowly. Black mixed with reddish-brown would lead to a darker colour but the outer parts were red.

Perhaps it was the light reflecting upon it but Mori could feel that small hint, that small hint of fire that she hates. The shining brightness, the eternal flame, as if it itself wants to be the sun-- no, greater.

"I will never die." It mocked her. "I will live, and live again. Your scythe fails you, grim reaper. Your life is just for killing and when you cannot, you find more. That is why it is so absolutely outrageous that you cannot do the same to me. It goes against your very existen--"

The wind stopped. A cold chill in the desert, the air had gone stagnant or rather, redirected from the very essence of anger. A grim reaper is not one that can be provoked by mortals, or anything for that matter. They were not supposed to feel any form of antagonism towards anything.

Unless that 'thing' that provoked them was an imbalance to their being. The only way to make a grim reaper angry is to make them feel threatened. The wedge to their literal being, the phoenix that defies the natural order that the grim reaper upholds. The mistake that should never have happened.

Mori Calliope withdrew her scythe.

"We killed you once. Your fire will not burn forever." She slammed her feet down on the phoenix's face, submerging him down beneath the pond with a splash as she loomed above like a guillotine. The man struggled, his arms flailing and grasping the air. He was confused, he was afraid.

Bubbles sporadically on the unstable surface of the thrashing pond. He was tapping on the grim reaper's leg, hoping for some form of mercy. Mori didn't give, in her knowing rage or rather, this was the best mercy she can give to him. Kill him properly so that he can pass on.

Soon, there'd be no more movement. The phoenix's vessel had died, again. In the hands of the grim reaper, again. And when Mori Calliope lifted her foot, when that terrible flame started to sizzle the waters of the pond, another terrible flame burned inside her.

The screech of the phoenix illuminated the desert and Mori struck the core of it just as it burst out from the shell. Out of hate, out of spite, out of anger. An oasis steamed into clouds, a grim reaper flung back to the base of a coconut tree, the phoenix reviving the soul once again.

It was supposed to be impossible for grim reapers to be hurt, yet the scars that covered her entire being spoke otherwise. She tasted the flames of a phoenix, flaying away the flesh of her face, revealing the true skeleton beneath. She felt cold, frigid sherbet, to the point that it felt like she was set aflame as well.

Mori stood up despite her wounds and manifested her scythe once again. The clouds of sand kicking up to her face, through the veil that had been burnt away, pelting her bones and skin. She marched forward, to the now sleeping nightmare of her own.

The jewel looked at her, and she looked at the jewel. She pointed the toe of the scythe directly upon it.

"I always knew something was weird with your death. It was like a light bulb turning off." Frigid air hissing between the grim reaper's teeth. "So you faked it. You son of a bitch, you faked it! I should've seen it, I should've known!"

The gem flickered. Suddenly, the body moved before the vessel was conscious, grabbing the scythe by the handle and ripping it out of Mori's hands. Mori retreated, once again the bark of the palm tree behind her. There was a deep sting in her hands, a sting that she remembered too well in the past.

Her hands were burning, burning with that everlasting fire that she hated. The fake skin and flesh poured right through her bones, splurging down on her feet, bubbling like tar. She clenched her fists and snuffed the horrible flame out of its pitiful existence.

Across from her, the Everlasting Phoenix stood. He was moving, he was alive, in the sense that you would move a doll when playing with it. The way he broke her scythe into two and the way his arms clumsily moved to chuck it at her. A puppet on strings.

Mori tilted her head sideways, the pole missing her by an inch, burning her luscious pink hair. The other part of the scythe remained in his hands, burning on the surface but not enough to smelt it.

Mori Calliope produced another one of her scythes.

"I. Will. Restore. This. World." Croaking behind the vessel's voice, the ambitious dream of the phoenix roared.

A single dry laugh from death's lips.

"And I want you to stop existing. Is that so hard?"

The vessel stepped forward, the ground set alight.

"You are. Just like them. Just like the rest." The Everlasting Phoenix spat. "Your cycle is beyond me. I am not relevant to your impertinent cycle."

The grim reaper feet were shuffling through the sand, turning them into clumps that rolled upon each other. They grey out, the golden colour fading somehow.

"You should've kept to yourself then. You started spreading that disease to other people, to this world, and look what you did." The chine roughly drew a line in the sand. "Personally, I don't care if humanity has gone extinct. It's good that those arrogant priests are all dead, got a taste of their own medicine. But what I can't stand."

Her grip unrelenting, a jet of freezing air was suddenly emitted all around her, pushing all of the nearby sand into the air. The phoenix didn't blink, instead swung the weapon he stole to his very front. Mori Calliope grabbed the scythe by the chine, the blade slipping between her skeletal hand.

"Is how you think you can run away from us."

Her other hand clutched the vessel's face, the smouldering heat burning whatever flesh was hanging onto Mori's skin and the frost from the grim reaper's grasp numbed any feeling the phoenix would have. They both slammed into the ground, Mori using all exerted force she had to smash his head in.

Before the dust could even be spread into clouds, another burst of hot air launched them further. A skeletal frame had been thrown into the air, smoking through each crevice it had. The pure state of death, the pure rotten symbol that everyone hated, and what Mori was deep inside.

The grim reaper flicked her hand, and another scythe was produced before being thrown downwards. She outstretched the other, and another scythe was created to be thrown down into the crater. And another, and another, and another. A barrage of death's tools thrown in the wildest manner, in the hopes of killing what can't be killed.

When Mori herself was now crashing down as well, she manifested one last scythe, her eye sockets seeing the clear in the mist. Every part of the vessel's body had been diced to pieces, chopped beyond human recognition except for the jewel in his chest. Mori aimed at the stone and whispered one final retribution.

"Die."

Then, there was silence. Unforeboded, gentle calmness, one that placed tension into stagnation.

Mori Calliope was floating above the flickering corpse, above an ancient creature that stood next to the vessel.

"Enough, grim reaper." The ancient creature said. "Find another soul to carry, for this one is under my protection."

"Protection?" The grim reaper snarled before remembering. "Oh, I see. You, you yourself are also trying to evade death as well."

A stern blast of wind shoved Mori into the air again. It wasn't as strong of a launch, and she landed on the bits of sand next to the crater.

The wise god stared back at death, not with unrelenting violence and defiance like the phoenix did, but with some form of understanding and wish to reconcile.

Skin and flesh began to reform upon Mori's features as the first words she had in mind left her newly formed lips. The old god felt lingering heat scalding her capelet and hair behind her.

"So, you're siding with that firebird, owl?"