Chapter Text
—Past—
"Hey, Calli?"
The Reaper perked her head up, the hood covering her head slightly loosening up. She almost couldn't hear the Phoenix from the series of voices coming from their surrounding—the mix depths of tones swirling around the air somehow served as a distant background against the flickering lanterns highlighting the bright purple magenta eyes that bore right into her own crimson ones. It wasn't the first time, that sensation of the world slowing for a reason she couldn't figure out just for the purpose of centering her line of sight to the frame of a certain orange-haired human creature.
Calliope had no heartbeat, or at least—she could never feel nor hear them. But if she somehow could, ignoring the odd of probabilities that would usually berate her the impossibility of the matter—the Reaper was certain it would sound just as heavy as the footsteps that continued to vibrate against her hearing, ironically matching the soft clatters of the rain falling down the gravel road, and perhaps she would finally feel how living was meant to sense these sort of things.
It was no secret that Calliope held no interest in the things under the domain of Life unless her duty called for it. But inexplicably, she could make an exception out of all self-imposed rules and regulations she limited herself with when it came to dealing with the Phoenix. It wasn't just the smile that would warrant that certain pleasant warmth enveloping the usual cold she had bathed herself in or the burning electricity that would crawl under her skin like how the sky would light up at the dawns of lightning and thunders whenever the eternal being clasped her hand as though she was her lifeline.
Calliope, for an unknown reason she could not search, desired more of these strange sensations that she had never felt before. She never cared about emotions, she had always viewed them as something trivial especially for somebody who was an apprentice to Death itself. Being with the Phoenix however, felt so enlightening that she did not mind such trivialities at all. So she always indulged the Phoenix to whatever she wanted to do that before she was even truly aware of it, most of her time and existence had been occupied by the Phoenix' warm company.
"You're staring in daze again," the Phoenix grinned, grabbing her hand as the Reaper was dragged along the current of strangers. "Come on, you don't have all day, Calli, the bard would be done with its final song by the time we reach the venue at this rate."
Their boots left stamps of small puddles over the muddy road, some even getting over the loose ends of their cloaks. Adventurers swamped the street, some standing over the corner waiting for the rain to stop while most chose to enjoy the festival even if it meant getting soaked. Calli could hear the way some of their weapons would clank against other people's metals as they pass by one another in hurry, as well as the way their armours would sometimes resound loudly while running to escape the rain. There were many things Calli could pay attention to, so much things she could learn for as long she could stay in the Overworld.
It wasn't the first time she had experienced going around like this in the world of mortals, but it was the first time she had directly sneaked out of the Underworld just to accompany the Phoenix to this said festival that according to the bird, was meant to celebrate the victory the Kingdom achieved from the war against the demons generations ago. While Calli could not understand why humans would choose to celebrate the day of countless dead and unnecessary bloodshed that they called "victory"—she did not regret coming out here at all.
"Yes, we caught up!" Kiara exclaimed, the two standing amongst a crowd of people while facing a wooden stage platform in front.
There was a woman there with a harp, saying something about her last performing song for the day. The strings of the harp glistened against the gentle rain, small amount of sunlight passing through their translucency. The constant buzzing noise earlier told Calli that living was meant to be noisy, that Life demanded sounds in order to remind one another of their existence. But the tune propagating all over the space enraptured the Reaper in a way that reminded her of the same warmth that was settling on the hand that was still being held by the Phoenix.
(As I wake up from a dream
I let out a sigh
I gazed at
Your invisible outline)
Calli could feel a racing rhythm of pulses beating like silent thumps of rocks skipping through the water's surface, creating a ripple of reactions above but quiet bubbles sinking beneath that went unseen by naked eyes. She didn't know whom it belonged to, but she figured it couldn't be hers since she believed she did not have a heart—that it was impossible for her to ever feel something so profound as a heartbeat.
Yet as the years came by, Calliope Mori began to see summers as a blazing heat that would warm the frozen colds of her un-beating heart like the Phoenix who once ascended the skies with spreading flames of feathers that vanquished the threatening darkness of a world that could only watch as she saved it once again. Spring belonged to the growing pleasant sensation that enthralled her like how a butterfly would come seeking nectars from beautiful flowers, similar to how a certain female bird would constantly unknowingly water the seeds the orange-teal haired had long planted in her barren soul, the seeds sprouting silently under the sun's security.
(I know I'm pathetic
But please hug me
Be at my
Be at my side please)
As more years accumulated, Calliope had learned how to dislike the incomings of autumn. It was as though preparing for a strong wind to blow the previous warmth she had worked so hard to store, leaving pieces of cold from an empty shelf of previously-filled albums of memories. It was a season where the butterfly would leave the previous flower it was enamoured with, going with the motion of Life as the flower withered unprecedentedly—that if the butterfly would ever return, it would no longer meet the flower for it was no longer within the sights the small thing could see.
(I know I'm awkward
But please hug me
Be at my
Be at my side
Be at my
Be at my side please)
Winter was a season Calliope believed to be a suitable match to her unyielding heart. It was the cold of a new beginning after a decent end, the season that always reminded the Reaper of that imaginary line that settled the gap between Life and Death—that division that would whisper words of reminders which said the Phoenix despised the cold. Calli was no fool to not be able to see the secret bleeding heart of a wounded being whenever Death would come to pull her warmth into the void of darkness.
It was fine, supposed to be. The Reaper had accepted the gap between her and the Phoenix, but she had never truly thought of despising that balance that made them near each other yet very far out of reach. For the first time in many, countless centuries—Calliope learned how sorrow genuinely felt like. The Phoenix had taught her many emotions but this one was not something she was willing to experience. Because if she had been looking at herself the moment those bright magenta eyes puzzlingly stared at her in wonder, she swore she must have had looked so pathetic, unworthy of being a Reaper.
"Who are you?" The Phoenix asked, smiling just as brightly as the confusion that imprinted on her rich expression.
For Reapers do not cry—Calli felt pathetic that she had been the one who shed her first.
Pathetic, she berated—as though it would ever mask the deep sadness in her eyes, only hidden by the thin cover of the dark veil she was grateful of.
(I haven't been able
To move on from our parting
The conversations we had
Are slowly forgotten)
But even so, Calli could not kill the one sprouting seed that had grown into a fine flower inside her barren soul. She did not care for it, she simply let it be, thinking that it would somehow wither eventually—
It never did.
The conversations repeated one after another. The previous centuries of learning about the ins and outs of being with each other were thrown into the deepest ends of Calli's pages. She did not mind the repeat in the progress of their learning, not minding the fact that she was the only one learning continuosly with the latter forgetting it after another amount of centuries.
(I wanted to dance with your pulse
But now
But now that isn't possible)
She had ignored the way the Phoenix would constantly shower her fresh sunlight and water that before the Reaper had even realized it, the lone flower standing in the barren of her soul became such a fresh garden of various blooming kinds. Now, Calliope had to take responsibility and pluck it all out before she drowned her soul with flowers that would only grow so messily with its gardener who was never even aware that she herself had been growing a garden.
(Into the lackluster
And unchanging
Days
Days I gradually blend in)
However, the garden was constantly growing in size that the more Calliope plucked out the plants, the more she felt like she was being pricked by unseen thorns. She would look down at her hands and see the traces of bleeding and she would grab the flowers still, only to feel the heaviness of their weight. She eventually came into a point in her centuries of existing that she could no longer pluck the growing plants for her hands had all been occupied by scars and dried blood.
(I don't think it's your fault
But somehow
But somehow I felt a bit lonely
By the lackluster
And breathless days
Days I was fooled)
She thought if current things would have become easier had she not been so enthralled by the Phoenix in the first place. She would never know the answer, she supposed, for even if it all had been different—somehow, Calliope just knew she would do the same things over again. That no matter what, she would still choose to wait while watching the ashes rise over the air, circling like a small whirlwind which was exuding warm heat that tickled her skin.
Calliope had watched this scene many, many countless times now that she had lost count of the exact number of her witnessing such a majestic sight. The ashes would glow, the once gray-coloured cinders rekindling into frictions of fire until the ashes began to reshape into a figure she knew very well. It would take a while, but no matter how long the body would take to reborn, Calliope had always made it her routine to watch the entire scene—awaiting for that wonderful smile she would receive.
Sometimes, a look of confusion would be given at her, the other no longer remembering who she was. Rarely, the creature would attack her due to the sense of danger Reapers would often make others feel whenever they were seen. It only made the Reaper wonder what kind of first impression would the Phoenix give her this time.
Takanashi Kiara was beautiful.
It wasn't the kind of beauty that would make people stop because of he looks but because the warm atmosphere circulating around her. It was what attracted both mortals and immortals alike, some making her an enemy and the others as companions. Kiara had a lot of them, memories she had forgotten that Calli would always remember—both the kinds the Reaper knew would make the Phoenix happy to reminisce and the kinds that she also knew the bird would be better off without remembering.
"Calli! We meet again!" The Phoenix greeted.
The Reaper smiled, taking off her black cloak to cover the naked girl.
Yet another centuries later, the same sight of an ascending Phoenix, the same glowing ashes circling through the air—the same figure materialising before her monochromatic eyes. Yet this time again, there was that familiar sense of distance as the Phoenix' purple eyes drifted to her own. The Reaper, this time, did not wait for the Phoenix to come running to her—already taking off her cloak to cover the girl sitting on the ground.
"And you are...?"
The same conversations, the same experiences—and yet Calliope did not mind. She wanted to feel the Phoenix, she desired her warmth and company that she did not care whether or not the same words and promises had been uttered in vain before.
—"Calli! I'm back!"
—"The last world I was in drained a lot of my essence so I have to recuperate by always sticking by your side!"
—"Calli is as beautiful again today as always."
—"...who are you?"
—"Are you the Reaper in charge of me from now on?"
—"Have we met before?"
—"Calli!"
—"So your name is Calliope Mori? It's beautiful!"
—"I don't know, I feel like I've known you for so long now."
—"I often forget things, I'm sorry."
—"I've gotten better at the memory thing. I used to forget a whole lot before, now only some events in the past."
—"Calliope...right?"
—"I'm looking forward on working with you again this time, Calli!"
—"Hey, Calli, say...do you want to go to the Overworld with me?"
(I wanted to dance with your pulse
But now
But now that isn't possible)
The curse of Life that would often leave behind memories and the curse of Death that would always pick them up. The first one leaving traces of Life onto the other and the latter accepting without restraints despite knowing it would not make any difference due to being part of Death. Calliope thought it was a very fitting analogy to their connection.
—"Calli, I absolutely adore you!"
—"Ah, you're such a tsundere as always, Calli."
—"I miss you!"
—"You're the only constant in my entire life, I'm always looking forward on meeting you at the beginning of my life and at the end of it too."
—"Let's just get married!"
—"Of course I care! You're my best friend!"
—"I care a whole lot about you, Calli, don't overwork yourself."
—"How's the Underworld? It's been so long since I last came down there."
—"Aweee, Calli cares for me too!"
—"You're cute when you're blushing, Calli."
—"...of course I remember. Not all of them, but I will never forget what I feel for you."
—"I'll always accompany you, Calli!"
(I know I'm pathetic
But please hug me
Be at my
Be at my side please)
"I love you."
(Be at my
Be at my side please)