Archive of Our Own

When Agatha Harkness came into the world her coven claimed that she had been born evil from the moment her cry had left her. They begged to be spared the burden of the child born from something utterly wrong.

They pleaded with Death to take her, take the child that had clearly escaped her reach.

They begged and pleaded for salvation from a punishment that they believed to be undeserved, supposedly being dealt out at the hands of a child.

When Rio Vidal heard the spells and summonings tugging at the back of her mind, she was intrigued. Rarely, mothers called for her at births. They typically wished for her to stay away, bargained, and begged for her to let them and their babe live. To hear now a desperate cry for her to claim a child not slated to meet its end… Well, she followed the call.

Anything to add a little intrigue to her endless routine.

She walked through the coven and heard the whispers, a wicked babe, a child with nothing but venom and poison beneath her skin. Rumors flowed that you could even see horns and claws.

Evil to the core they said.

When Rio Vidal finally arrived at the home of the wallowing mother and set her eyes on Agatha Harkness, she knew that the child before her had not been born with evil in her veins.

Agatha Harkness had been born starved.

A power-hungry beast writhing within.

Rio watched as the baby fussed and cried while her coven threw fit after fit when all that they had given to her was rejected. She didn’t want the foods made for a mortal mouth, she didn’t want the comforts of a strong united coven. She needed their power.

Rio could feel it as it clawed out from within her, a starved beast aching to sink its claws into the nearest well of power it could find. Just as soon as one was offered.

The child cried, and the coven ignored.

On her seventh day of life, Evanora left the child in the woods, begging Death to take it from her. The tears had not stopped for days, the starving well within her still unsatisfied.

Death approached the child and slowly the cries filling the woods around them settled to a stop as the woods pulsed with the magic of the first Green Witch slipping between its trees. New growths of moss rising up around each place Death’s foot set into the soft earth below her feet, carrying her to the child that so many believed Death must claim.

Death stood above the child, being watched carefully by bright intelligent eyes, “I cannot save you from the pain that comes for you. You are not marked to die.”

The baby only watched the empty air.

“I can offer only time.” Death whispered, allowing a small glow of green magic to mist from her fingertips, settling over the child and soaking into her skin. The green faded as a bright purple swallowed its energy and burned bright in the eyes below her.

After six years, Death returned.

Agatha Harkness was starved once more.

Her skin pulled at her bones, her body ached for something food could not sate, and illness plagued her. Her coven helped out of duty alone. Death listened to the whispers in private moments, once again begging her to return and finish the job that must have been waiting for her.

Still, Agatha Harkness was not marked for Death to collect.

Death approached the empty cabin, her mother having not returned since she left that morning. Pleading with Death even now to return and find a bed devoid of life. Unseeing eyes watched the emptiness of the cabin as she approached, the pain and starvation that plagued her once before, now able to be understood by its bearer.

The wooden floors creaked under each step Death took towards Agatha Harkness, “Mother? Please… Help me…” A weakened voice called out to the air.

“I can offer only time.” Death responded softly, her voice an echo to ears that could not hear. Only eyes moved when she spoke, they searched over the space where Death stood as if trying to see her before her time.

Death waved her hand and the pure green magic pooled once again at her fingertips, misting over Agatha to be met by the vibrant purple that overwhelmed the green within. The light faded and the spark filled Agatha’s eyes once more as the pain ebbed and the hunger sated.

For now.

Rio watched as her mother returned that evening and pleaded with Death, she demanded of Death. Why did it seem that once again Death had granted Agatha pardon from her fate?

After six years, Death returned.

Agatha was starved, again.

Death found her this time alone in the woods, having dragged herself away from the chaos of the coven that called for her collection. Sweat slicked her skin and pain ate away at her inside, clamoring for the fate Death was keeping her from.

When she stepped into the clearing a twig broke under her bare food and Agatha’s head snapped up, eyes passing over the space Death occupied as it approached, “Mother? Where are you? Please, Mother… Help me… Make it stop, I beg of you. Please-”

As the green magic pulled at Death's fingertips, she spoke again, “I can offer only time.” The magic misted over Agatha’s skin, the vibrant purple hungrily consuming everything it could as the spark returned to Agatha’s eyes, “I cannot help you escape the fate that comes for you again.” Death spoke words falling on deaf ears.

Death faded and Rio watched the girl collect herself and walk carefully back to the coven that continued to reject her, despite her survival. The coven that still pleaded for her to meet her end. Back to the home of the mother who branded her evil simply because she starved.

After six years, Death returned one final time.

This time it was the call of imminent death that drew her in.

Rio watched as the now grown woman, who she’d been called and begged upon so often to claim, was dragged struggling to a pyre and bound to it by her coven. By the very women who had sworn to protect her, but who had instead abandoned her and branded her evil from before she could speak to defend herself.

Rio drifted through the coven surrounding her and listened to their chatter, their cries, and their pleas to Death. They accused Agatha of betraying their coven, of seeking out and attempting to take power that was not meant for her. They branded her a traitor, a witch undeserving of the title. They all silently begged for Death to come, pleaded with her to claim what she should have long ago.

As their luck would have it, Death was here now to answer their pleas.

Though they did not truly know what it was they begged for.

Rio watched as they read that which she was accused of, during which Agatha begged and pleaded with her mother. She watched as Agatha claimed what they had denied and disbelieved. She begged for help from her coven, pleaded with them to accept and teach her the way they taught all of the other daughter and sisters. But it fell on empty minds, it was too late, she had been branded evil at birth; when she had done nothing more than hunger. The coven did not listen, did not answer her cries for help. Their own plea for Death's arrival to save them ringing together in a symphony of desperation all calling for the death of the accused witch.

But, Death was not here for Agatha Harkness.

Rio stood back as they sent their magic flying at the helpless woman who Death could offer no more time to. Her fate had come to claim her, no matter how much time she had been given. The vibrant blue filled the woods around them, the very same place Death had found Agatha twice before, waiting, in need of her.

Now, at long last, Death watched as Agatha took what she had been so long starved for. The blue magical power crashed into Agatha’s body as she screamed. The scream must have been more out of anticipation than anything, Rio watched, waiting for the spark that had yet to take to make itself known.

That pause gave the coven only moments to revel in what they assumed was surely their final triumph against the child that had been born, in their view, pure evil. Slowly the vibrant purple Rio had only seen traces of, lit up within the witch. It had been lulled into submission by Rio’s trace gifts of power, of time, but now it was cavernous in its need for what it had been denied for so long.

The purple flared to life and Agatha’s screams slowed to a stop as the starved feeling began to abate and swell to so much more within her. The power fed the beast that had lurked below her skin and Rio watched as the true witch Agatha Harkness had been born to be was forged in bright power before her.

Reforged into who she had been fated to be.

Rio crept along the edges as the lives of the coven flickered, soon Agatha’s mother joined the fray, adding her power in the push for her daughter to finally fall. Still, begging for Death to take what she believed her to have been owed for so many years. Death watched as Agatha broke free of the bindings that had bound her to the pyre. As she pushed forward the connection of power to the drained witches broke, allowing all but her mother to fall to the forest floor below them.

Death unsheathed her knife and crept among the bodies, severing souls from their flesh. Dragging them unwillingly, kicking and screaming, to the depths that awaited them.

Rio had to admit, she’d waited quite a long time to claim the souls of those who had marked Agatha evil And left her for dead. The power that flowed within her was no more evil than Death herself.

All things required order, and all things required balance.

Power could not be given without being taken away.

Death watched Evanora continue the attempt at what her sisters had already failed, only continuing to feed what she had starved for so long. Rio crept forward, eager to claim the soul that had begged for her return so fiercely.

Ask for Death and you shall receive, as Death is the end of all paths.

Agatha’s power drew in the last of the coven's power and the connection dropped, finally allowing her mother's body to fall. Rio stepped forward, watching carefully as unseeing Agatha stepped forward again. Fresh power flowing through every inch of her body filled the clearing with something almost akin to Death itself and Rio found herself entranced. She watched as Agatha approached her mother's fallen body, stopping for only a moment to stoop and collect the broach from her still form.

Agatha looked up and for a moment Rio could have sworn their eyes met. That for just a second Agatha had seen not only Death but Rio within it all. It was unheard of. Death passed unseen through all those who lived unless she chose otherwise.

Rio was frozen as they observed each other for what had to be less than a second but it felt as if perhaps it had begun long ago. That, perhaps since Rio had crawled her way out of the fabric of reality, she had not since been able to look away from the gaze of Agatha Harkness.

Agatha shook her head subtly, any indication of their eye contact vanishing as she shot herself up into the air, disappearing with a flash of purple arching through the air behind her. Rio watched as it faded into the black of the sky.

Eventually, she turned to the body that remained at her feet and cursed when she found that this particularly overly ambitious soul had detached itself and wandered off while she’d been watching Agatha.

Perfect.

She hated ghosts.

Loathed having to track them down and the irritating stain they left while they remained walking the cosmos.

Rio set off with the prickle of an unclaimed soul playing at the back of her mind and vibrant purple power tinting her vision for days to come.

Death returned a few weeks later.

It was the pull of a new coven of witches' souls that drew her in now, calling out to her to collect and guide them to the other side, wrapped in purple power.

Only when she stepped through the barrier that allowed her to travel as she pleased, she was met not only with the fallen coven, but one Agatha Harkness scanning her surroundings carefully.

Waiting and watching.

Somehow able to see, as her eyes landed on Rio stepping forward.

“I knew it. I knew I saw something that night. Who are you? What do you want from me?” Agatha cried out, her hands raised, purple burning at her fingertips just aching to be released.

“I want nothing from you,” Rio replied carefully, moving around the outside of the fallen bodies littering the circle of their coven. The circle that had once meant safety, protection, and the power of sisterhood.

Power could not exist unchecked, unbalanced.

Death had been the balance and now Agatha the check.

Agatha could see Rio now, even if she’d willed against it, she could no longer hide from Agatha Harkness.

“Then why are you here? Why do you seem to keep popping up wherever I go?” Agatha begged and Rio could not help but be reminded of the way she had begged her coven for help, for compassion, each plea going unanswered.

“Your coven has spent many years begging for me to kill you. Begged for me to take back the mistake they believed I made in letting you live.” Rio stepped up to the first body and bent. She unsheathed her knife and severed the soul from its body, her green flame lighting the path that she set the soul drifting down. “I do not make mistakes.”

“You’re Death,” Agatha stated, it was no question but Rio could feel the way Agatha wished it could be one.

“I am,” Rio responded while she allowed her true face to surface, the bone shining in the light of the moon above them. Rio had expected Agatha to shy away, to recoil. The last thing she expected was a soft gasp and a step forward as a hand raised ever so slightly, the purple magic that had been lying in wait, long gone.

However, the hand fell back to Agatha’s side as Rio eyed it suspiciously and stood allowing the next soul to drift after her burning flame to guide it. Agatha watched the flame, eyes searching as if she might too see the spirits as they made their final walk, “How can I see you?”

Rio glanced up at her again, cutting the final soul free before she stood and watched until the spirit disappeared, her flame dying out. Rio slowly turned to face her, trailing the tip of her knife along the palm of her hand as she watched Agatha and was, for the first time in her lengthy life, being watched in return, “You are beyond the ability of most. Our powers… they go together in a sense.”

A subtle nod, “It was almost like I could feel something coming, feel you coming I suppose.” Agatha almost whispered, eyes straying to the way the blade of the knife reflected in the moonlight as it traced along Rio’s palm.

“I could feel your call,” Rio responded plainly, it was odd, after so long of being nothing more than a whisper on the wind if she wished it, to be so plainly observed. To find something that looked almost like acceptance in flickering purple eyes, instead of the fear and hatred that most met her with.

Death was inevitable, most hated her for that alone.

Agatha seemed to welcome it.

“Can I ask you something?” Agatha asked after a lull of silence between them.

Rio inclined her head in acceptance.

“Do you have a name?” Agatha asked inquisitive eyes locked onto her, hungry for whatever knowledge she could obtain.

“I suppose that I am called Rio. To those who know me as more than Death.” She spoke without thinking, she so rarely was asked for a name, and to most it was Death, it didn’t matter when those you met had only moments with you still. They did not need to know that which she held onto in her moments of doubt and confusion.

Now though, someone alive could see her, someone alive wished to know more about her.

So, Agatha Harkness would be the first to know Rio Vidal as more than Death.

“I’m Agatha, but I’d imagine you probably already know that.” Rio nodded and Agatha gave her a hesitant smile, Rio found herself drifting closer.

A smile. So few smiled at her.

There would be those who waited to greet her as almost a friend. The ones who’d longed for her arrival and met her with a hesitant smile, but those were always tinged with sadness. Facing her now was a smile tinged with hope, with excitement, with the burning flare of something new.

Something exciting.

Something Death, in all her years, had never experienced.

Their conversation in the clearing over the rotted bodies of Agatha’s second claimed coven was stilted, but it warmed slowly with each step the women took, bringing them closer into the orbit of the other. Eventually, Agatha had to flee as the sounds of hoofbeats filled the woods around them and Rio remained to watch the vibrant purple arch of Agatha’s power fade into nothing against the sky once more.

With one last lingering look at the trail in the sky, Rio cut through the veil and stepped through. She’d wasted enough time, souls lingered on the fringe for her to arrive and guide them along their final path. So she returned to walking the path laid out for her by things far beyond her understanding.

Time passed and Agatha’s power called to her again, this only a fortnight after they had met for the first.

Ever curious Death wasted no time and cut through the air. This time when Death arrived, only two bodies laid out between them on an otherwise empty dirt road. The afternoon sun beat down above them, shadows cast by the trees above breaking the heat that bore down upon them all. Rio approached the bodies laid out before her slowly. One body, that of a witch whose power Agatha had drained and one, of a mortal man, his neck snapped with a flare of now fading purple magic swirling around his fallen body.

Agatha herself was on her knees, eyes wide and unseeing locked on the bodies before her, but she spoke suddenly as if she knew Rio stood before her without having to look, “I didn’t- I didn’t mean it.”

Rio stepped forward and at last, the other witches' eyes flew up and locked onto her, “He attacked me- She, she tried to help me- I didn’t. It wasn’t-” Agatha’s voice was strained and aching, “The others- they attacked me. You have to know I didn’t- I’m not… I can be good. I can.”

For the very first time in her vast existence, Rio found herself entirely ignoring the bodies between them as she stepped over them and instead towards Agatha. She lowered herself down to her knees and Agatha’s eyes remained locked with hers, “You are far more than good or evil.” Rio whispered, extending a hand out palm up, between them.

Agatha glanced down at the offered hand extended between them and carefully slid her palm on top of Rio’s.

Rio had to take a moment as the heady warmth of life rushed through her with an unexpected vibrancy. She was so used to holding those who had passed on, those who had reached the end of their journey and met her with the quiet and reserved cold she had become accustomed to. It was the same cold that lived inside of her. With Agatha’s palm in hers, now she felt alive in a way that she had not been able to imagine in all her years of guiding souls to their veil.

“You are more than good or evil,” Rio breathed out again when Agatha looked at her with doubt, Rio finally finding it in herself to speak again as she marveled at the feeling of their skin and bone pressed together. She flipped their hands upright together and pressed firmly against Agatha’s hand. She gained a few inches before Agatha pressed back, moving their hands to where they had begun, “Is the tide evil for leaving the shore when called for by the moon? Is a dog evil for biting out of fear when hit? Is your hand evil for regaining the space taken from it by mine?”

Agatha watched her with lips slightly parted, eyes locked onto their hands but flickering every so often to Rio’s face and the smooth bone almost glowing white in the afternoon light around them, “Well, no, but-” Rio squeezed her hand.

“You are more than they will ever be able to understand. Existence is not so simple, there is no easy answer for good and evil.” Rio sighed softly as she pulled their hands apart, her reason for their contact gone. Though her fingers buzzed and she itched for something to distract herself from the feel of Agatha’s skin beneath hers, “You simply are, while they are not.”

Rio stood and moved to the neglected bodies behind them. She bent and cut the mortal man’s soul free, dragging her blade through the worst parts of him, allowing it to burn through the center of all that remained of him. The screams that filled her ears were like the sweetest music as she ripped him downwards with her power. After Agatha’s claim of attack, she didn’t bother wasting her time by giving him the chance to follow the green flame that so many others were offered in the illusion of choice.

Agatha watched her silently, her hand still held half up in the air between them while she watched Rio work intently. Rio bent down to the witch and trailed a finger along her now sunken cheeks, she gently closed the witch's eyes and raised her knife, carefully severing the bond between body and soul. Rio cast a glance at Agatha and held a finger up, motioning for a moment, as Rio lifted the woman from her body.

Rio wrapped the woman’s hand in hers as they walked, she answered any questions the witch had as they wound along the road before them. The green flame of Rio’s powers lit the path that continued until the soul beside her became ready for their end. Eventually, they came to a stop at the barrier between what had been and what was to come, Rio let her go and allowed the witch to fade into the rest that awaited her.

When Rio turned, Agatha was before her again, eyes locked on the bodies, now empty, still lying before her. The distance she’d walked with the fallen witch had collapsed back to nothing as her journey ended. “They are not there anymore,” Rio spoke as she stepped over them once more to block Agatha’s view. Rio could practically feel the discomfort in Agatha as she gazed upon them, “Walk with me.”

“As they did?” Agatha snarked almost emptily, watching her with apprehension. Wariness painted itself across her features after she’d watched Rio walk, hand in hand with nothing, away from her and appear again as if nothing had ever happened.

“No. Not as they did,” Rio held her hand out, offering Agatha a way up, a way out of the weight of what she had done, “There is no point waiting here for a nonexistent penance to come forward and collect.” Rio wished to protect her from the pain she saw burning, but selfishly, she also offered herself a way for them to reconnect once again.

Agatha’s hand slipped back into hers and this time she wasn’t entirely shell-shocked, it was a return of what she now felt was missing from her, “Is it not… Wrong? For me to take the lives that I do? Even when I cannot help it.”

Rio led them off of the road and away from the bodies waiting to be found, twisting them through the Salem woods. She had a destination in mind after finding Agatha in the same clothes she last found her in, looking rather worse for wear, “No more so wrong than it is for the owl who must eat the mouse.”

“I know what they say, you know. That I practice dark magic, that I take that which does not belong to me.” Agatha bit out but she followed along unquestioningly, her hand now linked with Rio’s.

“The same has been said of me for as long as someone has existed to say it. Some hate me, some claim me unnatural and unforgiving in my relentless pursuit of power.” Rio swallowed past the unfamiliar thickness in her throat, she was cowed and shamed by many of course, it typically meant nothing to her. Only admitting it now, to the woman alongside her, brought forth the hurt she previously thought herself incapable of feeling, “No matter what they think, I still wait at the end of all things.”

“Are you?” Agatha asked simply and Rio had to pause and glance over at her puzzled for a second before the woman clarified, “Relentlessly pursuing power.”

Rio laughed, a real true laugh, perhaps her first, “No, my power simply is what I need it to be. Technically boundless in the realm of what I must collect. All those who live have come from something. A power that came from somewhere, and when they die it must return. An endlessly repetitive cycle. I only play my part.”

There was a moment of silence between them and Agatha opened her mouth before she paused, Rio could feel the question she wanted to ask, it was inevitable for someone with capabilities like hers. Another beat and Agatha spoke, “Could I take your power?”

Rio let herself have a moment of thought, of longing, for a world where she could let go and allow everything she was to be consumed by the starving thing that lived within Agatha and she would be the one to find the same end as all the other witches. An opportunity to leave her never-ending existence behind.

If only.

“No,” Rio kept the wistfulness from her voice, the thought of the same rest she guided so many to, so enticing she often wished she could glimpse it. Even if only for a moment, “I’m afraid now it would do little more than leave me another soul to guide.”

The look that crossed Agatha’s face was one of fear before it settled into resolute finality, spite filling her voice, “Well- good to know because I don’t intend to die any time soon.”

“Good,” Rio responded with an amused chuckle as she led them deeper into the woods, off the beaten path and around a copse of trees massed together. Only stopping once they had turned to face a small one-room cottage. Abandoned years ago, when Rio collected the soul of an elderly woman who had remained despite all odds and survived until nothing but her age could take her, “This place needs someone to look after it, after all.”

The old woman had greeted Rio with a tender smile meant for someone else and had even patted her cheek gently before walking off to find her husband. The one she’d hoped to find when she opened her eyes to what came next. He had been all she talked about the entire walk to her veil, it had made Rio ache with something unfamiliar and unexpected.

She hadn’t understood what it had meant for her until now, not until Agatha’s hand had been placed in hers.

Agatha glanced over at her hesitantly before looking back at the ramshackle cottage before them and Rio felt a brief tinge of something else new to her. Her chest tightened and a part of her wished to take the words back. Perhaps she’d misread and Agatha had something better, perhaps she wouldn’t settle for this petty offering. She held so much power within her, maybe she didn’t wish to house it in something like this. In another second Agatha’s hand pulled free of Rio’s and the loss echoed within her, dread creeping in closer until she took proper notice of the woman in question.

Agatha had moved, to right along the side of the cottage, trailing along the outside. Her hand outstretched as it felt along the outer walls, a beautiful smile filling her face, “Is it yours?”

Rio almost wished she could say yes, wished that she could give Agatha a piece of herself even if it hadn’t been asked for. What a strange thing for Death to feel, “No. I collected a soul from here a time ago, no one will come for it.” Rio ignored the pang within her as Agatha’s smile faltered slightly before returning as if nothing had happened, “It could be yours.”

Agatha nodded and stepped up onto the porch peering in through the dirty window before she turned back to Rio once more, “Do you have somewhere else then? A place where you stay when you’re done for the day?”

Rio was puzzled at the question, few cared for what she did outside of collecting their soul, “No, not exactly. I am rarely in one place for long. Someone always needs Death, I’m afraid I’m never done for the day.” Rio responded, unable to keep the bitter and tired air from her voice. It had been so unbearably long and here, now with Agatha, had been the longest she’d found herself still.

She found a desire for more of this feeling ramping up within her.

Even if she could never have it all.

“Ugh, how tedious. Could you be done for a bit if you just decide then? Is there anyone making you do it?” Agatha asked, there was curiosity, but so much more as Agatha’s gaze roved over Rio, skull still present, dressed in the black robes she used to collect most who passed away.

“It is my job, but I suppose I could,” Rio shrugged and tried not to posture herself under Agatha’s gaze. Death did not need to impress, “Time isn’t linear and in theory, I have all of eternity to collect those who pass.”

“Why don’t you, then?” Agatha asked and Rio paused for a moment.

So long had she longed for the rest she guided so many to, for a moment away from the constant drag of everything bearing down on the endless cycle of life and death.

“Well, the souls call to me and I come. Taking a break never occurred to me and I’ve never had anyone to ask.” Rio found herself answering honestly, “No one can see me unless I will it to be or they have already passed and I… never saw the point. Everyone fears Death.”

“I don’t.” Agatha answered sharply, she drew herself up and her dirty clothes wrapped around her now like the robes of countless leaders Rio had dragged screaming from their thrones. The pseudo power was false on every one of them as they shook before her and attempted to claim the same thing Agatha did now.

She never believed any of them.

She believed Agatha.

Rio allowed her half mask to melt away revealing her true face, the off-white of her skull glowing almost green as her body lit with the flames of her power and her knife appeared in one hand, the scales of life in the other, “And how about now?” Rio asked folding the space of the woods around them so she was a step away from Agatha in only a moment's time.

Agatha’s chest was heaving and her eyes were wide but they looked over Rio not with fear, but with excitement and anticipation. It was… enticing.

It drew Rio in.

Death comes for all, and everyone fears it.

Except for the witch who had been condemned to Death's embrace before she had been able to take her first breath. Death had surrounded her from the moment she’d careened into existence and now it seemed, she felt only comfort in Death’s cold looming presence.

“You’re beautiful,” Agatha breathed out, wonder, not fear in her voice. This time when a hand raised and reached out towards Rio, neither of them stopped it.

Rio did her best to remain utterly still, her eyes cast over Agatha’s shoulder looking into the empty cabin behind her. Warmth bloomed to life in her as Agatha’s hand trailed along the smooth bone of her skull, tracing the dips and divots of it until she dragged her fingertips along the underside of Rio’s jaw tilting her head over slightly.

Their eyes met and Rio felt centuries of what she now understood to be built-up longing, come to ahead within her.

Her fingertips of off-white bone reached up to brush along the flushed red of Agatha’s living skin and she pressed closer, tracing the length of her cheekbones. She dipped down along the line of her nose to her chin before her hands caressed the length of Agatha’s neck, stopping as fabric interrupted her exploration of a living body that did not fear her. Rio pulled back, dropping her hand to the side as she belatedly realized Agatha’s hand had long left her face and was now holding her upright with the railing along the small porch.

“This could be your place too, you know.” Agatha murmured, speaking no louder than the chirp of birds around them, “If you wanted to take a break that is. You could do it with me... You could do it here.”

“That would be something you want?” Rio asked the disbelief clear in her voice.

No one wanted Death around, there were accolades based around cheating death.

No one seeks out death.

Not when what she wrought was already inescapable.

Agatha simply shrugged “Yeah,” She scoffed, “Well, if our power calls out to each other anyway. Maybe we should just let them be together. Might be easier.” Agatha smiled at her and Rio found herself nodding jerkily before she could even consider a response.

“Okay,” Rio nodded again, not sure why she couldn’t do anything else at the moment, “Then I will come here when I need… rest.”

Death wasn’t sure what to do for this, she’d been around long before the first human being walked Agatha’s planet. Her path had been laid out, it had never deviated. Rio had so much time to imagine what her future would be, what her existence would be and it was always the same. Never had she pictured this vibrant witch drawing her from the endless monotony her life had become in a matter of moments.

Never had she pictured herself wanting it so desperately.

Agatha nodded and turned, pushing the rusted door open and glancing about, “This could do quite nicely.”

Rio watched from the doorway as Agatha opened windows and cupboards, plainly ignoring the picked clean bones that now rested on the bed in the corner, the window behind it broken in by the animal life hunting for their next meal.

Death allowed herself to shift back to the form she took any time she allowed others to see her, the form that gave her weight and presence in the world around her. She stepped forward and bent down low, carefully gathering the bones that remained and bundling them into the moth-eaten sheet they had spent so long resting on.

Rio swept from the home and walked a way down to a tree the old woman had pointed out, one that bore the initials of her and her husband. The tree that marked where he had been laid to rest by the loving hands of his wife, so eager to join him, but content to wait until Death came to greet her. Rio dropped down to her knees and dug her hands into the sun-warmed earth, she could create a hole with less than a thought, but this she felt needed to be done by hand.

With the memory of longing lingering within her after she walked this woman to her end, and the feeling of Agatha’s hand hot and gentle against the cool bone of her skull, Rio dug. She laid the bones down into the hole and carefully mounded everything back on top of it. Her skin was flushed, slick with the sweat of her mortal form and she breathed deeply with the exertion of her labor, wanting to feel everything. Death pushed herself up from the ground, sure that dirt was streaking over every inch of exposed skin, and turned to face the small cottage again.

Agatha watched her carefully from the porch, the rugs that had donned the floor now draped out over the railing of the small porch. Her expression was almost unreadable but Rio couldn’t blame her, what a strange sight to see. Death burying a body. That normally wasn’t ever a concern to her, what happened to the bodies, but after Agatha had agonized over the lifeless bodies before her earlier; Rio hadn’t wanted to let that pain rise within her again.

“Done playing around with the dirt, then?” Agatha called out eventually and Rio found herself wanting to smile at the wild witch before her, “This place is bleak! Seeing as you’re the original Green Witch and all- can’t you do something? Make yourself useful and liven it up a bit.” Agatha gestured, motioning her hands at the general dead and dirt-ridden area around them, “Maybe plant some azaleas.”

Rio laughed loud and free, someone telling Death what to do. That was another first, “I’ll see what I can do.”

Agatha nodded and disappeared back within the cottage, the door shutting lightly behind her. Rio could feel as much as she’d the flashes of vibrant purple magic dance through the windows as the sky began to darken around them. That morning she had collected several souls from an orphanage, dead from neglect more than anything else, she’d felt her existence beginning to drag. But she was Death, Death didn’t drag. So she pushed through, expecting more of the same empty pang that followed with every step.

Instead, now she found herself growing soft green clovers and bright flowers through the woods, with every step she took towards the cottage. Her hands spread out around her while sparks of green, interwoven with black, arched out from her; returning vibrant life to the forgotten cottage and its surroundings. Rio stopped in the center of the clearing and took a moment as she dug her toes into the dirt, grounding herself while she felt the pure pull of life flare up through her.

It had been longer than she’d care to admit since she’d allowed herself to revel so completely in life, naturally death consumed so much of what she did, that by now it became… Almost boring. So she took advantage of the freedom given and filled the clearing with life. She wrapped the railings in vines that flowered green and red, dusted the roof with insulating moss, willed flowers to bloom just outside the windows, and filled the grove before them with mushrooms and roots of all kinds. She filled defunct garden beds with all kinds of vegetables. The green bloomed so fiercely within her, that it felt as if Agatha had reminded her of a limb she’d lost long ago, that perhaps had never left.

When she finished and the pull of life within her had settled, the air in the clearing before her now danced with remnants of her power while new life bloomed below it all. Rio stepped back and watched the moonlight shine over the new growth, just enjoying what she’d created for a moment. She cast her eyes over to the lit cottage and felt a distinct, unnatural pull to enter it. To disappear within its walls and ignore the call of death that pressed in ever-present at the back of her mind. Allow herself the chance to sit, to rest as Agatha suggested, to be more than what she had been created to be.

Rio watched as Agatha’s backlit form breezed across the room from the windows giving her a glimpse in. It felt almost as if already, it was already bursting with life. The longing to enter built up within her again and Rio gasped, her hand pressing in at her chest as an ache cracked through it. It was almost what she might imagine pain would be.

Pain, Death did not feel pain. Death was not supposed to feel anything.

This was too much for one person to hold over her.

Too much life to have given Death in such a short period.

Death did the only thing she knew how to do, return to work.

Rio cut through the air with her knife before she could pause to think and she slipped through the tear, following the pull of souls in need of her guidance.

Weeks passed and Death stayed away.

Rio told herself that she was waiting for Agatha to call for her.

Truly she was running from the person that almost made Death want to feel alive.

That was a dangerous thing for something like her to want, but that didn’t make it any easier to stop. She couldn’t stop thinking about the witch who wished to spend time with Death. The longer she stayed away, the harder it felt to return, so she kept waiting for the pull of death wrapped in purple power to call out to her. Only it never came. When three full moons had passed and there had still been nothing- No rapid burst of power, followed by the call of a fallen coven or mortal life draped in purple, Death returned.

To ensure Agatha’s safety, if nothing else.

Rio stepped from the woods and crept forward, a part of her almost worried Agatha had befallen some sort of harm, but she knew how to defend herself. That much was at least clear enough. The night was near black but she could see with ease, her growth had flourished beautifully and the cottage no longer looked unloved or unlived in. Light poured from the clear window panes and it radiated warmth that Rio felt lost on the edge of. She strayed along the outer rim of the clearing, and a lone figure moved through the main room freely, candlelight glowing from behind her. There was a moment of relief that Agatha was okay, a moment of consideration towards leaving once again but she hadn’t had the time to act.

The door to the cottage blew open and raw purple magic lashed out wrapping harshly around her. It tightened fiercely dragging Rio in, she had barely a second to think her own power lashing back out simply trying to break the hold before the thought of what she could risk should she push too far and Agatha take too much. Rio ripped her green back and surrendered to the pull of the magic as it ripped her within the walls of the cottage. The second the purple released her she dropped down and ripped her knife free from her hip crouched down as her eyes followed the power as it retreated and disappeared back into Agatha.

The witch in question stood before the bed tucked into the corner, her arms crossed over her chest and her eyebrow cocked as she watched Rio, “You know, not a lot of people would not tolerate being watched through their windows after being skipped out on without a word for who knows how long now.”

Rio watched her carefully and slowly brought herself up to her full height, sheathing the blade and resting her hands on her hips as she faced off against Agatha, “Not a lot of people are waiting on Death, Agatha.”

“You’ve lived long enough, my apologies for thinking you’d learned manners in that time,” The corner of Agatha’s lips quirked upwards in a smirk, “That’s the first time you’ve done that, you know. Said my name. I think I like it, but-” She turned and pointed a finger now burning with purple power at her, “I don’t take kindly to gilded rascals lurking about the woods while I’m in here minding my own business. Now, perhaps if someone had not skipped town without a word they wouldn’t feel the need to lurk in the woods after months. What do you think?”

“I’m sorry, I should have returned sooner.” Rio spoke and slowly, she let the mask of Death fall away, leaving her covered in skin, like the rest of the dithering masses, and in a twisting green bodice with trousers not fit for a lady or a lord to match; each woven together with vines and flower stems, flowers bursting free as they bloomed, “I don’t know how to do anything else. I’ve never just- not collected souls.”

“Try it out then at least. What harm could it do you? Can’t you see someone who is alone in somewhat of a shitty situation, is trying to spend time with you? Someone who also seems to be alone and in a shitty situation?” Agatha dropped back into the bed behind her and propped her head up in her hand elbow resting on the mattress below her, “Haven't you ever, I don’t know, gotten to know someone? Shared private thoughts? Not been all brooding and mysterious?”

“No.” Rio replied easily, “I talk with the dead, they tell me what they need to and they pass on.”

“Oh god, that’s dreadfully depressing. No wonder you’re so damn solemn all the time,” Agatha snarked as she rolled her eyes and sighed heavily as if her next words were some sort of burden, “Well, I suppose, since you seem to need it so badly I can teach you how to be a normal person. Come, sit.”

Rio eyed her carefully, but followed along, coming to sit on the floor with her back to the bed, as Agatha laid out above her. She was confident Agatha had just as little experience getting to know others or participating in anything deemed normal as she did, but she found she very much did not want to take away a reason for them to get to know each other. Or learn how she supposed, though they’d been sitting in silence for some time now, “Now what? We sit in silence? We try fighting again?” Rio asked, wiggling her eyebrows as she winked at her.

Agatha laughed and reached a hand out gently shoving the back of Rio’s shoulder and she inhaled slightly at the contact, her body leaning back for more, but the hand had already been removed. She adjusted slightly against the bed to try and cover the movement and any lingering disappointment as Agatha answered, “No, we talk to each other about things. Share things. Like… I don’t know. What’s the best part of being Death?”

Rio paused and let her eyes trace carefully over Agatha’s features, she found interest and curiosity, but what was clear above all of that; was a genuine interest to get to know Rio. What would it be to share the secrets of Death? Who could Agatha tell that would believe her anyway? Who else would ask Death about what the best part of her life was anyway, “I like collecting gentle souls. Those who don’t need to be greeted by the face of a damned death. Those who deserve a gentle hand and find me with kindness as they meet their end.”

Agatha listened raptly while her ever-curious mind spun to form what looked to be question after question. Normally Rio might find herself irritated by an overly questioning spirit but here, in the warm-lit cottage surrounded by Agatha and her magic, Rio found she didn’t mind.

When Death left that night, after hours of questions and answers from both witches, Agatha was sound asleep. Finally having drifted off around her tenth question about all things death, witchcraft, and magic. Rio had come late into the night as it was after all, so it really should have been no surprise that the witch fell asleep before she’d even gotten her final answer. Rio had watched her for a while, the way she twitched in her sleep, magic burning at her fingertips when she shifted, lashing out at someone in her dreams no doubt. Rio had smiled down at Agatha’s sleeping form while an unfamiliar warmth, one that reminded her of Agatha’s touch against her bone, bloomed to life in her chest. She realized she might do anything to allow their skin to touch again.

The feeling pulled at her so harshly that she almost wished to stay, to run her fingers over Agatha’s cheek and lay down beside her. For what? Death didn’t rest. Rio didn’t need sleep, but for once, she wished she might have a taste of it. To see what it was that drew mortals together so fiercely that they would cling to each other through a stillness that mimicked Death.

But Death was not mortal and Death did not need rest, so Death left; before the urge to join Agatha became something all-consuming.

As she left, Rio walked a line around the cottage joining the ends as she chanted lowly, behind her rising from the earth, a line of fungi. Each one with a soft green glow, linked together beneath the earth to protect the cottage, and Agatha inside, from any unwanted visitors. She hadn’t been able to shake the feeling of fear during her initial approach, that perhaps someone had come for Agatha while she had been away and she had been faced with the reality that this was a soul she did not wish to collect.

Not yet.

Perhaps not ever.

Rio left, assured of Agatha’s safety for now, and she wandered the universe, collecting the souls that had been waiting for her. All the while trying her best to not think of the warmth of a cottage, the beauty in a smile, and the feeling of vibrant purple magic wrapping around her.

Unfortunately, try as she might, Death could not keep the longing she felt for the cottage, and the witch within it, far from her thoughts.

She found herself focusing on the pulse of life she’d filled the cottage clearing with, waiting for the pull of Agatha’s magic to rip through the air, or lash out in need. Just waiting and watching for something to give her cause to return or something to give her a reason to stay.

The day it came Rio had just finished collecting a family that had been trapped during a fire, when she felt the familiar tug she had watched and waited for. It had only been a few weeks, but now she had felt no pull of a body but the call of one anticipated, wrapped with a panicked blast of purple magic thrown chaotically outwards.

Without a second thought, Death collapsed the distance between them and spun into existence in a swirl of her black and green power. Her black robes fell over her in a whirl while she made eye contact with Agatha, who was standing on the porch of the cottage. The witch's hands were flung out around her, and Rio spun quickly around to face whatever threat pushed in at her. Magic was being thrown at her barrier, but the power that attempted to dismantle her was far too weak.

Death turned her head in a slow semicircle cataloging each of the even young witches that stood before them, power ready for use burning in the palm of their hands. Each one, perhaps only a few years younger than Agatha, stood with power lingering in their palms. They could come no closer, as Rio’s circle of protection still held them back, but they seemed content to wait and taunt. Irritating. She wasn’t sure exactly what it was but they rubbed Death the wrong way, “You didn’t tell me we were having guests, dear.” Rio called out grinning as she turned her back to the witches and climbed up beside Agatha.

“They found me. They’re- my mother's coven, the daughters, they-” Rio looked out over them and suddenly saw the resemblance each bore to one of the witches that had tried to take Agatha’s life that night. The witches who had condemned the witch beside her to death because they’d felt her to be born wrong.

No wonder she hated them already.

“It’s okay,” Rio whispered softly, reaching a hand out to indicate Agatha to remain where she was, “I can make them leave if you’d like. I can make them forget this.”

Agatha looked between the witches and Rio and nodded quickly. Rio smiled and stepped slowly forward, walking towards the edge of the mushroom barrier, “You did not have to pick this path.” Rio spoke out to them as she approached, “You had been spared from the sins of your mothers.”

One of them, the one who’d established herself as the leader of this ragtag barely-there coven of motherless witches, spoke, “She’s a witch-killer! A kin-killer! We are here to serve her the retribution she deserves.”

“I don’t believe that’s your decision to make.” Rio continued, turning to walk along the curve of the circle to pass by each one of them, “Somethings are beyond the power of untrained, ill-prepared witches. Don’t worry, we certainly know it can be hard to learn when you have no one to teach you.”

One of the witches to Rio’s left spit, “What? Do you truly believe we should have taught her? Brought her in with our own? She’s a demon. A curse.”

“It is a coward's voice that hides their truth to speak of others' falsehoods,” Rio said as she looked down the quivering line of them, each adhering blindly to the bigoted views of the dead women who would just as soon as cast out any of them.

“We do not hide our truth. We come to end the curse that was sent to destroy our coven.” Another, perhaps braver, perhaps stupider witch called from farther down the line and Rio snapped her head over to look at her carefully. Another witch this time, “She is a plague.” Yet another, “She is a burden. A beast.” Suddenly all together, “We have come to take the promised life that has already been stolen once before.”

“Again, not your decision to make.” Rio growled out as she felt their magic well on the other side, “Trust me, I’ve heard Death can be rather picky about who starts calling the shots.”

A collective voice answered her once more, “We will face Death when Agatha Harkness falls.”

Rio flashed before one of them the mortal mask she’d begun to wear with Agatha melting away to reveal the face of death, “So eager to meet your end?” She tilted her head and held back the smile at the fear that cracked the witch's mask as she slipped her knife from her belt, “I can help you skip a step.” In a flash, she launched herself over the line of mushrooms colliding with the leader and ripping her away into the woods.

Rio could hear as sisters screamed distantly, bursts of magic fired after them but she had only one goal. With her knife clenched between her teeth and hands grappling for control against the witch beneath her Rio managed to drag her far enough away and pin her to the ground. After some maneuvering, she was able to clear the back of her neck and carve a sigil into the skin that waited there. One of forgetfulness and warding, one that would wipe the cottage from her mind, she could keep her bitter anger and death wish, but she would not be able to catch Agatha like this unawares again.

The other witches finally approached and Rio ducked and twirled blasts of magic firing out at her from their fingertips. It was a thrill like never before, laughter rang out from her as her knife danced between her hands, slashing out to almost cut at anyone who dared get close enough. At last, she managed to catch and carve her mark into all of them and she’d chased them a way out from the cottage. Never letting one get far before she collapsed the distance to bring them back to her so she could race after them once more; wind whipping through her hair carrying her joy through the trees.

At last the first witch who had spoken, the one who seemed to hold power over the others screeched out to them to flee, to fly away, she couldn’t remember why they’d come to begin with.

None of them could.

Not anymore.

When Rio turned to return to the cottage she found Agatha waiting for her, purple burning at her fingertips once more, “Teach me.”

“What?”

“Teach me how to do what you do. How to fight like you do. How to use my powers like you do.” Agatha practically begged though each statement sounded more like a demand than a question awaiting an answer that could involve rejection.

Rio’s brow furrowed and she stepped forward, “Our magic doesn’t exactly align-”

“But you can fight and you know runes and you know all of the things a coven is supposed to share with its sisters, right? I have no one, I have nothing, no one is going to teach me, no one is going to share this with me.” Agatha begged, stepping forward and closing the distance between them as she grasped the bone-tipped hand of death, “Please, Rio.”

Rio watched all the places their hands connected as Agatha’s voice saying her name burned into the core of her and she nodded, “Okay. I’ll teach you what I’ve seen.” She supposed it was inevitable, Agatha did need instruction. Death had been created with the knowledge she needed to wield her abilities; she never had to worry about that. While Agatha had been shunned from her coven and kept away from the knowledge that should have been readily shared with a sister. Plus, Rio didn’t need her to be defenseless, she had a job to do after all she couldn’t always be there to protect Agatha and she still didn’t plan on collecting her soul any time soon. Though, truly Agatha needed no help with protection, she only needed help honing the raw power that flowed within every ounce of her.

Rio could help with that. What could it do?

The next few years passed easily between them, Rio would come at least once a week and they would train or talk; occasionally training and talking as Agatha could never go long without trying to fill the silence between them with something. It endeared Rio to her even more than she’d thought possible.

At first, Rio felt the warmth within her anytime Agatha would touch her, soon it became any time they were near, and then it grew into a feeling settling in her chest anytime they shared the same space. Now, Rio felt warm all over even if she simply thought of Agatha while apart.

It was… unnatural, for Death to be so distracted so freely breaking off the path she had been fated to walk. Only, to Rio, it felt as if this is what her existence had been building to. That all she had been and all she would be, had been waiting for this. For the small moments with Agatha that stirred something in her shriveled, still heart.

One evening, laying together against a tree, muddied and bloodied, physically spent after Rio had taught Agatha some more practical hand-to-hand combat in case she needed more than just her magic or perhaps lacked the power she needed. Quiet filled the air around them, even though it wouldn’t last long, Rio was simply waiting for Agatha to ask whatever it was her mind was buzzing with, “How do you have a name?”

Rio chuckled, she honestly hadn’t thought that was the direction Agatha was headed. Though to be honest she never knew where the other woman’s head was at, “The same way you have a name. Someone gave it to me.” Rio bumped their shoulders together and didn’t pull back, enjoying the way Agatha leaned back into her.

“Don’t be impudent, I just mean it doesn’t exactly seem like anyone gave birth to you, you make it sound like you just came to be. Did you come to be with the name?” Agatha asked shifting against the tree to face Rio as she kept their shoulders pressed together.

“No, I didn’t- it was a time longer than you could likely comprehend before I got this name.” Rio went to pull out her knife so she could fidget as she did often but Agatha’s hands grabbed hers, enveloping it in the warmth of her life, “There was a civilization, now more than a few hundred years lost to some Conqueror who lays in the same place they do, but the witches that lived there… They viewed me differently. Perhaps some of the only ones who ever did, truly.”

Rio tried to keep the wistfulness from her voice but she must have failed as Agatha’s hand squeezed hers and she realized she’d trailed off, “They weren’t ever afraid, they viewed me as the River of Life, as the beginning and end of all things. They prayed to me. Walked each step beside me. I gave them all I could. Guided them through discovering the ways of a Green Witch in any way I could, but soon they wanted more than I could give. They needed something from me that I could not provide, so when they fell I gave them the only thing I could, a gentle hand. Even after they had lost everything to a brutal end, each one met me with a bow and greeted me with the name Rio Vidal.”

“The River of Life,” Agatha whispered as if she was testing out what it meant in the grand scheme of everything she knew so far, cataloging it away with everything else she’d gathered about Rio so far. After a moment while Agatha’s gentle fingers trailed along Rio’s palm, “I like it. They were right. It suits you.”

Rio smiled, “Thank you, it felt nice to have… something real. Something that had been given to me. I chose this face after that. Reminiscent of the coven who gave Death a name.” She’d hoped that it would honor the coven who truly called Death a dear friend, even if the first time they truly met, had been at the very end. She had collected their bodies from bloodied shores, where the remains of wooden boats that had housed droves of men lay scattered around them. Blown to bits from the witches' retaliations as they tried to survive against all odds. These men had been armed to the teeth, fueled by the belief in their superiority, they’d overwhelmed them before Death had even had the chance to feel their deaths begin.

When she arrived, the call of the souls weighed so heavily on her shoulders that the life around each step of her foot withered and died. Death had nearly wept as the last of them passed through the veil. These women had caused no harm, they had harnessed the green and helped grow a flourishing civilization with the gifts she had given them. Now, everything that they built had been wiped out in an instant by men with no understanding of the world they’d trampled through, claiming it as their own.

As night fell and the reality of the disaster that had burned through the coven settled, she was filled with the need to change fate for the first time. She tried to stop the men from taking more from the flourishing society that had been untouched for so long, protected by the power of her witches. But she could make no impact. Rio had tried then, tried to force fate to allow the bodies back into their bodies, to let lives that had been taken too soon start again. But it was too late, their souls were long gone. Rio had walked them to the veil herself. She was left to watch the destruction, unable to do anything at all.

Death could never interfere, Rio’s powers were largely boundless, but as with all natural things she was tightly held by the conditions of the cosmos. Death cannot take a life or return one once taken. She was a collector and a conduit, no more and no less. Of course, there was a system to work within that, things she could twist and use to her advantage. But, at the end of the day, she only had one job she’d been created to do.

There was no way for her to get around that.

“Well, I guess that answers the next question I had. I’d wondered where Death got such a surprisingly normal-looking face from. No offense, but I kind of figured you came out bone and all.” Agatha teased, clearly eager to pull Rio from the sadness of inevitability that had crept over her, “Though now at least I know that you didn’t pick such a pretty face out of vanity.”

Rio hid the embarrassment that flashed across her face as she tilted her head back up to look at the canopy of trees above them to speak the truth she’d never had the chance to speak before. No one ever asked Death questions, not until Agatha Harkness, “I picked it out of defiance I suppose. A dig back against fate. I thought perhaps this would be a way for me to let them live on as they should have.” Agatha watched her with an understanding Rio felt she’d been needing for far longer than she’d realized.

Before Rio knew it, her once-a-week visits grew to twice a week.

Even more, if it happened that Agatha had found a coven of lost witches to fuel the hunger for power that lived on, ever-present within her. Rio knew it was her right, knew that she should always take what she always needed. But- Lately, there were times that Rio almost felt Agatha had started taking power she didn’t need, just to bring Death back to her.

Just because she could.

There would be a flare of satisfaction and superiority in her eyes that entranced Rio and made her want for nothing more than to give herself over to the enticing witch before her.

Agatha had caused something in Death to shift.

Her existence had been monotonous for eons and now Agatha went out of her way to call Death back to her; to interrupt her days and disrupt her work. Only Rio found she didn’t mind in the slightest. The more time she was apart from Agatha, the more realized with startling clarity, she wanted to return to the cozy cottage that had slowly started to feel more and more like a home they shared.

They would spend time together. Sometimes just existing beside one another, enjoying their closeness. Other times, Rio would teach Agatha the ways of witches and revel in the closeness they shared. Or Agatha would push Rio to open up and be in her words ‘more normal’, while she reveled in getting a life with Death, in a way no other had.

In truth the lines between them had begun to blur, Rio wasn’t sure what they were becoming. What was between them had become far more than Death simply sharing what she’d learned over the years. Agatha was hungry for the knowledge of all covens lost to time to be sure, but there was more in the things she reached for.

It seemed merely having Death at her beck and call was not enough for Agatha Harkness.

“Can I ask you something?”

Rio simply hummed in response.

“Do you love?” Agatha asked from her position between Rio’s legs, tilting her head back to look at Rio, where the witch sat behind her on the edge of Agatha’s bed. They had just finished discussing a variation of how to control protection circles and the rules that bound them. Rio, always eager for an opportunity to touch Agatha, offered to braid her hair for their training with her purple later.

It had been almost four years after Rio had first brought her to this cottage and offered it to Agatha as a place of her own. Years where Death had grown unfathomably close to the only living thing that didn’t shy away from her, the only witch who didn’t fear their inevitable end. Agatha believed Death would never be to her what she was to all others. Rio hoped she would be able to live up to the steadfast belief, at least for as long as she could.

“I was not made for things like that,” Rio responded easily; it was the only answer she’d known to be true for thousands of years. Rio tilted Agatha’s head back so she could finish combing through the wet tangle of Agatha’s hair as the woman huffed below her.

“That can’t be true,” Agatha shot back but she kept her head facing forward, Rio could hear the indignation in her voice at the prospect that something could be denied to her, “I think you can decide what you were made for. You cared for the coven that named you enough to carry them with you. Is that not love?”

“That was-” Rio paused her hand movements as she thought about it. Sometimes she forgot just how much Agatha had gotten to know her, “I guess, I did not consider what that could have been.” She whispered finally.

For so long she’d collected souls agonized over leaving their partners, children, and families or souls excited to meet their end for the reunion they would soon have with those who had passed on before them. She’d envied the love that swirled through them, but she had never understood it. She’d often wondered what it could be like to feel that strongly for someone or something that death was not an end, but a new beginning, something to be yearned for.

“Do you think you could love?” Agatha asked after a moment of silence, only once Rio’s fingers began gliding through her hair once more. Rio weaved the strands together with more care than was needed as she was faced with the question she wasn’t sure she had an answer to voice, “Do you want to?”

Rio wasn’t sure what to tell Agatha, she had never hesitated with a response before, but there was no guide for this. The unfamiliar warmth that had begun to build within her from the first touch of flesh to bone, felt a lot like what spirits had described love to be. Since meeting Agatha, she’d asked plenty of souls on their walk to the end; what it had been like for them to know love. With each answer, she assessed that foreign warmth within her and knew that something in her had been changed.

“I don’t know,” Rio eventually whispered as she quickly finished the hair off and tapped Agatha’s shoulder to let her know she could move. Rio turned her head, missing the slump of Agatha’s shoulders, to look out the window into the dark night around them. Rio looked to the place where once she would have watched and envied but now she was sheltered within its warm embrace.

She did know.

She just didn’t know how to say it.

When you are Death, you don’t get the things you wish for, you walk the path that was wrought for you. Rio had not dared to break off of the path before, but Agatha made her yearn to.

More time grew between them and the twice-a-week visits had become three times a week before Rio had even noticed the change. It felt natural to be with Agatha, the easiest thing Rio had ever done.

Now, Rio sat on the front steps and watched Agatha practice with her purple as they’d grown to call it. It was enchanting to watch her move, her power was more fluid and refined now than it had been when they started. Her progress had come quicker than most witches at this age, many struggled to hold the vastness of their power, and Agatha was born for it.

Agatha had grown so much, but still, she hungered for more. There was nothing Agatha did not want to know or take. It was even becoming smoother for her to siphon off the power of others, their deaths came faster and with less pain. Rio would follow along or appear at her call, she would reap their souls and guide them to the afterlife gently, Agatha waiting until she returned and they could head home, to their cottage.

Those were moments Rio cherished.

It was now, after a moment like that, that Rio found herself across from Agatha late in the afternoon.

“Can I ask you something?” Agatha asked while mindlessly arching the purple power around her, controlling the stream of it with almost perfect precision.

“Don’t you always?” Rio asked with a teasing smile as she motioned for Agatha to move to her next practice form.

Agatha rolled her eyes and switched to the next spell manipulating the magic overflowing from her since she just siphoned off a coven that morning. The women had come investigating a bright burst of purple power that had lit up the early morning sky, Agatha had let her power explode out from her earlier that morning while Rio antagonized her from the tree tops trying to draw her ire.

The taunting had worked far too well. The resulting burst of power had sent Rio flying through the air crashing down to the ground with an explosion of dirt and plant life filling the forest around her. She’d crawled out of the dirt cackling, Agatha had sprinted over to her a minor look of concern on her face before it vanished into fury and then finally matched Rio’s boisterous laugh as she dusted herself off.

“Not always.” Agatha countered shooting bursts of power out at the targets of moss Rio shot up from the ground as she spun around, “About those witches, from before.”

Rio sat up straighter and focused on Agatha, she rarely liked to talk about the women she claimed, despite how often Rio promised her it was the natural order of things. Rio had thought she’d grown past the guilt and fear of the lives she took, “What about them?”

Agatha glanced at her once before refocusing, “They flew in, without their magic, but still I could feel the magic. How is something like that possible?” Agatha set the last target ablaze with her purple power and she flipped her hair behind her shoulder with finality as she strode forwards towards Rio.

Rio moved her legs without thinking and Agatha dropped down between them, her head resting back against Rio’s bare stomach. Warmth bloomed in her and a hand reached out on instinct alone to twist through Agatha’s hair, “Ah, that is a coven's power.” Rio hesitated slightly but forged forward. Agatha would never want gentle treatment for her so-called sensibilities, “There is magic in the air all around us.” Rio reached out with a hand and snapped, greenish-black mist surrounded them, glinting in the woods like fireflies as it dipped and danced with the wind and trees, “When you have a coven, there is an unshakable bond, with that trust and unity you can harness it. Even if you lack the spark of power within you at that moment.”

Agatha’s soft gasp had been lost to Rio’s words but she noticed now the wide-eyed look of fascination as she looked out to the extraordinary display Rio’s power gave physical form to, “Do you need many people for that kind of magic?”

“No,” Rio murmured as she tailed her hand absently along the top of Agatha’s shoulder, “A coven can be as big as two, as long as there’s trust.”

Agatha turned, the green flickering over the picturesque cut of her jaw, Rio felt lost for a moment as she gazed into the witch below her.

“I trust you.” Agatha eventually whispered, their eyes locked together.

“I- trust you.” Rio had to swallow past the urge to deny it, Death did not need someone to trust and yet, she trusted Agatha with all of her eternal life.

An excited smile met her, “Could we fly then?” Agatha’s eyes were lit with excitement, and Rio could never say no to that pleading look.

“Come on then,” Rio stood and pulled Agatha up with her, leading her along the path to the woods beyond Rio’s protective circle. Rio raised her hand and called forth gnarled and twisted roots from the dirt below them, “I’ll show you. Break one free and make me a broom, I’ll do the same for you.”

Rio stepped to the side and pulled free the deep purple root she had called forth. She took the time to cushion the root in the right places with soft moss before turning and feeling something almost imperceptible within her soften. Agatha was braiding vibrant green vines that matched the bodice she was so fond of along the side of the rather sinister-looking root cluster she Had pulled free from the earth.

It looked almost like Rio’s knife.

Agatha’s cheeks tinged pink when she found herself being watched and she scoffed, tossing her hair to the side, “So what? Now we trade?”

“In a sense,” Rio stepped forward and tilted the broom from the base up, “Come here and match this position, touch the bottom just here.” Rio gave the end of Agatha’s broom a wiggle.

Agatha walked over and matched Rio’s stance easily, “That’s it? Nothing happened.”

“So impatient.” Rio scolded as she gripped tighter and locked their eyes together, “Look at me, move with me, repeat after me, and trust me.”

Rio stepped, beginning to turn them in a slow circle, their eyes locked together and Rio found herself briefly drawn to the way Agatha bit her lower lip in concentration before she remembered the task at hand, “Pro Te,” She incanted feeling and watching as the magic around them flared in response as Agatha repeated the words, “Dilecta,” a bright flash of green and purple swirled around them merging, “Aperio Viam.” Rio held her eyes and leaned forward feeling the magic ripple and settled around them as they traded brooms.

Agatha watched her eyes lit up with wonder as the magic swirled around them, “Now we can fly?” Her voice was low as if she feared interrupting what new magic had settled over them.

Rio nodded, “Together.” She winked and grinned wickedly as let the magic fade back into nothing, clearing the woods around them as she took off at a run. A cackling laugh echoed behind her as she jumped on the broom and soared upwards wind rushing through her hair, “What are you waiting for?!” She asked a joyful laugh pulling free at the sheer exhilaration coursing through her.

For millennia she had watched covens fly and manipulate the natural magic around them with the same wonder as Agatha. No witch had seen her or even known her enough to trust Death with the flighty nature of flight magic. Sure, she could fly on her own and she could float or do whatever it was she needed to do but this? It was new, and it was beyond gratifying.

Agatha laughed below as she ran after her and they soared up into the sky, far above the treetops, nothing between them and the setting sun. They flew together, chasing and laughing as the clear night sky blanketed the earth with its bright stars. Eventually, Rio pulled even and waited for Agatha to fall in beside her, “Is it everything you thought it would be?”

Agatha turned her face away from the almost full moon to look over at Rio and for a moment it felt like the world stopped. Agatha looked at her with so much longing it took the breath she didn’t need away, “It’s so much better.” Agatha called back to her and suddenly Rio was the one full of questions.

Questions that didn’t need answers, not when the moonlight bathed Agatha in its glow. Not when her eyes twinkled and there was a crack in her chest as Rio’s cold, dead, blackened heart started to beat again. Each pulse was a slow drag to start, a burning sensation of warmth filling her rib cage. Flying through the sky together, Rio felt alive for the first time in her life. Natural magic weaving its way through the both of them, firm undeniable evidence of their trust in each other. Proof that the two witches, who shouldn’t have been able to trust anyone, trusted in each other.

Rio never wanted it to end.

But Death didn’t get these moments, not really.

A blast of blue magic ripped through the night sky between them and Agatha spiraled while Rio rolled to correct the broom and with only a second to spare Agatha shot off towards the direction of the blast from the woods below them. Rio corrected her crash and joined the descent, hot on her tail.

A blast of purple power shot out ahead of them as they approached the ground and a shiver ran up her spine as the blast made its clean impact perfectly at the foot of the three witches now before them. Agatha’s face was set with displeasure and irritation as she dropped the broom and stormed forward with an overly dramatic sweep of her skirts, “Sisters! Was that your blast that nearly knocked me from the sky?”

The woman in the center set her shoulders drawing herself up to her full height, “We know what you are.”

Agatha gasped and turned with her hand braced over her heart, “Oh no! How could you possibly know?” She threw her hands up in the air, “I suppose the cats out of the bag now, you got me- I’m a- a- witch!” Rio had to hide her smirk as Agatha winked over at her.

The same witch spoke again, “You’re the Witch-Killer, we’ve lost people to your wicked ways. Sisters who went into the woods never to return. We won’t allow you to continue with this wickedness. Sisters!” All three of the witches set the power alight at their fingertips.

Excitement flared through Rio as Agatha’s lips spread into a deliciously taunting smile, “Oh please. You really think you three could stop me? Three pitiful excuses for witches? I doubt you could curse a cricket much less do any lasting damage to-” Agatha’s words were cut off as three streams of magic launched from fingertips to her chest and she threw her arms wide.

Rio remained where she was, leaning casually up against a tree, trying her best not to laugh at the theatrical scream of pain Agatha let out. Then, right as the women realized they couldn’t cut the flow of power off, Agatha's scream turned to a low groan of pleasure as her power clawed out and began drawing in everything the witches had in them. The tug of souls that would soon need to be claimed pricked at her and the witches tried desperately to rip away from the purple that consumed them.

It served them right. So many believed that they had the power to demand Rio collect Agatha’s soul, the fate they met at the end of it was more than deserved- If you asked her, that is.

Agatha drew the last of the power in and waved her hands, cutting off the draw of power as they emptied. It was one of the first things Rio had taught her, but she rarely cared to use it. Especially when it came to witches that hurled insults, and called her an abomination when all she’d ever wanted to be given was a chance. Rio pushed off the tree and spared no kindness for the women as she ripped them to their ends, enjoying her part in the endless dance she found herself locked in with Agatha.

For so long Death had been alone, but now Death has found purpose beyond what was written in creation.

Death’s heart now beat for Agatha Harkness.

Agatha gave her a slightly sheepish look as she finished, “I know I probably didn’t need to-”

“Don’t.” She interrupted, Rio disliked the way Agatha disparaged herself, “They tried to take a life that wasn’t theirs to take. You are not what they say, Agatha,” Rio spoke as she brought herself closer. Falling easily into Agatha’s space, the glow of all that fresh power shining out from her. Rio couldn’t help but allow her hand to come up and trace along Agatha’s cheek, “Don’t believe their lies- You are everything.” She’s not sure she meant to say that last bit but the words spilled from her lips anyway and Agatha froze.

“Can I ask you something?” Agatha asked near breathless as they moved closer into each other's space. Rio didn’t wish for more words to tumble unbidden from her lips so she nodded, reaching out to tuck a strand of hair behind Agatha’s ear.

”Is it the same for you? What this is between us? This wanting? This need?” Agatha voiced breathlessly and Rio didn’t need to ask for clarification, she knew what Agatha wanted to know. Rio had found this question on her tongue more times than she could count, only she had never been brave enough to voice it. Never willing to lose everything she’d found in what had grown between them. She would give anything to keep this, to hold on to the life she’d wrestled from fate despite all odds.

Rio had desperately wished to know, was it the same for Agatha? Did she long for Rio when they were apart? Could she feel the thrum of power that built between them when they were near? Did she desire nothing more than having Rio’s hands on her the way she longed for Agatha’s? It was a torment to be so close yet so far, though it was one Rio would endure for the rest of her existence if given the choice.

But- If Agatha had asked then surely, surely it was the same for her, and no matter what it was Rio would give Agatha anything she wanted. Any truth she wished to know. Anything she asked, Rio could never deny her, she knew that now, “Yes.”

Agatha’s hands reached out for her to close what little distance remained and Rio stepped cleanly into her outstretched palms. Death, always desperate to have the warmth of Agatha around her once more. Agatha’s fingertips traced along her cheeks before gently cupping them. Rio wrapped her hands firmly around Agatha’s wrists, feeling her heartbeat steadily below her fingertips. She didn’t want her to go anywhere and didn't wish to risk her pulling away. Rio wanted them to remain wrapped in this moment for as long as they both may exist in any reality, on any planet.

“Can Death want- like this?” Agatha asked, her eyes searching Rio’s as her hands caressed over the rise of her cheek, pressing their bodies ever closer.

Rio shook her head no but her mouth opened and spoke against all she had known since the beginning of time, “I don’t know, but I know I do. I want you.”

Agatha pulled her forward and her eyes fell shut as their lips pressed together, Rio gasped into her lips and pulled her ever closer, the grip she held on Agatha’s wrists doubling. Rio couldn’t allow her eyes to shut as she watched the aurora of green and purple magic, unseen to all but her, dancing through the air around them, blending and merging in response to everything that surged up between the two of them.

It was the best kind of desperation, Rio’s existence was broken down and rebuilt in that moment to create space for the woman before her. The explosive haze of warmth and want filling her mind was everything Rio had dreamed it could be, to have Agatha hold her like this.

Hands gripped tightly at each other as their lips brushed again and again, eventually, Agatha pulled back, to fill her lungs with the air she needed to breathe and Rio watched everything with rapt attention. Be this the first or the last, she wished every detail to be etched into the bones that made up Death’s very existence.

Because Death truly was forever altered.

“Can something like this even be?” Agatha whispered, their lips brushing with each word.

It was wrong to think that something like this could ever not be, Rio knew that now.

As Death was inevitable for all, Agatha Harkness was inevitable for Death.

“For you, it will be,” Rio responded easily, it was a truth now woven into her existence as any other had been at her creation. Rio would attempt to move the makeup of their very reality if Agatha asked, there was no question about it.

The light in Agatha’s eyes flared with power and triumph as she pulled Rio to her once more. Rio went willingly, as she always would. They got lost in each other for the first time, under the light of the moon, surrounded by the fallen bodies of Agatha’s foes.

Rio couldn’t imagine a better thing to defy fate for.

Death began to visit their cottage every day she could. Which turned out to be more often than naught over the next several years, always eager to return to Agatha’s embrace. Rio longed for their time together any time she was away and was constantly rewarded with Agatha matching her desire step by step.

A decade had now passed between them in what could have been the blink of an eye, for the most part, it had been spent wrapped up in each other. Occasionally, Rio had to spend weeks at a time away, serving the deaths in other parts of the universe as her time spent with Agatha caught up with her. But every time she returned as quickly as she could. Existence was not linear for Death but once she had entered someone's path she could not step freely within their timeline anymore. No matter how she tried, there was no way for her to be with Agatha at the same time that she continued serving everything else that had slowly spread out through all existence and reality.

Their time apart just meant that Rio relished what waited for her anytime they met all the more, be it in anger or devotion, grief or sorrow, hesitancy or urgency. When they collided it was nothing but bliss compared to what had been a bleak existence, filled only with the monotony of the path she had walked alone.

Rio savored all of it.

Wanted all of it.

Anytime they met she filed every second of it away, into the place in her chest reserved for her blackened heart that beat only for Agatha. In everything she had seen and done, only Agatha had brought her to life.

For Death, everything came back to Agatha Harkness.

The first time Rio had to collect the entirety of a planet that had been slain by some foolish beast who was mutilating his way across the galaxy, she returned solemnly. She had collected the entirety of planets before of course, from famine, natural disasters, and vast wars but… Never before at the wim of only one foreign man.

Arriving on the grounds of the burning planet, Death wore a heavy green cloak and embroidered dress, her chosen face was drawn with tension. The dress was what she tended to wear any time those she was to collect, had already faced a fate far worse than death. They did not need to see the truth of everything that could have awaited them at the end. They need only the guidance of a friend from Death.

Some raged against her as she cut them free, beat at her with weakened fists, and blamed her for the destruction of everything they had lost. Accused her of allowing the beast to rampage across solar systems free to crush what he willed beneath his armored foot. Rio had no answer, Death could not intervene, Death could not take a life herself. Death goes where called, to collect those whose names have already been etched into the stone of the afterlife.

Rio lacked the will to shift clothes as she stepped through the fabric of realities to stumble through the door of their cottage. Her mind was dull and buzzing after such a long journey, especially with what had awaited her upon her arrival. She tripped as she entered, her eyes almost unable to see as half of her remained trapped in the veil with the souls she had guided to its embrace.

Distantly Agatha spoke but it felt almost like a garbled droning, Rio fell forward and dropped down to her knees settling in front of the lit fireplace. The undeserved warmth nipping at her weary bones, “Is what I do truly so evil?” Rio felt her lips moving, voicing the question that had been swirling in her mind since the fiftieth soul screamed out their curse at her very existence, while she led them to the end that awaited regardless of their agony.

A shadow crossed over her and Agatha’s face swam into focus in front of her, a gentle hand cupped her cheek as the other brushed along her jaw and gently stroked the soft slope of her cheek, “No, my darling, no.” Agatha leaned in and brushed their noses together pulling back as Rio chased after her to keep their closeness, “You are the natural order of everything,” Agatha gripped her tightly and Rio sank into the feel of the hold and her words. The feeling of unwavering belief Agatha held in everything she said, no matter the truth of it, was a gift Rio envied. Agatha bushed a thumb across the swell of her cheek and gently pressed their lips together once before pulling back and whispering almost as if she were afraid to admit it outright, “And, you are mine.”

Rio fell into her and her hands wrapped around Agatha, holding her desperately close, burying her face in the skin of Agatha’s neck as she breathed in deeply. Agatha was the only one she wanted to fall into, the only one she needed when the path she walked became too treacherous. It was inescapable at that moment, everything that had built between them to bring them to this point. Death finally knew it to be true and Agatha had been waiting for long enough, “Agatha, you asked me long ago and… I think I may have found love with you.” It felt strange to say, Death did not walk hand in hand with love.

Agatha pulled her back and searched in her eyes a look of cautious hope flaring there as she scoffed and shoved her slightly, “God, don’t you know how to make a girl feel special.” Rio smiled hesitantly at her and Agatha moved to pull her back slightly, looking into her eyes as she spoke, “I love you too, Rio- Death. No matter who you are, where you are- Hell, what you are. I love you. It took you long enough to catch up though.” Agatha pulled her back in and ran a hand gently through the length of her hair.

Rio smiled and rested fully against her, hands gripping tightly at Agatha’s waist, “I love you.” She tried softly, she had heard it said countless times over said by millions of peoples in hundreds of thousands of languages. Beings speaking to their loved ones, their children, and their families, but never before had she been able to be a part of that. Never before had Death had something that could be for her to… love.

“I love you too,” Agatha murmured her voice thick with satisfaction as Rio buried her hands in the fabric at Agatha’s back, and when Agatha softly asked, “What happened?”

Rio couldn’t help but re-tell everything.

It was the first time she’d truly spoken to Agatha about the things she did beyond what Agatha called her for. It was a weight she hadn’t known she’d carried, to suffer the ridicule and pain alone, for all these however many eons that had dragged on so far in her eternity.

Agatha listened, held her, teased her, and reassured her, but most of all; she gave her a chance to feel that perhaps she wasn’t meant only for the end of all things. Especially when what had been growing between them had blossomed into undeniable life, all around them. Starting from the moment skin had first touched bone that day in the clearing. Death almost wished to thank those first bodies that had surrounded them in an almost perfect circle, for giving them the chance to be.

Binding them in a future that Death wouldn't trade for anything.

It was as inescapable as it was all-consuming.

Rio was helpless to pull herself out of the way they had tied themselves together. Everything they did was constantly pulling them back to each other, again and again. She’d long since given herself over to following the pull of death shrouded in purple power that called to her as quickly as she could. If she could not follow the call immediately, she’d linger until the last of her work had been completed. Of course, she missed her deeply but Rio couldn’t deny how she loved to taunt the fierce and angry Agatha who was always stewing in wait for her, upon her delayed return.

When she came back the first time she’d been gone for longer than a week, dealing with this same creature that thought himself able to win her attention. As if he could call to her with more than the bodies his conquests left in wake, and her solemn duty to collect them. Agatha held more of her attention with a solitary crook of her finger than he did with wiping out countless populations.

When she stepped through the door to the cottage she’d been immediately met with a kitchen knife to her chest. Agatha grabbed her collar and pulled her deeper into the cottage with a struggle for power between them. Agatha won out and slammed her into the far wall of the cottage, sweat glistening across her perfect skin. Agatha’s eyes flared with power and Rio licked her lips, biting back the smile she wanted to release for now.

“You think you can skip out on me, for nearly a month, and just waltz back in here as if nothing has changed?” Agatha grit out as she pressed her forearm against Rio’s chest, keeping her pinned back as the knife pressed into the bare skin of her abdomen.

“What? Have you found someone new to clean up your messes and put up with your smart mouth?” Rio asked tauntingly as she grinned and pressed forward into the knife, relishing in the feeling that spread out through her as a prick against her skin had her blackened blood welling.

“Maybe I have.” Agatha spat out while she shrugged and tossed her head to the side, trying to get her now wild hair out of the way from the altercation that had led up to this moment. Rio had taught her well, “What of it? What if some other green witch now tends my garden?”

Rio growled and in a flash of teeth and an echoing crash, Rio had Agatha pinned back against the cabinets. She knocked several dishes off the counter in the process, her own blade now drawn and pressed flush with Agatha’s neck, “I don’t play well with others.”

“Who said you were invited to play?” Agatha asked breathlessly, the anger in her eyes had died away replaced by exhilaration and the rush of their reunion. Her chest heaved against the dark purple bodice of her dress and Rio gently dragged her dagger down her jaw and the line of her throat to press into the center of her chest.

“Oh darling, don’t tell me you’d have all that fun by yourself?” Rio asked as she pressed the tip of the knife in just enough for the brilliant red of Agatha’s blood to well and run down the line of the blade.

“Someone wasn’t around. Even when I killed a coven just to get a minute with you, you were nowhere to be found.” Agatha huffed but bit her lip to hold back the gasp she wanted to release as Rio kept her pressed back but brought the knife to her tongue to lick it clean and trail it back along the line of Agatha’s throat. This time achingly gently as she shifted her hand from pressing roughly back to sliding through her hair and caressing the nape of her neck gently, “Oh my poor dear, Agatha. Was someone feeling neglected?”

Agatha rolled her eyes and huffed but Rio did not miss the way she curved her neck, allowing more room for the blade to trail along the length of her neck and back down to her collarbone again, “Please,” She scoffed but Rio could feel the undercurrent of hurt, “I’d have to want you around to begin with to feel neglected.”

“If that’s so, I could leave, apologize for darkening your doorstep and return no more.” Rio threatened beginning to take a step backwards only to have Agatha’s hands fly out and grip her hips tightly. She ripped Rio closer to her, pressing their bodies together as the force caused Rio’s blade to slide down the length of her neck.

“Don’t you dare.” Agatha threatened, her voice low and serious, “You’ll simply have to make up for your infractions, one way or another. I won’t have any slacking.” Her brow raised and she flicked her eyes down to the trail of blood that now slid down her neck pooling at her collarbone before it continued down and threatened to darken her dress. Rio had brought her that from a planet on the outskirts of another galaxy, made with a fabric that would never rip or tear.

“As you wish, my lady,” Rio replied easily with a bow of her head and a happy sigh. She felt the tingle of magic swell on her tongue as she bent and carefully licked up from the puncture at her chest, healing only her skin. Agatha’s hand slid up to grasp at the back of her neck and Rio chased the line of blood healing all cuts or abrasions as she went.

Agatha’s grip slid up and tightened in her hair, pulling her head back and smirking at her, “There we go. That’s a good entity.” Rio went pliantly with her grip and grinned wickedly at Agatha.

“Just going to look then?” Rio taunted as the blood red of her tongue ran along her lower lip catching a stray drop at the corner of her mouth.

Agatha pounced.

They didn’t leave the cottage or more specifically Agatha’s bed for the following sun and moon cycle. Rio, under Agatha’s careful instruction, attentively made up for anything her absence had caused her love to endure.

Death found that when they were together, the rest of time slowed to a stop just for the two of them. Seconds were centuries when their eyes met, stars were born and died in the time it took for their lips to part. Everything between them existed as if in a reality of its own.

It became so easy for Death to forget about the outside world when they had each other.

The two of them sat together under the shade of an ancient maple tree, draped over the river bank, they’d spread out a quilt stolen from a coven house, five years ago now. Droplets of water lingered against their bare skin from their last dip in the river, persisting against the trail of fingers running across arms and legs. The constant hot blare of the sun above them was tamed, for a moment, by the cool cover of the tree.

Agatha dragged the now calloused pads of her fingers along the bare skin of Rio’s shoulder as Rio spread out, head resting in the palm of one hand as the other trailed slowly along the side of Agatha’s bare hip, “Do you tire of it?” Rio found herself asking without thinking. The filter between her mind and mouth felt loosened to nothing, after a while of the heavy silence had lulled between them, from the heat and easy slowness that was reserved for summer days like this, “Living away from it all? Never spending long in towns or with other humans?”

Agatha leaned down and allowed her lips to brush the curve of Rio’s shoulder, “No, people irritate me. They want only for their narrow-minded interests and can barely see past the tips of their eyelashes when it comes to things that dare to be greater than a wealthy idiotic man.”

A cackle burst out of Rio and she squeezed her hip gently, rolling into her more as she brought her other hand to rest against the warm, wet skin at Agatha’s thigh, “Well, glad to hear I’m not making you miss too much of a life.”

“I like this. I love this,” Agatha whispered as she brushed Rio’s hair back behind her ear, trailing her fingers down along her jaw, “We have a long time to bother venturing out into the rest of humanity. Why not take it slow while we can? They won’t leave us alone in the woods forever.”

“I love this too,” Rio grinned as she rolled fully on top of her, pressing Agatha back into the blanket beneath them. She enjoyed the flash of satisfaction that passed through Agatha’s eyes every time she said those words “Every moment with you, it's like nothing I’ve ever had before.”

Agatha scoffed but there was love shining back at her, “You sure know how to make a girl feel special,” Agatha whispered as she pulled Rio down into her and they fell into each other, lips locked together. Sweat mixed with water as the heat beat down on them and they gasped into each other's lips. Hips leisurely chased thighs, while hands gripped and grasped at each other with languid ease.

Both spread out under the scorching afternoon rays, lost in their time together.

What existed between them rivaled the constant pull of day and night in Rio’s opinion. Everything that was Agatha shined out of her brighter than any ray of light, cast in any galaxy, by any sun. Rio had been night and the end of days since she first clawed her way from the fabric of the cosmos. For so long she had gone on with nothing but the blackness at her heels. Now, Agatha was there, before her, the end to her blackened night.

Sometimes, Rio felt as if she had stolen this love from the hands of the celestial themselves. Because surely, it was impossible for Death to have something so pure, so exhilarating, any other way.

The crisp night air whipped around them as Rio cackled and Agatha let out an elated whoop, their hands clasped tightly together as they ran, the clash of pitchforks and burn of torches filling the woods behind them.

“Is this the evening out you were hoping for, my love?!” Rio asked over the rush of wind and shout of their angry followers while she launched herself off the log before them, tugging Agatha quickly along after her.

“You know I’m never one to miss an angry mob!” Agatha shouted back, breathless as she glanced behind them to the swaths of townsfolk armed with shovels, pitchforks, fishing nets, torches, and just about anything else they thought might give them an edge.

Which right now? It all did, Agatha was drained to nothing. They had come out in hopes of finding a few witches for Agatha could lure out to the woods to drain to satiate the need that clawed inside of her for the burn of fresh magic.

“Not a witch in the lot of them! But you managed to find the Witch Hunter!” Rio laughed out, not an ounce of malice in her voice as they ran, she was happy with everything they got together, the urgent press of an angry mob or not.

“What can I say? I sure know how to pick ‘em!” Agatha laughed as she threw a wink over at Rio and tugged them to the side as they approached a road cutting through the woods ahead, “Too exposed! Keep to the left!”

Rio raced along with her, the pull of her power was fresh in her veins, but she couldn’t harm or kill the humans. Nor was there much she could do to dissuade their pursuit; at least that wouldn’t confirm their hunch to a point that would be beyond any hope of dissuasion.

“What’s the plan, Agatha?” Rio asked the other witch's name dragged out in her shout as they ran. She wasn’t going to abandon her, but they couldn’t outrun them forever, they were gaining on them and it wouldn’t be long before the men would begin to let their pitchforks fly.

“Uhhh! Give me a second!” She yelled back tugging RIo along, not letting any distance grow between them as their hands held fast, “There! Go!”

“Really!? That’s your plan!?” Rio shouted back incredulously as her eyes caught on to what Agatha was nodding at. A horse-drawn carriage loaded with what appeared to be farm manure that drove along ahead of them.

“Yes! It is. Come on, help us along!” Agatha cried as she tugged them onto the road and leaped, Rio had no choice but to leap after her. She reached out with the tingle of power and softened the fertilizer as their bodies impacted. Rio formed it around them and cleared a small bubbled space for their bodies as they heard the mob surround the cart and begin shouting, running out in all directions from the poor confused farmer.

“This is by far, the shittiest situation we’ve been in.” Agatha breathed in a lowered voice as the pounding urgency left with the safety of their manure cocoon wrapped around them.

“Certainly one way to bring the ‘excre-itment’ to our night out on the town,” Rio said laughing as Agatha shoved at her shoulder and they leaned against each other, waiting for the gentle rock of the cart to settle and the sounds of life around them to disappear.

They crawled out of the pile of dung and crept below the shining light of the farmhouse in front of them, making a break for the treeline. Rio found them a copse of trees that would give them good enough brooms. They rushed rather quickly through the ceremony before shooting up into the moonlit sky.

They flew above the treetops, it didn’t take long to spy the bright light of the mob finally having given up as they made their way back to the town. Agatha turned towards their cottage and Rio shot off behind her. They were covered in all of god knows what, flush with the night air, and slick with sweat from their exertion, but Rio was quite sure Agatha was the most beautiful creature she had ever seen.

When they finally landed within Rio’s circle of mushrooms Agatha gasped and whirled around, “My broach!” Her hand was at her throat and true to word, the broach she’d taken off her mother's dead body was nowhere to be found.

Rio stepped forward and glanced around them making sure it hadn’t fallen anywhere before they’d left, “I’ll go get it for you, tomorrow. No one will see.” She whispered as they pressed together the rush of the evening calming into the calm quiet of their cottage. By the time they finally finished cleaning the mess from each other, the sun began to rise and Rio dropped the curtains as Agatha climbed into bed. Rio held her and watched over her as she drifted off to sleep, having the privilege of trust to watch over Agatha while she slept meant everything to her.

Rio waited until Agatha was sound asleep and the sun was high in the sky before she stepped from the cottage and willed away her physical form. She stepped outside of the mushroom circle and pulled the distance between herself and the tavern they’d gone to, to nothing. It hadn’t been a particularly long visit but the broach had likely fallen there; they had run after Agatha had struggled free from the grasp of the putrid man who’d grabbed her. Only he followed after them with a mob of armed townspeople. He’d screamed all sorts of things at them, claimed to be a witch hunter sent by some god, doling out penance in his name- blah, blah, blah.

Rio had heard it a thousand times.

Only, all who had come before him had not threatened Agatha.

She would return his treatment in kind.

Death was excited for the day she was called to claim his soul.

She stepped through the wall of the tavern, ignoring the locked door entirely as she stooped down and scooped up the brooch where it had fallen, her eye-catching on the stack of flyers set on the table to her left. A bright bursting laugh escaped her at what she found waiting spread out across the table before her. She returned home to Agatha with her broach and a rolled-up piece of parchment.

Agatha grinned beside her as they stared at the paper now pinned up on the wall beside their bed, “They got my nose wrong.” She critiqued after a moment of silent observation.

“I don’t think they quite captured the depth of my eyes.” Rio added, the wanted poster renditions of themselves looking back at her above the large block letters ‘WITCH’ scrawled below.

“Pretty good otherwise. They did my jawline justice.” Agatha mused running a careful finger along the line of said jawline. Rio laughed as she leaned in to bite at the curve of it, getting a pleased hum from Agatha as she continued to appraise the drawing, “You look good. I like having this. It will be like you’re here even if you have to go off and do whatever it is that you do on all your little trips.” Agatha waved her hands and played at ignorance but Rio knew. Agatha paid far more attention than anyone ever expected her to.

“It’s not as if I have much of a choice.” Rio murmured into the skin of Agatha’s shoulders where she had dipped down to place biting kisses, “You know that.”

“I know what you say,” Agatha remarked with a huff before Rio ducked her head slightly to catch Agatha’s eye and the other witch nodded, “I know, I know. You are the natural order.” Agatha muttered slightly bitterly.

“But, I’m also yours.” Rio reminded and she squeezed her waist and spun her around holding fast at her attention for hours to come.

It wasn’t until later that they were laying, tangled together, fingers brushing through tangled hair, and skin pressed tight to skin that Agatha spoke again. With her eyes on the drawing once again, “Will your face ever change?”

Rio knew the answer easy enough, she’d been living for more than enough time to figure some of the easy stuff out, “Not unless I want it too. Mostly it depends on who is waiting, I can look however I need to do the collection. I change for the kinds of souls I collect. Different faces, different species, the usual.”

“How many see this face?” Agatha asked as she trailed her nose along the underside of Rio’s jaw.

“Only you, no one else can see past the rest of it,” Rio murmured truthfully, laughing as Agatha rolled on top of her, a powerful, hungry, and possessive look clouding her features.

There was a weight to power, something that was inevitable when you took so much without end. It always catches up to you, the helplessness against what fate has laid out for you. It could feel insurmountable, at times, the consequences of their power.

The blessing and curse that it was.

For the both of them.

When Agatha accidentally took the life of a young girl, the aching pain that had filled the magic simmering around them had Rio practically shaking as she took the girl's soul. Agatha had watched her with wide eyes, not looking away until Rio could no longer be seen, except for the green glow of her torch.

When Death returned Agatha had been short with her.

Angry and bitter.

“Please! Enough-” She turned and pushed at Rio’s shoulders a sullen look in her eyes, “You could have done something!” Agatha bit out as she stomped along the path back to their cottage with Rio hot on her heels.

Rio wouldn’t go, not when Agatha’s hands trembled even wrapped tightly around her shoulders. Rio wouldn’t leave her no matter how hard Agatha pushed. After all, Agatha could have shot in the air with a burst of purple if she really wished to end this, but she didn’t. It wasn’t Rio she was truly angry. She was afraid. Of herself, of her power- of what she’d done. Of what it had cost.

“Agatha- Stop.” Rio stepped forward and she whirled around, eyes ablaze.

“You don’t get to tell me what to do!” Agatha yelled, her hand whipping out at Rio, purple power sparking at her fingers. At the sight of it, she pulled her hand back to her chest and glared at her, “It shouldn’t have had to happen like that.”

“You know there's nothing I could have done.” Death spoke as she crossed the distance between them in a step and reached for Agatha’s hands, clasped at her chest.

Only to fall short as Agatha pulled quickly away at the brush of skin.

“I didn’t know! I couldn’t see her! Why would they bring her? Why did she attack me?” Agatha asked, her voice rising in desperation as she surged forward. Agatha roughly grabbed the lapels of Rio’s jacket, dragging the witch close to her and rattling her.

“You couldn’t have stopped her from attacking you, just as you couldn’t have stopped her mother.” Rio stated, allowing herself to be moved into Agatha’s space as she brought her hands up to run along Agatha’s forearms before wrapping tightly around her wrists, “You survived Agatha. It’s what you do. You survive.”

“How do you do it? Take all these lives every day? Never ending?” Agatha’s words were thick with the tears she didn’t want to fall, “Doesn’t it drive you mad?”

“I suppose once it was beginning to, after a while,” Rio murmured, moving one hand up to swipe at the corner of Agatha’s eye.

“What happened? How did you stop it?” Agatha was desperate, she wanted Rio to give her a way out of the weight she had been born to bear.

Rio couldn’t.

“I met you,” Rio rested their foreheads together and kept their eyes locked on one another's, “When I realized that even one of the darkest, most feared, most anguished entities in history could have a taste of vibrant, bright, universe-altering light… It became harder to view the bad as more than what is needed for the world to continue, for us to have this.” She squeezed Agatha’s wrist tightly and relief roiled through her as Agatha’s hand left her jacket and smoothed along her face for just a moment before grabbing at her shoulders.

Agatha pulled Rio flush against her and they pressed into each other, arms as tight as they could be, just breathing in each other's presence. The raw desperate nature of the hug had them grabbing at each other again any time a hair's breadth of space appeared between them, “It’s okay,” Rio whispered into her hair as she squeezed her reassuringly, “It wasn’t your fault.”

Death rubbed careful circles into Agatha’s back and eventually, they made it back to the cottage.

Arms locked tightly around each other.

Keeping the other grounded, safe from the yawning void of evil that the world wished to paint them head to toe in had become second nature. The outside pried in at them over the years but they held fast, with each other. Rio found with every passing year that what she had feared may one day be taken from her, or fall in ruin when Agatha grew tired of the thrill of it. Instead became stronger, and entirely consuming.

When they were together, focused on nothing but each other, Rio truly felt that there was nowhere else she belonged. What she had once thought to be her entire existence, became no more than a job. The time she spent collecting souls was now filled with the steady desire to return to their cottage, to return to Agatha.

Rio was early, she had told Agatha she’d likely be gone a week, it had been barely three days. Death might have rushed a few things, eager to return to the wicked woman taunting her with the pull of her deaths wrapped in purple power. She stood now on their porch a small bundle of flowering vibrant purple, white, and yellow heartsease, picked from Death’s private grove.

It was a habit she’d picked up when she surprised Agatha by coming home early, eager for their reunion as always, even if it had been but a few hours. Agatha always rolled her eyes or clicked her tongue and made a joke about piling them with the others but Rio saw the flare of satisfaction and delight. Plus, it never went unnoticed that each bouquet was lovingly placed around the cottage, living on as fresh as the day they bloomed. Held forever youthful by Death's will, to make her love smile. Though Agatha was right, their cottage was growing to be overrun with them, she’d had to tone down the size significantly as soon as she realized Agatha fully intended to keep them all.

Rio waited until she could see that Agatha had turned her back to the door, a heavy sigh leaving her lips before she blew it off its hinges and grinned the second she set eyes on Agatha. Agatha rolled her eyes, her purple already returning the door to its natural state as she looked unimpressed at her lover. Rio stalked forward, pulled in by only the draw of Agatha’s eyes trained on her.

“For you,” Rio dipped down slightly, holding the bundle of flowers out as she winked up at Agatha, “My Lady.”

Agatha scoffed but the smile lighting up her face couldn't be hidden, “Put it with the others.” Agatha nodded over to the counter and Rio dropped it into a vase with one from a few months ago, “Come here.”

Rio eagerly melted into the space Agatha made for her in her arms, “Did you miss me?”

“Hmm, in all of the two seconds you were away?” Agatha asked, pulling her in and brushing a hand along the side of her jaw, the same place she held when there was smooth bone where skin should be.

“I can leave again and come back later if you’d rather,” Rio said as she began to tug backward out of Agatha’s grip which held fast.

“Don’t you dare.” She growled and there was a flare of purple that wrapped around Rio and pulled her back, flush against Agatha.

“Whatever you say, my lady,” Rio murmured, finally bringing their lips together and Agatha fell into her for a moment before pulling away and tucking Rio’s hair behind her ear.

“I did miss you,” Agatha eventually whispered as her thumbs gently caressed the line of Rio’s jaw, “I always miss you. Sometimes, I just worry that, well it's ridiculous, but I worry that you won’t come back.”

Death frowned, not return to Agatha? An existence without Agatha was one she did not want to participate in that much was to be sure, “I’ll always come back to you.” Rio responded easily, she knew her truth.

Where Agatha walked, Death would never be far behind.

“Is that what you tell all the immensely powerful beings who leave a trail of bodies for you to follow?” Agatha taunted and Rio could hear the air of teasing that she forced to the forefront of her words, but Rio always watched Agatha. Death knew Agatha Harkness, she could see the raw core of fear burning beneath all that vibrant purple power.

“There is no one else.” Rio whispered into the curve of Agatha’s jaw as she kissed down along the side of her neck, “There could never be anyone else.” Rio lifted Agatha and set her on the counter, Agatha’s thighs parted to allow her space between them, “No power rivals yours, no one’s call draws me to them so completely, you are everything to me.” Rio whispered as her tongue traced down the line of her throat and Agatha’s hands tightened in her hair a pleased gasp escaping her throat.

”Prove it.” Agatha growled out and Rio grinned at the goan that escaped Agatha’s lips while her head crashed back into the cupboards when Rio bit down on her collarbone.

Agatha pushed her back and practically jumped off of the counter into her arms as they made short work of demolishing most of the upright furniture in the cottage. Nothing could hold up to the force of everything that burned in them, power, passion, and the devotion that had developed in Rio over decades only truly feeling alive in Agatha’s orbit.

After they’d exhausted Agatha thoroughly, she slept soundly while Rio fixed the furniture and anything else they’d broken. Rio settled in to watch over her lover, gently tracing the line of her cheekbone and marveling at the truth that despite the vastness of time and reality, they had each other. However, as time drew on, Rio realized she had mistakenly assumed the doubt and fear had gone with the repairs when it had only shifted.

Over the next five years Agatha made it clear that, while the fear had perhaps gone, the desire for proof that Rio wanted only for her had not.

It showed itself in small ways, when Rio would return from extended trips there were more questions about what she did, and if she had talked to anyone. Agatha had begun to ask if there were others like Rio, pillars of the natural order. Rio answered truthfully, if there were any in this realm, she didn’t know them.

She had, however, come across one entity similar to herself before, but that was a god of death, who came from a different plane. They also couldn’t interact for long before the laws of space and time began to bend a little more than they should, plus Rio hadn’t seen or heard from her in a few millennia. Agatha had bristled slightly at that, but they went out and found a rogue coven of witches for them both to claim. Then with power burning in Agatha’s veins, they soared on their brooms together, far above the clouds. It seemed that all had been forgiven under the light of the full moon.

At least that was what Rio had thought.

A week passed and Rio was stretched out reading something Agatha had picked up in town with grand assumptions about life and death by some small-town preacher. It was quite the hilarious read, and she was briefly considering going back to her scythe because of it when Agatha interrupted her, “This other Death whatever. Did she have someone? Like me.”

“Hmm?” Rio hummed as she looked up and caught on to Agatha’s question, “Oh yes, I believe she wed some sorcerer, she was said to be a rather powerful one at that. The sorcerer that is. Of course, Hela is powerful in her own right.”

Agatha snorted, “Seems like entities of death sure like powerful magic users. At least one of them has the guts to seal the deal.” She watched Rio closely and Rio watched back, puzzled. Agatha seemed hung up on something so Rio didn’t return to her book, waiting for Agatha to ask whatever question remained. Eventually, Agatha huffed and rolled her eyes, “Of course.”

It wasn’t till three weeks later, while collecting the soul of a husband who’d been killed by his new bride that it clicked in her mind.

All the questions, all the lingering looks.

Agatha had even asked if there was a ritual for marital unions between witches and Rio had simply told her that there had been many lost through the ages and moved on.

It had never been a question to her, where Agatha Harkness went, Death followed. She hadn’t considered that perhaps that felt different for Agatha. That, perhaps, Agatha felt their distance more acutely than Rio ever could, always being only a step away from Agatha as she was.

Rio knew she could never deny Agatha anything her heart desired, she was helpless in the face of the only one who truly saw her. Plus, Death could never go without Agatha anyway, so to bind their power, to promise herself to Agatha- It felt like the easiest promise she could make. Perhaps the only promise she could make, for in all of existence she could do little, but in this she could promise herself.

There was no doubt, as long as she may live, Agatha Harkness would hold Death’s blackened heart, in the palm of her hands.

It was the natural order of things.

So Rio did what she always would, and gave Agatha what she’d asked for.

Even if she hadn’t exactly spoken the words.

Rio left early the morning after her realization, determined to walk each step herself in this process. She moved through the forest collapsing the space between her and the hidden grove she kept nestled on a forgotten, once lifeless planet in a far corner of their reality. Only now, thanks to her, it was rife with plant life from all corners of the paths she walked across the universe. However, there was one she’d been saving for the right time.

When she’d first found it, after collecting a family from another corner of the world, she’d stopped, struck by the resemblance it held to Agatha’s power. It reminded Rio of Agatha absorbing the power of those who would try to rip her down, who would take the light from Death's life. It was a striking flower, with dark purple petals that shot out from the near-black center, with vibrant purple tendrils spreading out from its center. They bloomed from a twisting vine that showed its hardened resilience and persistence.

The flowers took years to grow and more to bloom, she’d found it five years ago and had carefully taken one adult plant. Even with her power it had taken this long to bloom and mature to its fullest. She bent, unsheathing her dagger to carefully slice a bloom free from the bed with the two other slowly developing propagations. With her flower held carefully in her hands, she began the walk back to their cottage.

Agatha would still be gone, the last coven she’d taken had a substantial purse upon them so she’d left early that morning to shop for whatever she needed or wanted, she had said something about fabric or food. Rio didn’t need to bother with things like eating and drinking, and could create whatever she needed, she existed regardless of any outside forces. She was woven into the fabric of reality.

Rio entered their cottage and flooded it with vibrant life, growth bursting from the pots and vases that had begun to fill the counters and walls from Rio’s many gifts to Agatha. She gave life to the magic simmering in the air above her, a green glow flickering through the dim cottage. She created a small stool of fungi below herself and dropped down, eyes flickering to the door as she waited. Eventually, the telltale sounds of air whooshing and the beautiful burn of purple flashing through the sky brought Agatha back to Death.

The door swung open and Agatha had her bag slung over one shoulder, her hand shoved in it as she looked intently already calling out to Rio, “The place looks creepier than my mother's outhouse what the…” Agatha trailed off as her eyes lifted and surveyed the scene around them, “What this?”

“Can I ask you something?” Rio asked softly, standing up and taking a step forward, the flower held prominently between her hands.

The corner of Agatha’s lips ticked up slightly but her brow raised and she huffed, “You’re stealing my line- but I suppose.” She motioned with her hand for Rio to spill it, eyes wide as they took in her surroundings.

“You asked if there was a witches union, something that would bind two people to each other. Like mortal marriage might.” Rio stated, closing the distance between them but not yet breaching the barrier of touch.

“Yes, you said many of them had been lost to time,” Agatha whispered puzzled but she reached out for Rio regardless, frowning slightly when Rio didn’t move into her embrace.

“Few things are lost to Death.” Rio mumbled, allowing the barest trace of Agatha’s fingers before pulling back, “I wished to ask. If you could- would you wish to accept a union? With me?”

There was a moment where Agatha watched her with a face even she couldn’t read, but a beat passed and a grin spread across Agatha’s face as she reached out again and Rio melted into her hands, “Yes you foolish woman.” Agatha said laughing, her eyes searching Rio’s for her sincerity before she tacked on, “I’ve only been waiting for you to ask for what feels like the last half a decade.” She teased, pressing their lips together hungrily, careful not to crush the bloom Rio still cradled between them.

Rio gasped and chased after Agatha when the other witch pulled away to take greedy breaths in. Agatha pressed a hand to her sternum and chuckled breathlessly, “Go on then, tell me about that one.” She said as she lovingly took the flower from Rio’s hands and examined it closely.

“I found it a few years ago, it reminded me of the powerful witch you are.” Rio stated she heard what the witches of the world whispered about the burgeoning problem they viewed Agatha Harkness to be, she wished to ensure Agatha never believed any of it, “Hardly anything grows on the planet I found it on, they bloom from the scars left from solar flares crashing into the surface.” Rio reached out and ran a finger along one of the tendrils, “To the people of that world it represents resilience, survival, and strength.”

Agatha watched Rio with wide eyes and Rio continued, “You are the best parts of everything this flower represents. You are the best part of the blackened wasteland that has made up most of my eternal existence, you are what has grown life in my heart once again.” A soft sniffle and Agatha brought the bloom to her nose breathing in.

“You are unbelievable.” Agatha breathed out but there was no malice or even teasing, she stepped to their bedside and cleared the vase resting there to set the bloom within its careful hold.

“Only for you, my love.” Rio replied as she smoothly followed along and wrapped her hands around Agatha’s waist, “If you do truly wish to take this step with me?” Agatha nodded, “It must happen at the full moon. So… we have a few days to kill till then.”

Agatha grinned and turned, a smirk claiming her perfect lips, “Perfect, just enough time to show you what I truly wish to do with you,” Her voice was wicked and low, “Get on the bed.”

Rio shuddered slightly at the rasp in Agatha’s voice and leaped forward. She banished both of their clothes to hells only knows where, but it certainly didn’t matter when Agatha looked at her with that fire in her eyes. Agatha’s hand roughly wrapped around Rio’s ankle pulling her down flat as she climbed onto the bed, quickly straddling Rio’s hips. She bent and claimed Rio’s lips in a punishing kiss, giving her no opportunity to do anything but give into the pull of Agatha.

They didn’t leave the cottage for what had to have been three straight days. It only ended with Rio eventually dragging them out, just as dusk settled on the night of the next full moon. It was a beautifully clear night with their galaxy cutting across the sky above them. It would have been a sight to see if either of them had been paying attention. Despite spending the last few days wrapped up in each other there was still a heavy tension settled around them. A desperate air in the way they eyed each other while trading brooms to make their way to the river bed they’d spent so many lazy summer afternoons basking in together.

They landed and slipped onto the forest floor, leaving their robes behind at the foot of their tree. Rio was now dressed only in a sheer black nightgown, Agatha matching her in one of deep purple. Rio pushed into the river, her feet sinking into the silt at the bottom. They moved deeper into the river turning as they circled one another, headed for the center of the flowing water. The rest of the world faded out from Rio’s perception, her attention now narrowed to Agatha and Agatha alone.

Rio had taught Agatha the words of the ritual between gasping kisses and the push and pull of her fingers, only bringing Agatha to her pleasure once she’d called out the words exactly as needed. Agatha had not let Rio escape from that stunt unpunished but for the fiery glint in Agatha’s eyes as they’d whispered the words of the binding into each other's lips again and again. It had been beyond worth it.

Now they settled across from one another chilled river water bathed in the light of the full moon lapping at their hips, “Are you ready?” Rio asked, her voice a near whisper at the sight of Agatha before her. The sinfully wicked witch before her winked and nodded, “Then let’s begin.”

“Soles occidere et redire possunt,” Agatha began the incantation, purple and black green flickered at their fingertips.

Agatha moved with her words and Rio stepped in time with her, the water between them swirling and matching the flow of their power as Rio continued, “Sed vestigia veteris flammae agnosco.”

“Vocationi alicuius aeternaliter cognoscimus,” Agatha replied, the water between them beginning to glow a bright white while purple and green swirled in the wind blending together, tendrils lashing out and reaching for the other.

Rio spread her green out to match, dancing alongside the purple that called to it so, a bubbling laugh escaped her as Agatha filled her senses, “Sine te non potero vivere.” The words she spoke caused the heavy buzz of magic to settle thick on her tongue.

Their magic braided together as the spike in tandem, the echo of it filling the air between them, “Ego te tradam,” Agatha called as Rio responded, “Ego te tradam.”

“Cum lux tandem occidere,” Agatha enchanted her last line as their power twined together and shot directly down into the river. The water whirled around them rapidly now, purple and green crashing together in perfect chaos.

Rio felt her magic reaching out, felt every ounce of Agatha laid bare for her, the same way she laid bare for Agatha. Rio took a deep breath in and spoke the final line of their binding, only slightly modified for her eternal circumstances, “Per latus tuum maneb.”

~

Suns may set, and suns may rise again,

But I recognize the traces of an old flame.

The call of someone eternally known,

Without you I cannot live.

I will surrender to you,

I will surrender to you.

When the light finally sets,

By your side, I will remain. (no- rest)

~

A clear chime rang out as the last word left Rio’s lips, the water stilled even from its natural flow as pure light shone from the water around them. The pull of power guided them to the center and Agatha lifted her hands reaching for Rio at the same time that Rio lifted her hands to grasp Agatha’s wrists. Holding her still and drawing her in as she stepped into her embrace, feeling the wild beat of her heart below her fingertips. Their lips crashed together and the glow flared around them, the circle of light pulling inward until it disappeared with a shimmer around their joined forms.

They pulled apart as the water between them began to flow with a biting chill now that the warmth of their magic had left it. Rio kept a firm hold of her wrists and pulled her closer, “It’s set in the very magic that makes up you and I. Forevermore, the path I walk will lead, always, to you and you to me.”

Agatha caressed her palm along the side of her cheek fingers combing through her unruly locks, “Took you long enough to do something about it.”

Rio grinned, “I’ll show you how long it takes me to do something about it.” She leaped at Agatha, her hands wrapping around her waist as she used her power to launch them from the river and slam into its shore with a spray of sand out around them.

Agatha’s brilliant, unrestrained cackle filled the woods behind them and their magic flush with energy danced in the air around them. Their power responded eagerly to the fresh addition of magic the binding ritual held between them now. If Rio could remain in one moment for the rest of her days, she was certain it would be this one. Agatha was pressed to her, scarcely any space between them. Rio’s body was relaxed, from days of ignoring the outside world for the witch below her. Her power sang with the purity and the new life of the bond wrapped around their very bones. Her mind and limbs were still heavy and full of the magic that blanketed over them.

“Does it feel like this for everyone?” Agatha asked, her forehead pressed tight to Rio’s as she whimpered into her lips. The ambient power around them flowed freely between them with a strength that it never had before, that it couldn’t possibly for anyone else. Rio could feel so much more between them as it pulsed and dragged them into the flow of natural life.

“No,” Rio murmured, her mind clouded only with Agatha and the power bursting between them. Leaving them both near drunk on the heady glow of it, “This could only be you and me, nothing else could compare.”

They clashed together while green and purple burst out from them, arching through the night as the witches assured each other of their incanted vows again, and again. Not stopping until the sounds of clashing pitchforks and burning torches reached their ears after the seventh burst of undeniable magic had been created far above the treetops. Rio had tugged Agatha up and they abandoned their clothes to the flow of the river as light rounded the bend and they raced back to their brooms launching into the rushing wind of the coming dawn. Rio was almost lost in their surroundings as she watched the golden light cresting over Agatha’s bare skin. She had to divert back and stay on track more than once as Agatha shot her salacious and increasingly wicked looks.

Perhaps Agatha Harkness did have some evil to her, but Death found she rather liked it.

Time passed on around them and covens grew out from Salem as the land exploded westward, so the pair began venturing out beyond the forests of their home together. The French Colonies exploded, with Louisiana forming a hotbed of magic to the south, witches were drawn to the burst of power, and Agatha was drawn to the witches; with Death a step behind.

They followed the call of witches along the countryside, Agatha collecting sights and power, while Rio collected souls and lost spirits as they went. Before long they would return home to their cottage for a time, and Agatha would refocus herself on honing the chaotic unpredictable nature of her magic. Rio would help when she could, in between tending to the dead that called out to her for collection.

Before she knew it they had spent nearly forty years together from the first moment Agatha’s eyes had found hers above that second claimed coven. The time had passed in a blink yet, Death found it stood out more than a hundred of the lifetimes that had already passed her by. Agatha had grown only more steady and stable in her power, wielding it fiercely and unforgivably. It made Rio swell with pride and awe, Agatha was beyond words, she was the life within Death.

The time only drew Rio closer to Agatha, it felt as if she had known her since the atoms, that would soon form their universe, had first been breathed into existence by the celestials.

What existed between them was timeless, it was unchangeable, and it was… beginning to lack a natural progression that Agatha craved.

Rio watched the change begin on a venture into a small town, tucked into the mountains of Appalachia. The locals ran freely, children shouting and laughing as parents corralled them all equally. Agatha watched with a longing so fierce that Rio felt perhaps this was the one thing Agatha Harkness wanted even more than the hunger for power that burned within her.

But this was not something Rio could so easily hand over to her lover, her wife. Death was not rife with the gift of birth and new beginnings. However, as more time passed between them, Rio watched as Agatha fell victim more and more to the desire that grew within her. Death now waited on the sidelines as Agatha spared covens with children where she could. After they tracked them down or stumbled across them, Agatha simply chose not to incite their ire, and instead, she slipped away before any damage could befall them all at the threat of her presence.

Agatha pushed through despite the clear desperation and smiled at Rio, threw herself into their time together, and accepted every bundle of flowers with her personal brand of enthusiasm; but Rio could feel the hollow within her. Agatha slowly pulled away from her in a manner that Rio couldn’t even explain. Because Agatha remained by her side, they still lay together and shared a home and a life together. They returned to each other and loved each other fiercely but… a crack had appeared in the foundation on which they had built their lives.

A distance Rio couldn’t quite stretch past.

This time it was one Rio was not sure she could make disappear, but as she watched her wife quietly ache, she knew she had to try.

Death began to scour the universe, for a being like her, a power like her, something that could tell her what to do… Something that could give her life. Or give her a way to find what she needed to do so.

Whatever it took, she would do it.

In the end, after what had become years of looking, she found the answer in the collection of a soul. Death had come to collect the life from a planet whose population had long overgrown what the planet should have been able to support long ago. Despite the drain on the planet, its people had prospered, long happy lives. All thanks to a man among them who had found what she now knew to be a power of creation, the Mind Stone. He had been using it to fuel their lives and order their planet. Child's play for something like this.

The stone itself had been born with her, at the dawn of creation, along with six others. They’d been used by their creators until they’d been lost to the knowledge of anything living. No more than a fairy tale to most who even knew of their whispered

Their location had even been long lost to her for longer than she could quite remember.

Until now.

Until she stood over the fallen body of a mortal man far past his time, though he looked fresh-faced as if death hadn’t even begun to take him. That is until you took notice of the scepter embroidered on either side of his robes that was now driven cleanly through his chest. The scepter housed an unmistakable power within its glowing core.

Rio knew what the Mind Stone did to its wielders but she’d never seen someone use it for so long with so little obvious consequence, she’d also never seen it harnessed by such an unusual contraption. Perhaps the device assisted its power. She had to know more. So she cut the man’s soul free and pressed him for what he’d done, how he’d used it. He cautioned her that it didn’t matter, in the end, the stone would take its toll just as it had taken his life.

He mistook her questioning as concern for the scepter remaining where it sat in his former body's chest. His staff would fight over it, and eventually, someone would come forward and buckle under the power of it. The use of the stone would never leave his planet, he assured her of that. Death guided him to his afterlife and allowed him to believe her grateful for his reassurance. She allowed him to pass through with the knowledge that the stone would die, eventually forgotten with time, along with the rest of his overpopulating planet.

He was right in a way, Death would come for the rest of his people, but time, unfortunately, would not be on their side.

Rio sliced through the air in front of her and she stepped through the fabric of their reality, following the path tugging irritably at the back of her mind. More deaths to be collected before their time had come. However, this time, she would collect them without complaint.

In fact, she would thank him if she must.

Rio stepped through the wreckage, the unnecessary loss of life a weight on her shoulders as the souls around her wailed their grief and loss at her. Eventually, she arrived at where he sat, on an uneasily built throne of wreckage, propped up so he could hold his court.

Death stepped from the shadows, her skull gleaming in the burning rubble around them, when he caught sight of her he dismissed the outsiders. Rio glided forward and watched him with the same easy indifference she always did, “You wish to serve me? No?” Interrupting him, ignoring whatever it was he had begun to blather on about at the sight of her.

The behemoth of a man before her shifted, confidence rolling off of him in waves, “I believe I already am my Lady Death.” Thanos said as he raised his arms out and gestured to the ruin around them, to the bodies piled behind him; their souls already called away by her flame.

“Hm,” Death snorted as she surveyed the pile and shrugged, “This was a small planet, scarcely any defenses, hardly the population or military standing of perhaps, oh- what is it…” She allowed a bony finger to tap against her cheek, “The third planet in the Kygnari System if I’m not mistaken.”

Thanos had bristled at her words, “I have taken a great death toll here today.”

“Yes, well, you do still seem to be no closer to that pesky little thing you’ve promised to do for me. Claiming half the universe in my name. However, a more fruitful challenge might yield more promising results.” Rio goaded, truly what he was doing was against the natural order, it would break the delicate balance that existed between life and death but the fates would not allow his success to last. He would fail, so what would it be to gain just a little, by beginning his journey in earnest?

“What are you saying?” Thanos asked suddenly, gratefully catching on as Rio was not able to interfere more than she already was.

“Third planet. Kygnari System. When you are done taking it, wait for me with your spoils.” She directed firmly, waiting only for his nod before she stepped back into the shadows. He opened his mouth to reply but Rio pulled her knife free and cut through the air, stepping through to the welcoming circle of her and Agatha’s power wrapped around their cottage.

More time passed and Rio waited, the time was nothing for her, but to someone who was only just settling into what it meant to have as good as an eternity stretched ahead of you- Agatha ached for the change. So Rio did what she could to fill that crack that had begun to grow in the life that they had built. They soared above the clouds together, bathed in the light of the full moon, and basked in all the world had to offer if they were daring enough to take it.

They had their fun taunting the panicked towns horrified of witches as the rumors and fear-mongering swept through the colonies. They even went so far as heading back to one of the first towns that had driven them out with an angry mob, the ones who had been alive now too old to remember their faces. It all began with Agatha causing quite the scene to turn her in and Rio was tried and tied up to be burned at the stake in short order after. It was fun to play into their expectations, nothing but gibberish could be shouted and people would scream and scream.

Eventually, they would call out her presumed crimes and call for her burning. Only, once the flames were lit and began to eat away at the wood, the crowds' leering cheers turned from enthusiasm to panic. It always started when inevitably realized the shrieks pulling themselves from Rio’s throat were not cries of pain but the pealing cackles of joy while the flame licked at her clothing and Rio’s power reached out. Green slowly consumed the red and the ropes keeping her bound fell away, allowing Rio to drop to the ground. Screams and cries of ‘Witch!’ rang out from all around them. As much as they cursed, tried, and sentenced, none of them ever expected to come into contact with the real deal.

Rio could hear only Agatha’s beautiful laugh as the people scrambled to get out of the way of Rio’s fire that spread with each step she took. Though if they would have stopped to look, it burned nothing beyond the pyre that she had been bound to. The preacher stood at the end of the courtyard they’d been using for the execution, his hand holding up the flimsy wooden beads, cross dangling from one end. He stuttered out verse after verse of nothing that would help him here, his hands shaking as Rio stepped ever closer.

Rio allowed the fire to lick up over her skin as she allowed the illusion of flesh to melt away revealing her smooth bone underneath. She flashed forward towards him, her voice deep and rough as she grabbed the front of his black robes, “Be careful who you burn.” Death whispered, pressing back ever so slightly with an outstretched finger, sending the man flying through the wall of the church.

Rio cackled and when Agatha joined her in the false flickering green flames hands brushing along the smooth bone of her cheek as lips pressed to the cool ridge of her jaw. It was moments like this that felt as if the crack could be healing between them. The joy of revenge against those who had so baselessly wronged hundreds of women had filled them both with a sense of immense satisfaction.

Unfortunately, that had carried them along for far less time than Rio had hoped. She had still heard nothing from the meathead hurtling his way through space, attempting to accomplish the only task he had at hand. Rio knew there was hardly a point in trusting any living thing to actually accomplish anything set out for them. Unfortunately, she did not have many options.

So she kept looking and waiting.

She searched for rituals and incantations, for any scrap that would give her something to give Agatha. Something to fill the void that yawned open between them, cracking further open anytime Agatha saw a babe at its mother's chest or a coven cooing around a newborn baby girl with excitement and wonder.

Agatha had asked once if, with Death, the same rituals that the covens around them used would work to quicken the life within her.

Death had been stretched out in front of the roaring fire, her bone warming in its light as she flipped through another tome from another world and another age, hoping for a scrap of the blocks she needed to build life between them.

Agatha had been watching her, Rio could feel the trace of her eyes over the skin not covered by the black and green of her chosen attire. If Agatha hadn’t spoken up soon Rio would have been forced away from her book simply with the weight of the gaze on her, “Can I ask you something?”

Rio closed the book and rolled over, propping herself up on her elbows to look up at Agatha stretched out on their bed, the gentle light of the snow-filled night flickering over her from the window across from their bed, “Of course.”

“Can you… The spells for birth, for fertility. They require the bond of a coven just like flying… Can you perform them?” Agatha's eyes didn’t leave hers but her tone was hesitant, as if she were afraid to hear the answer.

Rio knew the words she had to give were not what Agatha wanted to hear from her, but there was nothing else she had to give, “No.” Agatha’s head fell and Rio felt her cold dead heart throb as a tear fell down the rise of Agatha’s cheek, “I could not perform… those rituals.”

Agatha’s head flew up, “What do you mean? Is there a chance there is something?” The pure raw hope and unfiltered want that filled Agatha’s face to match the longing in her voice solidified Rio’s devotion to her task.

“If there is, I will find it,” Rio murmured and Agatha watched her for a moment before a hopeful grin spread across her face and she jumped at Rio, colliding with her and pressing their lips together in a roar of desire and passion that barreled through the both of them.

Rio would do it, she would find a ritual, a spell, a way to bend reality to her needs if she had to.

Death would bring Agatha Harkness a life between them.

No matter what the cost may be.

That night while Agatha slept, Death crossed the galaxies, looking for the meathead impeding the happiness of her wife.

She stepped into existence in the cool sterile metal of a ship that coasted through the void of space around them, it took little time to locate the source of the ego-filling half of the ship. She melted from the shadows, a dark cloak wrapped around her, the hood allowing just the gleam of her bone on display to reflect the harsh light filling the space.

Death did not speak, she did not allow for him to dismiss the men gathered around him. Rio lifted a finger to her lips before unsheathing her knife and balancing it on her finger. She watched as his eyes found her and his grip tightened on the cup clutched in his hands. The blade teetered back and forth, as she kept the balance off, allowing the blade to eventually plunge beneath her feet and she melted away with it as alarms blared through his ship, her knife having cut its way through several critical control systems.

He needed to be reminded that when Death offered advice, it would be followed.

When Rio returned and Agatha woke, it felt as if the growing gap between them had been reduced once more to nothing but a crack. Agatha reached for her easily once again, as if there were nothing she needed more than to simply exist with Rio cradled between her palms.

Agatha would ask after her progress, they would try and try and try forgotten spells, enchantments, and rituals born from worlds spread out across the cosmos. Agatha ate special frogs and Rio brought her herbs, teas, and anything she could find that encouraged the growth of life. Anything that could trigger the rituals to work and take hold within Agatha, despite half of the power pouring in coming from the literal embodiment of death.

Each failure grated on Rio after so long trying, while Agatha eagerly barreled through each one, ready for the next as soon as the last had yielded them no results. Agatha would stop at nothing to claw what she wanted from the hands of fate itself and despite the natural order, Death would help her if it was the last thing she ever did.

Six years passed in the blink of an eye as their time filled with each other, their power, and everything they could do to create their child. They were not yet even a quickening spark but Agatha called it their child. Death, a parent. The idea was almost laughable if it weren’t for the force of unexpected visceral need that cracked through her. It came with a startling realization that perhaps her want had been growing within her all along. She had been looking for Agatha, had been looking to provide her wife with what she’d needed so resolutely that this new need had escaped her notice. This need to prove that Death is more than the end of all things, to show the truth of Death and Agatha Harkness.

Something to bind them together endlessly in the very fabric of the universe.

A life that had been created of the two of them.

That morning she’d watched her face in the grubby mirror adoring Agatha’s vanity, imagining it. What it would be to have the legacies and lives she had carried alone for so many years, reborn in a body that held all the best parts of her wife.

Their child.

An impossible child, who would be born of the Witch-Killer, and Lady Death herself.

A piece of them both, that no matter what would always exist as the proof of how Death had been forever rewritten. Of how Agatha Harkness had captured the heart of Death itself.

The call of his success happened suddenly, the pull of the masse deaths roared in her mind. She could feel the planet, the solar system. He had finally managed to do something right.

New life was within her grasp.

Rio had been in the middle of collecting the souls from a ship that had sunk to the bottom of the English Channel when she felt it. The job was unfinished, normally she would never have left something unfinished, but Agatha had waited long enough. They had both waited long enough.

Death cut through the air and stepped through to the disastrous ruin of the planet falling to rubble beneath her feet. Waiting in the same room she’d collected that soul in so long ago, was Thanos. Bodies scattered at his feet and the scepter clutched tightly in his fists. A cocky self sure grin spread across her face as she made him wait, going unseen about her work. Collecting the souls he had taken as a result of her demands of him.

Rio melted from the shadows and wasted no time on the look filling his eyes. The show of what he so clearly wanted from her, more power, more grace given in her name. It was nothing to her, she cared not for what he wanted. She extended her hand, “Give that to me.” Death was not made to interfere, but if a mortal took steps he had always been made to take, perhaps just a little quicker. Had she truly done anything at all?

He was puzzled slightly but extended it out to her in an offering of his faith. When her hands wrapped around the handle, the power jolted through her. It was not unlike the weight of what power flowed through her, only this- this could create life.

This could do what Death could not.

Rio closed her eyes and reached her hand up to her chest, pulling and cracking away the bones that blocked the shriveled blackened heart that now beat slowly within her. Proof that Agatha Harkness had already forever altered what Death was. What Death Could Be. To do this now, was merely to finally carry all that had been done already, with her always. To cut away a part of herself, to allow Agatha to take what she wished from the very heart of Death; after Death had stolen it from fate itself.

Rio pulled back and plunged the point of the scepter into her heart dragging it steadily down and ripping through its deadened flesh.

Pain cut through her.

Actual real pain, Death had never felt this before, this burning ache that rips away at one’s mind.

It almost made her wish to cry out, it flashed through every inch of her. Then, just as quickly as it appeared; it vanished. Leaving a sickening white scar to knit her split heart back together, now with the glow of something that did not belong. A new power filled her being, something entirely unnatural to death.

Rio’s grimace faded and she tossed the scepter back at Thanos’s feet. He watched her puzzled, questions forming on his lips but she didn’t care for what they could be, “Congratulations.” She interrupted and he puzzled, tearing his gaze from her to what lay at his feet, “Your journey has begun.”

A crackle of change in him filled the air around her but she didn’t waste time, she had what she needed.

What would come would have been inevitable regardless of her interference… She had merely lent fate a hand.

Death melted through the shadows and stepped through worlds till she arrived at her grove, she bent and collected one of the remaining flowers that burst forth from the earth in their startling beauty. She had yet to give Agatha another since the night she proposed their union. This moment felt like it was worth the grandeur of the bloom she’d curated only for her.

Agatha hadn’t expected her back for some time still, they had just come off a three-day-long attempt at triggering a ritual created by the first peoples of a forgotten world and she’d had a lot of work to catch up on, but there would be time for that later. She would find time or make it if she needed to.

Death finally had life to give Agatha.

She could finally provide an answer to her wife’s wordless pleas.

Their wait was over.

Rio stepped through the air and into the circle of their cottage, excitement, and anticipation thrumming through every inch of her. She opened the door and crossed through, the flower clutched in her fist as her eyes settled on the vision that was Agatha Harkness.

She was stretched out in their tub, water sloshing slightly as she whipped around to face Rio. Agatha dragged it over to sit in front of the fire and the light dancing off of her in the water reminded Rio of the night they had bound themselves to each other.

A question made its way to Agatha’s lips but when her eyes settled on the flower in Rio’s hand she gasped slightly and stood up, facing Rio. Water droplets cascaded down every smooth pane of skin now gloriously exposed and Rio lunged forward crashing their lips together as her clothes vanished into the air around them. Agatha’s hands wrapped around her and Rio gripped Agatha’s wrists keeping them locked together as their mouths pushed and pulled in perfect rhythm. They met in a practiced dance, and after fifty-six years of their give and take, they knew every inch of each other.

“Really?” Agatha asked between hurried kisses, the flower set to the side so Rio’s hands could slide over every inch of Agatha’s body, “Did you find something new?”

Rio shook her head, “Not new.” She whispered as she nipped her way down to Agatha’s throat, her hands wrapping around Agatha to lift her feet from the bath and tug them both to the bed, “But it will work, it will. It will work.” Rio whispered the words into Agatha’s skin again and again as talented fingers tangled in her hair and allowed Death to take what she needed after so long of failing the witch she would give everything to.

“My love…” Agatha sighed as fingers toyed with her breast, caressing and pinching the hardened peaks of her nipples while her free hand kept her propped up. Rio bent, her tongue traveling the length of every dip and curve that made up her wife, “What must we do? What do you need from me?”

“Nothing,” Rio whispered as she pulled back eyes blown wide, Agatha’s panting stare matching her own, “Just us.”

“No spell?” Agatha asked, eyes wide as Rio shook her head, “No incantation?” Rio shook her head again, “How?”

“Nothing is too far out of reach for the power of Agatha Harkness,” Rio responded grinning as she leaned up to connect their lips once more. Agatha reached out to flip them in a practiced move but Rio reached out and held her firm, “Not this time. Be good for me and take what you need.”

A broken moan left Agatha's lips while her eyes slammed shut at Death’s words and her hands tangled tighter in her hair. Agatha’s hips churned up into her, smearing the evidence of her desire along Rio’s hip. Rio kissed down to her neck and trailed her hand down teasingly slowly along Agatha’s side to her hip. She would dip down but never stray far before trailing back up, it took minutes of slow torture for them both before there was a huff and purple power crackled in the air. There was a brief moment before it ripped her hand downwards and held it over right where Agatha wanted her, her hips rolled into Rio’s hand immediately. A chuckle escaped her lips and Agatha cracked her eyes open shooting her an empty glare, “You did say take what I need.”

Rio smirked, “That I did, my love,” She broke free of the purple, keeping her prone, and she began to move her hand in time with her lover's hips. Rio pressed a harsh kiss to her lips before she trailed down her body, nipping a line of marks to leave evidence of what they had done today for many nights to come. She could heal them, trail her tongue heavy with the buzz of magic over every inch of Agatha, and remove anything that threatened her, but this? She wouldn’t mind watching them fade to nothing, absorbing the evidence of their desire into Agatha’s skin forever.

Her hands pressed her head eagerly down as her hips continued to roll almost against Agatha’s conscious choice. Rio kissed along her hip nipping at the soft hollow of skin before trailing her tongue down to the soaking wet heat that waited for her. She slipped two fingers into Agatha and moaned into her at the expression that flickered across her lover's face. Rio called forth the foreign power now cut into her very being and withdrew all that she could of what made her Death incarnate.

Agatha groaned in a mix of unexpected pleasure and confusion above her as the buzz of foreign magic filled the air around them, “What is-,” She was cut off by a drawn-out groan of pleasure at the new magic and the the flickering of Rio’s tongue while her fingers started a brutal pace within her. The weight of magic settled in her fingers and tongue as she lavished attention on her wife, power crackling between them, enhancing every sensation that brushed across either of their bodies.

“Take it,” Rio chanted into Agatha, unwilling to remove herself from the task at hand, “Take it all, please. Come for me. Please Agatha, please my love.” She begged into her skin between desperate passes of her tongue and steady thrusts of her fingers. She could finally give Agatha the life she longed for, give her everything the years of pain and heartache had led them both to.

“Oh, god- I can feel it,” Agatha gasped out, her eyes shot open, and purple burned within her at the vast power being so willingly offered to her with only one intent behind it. Creation. Life. Birth, from two beings that had been destined only for death, “It’s everywhere-” Agatha moaned out and Rio felt it as a burst of the power tugged out of her and flowed into Agatha, the other woman’s words were cut off with a broken cry.

“Yes, Agatha, yes.” Rio changed as she doubled her efforts, sweat slicking Agatha’s skin while she writhed above her, one hand caught in her hair as her hips slammed down into Rio. Agatha’s other hand gripped the headboard above them as bright power crackled through her fingertips burning their way into the wood. Rio couldn’t take her eyes off any of it for longer than a brief moment.

Purple crackled through the air around them eagerly swallowing the new power that filled Rio, “It feels so- Good!” Agatha cried out, her eyes squeezed shut while Rio felt the power steadily drawn out of her in waves.

Rio moved with her pushing Agatha till she sat up eyes alight with the glow of fresh power churning low between her hips, “You have more,” She rasped, she shoved Rio back, pulling off her fingers as she climbed into her lap, “I want it all.” Agatha growled while pulling her in to crash their lips together.

“Take it, my love. It’s yours, it’s all for you.” Rio got out between desperate presses of their lips as teeth clashed, bit, and pulled.

Agatha’s hand snaked down between them and Rio groaned low in her throat as her hips jumped into Agatha’s fingers making messy passes over her clit, “Thank you, my love.” Agatha whispered, backing off just enough to connect their eyes as she slid three fingers in and Rio’s mouth fell open. The power began to siphon back out of her as Agatha’s fingers curled within her, “You’ve done so well.”

Rio’s head tipped back and she fell onto her elbows, a ragged moan following as Agatha bent down and began trailing punishing bites across her chest, “It’s all for you…” Rio chanted, the pull of magic flowing through her filling her mind with a heady buzz, the only two things that existed at that moment were the feel of Agatha all around her, and the pleasured pulsing of the magic that flowed between them. Agatha pressed their lips together, swallowing the elated, pleasure-filled cackle that ripped free from Rio. Pleasure coursed through her body as Agatha skillfully brought her to the climax her body had been rapidly building to.

Rio collapsed back, her hands running gently through Agatha’s hair as she kissed down her stomach, “Still you have more… Do you withhold from me, my love?”

“No-,” She cut off in a pleasured moan as sharp teeth bit down harshly, “I promise… Just- be careful. Don’t take too much, my power lies below it.”

“When have I been known to take too much?” Agatha huffed as her fingers continued their gentle movements within her. Rio rolled her eyes, earning her another wicked bite to her hip and she grinned down at her, “Fine- I suppose from time to time I can be known to overindulge. This time I promise to be good.” She vowed bringing her free hand up to cross her heart while her other hand continued its wicked ministrations, the power within her roiling with its desire to join the rest of its like, now simmering within Agatha.

“Good, now, up.” Rio tapped her thighs and Agatha arched her eyebrow as Rio eagerly licked her lips and tugged harder.

Agatha worked her way up and the second she was close enough Rio reached out to grab her hips and pull her down to her waiting mouth. The second her tongue brushed up against Agatha, the power pulled and Rio surrendered to the magic. Agatha gripped the wall above their heads and held tight as her hips ground down onto Rio’s waiting tongue.

The last lingering wisps of the life magic danced within her, ebbing and flowing with the slow draw of Agatha’s waiting, hungry beast. Only now, it wasn’t power it hungered for. It was life, carefully tucked within the heart of Death.

Agatha’s thighs began to shake around Rio’s head as she doubled her efforts and felt a pleasurable haze settle over her, Agatha drawing the power slowly from her. The last of it waited for the next pull of Agatha’s purple and Agatha’s back arched and her voice cracked as she cried out. Agatha’s power finally clawed out, drawing forth what remained of the life magic swirling on her tongue.

Only it pulled again.

Darkness wisped up from deep within her, called by the enchanting draw of Agatha’s purple.

A moment of pure panic shot through Rio, the flash of a world where the price she’d promised to pay when she stole from fate had come upon her so swiftly. She could not bear the thought of a world without Agatha, an existence that did not involve the two of them locked in their endless chase.

Death, always one step behind Agatha.

“No!” Rio yelled out as she ripped her true nature back and forced up the magic of the green, flowers and vines burst into existence around them and she ripped her mouth free, “Agatha! Enough!”

The purple ripped back the second Rio spoke, Agatha’s eyes shot open wide and startled. Agatha looked herself over and a heavy sigh escaped, Rio could see it. She hadn’t meant to keep pulling in power, but her body had pushed on regardless, “It’s fine, I’m fine.” Her chest still heaved from the exertion between them but there were no other changes.

Rio pushed up as Agatha slid down and she cupped her face looking into her eyes and tilted her head to either side before her eyes traveled down, only satisfied once she found not a hair out of place. Well… outside of the warm pulse of magic Rio could feel radiating where it had settled low between Agatha’s hips, “You’re okay,” Rio breathed her head dropping forward onto Agatha’s shoulder as one of her hands brushed her knuckles along the bare skin of Agatha’s stomach, “We’re all okay.”

Agatha pulled her back and cupped her cheek, resting their foreheads together so she could look down between them, “It’s done?” She asked hesitantly, “It is almost like I can feel something in there.”

“It’s started.” Rio whispered eyes full of wonder as she looked up to watch Agatha look down, her eyes full of a fierce love already, “Soon it will take root and you will feel it change into the life he will become, instead of just the power between us that made him.” Rio murmured, unwilling to interrupt the awed air that had settled over them.

“Him?” Agatha asked distractedly but the corner of her mouth quirked up in a smile.

“I-,” Rio mentally cursed her slip up but nodded, “I have perhaps been envisioning a boy. Our victory, Nikolaos.”

Agatha’s eyes misted and Rio reached up wiping away a tear, while Agatha’s hand moved to rest over the warmth flowing from within her, “Nicholas.” She whispered eventually, a watery laugh escaping as Rio beamed at her, “He’s perfect already.”

The next nine months were possibly the longest and shortest of Death’s entire endless existence, but they were also perhaps the best months Death had ever experienced.

In pregnancy Agatha glowed, Rio had forced life where Death should find none but it had been for no more righteous cause. Because Agatha Harkness had been made to be a mother. Rio watched Agatha, as she always did, she already held so much love for their son, while he had yet to even be born.

Rio would often find Agatha rocking back and forth in her chair, hand resting over the gentle swell in her belly, whispering promises of love, devotion, and time. So far removed from the begging of Agatha’s mother, for Death to come and smite her babe as she’d been born.

Agatha was determined to be everything her mother had not been.

Rio was determined to help her succeed.

Agatha did not like having her away for long, and Rio had to ensure all trips away from her wife were cut down to hours or less before she returned to check-in. Rio had always been excited about their reunions, with the exciting unpredictability of what she would be encountering, but now it made Death… hesitant.

Rio had to enter slowly, her eyes scanning their cottage until she could safely locate Agatha and enter, maintaining eye contact and assessing her mood before speaking. As if she were some kind of beast, Rio had learned not to turn her back upon entry, if Agatha was in a mood things had been sent flying at her. Once she might have returned the blow with fervor, but now? Now she turned to find the watery eyes of her wife, looking upset or uncomfortable and Rio melted to her whims. She simply had to take the clock to the head in stride before seeing that Agatha got what she needed; be it a foot rub or food, entertainment, or attention.

Rio wouldn’t trade these moments for anything.

“Can I ask you something?” Agatha asked absently as she sat on the steps of the porch, hand running over the swell of her belly watching as Rio grew soft moss around any sharp or dangerous obstacles around the outside of their home.

Rio glanced over and smiled softly, the green power sparking out of fingertips, “Yeah, go on then.”

“I know you’ve said you think it’s a boy, but… Is there a way to know? A spell or like peeing on a toad to see if it changes colors or something?” Agatha asked eyes on her belly before finally pulling up to look at Rio.

Rio cackled and she couldn’t help moving over to press a kiss to Agatha’s waiting lips, before pressing a second to the swell of her belly as she had every day since the life had taken root within her, “No peeing on toads, my love. But- if you would like to know there is an incantation.”

Agatha’s smile grew and she nodded, “I do- I want to know if it’s Nicholas or Nicole kicking me in the bladder four times an hour.”

Rio chuckled and gently ran her hands over the bump whispering in to Agatha, “Be nice to your mama, sweetling, she’s taking such good care of you.”

Rio pulled back to be met with tears filling Agatha’s eyes and panic began to settle over Rio before Agatha spoke, her lip quivering, “Do you really think so?”

“Of course, any child would be lucky to have you as their mother. Who more fierce? More powerful? More protective?” Rio asked, pressing a kiss over each tear that fell between her words.

Agatha was smiling by the end of it, but she cut her eyes over to the circle of green fungi enclosing their cottage in an impenetrable spell. The one that was hiding them from any who should seek Agatha out, while keeping out any who might stumble upon them, “I can think of one person.” Agatha teased and Rio swelled with pride.

Rio looked out around them and at the cottage behind them that had been a home to them for almost 57 years. All those decades ago, Death had found a home. Not only in their loved and lived-in cottage but within the arms of the witch before her who now carried the child of Death itself, “Good thing they’ll have us both.”

Agatha crushed their lips together and they got lost in one another for a moment before they pulled away as Agatha caught her breath, “Do it. I want to know.”

Rio nipped at Agatha’s jaw while she ordered her, “So demanding.” She teased but she pulled back and placed Agatha’s hands on her shoulders as she summoned the blackened green of her power and hovered over Agatha’s stomach.

“Is it working?” Agatha asked after scarcely a moment had passed.

“Patience, my love. These things can take-,” Rio was cut off as her words were stolen from her lips. The glow from her fingertips had spread and solidified in a gentle pink that pulsed rhythmically with the healthy beat of their baby, “Boy, it’s a boy.” Rio whispered, she had felt it, had thought of it for so long. But to see it confirmed now in front of her… To see that they had a son- together. Rio felt the ache of the pale scar in her heart so acutely at that moment, the love that existed in it. This had not been written for Death, but Rio had taken it anyway. For the witch who had captured her so completely, she was forever changed by what had become between them all.

Death had a son.

Agatha grinned and her hands reached out for Rio’s cheeks, tilting her head up to look into each other's wonder-filled faces. The glow of confirmation blanketed them in its gentle pulsing light, “Nicholas.” She whispered.

“Nicholas.” Rio confirmed and they pressed tightly together. Agatha claimed one of Rio’s hands while the other kept the incantation going so they could watch his fluttering heartbeat in the light of the setting sun.

Eventually, Agatha drifted and Rio let the magic dissipate as she lifted the other witch into her arms carrying her to her bed. Rio was careful with her use of magic when it came to Agatha now, she kept it to only the parts of the green that centered around life and birth. She hadn’t even drawn her knife within the circle of their cottage since the day she had returned with the power of life churning below her skin. Terrified of what her power might do to them both.

She laid her wife down in the bed and covered her with their quilts before she settled next to her, hand running along Agatha’s bump while she spoke to their son. She told him tales of her times through all of the ages, the good, the bad. Mostly though, she told him of his mother.

Agatha had woken up one morning and caught her at it, Rio had risen to hide the embarrassment clouding her face but Agatha had merely grunted and pulled her back, “Don’t stop,” She’d whispered, her voice rough with sleep as she shifted slightly, “It's better when you talk.”

So Rio talked, through the night every night, to ease the discomfort of the only two people alive who mattered to Death. It was a good thing she had endless stories to tell, as long as the universe had been expanding, she had been alive. She hadn’t remembered being lonely in the beginning, but now as she told her growing family things she had never thought to tell anyone, she felt what had been missing for all of that time slotting into place.

Someone to share it with.

Her nights had now become something precious to look forward to.

For so long Rio had been worried that Death was not allowed living pleasures such as these but Agatha had helped her prove her fate wrong at every turn. Rio had gone against everything that had been written for her and forged a new path to walk that had given her so much more than she ever could have imagined.

In the mornings Rio would watch as the sun crested over the curve of the earth bathing Agatha in the warm light of its golden rays. Agatha would stretch out on her side and her hand would reach out, blindly searching for Rio. She would allow herself a moment to watch before she gave in, as she always would, and pressed her cheek to Agatha’s waiting palm. The groggy, “Good morning, my love.” She got in return was worth every night she used to spend walking through reality, alone.

Her mornings had become something to cherish.

Rio left every morning after Agatha woke, for an hour or two, while her wife bathed. She bent a few laws of time and space so she could collect enough souls to allow herself the rest of Agatha’s day by her side.

She would return and help her lover out of the magically warmed bath and Agatha would dress before meeting her outside. Rio’s garden had flourished and when Nicholas had become a reality she’d begun tending to it by hand. She wanted to do the work that would provide for Nicholas… Her son.

Agatha would sit out back and watch, or more aptly leer, making relentless suggestive comments or sarcastic remarks about her work. Rio would fire back a grin on her face as they played with each other in their new way. No longer could they break through a wall in their cottage, but they could tease and joke, drawing out increasingly louder laughs from the other.

Her afternoons had become something to relish.

As the evening drew in and night fell they would retreat into the cottage and lay together stretched out in front of the fire or pressed together on the bed. Sometimes regaling each other with stories, or Agatha would read while Death rested her head and listened. On other nights they would play cards and lose themselves in the intoxicating presence of each other.

The sun would set and Agatha would settle in for her night's rest, tired eyes watching Death as she closed their cottage up for the night. Then Rio would climb into bed behind her and rub her wife’s aching ankles or lower back until she drifted to sleep, starting the time Rio so looked forward to.

Her evenings had become something beautiful.

Fifty-seven years had built up between Death and Agatha Harkness. After so much time of love and growth, arguments, and forgiveness Rio finally found herself lost in everything they had become. Death had never understood the lengths she watched humans go to for the people around them. How hard they tried to save each other from death or beg for alternative realities from fate. It hadn’t ever made sense before, to allow oneself to serve their role in the natural order of things was the greatest purpose a human could hope to serve.

Rio had laughed at all that had been sacrificed to allow more time before their walk with her, but now. With her days so mortal, so human. She felt it, what she’d seen in all of them, the fear of an end looming.

She’d arrived back at their cottage that morning, stepping into the circle to hear a pained cry from Agatha, “Rio!! Get your ass back here now!”

Rio sprinted, pushing through the door to find Agatha in the bath, her face lined with pain. One of her hands gripped the edge of the wooden tub, purple crackling at its fingertips while her other curled protectively around her stomach. Her eyes were wild as they locked onto Rio, “This can’t be right. Something’s wrong- It hurts- God, Rio- It hurts.”

Rio fell to her knees beside the bath and plunged one of her hands into the water green flashing at her fingertips as the other gripped Agatha’s, “It’s okay, it’ll be okay. You’ll be okay.” Rio promised eyes tearing away from Agatha to look down at the spell's work below. The soft pink glow swelled to life, the fluttering of his heartbeat showing steady in the pulses.

Agatha sagged slightly at the sight of it but Rio frowned, she pulled her other hand out of Agatha’s and joined it in the water to complete the full strength of the spell, “What is it? It looks okay, he has to be okay. Right? Rio?”

The spell's strength doubled and Rio caught what had tugged at her curiosity, the pulsing, it was skipping a beat, “I- I’m not sure.” Rio whispered and she changed the flow of magic to something healing to feed into their son but Agatha’s purple began to claw out and Rio had to rip her hands away before it could take anything.

Agatha screamed and both her arms wrapped around her belly, “I’m sorry!! It wasn’t- I can’t-,” Tears streamed down Agatha’s cheeks.

Rio lunged back to her side and she wrapped her arms around her wife, lifting her from the water, “I know, my love. I know. It’s okay, you’re okay. Everything’s okay.”

Agatha groaned in pain and uncovered her stomach, “Show me him… show me how- how to do it.”

Rio held her hands, guiding her movements through the motions of the spell, to use Agatha’s purple and bring out the soft pink glow. An anguished cry escaped Agatha’s lips as a flicker of black flashed through the soft pink hood, “Heal him. Try again. You have to. I’ll try and hold it back. I have to be able to hold it back.” Agatha gasped desperately and Rio hesitated but Agatha shot her a look that she could not fight against, “I can’t heal- I’m no good at that. You have to- you have to save him. Please, save our Nicholas…”

Rio’s throat stuck as she pulled her hands back and summoned her healing magic bringing the green-black glow to Agatha’s stomach focusing on the faltering life she could feel within. The power began to flow into him and the soft pink glow solidified, the pulsing of his heartbeat evened out and relief rushed through Rio- Until a flash of purple shot out at her and Rio ripped her hands away cutting off her peer before it could connect. The pink glow flickered immediately black flashing across the face and Agatha screeched, “No!! What are you doing?”

Rio’s eyes flashed as she looked at her wife, “What do you mean?” Agatha looked aghast at her and Rio felt her world fall out from under her, “You can’t. You mean for me to kill you?”

“Save him.” Agatha begged, tears in her eyes, “Whatever it takes, please.”

“You know I cannot do this,” Rio whispered desperately.

“You have to, Rio- Please. For me.” Agatha demanded, her hands wrapped protectively around her middle.

Rio could no longer give Agatha Harkness everything she asked for. She could not give her this. She could not answer a plea that took the witch who brought her heart to life out of this world. She could not give her this, not now, not like this.

“I- I can’t. Do not ask me for this,” Rio choked out, her voice cracking through the words, “You will be okay. It will be okay- It will be. You-”

Agatha’s eyes flashed with something Rio had never seen directed at her before as she cut her off, “Oh, is it? Is it going to be okay?” Agatha bit out, “Is he okay? What about our son? Will he be okay?” Her voice came out broken at the end as they gazed at each other over the water spilled between them.

“We can-” Rio began but Agatha cut her off again.

“Try again?” She snarled her voice dripping with hurt and longing, “It took us nearly a decade this time Rio! How long next time? How long will you keep me frozen here beside you?” Rio recoiled at the words, falling back as Agatha pushed on, “You could save him- You could save our son! Our baby boy- My love, please. It would be worth it- please.”

Rio shuffled father back, her eyes wide as she shook her head, “Please do not ask this of me. I cannot, I can not do this.”

Agatha’s eyes flashed again and her face twisted, “You can! I know you saw it, he strengthened when you healed him, and you can save him. You're the only one who can.”

“Agatha-,” Her head shook and Agatha spat, eyes hard and unforgiving as she looked at Rio and then past her to the door.

“You’re choosing not to do this. Not to save him. If you won’t help then-” Rio watched the hard set of Agatha’s jaw as she swallowed past the lump that had formed and refused to look at Rio again, “Go.” Rio froze for a moment hoping the choked-out word had been misheard, but Agatha spoke again. This time with more fire laced through her words, “Go! Get out!”

At the power of her words, Rio was driven back to their porch and her hands gripped the door frame with desperate eyes, “Agatha, please. Don’t do this to us.” She begged.

Agatha sneered and Rio’s knees buckled at the force of it as Agatha dragged herself up and stepped forward. Each step pushed Rio farther back, “Me do this? How could you?” Rio opened her mouth to reply but Agatha groaned in pain and she tried to push back against Agatha’s power to get back to her, “No, you don’t get to help any longer. If you choose not to help him- Not to save him, then you’re against us both. You’ve just reared him for slaughter! Is that it then?”

“No, Agatha, no- Of course not,” Rio reached for her and tried to break out of the power but Agatha held firm.

“You put these here to protect me.” Agatha growled, waving her hands out at the circle of fungi around them, “You’re the threat to me now.”

The moment the words had been spoken, ringing true in Agatha, Rio felt it as her magic responded on its own to protect Agatha. She was ripped out from the circle and she slammed into the trees at the far end of their clearing. Rio pushed up and ran forward, slamming into the hard wall of her own power, easily locking her out. Agatha watched for only a moment before she turned and closed the door behind her. The very last thing Rio saw was a look of disbelief and disgust painting her wife’s features.

Rio fell to her knees, a raw scream unleashed from her throat as her fists slammed repeatedly into the decades-old power that would not waiver against her onslaught.

No matter how much she willed it, no matter how hard she hit.

She was stuck on the outside, watching, once again.

What had taken fifty-seven years to blossom, had taken only minutes to wilt.

Rio watched for two days, aching, hating the darkness and death that wove through every inch of what made her. It didn’t matter that Death was not meant to hate herself. It didn’t matter that Death was not meant to love, fear, or care.

Here Rio was regardless.

Angushing alone, as she heard Agatha’s grief and pain echo out from the cottage at all hours of the day.

It was on the third morning when her ache turned to a cold, hopeless reservation, it was backed by a pained scream from within the cottage. The cool tingle, the pull of a life about to require claiming, tugged at her awareness. She felt the pull constantly, there was never a moment where a soul did not need collection, but this one rang with a familiarity and proximity that could not be for anything or anyone else.

Her son was calling for her.

At that same moment, the door to the cottage burst open and Agatha’s eyes locked on hers, “You. This is your fault.” She growled a withering finger pointing at Rio, nothing but the bitter cold glare of anger on her face, “You’ve doomed him. You’ve doomed us.” She dragged herself down the steps and out of the ring of fungi, holding up her hand when Rio moved to follow her, “Stop- please, just stop. Don’t follow us. Please- You’ve, you’ve done enough already.”

Rio obeyed, though she knew there was a time limit on her ability to give this to Agatha. The tingle strengthened in the back of her mind as Agatha dragged herself through the woods muttering about how it would be better if they could just get away from Rio. Things would be okay, they would be okay. Rio watched her leave and felt as the soul called to her again, her son already gone. There was nothing but the form he would have worn and the clamoring spirit within calling to Death for salvation.

Rio allowed Agatha a few hours to drag herself through the woods, she stepped from the forest of their cottage and into the groove she had tended to for so many eons. One of the sections of her grove was filled with a particular type of tree, perfect for growing the Orchid of Death. The blooms were startlingly beautiful, black and white and twisting through the air. They were reserved for those who truly mattered to death. A blessing from Death to ensure a safe travel. She took a moment to run her fingers along the petals before she gave in and finally followed the helpless call of her son.

After fifty-seven years it felt almost foreign to return to the woods around her cottage and remove her physical presence to step through the forests as nothing more than a concept and an outsider once again. Rio set off, she followed the path her wife had staggered off in with a solemn reverie weighing down each step she took. The heavy cloak and gown she wore for these deaths, the claimings that were wrong, draped over her hidden form.

Eventually, when she found her, Agatha had made it to a bend in the familiar river they’d spent so many hot summer days basking together in. The same river that they had forever bound themselves to each other in. That felt like a lifetime ago now, despite it being nothing more than the blink of an eye to someone who had been around for as long as Rio had.

Rio stepped onto the shore and her chest tightened as Agatha saw through her illusion and her face crumpled, “No, no,” Agatha breathed out as her jaw trembled, “I told you not to come…”

Rio stepped forward against the weight of Agatha’s words, each step one she would have done everything not to take, but her son called for her still.

“It cannot be,” Agatha breathed out, tears welling in her eyes as she stood up as best she could.

Rio ached, “It must be.”

Agatha pushed herself back against the tree and her lip quivered as Rio continued on her path only to be stopped by Agatha’s next words, “You do this, and I will hate you forever.” Rio froze and she felt the world still with her, Agatha knew how to work her, “Please let him live. Please, my love, please-” Agatha’s words were cut off by a cry of pain as her body worked to complete its natural obligation.

Just as Rio’s own did.

Agatha had asked so much of her in the past several days, so much that she had not been able to give.

“Please,” Agatha gasped and Rio ached.

Death had power, vast but limited in its use, but she had the blessing to use her power however she needed to, to be able to collect a soul.

“Please…” Agatha begged again and Rio closed her eyes.

It was something she had never done before, something that had felt untouchable.

Rewriting the conditions of her collection.

Death had already broken so many laws of the natural order, had pushed fate, used time, and had twisted the realms of men to her will, all for Agatha.

She could change the flow of death for her, for now.

If it could give her a chance, give them a chance, she would do it.

If it meant Agatha would live and had a hope of forgiving her, then the celestials would have to accept one more theft of their order.

Death opened her eyes and looked back upon her wife, long lost words playing at her lips with a cruel twist of fate that Death should have seen coming after so long with her, “I can offer only time.”

Agatha’s eyes fell shut and Rio returned her son's spirit to his body, watching as relief washed over Agatha’s face the second her pain eased.

“How much time?” Agatha asked after a moment, her head tossing as the birth began in earnest after she had spent so long-suffering, “How much time?”

It was a question Rio did not wish to answer.

Rio could not bargain for more than what she had already taken, and she was too afraid of what she would do if Agatha pressed again for more. Fate had shown that it would come for her already, she did not wish to find out how long she could take before time and order moved in to take all she had left.

Before her wife’s eyes could open again, Rio stepped away, falling to her knees in the grove that had once been her safe haven. It now felt foreign and unforgiving when held in comparison to the cottage that had become her home, the home that she had been forever barred from.

Death grieved for as long as she could manage before the pull of days of her neglected duties became overwhelming. She dragged herself from the soil and for the first time in days, drew her knife. Rio cut through the fabric of reality and stepped through, losing herself in the repetition of collecting all of the souls clamoring for her attention. She trudged through the seconds and the minutes the same as if they were months and years. Always trying her best to ignore the latent tug of her son, always calling for her attention.

It had taken a trip to their cottage, to find it still warded against her and with no sign of life, to realize the uncomfortable truth she hadn’t wanted to face.

Death was no longer welcome with Agatha Harkness.

It had felt like perhaps a few thousand years had passed for Rio, but it couldn’t have been more than a few days in reality when the purple she had missed so vastly called out to her along with the prickling death of a coven. Rio wasted no time, she cut through the worlds and rushed for the call of her wife and son.

Death stepped back into the forests she had once grown to call home and found the bodies of a coven waiting for her within their now-broken circle of protection. Agatha stood among them, their son wrapped tightly to her chest and Death felt as if the world righted itself slightly, now that she knew Agatha was okay. She had found new clothes, and a new bag, almost nothing remained to her that had come from the cottage they had once shared. Nothing except the nightgown she had worn while dragging herself away from Rio.

“Agatha-,” Rio breathed out, stepping forward and over a body as she reached out for her wife but Agatha stepped back and turned her body, keeping her son away from her.

“Stay there,” Agatha commanded and Rio stilled on instinct, “You’ll stay away from us. I don’t want to do this with you again. I can’t see you again, I can’t be looking for you around every corner. Not while the only thing I can think of is what you almost cost me. What you will still take from me.” Her voice was ragged with grief and anger.

“I didn’t intend for this to happen, Agatha. I did everything-” Rio started but Agatha cut her off.

The other witch's voice was as cold as ice, “Don’t.” She took a harsh breath in, her hand caressing the head of their boy as he fussed, “You did not do everything you could. You just- You stood against me. Against him.”

“How can I fix this?” Rio asked brokenly, hands clenching uselessly at her thighs.

“You can’t,” Agatha murmured, bending and pressing a kiss to Nicholas’s head.

“There’s nothing? You have just decided for the both of us? You can cast me to the side so easily? After everything?” Rio begged she would have fallen to her knees if it felt like she still had control of her legs.

“I can never forgive this, I can never forget this.” Agatha had manic anger in her eyes, “For as long as I can still remember what you-,” Her voice cut off choked with emotion, “I don’t want to see you.” Rio opened her mouth to reply but Agatha turned and left, abandoning the supplies and camp she could have used, in favor of escaping Death. Who had never seemed to be able to stay far away from her.

Rio collected the souls of the drained witches and left, returning to the body she had abandoned in the hope of her now failed reconciliation. She should have known, everything had already been lost. Her hope had been gone from the moment she’d refused Agatha in the cottage, separated by spilled water and the cavernous distance that had broken open between them, born from the smallest of cracks.

Rio walked her reality mindlessly as the years passed, most of her hours spent dragging souls, with far less care than she had before, along the path to their unavoidable fate. She worked and she focused on ignoring the pain that pulsed in the scar on her heart whenever souls would call to her wrapped in elegant purple power.

The only moments she could truly look forward to were her nights.

Agatha had spoken her command and Rio could do nothing but obey, though she had given only one stipulation. Rio held fast to the only thing she could from the months before her world had been ripped from her hands.

Spending nights with her son.

The Son of Death did not sleep, so she was there to watch over him.

When he was a baby all she did was ensure he remained calm and happy enough that Agatha could get as much sleep as possible. When he was a little older she would hold him through storms and dark nights. Tell him grand tales from across the cosmos, he would giggle quietly and lean into the pull he felt towards her. The same one she felt in the back of her mind calling her to him.

At the end of every night, she would lean down and press a kiss to his forehead twice. Once for the woman who could see her but chose not to. Then once for her son, allowing her healing magic to spread out through him. Something to ease the toll that running from Death took on all, even though he had been blessed to run by Death. It did not matter, even being the son of Death herself could not ease the consequences of remaining alive past your time. It would hurt, his mortal body would struggle to keep up with his soul that had already outgrown this form, and his body would ache to return to what it should have been long ago. Rio did what she could for him, for as long as she could.

Until she could no longer ignore the aching pull of her son’s pleas for her.

During the days, while her son lived, it was with a heavy heart that she performed her duties. Always aware of the fact that with one unavoidable walk, her nights would soon join the same wasteland of her days.

After six years, Death returned.

Nicholas Scratch was tired.

Death watched as he sat up and smiled at her, the relief clear on his face. He pushed himself up from the ground and Rio held up a finger, pointing down at the only woman alive who haunted Death. Nicky leaned down and pressed two kisses to Agatha’s sleeping cheek before he pushed up from the ground.

Rio watched as the weight of the years of pain fell off of him as his soul pushed free from its form and bounded up to her. She took his hand easily and turned, their walk had begun. He moved happily alongside her, his eyes locked onto what was ahead. Death moved smoother than she had in far too long, each step coming easier than they had for six long years.

When they arrived at the veil, after almost no walk at all, Rio turned and bent, gently cupping her son’s cheek, “You can rest now, sweetling.” She whispered, pressing her lips twice to his forehead.

Nicholas threw his arms around her neck and pulled her down to him, “Thank you, Mother,” He whispered into her neck before pulling back and answering the question on her face, “For letting me stay with her, for always looking after us both.”

Rio smiled softly at him, he always had been far too pure and kind for his own good. Especially for the son of Death. Perhaps it had come from the stone that had helped create him or the influence of Agatha’s unfaltering love.

Or maybe it had been something that he’d found all on his own.

“You know I could never deny you or your mother anything.” She whispered, brushing his hair back behind his ear before she tipped her head to the side and winked at him, “Go on then, go find out what it’s all been about.”

He squeezed her hand one last time before pulling away and stepping towards the veil, pausing for just a moment as he turned, “She misses you, you know. She still loves you.” He spoke with so much assuredness it was hard not to believe him.

Death shook her head slightly but before she could refute it he smiled at her and tipped back into the veil, disappearing from their realm.

Welcomed into the next.

The pull in her mind finally faded as her son, at last, found his end in the gentle embrace of her realm. Rio cut through the air and pushed her way through to her grove, the only place she could think to run. She let the torch melt away along with her cloak as she fell to her knees and screamed into the dirt.

Rio planted her hands in the earth and the pain of a would-be sob cracked at her chest. Her son was at rest, at long last he suffered no longer. She should be happy. But she was selfish and Death had been forever changed. Forever chained and forever bound to Agatha Harkness. With the loss of their boy, she also lost her hope of seeing her love, even if it was only as she slumbered.

Time passed and Death roamed, collecting souls in a listless state. Her existence had not dragged so heavily before Agatha Harkness had ensured her heart would beat till the end of time. Death had not known any better life to long for. Once she had not even known what longing was, but now anytime she felt a flare of purple power, what flashed through her could be nothing but.

Months turned to years, years turned to decades.

Covens fell left and right to the call of vibrant purple power and Death followed, remaining always out of sight but never truly hidden. No matter where Agatha went. No matter how far apart they were. Their power had been forever bound, Agatha could feel Death just as Death could feel her.

That is… Until she couldn’t.

There had been a flash, an echo of the purple that haunted her, but this time it was surrounded by something different- something powerful. Once it had gone where Agatha had once been within her, there was nothing.

The purple power had once filled her with a sense of security and love, for the last hundred years it had been a reminder of the pain and the scar that remained stretched across her blackened, still-beating heart. Only now, as she stood the purple entirely absent from her world, with no call for a soul to be collected, Death cried.

A single tear fell in the wake of separation as she now existed, truly alone, once again.

Time meant nothing, fate meant nothing, and the bodies she claimed barely captured her notice.

Death felt hollow.

Hundreds of years passed with only traces of Agatha, bodies piling up as her wife acquired all the power she could ever need. Disaster, after disaster painted with the flourish of personal style that Rio would recognize blindfolded and half alive.

Death chased mindlessly after Agatha Harkness.

Never quite catching her.

Always a step behind.

That is, until a unique call, laced with traces of purple pricked in her mind.

Death followed the call to a body, only the body was empty.

Had been for some time, the body had not even died where it seemed to now lay in the bed of flowers spread out before her. Rio bent to check for anything remaining, but only when her hand reached out, it passed through as if nothing had been there to begin with.

The body was gone in an instant.

Strange.

Rio stood for a moment watching before she turned to leave and froze. Standing behind her, looking right through her as if she couldn’t see her at all was- Agatha Harkness.

The witch paced the residential street around them and talked to the air around her, something was off with her.

Agatha’s eyes had passed clean over Death twice now. There had been no flash of recognition, no burn of power at her fingertips ready to blast Rio into submission. Something was very wrong here.

Death followed along behind Agatha as she walked through the town.

No- Agnes, the people around her so uncomfortably claimed, as she spoke to them. Seemingly only actually having half a conversation at any given moment.

Rio watched and eventually, Agnes caught on to her presence and suddenly she was being spoken to, only getting half of the story. The people around them were no more confused than the apparent norm as Agatha talked to empty air once more.

Something within her was not right, she’d been taken from herself. This was not her Agatha, not the woman who would sooner be caught dead before she spent years in a place like this.

Someone had bested her wife, it set off irritation within her.

That was her job.

It took Rio a few minutes to find the hex that was layered over her but by that time Agatha had already stormed off dragging along some boy she’d been throwing around, another conversation already going on as she moved back to the home that she’d apparently been occupying for some time.

Rio waited until she was quite sure she had reliably found a way to weave herself into the bewitchment that captured Agatha. Once she had a firm idea of what she would need to do she set off, feeling a strange sense of loss as she knocked at the door before her. There had been a time when she used to simply open or blast apart any door that kept Agatha from her without a thought.

Eventually, Agnes opened the door and Rio made her play to fall into the story she’d been unraveling as she’d watched her wife. Agatha eventually motioned her inside and disappeared leaving the door open behind her. Rio followed Agatha, a step behind, to her living room as she dropped down in the chair across from her.

Agatha spoke for a while as Rio weaved her way into the hex, pulling the right chords to allow her true words to break through to her Agatha buried beneath it all.

She had to know.

“Can I ask you something?”