The words hit Cael like a revelation. Here was proof that even the strongest mortals had limits, that compassion itself could become a burden too heavy for one soul to carry. He'd observed Damian's work for days now, marveling at his ability to absorb others' suffering, but he'd never considered what that constant exposure to pain might cost.
Without thinking, Cael manifested more solidly, his form taking on enough substance to be visible in the dim candlelight. He didn't plan to reveal himself—the impulse simply overcame his usual caution.
Damian's head shot up, his sightless eyes tracking toward where Cael stood with uncanny accuracy. “You're here again,” he said softly, and there was no fear in his voice, only a weary sort of recognition. “I can feel you watching me.”
Cael froze, uncertain how to respond.
“You are harming yourself,” Cael said at last, his voice reverberating through the dim clinic like a bell struck in fog. “The pain you carry is unraveling your mortal shape. You cannot keep absorbing so much—your frame is not made for it.”
Damian let out a sound that might have been laughter if it hadn't been so hollow. “And what would you know about mortal limitations? You're not exactly human, are you?”
The observation was stated without accusation, more curious than afraid. Cael found himself studying Damian's face, noting the lines of exhaustion around his eyes, the way his hands trembled slightly from magical overexertion.
“No,” he admitted. “I am not human. But I have been... observing you. Learning about your methods. I do not understand why you choose to carry such burdens.”
“Because someone has to.” Damian's voice was matter-of-fact, as if the answer was obvious. “Because people are suffering, and I have the ability to help them. Because walking away would make me complicit in their pain.”
The simple conviction in those words struck Cael with unexpected force. Here was someone who saw suffering not as an inevitable part of existence, but as a problem to be solved, a burden to be shared. It was the antithesis of everything Cael had been created to embody.
“But at what cost to yourself?” Cael asked, genuinely curious about this mortal's reasoning. “You absorb their pain, but you do not release it. It accumulates in your body, your spirit. Eventually, it will destroy you.”
Damian was quiet for a long moment, his head tilted as if considering the question from new angles. “Maybe,” he said finally. “But if I can ease their suffering, even temporarily, isn't that worth something? Isn't that better than doing nothing?”
“I do not know,” Cael admitted, and the honesty of the statement surprised him. “My function has always been to end suffering by ending the sufferer. Your approach is... foreign to my understanding.”
“What are you?” Damian asked, but his voice held curiosity rather than fear. “You feel cold, ancient. Like winter made conscious. But you don't feel cruel.”
The description was more accurate than Damian could know. “I am what mortals call Death,” Cael said, expecting fear, rejection, the usual mortal response to his true nature.
Instead, Damian nodded slowly, as if the revelation explained things that had been puzzling him. “That makes sense. You've been drawn to my work because it's the opposite of yours, haven't you? I preserve life, you end it. I absorb suffering, you eliminate it.”
“Yes,” Cael said, though the word felt inadequate to describe the complex mix of curiosity and confusion that Damian's methods inspired in him. “I have been trying to understand your choices.”
“And what have you concluded?”
Cael hesitated, unsure how to articulate thoughts that challenged everything he thought he knew about existence. “I am beginning to think that there may be value in approaches I had not previously considered.”
Damian smiled, and the expression transformed his exhausted features in ways that made Cael's chest tighten with unnamed emotion. “That's probably the most diplomatic way anyone's ever said 'your methods are weird but maybe not completely insane.'”
Despite himself, Cael felt something that might have been amusement. “Your methods are indeed unusual. But their effectiveness cannot be denied.”
The conversation felt surreal—Death and a healer discussing the philosophy of suffering as if they were colleagues rather than cosmic opposites. Yet there was something natural about it too, as if they were two sides of the same coin finally able to see each other clearly.
“Why are you really here?” Damian asked, and his voice was gentler now, less exhausted. “Not just observing from a distance, but actually talking to me?”
The question cut to the heart of something Cael wasn't ready to examine too closely. Why was he here? What had driven him to manifest physically, to engage in conversation that violated every principle of cosmic law?
“You were in distress,” he said carefully. “I found myself... concerned about your wellbeing.”
“Concerned?” Damian’s voice was half-wonder, half-bitter humor. “Death is concerned for a mortal’s wellbeing?”
Cael hesitated, the truth flickering in him like candlelight. “Yes,” he admitted, so quietly the word was nearly a breath. “This is… new to me, as well.”
They sat in comfortable silence for a moment, the weight of revelation settling between them. Cael studied Damian's face, noting how the stress lines had softened since their conversation began. There was something peaceful about the healer's presence, something that made the constant cosmic pressure in Cael's consciousness ease slightly.
“Can I ask you something?” Damian said eventually.
“You may ask.”
