“Exactly. Death is natural, inevitable. But it doesn't have to be cruel.”
The voice was quiet for a long moment. When it spoke again, there was something like gratitude in its tone: “No one has ever described my purpose as potentially kind before.”
“Maybe that's because no one's ever taken the time to really talk to you about it.”
As the evening deepened into full darkness, Damian performed a ritual he'd never attempted before. He lit a single white candle and placed it on his windowsill, speaking to the darkness with deliberate intention: “If you want to talk again, come back when this burns low. I'll be waiting.”
The offer felt both bold and terrifying, an invitation to something that could change his life irrevocably. But loneliness was a heavier burden than fear, and the prospect of genuine companionship outweighed the risks.
After a long pause, the voice responded with something that might be gratitude: “I don't need the flame to find you. But I appreciate the gesture. I'll come for the silence you offer—it's been centuries since anyone shared their quiet with me willingly.”
The words carried a loneliness so profound it made Damian's own isolation seem small by comparison. Here was someone who had existed for eons without companionship, without understanding, without anyone who found value in his presence beyond necessity.
“How long have you been alone?” Damian asked gently.
“Always. My kind were never meant for connection. We serve cosmic function, nothing more.”
“That sounds like hell.”
“I thought it was simply existence. Until I began observing you, I had no concept of alternative ways of being.”
Damian carefully adjusted the candle's position, his fingers gentle on the warm wax. As he settled back into his chair, he felt the presence join him properly—not visible, but undeniably there, like a companion who didn't need to breathe.
The air grew warmer despite the night's chill, and he could sense attention focused on him with patient intensity. For the first time in years, his clinic felt truly inhabited.
“Can I ask you something personal?” Damian said into the comfortable silence.
“You may ask.”
“Do you enjoy what you do? Not the cosmic duty part, but the actual work. Helping souls transition, ending their pain?”
The silence stretched so long Damian wondered if he’d offended his guest. When the answer came, it was hesitant. “I thought I found satisfaction in duty. Fulfilling my function. But watching you… it makes me wonder if I’ve only ever known obligation, not fulfillment.”
Damian considered this, feeling a kinship in the struggle. “Sometimes it’s easier to do what you must, instead of what you want. But that doesn’t make it enough.”
“You could choose selfishness, and you don’t,” he replied, his voice almost soft. “I am learning there is more to purpose than law.”
In the comfortable silence that followed, Damian asked the question that had been haunting him since their first exchange: “Are you here to kill me? Is that what this is?”
The response came without hesitation, tinged with something that might be surprise: “No. You keep pulling meback from what I'm supposed to do. You're changing everything I thought I knew about my purpose.”
“How am I changing anything? I'm just a street healer.”
“You are someone who chooses compassion over self-preservation. Who finds value in easing suffering rather than simply ending it. Who speaks to the dead with love rather than fear.” The voice paused, then continued with something like wonder: “You are teaching me that there are other ways to serve, other ways to exist.”
They sat together in the candlelit room as night settled fully over Varos, not speaking but sharing space in a way that felt profoundly intimate. Outside, the city continued its nightly symphony of suffering and hope—time-debt collectors making their rounds with heavy footsteps and harsh voices, children crying with hunger that carried on the night air, lovers whispering promises they might not live to keep.
But inside his clinic, Damian had found something rarer than healing magic: true companionship with someone who understood the weight of carrying others' burdens.
“I have a confession,” he said as the candle burned lower, wax pooling on the windowsill with soft dripping sounds.
“Tell me.”
“I'm not as altruistic as you think. I don't heal people just because it's right. I do it because... because their pain is easier to bear than my own. When I'm absorbing their suffering, I don't have to think about my own losses, my own failures. It's selfish, in a way.”
“You transform your pain into purpose. That is not selfish—that is alchemy of the highest order.”
The gentle judgment in those words made Damian's throat tighten with emotion. When was the last time someone had understood his motivations so clearly and still found them worthy of respect?
