The knowledge should have repelled him. Cosmic entities weren't meant to be bound by mortal magic, weren't supposed to be subject to the scheming of desperate mothers. But instead of anger, Cael felt something that might have been gratitude. Without that binding, would he ever have learned to question his purpose? Would he ever have discovered that there were other ways to serve, other ways to exist?
As dawn approached, painting the clinic's walls with pale light that Damian couldn't see but surely felt as warmth against his skin, Cael retreated to the shadows. But his awareness remained fixed on the sleeping healer, on the gentle rise and fall of his chest, on the way his fingers still clutched the pendant that had made their connection possible.
For the first time, he understood that their meeting wasn't accidental. It was designed, planned, woven into the fabric of reality by a mother's desperate love and cosmic forces that operated beyond his understanding.
Cael wandered through Varos in broad daylight, his increasing corporeality making the city feel more real and immediate than ever before. The wind carried new information now—scents of cooking food, unwashed bodies, the metallic tang of time-magic that bled through cracked foundations. It stung his borrowed skin in ways that were uncomfortable but oddly fascinating.
Each footfall on the cobbles brought a new ache—a sharpness he’d never known. The city pressed in on all sides: joy bright and piercing, grief heavy as iron, hope so fragile he could almost taste its brittleness. Every mortal was a flare of feeling, a sun threatening to blind him, until he longed for the calm emptiness of the Threads even as he craved the rawness of this new world.
A child's laughter from a nearby alley hit him like a revelation. When had he last heard joy so pure, so uncomplicated by the weight of cosmic duty? A woman weepingover her time-debt papers made his chest ache with sympathy he'd never been designed to feel. The complex web of hope and despair that defined mortal existence was becoming visible to him in ways that were both beautiful and overwhelming.
He was becoming too present, too anchored to this single reality. With each passing hour, the familiar call of the Threads grew fainter, while the pull toward Damian's clinic grew stronger. The balance that had defined his existence for eons was shifting, and he wasn't sure how to stop it.
His wandering was interrupted by the familiar tug of a soul crossing the threshold—a Hollow who had finally collapsed under the weight of his fragmented existence. The cosmic summons pulled at Cael's essence with the authority of universal law, demanding he fulfill his primary function.
But when he approached the dying man, something felt fundamentally wrong about the act of reaping.
The Hollow lay in an alley between two crumbling buildings, his body finally surrendering to the magical emptiness that had consumed his identity years ago. Other mortals passed by without seeing him, their minds unable to process the reality of someone who existed in the spaces between living and dead.
Cael knelt beside the failing form, his hands moving automatically into position for the Reaping. But as he reached for the thread of life, he hesitated. The soul that emerged from the Hollow's failing body was fractured and afraid, clinging to the last remnants of identity with desperate fingers.
In the past, Cael would have severed the connection cleanly, mercifully, guiding the soul toward whatever peace awaited beyond the threshold. It was an act of cosmic kindness, ending suffering that had become unbearable.
Now, reaping felt like desecration. Like destroying something precious rather than providing release.
“I used to be mercy,” he thought as he reluctantly completed his duty, his touch gentler than it had ever been. “Now I feel like theft.”
The soul passed into the Threads with a whisper of gratitude, but Cael felt no satisfaction in the completion of his function. Only a hollow ache that had nothing to do with the cosmic order and everything to do with the growing certainty that his purpose was changing in ways he couldn't control.
Shaken by his changed relationship to his core duty, Cael retreated into the Threads seeking clarity. But the liminal space itself had become chaotic, no longer the sterile realm of perfect order he remembered. The silver pathways were tangled with golden thread that pulsed with warmth and life, and Damian's name glowed like a beacon throughout the cosmic web.
The sight terrified him more than any cosmic punishment could.
The Threads had always been his refuge, the place where he could exist in perfect emptiness without the complications of mortal emotion. Now they reflected his changing nature back at him, showing him in stark detail how far he'd deviated from his original design.
For a moment, Cael hovered at the edge of decision, his essence trembling. The golden threads binding him to mortality glowed brighter with every heartbeat—Damian’s heartbeat, echoing through the realm. If he severed them, he could reclaim his emptiness, his old certainty. But the thought filled him with such dread, such visceral terror, that his hand recoiled as if burned.
The thought of losing Damian felt like contemplating his own destruction. The golden threads weren't just connecting him to the healer—they were becoming part of his fundamental structure, rewriting his nature at the deepest level.
That night, Cael returned to Damian's clinic with a mixture of anticipation and uncertainty. His form flickered between states—sometimes the ancient avatar of Death, terrible and distant, sometimes something more approachable, more human in its vulnerabilities.
“You came back,” Damian said softly as Cael's presence filled the small space. “I wasn't sure you would.”
“I wasn't sure either,” Cael admitted, settling into the chair across from Damian with movements that were becoming increasingly natural. “This grows more complicated with each conversation.”
“Complicated how?”
Cael hesitated, searching for words to describe sensations he barely understood himself. “Each time we speak, I become more... present. More anchored to this realm. It should disturb me more than it does.”
“But it doesn't?”
“No. It feels...” He paused, testing the unfamiliar concept. “It feels like becoming real.”
They sat in comfortable silence for a moment, the candlelight casting warm shadows that Cael could now appreciate for their beauty rather than simply their function. He found himself studying Damian's face in the flickering light, noting the way concentration furrowed his brow, the gentle curve of lips that spoke with such careful kindness.
It occurred to him that Damian had never seen his face, would never know what he looked like unless. The thought sparked something protective in his chest—Damian's blindness meant he experienced the world through different senses,built connections based on voice and presence rather than appearance.
There was something pure about that, something that bypassed the usual mortal preoccupation with physical form.
