“What happens now?” Damian asked, his voice soft in the aftermath of revelation.
“Now I'm human,” Cael replied, wonder and terror warring in his voice. “Completely, irreversibly human. Mortal. Temporary. Tied to this reality through you.”
“Are you afraid?”
Cael considered the question, taking inventory of his transformed state. His body felt heavier, more substantial, animated by biological processes rather than cosmic will. His heart beat with mechanical regularity instead of pulsing with universal rhythm. His breath came in automatic cycles that his consciousness didn't need to direct.
He was fragile now in ways he'd never been before. Vulnerable to injury, to illness, to the simple wearing away of time that claimed all mortal things. Death would come for him eventually, as it came for everything temporary and beloved and real.
“No,” he said finally, surprising himself with the honesty of it. “I'm grateful. For the first time in my existence, I get to choose what I become instead of simply being what I was made to be.”
Damian turned in his arms, blind eyes finding his face with the unerring accuracy of long practice. “And what do you choose to become?”
“Yours,” Cael said without hesitation. “Whatever that means, however long it lasts. I choose to belong to someone instead of something. I choose love over law, connection over duty, you over everything I was before.”
They lay intertwined in the narrow bed as dawn approached, hearts beating in synchronization that spoke of connection deeper than magic or cosmic binding. Cael traced patterns on Damian's chest that might have been cosmic script or simple affection, marveling at the way mortal skin felt warm and alive beneath his fingers.
“You've changed me,” he said, voice rough with transformation and exhaustion.
Damian's response carried equal weight: “No. I just created space for you to feel what was already there.”
In the depths of shared sleep, they dreamed as one consciousness. Cael's cosmic memories blended with Damian'smortal experiences, creating something entirely new. For the first time in either of their existences, neither dreamed alone.
Cael saw his own history through Damian's eyes—not as cosmic function performed without choice, but as acts of mercy delivered by someone learning to care despite his nature. The reaped souls he'd guided across the threshold hadn't been statistics or duties, but individuals deserving of gentleness in their final moments.
Damian experienced Cael's eons of solitude, felt the crushing weight of duty without purpose, the hollow ache of existing without connection. But through their shared consciousness, he also felt the moment everything changed—the first time Cael had spoken his name, the first touch they'd shared, the gradual awakening of emotion in someone who'd never been allowed to feel.
They dreamed of futures that might be possible now that cosmic law no longer bound them. Growing old together in defiance of universal order. Learning what it meant to be ordinary in the most extraordinary way. Finding joy in small moments that previous versions of themselves could never have appreciated.
But their dreams also carried darker threads. Visions of forces gathering against them, of cosmic entities who viewed their love as blasphemy requiring correction. Images of separation and loss, of prices that might yet need to be paid for choosing each other over the natural order.
When they woke, it was to the sound of reality fracturing around them.
Outside the clinic, windows cracked in perfect spirals. Flowers bloomed out of season in window boxes, their petals glowing with ethereal light. Time-clocks throughout the district stuttered and stopped, their mechanisms unable to process the temporal distortions rippling outward from their joined souls.
The golden thread that had connected them for weeks now blazed with radiant light visible across dimensions. Where once it had been a slender tether between realms, it had become a bridge of pure energy that made reality itself bend to accommodate their bond.
“Fuck,” Damian breathed, sitting up in bed as his enhanced senses catalogued the chaos spreading from their clinic. “What did we do?”
Cael rose beside him, his newly mortal body moving with unfamiliar weight and limitation. Through the windows, he could see shadows moving independently of their sources, could feel the way local magic responded to their presence like iron filings drawn to a magnet.
“We created something unprecedented,” he said, awe and terror warring in his voice. “A true soulbond between mortal and cosmic entity. We've rewritten the fundamental rules governing the relationship between realms.”
In the cosmic spaces beyond mortal perception, the Threads themselves screamed in harmonic discord as the Eternal Accord fractured beyond repair. Cael's transformation from cosmic entity to soulbound mortal sent shockwaves through every dimension, and ancient powers began to stir in response to the disruption.
The wooden pendant that had rested between them crumbled to dust, its purpose finally fulfilled. They no longer needed tokens or talismans—their souls were intertwined at the most fundamental level, creating a connection that would either transcend death itself or consume them both in cosmic fire.
“Are you sorry?” Damian asked, his voice small in the face of such massive consequence.
Cael turned to look at him—really look, with eyes that now saw with mortal limitation but human appreciation. Damian's hair was mussed from sleep and passion, his skin marked withthe evidence of their joining, his face soft with vulnerability that only came in moments of absolute trust.
“Never,” Cael said with absolute conviction. “Whatever comes next, whatever price we have to pay—I regret nothing. You taught me what it means to live instead of simply exist.”
Outside their sanctuary, the city of Varos was learning to adjust to a world where cosmic law had been rewritten by love. The consequences would ripple outward for days, weeks, possibly years. But inside the small clinic, two beings who had chosen each other completely prepared to face whatever came next.
They rose together, mortal and transformed, ready to meet the dawn and whatever challenges it might bring. Their love had painted targets on both their backs, had disrupted forces beyond their comprehension, had changed the fundamental nature of reality itself.
And neither of them would trade a single moment of it for the safety they'd known before.
