"I didn't think you'd come."
Solemn and quiet, the bass voice that spoke was carried by the chill morning air. It belonged to a tall kijikaiaku, who sat calmly upon the ridge, watching the horizon for dawn's first rays. Variegated pale blue, with eyes of pale yellow, and a splash of black across his forehead, his simple colouring was partially obscured by the dark, ghostly cloak along his back, resting lightly across his long, thick mane and the plating of his body. Pale blue wisps of light and flame flitted about him, casting their eerie, icy glow upon the dead and dying vegetation around him.
A hoofbeat met with the kijikaiaku's words, as a dark humanoid figure upon a dull green horse approached the last step to stand with him upon the ridge. A figure, swathed in dark cloth, whom had been causing quite the bit of trouble, but who was not wholly unreasonable.
"Your message was curious," was the figure's reply.
"Not many seek to converse, perhaps. 'Tis easier to fight than to convince." The pale blue kijikaiaku turned his lionlike head to look at the horseman. "Yet I would make the attempt all the same. We need not be at odds to fulfill our purposes."
"You know well that I am the herald, the harbinger. You are the defender, are you not?"
The kijikaiaku shook his head. "I am the executioner, and the enforcer of the cycle. And therein our paths could align - for what is Death, without life? A stagnant, barren land can no longer die, and thus do fade to oblivion both sides of the coin. All beginnings have ends, and after each end, a new beginning. I merely ask that the cycle continue, that you constrain your role, rather than rampage amok."
"You speak as if repression could be attained." The horseman then gestured to the dead foliage around them. "Yet you, yourself, bear the same consequences of your presence upon the land."
The kijikaiaku was silent for a moment, then tilted his head. "Yet, I am not the end, no? Their lives eventually make the return unto the Core, wherein they fuel new life and new hope. It is not the final end, merely the transition to a new beginning."
The two sat in silence for a time, watching as the sun finally began its path across the sky to banish the night. The dark horseman noted, with some amusement, "Auspicious timing."
The pale blue kijikaiaku chuckled and shook his head. "Quite unintentional, I assure you."
A soft scuff of a hoof on earth, and a low pulse of sound from the horse. Moments later, the horseman spoke again.
"Your words are well-thought, at the least. Not yet convincing, but I will admit to being intrigued." The horseman looked to the kijikaiaku, scythe set at rest. "I will abide by terms of peace for a time, and follow you. Your actions will prove the validity of your words. I would; however, know your name."
"Sha'yav," the variegated pale blue kijikaiaku offered, with a faint smile. "I have lived by word and action the entirety of my existence, I think you will find the proof you seek, Death of the Four."
---
As the horseman left the cliff to tie up remaining loose ends, Sha'yav breathed out in relief. Though he was far from ill-experienced in battle, if Death had chosen to engage in combat at any point, the kijikaiaku ill-liked his chances without allies. He was not a frontliner, and Death did not have a life to drain, being unique unto himself and existing in that state outside of the cycle. Yet, a powerful ally was also not what Sha'yav had intended nor expected, though he couldn't say he was against the concept.
Death would have his confirmation, that was easy.
Sha'yav...would have an interesting tale to explain to Gaia.
---
Spring was the time of life's greatest surge, a renewal of triumph and brilliance, pouring rain and glistening rainbows, rushing waters and soothing flower scents. Petals of bushy lavender and falling blossoms of pink cherry blooms scattered across the ground, as wildflowers in all their many-hued glory turned green fields to whites and yellows, blues and purples, reds and oranges. Newly-made pairs prepared their nests for those yet to be born, rabbits weaving their shed fur into insulating warmth, songbirds gathering sticks into sturdy shelters, and wolves and foxes digging out their dens.
Yet even in this brilliant resurgence of life, so too did death still have its role to play. The ill were granted their release, the elderly made to give way for the new, and the wantonly destructive shown their place.
But even such harbingers and heralds too could find a moment to enjoy the great ardour of spring, and so it was that a pale blue kijikaiaku and his bleak companion of the end times rested upon a cliff, watching the trials of life play out before them. Death remained upon his horse, who was content to ignore everything in favour of the dying grass, whilst Sha'yav lay calmly dozing in the sun's gentle rays, passively soaking in the energy the warmth carried with it.
kkkkkkkk....FOOOOM
Sha'yav raised his black-touched head, yellow eyes staring in the direction of the sound of crashing trees. "That's rather swift for woodcutters, and this is no habitat for elephants."
"So you would intervene?" Death asked, a touch on the reins getting the horse's attention.
"Our purpose might be required," was the executioner's response, well-muscled body smoothly standing up. "Let's see what befell this child of life."
---
Broken and splintered wood lay scattered about the once-blossoming grove, flowers crumpled and crushed amidst fallen trees and smashed branches. All wildlife that was able to flee had done so, but the horrifically injured remained, prisoners of fear and pain.
A pain the arrival of the life-draining duo eased, through not healing, but through ushering on the next beginning. Sha'yav's triad of whiskers pulled in the wayward souls, to be returned to Gaia and from her unto the cycle once more. While the kijikaiaku was momentarily distracted by his inborn duty, Death's horse strode confidently forward, the rider seeking out the potential cause.
Flurries of red and orange, a broken gaze, and tattered wings were the form of the kijikaiaku that met them. Energy glowing chaotically, it appeared to be in throes of despair and rage, and charged the horseman the moment it regained its ability to run in a straight line. Death awaited its approach calmly, a step and clean swipe of the scythe putting an end to the fallen spirit's misery and destruction of the surrounding wood.
"One of Gaia's older ones," Sha'yav noted, walking up to take the now-coalescing energy of the slain kijikaiaku. "Not all of the older generations prove themselves capable of handling the passage of time. Most offer themselves up before it gets this far, this one must have wandered lost, and perhaps thought itself forsaken. Unfortunate foolishness, for Gaia does not forsake, it is not in her heart - what boundaries are enforced are from necessity, not cruelty. And through me, all do return, even after the end of their latest beginning."
"And this is the purpose you would have us unit in?"
"Only willingly, or not at all," was the kijikaiaku's reply, looking to the horseman as the last of the fallen's energy became stored within his pale blue form, eerie wisps and icy flames flitting about the two of them. "But as you have by now seen, our existences need not be at cross-purposes."
"No," Death acknowledged, a wave of a hand finalizing the familiar bond that had begun to form. "Indeed, it need not. Together, then, and let the end times will be as one."
So it was that one of Earth's most unyielding of dangers, become among its most ardent of defenders.