Becoming

A single thread hung suspended over an ancient desk, spinning in an absent draft. The desk had been carved before carving was a skill worth teaching. There were no papers, no clutter scattered across the top. There was nothing but the thread and the single pair of hands that touched it.

A stack of names waited in the far corner of the room, but none of them had been touched today. They sat, continuing to grow taller.

For the third time in as many hours, another grim came into Azrael's office. They’d been coming in for months, but today, they had doubled their efforts. Azrael ignored each one. He didn’t look up when Finn came in.

"If you're here to tell me I need a vacation," Azrael grumbled, "the answer is still no."

Finn stopped halfway across the room, holding a golden scarab.

"I wasn't going to say that."

Azrael looked up from the thread hovering across his desk. Finn stared at him and shrugged.

"Okay. I was told to say that."

Azrael sighed and leaned back in his chair.

“None of you have ever been very good at leaving things alone,” Azrael said, studying Finn’s face.

“You aren’t very good at being left alone,” Finn replied, putting the scarab in his shirt pocket.

A smirk tugged at the corners of Azrael’s mouth. The Grims had been with Azrael for as long as death had been a mortal thing. Azrael collected them as the mortal world multiplied and complicated collections.

“Perhaps I am not good at being left alone,” Azrael tentatively agreed.

“Perhaps?” Finn crossed his arms and huffed, “Azrael, it’s been what? Three centuries or more since you’ve taken even an hour off?”

"I don't need a vacation," Azrael said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Finn looked at Azrael.

"You are starting to look like you are almost in your mid-twenties."

"I do not."

"Being tired does that."

Finn kept staring at Azrael, even after Azrael met his gaze.

"Fine," Azrael mumbled, running his hand over his face before returning his attention to the thread.

"I'm telling the others."

Azrael's fingers stopped manipulating the hovering thread and he narrowed his eyes at Finn.

"I hate you."

"No, you don't."

Finn disappeared before Azrael could answer. Azrael shook his head, hunching back over the thread. He focused on the thread until he heard a small knock at the corner of his desk-Lily, the youngest grim, stood twisting her fingers together.

Azrael lifted his gaze. Behind Lily stood Kenji, Finn, Crash, Kali and Amara.

“It’s time,” Lily said, not meeting his eyes. Azrael picked up Lily and sat her on his knee.

“Finn said I looked old,” Azrael said squinting his eyes at Lily.

Lily tried not to smile, clamping a hand over her mouth.

“You are old Azzy,” Lily whispered from behind her hand.

“Old? Miss Lily, did you just call me old?” Azrael tickled her squealing form on his lap.

“Az, you are going. Tonight. So, get moving,” Amara said, pulling Lily from his lap.

“Alright, alright,” Azrael said standing to his full, imposing height.

“Have fun, no business,” Kali said, pointing her finger at him. Crash and Finn nodded behind her. Kenji smiled and rolled his eyes while Amara wrestled Lily’s thrashing giggles.

Azrael faded away, reappearing at a bar that reflected neon lights. Azrael chuckled to himself and motioned to the salt golem standing behind the polished bar. He liked the ritual of order because it was always the same repeated script. Azrael almost laughed, thinking about it.

A glass appeared in front of Azrael as he slid onto the stool. He twisted the glass in slow half circles, watching the ripples in the amber liquid slosh against the rim. Azrael sat at the bar for fifteen minutes, making the liquid move.

Azrael hadn't tasted the drink yet, he rarely did.

"Again, with the ritual?" a woman's voice drifted from two stools down.

Azrael didn't look up; he already knew who had joined him. There were only a handful of beings that would sit next to Death and even fewer who would dare to speak.

"I don't know what ritual you're talking about," Azrael lied.

Izanami smothered a snort and settled her arm against the counter. Jazz played from somewhere over her left shoulder.

"The glass," she said, rolling her eyes and motioning toward Azrael's hand on the glass. "Azrael, you've been negotiating with that drink for eleven minutes." Izanami tapped the counter with a manicured nail. "You still haven't taken a drink because you never learned to simply enjoy something."

"I'm enjoying it," he mumbled, tilting his head.

"No, you're going through the motions. There's a difference, and you know it." Izanami retorted.

She raised her hand and a second glass identical to Azrael's appeared, allowing her to continue staring at him.

"You know what I mean, Azrael," Izanami paused and lifted her glass from the bar, "Don’t play dumb with me."

He almost smiled, watching the amber liquid settle in the glass.

"Vacation," he murmured, meeting her gaze, "is a recent invention and I'm still learning the rules."

"Recent, right," Izanami sat her glass down with a sharp clink.

"You people think paper is a recent invention."

"You people? I collected you, what thirty-two hundred years ago? At what point does length of time cease to matter?" Azrael smirked and drank from the glass.

Izanami raised her perfect eyebrow, but didn't answer, clearing her throat instead.

"Yes, well."

She lifted her glass, toasting to that fact.

"Some of us adjusted faster," Izanami continued, sipping from her glass. "You've been given an entire night with nothing to do," Izanami huffed, "and somehow you've managed to turn it into a chore."

Azrael's fingers stopped moving.

"It's a drink, Izanami."

"It's something to do, Azrael."

Azrael turned his head to look at her.

Izanami lifted one shoulder. "You don't know what to do when nothing needs you."

Azrael's eyes narrowed and the constellations hidden in their depths began to glow as the notification arrived without sound, unnoticeable to most, but Izanami noticed, the goddess always noticed.

"And someone died," she observed, downing the rest of her drink.

"It is the vicious circle of life," Azrael replied without reaching for the phone vibrating in his pocket.

"Your pocket is glowing."

"I know," Azrael said without moving.

"You going to check that?" Izanami pressed, leaning against the counter.

"Eventually, I suppose."

Azrael leaned back attempting to mask the relief crossing his features.

"The thread tells me when the mark on the soul is mine. The rest belong to the grims."

"And does this thread require you to skip out on 'vacation'?" She made air quotes around "vacation" as she said it, summoning another drink.

"No," Azrael scoffed into his glass. "That's kind of the point of the thread, Izanami."

"To vacation Azrael's vacation then," Izanami said, raising her glass in salute.

"To vacation," Azrael agreed, twisting his glass between his fingers.

A second name arrived before Izanami had sat down her empty glass. This one caught Azrael's attention.

He had seen it before. It appeared on the thread two, maybe three times in as many years, disappearing before anyone could follow it.

But this time, the name remained. Azrael’s attention was no longer on the drink he consumed, he was focused on Crash materializing in an apartment, somewhere in a suburb.

Izanami ordered another round and amber liquid filled the empty glasses. Azrael forced a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

“What else are you doing on this ‘vacation’ Azrael?” Izanami asked. Azrael was already on conversational autopilot because he was observing Crash’s collection.

“I don’t really know,” Azrael mumbled, half to Izanami and half to the collection scene he was watching unfold. Azrael concentrated on the shimmering souls that were at the scene.

“Just going with it this time, then?” Izanami continued, realizing Azrael wasn’t paying attention to this conversation.

“Yeah, going with it,” Azrael said. He counted three soul shimmers folding into the thread Crash was pulling from the air.

“Azrael, you have no idea what you are saying right now,” Izanami said, setting her drink on the bar with a sharp clink.

“I do,” Azrael said as Crash’s hand closed around the freed thread. “You are irritated right now, because I’m not conversational,” Azrael finished, feeling the thread pulling taut as Crash disappeared. 

“Azrael,” Izanami warned.

Azrael blinked and looked down at his drink.

“What?” Azrael asked, raising the drink to his lips. He could feel Crash materialize outside Bha-Hiem’s door.

“Twice in one day,” Izanami narrowed her eyes.

The corner of Azrael’s mouth twitched before he swallowed the shot.

---

Crash stood outside the stone door with his eyes closed, attempting to calm the glowing stars in his irises. He stood there for a full minute before they returned to stationary specks.

He walked inside, dropping onto a horsehair settee in power blue. He leaned back feeling something bunch under him. Reaching behind himself, he pulled free a knitted throw the color of dried blood.

"Kali's blanket's on the chair again," Crash said.

The blanket was warm in Crash’s hands, like it had just come out of a brick oven. He turned the blanket over in his hands, frowning, before he tossed the blanket onto a grey love seat like every other night this week.

"It's always on the chair," Finn said without looking up. He cradled his chin in his hands as he watched a golden scarab navigate the cracks between the tiles.

"If that bug falls into some of these cracks it might end up back in Pompeii," Crash warned.

Finn scoffed and tugged the hem of his Nirvana shirt. He watched the beetle testing the edge of a crack. The beetle’s antennae reached into the darkness and the golden scarab backed away from the crack.

"Kali's going to sit on that thing again," Crash advised, scratching his dark hair.

"She's not going to sit on the beetle," Finn sighed. He ran a hand through his sandy hair, remembering last week.

Crash raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, I know," Finn said with a groan as he stood. He picked up the beetle and slid it into the pocket of his faded jeans.

"Hey, Finn?"

"Yeah?"

Crash stood, facing Finn and crossing his arms over his chest.

"Something happened," Crash said, not meeting Finn’s gaze.

"Uh, okay," Finn mumbled, "What do you mean ‘something’?"

Crash pressed his lips into a fine line.

“I don’t know how to explain it, Finn,”

"The thread was wrong."

"Excuse me?" Finn's eyebrows raised.

A soft click drew his gaze; Kenji stood behind Crash.

"Kenji? You've been here, well, forever. Have a thread ever gone wrong?" Finn said.

Kenji shook his head.

“I think I’d remember that, Finn,” Kenji said, pushing away from the chair.

Kenji vanished down a hallway as Finn and Crash exchanged a revealing look.

“He knows,” they said in unison with a shrug.

Kenji’s footsteps echoed through the twisted halls of Bha-Hiem. The walls shifted around him, folding in on themselves until one began to flicker. Kenji stopped in front of it and the stone dissolved revealing a hidden, rolling chamber. Kenji’s sash stirred in the breeze when he turned to the twisted records hallway, stepping into the moving chamber.

He felt the pressure build in his ears as he stepped toward the ancient door. He worked his jaw, forcing his ears to pop, releasing pressure in his head.

The distortion had begun.

He braced one hand against the wall behind him and the light bent into blinding prisms, forcing his eyes closed.

A wave of nausea rolled through him, and he gripped the wall tighter, planting his feet more firmly.

"One, two, three," Kenji counted aloud, pausing between each number to take deep breaths as reality shook around him.

Kenji waited for the distortion to settle, counting slowly with his eyes closed.

“…thirty-four, thirty-five...”  He cracked one eye open. Dark, weathered stone stared back at him.

Kenji opened both eyes and pushed off from the wall.

"Every time this happens, I swear I'm never coming back," Kenji mumbled under his breath, pressing his hand against the smooth stone.

For a moment, he simply stood there, leaning against the stone.

“I have a question for Anamnesis,” he whispered, “Please. Let me ask.”

 The stone exhaled and Kenji stepped through. He bowed deeply.

"Anamnesis," he said, looking up at the living fabric. 

Kenji waited for the tapestry to ripple before he stood to take in the full majesty of Anamnesis.

“You’ve grown,” Kenji said, looking left and right as the tapestry’s thread shimmered.

A few threads began to hum and Kenji smiled. More threads began to hum and vibrate together, weaving a song of echoes from past lives.

Kenji walked through the vibrating threads until he came to ones that were still. The silent threads were without vibration, without echoes. They were different.

Kenji deliberately looked away as he navigated around them, pressing deeper into Anamnesis.

Kenji counted one thousand steps and stopped. He turned to face a cluster of humming threads.

“This is the new patch, isn’t it?” Kenji whispered to the tapestry. Anamnesis exhaled.

Kenji took a breath and closed his eyes. He splayed his palms as his eyes snapped open, glowing with constellations.

Kenji read each thread in the new patch while the constellations in his eyes flickered and began to spin across his irises. The constellations settled in an ancient, forgotten pattern.

"Not a knot, please," he begged, looking at each thread.

Kenji followed a single thread that split into three branches, that wasn’t unusual. But the branches didn’t follow their own paths, which was unusual.

These branches weren’t twisted together by fate. These were bound.

Kenji blinked and the constellations in his eyes faded. He stared at the knot, crossing his arms over his chest.

"It's a knot," he tilted his head and squinted at the tapestry, "It's a damn knot," he mumbled, shaking his head as he studied it. He followed the thread, each branch, each twist and each bond. He observed the branches starting only to fuse in a different configuration.

As he was turning to leave, a new sound interrupted the droning hum of the vault.

A single drop of water, falling into a cavernous pool.

The sound forced Kenji to freeze mid-step, raising one eyebrow. The sound didn’t echo like it should have, it arrived complete; like it had fallen from somewhere else.

Kenji waited.

He counted his pulse in the silence that followed. No other sound returned.

Another drop fell and Kenji counted heartbeats. Then another drop fell. The interval was too even for an accident and too irregular to be a leak.

“There is no water here, Anamnesis,” Kenji whispered, lowering his foot and squaring his shoulders.

Kenji blinked and the constellations in his eyes began to glow with a gentle amber light, matching the glow from his fingertips.

Kenji searched for the source, following intermittent drops. Each echoed from a different direction, but he followed the strongest. After another thousand steps deeper into the more ancient parts of Anamnesis, a single drop sounded loud enough for Kenji to follow it to his left.

Kenji stopped at a bundle of ancient threads in a section of the tapestry woven before he existed.

One ancient thread quivered, sending a waterdrop sound throughout Anamnesis’ vault. Kenji took a step back, his amber glow intensifying.

The sound echoed against his skin from a distance and the thread pulsed in time with the echo’s vibration.

“Anamnesis, what is this?” Kenji asked. The ancient thread pulsed again.

Anamnesis didn’t ripple.

Kenji nodded and swallowed hard, taking another step back from the ancient thread bundle.

Kenji searched over Anamnesis, nothing moved. The thread pulsed again.

Kenji ran.

Azrael adjusted on the bar stool again as he felt something heavy settle in his stomach. It was heavy, unfamiliar and unannounced. Whatever had settled became dense and spread into his shoulders.

Azrael pressed his palm against the bar. He waited for the discomfort to pass, but it didn’t pass.

It thickened.

It curled through his chest, forcing him to clench his jaw.

“Azrael, you’re acting like you have somewhere else to be,” Izanami said, motioning to Azrael’s position.

“No, just, restless I suppose,” Azrael explained, “I’m listening.”

Izanami continued talking and uncomfortable pressure built behind Azrael’s ribs. Izanami was talking about old temples and offerings, but something inside of Azrael ached.

Azrael looked down into his drink. He heard Izanami laugh, but he couldn’t bring himself to smile. Azrael had never had that problem before. He began to wonder what he was feeling.

The feeling grew until it constricted Azrael’s throat. Azrael struggled to maintain his composure as he sat quietly, listening to Izanami talk. He wondered why he was feeling any of this at all.

“Are you listening?” Izanami said between laughs.

Azrael looked up and forced a smile. “Of course.”

Izanami studied his face and sighed. “I’ll leave you to your drink.”

She slid off the bar stool and walked to the door. Azrael watched her go without calling her back.

Azrael followed the condensation dripping down the side of his glass. He moved the glass left and right over the polished bar, smearing the perfect circle of ice sweat. On the fourth iteration, Kenji came through the beaded curtain leaning on the bar with both forearms.

"The world is unraveling again." Kenji said, picking up a bright paper umbrella.

"The world isn't unraveling," Azrael replied without looking up. The unfamiliar weight that settled over him earlier intensified in his chest this time, tightening around his ribs.

Kenji slid the paper umbrella behind his ear and turned toward Azrael.

"There’s a knot."

Azrael turned the glass a quarter turn and sighed. He admired the dark rum catching the orange flames of the tiki torches, turning it gold.

"It's not the first knot," Azrael shook his head with a shrug, trying not to focus on the feelings that were pressing on him.

"No, but the last one was before Rome had roads."

“I know about the knot, Kenji, I saw it,” Azrael said, forcing a breath through his nose.

Kenji leaned in, elbows on the bar, and dropped his voice.

"Would it change your mind if I told you an ancient thread woke up?"

"Those don’t wake up," Azrael turned his head and locked his gaze onto Kenji’s face, but his hand didn’t leave his sweating glass.

“It pulsed Az, it literally pulsed.”

“How many times?”

“Every time I heard the sound.”

“The sound?” Azrael asked, sitting up straight.

“A water drop.”

Azrael nodded and looked away, pressing his lips into a thin line. He knew ancient threads could be overwritten, rewoven, but not awakened. The rule was older than the gods and nature didn’t negotiate. Time did not reverse.

“Anamnesis didn’t answer at all?” Azrael asked, raising both eyebrows.

“Not a ripple,” Kenji turned to face Azrael, “Not even a shimmer.”

Azrael pulled his phone from his pocket and tapped the screen. 

“Azrael?” Kenji probed.

“Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos,” Azrael said, enunciating each name.

“Your sisters,” Kenji said, wincing like he’d been hit.

“My sisters,” Azrael replied with an edge of ice in his voice.

Azrael’s death robes were formed into a kimono that fell to his waist as he stood. Kenji raised an eyebrow.

“Death robes do not care about their form, Kenji. They only care that they are worn,” Azrael explained.

“I guess not,” Kenji said as he failed to hide his smirk.

Azrael rolled his eyes as he faded from the bar.

Kenji shook his head and raised his hand to the salt golem behind the bar. Kenji pulled the bright paper umbrella from his ear and set it on the bar, balanced on the tip. A glass of dark amber slid in front of him. Kenji dropped the umbrella and tossed back the shot.

“Okay, Death, I hope we are ready,” Kenji murmured to himself while warmth spread through his chest.

The umbrella balanced on the point, it didn’t waver. It began to spin in a slow circle before falling.