Disclaimer: I do not own the Sandman. Now off with their heads! I mean, er, on with the story! M'yes. This shall ultimately have more chapters. Read, review, take a biscuit if you like. Flames shall be used to stoke the fire. Enjoy^_^
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And the world wept.
It came to her, silently, while she dreamed. It came to her, pressed its lips against her forehead, smiled warmly into the candlelight, and vanished with the wave of curtains. It came and went. It played its games, and it came. And it went.
It kissed its child and bid her sleep well. And it went.
* * *
"I'm sorry." The smell of antiseptic, vomit and blood. The smell of death, of birth and joy. The smell.
"No... N-no... Not my—NO!" The smell clung to the hallways, slithered through the piping and oozed through the linoleum. Maria wept bitterly, her face pressed against her husband's chest. Her knuckles starkly white. Painfully, somberly, deliriously she wept.
* * *
There are the seven. They are not enough.
There are the seven. They who walk in the Elsewhere. They who are not Gods, who are not living, they who simply are. They are not unkind. They.
And they are not enough.
* * *
She walked aimlessly, slowly feeling out the path laid beneath her feet. She saw a scarlet thread, could feel the tug of gentle silver cords, and ruefully, spitefully, she walked away from it. She was dead, but there was no Death. In the back of her mind she knew this to be wrong somehow. She knew there should be.... She did not know. But there should be something. She walked into the haze, and forgot the land she left behind.
* * *
"Father, our Lord, take this child into your arms. Keep her with you, keep her safe." The smell of freshly turned earth, falling leaves and stone. The smell of regret, of forgiveness, of tears. The smell of salt and water and sobbing and tears. Maria wept. Her husband was not there.
She hesitated, her step poised but not taken. The weeping, she knew it. She knew the tone and curve of every tear, the crack of every breath and shudder of each cell. "Mom?" To the sound. To the smell. She walked. The silver strands pulled, the scarlet thread glistened, and she walked.
"We know she is in your heaven now." The priest raised his head, wondered if he had time to eat lunch before the next service, and continued his reading. He memorized the pages a long time ago. In there repetition there was no faith, but illusion could manifest itself in many forms. Among them there is always blind servitude. Compliance. He spoke, the family sobbed, and there was the smell of Death. It smelled like cranberries and apple cider.
"Mom!" She ran. Her lungs were near bursting, her legs near collapse, and she ran. Her voice failed her, and she mouthed the words. Her legs gave way, and she crawled. Her breath was stolen, so she held it as if swimming and prayed the dead need not breathe the air of their imagination. She reached for the hem of her mother's skirt, laced black and purple with small roses near the pleats. Mom...
It shattered. She tumbled, and watched as her mother's dress, the edges of her lace, fell from human sight.
"Now join me in prayer, as we lay our daughter to rest." There was weeping and chanting and the making of all human emotion as is done by those who care. "Her name was Abigail..."
Abigail landed. And there was pain. Indescribable. Exhilarating. Euphoric. Torturous. Exquisite.
"May she never be forgotten. Our father..."
Abigail twisted. Bones cracked.
"...who art in Heaven..."
Pencil thin lines of glimmering star stuff flickered at the base of her fingertips. There was dust and clay beneath her, fire above her, wails beside her, but there was also the pain, and in the pain there was life.
"...hallowed be thine name..."
Abigail screamed. There was a glimmer, a shifting, the clink of a chain and the rustle of dust and pages. It smelled like her father's study. Abigail dared look up, into the looming shadow, into the smell. His cowl covered His face well. There was no gaze to meet. Abigail trembled.
"Are you Death?" Screeches of glorious agony shattered the air. Abigail's fingers twitched, aching for something, she knew not what it was, but she desired it.
"No." He closed the Book and began to fade, the shifting of realms brought a pleasant waft of dew and grass, morning and memories. Abigail found that she could breathe, and so she drank deeply of the air. He had almost gone when her senses returned.
Desperately she clutched His robes, "Wait!"
He paused in the shifting.
"I-I..." She wanted to cry, why were there no tears?
Destiny, eldest of the Endless, opened his Book. He traced a sentence, he traced a line, he traced a Word. A Name.
"Follow, if you so desire." With that he crossed the threshold into his garden. Abigail hesitated, felt the tug of the crimson strand, felt the pull of silver cords, then she too plunged into the limbo between realms.
Twang.
Creak.
SNAP.
* * *
In their hall of web and loom, the three who are one pulled, cut, and wove. The eldest, she who stood hunched and wrinkled, closed her fingers on the broken strand.
-Sister, did you
-cut it?
The eldest raised the worn thread into the light. –No sisters, I did not
-How
-peculiar
And they pulled.
And they wove.
And they cut.