Returning PV Kaegen Deathmote Finished

What was the boy doing, some might ask themselves. They all knew who he was by now. The dangerous boy, the unstable boy. The one that had almost killed the girl in the great hall, the one that could fly. The one that could launch into the air with what sounded like explosions, or, to muggle-borns, pistol shots. He didn’t look right, he didn’t walk right. He didn’t even talk right, there was nothing about the boy that belonged in this school.

He walked quietly, a part of the natural world around him, inhuman almost. His tired heavy lidded eyes staring burning holes into whatever happened to be in front of them. His skin was an unhealthy pale, closer to grey. Like the skin of some corpse that was dragged up and placed on a otherwise normal boy. Long, slender, unusually strong fingers ended with dully pointed fingernails.

A long umbrella was strapped to his back, a blue silk cape made out of some draperies and splotched with black on the back billowed a bit as he walked forward. Grey scarf contrasting with his patched black robes. He would have looked utterly ridiculous if people didn’t know what he was capable of. Some chalked them up to being fairy tales.

But of course, the ravenclaw in question was oblivious to all of this. He heard people whispering now and again, inhuman ears picking up more than they should. But most of it was confusing, and besides. He was very, very tired. There was only so much stress a 12 year old could place on themselves, half vampire or not, and Kaegen had far exceeded that limit.

Still, he was scared, all the time. Of everything. Even if he didn’t know it himself because that fear was a constant underlying tone. And that fear kept his eyes from closing all the way, kept him from getting rest. It made sure he practiced until he fell over, night after night. And he had been falling over earlier and earlier as the weeks dragged on.

When he saw scarf’s scarf, he didn’t recognize it, not at all. His mind had moved on, dismissed her as dead, eaten by some creature, slain by a death witch. It wasn’t a sad thought, really. Thing died all the time, things he cared about, things he didn’t know existed. Scarf had merely fallen into the irrelevant section of his memory where he stored everything that wasn’t going to kill him.

He was walking past her when he stopped, and slowly, deliberately, turned his head around to look behind him. There she was. The, presumed dead, scarf. The girl who didn’t like the scarfless, the girl who had initially loved his scarf so much she had yanked it, and him, out of a tree. The girl that someone had cast that strange jinx on, the one that made a strange cup thing form over her eyes.

He had seen many, many things close to death. And she looked like she was very, very close to death. Skin as pale as his own, but more fragile looking, less corpse like. He could see her veins, more of them than he realistically should have been able to see. More than he had seen last time they had talked. An eternity ago, it seemed like. As she shivered, he spoke up.

His voice had changed, but only a little. It sounded more like dried rusting leaves, less like a calming, shy trickle of wind. Louder, but only by a little.

“Scarf? I thought you had died. That is you, isn’t it? You don’t look very much like…

You.”

At the sound of a voice, she flinched slightly. It wasn't really the sound the scared her, more... the voice. It was dry and raspy, slightly louder, but still very, very familiar. The word, the name that he had given her last year confirmed it. This was Kaegen Deathmote.

She sat up slightly from her hunched over position, a slight brightness glinting in her eyes. She remembered Kaegen well, only because of the hours, the days that she had nothing to do but think. Think about her encounters with everyone, think about the people she had met during the encounters. What she had deduced about Kaegen was that while, yes, he was quite odd, with strange thoughts and ideas, but she could tell that, underneath the layers, he was really a good person. A small smile curved across her lips, and she twisted slightly to look at him.

"Long time no see, huh, Kaegen?" she said, taking him in. And what a sight he was. Her eyebrows furrowed slightly, noting how he seemed to be deteriorating. He looked... exhausted. Sudden, unexpected concern flashed through her for him, causing her to shakily rise to her feet. "Kae, it's me, Reyna," she hesitated a moment before remembering what he had always called her, "Scarf."

Carefully, she took a step towards him, her pale eyes flashing with worry. He looked sicker than she had been, gray skin and all. To anyone else, he would look terrifying, an undead zombie that chose to possess the body of this boy. But Reyna knew him, or at least, wanted to know him better. Someone who had just about passed under her radar last year stood out to her now. Stood out to her not as a threat, but possibly even an ally, a friend of sorts.

"Are you okay?"

It took him a bit to decipher the meaning behind those words. For a second he had thought she had meant there hadn’t been a ocean in a long time. But he soon realized she just meant long time since they had last seen each other. An observation he had already made and heartily agreed with. It was nice to hear her voice. It sounded a lot weaker than what he remembered it sounding like, but it was still the same.

It was an assurance that she was indeed still human, not some scarf clone sent in her place to try and wreak havoc upon the school. Unless scarf clones had good imitations of her voice. Still, his paranoia didn’t get far. It was curbed by her reassuring him of her identity. Some small part of him protested, reminding him that what she said was exactly what a copy would say.

But it was a small part only, and it was soon drowned out. She took a step closer to him, seeming dead, if not about to be. And then asked him if he was okay. This struck him as a very strange thing to ask. Everything was fine. Evil lurked around the corners, he was barely getting any sleep and confirmation bias was having him believe more and more people were death witches. He had been seeing signs everywhere, after all.

But that was the world, that was the way the world was supposed to be. He didn’t know of a place without names and titles, promises bindings and close shaves with death. Such a place didn’t exist in his mind. If this was the norm, then it had to be okay, right? His left hand twitched, a sudden jerk of a motion that had no place on the otherwise inhumanly smooth boy.

“I’m fine. But what about you? Scarf, you look… did someone do that to you? Was your life drained, or... ”

It was a bit much for his brain to figure out. The concept of someone changing so drastically in such a short amount of time. Sure, it had happened to him. But he didn’t realize that, didn’t notice it at all. All he saw was what was in front of him. And in this case, it was a weak, horribly dead looking scarf.

"You... you don't look fine," Reyna said, worrying coloring her voice. "Kaegen, are you getting any form of sleep?" she asked, starting to remember the same thing happening to her. Nights and days of throwing up, being unable to sleep, it had caused the same thing to happen to her that seemed to be happening to Kaegen.

"Well, I didn't get the life drained out of me... though it does feel like that, doesn't it? she laughed slightly, noise tearing at her throat and causing her to let out series of painful hacking coughs into the crook of her elbow. When she recovered, she looked back up at Kaegen, her eyes watering slightly from the coughs. "I got sick. Really, really sick. The 'verge of death' kind of sickness."

She paused for a moment, wiping away the tears that had risen to her eyes due to the painful coughing. Although she had been cured of the illness, she was still very weak and was quite prone to obtaining other forms of sickness, such as the cold she had now. While the illness had left her, it had left a hole in her that she was concerned would never be filled.

It was weird, having someone ask if he looked fine. It had happened a few times, but not often. And every time, his body would heartily agree with that person, trying to make it clear to the boy that he needed to slow down, to rest. His vampiric blood had been coming out more and more, his defenses falling rapidly with each passing sleepless night.

And then she asked directly, asking him if he was getting any form of sleep. Was he? Well, yes. He had slept two hours last night, and it had felt wonderful. A good night's rest in his book.

"I should be fine, I'm getting sleep. Almost two hours last night, I'm fine."

And then she explained what had happened, and it made a lot of sense. Almost too much sense. She had been horribly sick, hadn't been able to come. She had almost died, but somehow had pulled through and made it back. Mostly alive. He wasn't sure how he was supposed to feel about that, wasn't sure if he was supposed to feel sad for her, if he was supposed to feel sympathy.

He had nothing, nothing at all. No clues and a whole lot of turbulent thoughts. He eventually, after roughly thirty seconds of silence, found something to say, something he wanted to know.

"Do you feel better now? Can you walk okay?

...What was death like? Did you see it?"

He had seen her take a few steps, to be sure. But she had seemed... shaky. Weak. But, for all he knew, that could have just been him imagining it. Or perhaps she was perfectly strong, but had tremors.

Reyna's pale, bloodshot eyes widened slightly when he mentioned his... sleep cycle.

"Two hours Kaegen? That... that can't be healthy. After how long? How long have you been starving your body of sleep?" she asked, feeling an overwhelming amount of concern for him, though she couldn't claim to know him well.

"And... yes. I can walk okay. I... think. But, I don't feel fine, although the doctor said I'm cured. I still feel like something is pressing down from all around me, a weight I just... can't seem to shrug off." She smiled bitterly, because what she said was painfully true.

It felt as though the sickness had left a part of it inside of her, although all the healers had told her that she was cured. That she could live normally again.
But... she mused to herself, her face contorting ever so slightly in remembrance of pain, They never tell you how it will stick with you.

And death? She had breathed the same air as Death for months. It was almost tempting to laugh at the sheer absurdity of the fact, at how she now knew Death personally.

"Death was... tempting," she said, pausing and remembering the tantalizing idea of death, of how it had come to her, reached out to her. She had almost agreed to it, almost agreed to anything that could put an end to her misery.

"It was beautiful, yet ugly."

She sat up slightly, a slight fraction of a whimper escaping through my lips at how much effort the one movement took. Her muscles had deteriorated after the long period of her not moving, not exercising her strength. She was still adjusting to this new weakness, the lack of power in her muscles.

It was going to be a long school year.

She said that his sleep wasn't healthy, that it couldn't be. But the boy didn't let that bother him. Not one bit. Sleeping longer than that was for the weak, was for people who just didn't have the willpower required to pull through and keep moving. Who cared if he didn't get sleep? He was strong enough to go without it, he had been going without it just fine, hadn't he?

"Since before second year. It's fine, I'm strong."

Her next statement was a bit bizarre. There was a weight strapped to her? Where, he didn't see a weight, didn't see a strap or a brick on her shoulders. She looked normal, in his opinion, aside from the clear signs of a past sickness. He looked again, a bit closer, taking another step in order to check for tiny wires. But nothing could be seen on her robes.

"I don't see anything. Is it invisible?"

What she was saying had been strange, but in an instant, it became fascinating. It became more than enthralling. His vision tunneled, his focus snapped to her suddenly. She had seen death, and come back. That meant you could escape death, that meant that you might be able to kill it. In truth, there was really only one way to find out. He would ask her, ask her if she saw a way.

"Hey, I- Please, when you saw death...

Did it have a weakness? How do I kill it? I need something, anything you've got. Please.

She hesitated for a moment, gathering her thoughts. She felt drained from the talking, but, it didn't bother her too much. It was nice, having someone to talk to besides herself for once.

"It's not a... physical weight, if that's what you're asking. It's more mental, inside my head. Being inactive for so long left me weaker than I used to be, and it's difficult to adjust."

And then there was the topic of death.

She paused after he asked the question, her mind racing to the answer but unable to catch it. She took a breath, closing her eyes and speaking, "A weakness," she mused to herself out loud, trying to remember as much as she could.

"I don't believe so..." she said, "But there could be a way if you were a full strength. But that's the issue, isn't it? You have to be at your weakest, at the near brink of dying to meet Death herself." Her eyes flew open, shock pictured in them.

Her blood began boiling in her veins, and she stood up suddenly, the rush of adrenaline bringing her to her feet.

"Kae, I swear to my life, you better not be thinking about doing anything." Her voice shook slightly, and her heart beat irregularly fast. I can't have his death on my hands she thought, her hands clenching slightly at her sides and splaying out. "Don't do anything dumb, Kaegen. Death isn't someone you mess with and step away from."

Then, the blood drained out of her already pale face, and sweat collected on her face and palms. Standing up so suddenly had taken its toll on her.

A weight in her mind? Mental? But that meant what was in your mind could affect you. There were a lot of things in Kaegen's mind that he was always sincerely grateful couldn't affect him. Could they? If that was the case, was there a way to hurt them? There was a way to hurt anything, anyone. That must apply to mental things, right? It had to.

"Is there a mental knife you could use? Cut the ropes, or whatever is keeping it on you?

For as long as he could remember, Kaegen wanted to survive. That was the goal, wasn't it? To survive, to live on as long as possible? It was what everything strived for. But there was something in the way, always stopping survival, making it impossible. Death, death itself. But now, a light. Hope. Something he hadn't felt for a long time. Or at least something he thought was hope. If anyone else felt what the boy was feeling at that moment, they would equate the sensation with stumbling across a very brilliant, very devious plan.

Perhaps it was the presence of a plan that made the boy feel as if he had hope. He didn't even have a plan before now. A plan was the second step to a solved problem, right after recognizing you had one.
But just then, something strange happened. The girl in front of him seemed to surge with life. With anger or with fear he couldn't tell, but it was emotion. He knew it was some kind of strong feeling.

She said he had better not be thinking about doing anything? But he always thought of doing something or another. Did she mean that he couldn't think if he wanted to defeat death? Did she mean someone was reading his thoughts? She clarified by making everything more confusing and saying he wasn't supposed to do anything dumb. That death wasn't anyone you could mess with and step away from.

But it was far too late. If he was at full strength, if he was at full strength he'd be able to kill death. It was a little chant somewhere in the back of his mind. A savage, dark shadow that lived there had taken the idea, and clutched it. Treasured the idea of being unkillable, of being safe. Of killing that which the boy feared above all else.

"How am I supposed to not think? I never do anything dumb. If I did, I wouldn't be alive.