Chapitre 45: Prince?
"Anubis — Fourth Apostle — raise your head." Cries of terror whispered throughout the collapsed hall. With the presence of the ethereal Death, the temperature plummeted and bits of frost visibly lingered in the air. As Death spoke, a puff of frost erupted from his would be lips and caressed the kneeling silhouette of Anubis.
Bathed in his frost, Anubis's shaking slowed and cool calmness composed him.
Watching the scene unfold before his eyes, Cain halted in astonishment.
'Anubis?' Cain recognized the name.
'Wait. Why do I sound so distorted?'
'WAIT! That's not even what I said!'
'Where are we?' Cain attempted to ask aloud.
"The Tomb of Osiris —" Cain's new persona of Death reincarnate spoke on his behalf, "why have you remained, Anubis?" The shrieks heard in Death's voice made even Cain uncomfortable.
Anubis stood from his kneeling position and placed his violet gaze onto Death's form. A smile stretched across the jackal's lips.
"So you're his Prince." Anubis hovered his bandaged fingers above Olive's unconscious form.
The white and tarnished bandages momentarily glowed green and condensed into a single droplet of luminescent emerald energy. The green raindrop splashed onto Olive's forehead and succinctly absorbed into her skin.
Within moments, Olive's wrinkled skin unfurled and moistened.
Her breaths grew steady and the rosieness usually found in her cheeks bloomed.
"It's been a long time since I've seen that form and for that — I am grateful." Anubis brought his thumb and forefinger together, snapping unnaturally loud and echoing within the hall.
Instantly, Olive vanished from sight.
"I've returned the human to her realm —" Anubis spoke casually yet respectfully, "I hope my Lord does not mind."
Anubis snapped again and a blackwood table appeared beside the two. At each end of the table, luxurious chairs faced each other.
Anubis sat at one end and, waving his hand towards the other, signaled Cain to sit himself.
"And I suggest my Lord removes the |Reaper's Cloak|, although its secrecy is impenetrable, an unanticipated result is its difficulty to communicate clearly. Constructed from Threads of Embodiment, the cloak forces its wearer to appear as Death should — noble, calm, impartial. As much as the cloak is useful, it is just as equally detrimental; a Relic that replaces its wearers identity: that's the power the |Reaper's Cloak| wields."
Unmoving, Cain narrowed his gaze on the leisurely sat Anubis.
Resting his cheek on his palm, Anubis watched Cain with a playful expression.
Meanwhile, while Cain stared at Anubis in his Death garb, his thoughts moved a mile a minute.
Should he try and get Baku to summon him back to his Domain?
But if he did that, how would he get back to Olive? Anubis mentioned that he sent Olive back to her 'realm' so does that mean this isn't Earth? Or the same Earth?
Baku could only send Cain in and out of his Domain in the same spot he left from — which would be here with Anubis. So that option didn't help him at all.
He could see what the |Jug of Mist| does. Anubis was clearly apprehensive about its appearance earlier, but Anubis's recognition of all of Cain's items is what's throwing Cain off so much.
Anubis correlates Cain with the figure of Death himself. Is that intentional or coincidental?
Is Cain actually Death reincarnate? Or is Anubis mistaking Cain for someone else?
Or is Anubis manipulating Cain by saying anything and everything to get Cain to trust him?
Sipping a glass of wine he summoned into reality much like the table, Anubis chuckled at Cain's antics.
"If my Lord would like, Baku is always welcome to attend as well." Anubis smirked.
'Who the hell are you?!' Cain tried to yell, but the cloak replied for him.
"Anubis, God of Preservation —" Cain ripped the cloak off, metaphorically, as he really just unsummoned it through the System.
"Who the fuck are you?!" Cain shouted as he returned to his alabaster and onyx coated self.
"It is as you've already exclaimed, my Lord. I am Anubis, God of Preservation, Death's Fourth Apostle, and servant to my Lord, Death's Heir, the Prince of Afterlife." Anubis tilted his head beneath Cain's as he replied.
"Why do you keep calling me Death and how do you know Baku?!" Cain shouted just to make himself appear more confident.
"Baku is Death's Assistant. As his Apostle, I have naturally had the pleasure of accompanying Baku many times throughout the millennia. As his Heir, I'm sure my Lord Death created one for you as well." Anubis reasoned.
"Cr-Created?" Cain stumbled.
Anubis merely shook his head.
"If Baku has not told my Lord, then it is not yet time to know."
Cain raised his eyebrows.
What kind of backwards logic was this?
With seemingly no other option present, Cain sat in the fur-coated, dark wood chair that Anubis summoned for him. Gathering his thoughts, Cain ran through his concerns.
"Where are we?" Cain asked.
"We are currently in my Domain — a space I presume my Lord is familiar with." Anubis answered succinctly.
"You have a Domain too?"
Anubis nodded his head.
"Domains are an Authority of Death — a space separate from the tangible universe — tell me Lord, what do you suppose the Domains are for?" Anubis switched gears while swirling the dark wine in his bronze goblet.
'What they're for?' Cain pondered.
Anubis, however, asked a follow up question instead.
"Rather, my Lord, if I may ask this — what is death for?"
Cain stared at the leathery skinned jackal adorned in gold.
'What the hell?' Cain thought.
'What kind of existentialism am I being put through?!'
"Considering the human form and relationship with that woman — I must also presume my Lord is close with the human way of life. Eons ago, when I too ruled them, death meant many things."
"To the slaves, it meant escape from everything they despised."
"To the peasants, it meant loss: loss of time, of watching their cubs grow, in many ways it was their final goodbye."
During his speech, Anubis gazed absent-mindedly into his goblet of wine.
"To the aristocrats, it meant peace after a long journey."
"Tell me Lord, what is death to you?"
Cain thought about his experience with death. He had died, sure, but that wasn't the first instance he thought of.
First, Cain thought of the death's of his companions. His friends and family who perished under the ash sky. Some of them bubbled and popped, the radiation boiling them from the inside out.
Some of them were ravaged and desecrated as mutated beasts tore them apart and consumed them whole.
Then, Cain thought of his mother.
Brain cancer. Due to the radiation of course, she was just lucky or unlucky enough to be the perfect distance away to merely contract brain cancer.
Cain, however, found her death the most grueling.
They called it Ego death.
As the brain eats itself, memories vanish and moments spent together disappear entirely. Some nights, Cain would wake up in the middle of the night and find his mother aimlessly walking the halls of their bunker â€" lost.
Unable to recognize her home, unable to recognize her family, unable to recognize Cain.
Sure, she lived a longer life.
But after so many years of hindsight, of reliving every painful memory, Cain now finds it hard to even consider that woman his mother.
What makes a person, after all?
Cain found out that it was their memories. Because without them, the moments and lessons that build a person up come crashing down until nothing but an empty husk of skin remains.
"Death is release." Cain finally said, his voice soft and quiet.
"Hmm…" Anubis mused, "what if death was refuge?"
"Refuge?" Cain repeated.
"You see my Lord, life is eternal."
"What?" Cain asked stone-faced.
'Is my mother alive? No. Obviously not.' Hope clogged Cain's brain for a moment.
"You see my Lord, flesh is nothing but a vessel for the soul. When flesh grows old and can no longer support the soul, it withers away until the soul is released back into the expanse where it disperses until eventually — another vessel captures it."
"Life is an infinite cycle. Death is refuge from that cycle. It is a resting place between lives — a place where souls can remain forever or for just a blimp in time — either way, death is neither an end nor a beginning — it is a middle-ground."
"The Afterlife…" Cain muttered.
"Precisely, my Lord. And the Domain is the Authority used to facilitate the Afterlife."
"How was Olive able to be in your Domain then? She was alive." Cain inquired as Baku had made it clear only souls could enter his own Domain.
"With time, my Lord, all thing's thought to be impossible will become possible. You need only grow stronger."
"I've taught you enough as is," Anubis snapped his bandaged fingers and the dark wooden table vanished along with the jackal's wine, "return Prince. May we meet again."
Anubis snapped and the gray stone walls of the hall shifted and dispersed. The cracked floor and collapsed columns rose from the ground and perfectly returned to their pristine condition.
Then, the walls turned to gas and colors meshed and molded throughout Cain's vision.
Cain blinked.
And when he opened his eyes, Cain found himself sitting on the sand outside of the Pyramid of Giza. Beside him, an unconscious and sunburned Olive lay asleep.
It was then that Cain's exhaustion caught up with him. His muscles were heavy, his eyelids felt like large chunks of sheet metal and mentally — Cain was spent.
He needed time to sort through his thoughts, understand his interaction with Anubis, and to prepare his plans moving forward.
'Prince huh?' Cain thought to himself.
'I could get used to that.'
///LostNoteFound///
THANK YOU Romance_guy, WalkingBush, DevilGod_of_Chaos AND SoManyAngels for the power stones!!!
(Pssst.)
(Hey you.)
(Yeah you — SoManyAngels.)
(It was your first time giving me a power stone, so for that, extra thank you's all around) ;D
L’AVIS DES CRÉATEURS 
TheLostBoy
TheLostBoy I wish the authors note could be GIFs. The mental image of every chapter ending with a silly little cartoon seems way better than me ranting lmao
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