his embrace. “Geez, Spirit did quite the number on Visio, then,” I concluded, almost breathless as I made a key connection. “Oh, snap. The Unending. What exactly is her ability again?” I had a feeling I already knew the answer, and the wheels were turning in my head.
“She gives immortality. Timelessness. She was Death’s first creation, a response to her own condition as the end of all the living,” Phantom said. “In her early days, Death wasn’t exactly happy with herself. She appreciated the bloom of a rose, the chirp of a bird, the laughter of a woman bathing in a stream… stuff like that. She didn’t like having to end it all. She didn’t agree with the balance between life and death, even though she was literally half of that balance.”
“So, she created Unending. The only Reaper who could bring creatures to life and grant them immortality without Death’s approval,” Widow added. “Naturally, Unending was overwhelmed by her power. She believed in the balance that Death despised, and the two never got along because of that. Eventually, Death accepted the flow of things. I mean, she has always done her job. She has always been Death… but she hasn’t always liked it, and Unending is literal proof of that.”
“Dear sweet sunset, Unending is definitely here on Visio,” I said, my eyes widening as the links were finally complete in my mind. “The Aeternae weren’t always… Aeternae. I got a chance to read through some of the history scrolls back at the imperial palace. The earliest record of Aeternae as immortals dates back about four, maybe five million years.”
“The timeline fits,” Night replied, frowning.
“What does this mean?” Moore asked from the corner of the room.
Kelara threw him an over-the-shoulder glance. “It means there’s a pretty big chance that your immortality stems from Unending, since she’s the only entity capable of granting eternal life.”
“Well, in the Aeternae’s case there still seem to be conditions.” Soul chuckled, nodding at the fallen Visentis men. “I mean, they’re definitely dead.”
Night nodded slowly. “There must be a glitch… I don’t know. But I am certain that Unending is still here. Maybe she bestowed the Aeternae with this limited form of immortality to spite Death. We all know how their last conversation ended.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Soul pulled up a couple of chairs for himself and Phantom, while Morning brought a few more for the rest of them to sit down. It looked rather odd, considering the corpses and the trembling Visentis kids, but hey… the Reapers deserved a damn break.
“Let’s just say Death and Unending had a bit of a contentious relationship,” Soul said, bitterly amused. “When Death finally accepted her own role in the grand scheme of things, she considered removing Unending’s power. Which was ironic, because up until then, Unending had been the one begging to be given a different power.”
“The story is a little fuzzy, mind you,” Phantom added. “None of us were there when the conversations happened. We only have third-person accounts from other higher-circle Reapers who’d spoken to both Death and Unending.”
“The story, as fuzzy as it may be,” Soul continued, “says that Unending fell in love with a mortal. We’re not sure when and where that happened, but according to rumor, it happened. And Unending knew that once he died, he’d step into the afterlife and she would never see him again. The thought was virtually unbearable for her, so she gave him immortality.”
“There’s a hitch, though,” Night intervened. “The mortal’s immortality would exist for as long as Unending wanted it to exist, or for as long as immortality existed.”
“I’m a little confused,” I murmured.
“If Death took Unending’s power away, her beloved mortal would die,” Phantom clarified. I felt a claw in my stomach as I wondered how deep and intense Unending’s love must’ve been for her to grant immortality to someone after having been so miserable with her ability.
Almost reading my mind, Morning smiled at me. “You’re still confused.”
“Yeah, the timeline is a bit… weird. So, Death didn’t like being Death, the end, the grand finale, whatever, so she created Unending first as a form of rebellion against the natural order. Am I getting that right?” Morning and the others nodded slowly. “Okay, and Unending didn’t like having that power, because she actually believed in the natural order.” They all nodded again. “Then, Death gradually changed her mind and accepted the natural order, while Unending fell in love and used her ability on a mortal for the