Damien took himself to a cramped, grey world. The edges of the landscape crumbled off into the sea of the void of space, like a rocky promontory. He heard a dirge-like hum being kept to the time of the creaking treadle. At his appearance, the hum stopped, and all three Fates zeroed in on him.
Lachesis stood from her stool in outrage. "How did you arrive at this place?"
"It was easy." Damien shrugged. "I just-" he clicked his fingers. "You do know who I am, don't you?"
The youngest slowly rose from her seat and began to glide to him across the dusty ground.
Damien turned to look at her. He met her in the middle.
She lowered her hood. "Why have you come to us, son of Death?"
The eldest hissed, "You come to us on our behest, not your own volition."
The middle one seconded this position. "How dare you. Your final decisions are ours!"
The youngest held out a hand to stay her elders.
"I have one question." Damien held up a finger. "Because, I think... you're the only people who really know." He spoke low and slow, "If I'm as powerful as you all believe I am, what makes you think I won't just end everything? That would be the only way to be free. But, knowing that, and knowing you will continue to fuck with me if I don't. Why don't I just end it all? Why?"
The youngest Fate parted her pale, scabbed lips, and raising a hand to his face, she said, "Because you have hope."
Damien flinched back before she could touch him. He chuckled. "Is that it? Is that all it takes? ...Huh. I'll be damned." He smiled. "You're right. That little four-letter word right there, hope. My hope is the only thing saving you from non-existence."
The two elder Fates recoiled violently at the threat.
The youngest Fate, though, tilted her head. "Sometimes hope is all it takes. It is truly staggering the difference one little word can make."
Damien nodded in understanding. "So, that's our gentleman's agreement, then? You throw me a bone every now and again, and dangle a carrot in front of me to make me feel better, and in return, I don't spread your ashes all the way from HD1 to Timbuktu? No. Hope isn't enough anymore. You won't be able to crawl back from the place I'll send you. Do you understand?"
"How dare you speak to us that way!"
"Every step you take has been charted by us."
"Thus, we are the ones who freed you from Tartarus."
"We have woven a divine future, so glorious!"
"Do not tempt us. We cannot be killed."
"Or outwitted."
"Or outdone."
They shrieked in unison, "The future we designed has already begun."
A whistling whirlwind swept around him. He was whipped by the sands and the rocks, and his heart pounded in his chest as his brain recognized this tormenting whirlwind. He thought no, I won't go back there again! When he opened his eyes he was safe and sound on his new front porch. He was on his knees, one hand gripping for the ground beneath him, the other grasping for the hammering heart under his breast bone.
Josanna opened the front door and fell before him. "Your heart is- Are you alright? Damien? Damien?"
He couldn't even look at her. He was too busy trying to catch his breath.
She hoisted him up and helped him to the couch. She tried to remain calm, so as to not cause any more panic. She instinctively fell into doing what Victor had done for her. She began to pet back his hair and shush him and coddle him, but when he came to a second later, he flinched away from her. She retracted her hand and put it in her lap.
Damien gulped a couple of times and shook his head. His breathing was settling down and no longer sounded like the shaking of an empty spray-paint can. "I apologize," he said.
"What happened?" she asked.
Damien thought. "You've been to the future right?"
Josanna said, "In a way."
"And you were dead?"
"In a way. All things die and are reborn in their own way."
"How did you die?" he asked.
She looked up at him with kind and understanding eyes. "Future-you did not want to talk about that. Trust me. I asked."
Damien sighed and gazed at her. "Right. Just- There are a lot of different options here. Ways we can try, and I do mean try, to avoid your Fate, but nothing's a guarantee. What do you think we should do?"
She offered him her hand. "I think we should do what we were going to do today and have a tea party. We should let tomorrow do what tomorrow does, end of time or not."
Damien smiled. "Drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die?"
Her dark eyes beamed at him. "That's the spirit!"
He took her hand.
She tugged at him. "Come on. I want to show you something!"
Leading him outside, she took him through the long, sharp grass and wildflowers, over the bramble and into the woods. Her bare, pale feet were light upon the ground as she hopped over stones and roots, dipping under branches and vines. The forest was alive with birds, butterflies, and fairies. The fairies were as translucent as gossamer, and they shimmered almost like minnows in a pond as they flew by.
Damien was having trouble compartmentalizing his thoughts. He wanted to enjoy this sprint through the woods and the way her midnight hair flicked behind her. But, their looming finale cast a shadow over the glimmer of this forming springtime memory. He didn't want Josanna to be just another brief cameo in his life. People come and go, inevitably, and even though he wasn't a Jinni anymore, that rule hadn't been proven false. Damien knew it as an absolute truth. His time with Josanna would come to an end. "Hey, kid," he called after Josanna, "slow down a bit, would ya?"
She stopped and turned to him. The sun and the green of the forest painted her silhouette, and she appeared to Damien's eye to be a nymph or a romantic specter. She scoffed at him, "I'm the one who's barefoot, silly." Her long black hair whipped around her shoulders as she turned her head back to look at him.
"I know, but... I want this moment to last. Can we take it slow?" He wanted to take the good times as they came, because the pendulum would swing the other way, and dark times would return. He wished to embrace this moment and push out this deep dread encapsulating him. Damien followed in pursuit, not nearly as graceful in his boots, running with a bum leg. Damn hellhounds.
Josanna stopped, having lept and landed on her tiptoes on the bank of a creek. Damien almost ran into her and knocked her in, but he stopped them both from tumbling. The creek ran over boulders and stones and made a rushing, trickling noise that could have lulled angry beasts off to sleep.
"Wow," Damien said, sitting down on the sunkissed, pebbled bank.
Josanna sat next to him. She smoothed out the skirt of her dress when she did. "It's wonderful!" She whispered, "It reminds me of home."
Damien glanced over at her. She didn't seem sad or wistful. She beamed as if happy images were dancing across her memory, so he didn't interrupt. He just gave her hand a light squeeze.
"I just want a little boat to sit in and float down the creek." She smiled.
"The water's not deep enough."
She pouted, "I know."
Damien perked up. "I have an idea." He stood before her and offered her both of his hands.
She took them, and he helped her up. They walked down the bank, hand in hand, until they reached the water.
"Ready?" He asked.
"For what?"
He took one final step, walking on top of the surface of the water.
Josanna giggled and rushed after him into the center of the creek.
Damien watched her bounce and spin around in wonderment. Then, he said, "You might want to sit down for this one."
They both sat on top of the water. He clicked his fingers, and they began to move with the current, being carried upon it like drifting leaves. The creek zig-zagged them around rocks and logs. It bumped them along falls and rapids, and as they drifted, the air grew hotter and brighter. The fresh spring flowers disappeared to make way for stronger, thicker summer shrubs. But, even the summer faded into fall, and the air grew chilly as the trees changed color.
And Damien's mind had stilled in the presence of this nature and magick.
Josanna asked, "Are you doing this? The season-change?"
Damien's eyes glittered. "No." He shook his head. "I'm not doing this. I swear."
The red autumn leaves floated on the surface of the water alongside them, until a little farther down-creek, the trees became completely bare. Icicles hung off the tree's roots, which crawled down the bank. The creek had carried them into the winter part of the wood. The water was sprinkled with the fallen snow that rested on its surface.
Once the creek started to warm again, and buds started growing out of the trees, Damien and Josanna realized the creek had brought them full-circle, back to where they had started in the spring. The creek circled through different parts of the forest, and each part was home to one of the four seasons.
The ex-Jinni and the vampire smiled in the glistening sun as they made their way back to the bank. Josanna was pleased as she examined her skirts for any drops of water and found none.
Damien grinned. "That was awesome!"
Josanna beamed with excitement. "It was magickal. I had no idea this was here! There's so many places to explore and things to see, and do you think that there are mermaids here? Oooo! Or, no, dragons! I'd love to meet a dragon."
Damien's expression softened. "We can go anywhere you want. I know a few places where there are dragons and mermaids. Just say I wish."
They both flinched at his bad habit, but then Josanna pretended to think about it really, really hard. "No," she finally said. "Not right now. Right now, I want to stay right here in these woods with you." She held out her hand to him with the grace of a ballerina. "Will you escort me home?"
He took her tiny hand in his, and she led him back to their little cottage in the woods.
