Chapter Text
“Are you going to tell him,” asked Death, smiling at her little brother, more mirth twinkling in her eyes than might be appropriate for the wager they had just closed over Robert “Hob” Gadling’s life. “Or should I?”
Dream cocked his head to one side, raven-like, and thought.
The universe held its breath, for just a fraction of a moment, sensing something monumental. Something fateful. A decision like a butterfly’s wing beat, inconsequential in its conception, but inevitably growing into a storm capable of tearing worlds apart.
(This was, the Esteemed Reader should know, by no means a rare or unusual occurrence. Fateful moments were a dime a dozen, decisions that could change the course of an entire life made every day on the basis of nothing more than whims and idle thoughts.
It might be almost ludicrous, how changeable fate could be - and at the same time, strangely reassuring, to know the future is rarely set quite so firmly in stone as it might appear.)
A moment of breathless silence, and then:
“By all means, my sister,” Dream dismissively flicked his hand towards the foolhardy peasant with an indulgent smile only barely playing around his lips. “Be my guest. If he is to be your champion in this wager, and your gift he is not granted, it seems only right that you should inform him of these circumstances.”
“If that is your wish, brother, then so it shall be.”
And with that, Death gathered her skirts, and strode over to Robert Gadling’s table.
Dream watched them, almost idly, noting the disbelief and amusement on the human’s face, so foolishly and blissfully unaware of the curse of everlasting life that was already closing its bands around him. A simple man, with a dream both equally simple and infinitely complex, who would surely come to regret it in good time. Very soon, perhaps - oh yes, very soon.
Robert Gadling’s eyes crinkled at the corners when Death invited him to meet again in a hundred years’ time, while his comrades were grinning, uncouth jokes already on their tongues even as he waved, embarrassed, for them to be quiet.
“Humans,” muttered Dream, more coldly than he ought - why, he could not quite tell.
Perhaps it was the strange weight of regret settling into his stomach, as he watched his sister hold out her hand, and Robert Gadling shake it.
Perhaps, it should have been him after all, at the other table.
Perhaps, it should have been him after all, in one hundred years, meeting this insolent man again and seeing him much changed by time.
Perhaps-
But no.
What use was it, to think these things. The die had been cast, and he was Death’s now. Her champion.
And what business did Dream have with a man such as Robert Gadling, anyway?
(In a faraway realm, Destiny was bent over his book, and traced a finger along a line that had been rewritten on a single whim. A single thought. Oh, foolish brother.
More would change, as a result, he already knew - and some would stay the same. Fate was mercurial that way.
Destiny turned a page, and watched the future unfold before his eyes.)
“Well well well, our Hobsie’s moving up in the world, eh?” One of Hob’s drinking companions laughed, gamely raising his tankard towards him. “I can’t even get the barmaid to look at me twice, and here he is, catching the attentions of some fine lady! ‘Women to swive’ in-DEED, when will you meet her again, lover boy?”
“Didn’t you listen!?” Another snorted. “In 1489, of course! He may be a little old for swiving then, but I’m sure our Hob will bravely rise to the occasion!”
All of them burst into raucous laughter - all of them, except Hob, who found this banter lacking in humour somewhat.
Instead, he was watching the strange lady walk away. Strange and highborn and stunningly beautiful in a way Hob could swear was not of this world - but for all that his friends were joking, she clearly had no intent to bed him. Hob was a man of more-than-modest experience who was well-acquainted with the look of carnal desire in a fine woman’s eye, and whatever she had fixed him with had not been that.
(Which was a bit of a shame, to be sure, but Hob took such things like a good sport, and gamely considered it the lady’s loss.)
She was with her companion now, exchanging words - her, smiling brightly, he, solemn and forbidding - before making their way to the door together.
The lady departed first; and then, rather than immediately following, her companion half-turned in the doorway, and with unerring precision, caught and met Hob’s eye.
(A strange lordling, like a cold winter’s night to the lady’s warm autumn morn, of the sort of delicate disposition that would make one think that he should be kept far away from dirty taverns full of dirtier people. The lady, oh, she would go where’er she pleased, no doubt, noble or not - but her companion seemed the type to lock himself away in some dingy scriptorium, not mingle with the common folk.
A strange day, and stranger company, to be sure.)
Hob directed a smile and a nod at the man - who did not return it, face impassive and cold disdain glinting in the twin stars of his eyes. How rude. Arrogant prick.
And then, in the blink of an eye, he too had gone, and Hob knew not what to make of it.
An otherworldly lady making impossible appointments with an irreverent mercenary, before walking off with a lord who looked as if the grave had already swallowed him twice over - why, even old Geoffrey would think twice before making a tale from so nonsensical a scene!
Though, perhaps, he would come to understand it better in the year 1489, Hob thought to himself with a private huff of laughter.
He certainly had every intention of living long enough to see it.