Can't Fight Time

“You’re shivering,” Grim whispered against her lips when he finally drew back.

“I’m fine. Keep going,” Nina replied, not caring that she sounded like a romance novel reject.

“No.” Grim pulled away from her and manifested a winter jacket out of thin air. “It’s getting late, and you should be getting back.”

Quickly, he wrapped her in the coat and then stepped away to give her space. Oookay? What the hell happened in the last two seconds that I missed? Nina shrugged into the coat while giving him the funniest look. Not even ten seconds ago, he’d been all over her, practically consuming her, and now? Now he was acting like it never happened.

Nina felt her temper shoot up as she watched his blank face for any sign of emotion. Not even a twitch of a brow. The man looked like he’d been carved out of freakin’ granite.

“All righty, then.” Nina clapped her hands together and smiled too brightly. “How’s that old saying go? Oh, ‘don’t call me; I’ll call you’? Yeah, well, see ya.” She turned and started to marched back up the trail.

“Nina, please,” Grim pleaded behind her.

She never stopped, just flipped him the bird over her shoulder and kept walking until the trees opened and revealed the last rays of the setting sun.



“Come out.” Grim didn’t bother to raise his voice but made sure his tone reflected his displeasure. He knew Nina was angry with him, but the fewer people who knew about her, the better.

“Not even going to say hello, Brother?” Uriel, his younger brother, asked with mirth.

Grim pivoted in a slow circle, casting out his power so that Uriel could feel he was not in the mood to play. At his feet a mist gathered and began to thicken to a fog that crawled up his body like an amorous lover until it covered him completely.

“Ever one for the theatrics, Grim,” Uriel laughed, as his Grim’s form became indistinguishable from the thick fog. And then, all at once it left, leaving Grim the epitome of the Grim Reaper he was.

“You know I don’t ever take this form for shits and giggles, Uri.” His voice came out as a dancing of bones and the howl of the dead.

Humans weren’t wrong about how reapers looked; in one hand he held a black and silver scythe, the blade covered with mystical writing that only the oldest reapers still spoke. A black cloak that seemed to engulf light, as if complete darkness was the only finite thing in the world, draped over his form. Grim detested this form, but he could guess why his brother was here, which meant this form was a necessary evil.

“I don’t know why you insist on brooding about your impending succession." Uri shifted from foot to foot and tried not to look directly at his brother. "To be the next king of the Bloodspurn line is an honor.”

Grim knew that Uri had yet to begin shedding, and was unsettled by the whole process. Often reapers decided to take one for after the transformation, that of a skin or that of bone. Few went between the two.

Though Grim could understand his brother’s hesitation over the process of shedding. It wasn’t a happy event when an skin one had been walking around in since birth suddenly started to melt and fall off one’s bones, then turn to dust before it hit the ground. It was like watching an ice cream cone melt in the sun, except for the smell of rotting flesh and the blood that accompanied the event. The entire process was extremely painful because after a reaper saw pieces of themselves fall off a sick compulsion to remove the rest took over.

Grim could still remember his shedding, the months seemed to drag on until one day his voice seemed to come from his rattling bones and a mystical scythe had appeared at his side, the embodiment of all his power. Words etched themselves into the curved, metal blade shimmering with ancient magic and announcing that he was truly a Grim Reaper.

“Perhaps you would like the honor of having hundreds of reapers under you, depending on you, relying on you? Maybe you would like to carry the burden of continuing the Bloodspurn line—of playing chess in the king’s seat with lives?” Grim’s unnatural voice rattled at his brother, his scythe pulsing ominously as his power once again leaked out and surrounded his brother in a cloaking miasma.

“Is that what you want, little brother?” He drew out the word, his voice a whistle of air through bone. “Power?”

His form lacked eyes, a mouth, a heart. Everything seemed to be commanded by the invisible power he wielded effortlessly as he glided closer to his sibling. One bony finger reached up, the cloak shifting down as Grim traced a line on his brother’s cheek. He leaned forward, his body and scythe grew and encompassed the other reaper until fear leaked from every pore and fouled the air.

“I would give up every claim I have to the throne if you could be even half as responsible as you claim to be. I would kiss your fucking feet if, for even one second, I thought you could carry the burden of the Bloodspurn name as you so desperately want to. Come little brother, prove me wrong!” Grim cackled as he drew his cloak tighter around him, his power seeming to retreat along with him. “Prove to me that you have what it takes to become the Bloodspurn King.”

Uriel had no concept of the life Grim had waiting for him, always had waiting for him. As the second son of the Bloodspurn King, the chances of Uriel being a successor dropped to almost zero, and because of this his life had been considerably easier. But Grim did not envy his brother’s life, because as it stood the young reaper was undisciplined, weak.

Grim sighed as he stuffed his hands into the folds of his cloak, letting his scythe stand next to him like a patient dog. “I’m getting tired, Uriel. Relay the message and then let’s go back.”

“I w-was—” his brother stuttered, looking like he might soil himself. Of course that bodily function was gone unless they drank or ate.

“Father wants you. Two more reapers have disappeared and the ceremony is in only four months. He wants you to meet with the Council of Guardians and a few Peacekeepers that were in the area of the disappearances. Plus he wants to talk to you about your... e-engagement again.” Uriel whispered the last part, knowing how Grim felt about his arranged marriage.

Strategically, marrying the daughter of the Castoff king would be the best plan. It would build a truce and hopefully end the disappearances. Of course with the Castoff Kingdom it would only ever be a temporary truce.

Politics, politics. It gave him a headache most of the time, and if he weren't so sure that his human body would never age, Grim would swear that he noticed stress lines around his mouth and eyes.

“Come, then. Let’s go home. I’m sure Father and Mother are dying to know why I’m in the human world,” Grim said silkily, wondering if his brother would catch the hint.

Uri waved his hand and materialized a portal between worlds, that looked something akin to a mirror with a silver frame and iridescent markings around it in a forgotten language. “What you do for your last for days as a bachelor is your own business, Brother. My lips are sealed.”

Grim nodded and entered the portal with his scythe floating beside him, held up by his own magic and will. Uri entered after him.

Grim tried to turn his thoughts to his people and the problems he would have to deal with the minute he set foot in his home, but his thoughts were still on the curly haired beauty whose lips tasted as sweet as her skin looked. Please be alright until I get back, Grim hoped fervently, before he turned and began to walk the path that had been set out for him.