milliways_bar | (no subject)

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He's by the fireplace today on one of those very comfortable armchairs. His feet are crossed up on the coffee table and there's a copy of the Times open over his face. The tool of his trade is resting against the chair back, in easy reach for when he gets up.

It's a very odd position to find a skeleton in, but this is Milliways, after all.

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I am Death, confirms Death. And then, because it's polite, he folds up the paper and sets it on his lap.

Although I am likely not the specific personification for your world. There are a few of us.

"Oh," says Annie. And then: "Oh, dear- I oughtn't to have interrupted your reading. I'm sorry."

Generally she's a bit better about her manners, but then again, generally she's not talking to somebody she's got a sneaking suspicion her household's been cheating left, right, and centre.

I wasn't reading, he admits slyly. I know it all anyway.

It's just what one does, isn't it? Put a newspaper on one's face and reclining? I've seen many humans do it. He sounds almost urgent, anxioius to get this right.

"Oh! Yes, I've certainly seen it often enough back home," Annie says. "If you hadn't looked up when you did I think I would've assumed that you were some very tall human who... happened to have a really formidable scythe with him."

The prospect of Death being on edge about something is a little weird, but she can wrap her mind around it if she really tries. 'A little weird' doesn't last long in her life, any more.

Good, says Death. I wouldn't like to not fit in.

"You did an excellent job," Annie assures him. Then: "Is fitting in that important to you?"

Death takes a second to think about this.

How can I understand humanity unless I try to experience it?

"Ah," says Annie. "That makes sense, I think. Although I hadn't quite- I suppose I hadn't thought of Death wanting to understand humanity, really..."

Do you have a trade, Death asks reasonably. He's getting somewhere, really.

"I've been a baker since I was fourteen," Annie says. "I've two shops now, though I only work in one of them."

And could you be the best baker you could be if you didn't understand bread and dough?

See? Point.

"... oh," says Annie. "Oh, I see. I suppose I thought your job was... well, instinctive. My apologies for the misconception, then."

No apology required, Death assures her. Everyone makes mistakes. So how is the bakery business?

"Going quite well, actually," says Annie. "Better than I'd thought at first, when we moved to Harrogate. Travelers seem to want a little something that reminds them of home, when they've got to stay in the town."

No way in Hell is someone who's lived in London as long as she has going to call anything with a population of less than a hundred thousand a city.

And you remind them of their home? Death prompts.

"The right sort of food generally does," says Annie. "Home is more often where they eat the same sort of food as you than it is any particular building, after all."

And I suppose you always have the right sort of food for travellers?

"Not always," says Annie, "but I do try."

You must try very hard, Death observes. Do you get travellers from many different places?

"Oh, yes," says Annie. "The biggest industry in Harrogate just now is convention centres- people come to town for meetings of large organisations, often from other countries and sometimes other continents. They're not from as many places as they used to be from when we lived in London, but it's still quite a lot of places." She pauses. "Although I doubt you'd see it as a lot of places compared to how many you must have seen in your existence."

The world I work on is somewhat smaller than yours, Death admits. But I've seen everything.

"Do you remember it all?" Annie asks curiously. "Humans forget things over time- I don't know what it would be like, to remember everything I've ever seen."

I do, Death says. It's nothing special.

Annie nods. "I suppose it wouldn't be, after a while," she muses.

I tried to forget, once, Death responds, a little more musing. It didn't take.