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Rio Vidal does not fall in love.
Rio is an omnipotent being. She is the personification of Death. Her existence serves only one purpose - to take the living and bring them to the afterlife.
Some of them get away from her. Some of them go to different versions of Death, different afterlives. Some of them - the pricks - they don't die at all. She doesn't interfere with what those other Gods and Primordials are getting up to, she's much too busy with her own sector of beings.
Rio is Death, and she does not fall in love. Who has the time for such a thing? In her experience - which was far older than this 'love' that people kept talking about - love was just another way to suffer. You either died and left someone behind, or they died and left you behind, and then you'd spend whatever time you have left mourning for the other.
Wars were fought over silly love letters that left entire cities littered with bodies. People were burned at the stake for loving the wrong gender, race, species. Young ones would eat poison to make their love 'everlasting', and old ones would grow tired of love and find a new hobby to attend to.
Rio watches over them all, a little intrigued by the drama of it, sometimes even rooting for it, but she never pictures herself in love with anyone. It just wasn't how she functioned.
That being said, Rio did get a little attached, sometimes.
Her first attachment grew with a child who just escaped her grasp. She could feel him slipping away as the healer struggled to cut his cord before it strangled him, and she was so sure that he was going to be hers - another lost soul to roam in between the words, keeping her company as they mourned the dead and envied the living.
But then the cord snapped, and he cried. Colour immediately returned to his blue face as he wailed, and his mother sobbed in relief.
She watched, hidden from everyone in a corner, as he was swaddled and handed off outside to his father.
She didn't sense any other powers at play. The boy survived out of pure luck.
A few years went by, a drop in a bucket for her, when she saw the boy again. She had come to take his father while they stuck their sharp sticks into the river, spearing some fish to bring home to the mother and the new baby sister.
The boy would wander, and the father would lose his balance as he looked for him, and be washed away in the stream.
She waited for the string to be cut, for him to fall over and hit his head, when the boy made eye contact with her.
He stared at her, his mouth agape, and tugged at the cloth wrapped around his father's waist to get his attention. In turn, he was shushed and told to wait on land so his fidgeting didn't scare away the fish.
And the string lengthened. She felt it, whatever it was deciding fate. Today was not going to be the day that she got to claim his soul.
She growled in irritation, while the boy ran up to her, his grey eyes still wide and innocent.
"What are you?"
She opened her mouth. Looked down at him in confusion.
This wasn't the first time something had been able to see her, but it had never been someone this young before. And they never asked her what she was - they just knew.
"I am Death."
The boy tilted his head, eyebrows scrunching in confusion. "What does that mean?"
"It means that you should not be able to see me. Run along, now."
She turned to walk down the coast, figuring she could enjoy the sights of the Earth before she was called away again. The boy started walking alongside her.
"Why shouldn't I be able to see you? Are you a spirit of the river? My mama says spirits can grant wishes and curses. Can you grant me a wish?"
"If you don't run back to your father, I will curse you," she hissed, annoyed by every second of his prattling. She couldn't kill him, she knew that instinctively - her job was not to do; it was to watch and clean up. But she could send him back with a missing limb or two. That didn't kill, now, did it?
The boy shrunk under her glare, her demonic hiss having the right affect. When he spoke again, he had a tremble in his voice. "My mama says that its not good to displease spirits. If I made you angry, could you forgive me?"
She rolled her eyes and huffed. "Fine. You are forgiven. But leave me alone, now."
His teary eyes crinkled with a smile. "Thank you, Dama de Rio, I truly am sorry for disturbing you."
He rushed back to his father, and she frowned. She'd been given a few names by the people on this Earth, but they more or less translated to the same thing.
Dama de Rio.
Dama Rio.
That was a new one.
"Dama de Rio," she tested the words on her tongue. She liked how it felt.
She saw the little boy three more times, after that.
The second time, he came by the river with his sister, and was telling her the story of Dama de Rio, the spirit who lived in the waters. He had grown a few inches taller, and his voice cracked in odd pitches as he tried to scare his little sister.
She felt pity as she watched the two from her place in the trees, but what could she do?
The boy had escaped her once.
He'd not be so lucky, this time.
A low growl came from the dark. Both siblings jumped - but only the girl would manage to outrun the wolf, because -
"Go, Ana!"
"Elia, no!"
He pushed her forward, while he stayed back to fight - a scrawny little thing of fourteen winters, who only ate fish and wheat.
She'd seen worse happen.
Ana ran, and Elia fought. The wolf teared the flesh of his arm and left gashes in his legs. He fell, and tried to crawl away to no avail, his hands scrambling the dirt for anything that could help him.
She got ready to claim his soul, when he somehow made eye contact with her. She froze again, glaring.
The wolf was growling lowly, ready to feast on its prize.
"Dama de la Rio!" he cried out, and she startled forward, "Please, help me!"
She frowned. Something had changed about him.
His lifeline wasn't cut, but it wasn't quite together, either.
He didn't have to die, here.
She realized with a start that this one was up to her.
"Rio, please!"
Elia called her again, and this time, she called forward a few roots from beneath the earth to wrap him in a thick barrier against the wolf.
It didn't stop it's attack, apparently not spurred by the magic, but it eventually grew tired of scratching against wood that wouldn't budge.
It trailed away, whining in hunger, and felt pity for it, too.
(She wondered when she first started feeling pity.)
The third time she saw Elia was when he killed someone.
She stood in the back, and felt the string of the younger man snap as Elia hit him in the back of the head with a rock.
He was breathing heavily, the rock clenched hard in his hands. Blood started seeping from his palm, but it was nothing compared to the blood that was seeping into the dirt.
Elia took a few steps back and bumped into her. He turned around in shock, dropped the rock at her feet, and knelt.
Gross, she thought when Elia held onto her trousers and began wiping his tears with them, begging for mercy.
She looked between the man he'd just murdered,
She held Elia's face in her hands, scrutinizing him. "Why did you do it?"
"He was going to hurt my sister," Elia said clearly, looking up at her with those same watery grey eyes, "I couldn't let him do it."
She looked into his eyes, saw the heartbreak on his face. She held his face tighter in her hands.
"Life and death is not yours to take and give," she said to him, a hint of a growl in her voice. "Do you understand what you have done? It is no small thing to end a life."
Elia cried more, closing his eyes and murmuring more pleas.
She felt that tug of pity again. She let him go, and he crumpled in on himself.
"Elia," she called his name from the corpse that she had business to do with, not bothering to turn around. "Come daylight, you should be gone from here. And you will never do this again."
She heard him gasp in disbelief, and then he started to thank her, and then she sent him another deadly glare so he would get the hint and run.
But before he did, he knelt again, and bowed his head.
"Gracias, Rio," he called her, and she didn't know how to respond.
Rio.
And the last time she saw him, he smiled at her. She smiled back. He knew who she was, this time.
"Dama Rio," his eyes still crinkled when he smiled, but he had a dozen or so more lines to go with it. His hand was shaky when he asked her to sit, and his grey eyes were turning milky. "Will you grant me a favour?"
"I've already granted you one, Elia," she said quietly, "When I spared your life at the cost of a wolf's meal."
"You granted me," his voice was gravelly as he held up two of his fingers, "Two, by my count. What's… one more?"
Rio shook her head, but didn't deny his request.
"Will you… tell me… was I a… good man?"
Rio opened her mouth. Looked at her own hands.
"I don't think I am the judge of that."
Elia chuckled. "You may not be the judge, but you must have some opinion?"
Rio thought about it. "If I thought you were a worse man, I'd not have sat down with you."
"And if I was a better man?"
"I might not have come at all."
He chuckled again, but it quickly turned to coughs.
"Death comes for us all, Dama de la Rio."
"You know I am not a river spirit. Why do you still call me that?"
Elia shrugged. "What is a name? I like to call you Rio."
Rio smiled again. "I like to be called Rio."
Elia held out his hand to her, and closed his eyes. "I hope someday, you will be called Rio again."
Rio took his hand, and walked him into the realm.
She meets a man with such a thirst for death that it sends her into a frenzy. She takes a seat in the coliseum and waits with rapt attention for him to step out.
Earth has gotten much more fun over the last few centuries, both in entertainment and death. Today, she thinks there will be three executions, one fight to the death, and then the regular festivities.
And to start it all off, they bring out their most brutal gladiator.
The arena chants his name, and Rio watches him ride into the field on a black stallion, a giant spear held over his head.
He throws it, and it soars across the arena, and hits one of the traitors dead in his chest. He yells, for the glory of the Empire!, or something along those lines, and Rio… frowns.
"Everyone chants my name," the gladiator whispers to her when he has her pinned against the wall, one hand around her throat and the other loosening her chiton, "But you, you just frown."
He was going to be mauled by a lion tomorrow. Rio can't wait to see it, can't wait to drag his soul past everyone he has murdered, innocent or otherwise. But she wanted a taste of this before he went.
She digs her nails into his shoulders and pulls them down. He hisses in pain and squeezes her neck harder.
"No beast has ever bested me," he gloats, and Rio knows that's a lie, she's been following him since he was old enough to pick up a sword, "Yet, here you are, a woman with sharp enough claws to mar my perfect body."
"Who said I was a woman?" Rio replied, a bit garbled as he was still attempting to squeeze the life out of her. His grip loosened so she could talk. "They do not cheer for you, Gladiator. They cheer for Death."
Rio bit his lip hard enough to draw blood.
Fun is fun, but Rio grows tired of all the senseless brutality. Death is not something to be taken lightly. Sometimes, she feels as though they're just mocking her.
Besides, a few more primoridals' have spawned from all of this, and they're setting up their own system of transportation. One of them even gets paid to row a boat.
Rio moves on.
Rio meets a young lady at a ball.
She steals kisses from her when no one is looking, delighting in the way she turns red.
A few years later, the young lady is caught with a maidservant, and they are both executed.
Rio meets another child that can see her. She spends two months with her, because it's fun playing tricks on the other children who can't see her.
One day, a boy catches her talking to 'air' and thinks she is a witch. He pushes her off a cliff while they are playing away from their families. Rio feels the string of her life snap before she even sees her hit the ground.
She follows more empires as they grow, finds the most brutal killers, and gently claims the souls of those who died in unsavoury ways.
When she takes a liking to them, she does a little more than simply claim them and send them through to the other realm. She likes to spend time in the in-between and say her goodbyes.
Rio carries the children, and they think that they are asleep and being taken to bed.
She holds the hands of the elders, listens to their regrets, their accomplishments, and those are the ones who usually respect her.
She walks alongside the scared teenagers, one arm over their shoulders as they shake - old enough to understand what has happened, young enough to still be confused.
She walks arm-in-arm with her lovers, and if they are worthy enough, she bids them goodbye with a kiss.
Life goes on. Ironically.
She doesn't keep track of how many of the souls she claims, that would be impossible. But she'd estimate that around 1/5th of them are people she had any sort of attachment to.
Maybe 1/3rd.
People that see her and get horrified are annoying, but sometimes funny.
People that see her and welcome her are always appreciated.
People that see her when she comes to take someone else, they are…
They are anomalies.
She doesn't care to understand why some of them can just do that. Rio does her best to stay out of everyone's business, as long as they stay out of hers. But some so-called 'gods' just go around granting anybody with the ability to know when Death is nearby.
And they use that ability to tell her to go fuck herself.
Rio doesn't take it too harshly. She's been hearing curses against her very existence since, well, existence.
The ones that plead and bargain with her are far more annoying. Sometimes, if the string isn't cut, and Rio is in a good mood, she tries to barter with them. Only as far as she's allowed to go before something far more powerful and older than her scolds her. Enough.
She doesn't like that thing, but she sure as hell doesn't want to fight it, so she listens.
Sometimes she doesn't want to listen. Like, really, really doesn't want to listen.
She didn't always take joy in claiming a soul, especially when she felt that they deserved more time.
She didn't want to take the life of the poor man who had escaped his cruel shackles.
She didn't want to take the life of the girl that was strangled simply for saying no.
She didn't want to take the lives of all the innocents caught in the crossfires of a war they did not choose - in her opinion, others were much more deserving of their times being cut short.
She tried to refuse sometimes, tried to play favourites, and sometimes, once in a blue moon, those other things would agree with her.
But ultimately, it wasn't her call to make.
And attachments or not, she had a job to do.
She especially did not want to take him.
His features were still soft. His curly hair had only been cut once since his birth. His eyes were innocent, blue like the sky, full of wonder at the world around him.
He fell asleep in her arms, and she took him silently, and put him away.
His eyes, just like his mother's, blinked at him when she set him down.
Those same eyes swirled with hatred when she returned, red and puffy.
She'd begged her.
She'd pleaded with her.
She'd bargained.
She'd cursed her.
And now, she hated her.
The Darkhold was in her grasp. Rio didn't say anything when she disappeared. The Book of the Damned - as long as Agatha had it, she was untouchable by Death, but damned by her own hand.
And Rio?
Rio moved along.
To the next town, the next coven.
Killing witches was all the rage around these parts.
There's more wars. A ship sinks, a submarine explodes.
(Dama de la Rio, she tries to recall the details of where she got her name. It was a child, that much she remembers.)
She travels between realms, whisks people away as quickly as she can, offers comforting hands for the ones that need it, and punishes the ones that deserve it.
A submarine implodes, this time, and Rio laughs as more humans drive themselves insane trying to find the imploded ship. She laughs even more when she sees how the Internet has taken it.
(Dama de la Muerte is far more accurate. She doesn't remember why she calls herself Rio.)
A truck gets hit by another, bigger truck. Rio sighs and nudges the car accident victim with her foot. "You dead, yet?"
He groans. She looks to the passenger seat. "How about you? You look pretty dead. Yeah, come here."
The man cries. "Linda! Sweetheart, please, say something!"
Rio freezes.
Sweetheart.
(Lady Death does not fall in love. It's simply not supposed to be possible.)
"Take my hand! I'm so sorry, god, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to do that! It was an accident!"
The man was sobbing, now, and - losing lots of blood, by the looks of it. He'd be together with Linda in about ten minutes if no one came to help him.
Sirens sound off nearby, and Rio wishes that they'd just given up. He clearly was going to regret losing her for the rest of his pathetic existence. He'd spend every day wondering about what could have been, what should have been.
"I should never had bought that car," he's screaming across the highway now to a corpse. Linda can't really hear him, she's disoriented. "I would have carried you up the mountain! Baby! I'm sorry!"
When Linda comes to, her and Rio the only ones in the in-between realm, she's hyperventilating, and saying she needs to get back to Robby. They had made a pact to hike up the mountain at the end of their little town when they had both graduated, but she'd hurt her foot at prom. Linda had joked that Robby should carry her, and instead, he had used part of his savings to buy them a rickety old pickup truck to drive directly up the terrain.
Once she's calmed down, Rio tries to tell her its too late. The young lady collapses into a sobbing mess once again.
(Rio carries Linda in her arms. It doesn't matter why.)
(And through it all, Rio wonders where Agatha is.)