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Hymn is no stranger to death, be it her own or others'.
The first time she dies isn't one she remembers, but the marks are branded on her skin. Thick scars, spread like a web across her body. Cut open again and again, bleeding and screaming and cursing, she forgets everything else. The cutting is all she knows anymore. Soon no one else needs to cut anymore, her ribs piercing her chest, digging themselves out of the sack of skin and scarring that is her body. They keep cutting. They hit too deep, and Hymn falls into a blissful nothingness. It lasts for a moment before she's back again. The cuts return too, again and again. They cut and they cut until they tire. She tears herself free from the bindings that keep her, feral. A leap, a slash, a snarl. She's alone, the corpses around her the only thing left.
The second time she does remember. She'd been out looking for a night orchid for Shadowheart for what seemed like hours, and she's starting to feel the shadow curse, even through the protection given by Isobel. It starts small, barely noticable, some dizziness, a slight headache, easy to shake off and ignore. She keeps walking, black spots covering her sight. Her legs give in, crumbling to the ground. She tries to move her legs, but it's as if they're limp pieces of flesh. She does the one thing she can think of, dragging herself forward. An hour goes by. She keeps going, trying to ignore the skin flayed off by the cliff-like ground. Still dragging herself, her left arm falls, just as unmovable as her legs. Hymn stares straight forward, expression unchanging. Then she falls. She can't move anything anymore. As she's laying there she feels the darkness closing in, and she thinks about Shadowheart. Then her mind too stops. Her body, mangled and cold, is alone. A day goes by, then two, then three, and then a scream echoes through the empty landscape. Footsteps quicken, approaching the body.
Hymn wakes in a dimly lit room, weak and tired. The blackness is gone again, replaced by the aching of healing wounds on her back.
The third time she's ready for it. She knows what she is now, and she has one thing left to do before she can right her wrongs.
Before her stood Orin, a manic grin spread across her face, unnervingly wide. She would end this, and herself with it.
Leaping forward with a bloodthirsty mania she swore to supress, she fought. Not with weapons or spells, but with teeth and claw. Violent. Animalistic. She was barely recognizable, her body twisted into something Other. A bite ripping the flesh from Orin, claws digging towards her lungs. Kill. Kill. Kill. It echoed in Hymn's head, a mantra of death, a gift given to her by her Father.
More blood. More. Tear, rip, drag the body apart. She slashed forwards, over and over and over, until there was nothing more to slash.
Hymn stopped. Nothing more to slash? That wasn't right, it couldn't be.
She looked down at the stone floor, and saw what was once a body, but now nothing more than a pile of meat, if you could even call it that.
Hymn froze. Staring down onto the floor, where the pile started to twitch, rising. It was Him. He was here, and he was proud. Hymn took a step back, fear in her eyes. She'd done what she vowed to never do again. She had made her Father proud.
A refusal. It was the only thing she could still do. Refuse to do His bidding. Her body warped, bones snapping and muscle weaving itself, and it was agony.
Then it was there again. That wonderful, blissful nothingness.
She felt her bones snap again. Her nerves blending themselves together. It was bright. She was alive. Again. She wishes she could've just stayed dead.
The fourth time Hymn doesn’t die, but someone else does. It’s so much worse.
She always knew it would happen, they both did.
It had been years, Hymn and Shadowheart retreating to live in a cabin together after the defeat of the absolute. They had adopted a ton of animals, including the ever-so-loyal Scratch.
Even so, the inevitable crept up on them. A dream, a wound flaring up, a nagging feeling.
The sickly purple of the wound spread, streaks slithering up Shadowheart's arm and onto her chest. She was growing weaker and more tired by the day.
Hymn simply stood by her side, day after day, watching, unable to do anything.
A month passed, then two. They both knew it was over. The once normal skin was almost entierly covered in pulsing purple and black, and she'd become unable to as much as find the strengh to go on a walk.
Sleep, just like any other day before.
Eat, just like any other day before.
Talk to Hymn, just like any other day before.
Again.
The loop was a constant, something to keep track of, something keeping her with Hymn.
Sleep.
Eat.
She didn't have the energy to say more than a word or two anymore.
Again.
Sleep.
She could barely swallow the food on her plate.
Again.
Sleep.