— — —
Emma was still working on human-school homework when Valen arrived for her ‘guest lecture,’ as July called it. Since their lessons had started to grow longer and take up more of their Monday afternoons, July had set a rule that Emma should make sure her official homework was done before they got into Seer subjects. As much as she disliked having to wait, she knew it was good that someone was holding her accountable; otherwise, she probably would’ve forgotten to do the homework altogether.
But on this particular afternoon, she was even more frustrated with her English work than usual. Reading assignments were fine as long as nothing distracted her. Vocabulary assignments were fun, since she could share them with July. But having to write things herself? She was at a total loss.
“I…still need a few more minutes,” she confessed, glancing in the general direction of July’s shoulder. The room was dimmer than usual, all the curtains drawn, but the buttons on her blouse still shone.
“That’s all right. Valen and I need to talk anyway,” her tutor answered. “Keep at it, and we’ll be right back.” Then the two older ladies retreated into the kitchen, and Emma did a very poor job of focusing on her work rather than catching bits and pieces of their conversation.
“You haven’t seen him again, have you?” Valen was asking, sounding irritated that they were talking. She sounded like that most of the time. July hissed at her to keep her voice down, so Emma didn’t hear her actual response. Who were they talking about, she wondered? July didn’t really like seeing much of anyone. There were a few more hushed whispers, then Valen’s voice raised again as she said firmly, “Look, the sooner you put him out of your mind, the sooner he’ll be out of your life. I put some pressure on him and he agreed to leave. He’s not about to endanger his own ‘fun’ just to pursue one mortal.”
Her tutor let out a frustrated sigh. “Fine. If you’re wrong, I suppose I’ll find out soon enough.” When they returned, July saw that Emma was no longer writing and asked (in a much more pleasant tone), “All done?”
It was all but a reflex to smile back and answer, “Yep!” Emma felt a little guilty for lying, but that was quickly overtaken by her excitement about the day’s lesson. Ever since their trip to the Crossroads, she’d been dying for more firsthand accounts from immortals.
With July seated at Emma’s side on the couch, both armchairs were empty, so Valen took one and unbuttoned her blazer as she sat down. “So how does this work? You just want me to talk? You have questions? Can’t say I’ve ever been interviewed like this before.”
“We have plenty of questions.” July nodded at Emma, who had already turned to her list of curiosities about Valen’s nature and her past, which she’d been writing down over the past few days as they came to her. But before she could start, July surprised her with a question they hadn’t discussed. “First of all, who is Thanatos?”
Valen stared at her, blank-faced, for a second before letting out a snort of laughter. “Is this a trick question?” she asked, but July was waiting expectantly. The Reaper sat back in her chair and crossed one leg over the other, then gestured to herself, like it was ridiculous that she should have to say it.
“It is you? I should’ve known,” July muttered. “But I thought Thanatos was a man. One more thing the writers of your history got wrong, I guess?”
“Nah, it just changed over time; I used to think the same thing.” Valen shrugged. “Live and learn.” Emma wasn’t sure exactly what that meant. Judging by July’s raised eyebrows, she figured it did mean something, but before she could ask for clarification, her tutor glanced at her and cleared her throat to change the subject.
“Emma. What was your first question?”
Easily guided back to her original train of thought, Emma looked down at her notes and read aloud, “Are any other death deities involved in your work? Like, do they help you schedule stuff or…reap or whatever?”
“Deities,” July repeated with a grin. “Good word.” Emma beamed at her praise, glad she’d remembered that term from one of their earlier talks.
“No such thing as ‘other death deities,’” Valen explained, shaking her head. “There are death-related deities, maybe. Every religion has them: psychopomps and shit. Judges. Guides. But there’s only one death-with-a-capital-D, and you’re looking at her. So no.”
“Wait, then what are the others?” Emma piped up, unsatisfied. Their lessons had broached several different religions at this point, and the idea that she had misunderstood bothered her. “Like Yama? Or Osiris, or even Hades? I thought they were Death gods, too.”
“Not quite. Those are all gods of the Dead, not Death. The ‘Underworld’ or the Afterlife for their followers: whatever happens after death. Up until then, they don’t have shit to say about mortals or their fates.” The Reaper sat back and cocked her head to one side, absently drumming her fingertips on the arm of her chair. “Yama and I butted heads for a while if I’m honest, but we talked it out eventually. He’s more of a judge than anything, so as long as he gets full control of his souls, he’s fine with me handling things topside. He doesn’t want my job. No one else does.”
“But Thanatos. That is you?” July asked. The Reaper let out a sigh.
“It was. If you want to get technical, that’s as far back as I go in mortal terms. It’s the first name I was given.”
“Given?” July asked. She and Emma exchanged glances and both sat forward a bit, curious to learn more. “Then what was your original name?”
“I’m saying before the Greeks, I didn’t have one. Most of us didn’t. We were just there, existing as concepts that mortals hadn’t figured out yet.”
“So you’re a Greek god,” Emma reasoned, hastily scribbling down Valen’s words in her notebook. ‘Existing…as…concepts…’
“Is that what I said?” Valen asked with a frown. “No. What I said was they put a label to what I already was. They didn’t create me or vice-versa. They were just the first ones to start recording and worshiping us. The Olympians related to Greece a lot more personally than I ever did.”
“Okay,” July began tentatively. “Where did you come from, then?” Valen frowned as she removed her shades and placed them in a pocket inside her jacket. This was the first time Emma had seen her eyes, and the sight gave her a little chill of discomfort. She tried to actively combat the feeling, knowing that as a Seer, she shouldn’t be affected by immortals’ ‘passive effects.’
“Look, if you two are hoping for some kind of objective historical account here, you’re going to be disappointed,” Valen told them. “There’s no one definitive ‘this is where the world came from’ story.”
“Maybe not, but you could give us your version.”
“Okay,” she said at length. “But don’t blame me if you can’t understand it. My ‘parents,’ if you want to call them that, were some of the first gods of their kind, the kind big enough that they don’t fit on Earth: Nyx and Erebos. As for me, I’ve existed almost as long as humanity has.”
“I guess there was no need for Death if there were no mortals,” Emma figured.
“Right. Not that anyone was really grateful for my presence. I wasn’t very popular with mortals or other gods, if you can believe it.” Emma covered her mouth to hide a snicker, but the Reaper seemed unbothered. “Anyway, the Romans eventually commandeered us from the Greeks and renamed us; for them, I was Mors. It was still worship, so no one really cared who it came from.”
“From whom it came,” July muttered, and Valen flipped her off casually.
Emma hesitantly raised her hand. “So does that mean you know Cupid?” Ever since July had mentioned Cupid during their first meeting, Emma had gotten a tiny bit obsessed with zir. Although the two of them had discussed everything July knew about zir, Emma was still eager for more information.
“Sure. I would even if we weren’t related. Everyone knows Cupid,” Valen answered, unaffected by the change of subject. It seemed like she’d already resigned herself to answer whatever was asked of her, so she didn’t bother questioning it. “Or the other way around. But yeah, Eros—Aphrodite’s brat—was…a distant cousin of mine, I guess. You wouldn’t figure it from meeting Cupid, but he was a little shit.”
“Oh. Really? I thought Cupid was one of the nice ones.” Emma frowned deeply at the idea that July was mistaken, that maybe there really wasn’t a single nice immortal out there.
“No, listen: Cupid's great. Zie’s literally the nicest person you’ll ever meet,” the Reaper clarified, as if she was worried about Cupid being misrepresented. “But Eros was a dick. It’s really not an exaggeration to say they’re two different people. Like me and Samael.”
“Who-mael?” Emma asked. To her surprise, a sort of mischievous smirk curved Valen’s red lips.
“Right, you wouldn’t know that one. Samael’s the name I went by back when I was working for”—she pointed at Emma—“your god.”
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