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Agatha Harkness doesn't really remember when she first felt Death. It's fair, she's been alive for too much time to remember every monumental first encounter. Sometimes things just get lost on the way. However, she does remember the first time that she asked about It; more specifically, she remembered her mother's answer to her childish wonderings.
"Mother, If I'm a witch, and most of our coven is centuries-old, does it mean that I'll live for centuries, too? Does it mean that death will favor me, as it does you?" a ten-year-old, flushed-cheeks and bright-eyed Agatha looked to Evanora for guidance.
The great witch, with long, wild, greying hair, stood tall and indifferent to the longing in her derivate's voice. She did not care for Agatha's incessant questionnaire; she did not care for the power and defiance growing by the hour behind the girl's water-colored eyes, but foremost she did not care for the woman that the child would surely become.
"Expectantly; no."
After that, Agatha didn't mention Death nor life again. She didn't study It by herself, as she did everything else, nor did she try to plan her life around time. She learned what the coven taught her. She watched and memorized the things that her mother hid from her, and she swallowed knowledge until her guts were exploding with its dense weight, knowing that all of it ultimately amounted Death.
It was there though, behind her, every step of the way. Agatha could feel Death as a grimsome stalker, bringing devastation and companionship as It, for reasons she refused to interpret, trailed the same path as she.
It was chilling, at first. A breath of air. It was a shiver that would slide down towards the base of her spine and pool around the pit of her abdomen, time and time again. It was a sudden melancholy, a crushing pain in her shoulders and in her neck; It was the brutal lack of oxygen, the racing heart, the aching bones, the burning lungs. It was the fear and It was the intimacy.
She dreaded Death, as all living things do, but she felt devotion towards It, as no living thing should. She always looked back; not over her shoulder, and not with a fleeting glance. When she could feel the weight of the annihilator downing on her spine, when she could hear It's hushed-roar, feel It's paramount presence, she would turn around and face It; she would look between the ancient trees, and ground, and woods, and wait for It to appear somewhere. Anywhere at all, with any form or pattern, just as long as It would be something that she could look upon, just as long as she could glance at Death and know that It had been glancing back at her all along.
Agatha wanted the chance to subdue and surrender to It all at once.
She always imagined, when she wasn't trying to ignore, that Death would be Black, Staining, Tall and Greasy; sticky from the oil that dripped down of all the damned souls It had taken, or just from being down in the dirt all the time.
Death would certainly have a permanent burnt smell, from being permanently in between the fire of perdition and a forest haze. Death would not have a face per-say, at least not one with skin, muscles and bones, but there would be something that Agatha would look onto when It descended to take her with Its claws, not hands, to the other side of things.
In her daydreams, she would be walking in the woods, collecting herbs, looking for alters, finding only dirt, when Death would visit. She would stop in her tracks, breathe in, and turn fully around; As if to walk back, as if ready to run into death with fists, teeth, rage, and a bloody scream if she were to ever finally see it.
At sixteen only, Agatha carried all the hate and compassion of the world in her hands, and all she wanted to do was to confront Death with it. As if worthy, as if entitled, she would run into Death looking to kill It.
She would hit and bite, she would scream and use magick against It, and before the end, when she would have undoubtedly lost, she would finally ask ‘why me?’ and her breath would shorten.
’Why didn't you show yourself sooner?’ and her step would falter. ‘I'm too young to die.’ and though silently, Death would agree.
’I hate you’ and the oxygen on her blood stream would come to a halt. ‘I could've been your friend’ and Death, with no lips, no muscle, no teeth, no bones, and no face, would smile.
‘I never got to be anything but lonely.’ And her heart would stop.
Her pupils would dilate, a single tear would fall, and Death would embrace. It would be the warmest-cold embrace that she ever got to feel. By the end, when there would be no tears, no embrace, no words, no pain, no anything, Evanora would come to collect the emptiness of her and thank the Divine Mother for its blessing.
Her coven would use magick to move the stones that would cover her body in shallow grave, because they would only forfeit their power and dig into the dirt with their angry claws, never gentle hands, for the ones who were loved. No choir would be sung, no words would be spoken; between her and Death, she would always be the covenless one.
But Death didn't appear then, not when she was a lonely child; not when she was an insecure teenager, and not when she was a conning young witch. Many years passed between the days when she had hoped to meet Death and the night when Death finally met her.
The trees continued to grow, as did she, and as did her power, but Death remained hidden in darkness; always lurking, never daring, knowing that time was Its most faithful weapon and Agatha’s most daring enemy.
Later in life, when she revised those memories, she would say that her mother had always felt It too and she wished that she could've asked her when there was still time for them two.
‘Mother, I feel death upon me, but It doesn't reach Its claws… It doesn't stain. It doesn't rip. I'm tired of It grabbing at me around the shins and forcing me to carry Its weight on every step. I wish It would either take or release.’ she could’ve said.
'And I just... I just - I want to live... I don't know why; I know that it isn't right to want it this badly, but I want to live - Mother, do you feel It too? does It waken you in the night? do you feel Its spectral touch at the base of your spine when you bend to see your reflection in the lake?’ she wished to have said.
‘Do you even look at your own reflection? The reflection that you made willingly only to now despise.. are you even aware of how much a' person I am? Have you any love for me at all, Mother?.. if Death was to look upon me, from under my mirrored face in the water, if It reached It's airy, greasy, incorporeal grip on me and pulled me to abyss, while I screamed and fought and drowned, would you dare save me? would you even consider it? would you want to? - oh Mother, why do you refuse to love me. Why do you so gladly divine into the day of my demise?... Don't you know that it'll come for you sooner?’
but that’s how it would've sounded, and so she never did; because the words between Evanora and herself could never amount to anything more than resentment and rejection. She never spoked to any other witch about it either, because in her walks she was always looking for something, but the something was never looking for her, and so it should remain a secret that even the thing that wanted everyone could never find it within Itself to want her; there weren't beautiful words to be spoken about that, no glory in obsessing over something that refuses to obsess back.
And then there was One day. And then all the searching and betrayal was at last made worth.
One day, she walked into one of the many sisters of her coven practicing magick out in an empty field. The one of many - Jenny, or Florence, maybe Sara - was in black; her hair was long black, her hands were dripping black, her garments was flowing black, and her lips spoke spells which Agatha had not yet heard of.
The smell of the earth in the sixteenth century was something in between heaven and a fire; each evening felt like peace, sweet nothing, and with it came the heavy heart and heated air. It was almost sundown as she came across a familiar witch; everything was humid and so alive.
Agatha felt her blood freeze through her veins, while her hands and face sparkled and burned beneath the surface.
As she walked into a private moment without any invitation to, caught in a trap of her own making, she knew nothing of what would come, but she felt it in her bones that something was bound to shift.
Her sister in the craft turned to face her, like herself had turned to face Death so many times before, with rage, fear, hate and affection in her eyes; as if ready to die and eager to kill. Their dilated pupils locked on one another, and though uncertain about many things, they each knew that only one of two would survive the unfortunate encounter and neither one wanted to be on the losing side.
- Jenny, or Florence, maybe Sara - spoke, mocked, and laughed manically with tales of demise and endings upon her lips, holding Agatha as the only object on her sight.
It was a thrill like no other to feel so cornered and free; to be so connected to another witch that their thoughts were almost blended into a singular matter.
The desire to both win and lose was so strong that Agatha could feel it sparkling from the tip of her fingers to the ends of her hair.
Before she could reckon or prepare, red blast was cutting through her upper body. She felt the burning from inside out, as if she were a fish and a fisherman had trusted a knife deep into her womb and proceeded to drag it up all the way to her throat.
Her scream was loud and shrill; for a distressing moment, she feared that she would lose bladder control and her death would not only be premature, but wet, warm, putrid and humiliating.
Her sister smiled as she tortured her from the inside out, and from behind her smile Agatha could hear her mother's voice; behind her eyes, Agatha could see her entire coven's evil and magick.
Their nutriment, love, knowledge, and fear all woven alike.
"..Does it mean that death will favor me, as it does you?"
"Expectantly; no."
Death was there then, on One day, and it was a comfort. She felt Its strength like never before. Its power was like blazing radiation behind her back; It was what magick could only hope to be.
Agatha wished that she could've turned to meet It head on, like she always had, in her daydreams.
She wished that she could've looked at It. She wished that the suspense would finally be over, but all she was given, and it was more than she deserved, was touch.
At her narrow hips, in the base of her spine: around the front, atop her womb, where the metaphorical knife had been plunged and dragged upwards, then at her sternum.
The annihilator was touching her and It was airy, and so fleeting, yet It held so much force.
She gave in by inches, and she wanted to, and she wasn't ready to, but she didn't have a choice.
Death was there, and It laid its affections upon her, and It spoke to her silently, so it could only mean that her time had early arrived.
There was too much life to live, too much skin to touch, too much power to gather; unprepared for battle, all she knew how to do was to lose.
'This can’t be it.’ She gave in further. ‘ It can't be so pointless.’ She gave more and knew that there was little left to give. ‘I haven’t even started yet.’ And she conceded, far more used to surrender than to succeed.
As Death stood firmly behind her, Agatha gave every last drop of herself. Her muscles burned and melt. Her skin broke in cold sweat and her legs shook; dying began to feel like living.
Her throat scratched, her vocal cords faltered, and yet she whispered in broken tone, if only for her own ears to hear; I deserve more time.
"Death, it can't be all the time that I have.. it cannot be" It echoed through the clearing, though she didn’t believe that anyone but herself could hear its intense volume.
She had called Death by Its name for the first time since childhood, and it felt fair; though she could not know it certainly, as she had never really met fairness.
Agatha tasted the hopelessness in those words as she spoke them, as her sister blazed her into an early, unjust, uncalled-for grave.
She imagined that all living things have once spoken those exact same words, before and after her, and they never held any meaning to the grim reaper, as It came to do a job and could only leave after the work was done.
All hope faded. She did not make peace with it; she closed her eyes instead. She waited in the dark, knowing that darkness she would soon become.
All hope was lost; until all hope was won.
"Then it mustn’t be.” Death answered.
Everything became green, then red, then purple. The power that had once gutted her, vastly filled her with anew vitality.
Agatha kept filling up and overflowing, absorbing and exuding; life spilling out as if her body had too much of it to handle at once. Her breast became fuller, her hips felt wider, her lips were plump and her eyes acute. Even between her legs, it felt newer; awaken, different, like never before.
Purple was poured into, and Red was poured out of; green was nowhere to be seen.
Winning felt fair, though she had never really met fairness before. It was everything she had lacked for so long, yet she couldn't keep herself from missing something; from craving a prize that she had not and would not receive, though she knew that she wanted and deserved far more than any other.
After the opponent witch fell to the ground, grey and empty, Agatha followed close behind, though alive and in chaos.
Her eyes searched around for Death, but Death had been long gone, and herself was far too exhausted to find It again; she waited the whole night and well into sunrise, hanging on naive belief that It would return.
Agatha screamed for It, begged for It; nothing came, not even wind, not even a single particle out of place. Nothing came.
She slept when she could no longer sustain alertness. She held the mummified hand of her fallen sister in the craft, and in her mind, it was Death that held her back; it was Death, not a corpse, that kept her safe from harm in the cold dark earth, just as it was Death, not the power stolen from a combatant witch, that had sealed her fate in that day.
Hours after her victory, when she woke up with more of her sisters surrounding her - looking down on her just as Florence had - still out there in the dirty ground, while holding hands with decay, she learned two important things; they had always hated out of fear, and she was always destined to be a coven-less witch...
The stake was tall and ready before she had even stepped foot in their coven-stead; there would be no trial for the witch proclaimed guilty at birth.
Still, she begged her mother for mercy, though she knew it in her heart that a woman incapable of cultivating even the idea of a kindness act, would never be able to give her anything other than a sentence.
In a desperate attempt to save herself from a horrible end, Agatha promised that she could be good, though she knew it was a lie since she never even understood why they saw her as bad in the first place.
Agatha had always been cruelly aware that her creator was unresponsive towards her, yet it felt like a wounding denouement when Evanora preferred self-sacrifice than to let her at least try to be good.
That was how she lost her first coven; the first scarlet drops of what would be the red river of a life time.
It was back then, in the sixteen hundred, years of heaven and fire, that Agatha learned that she was made for the loosing.
Unlike before, with the first sister that she had killed, Agatha didn’t feel like Death was standing behind her when she decimated her entire coven; she had felt all alone when fighting for herself.
As It always would, Death came, but only after the battle had been lost and won; only when it was too late to matter.
Agatha stood above her mother’s corpse, looking down at its shrunken figure, and she wondered; ‘Why did I ever crave the approval of a lesser witch than I?... And what to do with my life now that I have no one left to impress?’
Death stood as still as she did. Death studied her, and she studied herself. Death remained in the shadows, between two ancient threes, covered from top to end by a black cloak.
The grim reaper. The Angel of death. The original green witch; standing there and waiting for Its time, giving Agatha the delusion of control.
All that Agatha could really see was its height; she hadn’t a clue what laid under all that darkness. It was faceless. It was handless. It was heartless; It had so many names that by the end It had no name at all.
Agatha watched It, with tears and snot running from her eyes and nostrils, and other than desolation, all that she could feel was how envious Death made her.
Nameless, Faceless, Handless, Heartless, Endless and Alone, all Agatha could think of was how good it must feel to be the original of something; how good it must be to call oneself by its own name, and to know who they are and what they do and why.
Agatha killed; she took all things that were not hers for taking. She was a witch, a powerful daughter in the Salem coven – now the only one left – but she knew nothing of herself, her doomed power or of her destiny.
She didn’t know why she killed. She didn't know how she took. She had no idea what to call her magick, and yet she had always been certain that she was the original of nothing.
They stayed there, with enough bodies between them to make it feel like they understood one another.
Thereupon Agatha realized just how bittersweet it all was; it’d been herself, all along, who had invited death into her path, who left a trail of bodies along the way, who sucked the life out of Florence, Jenny, Sara, Evanora and all the others.
It was her own cruelty, not Death’s mercy, responsible for allowing her more time on this earth than she was meant to get.
It was her own choice to steal life from her sisters and pour it into herself. It was her eyes that sought spells of dark magic; her hands that grabbed into knowledge that she’d been to young to possess.
It was never an accident, it was never lacking intention; she knew that to live, she needed to keep Death by her side, and she knew that body and soul was all that Death ever wanted.
She kneed to her mother’s corpse and touched her decomposing flesh.
She apologized; lied again, to no one but herself.
“I didn’t mean to, Mother.” She whispered and cried some more when it downed on her that she had never felt so alone before.
Death walked around her all night long, touching corpse by corpse, as if dancing through each of them, as if overtaken with elation by the sight of misery.
It was the first time that Agatha had felt fear of Death; the first time that she saw it as a slaughter house, not a friend.
She told herself, she made it believable, that she was the only one with free choice, so that when she turned away, she would be free and it would be over; Death would not be allowed to make the choice to follow, as it was a thing that belonged to the universe, not a person who was free to make decisions…
She knew enough not to look over her shoulder as she walked away, not to show lack of certainty, but each of her bones ached and every single breath became more of a struggle as the distance between Death and herself grew.
It would be easier without the taker of souls walking behind her everywhere; life would be more elated, less sentenced, if she learned to walk alone. Everything would be better without Death, she knew it and furthermore she believed.
It was neither fate or possibility that made her turn around. It was neither love, hate or fear that tugged at her heart when she saw Death standing meters back, exactly where she left It, with all the shrunken bodies beneath, looking at her like a trained dog; too confused as to why it was told to stay, but far too loyal to disobey.
It was then that she knew Death was the same as her, and no matter how fast she could run, there could never be any scape from herself…