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As it turns out, Heaven is not the easiest of places to reach.
It is dark, here at the Northernmost end of the world, past the point that even demons dare not cross. The sky is a perpetual night and the moon casts them all bone-white. Frieren heads their little group, casting protective magic over them all as they stand in lily field. She is no priest, but it is the best she can do.
Ahead is a river, and beyond that, a great mist. On a rock, beside the river, there sits a creature made of shadows. Their many eyes peer around, and their skin (black as night) holds a spear. Their many wings are spread out and hand to define alone the edges. Their teeth show clearly—sharp and ebony.
“Is that an angel?” Fern asks, odd note to her voice. Her hand is drawn to her chest, fingers tight gold engagement ring glinting in the dim light. That child…. even now, she still thinks Frieren knows everything.
Frieren has never been one for lying. “I do not know.”
“I hope that’s not an angel,” Stark shivers, looking appropriately unnerved. “That’d be a scary thing to greet me after death.”
Frieren contemplates the thought, tilts her head ever so slightly, and straightens up. “They could be friendly.”
Fern stares at her for a moment before startling. “Frieren wait—!”
But Frieren has already walked over. “Hello.” She looks the maybe-angel in the face. Up close, their features have an eerie sort of beauty. “May I go past?”
The maybe-angel stares with their many eyes, and sighs so quietly Frieren almost mistakes it as a breath of wind. However, there is no wind here.
“And,” Frieren adds, after a moment, “are you an angel?”
“I am the Keeper,” the Keeper says, looking down at her from their enormous height. “I fly souls across the river on my many wings. I am not anything a mortal would understand, but you may think of me as an angel, if you wish.”
She digests that. “You consider me a mortal?”
“Elves are the closest mortals to attaining immortality, but in the end, you are only an elf,” says the Keeper. Their voice slips through the air like slow falling silver. “And I have lived a very, very long time. Longer than you can imagine.”
“Oh.” What’s this feeling? It’s weird. “Well. May I pass?”
“I will not stop you,” says the Keeper, but their voice rings like a warning, and Frieren waits patiently. The Keeper stares with their many eyes. “...But,” they finally say, “you will have to swim. Every second in the river will sap a decade from your lifespan. Beyond that, every step you take will bring the weight of mortality, and every breath will be poison in your mortal lungs. Past this bank is not made for the living.”
“I understand,” Frieren says. “But I am an elf, and a decade is nothing.”
“So you may be.”
Frieren steps towards the edge of the bank. A bone cracks beneath her boot.
“Frieren!”
She looks over her shoulder. Fern and Stark look so worried. Why are they so worried?
“It will be fine!”
Fern walks over, pulling Stark behind her. Why is Fern upset? She has that small, pinched look to her expression, like she is about to cry. “You better be!”
Oh, Frieren realizes. She thinks of Heiter, far beneath the earth. “I will,” Frieren says, softer this time. “Trust me.”
Stark sniffs, rubs at his eyes, and doesn’t look away. “Have a safe journey. Or—well, safe as you can be in—” Fern elbows him. “I mean, yeah! Stay safe!”
“Thank you.” She takes off all her unnecessary items and places them atop the bank, by the others. She thinks of saying goodbye, but doesn’t. If she were to die, it would only be a mere eighty years until she saw them again.
The water is inky black. Frieren cannot see it’s depth, but that’s alright. She steps in.
It is colder than ice. Is this really water? At this temperature, it should be frozen. It takes everything Frieren has not to step out, and to instead run in. She is no longer the child of her first centuries; she does not need Master to rip off her bandages—she can do that herself, now.
The river is more angry than it looks. It drags her down with invisible hands, and does everything to steal her breath. It burns a fierce cold that does not numb, only becomes all the more biting. She cannot catch air during any period above the water, but she can hold her breath. That will have to be enough.
Her lungs scream.
Frieren counts seconds.
There is no world outside the river; no touch beyond the freezing bite, no sound beyond the roar of tides, no thought beyond hold your breath across the river and count your decades.
On the one hundred eighth second, she grasps a rock on the far bank. Pulling herself out feels a larger task than climbing the tallest mountain, but she manages. Collapsed here on the riverbank, clothes soaking and limbs shaking, Frieren takes her first breath in exactly one hundred ninety three seconds.
Relief does not come.
The air chokes, and smogs, is too-thick too-thin, and her limbs grow only heavier beneath its weight.
Oh, she thinks, this is what the angel meant.
Not meant for the living indeed.
Frieren lost her shoes somewhere in the river. She forces herself to a stand, and continues on through the haze. There is a light ahead, and she is following a trail of blue moonweed flowers. She will find Himmel, at the end of this trail; she knows this sure as she knows the cycle of night and day.
How did the intent of her heart bloom a pathway? This is magic beyond her. She does not question, only follows.
The mist gives way to a great celestial light, and Frieren pauses at the foot of a green, flower-strewn hill. Atop, there is a figure laying in the grass, head towards the sky. It was always Himmel prodding her awake, saying: Frieren don’t sleep the day away! There is so much to do! But, she supposes, there is not much time to lose in death.
The trek up is a heavy one. With every step her limbs grow weaker, and with every breath her lungs scream. She nudges Himmel with her toes. He does not wake. She kicks him instead.
“Hey!” Himmel startles, twisting around. The ebony of his bones is stark against the grass. “Who—oh...”
“Hi,” says Frieren.
He stares. “Surely I haven't been dead that long...no...” It would be unnerving, to be stared at by a skeleton, but this is Himmel. It is not. “Frieren you’re alive.”
“Yes.”
If he had flesh, Frieren imagines he would be blinking. “Jeez,” he says, straightening up into and applesauce sit. “Well...I suppose you just couldn’t help traversing the land of the dead to see my dashing looks once more!”
“Winking does not work when you have no flesh,” Frieren deadpans.
“You’re so mean!”
Frieren ignores the remark. She does not have long here, after all. For the first time in a long time, she feels without time to waste. She relaxes her fists. When did they start clenching?
“I cried at your funeral.” Himmel freezes. There is a period of silence, but Frieren does not let it stretch. “I did not know you, I realized. For we only had a short ten years. Tell me about yourself, please.”
“Oh,” says Himmel. “I don’t—what do I..?”
“Anything! I do not have much time.” Her lungs ache and her shoulders strain beneath the weight of death. Frieren does not know the expression on her face, but Himmel startles and starts.
“My favorite color is blue and my favorite time of day is dawn and I used to have a brother but he died when I was young and my hometown is my favorite place in the world but the mountain you brought me before death is a close second!” He takes a breath. It rattles in his hollow chest. “My dream was to be remembered fondly and I have a soft spot for birds and the best years of my life were those traveling with you.”
It is a lot, but Frieren is unsatisfied.
(She will always be unsatisfied—ten years is such a short time. And what can she learn in ten minutes that she cannot in ten years?)
(If she even has ten minutes.)
“Death has been weird,” Himmel says, eventually. “I feel myself melting away from...everything. Someday, once these bones crumble, I will be One with the world.”
Like a second death. “Does that scare you?”
“No,” Himmel says. He sounds so honest. “I will be the earth and the grass and the sky and the clouds. There is nothing to fear in that.”
“I see,” she says. “No one could ever forget the world itself.”
“No,” Himmel agrees. There’s humor to his tone. “And for me to become one with the stars...nothing could fit my radiance more!”
Frieren has the strangest desire to laugh, but doesn’t. She huffs.
“And what about you?” Himmel stands and peers at her.
Frieren does not understand. “What?”
“How have you been doing?”
“Not much,” she answers honestly. “It has only been a little under four decades since your passing.”
Himmel sighs so quietly that Frieren almost misses it. “Surely it was not all monotony?”
Frieren thinks about that.
“I suppose not.” She thinks more. “I have continued collecting grimoires and spells.”
“That’s you!” He laughs. “Continued getting stuck in chest monsters?”
An inexplicable heat flushes over her cheeks. “I’ll find one someday!”
“I’m sure you will.”
“Don’t make fun of me!”
“I’m not!” Pause. “I believe in you.”
She huffs, but he sounds so honest that even in this frosty place, she feels warmed. “Besides that… The drunkard priest tricked me into getting an apprentice. Fern is engaged now, to Eisen’s apprentice.”
“Really?” He asks, like he can’t believe it. Then: “Frieren that’s wonderful! So...you haven’t been lonely.”
Is it possible for skulls to smile?
“I guess not,” Frieren says, perhaps a beat late.
“That’s good…” He laughs and taps the side of his face the way he always did when he was feeling sheepish. “Perhaps that many statues were unneeded after all.”
“No!” Frieren denies, surprised by the vigor of her own words. “No. I like them. It’s...nice, coming across them.”
A pause. Himmel stands there, in his white robes, as a white skeleton. The light makes him look so soft. “I’m glad.”
Her throat hurts form more than just this rancid air. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me,” he says. “...You should be going, huh.”
Frieren feels as though she is bearing the weight fo the entire world, and she wants to stay for longer, but cannot lie. “Yes.”
“I’ll walk with you back to the river bank.”
They go down the hill, grassy ground turning into formless nothing that sinks beneath her feet, but bears her weight all the same. Himmel slips his hand into hers, and Frieren clutches it tight. It’s no longer warm, but it is Himmel’s, and that means something.
With every step, her burden grows only heavier. By now, she is weak, but doesn’t let it show. If only she had more time…
(Thus is the weight of death, huh?)
She has to…
She must ask something important!
“Why did you insist I come?” Himmel does not pause in his step, but if a skeleton could look confused… yeah. “When you found me in the forest.”
“Oh. We needed a mage.”
“I know that,” Frieren says. “And I know—I know it was also because I saved you when you were but a child. That I showed you flower making magic...but beyond that. Alone, that cannot be enough.”
They’re at the river bank again. Frieren is facing Himmel, raging waters behind her, and he is fixed on her face. Thinking?
“...Because you seemed lonely,” he finally says. “Or something akin to that.”
Oh, Frieren thinks, of course. That’s just like him.
Just like him?
Oh, she thinks, again, playing through her book of memories, and looking at his bare face. His hand is still in hers. Oh.
Maybe she did know him, after all. Just a little. Just enough for her heart to mourn and ache for more time. Just enough for her to fall in love.
Frieren realizes she has fallen in love, thirty eight years after the death of her would-be lover.
“Oh,” Frieren says. She can’t breathe, and feels the very threads of her existence slipping and coming undone within this place of death and light. “I—thank you. I’m glad you did.”
Himmel nods, and gestures her towards the river. She needs no reminder. The water envelops her once more, and she swims through it’s wailing rapids. It is icy, and pulls her down at every moment, and she is weaker now than when she first entered. But…
There are people waiting for her on the other side.
She cannot drown here, cannot let her time with them, too, be lost.
Himmel’s soul may be undergoing its second death, may be becoming one with the world, but Frieren is still alive. As is Fern, and Stark, and…
Her hand grasps a bone on the river bank. It cuts into her skin, and—
A warm hand clutches hers.
“Frieren!” Stark says, pulling her ashore.
“Welcome back,” says Fern, who is instantly wrapping her in a blanket, picking her up, and bringing her towards a fire. The Keeper watches it all from their place atop the bank. Right. This...this…
Finally, Frieren can breathe again.