1 "I walk the path of the Ancient ones. Nature is my church"

Aethalia says while blowing out smoke. She stared at the woods with a glazed expression, feeling him as soon as he appeared. "Are you ready?" Asger whispers wiping her hair away from her forehead, the same tenderness in his touch. Even though they hadn't seen each other in years, had only known each other for one night. He had always felt a keen interest in Aethalia, to him she was an enigma. She reminded him of a spider. Weaving these webs that she only knew the direction of. But as promised they were at the end of the thread. She was out of time. "I think I've done all I could do," Aethalia admits smiling at him, her jade green eyes tired, not full of the same mythical wonder as they were all those years ago.

"I think you've done a little too much, to be honest." Asger chuckles looking around the empty field, startling when she said down in the long grass and lay back. She stretched her long arms behind her head giving him a small smile, her cigarette butt rolled up in one fist, her other hand cradling her head. "I would never give you the satisfaction of killing me," she says when he crouches next to her, feeling her pulse slow. He furrowed his brow anger sparking at his fingertips "The deal was,"

"The deal was," she cut him off giving a shining grin "Was I wasn't allowed to live past this year. And I won't. Henbane works quickly. I had to go out on my own terms." She grabbed his hand knowing he would understand because she knew everything. He scoffed not surprised she used a fucking poisonous plant to take her life.

Her eyes glassed over "I can't wait for you to meet him. He's so amazing." she whispered rubbing his knuckles, she whispered rubbing his knuckles. Asger pulled his hand out of hers and stood up, angry that she had tricked him.

He hadn't necessarily wanted to kill her, but it felt like his ending had been taken away from him. He had planned how he would hold her in his arms and slowly drain the life from her, tasting her death. No, she will have a mortal death, for the strange mortal life she had led. More meager than an ordinary human existence, something that could have stretched for years and years if allowed. Which it was not. She was too powerful, she was not of them, she was the daughter of them. Her ability to see the future was something only they could possess, and it did not take her long to out master the master.

Asger watched the light leave her eyes, the smile still on her mouth as she

breathed her last breath.

He had always thought he would leave immediately when he had been given the task to kill her.

Rather he sat in the grass beside her body, feeling the heat leave her skin as the night air-cooled.

Pulling seeds off of the grass rubbing it between his fingers, he thought of all the

webs she left behind and the trade-off. Wondering what contracts she just sealed

with dying on her own terms. How big of a mess he was going to have to clean up.