Death Deity Boyfriend: Erysicthon Part One (complete)

I built the crypts as an attempt to bring comfort, for once I was a reckless being with not an ounce of empathy in my blood. I was once nothing but bloodlust, one of the most feared warriors ever known. My hand ushered so many of the living into that final sleep called death. I regret my ways - in fact, I often find that I hate myself. 

In an attempt to rectify my days of endless murder, I want to bring comfort to the living. I tend to their dead, preparing their bodies for the afterlife. I do not tell the living that the bodies do not matter after death. What made them alive is gone. Bodies are merely vessels, like vases or boxes, storing what is important. Some mortals can grasp this concept, but it is the material most cling onto. People cannot grasp souls. They cannot touch the corporeal, but the body is there, and to them the body is still their loved one. 

It is not my place to tell people how to grieve, it is merely my duty to allow them the comfort to. The crypts were just the beginning. I built them with my own hands and sectioned them so that the graves, the bodies, may be laid to rest there. I have offered my services to the bereaved in preparing the bodies to be entombed for their final rest. 

I know I am not the most comforting of figures, so I keep myself hidden away, taking the offerings the people leave behind and tending to their deceased loved ones. I guide them through the crypts, which is the only time most mortals see me. I isolate myself, but I feel it is just to do so as part of my penance. I was once a knight for a god who is now dead, a god who took my head and the head of my siblings as punishment. I was his Knight of Death, his favorite, he once told me. But his love was conditional, and a burden.

Lately, the world has been quiet. The deaths that come through my door are usually the old. Even a few years ago, I was busy tending to the young who died during wars or in times of famine. My tables were covered by mortals who should have had many years ahead of them. It became something I knew I had to numb myself to. Back when I was known as Death, it was my mission to destroy, to kill. It gave me great joy, a thought I am repulsed by now. It didn’t matter who it was, I just followed orders. If I wasn’t Death, then I was of no use. There would be someone else willing to take my place and stand beside the now-dead god.

When my head was taken, I think it was the first time I ever truly felt suffering. In the past, I had reveled in it, taken a sick pleasure in agony. I loved to experience it, I loved to watch it, and yet when my head was taken from me, I grieved. I agonized for weeks, stumbling into a depression that should have been my demise. But my siblings sheltered me. They protected me and then, all of a sudden, the threat was gone. The god’s own children dealt with him, and his threat was no more, but we fled regardless.

Valery dragged me to what became my home. It was at the base of an extinct volcano. He told me to hide until I was back to my normal self, and he would try to find somewhere we could stay. I sunk further into my own sadness, laying there until I became covered with moss and vines. I stayed there for I’m not sure how long. It wasn’t until then that I noticed the mortals who lived near the river bringing their dead to bury. There were many of them, mostly young men who had gotten ambushed in the fields. I rose from my place, knocking moss and earth from my body. The people were struggling to bury their sons, so I approached to offer my help.

They were terrified of me, but they did not run away. Instead, they threw themselves upon the bodies of their dead. While they cowered, I dug the graves, and once they were made I went away.

A few days later, more came to bury their dead, leaving offerings for me to dig the graves. Then a few days later they came again, and again after that. Eventually, I built the crypt, and then my home, where I would prepare the dead. I was still Death to the people, but in a much gentler sense. I was not the one who brought violent death, but the one who protected the dead. People saw me as a gatekeeper to the afterlife, a guide who would help ease their loved ones on. The truth was, I eased the living beyond death. The souls of the dead did not need me, but the souls of the living did.

I once rode upon a steed of smoke and ash, a mere shadow to the world like the dust of a moth. I had once had one that was all bone, but I gave it to my brother, Valery. Now, I keep my steed near the crypts, and they carry the dead towards their final resting place. They are perhaps the only creature I have contact with daily, along with the moths that have come to call my home and the crypts their own. Dozens upon dozens, perhaps thousands of them, linger here. They float about in the crypts and they come to rest on my shoulders. I do not mind them. They are quite lovely, and they have become a symbol within the village around me, signaling death amongst the people. 

I have gotten so used to the moths that they do not bother me. I work around them as I tend to the dead, dressing them while the moths flutter on their cold skin. I simply shoo them away and go on with my work.

One day, as I am tending to a man who had fallen from his roof, I turn my back for a moment as I fetch some supplies. As I turn, I notice a large moth hovering on the man’s face. I try to shoo it away, but it lingers.

“Go on now, you,” I scold it. “I am trying to work.” I gently brush my hand over it, but a hand reaches up and sharp little nails slice at me. 

I grasp my hand to my chest and look down. If I bled, it might be worrisome, but only black smoke falls from the cut, which heals up quickly. I approach this strange moth again and it suddenly rears back, having pulled a tooth from the dead man’s head. The creature is no moth, but some sort of ghastly little fairy. Its appearance is white and gangly, with massive black eyes that cover most its face. It hisses at me, jutting out a blood red tongue. It grasps the stolen tooth and quickly flies away.

I am too horror-struck to do anything. I have heard of tooth fairies, but if I had to be honest, I took it as a child’s story! It seemed like such a bizarre thing to be real. In any case, I return to work. 

I start to see the horrible little tooth fairies more and more, taking the teeth from my dead. Most of the time, there is only one of the horrible gangly things. Other times, I notice two, at most three. 

I have tried everything to keep them out, but somehow they keep finding their way into my workroom. I am lucky the dead are covered when buried, or else I would have to find a way to explain to the bereaved why their loved ones are missing teeth!

One day as I am trying to work, I hear the chittering the tooth fairies are making. Turning around, I see one opening the mouth of one of the corpses. They plunge inside, wriggling their ass as they try to get a tooth out.

I grab the fairy. It screams and hisses, spitting at me as I toss it into a cage. It screams more as it thrashes about wildly. I hang it on the ceiling, glaring at it as it pitches a tantrum the likes of which I’ve never seen.

“I’ll capture every damn one of you if I have to!” I snap at it. “You disgusting, vile, little things keep pestering me and my dead! I’ve had enough with your thievery.”

“Mother will come if you do!” The small thing squeaks. Their nose twitches as they hang off the bars. “Mother will come! And you don’t want that!”

“Mother?” I chuckle. “You think I find you threatening?”

The fairy spits at me, then cackles. “Mother is not like us. She is not children.” It skitters about the cage, going upside-down and sideways. “Mother is big.”

“Big, you say?” I return to the body and close their mouth. 

“Bigger than you!” the fairy hisses, then giggles, making that grating chittering sound again.

I wipe my hands and stand before the cage. “Your Mother does not scare me. Is she the one you steal teeth for?”

The fairy rushes towards the front of the cage, swinging its hand out at me. “If you do not let me go, she will come and rip every bone from your head!”

I chuckle to myself. “Then let her. I think she will be surprised when she does show up.” I return to work. All the while, the little fairy hisses and tosses insults at me. 

“What is that?” the fairy huffs. “What are you doing?” They skitter about the cage, making a horrible racket. 

I am wrapping the body after having prepared it, clothing it in a special silk. I wrap it from foot to head. By this point, the body is stiff and I have already positioned it, which makes it easy to wrap.

“What are you doing? Why are you doing it?” the fairy repeats over and over.

I shoot a dirty look at them as I reach for another roll of silk. “Why do you steal teeth?” I snap at it.

The fairy rattles the cage. “They’re dead, what does it matter what you do? Toss them in a hole. Set them on fire. Why don’t you eat them?”

“Is that what you do with your dead?” I grumble as I wrap the head, paying special attention over the eyes.

The fairy shakes more on the bars of the cage. “Mother tends to us. But that still does not answer my question. Why not eat them?”

I scoff softly and glare up at them. “Why won’t you shut up?”

“Let me go and I will be ever so quiet,” they cackle. “Come now, you know you want to. Or else you’ll deal with Mother,” they sing.

I scoff. “Let’s start again,” I grumble. “My name is Erysichthon. Who might you be?”

“I am not saying that name. Why would you even want to be called by that? That’s just an insulting mouthful, and I think you want people to get embarrassed trying to pronounce it. I’m going to call you Sad Sack.”

I scoff. If I could roll my eyes, I would. “Then I am going to call you Pest.”

“Fine, call me that, it won’t matter when Mother comes and rips your head off, Sad Sack.” They cackle and clap their hands. “Sad Sack! Sad Sack!” they sing, swaying too and fro so the cage swings in the air. 

I finish binding the body in the silk, and then I drape a sheet of cheesecloth painted with a prayer over it.

“Do you like this or something?” Pest scoffs. “Dealing with dead things all the time?”

“They are not things, Pest, they were people.” I scold back at them.

“Yeah, but they’re dead. Why does it matter?” Pest tilts their head to the side, white hair spilling over their shoulders. 

“It matters to the living left behind,” I reply cooly.

Pest furrows their brow. “Yeah but… why you, Sad Sack?”

I glance back at Pest in the cage. They’re hanging upside down along the bars, their wings spread out and twitching.

“Long story, Pest,” I reply, bowing my head down, or at least, the helmet I wear over my empty neck. “Not one I wish to share with you.”

Pest rattles the cage again and hisses. “Mother will come and she will snap your neck! Then you will be the dead one, Sad Sack! And you will be thrown into a sack and tossed away like garbage!”

“Maybe so,” I grumble. “But at least I am not a bug in a cage.”

Pest screams, shaking the cage violently as I leave the room. I go to find my steed outside, surrounded by moths. I prepare them to take the dead to the crypts. As I am placing the special saddle on their back, I hear a familiar chittering. Looking up, I see other tooth fairies perched along the stones of the mountain. They are staring at me, watching me with a wicked look in their eyes. 

“Why don’t you come and join your sibling?” I snarl at them. “There is more than enough room in that cage!”

They all start screaming and hissing, quickly flying away up the mountainside. The ghastly little things annoy me more than bring any sort of dread. After all, all they do is steal teeth, more a grotesque nuisance than anything.

After Pest, I capture two more of the awful tooth fairies, who I name Creep and Pill. Creep is a bit bigger than Pest and Pill, while Pill has a slight blue tint to their skin. Both are just as irritating and malicious as Pest is, and yet they are worse together.

“If you just give us the teeth, we wouldn’t bother you so much!” Pill hisses.

“Leave them for us and you’ll never have to deal with us again,” Pest adds.

“Or Mother,” Creep giggles quietly.

I turn towards them. “You keep mentioning this Mother, yet I have seen no mother,” I scoff at them. “I am starting to think there is no Mother and she is a made-up story like you should be.”

This causes another royal tantrum from the trio. They hiss and scream and thrash around the cage. “Mother is real! She is not as fast as we are!” Pill screams. 

Creep stretches their arm from the cage, swinging wildly to try and hit something, anything. “She will eat every bone in your head!” 

“Once Mother comes for us, Sad Sack, you will be sorry!” Pest snarls as they hang onto the bars. “Mother will not be pleased with how you’ve treated us! The longer you hold us, the worse it shall be!”

“Then I hope she does come, then we can have a long chat about how you have been stealing teeth from me. I would love to give her a piece of my mind and find out why teeth are so important to you.”

The fairies continue their tiny rampage within the cage as I leave the room. I go upstairs and stand in the empty kitchen. The fire flashes on, and moths start to cascade down from the ceiling to come closer towards the warmth. Little fluttering wings land on my shoulders and arms as I take my kettle and place it over the fire.

I lift up my hand, watching the small moths dance around my fingers. They’re such delicate, pretty things, and I have grown so fond of them. I can still hear the fairies downstairs, and I close the door so I can ignore them.

As I sit down to wait for the kettle to boil, I relax for a moment, allowing myself to drift in the quiet calm around me. As the kettle whistles, I hear something that sounds like the doorknob rattling. I take the kettle from the fire and set it aside when I hear the noise again.

I halt, wondering if it is the fairies downstairs, but then there is a knock at the door. This is strange. There is never a knock at the door. Those who leave their dead do so outside in the appropriate spot, where they would ring a bell to alert me. 

I approach the door as another strong knock shakes the boards. “Who goes there?” I demand loudly. 

I hear a soft breath from the other side of the door. The knock comes again, now a gentle sort of rapping. 

“I asked: who goes there?” I repeat. “Announce yourself or I will not answer this door.” I try to peer out the window, but it is too dark to see anything.

“Bold,” the voice sounds feminine. “Considering you are holding my little darlings hostage. Let me in now, or you will be lucky I even knocked on the door.”

“So, you’re Mother.” I murmur. “You are real.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” she growls from beyond the door.

I grasp the doorknob, slowly opening it. I keep it ajar as I peer at this supposed Mother. I am half expecting a swarm of the tooth fairies to be waiting there. Instead, there is a tall, willowy figure just beyond the door.

She stands towering above me, much like Pest had taunted, draped in a thin white fabric that shows her body beneath. There is a hood with a circlet around her head. Her face looks much like the fairies, only far more refined. Her pure black eyes are slanted upwards at the corners, looking very much like a cat’s. Her cheekbones are high and jut out like sharp knives. The hollows of her cheeks swoop down to the angular corners of her mouth, cutting concave lines towards the back of her head. 

Her visage is so strange and beautiful that I am hypnotized by her. I do not even realize her hand is raising up from the shadows. She lashes through the crack in the door, grabbing hold of my throat and forcing me back, pushing the door with her. The door swings, knocking me aside, and Mother pins me to the wall, slamming me against it. I try to fight back, grabbing hold of her wrist and pushing at her. She pushes back, hissing into my face so that her mouth opens wide. She bashes me again against the wall, and this time it dislodges my helmet.

It falls from my neck, clanging to the floor and rolling away. Her eyes widen, flickering white at the corners for a moment. Smoke slowly rises from my neck where my head should be.

“What sort of trick is this?” Mother hisses. She swings her free hand through the smoke. “Where is your head?”

“Gone,” I choke. “You won’t be eating any bones tonight.”

Mother drops me. “Eat?” She scoffs. “I suppose the children have been trying to scare you.” She chuckles to herself. “Awful little things, aren’t they? But I love them so.” She looks around the room. “Where are they?”

“Now, hold on just a second,” I cough. I slip my hand around my neck. “I need to have a word about you and your little thieves.”

She cuts a cold look back at me.

“Yes, thieves,” I snap. “They have been coming in and taking teeth from the dead for a while now. I want to know why!”

“The dead?” she murmurs. “Why does that matter? They are dead, just hand over the teeth.” She scowls down at me as I stand up. Her eyes flicker over me while her head tilts to the side. “Wait… Do I know you?”

“I hope not.” I keep my hand around my throat, just in case she decides to lash out at me again. 

Mother smirks. “Now tell me, where are the children?”

“Not until you tell me why you’re stealing my teeth,” I argue.

Mother shakes her head and points a finger at me. “How can they be your teeth when you have no head? They are the teeth of dead men. It shouldn’t matter to you.”

I stomp my foot down. “But it does matter!”

Mother turns her whole body towards me. “My children. Now,” she snarls at me. “I will not ask you again.”

“Erysichthon,” I tell her slowly. 

She stills for a moment, her eyebrows lowering. “Say that again.”

“Erysichthon,” I scoff at her. 

“My, my,” she whispers. “I have not heard that name in ages. Not since I was a young girl.” She smirks at me. “Do you not remember me?” She lays her hand on her chest. “It has been a long while, but surely, you would not forget a girl who professed her love to you?”

I take a step back. “Excuse me?”

Mother’s smile vanishes and is replaced by a horrible scowl. “Ages ago, you and your knights came into my father’s kingdom. I was seduced by your power. I had never been so frightened and enamored with a man before. I was just a girl, what did I know?” 

“Wait-” I whisper. “Your father was that madman with all the skulls,” I gasp softly. “You were that insane girl who-”

Mother throws her head back and laughs. “Insane?” She glares back down at me. “My father was a genius! It is because of him that my children could be born.” She flicks her tongue across her lips. “Oh my,” she purrs. “I have a secret for you, Erysichthon.”

“You drove me crazy!” I snap at her as it all comes back. “You seduced me, you kept me like some sort of pet!”

“You enjoyed it for a while,” Mother huffs, crossing her arms. “You said bedding me was better than killing men.”

I keep my mouth shut tight.

“Well, in any case,” she sighs. “You got away, didn’t you? You obviously did-” She sneers for a moment. “Now that your god-king is dead.” She turns, possibly hearing her children downstairs.

“I remember,” I growl. “Your father was killing masses of people to take their skulls. He was using them to try and create some army.”

“And his efforts led me to success,” she chuckles. “Albeit only the teeth.” She breaks into a massive grin. “Actually, it was your affections that truly led me to success.”

“Affections?” I snap. “What are you-” I stop suddenly.

Mother comes towards me, placing her hand on my shoulder. “It never mattered before if you knew or not,” she chuckles. “I suppose it is all fate now that has brought us back together again.” She lowers her head down with a cruel smirk. “Father.”

I push her away, glaring up at her as she starts to roll with laughter. “How dare you?” I roar. “This must be some kind of cruel joke.”

“How I wish it were,” she sighs, lacing her fingers together. “But this is cruel reality. My dear Erysichthon, my children are made with some of your essence. The power you held allowed me to bring my father’s dreams into reality.”

“That’s why you need the teeth,” I shudder. “To create more of those horrible little creatures!”

“That is not so kind to say about your children,” Mother laughs wickedly. “How dare you, Father?”

“Stop it!” I snarl. “Stop it right now!”

Mother calms, a smirk crossing her lips as she gazes down at me. “I have so many fond memories of you,” she whispers. “Stealing away and making love in the gardens. It was cold then and I remember how it felt as your sweat dripped down my body. I remember how you liked it when I spanked you.” She licks her fingertips again, taunting me. “You also liked it when I bit you until you bled.” She touches my chest. “Do you still have the scars?” Her fingers trace where my nipple is. “You came so hard when you saw the blood on my lips.”

I grab her wrist and yank her away from me. “Stop touching me.” I hate how badly my heart is hammering.

Mother chuckles, “Show me the children.”

“Downstairs,” I pant. “Take them, stay away from me, and keep them away from my dead!”

Mother steps towards me, placing her hands on my shoulders. She dips down, kissing my neck and then gently dragging her teeth across my skin. I shudder and try to twist away from her.

“How about this,” Mother whispers. “Instead of my fairies coming to steal from your dead, I visit you alone.” She gives me a dark look. “I am running low on your essence. My storage is becoming quite depleted.” She tilts her head to the side. “You may not have that handsome face anymore, but it’s the body I am after.”

“I am not like that anymore,” I whisper.

Mother sighs. “You’re hard right now, so I would say some things really never change.” She holds her hand out to me. “The dead or me, which shall it be?”

I grimace, but I take her hand and shake it. “One night a week, and I will provide teeth from animals as well.”

“Only once a week?” she tuts. “Fine. I am sure we will work well together again, Erysichthon.” She goes downstairs and Pest, Pill, and Creep fly up, knocking over my things as they shoot out the door.

When Mother comes back up the stairs, she looks quite pleased with herself. “I will see you later then, Father.”

I sigh, watching her as she goes out the door. I cannot recall her name, only faint memories of the love we made. She had been wild, and I had indulged our mad affair only because she gave me a love that was unconditional, and a passion I had not felt outside of battle. 

For a moment, the dread I feel slips away as I consider that perhaps that affection could return. But that was long ago, back when I was wild and mindless. She had kept me well, but kept me still. I will not allow that to happen again. Our meetings will be purely transactional. I will not allow myself to fall in love with her again.

I do, though, wish I could recall her name.