Death Deity Boyfriend: Erysichthon Part One (special preview)

I snap a dirty look at them as I reach for another roll of the 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 Sadsack.”

I scoff and, 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, Sadsack.” They cackle and clap their hands. “Sadsack! Sadsack!” 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 over it that has been painted with a prayer.

“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 flowing off their shoulders. 

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

Pest furrows their brow. “Yeah but...why you, Sadsack?”

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, Sadsack! 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 as they are 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 mountain side. The ghastly little things annoy me more than bode 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 whom I name Creep and Pill. Creep is a bit bigger than Pest and Pill, while Pill has a slightly blue color 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, Sadsack, 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 on all of that and find out why teeth are so important to you.”