Death

Death stood, silent and unmoving on top of the hill. Usually coated in lush green grass it was now merely an arid patch of dry dirt and weeds in an exact radius around the creature. The two trees to either side of Death had lost all their leaves, despite it being mid-Summer, and their bare branches bent as the wind whipped them around. This wind seemed almost non-existent to Death whose long navy blue cloak swayed, eerily calm, about where it would be safe to assume some kind of feet were located.1

Suddenly Death stirred, rising his arm in a smooth, fluid movement. As the long sleeve of his cloak pulled backward his hand and wrist became visible. At first it was impossible to tell whether the greyish-blue that showed was skin or simply bone, but the answer became apparent as the slender fingers clenched tight around a thick, brown stick in its hand. At the point of the knuckles the joint of the bones was visible and although it looked as if there were no muscles, there was no doubt over the strength of the being.2

With a sharp flick of the wrist Death exercised his power on a small hare that had felt something amiss and was fleeing to his warren. Feeling the intensity of the power run through him, Death moved forward at a swifter pace towards the hamlet, picturesque from this view, lying peacefully in the valley. 3

that prowled the living world searching for unwitting, or just unlucky, humans to drag to the underworld was simply untrue. 4

Death is a servant, a slave, to fate. Its job is purely to aid the transition between life and after-life.5