Episode 245: Death & Dying (Niels)

Niels was already in the mood to burn down the world, so when he got to Death Realm and wasn’t anywhere near his mom or, at least, Drey or someone worth talking to, he scowled. A lot.

Fuck everyone.

Why was there another him here?

And why was he grinning?

“Usurper,” Not-Him accused.

Things to do in the future: Figure out who the fuck this guy was and why he looked just like Niels. “Not yet,” Niels joked. “I haven’t done that part. Aren’t I supposed to be in that body, not looking at it?”

Obviously Death was broken. Except that Not-Him didn’t have the Family tattoo, with the guitar and roses, on his right forearm. He hadn’t seen the guy’s left bicep but he bet the Regnbue tat wasn’t there either.

Someone else. Not-Him.

“Niels,” his dad said. Fact, no emotion or opinion, because he was a dick and dicks didn’t have personalities. “Are you okay?”

Why the hell had he gone to his dad? Was this what was going to happen when he really died, too? Was he going to be stuck with that asshole for eternity? If so, it was a good thing he had ten thousand years to get used to the idea.

“Oh, yeah,” Niels said. “Being dead is great. Seeing you is even better.” He looked around. It was the estate. This guy had the balls to rebuild Falkhus in Death, even though it wasn’t even his. He wasn’t a Poulsen, he was a Frandsen, and he had no claim to Falkhus.

Those were the terms of the engagement between Viggo and Giana: Because Giana’s parents had no sons, Viggo would marry into the family and take the name Poulsen. It wasn’t like Niels becoming Alandrial, either, because Niels actually wanted to be Alandrial. Viggo…couldn’t wait to get out.

Fuck him, for making Falkhus his home here.

“Where’s Mom?” Niels asked Viggo.

“Is she here?” Not-Him asked, but Niels got that feeling that was pretty rhetorical because he immediately said, “No.”

“She hasn’t been here,” Viggo added. “Why?”

What a waste of time, and now he was stuck talking to this piece of shit.

And…

“I have a twin?” Niels realized. His mom must have lost the baby.

And what had she gone and argued with Mel for anyway? Couldn’t she have just kept things peaceful and calm until the attack was over?

“No, actually, you stole my me,” his twin joked. He offered a hand to Niels. “I’m Espen.”

Good for him. It was a douchy name, for a douchy twin who thought he was fucking hilarious.

Niels didn’t take the hand.

  “Do you guys want to be alive again?” he asked. He had to ask, even though it killed him – physically severed every artery of his soul – to offer it to his dad. “Or do you like it here?” he hoped.

“I would have to ask Edvard,” his dad answered.

What.

Oh, hey, do you want to be alive? I don’t know, let me ask my boyfriend, the guy who destroyed our family and left your mom to pick up the pieces.

Let him rot, then. Maybe some kind of toxic moss would grow up the walls of Falkhus and kill him a second time.

“How do I find someone else here?” Niels asked both of them, without really looking at either.

“You just think of them,” his dad said.

“Perfect. See you around then, hopefully in a few thousand years.” Niels helped himself to standing, since he’d refused Espen’s help.

Why the hell did he have to have a twin?

Talise was the twinny one, not him. She was all about her twin, speaking of people who ruined families.

Oh, wait, they were trying to be nice to Acheron now. Because why not.

He needed to calm down. He could feel it, all the rage surging through him like electricity.

“What about the alive thing? What does that mean?” His dad stepped closer to him like he’d stop him from going to Drey if he could.

Laughter ruptured out of Niels, as hot and angry as any fire magic. “The right choice was alive, not I have to think about it. But you’ve never given a shit about anyone but yourself and Edvard, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“I’ll go,” his dad said, like he was doing him a favor. He looked over at Espen. “Will you?”

“Yeah,” the guy said. “I’ll get Edvard.” He went off into Falkhus through the side entrance that faced the pond.

“How did you die?” his dad asked, once they were alone. “Your mom…”

“Was murdered,” Niels finished, “but apparently brought back. I was looking for her. My wife will be here soon, today or tomorrow.”

“You have a wife?” His dad was way too interested, like he had a right to know this shit just because he’d slept with Giana twenty-two years ago.

Being a dad was about a lifetime of commitment, not a single act.

“What is happening in life?” his dad asked, eager.

An idea blossomed in Niels’s mind, like a wildfire in dry underbrush.

“Um,” Niels said, like it sucked. “I got into drugs when music didn’t go well, and then I got this girl pregnant, so we got married.” He shrugged for stylistic effect. “It’s okay.”

He almost thought his dad was surprised – his eyes got wide – but his dad was an asshole and shouldn’t have expected Niels to accomplish anything with his life.

“How many kids do you have?” his dad asked. “Just the one?”

Ha. Niels loved this answer because it was perfect, and it was still true: “Way too many to fucking count. More coming, too.”

Let his dad chew on that.

“But you’re…twenty-two? His dad guessed, wrong. “If I come back, will you straighten your life out or continue down this path?”

Niels rested his palms on the back of his head, fingers interlaced. “I learned parenting by example, so I’ll probably keep sucking and die again soon,” he declared.

“My intent wasn’t for you to suffer,” his dad apologized. “Didn’t you get the trust?”

They’d gotten the trust, alright. Money didn’t make up for absence and unnecessary death.

“Do you have any idea how much coke costs?” he invented.

His dad sighed.

They just stood like that, angsty and dissatisfied, until Espen walked out with Edvard. It sucked that Edvard looked so much like Eddie, because Niels loved one and hated the other.

“Ready, I guess,” Espen announced. He gave Niels a wary look like Niels was a firecracker or a bomb. Good, let him be scared.

“Awesome,” Niels muttered. He held his hands out by habit, to transport, and then decided he probably looked like an ass. “Or do we get there without magic?”

  “You think of where you’re going,” Edvard, the thief, said.

  Somehow, in his dad’s mind, Edvard was a better life partner than Giana.

Just like Ach was for Spence, apparently. Except Niels knew Spence and Ach and he could see how bad of a misfit Talise and Spence were as a couple.

Had Viggo and Giana been like that once, and Niels was too young to notice?

“I’m not sure what that has to do with being alive…” the thief commented.

Fuck him.

“Good luck in who you know,” Niels said, more than a little smug. He imagined the portrait of King Drey, Talise’s dad, and a second later they all stood outside some kind of cathedral place surrounded by overgrown grass. It looked derelict.

Someone opened the door and came out. Holy shit. It was Drey. 

Niels reached to straighten his tie or check the buttons on his shirt or something, but he was just wearing a t-shirt with a skull and roses on it.

That.

He wanted that shirt to exist in life.

“I’m afraid I haven’t the faintest idea who any of you are,” Drey said in a crisp, arrogant voice. He didn’t sound as gay as Niels had expected him to.

Niels stepped forward and offered his hands. “I’m Talise’s husband,” he supplied. “Has anyone named Giana been by?”

“I’m afraid not,” he said. The wind caught his hair, which danced upright, even more upright than Meldrick’s did.

It was whiter than Meldrick’s too.

“I thought she was with Spence?” Drey asked.

Right, because Spence died once, back when Talise was pregnant.

Another guy came out, this one almost as pale as Drey, but all his hair was redder than Nell’s. He gave a nervous smile towards all of them and stood beside Drey, like he belonged there.

Niels bet he had a gay voice, even if Drey didn’t.

“No,” Niels answered Drey. “Although her heirs are Spence’s. He’s with Ach now, and happy, and Talise is with me. She just had twins this morning.”

His dad stepped forward. “Heirs?”

Greedy bastard. Why did he care, anyway? Niels preferred the version of events where he was a druggy shit parent just like his dad.

That wasn’t fair. Viggo hadn’t ever been an addict, as far as Niels knew.

“Talise is a fairy princess,” the nervous red guy said. Huh. His voice wasn’t very gay either. Didn’t people in Death Realm watch movies? Didn’t they know how they were supposed to sound?

He felt like a jerk, for expecting stereotypes. This was Talise’s dad, not just some random guy.

The red guy, though…why had he gone and explained who Talise was?

Espen, almost next to Niels but a little behind him, grumbled, “Figures.”

So there was some resentment there. Maybe he meant the usurper line.

Niels appealed to Drey, ignoring the other distractions. People. “Someone – we think Tsinganoi – murdered my mom.”

Drey and his red buddy shared a look. The red guy said, “You knew them.”

“Did she do something to Rhoda?” Drey asked Niels.

Nope, she saved her anger for Mel apparently. “Fuck no, she’s never even met her.”

“Then Rhoda was probably thinking long-term. I would guess she’s alive, somewhere, since she isn’t here. I’m not certain she ever was.”

“You just had twins?” the nervous redhead asked. “How are they?”

Niels shrugged. He shouldn’t have brought his fucking dad. He could be getting to know Drey right now instead of this tense bullshit. “Premature, but they’re Dragon princes so they’ll be okay.” That should be cryptic enough to exclude his dad from learning too much. To Drey, for their protection in case the twins died, he added, “Alde and Caspian.”

“When do we return to life?” Niels’s dad asked.

Oh, nice. He wanted to be there for his grandkids, did he? Was that what he thought he’d do?

Drey frowned at Niels’s expression, whatever it was – probably murderous – and said to Viggo, “Oh, are you coming with? Is that why you’re here? Any time now, probably later than sooner, but I wouldn’t say unbearably late. Within a year, I should think.”

Holy shit, the guy liked to ramble.

“I’m probably going back soon,” he warned Drey, “but if you see Giana can you tell her Mel says he loves her and he didn’t mean what he said?”

“Meldrick?” Drey asked with a new kind of interest. A hunger that wasn’t even really there when he asked about Talise. 

Old wounds, Niels guessed.

“They were married,” Niels explained.

Drey’s eyes scanned Niels’s body from head to toe once. Niels didn’t think he was checking him out. He actually kind of got the weird feeling that he was using Niels to decide if Giana was good enough for Mel.

“I’ll pass that along, should I see her,” Drey promised. “How is she?”

“Good. She joined my band, but we donate most of the proceeds to charity. Oh,” Niels was a dumbass. “You mean my mom?”

Drey laughed. “No, I meant Talise. I ought to have been more clear.”

Okay, then, Niels wasn’t a dumbass. “Really good. Scared about the attack.”

“Yes,” Drey acknowledged. “I’m looking forward to meeting her finally.”

“Well she’s…you know…” Niels had no fucking clue how to say that nicely. “Looking forward to being dead. Can’t wait.”

“We will watch over her during her visit,” the redhead promised.

“Thank you. I’m Niels,” he offered his hand to the guy to shake.

“Khale.” The man hesitated, glanced at Drey, took a step back, and asked, “Do you have an update on Konrad?”

Holy shit. “You’re that Khale?” Drey was with Konrad’s ex and Konrad was with Drey’s ex. If they were alive, Niels would suspect Wicca involvement, but he guessed anything – even insane coincidences – was possible in death.

“Konrad’s doing well,” Niels told him. “He’s married to two different people though. I’m sorry.”

Khale laughed. “After thousands of years, I’m just happy for him.”

  “He’s taken over most kingdoms in Elesara, at one point or another,” Niels told him. He tried to think of other news. “Right now he’s just retired from the Dells.”

Khale nodded his head; Niels guessed he’d probably heard most of this before.

“And Aadya? How is she?” Drey asked him. “How is Meldrick, too?”

“She’s good,” Niels had no idea where to even start with her mess. The Greg shit, the Mel shit, the Konrad shit, the Nell shit… “Her husband just died too. She had a set of twins last night – Nell’s”

“Did she?” He sounded surprised, but after a minute a smile crept across Drey’s face.

Niels was about to explain more. Before he could, he heard Spence’s voice, then Corban’s, calling him.

“Anything else?” he asked.

“I’ll be there,” his dad promised, “if it’s possible.”

Fuck him.

Only Niels’s heart wasn’t really in it anymore; he realized that something in Khale’s presence had soothed his anger and given him a few moments to relax and converse in peace.

He closed his eyes, forced himself to relax again, and let the voices call him home.

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