Chapter 176: A Story Without Ending.
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Arthur spoke again, voice low and honest. "My problem is that I don’t know what you’re thinking," he said. "You’ve been around
often... more than most. But I have no idea why."
Didi tilted her head, her sunhat casting a crescent-shaped shadow across her face. Her black eyes were endless they held a softness that made them no less vast.
Arthur’s gaze shifted away for a heartbeat before eting hers again.
"No offense," he added, "but seeing the literal personification of Death hovering around you... it’s not always a good sign."
That made her smile.
A small, almost playful thing.
"I’m flattered," she said gently. "But it’s not a surprise that you knew who I was the first ti we t."
She trailed off then. Sothing tugged at her thoughts.
Then, as if a realization blood mid-sentence, she stepped forward. Slowly. Barefoot on the warm sand. She stopped when only a breath separated them. Her voice was soft when it ca again, yet it reached into his bones.
"Wait a minute..." she said, looking into him more than at him. "You don’t even realize what you’re becoming... do you?"
Arthur didn’t blink. He straightened a little. Whatever unease had brushed against him evaporated in the heat of his own certainty.
"I’m well aware of what I’m becoming."
A breeze stirred between them, but she didn’t move. She watched him for a long mont, then finally stepped back, crossing her arms over the dark fabric of her swimwear like the mont required formality.
"No," she said, shaking her head softly. "I don’t think you fully understand."
The way she said it felt like it was the absolute truth with no room for a second option.
"You see, Arthur... there aren’t that many beings who do not fall under my jurisdiction."
She looked toward the ocean now not in distraction, but with the gaze of soone who had seen all things end. Planets. Gods. Suns.
"My task is to witness the last breath," she said. "To be the final presence. The one no one escapes."
She turned back toward him slowly.
"And I an it, Arthur. There are not many who stand apart from that... it’s a very short list."
Her eyes t his again. This ti there was no smile.
"You..."
She stopped.
Sothing shifted in her then. A ripple of emotion not fear or reverence, but constraint. As though the truth itself pressed against her lips but could not pass.
"I cannot tell you this."
Arthur took a step forward now, his expression tightening.
"What is it that you can’t tell ?" he asked.
The silence lingered between them like a stone dropped into still water.
And then, softly, she asked:
"Do you still feel emotions, Arthur?"
The question threw him off. Not because it didn’t make sense or that she was dodging his actual questions, but because it felt... personal. Like it reached sowhere deeper than anything they’d spoken about.
His brow furrowed.
"I think I do," he said slowly. "To so extent."
Her voice lowered, turned mysterious not cryptic.
"Good," she said, her eyes softening again.
"Then in that case... we are more alike than you think."
Didi’s voice was a whisper within a whisper soft enough to get lost in the ocean breeze.
She stepped forward again, closing the gap between them. Her hand, cool and impossibly gentle, lifted to Arthur’s face. Fingers brushed the side of his cheek, she looked into his eyes not searching, but revealing.
"I’ll answer your real question now," she said.
****
Farther down the beach, standing near the campfire that Robin made, Raven was frozen in place, arms crossed tightly, her gaze locked on the distant pair.
Arthur and Didi stood like statues in a painting too close, too still, and far too quiet.
Raven’s jaw tightened.
"I still can’t hear anything," she muttered, narrowing her eyes.
Kara, standing just beside her with her arms slightly outstretched as if feeling the air, shook her head in disbelief.
"Sa! I’ve been trying this whole ti!" Kara said, frustrated. "It’s like there’s... nothing. I should literally be able to hear plants grow, I don’t know what’s going on!"
"This doesn’t make sense.. The fucking earthworms under the sand are easier to listen to compared to that!"
She pointed dramatically toward Arthur and Didi.
"But them? Nothing. Nada. It’s like they’re in a soundproof god-bubble!"
Raven’s gaze hadn’t moved.
"Arthur must’ve done sothing," she muttered.
But even as she said it, doubt crept into her voice.
"...Except he can’t. Not on that level. He asked
for help last ti, a spell request. His magic is quite different; he is not capable of such spells."
Kara scowled, brushing back her damp hair and looking again.
But this ti, her expression changed.
She saw Didi’s hand still resting on Arthur’s face fingers against his skin like they’d known him forever. Saw the way his posture shifted not guarded. Open.
And sothing flickered behind Kara’s eyes.
Jealousy.
"...Why is she touching him like that?" Kara muttered in annoyance.
Raven heard it, saw it, and hated that the sa thought had already word its way into her mind.
She stayed silent for a beat too long.
Kara looked at her, trying to play it off with a dry scoff. "Maybe it’s just , but doesn’t that seem... too familiar? Like, she’s not even hesitating."
"It’s not just you," Raven said, her voice flat.
She folded her arms tighter across her chest.
"Arthur doesn’t let people that close.."
The Titans a few feet away Beast Boy, Jai especially had started murmuring to one another too, exchanging looks like they’d all started noticing the sa thing.
Raven narrowed her eyes.
Then her breath caught.
"...It has to be that girl," she said aloud.
Kara blinked. "Wait, you think she’s doing this, preventing us from hearing , is she a mage or sothing?"
Raven didn’t answer imdiately. Her expression had shifted into a serious one.The kind that ca with dangerous intuition.
"She’s not that simple, I’m sure of this." Raven said, slowly.
****
Arthur didn’t move not when she touched him, not when her words slid into his mind.
And Didi... she simply looked at him.
Then, slowly, she turned her head. Her gaze lowered not toward the ground, but to the dark figure stretching out behind him.
His shadow.
She lifted a single finger and pointed to it, and when she spoke again, it didn’t co from her lips.
It ca from everywhere.
The air. The waves. His mind.
"Your kingdom."
Her voice didn’t echo. It existed within him.
"Your soldiers."
His shadow pulsed softly behind him, flickering like fla for half a heartbeat.
"You walk through battlefields, tearing through armies, gods, kings, tyrants. And when they fall when their hearts stop, when their breath leaves them, they should see ."
She took a step, circling slowly.
"That’s how it’s always been. The mont between silence and peace. Between the end and whatever cos after for them."
He turned his head slightly to follow her.
"I am not punishnt. I am not rcy. I am only what must be."
"I take their hand. I guide them ho."
She stopped beside him again, not touching him now, but close enough that the warmth of her presence can be felt.
Then her tone changed. The softness remained but now lace with sothing Arthur didn’t expect.
Sorrow.
"But you, Arthur..."
She looked up into his face. Sothing flickered behind her eyes.
"You break that chain."
The words hit harder than any blade.
"You reach in before I can. You call to their soul with your shadow and dominion, and they answer."
"They rise. Not living. Not dead. Twisted echoes of who they were."
"Bound to your will. Locked in a second existence they never chose."
She paused.
"But strangely... they accept it."
Arthur’s brows furrowed faintly, a breath caught behind his teeth.
"And so, they don’t pass on."
"They don’t see the adows waiting for them. They don’t burn. Or shine. Or fade."
"They simply... remain."
There was no accusation in her tone. Only truth.
And that made it land even heavier.
Didi stepped closer not threateningly, but with quiet finality. Her voice was like velvet in his ears now, smooth.
"I can feel every one of them, Arthur."
"I know their nas, even if you don’t."
"I was supposed to be their final truth."
"Instead... you’ve made them yours."
Arthur looked down at his hand unconsciously, as if expecting to see sothing clawing at him from the inside.
Didi’s eyes didn’t waver.
"Do you know what it feels like, Arthur..."
"...to reach for a soul—and find it already caged?"
His breath hitched slightly.
Because now... he did.
He rembered even naless shadows once fallen enemies. They had all looked at him, knelt before him.
And none of them had truly passed on.
Not to peace.
Not to her.
"But now you do know," Didi whispered, softer now. Gentle again.
"I won’t stop you. I said it before when we t in that broken world, I’ll allow it."
"That’s not my purpose. I’m not wrath, or balance, or justice."
She smiled faintly now, the ghost of sothing amused dancing behind her words.
"And also... because I find you extrely interesting."
Arthur blinked, and her grin widened just slightly.
"And you know what’s interesting, Arthur?" she said, her tone turning light, musical. "It’s the things we can’t decipher. The puzzles that don’t solve. The stories without endings."
)
She let the rest hang.
Because she didn’t need to say it.
Arthur understood.
She stepped back at last. The mont broke, and the breeze resud.
"I’m just the one who cos at the end, nothing more." she said finally, her voice featherlight now.
Arthur remained still for a long mont.
Processing.
And then, with a steady voice with a smile.
"...I understand now."
Didi’s smile returned. Not the cryptic one. A genuine one.
"Good."
She turned toward the others on the beach, her tone suddenly playful, like a sister catching siblings eavesdropping behind a door.
"Let’s go back to the others now," she said.
Then she tilted her head towards where Kara and Raven were still watching, their jealousy practically glowing like a lighthouse.
"...The girls are already thinking of how to get rid of ."
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If you Like this story! Check out my other stories! Solo leveling in Westeros.
&
If you wish to read more or simply support
than check out my patreon at
"spatreon/FrenzyAren"
You can Get Access to 3 More Chapters OR 7 More Chapters if you want
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