• Back when time was filled with darkness and the wonders of the Earth were still being discovered, when prayers and sacrifices were sent to gods for a bountiful harvest or as an aid in war, there lived one peasant girl by the name of Dasha. Dasha was unlike any other women on Earth, for her beauty they say, rivaled even the most beautiful Goddess in Heaven. But Dasha's story is not a light one on the heart. Born in the most rural of areas, her father was never in her life. "He's always here" her mother constantly told her whenever Dasha brought up the subject of her dad. Her beauty attracted every man that laid his eyes upon her, with her long brown hair waving behind her in the night's wind and her physique that no other women could match. As promising as this may seem, an unwanted eye was fixed upon her and would not go away.

    Death himself had fallen in love with her. With all the admired beauties of the past, living in his chambers he was not satisfied. He longed for this woman, this heavenly gift that was bestowed upon man. He sat in his chamber, looking into a ball that allowed him to gaze upon Earth with his cruel and heartless eyes. His scythe, his tool of judgment, sits next to him within an arm reach. He massages his skull peering at Dasha with passion and love. "What am I to do" he constantly questions to himself. For he loved this woman who had no idea he truly existed, for he loved a woman that could never see him until he came to her and took her life. "Such a marvelous thing" he said leaning forward to get a better look at her hazel eyes through his globe "It would be a sin to leave it on Earth." He looked at his scythe and sighed heavily, falling back into his chair. For even the God of Death had rules he must obey. He must not take an innocent life that has done nothing wrong. And that is why he sat, and always watching and waiting, for the second she sinned, he would have his Queen.

    As Dasha cleaned off a table in the inn, her white cloth wiping up bits of food that had been spilt, she sighed and wiped her brow. It was middle summer, which meant it was hot, humid and beyond miserable. Several men sat at a table, watching the young beauty clean up the messes others like them had left in their wake. They all joked and laughed as she bent over and picked up the tray in which the dishes and mugs resided before they were cleaned.

    "A beauty such as you shouldn't be cleaning tables." one of the men said as he walked beside her, slowing his pace to meet hers. "Allow me, it must be heavy."
    "I can manage." Dasha replied as she walked behind the bar into the back.
    "Who is that beautiful creature you enslave here?" the man asked the barkeep.
    "Dasha, daughter of the old hag that lives at the west end of town." the barkeep replied as he wiped a glass.
    The young man nodded as he watched the girl clean the plates in the back. "Such a shame…" he trailed off as he rejoined his friends.

    As Death sat in his chamber, his dark eyes watching the young man who attempted to flirt with his would be queen, he growled, his scythe glowing and trembling beside him. He must do away with the mortal man, but he had to wait until he had caused a reason for Death to come and seek him out. He growled silently, his eyes never leaving the babe in the looking glass.

    When Dasha's job was finished she bid her boss goodbye, gathered her things and left the pub at sunset. By the time the sun had set she was usually safe inside her home with her mother, but something seemed to be interfering with her normal routine. As she left the pub, the young man snuck out of the bushes and began to follow her, matching his steps with hers so she wouldn't hear anything other than her footfalls on the gravel in town.

    The young man crept closer behind Dasha, his heart began to race as he couldn't contain himself any longer.
    "Hello beautiful." he said as he stepped in front of her. "Can I walk you home?"
    She sighed, "No. You can not." she replied trying to move around him. "Let me pass."
    He grinned, "Oh no. Not until I get something from you first."
    "What could you possibly want from me?" she asked, as she tried to go around him once more.
    "Oh there's plenty," he paused as he looked down then up, taking her in as he sniffed, "That I could get from you." he finished as his smile went from innocent to sinister within a blink of an eye.

    Dasha's heart began to race as she tried to keep herself from panicking. She backed up, first one step, then two, and then three until her back pressed up against the cool wood siding of the inn's woodshed. The man pushed her up against the shed, covering her mouth as she tried to scream. Dasha clawed at him, her fingernails digging into his face as he stood back, holding back a cry of pain as blood dripped down from his hand. He went to move in and kiss her, she moved her head. He went to caress her body; with all her strength she slapped his arm away. He went to grab her and take her as his own, but he let her go and his body fell to floor, his eyes rolling into the back of his head. Dasha stared at the man, his body void of life as a tear dripped down her face she ran as fast as she could to home.

    Death sat back down on his throne, resting his scythe back in its place. A new scream filled the hauls of his palace. He grinned to himself as Cerberus tossed this fresh soul up and down in the air, catching it in its teeth, biting at it, snapping at it, and tormenting it in any way it wished. A new thought ran through Death's mind which he had not thought of before. He could not kill the girl. He had the chance there, all he had to do was let her be violated, she would have committed a sin and she would be his for the taking. But he couldn't let her sin be unwillingly. It seemed that even Death had a heart and a conscious.

    The sudden death of the man quickly spread around the small town, and over the course of a few days everyone had heard about what happened. How just when the paragon of beauty was about to be defiled, the would be rapist dropped dead in his tracks. Dasha hoped to never have to re-live the awful nightmare again, but now she had become the forbidden fruit of the village. The temptation that if you so much try to kiss her, you will die. The lure of the sacred women, "oh how amazing it would be with her" all the men thought. They all laughed between themselves in a drunken stupor that even "Death is jealous he cannot be with her" not knowing the very truth of the statement. From then on whenever someone came up to her with devilish intentions, they suffered. They suffered horribly and with great agony as Death ripped their souls from their body without a moment's hesitation. They suffered as Death humiliated them in both their life in the manner that they died in, and even in the afterlife by what he made them do. He would not let any man destroy the beauty of his Queen.

    Some men were not as dull and dimwitted as the men that dared to be seduced by Dasha's beauty and the now almost unquestionable relationship between her and a quick end. Town meetings were held, councils were called to order and riots were formed. The aura of death surrounding this woman was no coincidence to the villagers. They had come to the conclusion that she was a witch.

    Late in the night she was stolen from the bed in which she slept, gagged and bound together in her night gown by rabid villagers who were convinced that witchcraft was at the hand of this. Thrown onto a bed of twigs she was to be burned alive for the acts of evil she had committed. As the riot raged on above on Earth; Death grabbed his sickle and headed towards the realm of the living, waiting to finally claim his prize.

    "Each and every one of these villagers is right for the killing" Death thought to himself, his scythe glowing in the aura that the night's blue moon. The flames climbed high into the night, to light the sacrificial light to the gods, to send this evil back to the bowels of hell from which she came. Death chuckled to himself as he walked towards the site. He would now have his Queen all to himself. He removed his hood from his barren skull as he gazed upon her. Even now, she was the most beauty creature he had ever seen. He raised his scythe high up into the air, to take her soul and go down, down, down to the deepest part of the universe where he roamed free.

    A loud noise echoed throughout the world as the flames above Dasha collected themselves. A phoenix soared majestically over the burning area staring deeply into every person's heart that was there, even Death's. The phoenix roared in anger, unheard to the mortals but clear to Death's ears. "You, one who is banished to the underworld, you who has sought my daughter's soul now for weeks on end now. You protected her from sin, only for her to die in this manner. You protected her from harm but gladly let her suffer at the hands of these mortals whom you could have slaughtered. But instead you let her burn because your greedy soul could not withstand letting her be defiled if it was not by your own hand. For this you will never receive my daughter, you shall never feel her warmth!"

    The phoenix ever so carefully lifted Dasha's body from the fury of the blazing fire in his great beak. He flew away up in the sky towards heaven, never to be seen again. Death fell on his knees, his scepter falling to the ground for the first time since the beginning of the ages. She was the daughter of a god who had revealed itself to him and everyone at the site as a phoenix. Death now realized it, no matter what he did, even if he did not let her die as she just did, he would have never gained possession of her soul for she was immortal in a sense, and would live in heaven after her time on Earth was completed.
    So Death, with grief in his heart, grudgingly went back to his domain, placing his scythe next to him, sitting on his throne and continued to peer into the ball to watch over the Earth again.

    ((the picture represents Dasha's rise into heaven in her father's embrace))
    (Also, if you like this I added up a story called Bury Me)