To You, From This World to the Next

Summary: A blasé god of death roamed the earth for centuries, seeking for something that would alleviate his constant boredom. It was by chance that he laid his eyes upon him—that being that will turn his mundane life upside-down.

Through his steel mask, his eyes would always roam the earth, searching for something—anything—that he would deem worthwhile interesting from his dead-banal life.

Sitting on his throne made of skulls and bones from the dead and the fallen, the god of the underworld would watch the earth through a seam he had stolen from the Fates. An easily bored being that he was, he would always search from one place to another, finding something that would catch his eye even for a fleeting moment—all of it done just from sitting in his throne all day.

The creaking of the wide, wall-like gates made his eyes flicker just for a second, and upon seeing who it was that entered his throne room, he shifted his attention back to what he was looking at—an empty flower field.

"Another dozen of dead souls are here, King."

"Ah, yes. I've heard of it from the Fates earlier," he drawled lazily, looking at his black talons with much boredom. "Anything else?" The masked god's eyes bore into the black-cloaked woman standing in front of him, and he snorted when she shook her head apologetically.

He rested his cheek on his knuckles and looked away from her completely, and he let out a long sigh as he frowned. "Return to your post, then. Guard the entrance, as you and they always have."

The cloaked woman bowed, and she apologized, "I'm sorry we haven't brought in anything interesting to you lately, Your Highne—"

She snapped her mouth shut after hearing him click his tongue, and she took a quick peek from where she was bowing.

As always, she would only see just a glimpse of his ashen jaw, and nothing more.

"There is nothing that interests me at the moment. That is that. Return to your post." He glanced at her, and huffed as she bowed once more and hurriedly left the room.

Once alone, he watched the flower fields on earth, yawning at every being shown in the seam. He saw them everyday. Every flora and fauna, he had already seen them with a bored stance.

"There is nothing new on earth today."

The cloaked woman returned to her post to the entrance gates to hell just as she was ordered to, sighing as she stood beside one of her comrades.

"By that face, I guess the king dismissed you again?"

The cloaked woman bit her lip and looked at her companion, "I just don't understand it. He always seems so bored these days. Ever since we got here, all he does is just sit in his throne all day and wait for some miracle to happen on earth."

Her companion, a black-cloaked man with sharp, masculine features, laughed at her. "You mean ever since he stole that thing from the Fates, all he does is sit around and makes us do all the work. I, for one, never complain."

She bristled at his words, and glared at him, "I never complain! I will never complain about how he rules this place! This place is our home and we owe him our lives! It's just—he doesn't look alive anymore."

Another cloaked man came up behind her, smirking as he crossed his arms. With a hiss of his snake-like tongue, he quipped, "How would you even know if he looks alive? No one in the underworld has ever seen his face."

"Except for the ferryman, or was it a ferrywoman?"

The cloaked woman clicked her tongue, a habit she had gotten from the king. She patted her bare feet on the stone ground as yet another cloaked man appeared, "Don't speak about her that way. You know how the King treats her as his only confidante. It would bring you harm if he hears of this."

And the four guardsmen bickered at who the king's confidant should be, unaware of the fact that a looming presence hovered behind them.

"So I see you have lots of free time talking about me and the ferrywoman while you slack off in your jobs."

The four of them squeaked, and slowly turned their heads at the god standing right behind him.

Despite his recognizable small stature, he was much feared by everyone—especially by his guards.

"M-my king!" stuttered the man with the snake-like tongue. "W-we didn't s-see you there—sss!"

Black wisps of smoke hung all around the ground that the god walked on, leaving a trail of death and darkness behind him.

Two large horns resembling a goat's curled behind his head, and his gray iron mask left much room to speculate what he actually looked like; it concealed almost all of his face, leaving only a peek of his pale lips and chin when he spoke.

A pitch black cape draped his foreboding form, its edges kissing the ground as he walked by. His outer garments, if they could be called as such, were black tendrils of smoke that seemed to emit a low hiss whenever he moved. A peek of his ashen skin could be seen when he raised his arm, and the cloaked woman would shyly look away.

"I'm going to see that lecherous brother of mine today. Be sure to guard the gates when I'm gone."

And the four of them saluted energetically, letting out a sharp, "Yes!" as the god walked by.

When they turned around to bid him a good day on his journey, he was already gone.

Death followed his every walking step. The smoke that clung to him emitted bereavement and despair, something that the underworld god was known for.

He walked on the Elysium fields today, something that rarely occurred to him, and he made no effort to disguise himself among the dead.

The god of death rarely made an appearance to the fields, and when he did, the beings there would cower and hide upon seeing his very self.

The flowers that grew there withered and died upon being stepped on by him, and when he made it to the river Styx, he heaved a sigh and glanced at what he just did.

As he expected, a woman decked in a red cloak greeted him with a wave of her chained scythe rather happily, and it made the god oddly grunt in frustration.

"Where to, today, o King of Discontentedness?"

The god huffed, and laid his hand on his hip in an arrogant manner, "To that god of freak-makers."

At this, the woman squealed, something that the god was already used to. "Ooh! To the god of gods himself, eh? Why, if I may ask?" And she leaned on her scythe, widely grinning as she toyed with him, and she snickered when he twitched his hand.

"I need to speak to him about something."

"About?"

"Why the world out there is so overly boring these days. I haven't had a new thing to play with since those freaks you sent me eons ago."

She huffed, and readjusted her slipping trifocals, "Oh, please. You threw them back to me when you said they almost ripped off your mask—"

"That's because no one is allowed to look at me. Because if they do—"

"They will surely die, I know."

The ferrywoman rolled her eyes, and she grew silent when he tapped his foot on the wood that was now decaying with his every tap. Upon seeing that he would be stubborn as he always had, she decided to let him board her ferry.

She observed him as he summoned a seat out of thin air, and he sat upon it, reveling in the black wisps of smoke that surround his talons. "I think you need to loosen up a bit. You're becoming as rusty as the anchors on my ship! And please don't make the wood rot this time, I just repaired that."

"Well, too bad. The wood is creaking beneath my feet already."

"Aah! At least levitate! Levitate!"

"Too bad, woman. My feet pierced through the wood already."

She gasped and wailed, tearing up her auburn hair as she pointed her scythe at him, "I just repaired that! Me and Erwin just repaired that!"

"What does that bloodthirsty lump of muscle have anything to do with a ferry from the underworld?"

At this, the ferrywoman bit her lips and looked away from his piercing gaze, humming as she explained herself. "He kind of delivered the dead from the wars, you see. Besides, he pines to speak with you from time to time."

The god laughed dryly, and regarded the dead souls grasping at the sides of the ship with much apathy as his masked form would allow. "I don't plan to speak or deal with anything that involves any other stuck-up gods. They left me here to rot—and I turned this forsaken place into my own kingdom. I don't want anything to do with him."

The ferrywoman guffawed, and she looked at him with much mirth, "You may not want anything to do with him, but," she paused, and checked to see if he was interested in what she had to say. Seeing as he was tapping his talon on his knee in impatience, she continued. "Ah, perhaps someone might interest you? One of the beings created by the freak-maker himself?"

The talon tapping on his knee stopped, and from her point of view, she could almost see what he might look like right now—raising a thin, inquisitive eyebrow at her with that ever present frown.

She held in her laugh of victory as he asked.

"A being of interest? Who ever might that be?"

Trudging towards the bright walls of white clouds only made the underworld god's mood even grumpier than before.

The ferrywoman never told him who this "being of interest" was, no matter how much he questioned her—and it riled him up.

"Ah! Little Death! To what reason may I owe your visit?"

Yet the voice of one eccentric and randy god riled him up ten times worse than before.

The sight of seeing the god of gods howling with crude laughter as five nymphs draped their barely-dressed entities on him made the underworld god's skin crawl in distaste.

"Good day to you, too, Pixis. I see you're as busy as ever over there," he drawled with disgust, and he quickly refused to be serviced by a nymph who came up to him the moment he entered Pixis's room.

"Ah, yes! I'm a very busy god, haha!" and he whispered something to one of the nymphs beside him, and the playful sprite giggled as she gave him more ambrosia that she produced between her lips.

Pixis beckoned him with a lazy finger, all the while, he never took his lips away from the nymph.

The god grimaced beneath his mask, and he begrudgingly took a proffered seat from one of the nymphs so shamelessly offering him services.

The nymph only silenced herself when a tendril of black smoke coiled around her neck.

"Now, now, Little Death! That's not a way to treat a beauty!"

"Shut up, old man," and he immediately let the nymph go when he saw her turn gray from the smoke, "I only came here to see if you have any more of those freaks you're so fond of creating. Make me something that won't rip my mask off."

"Why, you dare call my wonderful creations as freaks?" The surprise in his voice mocked the god of death, and the irate god almost spat. "Hah," and Pixis laughed, "I'll let you know, I created much of the gods and goddesses that roam the earth—"

"With the help of anyone too stupid and willing to sleep with you and your wrinkly excuse for a glory hole for five nasty minutes, whether they're mortal or not."

Pixis huffed, yet showed no signs of displeasure on hearing the god's foul words, "I see you still have a colorful mouth despite you living in a drab of a world."

"You forced me there, geezer. Don't forget it."

"Ah, yes. I almost forgot," and he toyed with his mustache idly, his waned eyes looking far behind the irritable god of death. "How about the beings I sent Hange before? Weren't you playing with them for a matter of time?"

A flurry of black flames emerged from the death god's body, and he snarled at Pixis's dazed face, "You did the foolhardy job of making them almost yank my mask off. You know I can't show myself to anyone. Now I demand you to make one that will meet my interests or I swear I will murder all of your wenches and feed them to the Cerberus."

Pixis leaned back on his throne, a thoroughly please expression etched upon his face, and with a snap of his finger, the nymphs that were surrounding him flitted and disappeared immediately, leaving only him and the irate god in the vastness of the room.

"Now, now, Little Death. One as small as you shouldn't be—"

A billow of smoke and flames that zoomed just by his temple immediately cut off his words.

The god of the underworld still sat upon the seat made of white clouds, only, now, their pristine whiteness was slowly turning into pitch black the moment his skin made contact with it.

"I told you not to call me that, you lecher."

Pixis regarded the seething god with apathy, and he sighed with a resigned wave of his hand as he smoothed down his purple toga out of habit. "Fine, fine. What would you like, then? A nymph just like the Nereids? Someone who looks like the sole female of the Fates? Someone who looks like Pit—"

"I don't want any of them. No one with the likes of them, if you will. So drab and downright boring and lecherous as you will never fit my tastes."

Pixis smirked at his boldness, "But from what I recall, you stole something that belongs to the Fates. Maybe you like the sole female?"

"They have plenty of seams," he reasoned with a shrug, "the one who spins the thread of life knows it, and makes no comment of my little purchase. And no, I don't like her."

"Ah, but she looks at you with such coldness. I'm sure that she has feelings for you hidden beneath that cold exterior of hers."

"She's always like that. Not like I care. Besides, one of them already likes her quite possessively—though, even if she has no suitors, I wouldn't approach her."

Pixis laughed, "Ah, yes. That black-haired fellow that seemed to trail her wherever she goes." He pursed his lips in thought, looking at the simmering god every now and then, "But how about one of your guards? The fiery-haired female seemed to grow fond of you since she came to the underworld."

"She is not to be touched. Besides, she is too afraid to look at me in the eye—fearing death, I suppose. It's natural. Though I cannot be interested in someone who won't even look at me in the eye."

Pixis assessed his words, and it took him moments before he finally responded with a knowing hum, "I see. Should I suggest someone who doesn't know of your reputation to steal the life of anything that you pass by?"

His bare feet touched the flower fields, and the flora that surrounded him immediately withered and died within seconds.

The god of death frowned, and he kept on walking, ignoring the trail of dead flowers he left behind him. He came upon a tree that bloomed white flowers. It was a tree that he couldn't name, and he closed his eyes and rested upon it, sighing upon hearing the wood creak and crumble behind him.

A leaf fell on his face, and he opened his eyes, sighing once more as he looked at the tree.

All of its leaves and buds and flowers withered away, leaving him with nothing but a dead tree to sleep on.

He groaned, and closed his eyes once more, letting the small luxury of sleep to pass him by.

He awoke to the sound of laughter, and the god cracked his eyes open, ready to curse and kill the person who dared to disturb his dreamless nap.

He promptly sat up and jerked his head to his left, glaring at the person so carelessly sitting and laughing beside him.

"What do you want, Nymph?"

The would-be nymph huffed and crossed his arms, his nose stuck in the air as though offended by his words. "I'll have you know I'm a hunter around here," and he regarded the god with a bright smile, "though this is the first time I've seen someone as weird as you."

The death god hummed, and his pointed ears—which weren't concealed by his mask—twitched just the slightest, an indication that he was slightly roused by the foolish young hunter.

"'Someone as weird' as me? Child, do you know who you are talking to right now?"

And the 'child' quipped a cheerful, "No. You see, I just told you that this is the first time I've seen such a being as you. Why do you have that mask, if I may ask?"

The god of death scoffed, and should the curious hunter look closely, he would see the smallest glimpse of a smile.

Not that the god would show it to him, that is.

"This," he pointed at his mask, "protects me, and other beings from harm. Call it a prevention from a disease, if you will."

His voice sounded deep enough for the young lad, and he couldn't help but lean closer to him.

The death god slowly leaned away from him, "What?"

The young lad, clad in a loose, sea-green toga and brown leather sandals, looked at the strange creature—as he dubbed in his mind—curiously, his wide, turquoise eyes observing the way the god's mask was built.

A tanned hand reached out to the iron mask, and the god himself swatted that hand away.

The young hunter pouted and cradled his hand, as though injured, "Hey, what gives?"

The god recoiled at the sudden yell, and he looked away, guilty for a reason he couldn't fathom. "Don't touch me," he mumbled inaudibly.

"And why the hell not?" There it was again, that endearing pout—that pout that seemed to unsettle the god of death himself.

The unusual crack in the death god's voice as he turned away from him was apparent to the young hunter, and his cape and black wisps of smoke cradled his small form, making himself seem even smaller than he already was.

"Because I am filthy," he whispered, "and I wouldn't want to harm you with my own grime."

The young hunter blinked and leaned back, yet keeping a close eye on the huddled god crouching in front of him.

"I don't think you're filthy, strange one."

The bowed head of the masked god craned his neck, and did all he could to deter the boy. "I am filthy, child. Don't get close to me or you will die."

"I am not a child," he muttered calmly, "I have a name, you know. Besides, I know I won't die, because the god of death will not harm me."

The god huffed, and laid his eyes upon the brave young hunter, "Are you sure the god of death himself will not harm you in any way?"

"Of course I am sure! See?"

And the young hunter produced a flower wreath with a flick of his hand and placed it atop of the masked god's head.

And the wreath didn't wither—something that made the god blink in confusion.

"I told you I won't die, heh."

The god's shoulders squared, and through his mask, he could see the brave—and rather idiotic—hunter inch closer to him, "…Who are you?"

The young hunter smiled coyly at him, and tilted his head.

"I'm Eren, and I'm the hunter here in the woods, and you are…?"

The god of death stared at him with wide eyes through his mask, and with a hitch of breath, he let out a low whisper that fell on deaf ears.

"I didn't hear that, sorry."

The god gritted his teeth, and he hissed, "I'm Levi, god of the underworld and of the dead."

Eren hummed, and opened his mouth and said words of awe to him, "I've never seen a real god before. If I did, I never would have noticed them." From Eren's eyes, he could tell that the god was smiling—smirking, he thought—at him, and it somehow made him bolder. He crawled on top of the now fussy god, giggling at how the black smoke that was supposed to deter the hunter only seemed to tickle his skin, and it did just that, and nothing more. Spindly limbs pressed flush against the cold skin of the god, and Eren graced him with a smirk of his own. "Scared yet, god of Death?"

Levi's skin flickered in life at the way he said his words. Such confidence. Such arrogance.

The wisps of smoke swirled playfully around Eren, testing to see if the hunter would recoil upon having the feelers of death literally touch his skin. Oddly enough, the strange hunter only laughed spiritedly, even going as far as to toy with the vines of smoke and wrap some of them around his fingers.

The hunter's fingers didn't become singed nor melted into bones. His flesh remained whole and intact.

Something that never happened before.

"These will-o'-the-wisps of yours are quite interesting. Do you do this often?"

As though an answer to his question, another thin tendril of smoke wrapped itself around Eren's neck, and it tickled his cheek, and Eren laughed.

"I can control them at will, so yes, I do that often. Only when I feel threatened do I make them appear larger and scarier, I suppose."

The hunter laughed, and showed him his pearly teeth, "You don't scare me, King Levi. Lord Levi… whatever. I'm telling you, there is nothing on earth that would scare me. So—"

He crept closely to the god's masked face, and it surprised Levi at best.

"Show me your face. Now."

Hoorah for Greek mythology AU! This is the result of having to have an internet-less day. My iPhone became my best friend on days like those. Also, my brain is working at god-forsaken hours of the day. It's already 3AM over here. So, like, yeah. I would highly appreciate it if you tell me what you think of it. (o.o)"