With mortal eyes, one would see any other nighttime congregation. Nothing noteworthy, a typical service that had only significance to its listeners as they listened to a message many of them may have heard the year before and the year before that but any lesson worth learning was worth remembering so it was taught anew. Though if one had the ears to hear, one might have heard a voice woven into the hymns, a voice softer than linen but older than the stars in the sky.

The gathering was not particularly large that night. Its members came together as if tightly knit so the additional space would go less noticed except for a conspicuous gap near the middle of it all, an empty space on a pew between a mother holding her baby and her neighbor. People only would have noticed the vacancy for its odd emptiness though occasionally the child would look at it the way children so often seemed to be fascinated by real or imagined things.

By coincidence or providence the child’s eyes fell upon the hood of the space’s unseen occupant before seemingly gazing at the scythe resting over one shoulder while one of its hands held the snath to keep the blade steady. The child also could have been regarding the subtly folded pair of wings resting over the figure’s robe that was both rich and dark like fresh soil.

There were only two types of people that felt safe near Thanatos, those that sought it and those too innocent to fear it. Even those that feared not death, would be inclined to not needlessly draw near the inevitable and a part of Thanatos was always in close proximity to that very concept. Its neighbors every now and then shifted uncomfortably. The mother likely thought the additional space to be convenient to place her unstill child but found herself unconsciously shielding the child instead, hugging onto it while twisting away from the gap. Her husband offered to trade places and the two tried to shift inconspicuously but anyone who had attended any such social gathering before would be familiar with how standing in such a place drew attention.

The father found himself no more happy in his new position as his wife did. Even moved away, the child's eyes kept looking to where Thanatos was. Under the hood, grew a smile. It was nice to be seen with fascination rather than dread, horror, and resignation.

Thanatos for its time interacting with the transition from the material was more terrestrial in appearance than most of its kin, seen almost like a demon. That must have been why most imagined it as a skeletal figure despite how what was hidden beneath its hood was the opposite of what most mortals expected.

A demon could be sharing a seat with someone or whisper directly into their ears and most mortals would not even notice or care. Spiritual matters were easy to ignore or be mistaken for something mundane. However, as living creatures, humans were sensitive to death. Maybe its presence had scared away several members of the congregation as it passed through the doorway with the procession. Thanatos hoped not.

One could fill a room with every vile spirit in the world and most would rather stay in that room in blissful ignorance than share a table with any traces of Thanatos. The vile would likely appear inviting or not be seen at all while Thanatos had to present itself as at least some semblance of what it was if ever glimpsed.

Hence why so many of its better kin had to warn their charges to not be afraid even as its kindred were providing assistance. One only appreciated the sun because it was, to mortals, a great distance away. Such glorious illumination became horrific and immediately dangerous if drawn even a little closer. However, there were times Thanatos was seen from an honest vantage point that afforded it welcome such as rare moments it was seen as a stranger that one somehow found familiar.

Demons could choose a terrifying form when it suited them but if humans could easily see them, the fallen would hide from sight or else risk being unveiled by humanity. If there was one thing humans were better at than Thanatos could ever hope to be, they were capable of noticing lies. Thanatos knew when someone spoke the truth because it knew their story but a demon could slip among the heavenly hosts and be unnoticed if angels turned a blind eye for only a moment.

Those that did not feel tempted to lie were not suited to seek out liars. Dishonesty was detectable only by the dishonest and the aware. If a demon somehow disguised itself as one of the heavenly host, an angel’s familiarity with that fellow member would be the only insight one like Thanatos might have to notice something was awry.

With the closing of the service, the members trickled out but Thanatos remained seated. Some stayed to ask questions or voice their personal concerns with each other or the priest. Soon enough though, Thanatos and the priest were alone at the closing of the doors but that isolation did not last long, or rather it never did exist.

A voice tore through the silence of the chamber like the crackling of lighting as it pronounced a single name. Yet the priest went continued his routine, deaf to the call. Only Thanatos and other spirits could hear as one of its kindred referred to Thanatos by its true name, one rarely written or spoken as to say Thanatos's full name would invoke what they were both a part of.

In that single name, Thanatos's true nature was declared and the name of the whole was uttered as every syllable proclaimed the angel to still be and always be a part of the Divine. How many people would be surprised its true name consisted of "help" as the key distinction of itself from all other things? The key was phrased so that its role was to be both help from and always helped by the greatest of all powers. If there was something for Thanatos to be pleased with, it was its own name. It was a shame that common belief made humans afraid of Thanatos’s real name so Thanatos borrowed other names similarly to how its own lost kindred did, hopefully with opposite intent. If someone was too afraid to say its full name but still called out its concept by another title, it could still answer.

Though that was Thanatos’s own attempts to accommodate, angels rarely gave their names. To be known of by name sometimes led to those needing help calling out to them directly. Even if the beseeched angel heard that call, it might not be suited for the request. In general, they found it wisest to encourage the undiluted whole to be sought, not themselves. But if someone called for Thanatos’s concept, they were undoubtedly troubled and death’s companion would not live to its name to ignore that prospect.

Light gathered in the spot beside Thanatos to form another angel. The other angel was like lightning and celestial fire, compressed and contained in the vaguest of human shapes to occupy that space. Even in that most simplistic of forms, it radiated magnificence so great that if the humans around them could see it, they would be struck with terror at the sight if not blinded. Even that form was appealing by mortal standards compared to their kin involved in less terrestrial affairs who were covered in eyes and not even remotely worldly in shape.

“My beloved kin,” the angel addressed with unconcealable warmth.

Thanatos stood and they shared greetings as death’s companion voiced the other’s name, even in a whisper the name carried power, especially from their own mouths. The other angel’s name perfectly suited a guardian.

The Guardian appeared like lightning and stars because that was what it shared greatest kinship with in the material aspect, natural phenomenon. It was a part of the greater whole the way stars and planets contributed to the arrangement of a galaxy.

In those few words, they reconnected and completed their greetings. They shared a kinship deeper than blood. They were more similar to facets of the Divine than separate beings yet they were separated, the whole too vast to be constrained by mere singularity.

“That you are still here, means that you are here for my charge,” the Guardian reasoned before looking to the unlocked doors as if they may suddenly burst open. “Or a desperate soul seeking sanctuary.”

“Tonight, I anticipate the former,” Thanatos confirmed. It could not deny that the latter had and would likely happen again. If not there then somewhere else.

Stones offered no protection from malignity. Sickness, death, and demons paid no heed to the arches they passed under. Rarely was ground any holier than that tread by any soul as all places were equally part of the whole that Thanatos and the Guardian were a part of. The soil of the earth was equally fed by the graves of sinners and saints. A house was consecrated and defiled by those that inhabited it.

“Can it be that you are only passing by?” the Guardian asked respectfully. “He is not of ill health.”

This could just be a temporary visit. There were many such near death experiences. People went through them every day and likely did not notice like a carriage rushing along their path, an object falling where they would have been if they were not waylaid, a fire escaped because someone smelled the smoke. Thanatos was actually watching someone whose heart stopped be resuscitated by a passerby as the two spirits spoke.

The existence of the Guardian and the companion of death could be more defined as the manifestations of their attention. Even as they spoke, Thanatos was watching flowers wilt in a hospice, witnessing the last strands of a rope fray, and collecting someone as they were being pulled off the street after being ran over by a carriage and dwelling in many other places. As the population grew, so too did mortality rates.

The one called by some Thanatos was far from omniscient nor was it omnipresent. However, the world it occupied was small compared to the rest of the universe, as significant in scale as a speck of dust. The concept of size was also not that great a concern for those without bodies. One of their number could place a foot in the deepest depths of the ocean and another upon the land if so required. Even mortal eyes could gaze upon all the world if placed far enough away. Yet that very vantage point would make one equally ignorant, blinded by the greater picture.

“Perhaps,” Thanatos replied. Death was already there. It had been there the entire day, curled like a viper. One misstep and it would strike. The slightest movement as subtle as the beating of a heart and it would claim its prey.

Thanatos tried to look at the priest the way it hoped the Guardian did. Thanatos long ago learned the concept of “too young” was no shield against death. Thanatos assessed the priest as one that had the opportunity to grow from a child into adulthood and was preparing but not quite at the threshold of seniority. The part of assuming seniority in particular proved difficult, to judge age seemed to vary across eras and locations so Thanatos had to think on terms of “this place” rather than the cosmic scale that came naturally to it.

Wrinkles were beginning to beset the Guardian’s charge but his strength was yet to wane, his bones yet to creak to the point of agony. The priest was at the age where death could be anticipated but not begged for.

“You believe he could still have time left?” Thanatos voiced, as much a statement as a question.

“He could still have many more years of good left,” the Guardian considered for them both. “Even on a sickbed, he could still accomplish much.”

Thanatos turned its head, its voice came out soft and accusing like a weak autumn breeze. “Do you wish death to pass by if it would mean him being left in a sickbed?”

The Guardian hesitated. “I do not know. I do not know what is coming but if it can be endured, I would hope some good would come of it. If it is but a minor trouble I would be confident he would endure but if it proves too much to bear, then I would ask you to be swift and to usher death out if his life is to continue.”

“I hope too to be swift,” Thanatos abided. “When it proves too much.”

What was minor to the spirits was not so minor for their charges. The Guardian knew that and both knew most humans had a drive to live until life was more misery than comfort. Even then when that balance was tipped, the fear of death had a way of making at least some cling until the very end, hence perhaps why there were so many tales of immortality but at a cost. It was as if humans were studying and asking themselves at what point was the cost “too much” in their legends and practices. Thanatos wanted to know the answer as well so found the legends and the reality of such legends enlightening.

“But we will see what comes to pass today,” Thanatos promised.

The Guardian would have a better guess at what would come to pass if life continued. It was a simple request, essentially inquiring if Thanatos would care to blink before performing its task. If the choice was entirely Thanatos’s, it would have allowed that blink. But events of the material realm were never the full dominion of such spirits. The charges themselves, other people, and circumstances had a say in the matter and those were more often than not the deciding factor. The young often feared death and the old could grow bitter with age or share what embers of wisdom they may have acquired in their years. There was rarely a “right time” for death to claim them. Thanatos knew a near equal share of angels and demons that sought to steer away the inevitable to another day.

“Today, yes,” the Guardian focused on. “I will put aside what could be for what is.”

The Guardian and death’s companion were both connected enough to mortal affairs to develop a sense of value for it. There were those that the Guardian could not protect, those that never saw a decade but also those that lived to seniority. Time quickly proved to not be an adequate measure for life. They as spirits could say that because eighty years meant little difference from their view from one, it was how it was spent that measured the fullness of it all.

Yet the Guardian sought more time. The Guardian had to. To say that was the Guardian’s nature would be a discredit to Thanatos’s kin. Neither knew the future of this event and even if they did, even if they knew one outcome would lead to a betterment for all in the future but at the cost of a wrong in the present, they had to do what was the right thing in that moment. The Guardian would watch its charge and Thanatos would perform its task when the time came. Just because they were part of all did not mean they needed to align perfectly.

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Part of all, within all, but also with. The two angels were distinct from each other because the lack of distinction would be oneness, not harmony or unity by any sense. Oneness would be a useless mound of flesh while distinction allowed for a living body wrought of bones, organs, and sinew. Even brought to the most absolute definition of entirety, the all was still divided into three, similar to the way water, a necessity for human life, could be liquid, solid, or gas.

Oneness was what some of their lost kin sought, selfishness to the extent that they might be the only focus of their attention, their own pain, their own joy. There was always a reason for destruction, destruction need not be evil but if malice was the intent evil never acted for evil’s sake. The most mindless and senseless destruction could be the wish to for oneness, to be satisfied in one’s own existence at the expense of all else.

They were not, as just two, whole. There were others of their kind in different places adding to the greater harmony. The all was one within many or rather what all others dwelled within so every soul was born of and welcomed back into that whole, to do what was good for one bettered the whole.

The Guardian looked away from its charge for only a moment to check the door. Thanatos for a moment assumed caution on the Guardian’s part.

The door would never be locked. Anyone would be allowed inside. Thanatos had witnessed such welcomes end tragically before. The Guardian had protected humans as best it could, so it also knew as well as any other angel how dangerous humans were to each other.

But then Thanatos realized it was the opposite that motivated its kin to check the door as it felt the Guardian reach out to the others outside. The door was unlocked so anyone could come in. Thanatos could hear a heavenly conspiracy unfold as other guardians tried to rouse their own charges.

Unfortunately, it was late. Even the devout would be hard pressed to visit, let alone wake. Those that noticed would likely rationalize that it would be impolite, etiquette overruling feeling. What Thanatos sensed was nothing a human defend against or any soul could warn him of but if such someone happened to wander in as it happened, then perhaps that would make a difference. At the very least, it was worth trying.

It was difficult for those that cared so little for time to communicate their evaluation of it to those that did. If the spirits said what mattered was the “now” it would appear shallow. Yet if Thanatos could hope to find the right words, Thanatos would try to tell those humans it could the present was what mattered as they were in the present. For each person, one’s part in the future and what it could be eventually ended. If one did not offer a hand in the current moment, it often did not matter if one intended to assist others in the future as Thanatos knew too well, that future might never come. There were those still alive in that moment because at some point in what used to be the present the one before them did express charity whenever possible.

The two’s responsibilities long ago exhausted the necessity of them discussing the matter of why, especially the rare times Thanatos was called to direct its charge but this time like most was death’s companion merely being there because of inevitability rather than purpose. What they had left to consider was how and when. How and when opened their view to possibilities though as often as realities. They needed to narrow down that field of consideration or else in their hearts, the charge had died before them a thousand times, buried beneath a myriad of phantasmal and contradictory fates. What remained true across all was Thanatos would be there. “Help” would be there until the very end.

Death was described as a beast at times but a beast targeted the weak. Death when unbound was like the sun and the rain, it came to all regardless of disposition or health. The science of medicine was not yet so exact or the human form so uniform that Thanatos came to fulfill every physician’s prediction.

“Would you care to enlighten me to the intended lesson?” Thanatos inquired to give meaning to their time together. They were immortal but if they were willing to waste one moment, what would stop them from letting eternity pass them by? If Thanatos did not ask in that time, the angel would forever be bereft of the answer unless the Divine saw fit to inform its messenger of the mystery. Death could come at any moment but it was not that moment just yet. “Your charge spoke as if we were supposed to already know the subject matter.”

The Guardian smiled charitably with the slightest hint of satisfaction in another’s interest in their charge’s affairs. “Night services here are often for familiar faces. It is not often a stranger wanders in at night so that has been a habit. The lessons have been about the spiritual against the material.”

“That application of Dualism has been commonplace these days,” Thanatos observed.

“There have been worse influences.”

Thanatos nodded. Dualism was and remained its own religion but churches had a way to adopt principles the way they assimilated holidays. It was not always for the worse. The preacher likely not even familiar of the origin of his philosophy, trading “Good” and “Evil” for “spirit” and “flesh” and treated the spiritual and material as separate realms. The subject was interesting as a novelty to overhear as the material was as alien to Thanatos as the spiritual was to the humans. The Guardian, with its time with individual humans likely understood how the humans experienced the material better than Thanatos did through merit of observation.

Though death’s companion had the advantage of perceiving the material yet removed from such temporary sensations while humans were blind to the spiritual but sensitive to such matters. Thanatos recalled the priest speaking of the value of spiritual gifts over material. The former being infinite in the priest’s understanding could be infinitely shared so “the more you give, the more there is”. Thanatos liked that.

Though Thanatos had witnessed enough extreme dualism to be concerned by when people thought the spiritual was all that mattered, that thought and word alone had value. Action was not everything but thought without action was almost worthless, to pray for the hungry was meaningless if one was not willing to share a meal with the hungry. Words alone did not fill stomached and rotted away in a mind that did not practice them.

Unfortunately, sometimes those so focused on the spiritual would be ready to wage war on the material. It was better to cut off a hand than to let that hand hurt another, that much was true but one should not sever that hand if it was reaching out to lift another, sewing a blanket for someone that was cold, or pointing another in the correct direction.

But, fortunately, the priest was not so fixated as to neglect others. Thanatos would know. It met the man and left several times without performing its task for that day due to the priest’s active diligence and generosity beyond the church walls. Too often did shows of good spirit wither away a few steps past a church’s doors where they were more urgently needed.

Thanatos would be willing to debate that it was perhaps best not to think of circumstances as two separate realities. That Thanatos was not material meant it was ignorant of certain matters but found perceiving its own existence and those of the mortals as divided would suggest the spiritual and material to be in opposition when the two composited into the experience of life. That merging seemed to give birth to a third aspect, perception of that reality such as the human mind and time.

Humans were part of the union of the two concurrent sides, thus capable of changing with relative ease, death being such a change. Thanatos had heard many allegories and similes for the transition of death such as the refining of metal by burning all impurity. Many of those comparisons were violent or acts of destruction like death so it seemed as if such speakers were trying to describe the ocean by comparing it to a river.

One metaphor Thanatos appreciated was squeezing through a narrow passage, so narrow one would be convinced they would be crushed and have to abandon all things in order to make it to the other side. That idea made it sound similar to birth and a continuation of the journey.

There was then loud weeping but it was not Thanatos that lamented. Death’s companion turned its head to the Guardian once more and found its kin shedding tears like solar flares at the inevitable and faced with the near certainty none would be coming as their kindred outside made their reports. Thanatos, being there at the end, could cry after its task if tears proved appropriate while the Guardian, bound to that single life mourned the process itself regardless of if it be for good or ill and then celebrate or mourn again when all was decided.

Death was natural and not to be avoided but there was a shame to it that would be hard for one that was deathless to explain to a mortal. The very one the congregation worshipped wept at the gravesite of a friend on the same day that mortal would be told to rise again.

Most humans had a sense of shame to the extent most would clothe themselves. To Thanatos and the Guardian it would be like watching someone they cared for stripped and beaten, a temporary shame but a remembered one. The Guardian knew its charge and once the soul departed, the body would be left behind as a grotesque parody of who they had been, a discarded shell to rot away. That prospect to those that never needed to don flesh disturbed them as to anticipate a disgrace they themselves never had to endure.

The Guardian’s tears dried as the sparks receded. “I appreciate that you do not scold so,” Once again the Guardian referred to death’s companion by name to single it out among all its kindred before continuing. “Each one still holds meaning for me.”

“They all hold meaning,” Thanatos affirmed.

So long as they helped a single soul, their eternity of existence was justified. For each one lost, it felt in that instant like the entire universe would have been better to have never existed. However momentary it lasted, they felt pain in that instant, a core pain undiluted by nerves as it originated purely from themselves.

“I am aware. Still, I show partiality while you hold your course for all.”

Thanatos turned its head however slightly as if slapped by the unfairness it found in that assessment. Thanatos came for all because death came for all. There were souls the Guardian would have never met and those that the Guardian spent time with, favoritism was inevitable. Even the one that was worshipped shared moments with some beyond the extent they did with their other followers.

“Do you believe this soul will be lost to us?” Thanatos inquired.

“No,” the Guardian answered solemnly to the undeniable weight of the subject yet without a moment of hesitation.

Death’s companion spoke then as adamantly that it could halt the world’s orbit. “Then remember those that joined us.”

Tears erupted from the Guardian once more but this time the thunderous roar of celestial flame sounded like laughter. Thanatos’s expression remained concealed beneath a hood but the angel could not help but feel satisfaction in bringing a smile back to its kin’s face. There were times Thanatos could not be kind and even when it spoke and acted with best intention, it was not always well received. Compassion by the measure of angels could be seen even by the wisest as cruelty the way a surgeon’s practices could seem hurtful rather than harmful at first.

“You have seen it,” the Guardian recounted the near calculable times they crossed paths. “How when they slip into our realm and the veil is lifted from their eyes so they might see the world as we do but all the better with wonder or horror as those that were once blind yet could finally see. Many turn to me and recognize me for my part in their lives, as a family member they had never seen yet then knew in an instant how I had always been there. Those the enemy drag away reach out to me, pleading.” For a moment the Guardian appeared conflicted but that instant of uncertainty made the hope that rekindled in the angel’s eyes all the more grand. “But those I am blessed enough to see join us often thank me. When our tasks here are done, I would like to see them all without the concern of those still here.”

They were eternal and the material, however long lived by the ephemeral measure of humanity, was not. Their duties in mortal matters would eventually conclude though they would likely find or be given another purpose. They once all sang, hopefully they might all sing again. Hopefully, with those that joined them in their time amongst the mortal realm.

No matter what future they approached, Thanatos was not the end. It hoped if not that night, then later, it would be reunion, the very thing its sibling described. Thanatos would have to count itself among its lost kin if its goal was dissolution. It was not the conclusion the Guardian sought to forestall but the process.

The process was separation. Those left behind that Thanatos and Guardian would have to watch would feel the loss. Separation was not something to be celebrated, Thanatos and the Guardian mourned the loss of those they knew for what felt like a moment while the humans could have known someone for an entire reckoning of a lifetime. Tears and sobbing were justified, they were condoned and understood. The experience of that loss was complete and utter for as long as one still lived, as memories faded and less and less of the lost individual remained anywhere to be found, a gradual decay and erosion eternal beings would have found horrific if their sense of time did not make that erasure seem like the blink of an eye. For the angel it was instantaneous, for the mortals, it was far far worse.

They went silent as the priest started to pray. He could not hear them but they would not speak over what could be his final words.

Thanatos took particular interest in prayers. In such moments, it could glimpse what those souls wished for, what they were about to lose, what they were about to be released from. Thanatos knew what humans needed to survive, likely better than most doctors of the age from the number of means of expiration it witnessed. Though it did not necessarily know what humans wanted. The Guardian had the opportunity to watch its charges pursue their dreams and pleasures and knew the pains they endured before Thanatos arrived.

When the priest finished, he tried to rise but lost coordination. Only Thanatos noticed at first. Even after ages of stewardship, the Guardian could still not sense death the way a human could not detect a microbe without a tool.

A part of the man’s face paralyzed as his vision faded. With a glimpse of that contorted expression both angels knew what befell him.

What seemed like magic and forgotten medicine was simple science to them. They knew the matter of physics and probability as only those that sat outside could understand and had time to study the universe before the world ever formed. It proved inevitable they understood the symptoms and consequences of a stroke.

Many strokes were not fatal, at least not the first. If the man survived, there would be consequences and if he was like many, his remaining life would be short. If Thanatos did not take him that day, it would be another time soon even by the measure of humans, though just a blink for Thanatos.

The priest’s brain starved for oxygen as his body failed him like a bridge giving way beneath his feet. If there was any consolation, this stroke did not hurt, no headache for this one. Thanatos could not say the same for all such cases it witnessed before. Barely any pain reached his psyche, just a weakening, a fading. It was also swift, no slow cascading collapse as organs faltered one by one and wasting away like starvation or struggle and burning of the lungs like drowning. Though that was its own terrible ordeal, a frightening numbness that seized control as one plunged into darkness like a shadow being cast over the body and mind, unsure if this was one’s final moment of consciousness like most that found themselves aware of their final breaths.

The Guardian stepped aside from Thanatos to not bar the way if not lending a part of its strength to hasten the passage of its kindred. In less than the blink of an eye, swifter than the human’s heartbeat, the angel of death was at his side, its wings still furled.

There were no kind deaths, no transition pleasant in itself as mortality made its final desperate struggle against the inevitable. No matter how it concluded life’s extinguishment was unsettling like how darkness rushed into a room at the fading of a candle and equally the opposite, like the painful blinding flash when one first awakes to the sun’s rays. The sensation was actually unknown to Thanatos, it was born as it was. It knew not the burden of living with such a mystery.

The priest crumpled to the floor, his body hidden behind the pews. If he died there, he would die within the limits of his mortal senses, alone, to be left undiscovered until morning if not later.

But they would not begin this journey alone. No one would. As the soul drew close to death, so too did they find themselves in Thanatos's company. As mortal eyes faltered and the tethers between the body and mind slackened, the soul relied on senses it never knew it possessed and saw and heard the reality that went unnoticed.

Thanatos had only a moment as it knelt and asked the man the mystery that the angels knew not the answer to, “Are you ready?”