Category: Darksiders I & II

Rating: M

Couples: -

Warnings: AU, Yaoi, Lemon, Mpreg

Chapter: Epilogue

Copyright: Characters & places © By Appropriate Copyright-holder, Plot & OC´s © by me and Food-for-mind

Author's Note: The third part is a crossover with the webcomic Drowtales, focusing heavily on that universe. As such, it's posted in the forum of that webcomic named 'Beyond the Nethergate'. Feel free to search for it – or send me a PM for a link.

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Shortly after Laylah birthed her first daughter; the first Secondborn of her lineage and Azrael his third child – another girl -, Caim's semi-fear came true. Almost during his wedding-night with Strife, the eldest son of the last surviving Firstborn couple conceived his first child and his pregnancy had been as bad as he had feared.

It was a boy, whom they named Sablo. Death was less amused that apparently there would now be two people bringing children into the fortress.

Then he himself found a mate, a female of a so-called fae-race, and took her as his official consort.

As she is carrying his first child, the heir apparent to the power the Nephilim now held, the Dark Lord made a fatal mistake.

He had never quite forgiven War for killing Lilith and had in fact supplied part of the demons that would attack the youngest Nephilim's children. Now the temptation of the weak mate of War's favourite brother was a temptation he could not resist. Pride made him believe that Death would not destabilize the whole of Hell for a glorified pet – for that was what she was on the grand powerscales of the people involved.

He was a fool. Death's protectiveness of those he cherished did not stop just because he could kill them with a sneeze; Dust was still around, after all. He cut a bloody swat to his chosen mate and when he found that she had lost the child she had been carrying due to the strain of her imprisonment, he cut another bloody swat to the Dark Prince.

The Nephilim destroyed most members of the most powerful court of Hell, Samael having been forced into the leadership of the Second Kingdom without any choice left to him.

The strain on her body had had another side-effect; fae – with souls projecting far more outward than normal – ran the very real risk of overexerting those souls and dying. Though not intentionally, this happened to Death's mate as she strained to keep from miscarrying.

The wise saw only one recourse to save her; another soul had to be bound to her body, one that could sustain her even through the worst ordeals.

The Crowfather volunteered, starting something of a symbiosis with the female; she gained his power – both of the soul and of the arts – and he regained the ability to live… if and when she allowed him the autonomy of the body they now shared.

It took her a while, but she conceived again a few years later, gifting Death a son.

They named him Eurynome, and he soon proved to be more than worthy of the title of the heir of the First of the Keepers of the Balance, combining his father's raw strength with the versality of his mother's lineage.

Shortly after the boy's fifth birthday, tragedy struck. His mother's people had a custom that children received protector-spiders. While she was cut-off from said people, she had learned of a protectorate of a demonic court that bred spiders. Feeling confident that she could train the spider – or barring that, she could kill it before it became dangerous – she took her son and the Fallen Death had assigned her as guard and travelled to the main city of said protectorate.

Something happened while they were there. Without warning – save to the horrified eyes of the fae – agony erupted in every person in the city. Those capable of seeing the fundamental energy of life saw souls ripped from their bodies.

By the end of the event, three-thousand were dead. Almost all of them were children, those with the weakest grip on their souls.

Death's heir survived, by the heritage of his father being strong enough to keep hold of his soul… for the most part. He lived, but would be forever crippled, having been unable to hold his soul completely in his body; three-quarters of his bodies were now soulless. He would never be able to use them again.