Author's Notes: This is supposed to be a one-shot, but it feels really long. Instead, I divided it up to four parts to reflect the poem 'One for Sorrow' until it gets to the fourth Magpie, the one from 1780. This is not beta-read, so, sorry for hurting eyes with possible grammar and spelling errors.

Warning: Character death, slight gore, dark themes.

Magpie

One for Sorrow

Murky seas behind glassy eyes stare up at Qui-Gon Jinn.

So pale, so warm and cold, so fragile. So much blood staining the teen's robes, his lips. Red on white (his hair and life on his skin). A single pipe is protruding out of Obi-Wan's chest, through his lungs.

He has failed his Obi-Wan, his young Obi-Wan (almost like a son) gasping as he laid dying. Tries not to drown in blood,

A breeze blow behind Qui-Gon, and a strange scent fills his nostrils (roses and peonies and oranges shoved inside the carcass of a rotting cat).

"I can save him," a voice whispers and Qui-Gon's head snaps up in a flash. Bright green eyes meet blue, and Qui-Gon has to blink back at how green (almost like poison almost like death) they are.

The Living Force shrieks in warning, almost like klaxons blaring inside his ears (wrongwrongwrong), and the world spins in and out of axis as he tries to

focus

be still

stop…

moving….

Deep breathes.

The world tilts a little to the left and then to the right before it rights itself, the dust in the air stops freefalling and the universe comes to a halt, time stopping into a singular eternity.

"I can save him," the boy (is he, really?) repeats, sounding so earnest and hopeful, yet his eyes are weary and exhausted with age that belies his face. He steps forward with the sound of feet marching with war and disease with the swish of his starry robe, and Qui-Gon searches for the Voice of the Living Force. There is no answer.

The stranger does not continue his approach, standing a little too still, his breathing far too controlled to be real.

Qui-Gon stares and he tries not to retch or look away in disgust. The boy's skin too pale and smooth to be flesh, thin and stretched over his gaunt face, yet the shadows that flicker in and out of sight makes him look a little too sharp or not sharp enough. The man does not fidget under scrutiny, and if green eyes did not follow his every move, Qui-Gon would have believed that the unwelcome intruder is dead.

There is only silence, Obi-Wan's breathing is now silent, there is no pulse beneath Qui-Gon's fingers. However, the deformed drop of water freefalling from a broken pipe above Qui-Gon is a sign that not all is what they seem.

There is still time.

Stars are born and stars die in every minute, in every second. Thousands are born every minute, and thousands die as well. Time does not stand still for anyone, not to the worst scum in the galaxy up to the Chancellor of the Republic. It never moves back or forward. nor does it pause to breathe.

However, time stands still for Death and his subjects.

Qui-Gon knows this now.

"A little late to the party, don't you think." The not-boy smiles, and his skin stretches over his too-white teeth behind his too-red lips. His green (too green) eyes are no longer on Obi-Wan's dying form (he gazes like a father who saw his prodigal son) and Qui-Gon follows the not-boy's gaze to another strange stranger (another boy who isn't a boy) with eyes red as blood and energy thrumming beneath vibrant skin. His robes are too white and threaded with gold, with flowers and plants twisting around his legs and his arms. He smells of fresh air and spring rain.

The teen's face is contorted with rage, his mouth an ugly snarl and his veins throbbing. The boy strides forward a little too fast and life begins anew and life goes on in every step.

Qui-Gon could feel the cosmos laugh.

"Enough of your meddling, stupid boy," red-eyes grounds out with gritted teeth. "Enough of your games and mercy."

The boy tilts his head to the side, his bones cracks like nails on a chalkboard, and his head hangs loosely on his shoulder.

Qui-Gon could almost see the rope around his neck.

"I haven't done anything yet," the not-boy says, casually. Too casually.

The lighter teen scowls at him, and it's an ugly sight to look but it does not make ice march up Qui-Gon's spine.

"Nevertheless, I am here to mediate," the other boy begins, eyes glowing with rage. "Name your terms and I will mediate for him."

It took Qui-Gon a moment to realise that boy with blood red-eyes is talking about him. He looks at them both, unsure what to do.

Green-eyes straightens, his bones creaking like loose floorboards, and he smiles that too-white smile again. Then he speaks with dying breaths, "Your apprentice is dying."

Qui-Gon's breath is stuck in his throat.

"But I can keep it from happening. For a price, of course."

Of course.

"Equal exchange and all that. You do understand, right?"

He does. He does understand.

"My life for his, am I right?" Qui-Gon asks, and the boy blinks in measured intervals. The not-boy with red eyes is silent.

"Ah, and here I thought…. Nevertheless, there are other options, of course."

"This is enough." The boy with red eyes is now in-between Qui-Gon and the Boy that reeks of Death.

"It's hard to say, but you're not the one who gets to decide how these go."

The boy with red eyes looks at Qui-Gon. If time isn't standing still already, then it would have again. Red eyes that looks too bright and knows too much and does not hide meets blue, and there is an understanding there.

"I'm not interested." Qui-Gon hears himself say, and his supposed mediator faces the boy.

They are standing at a crossroad, paths leading to other crossroads and possibilities waiting to happen standing on roads. Then they all vanished at the wink of an eye, only one path to move forward in, one path leading to different crossroads to different crossroads.

Death (for who else could this not-boy be?) tilts his head again and says, "okay."

There is no grand gesture nor blinding lights or a fantastic miracles. Someone presses the play button and the world resumes its course. The wind blows and the water flows, boots on concrete in the distance and the broken pipe - no, that's not how it goes.

Instead: there is no broken pipe, nor Obi-Wan drowning in blood, but Obi-Wan with a gash (looks worse than it actually is) in his forehead and clear pain in his eyes and-

"Master, we need to go," he whispers, tugging at Qui-Gon's sleeve. Qui-Gon snaps into action, the vertigo of the play button fizzles away. He tries not to blink because it is as if nothing happened.

Nothing horrible, at least.

Master and Padawan leave the broken factory and its broken (not-broken) pipes, with the distant memory of blood on pale lips and the dying breaths of a drowning boy.

In the distance, Qui-Gon sees a magpie fly away.