The Contest Begins (1)

We see Freyya and Das both sitting in a metal vehicle of some alien design, and all the blinds are closed. There's a soft humming reverberating in the carriage, but both gods are comfortably in their cushiony seats – barely even able to tell they're moving, except for when their vehicle makes a turn or accelerates.

Right now, they're on a carriage of sorts that ferries the gods between worlds, and both of them are on their way back to the Death Realm - their home and each of them is carrying black lanterns with their cargo for the day.

During the long ride down, Das thinks, "Nothing else to do. Mind as well chat. So, he turns to her with his back straight and asks, "Freyya… What do you think of him?"

She eyes him from over her book cover. "Why're you talking to me? We're not friends."

"Ouch Freyya," Das smiles, "You know we're 2 of only 6 Death gods in existence. We should have enough in common to be friends, right? Come on. It's been tens of thousands of years since any of us have actually talked to you. You never write, you never call. You never even show up at our bi-century parties."

"Maybe you never see me because I don't want to be seen. Now be quiet."

"...Please?"

"Ugh," Freyya sighs heavily, "What was the question?"

"What do you think of that human you nearly took?" Das asks again.

"Oh, that one? I don't like him," comes Freyya's curt reply.

"Oh? How come?"

Freyya put down her book angrily. "Do we really have to do this right now?"

Das just gave a small shrug. "You can read when you get home. You need to chat with others to keep your mental health straight. I know you don't allow any visitors, and you never go outside if you can help it."

"Ugh! Fine!"

She put her book down and thinks for a moment. "Hm… I can usually sort out my souls into two types of warriors. There's the type who starts wars, and there's the type who fights to end wars. The ones who start a war are people willing to kill for their own desires - the evil sort... Frankly... that old man has that look of madness in his eyes. He wants revenge; I can see it."

Das leaned forward and offered her a cookie out of his bag. "Oh?" he asked, "but he just lost his family. Isn't revenge normal?"

Freyya only shrugs, "I still don't like his type. People like him can go about starting a round of killing while still feeling righteous about it. It's hypocritical, and there's no reasoning with morons like that."

Das, the ever diplomatic and empathetic old man, rephrases what she said simply, "So you're saying that a good warrior fights to end the killing, and a bad warrior begins the killing. Revenge-driven types that are evil warriors who tell lies to themselves into believing they're the good type."

"You always manage to put everything simply. It's a 'pleasure' to talk to you." Then, she adds snarkily, "Maybe I should start calling you grandpa Das like everyone else."

Das only smiled, "I'll let you call me grandpa if you clean that filthy house of yours. It would be embarrassing for me to bring the family over to your house when your dirty clothes are strewn across the floor."

Freyya crossed her arms defensively, "Hey! That one time you came over uninvited… It was just a bad week."

"Nothing gets that bad just from having a bad week. Some of those stains were years old."

"Ugh." She turns away and looks out the window.

Just when Das thought the conversation was over, he hears her mutter under her breath, "With the way you're nagging, I'd say it's more accurate to call you mommy Das."

"What was that, Freyya?"

"Nothing." Her book was back open in a flash, and she continued reading where she left off.

Freyya doesn't start reading immediately; she was actually thinking to herself while pretending to read. "Frankly, I've always been fond of old Das," she thinks, "He's been around longer than any of the other death gods, and he's always treated us all like his own children…"

"…Maybe this is why I was actually willing to chat with him."

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Freyya is mostly absorbed in her book all the way down until she arrives at her world.

After their carriage comes to a stop, her body immediately turns into a ball of light, and it streaks fast towards a holey and patched-up house built into a large tree stump.

Her ball of light, as well as countless others just like it, are constantly streaming in and out of the gloomy, home. Her little soul sinks into the house and flows into a frail-looking girl curled up comfortably in a blanket.

Indeed, this here is the main body of the death reaper called Freyya. As a goddess who's in charge of cleaning up after all wars in ALL worlds, she can't possibly be everywhere at once. That's why one of her powers is to cut off tiny slivers of her soul and scatter them onto all the worlds – the slivers only reuniting with her after they accomplish their missions.

In other words, she has all her little soul fragments do all her work for her, while she lounges around and pretends like she doesn't have a job.

What does she do all day? Of course, she snacks on unhealthy sweets and reads interesting stories.

Freyya then looks around her house and mulls over the new memories this newest soul fragment brought her. "Hm… that encounter with Das and that mortal certainly was a little strange…"

Despite having no friends or relatives to visit her in her house, Das is the only one who semi-periodically checks up on her. None of the other death gods have so much as stepped a foot in her corner of the world. "Even though I've seen Das a few times, I can't say I know him very well…"

She then closes her book and looks at the ceiling. "This mortal... Haalfrin, was it? The man could see the true forms of death gods, and the man seemed completely immune to the Death Aura that Das and I had…"

Suddenly a memory comes to her. "Oh!" she exclaimed as she bolted upright. "That mortal must be compatible with Death Aura!"

Just hearing about a mortal like this, Freyya grinned. "Oh, souls like that are SO hard to find."

Of course, she's heard of death-compatible souls appearing before, and this always made the news with the 5 Reapers.

Freyya turns onto her belly and holds her grinning face in her hands while humming and excitedly kicking her feet. "It's rare souls like these that gods like us can form Soul Contracts with."

She then holds out one hand and counts with her fingers. "Genri… Gerald… and Basti… They've all found their own Contractors already… so that just leaves Das and myself without one."