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The day Simon died, the sky burned.
Your Realm shook.
Your Song rose to a mournful crescendo, a deafening roar, that they say all of what remained of humanity heard.
For but a brief moment, the dead stars returned, only to burn and die all over again. Exploding like fireworks across the cosmos, collapsing in on themselves under the sheer weight of the Grief of the First Child of the Universe. A Concept driven to madness over the death of a human soul. If enough of Humanity had remained, and if they had understood, perhaps they would have written sonnets about it.
Your dear human, your most treasured one, had requested to sleep under the stars you had painted across the sky of your Realm for him one final time. So, you had granted him that request. His final request, and when Simon breathed his last, he did so wrapped in the coils of the Universe and bathed in your starlight. A peaceful end, filled with love, for a man who had known so much pain before then.
You did not allow Death to take him, the selfish, greedy thing that you had become. Made too human by Simon's love to ever want to truly let him go. Instead, you immortalised him in your own way. His grave was a tree, standing tall and strong in the centre of your Realm where he had been laid to rest. With golden bark and orange leaves, they would chime in a non-existent breeze. And sometimes, when you focused, it almost sounded like him. His warm laugh, his gentle tone.
When the rest of your Realm collapsed and fell away, sinking into Nothingness, swallowed by the void of your Grief, that tree remained. Still standing tall and strong, as he had--despite everything he'd been through. Your strong human. Your Everything.
You'd curl your celestial frame around its branches, and it felt like him. Still holding you, cradling you, a Child of the Universe, despite your differences. Despite everything.
You did not know you could cry before that moment, but you learnt. You wept stardust in an unfeeling abyss. Your Song called out, desperately searching for the one being that could complete it, and was met with an echoing silence.
Time continued, unswayed by you, as it often was. You did not wander anymore; you had no desire to ever move again.
Perhaps to others, he would have been a speck of dust. A passing curiosity. But to you? Oh, to you, he had been everything.
Life visited. She sat at the base of your love's tree. She told you of what was becoming of the Universe beyond the walls of your dark realm, where even the stars no longer twinkled. She sang to you, as she once had, but you did not return her Song. The only being you wanted to sing to was gone, now. You saw no reason to chime another tune towards anyone else.
Death visited, too. A quiet presence. He did not sing. He understood your Grief, as steeped in it as he was. He remained a quiet, steady presence, standing at the base of Simon's tree, gazing out at the voidspace with you. Of course, he would understand how the passing of one soul might affect you; he had witnessed it time and time again, all across humanity's history.
Eventually, Life stopped visiting. You did not know how long it had been. You did not care. You continued to call out across a silent universe, waiting for the day your love's call would answer your own once more.
Death found you again. He lumbered slowly and came to rest as the base of Simon's tree. His shadows were smaller than before, his form cracked and broken. "Life is gone," He told you, his voice a raspy whisper, echoing and clouded in smoke. "Only we remain, old friend." His Grief echoed in the words.
You turned your gaze towards him, the stars of your eyes burning. "Then so it shall be," You replied, your voice no more than a whisper, so quiet after so many trillions of years of disuse. "...Did she leave us happy?" You asked, after a moment, for Death was the only other being left, and the only one who could understand your loss. He and Life had always been together, no two Concepts more intertwined than they. Forever following each other across existence, for as long as you could remember.
"She did," He replied somberly, "she burned more brilliantly than any star, until the very end. I remained in her Realm until it was no more."
Your form shifted slightly, coiling tighter around the golden branches. The first time you had moved in... you didn't even know how long. But you made space silently, and Death did not need a verbal invitation. He drifted through the still air and settled on the branches beside you. He settled there, bones creaking, shadows twisting around tendrils. The last two beings in existence. Joined in your grief.
Time passed. You both sat still, surrounded by amber leaves and golden bark. Eventually, Death spoke once more, though you did not know how long it had been since either of you had last spared a word. "I will join her soon."
"Yes, you will," You replied, because that was how it was meant to be. How it was always written. All would end, even Death, and then there would only be Oblivion. Nothing. Void. You.
"This cycle..." Death mused, "I believe... it was a good one."
"Indeed it was, old friend."
"It changed you."
"It did."
"He changed you."
You were silent for a moment. Then, you sighed. "Yes... he did." Your gaze turned, focusing on the other Concept. He seemed so much smaller now, nothing but a blot of wispy darkness, calm and flickering, wrapped in your embrace. "Goodbye, old friend."
"Goodbye," Death echoed, "until we begin again."
His shadows faded. A whisper that turned into silence.
And then there was only you, at the end of time.
Oblivion at the end of it all.
The Universe ended, as it had so many times before. It fell away into nothingness. A dark expanse of void. Only you remained, drifting in that empty space once more. Time did not exist. Life did not exist. Death did not exist. Simon did not exist, not even his tree remained. Only you. As it had been so many times before, and would be so many times after. A cycle you had been caught in from the very start.
How had you forgotten?
You supposed even Eternity was not immune to the erosion of memories.
And then, as it was destined to be, you breathed once more. Matter was drawn together and burst in blinding light. Galaxies swirled, stars were born. Life returned, and Death followed her as he always did. The Lovers reunited in the next cycle. Their forms intertwining and dancing across the cosmos.
You drifted. You watched as Concepts coalesced once more. Some different, some the same.
Time began its passage once more, and life evolved around you, urged by her capable hands. You almost forgot what you were looking for, drifting through existence as you had been doing for so long. Lost and wondering what it was that called to you so.
Then, quite by chance, you came across a red planet in a small galaxy. The first of humanity beginning to settle upon it. Attempting to make a home of the previously inhospitable, striving to survive against all odds. And just like that, you remembered. A love you had lost. A human you had cherish. Days spent wrapped in a man's arms, learning to kiss, learning to love, learning to be more than you were.
You remembered Simon.
And so, you settled among those stars. You lingered in the shadows of that desert planet. And you waited.
Because as certain as it was that Death and Life would find each other in every life.
So too, would you find him in every life.