Cyris Jones pocketed his keys and leaned into the backseat, pulling out a healthy stack of old books and slaming the door shut. The fresh air would do him wonders. The bookstore was stuffy and musty and the old man that had made it his permanite home after he'd had a heartattack there fourteen years back wouldn't leave him alone about the black clothes and how he should cut his hair back out of his eyes, that men in his day weren't so awfully pale and whippersnappers, whatever the hell that was, weren't so rude to old men. He left.

On a hard, less-than-comfortable bench, he pulled the book off of the top of the stack and flipped open to the index, pressing a finger to the page and scrolling down it, muttering to himself.

"Phorcys, Proteus, Taygete, ah. Thanatos." He scrolled sideways to the number 365 and then flipped to the page, scrolling down until he found part of what he was looking for. There on the page was a script in a language he couldn't actually read but he recognized the word. èÜíáôïò. Reading in a whisper, his lips barely, "...son of Nyx and twin of Hypnos....Roman sarcophagi show him as a winged boy..." Funny. He didn't remember wings.

"You want wings? I could do wings."

He hadn't been there a moment ago, but he is now-- tall, pale, draped casually over the bench, dressed in black jeans and a black tee with a smiling skull on it. He's pale, still, though perhaps the face isn't exactly the same as the other night. The hair's similar. The eyes are the smae. The voice, too.

One of the hazards of speaking a god's name is that he might hear.

Cyris' body shuddered three times. Have you ever been so startled that you actually jump three times? He almost dropped the book as he whiped his head around and stared at Thanatos.

"Shit man, shit. Where the..." Hell did you come from, he almost said. Probably hell, he answered himself. "Jesus." He said it like a swear word. He narrowed his eyes, wondering if getting up and walking away would get him killed. He had thought he'd collected his thoughts on this but now that he's here he's lost them again.

"Do you do that to everyone?" he asked instead.

"Eventually, yes. Of course, if you mean appear while you're still alive...? No, just the interesting ones."

He grins, the whitenes of his teeth lost in the whiteness of his lips, face, skin, being.

"Oh Jesus," he replied, unwilling to let his mind crawl away with that idea. Im interesting? "Why?" He didn't do anything special to get the attintion of the soul collector.

Would that be as bad as a tax collector? Worse probably. Or maybe not. He takes some of the souls that hoover around away right?

The white-eyed god gives Cyris a look that says the answer should be obvious.

"Because it would be boring to hang around boring people." Instead of interesting ones? Yes?

He remains draped comfortably in place, as if oblivious to Cyris' tension.

"I mean," he closed his eyes tightly and shook his head, hair flopping out of his eyes. "Why me. I didn't do anything."

Scowl, he's entertained the thought but doesn't want to dwell on the fact that a Necromancer is probably interesting to the Personification of Death. Which reminds him:

"You aren't just a personification. Are you?" The book said personification. Did that undermind the idea of God.

He sticks out a long, long arm, inspecting his fingernails as if it actually mattered.

"Just? No. I guess that's one term for what I am."

Personification, embodiment, god, whatev.

He scowled.

"Don't you have things to do?" He's not trying to be rude, he's not that bold. He's just...curious about how things work. Are Gods like Santi Clause, around the world in one night? Is there a Santi Clause?