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Kravitz sits on his bed and stares out the window. He does not know how long he has been sitting for. He does not know how long it has been since he has taken a breath or blinked his eyes.
The sun is setting so he knows he must have been sitting here for a while but the passage of time is strange. Time doesn’t function in the astral plane as it does in the material plane, and after years of spending mere moments in the latter Kravitz has lost all sense of what time actually means to mortals who are alive and exist as physical beings.
Kravitz only truly exists when he is pursuing a bounty assigned to him by the Raven Queen. When he is not in active pursuit of criminals Kravitz merely drifts.
The Raven Queen does not have a corporeal body and neither do her reapers. After all, her reapers are merely an extension of her own self. When the Raven Queen is in the astral plane she exists in an empty void filled with smoke. Kravitz exists with her in that void. He drifts in her embrace never knowing, never caring about how long he spends there.
In the void of the astral plane centuries can pass in mere moments and seconds can drag on for lifetimes. There have been countless times where Kravitz has spent so long without a corporeal form that he has forgotten what humanoids are supposed to look like. In fact Kravitz isn’t even sure of what he looked like when he was alive. It has been thousands of years since his death and Kravitz’s form is a fluid thing. He vaguely remembers taking care of how his form looked when he first entered his Queen’s service, but after years of only the Raven Queen’s company one tends to abandon all concerns with appearance.
Even when Kravitz does summon a corporeal form in order to pursue bounties, he often gets details wrong. He finds that he has formed certain body parts incorrectly. His fingers will be too long, arms extending far beyond where they should, his body ghastly thin as if drained of all blood and organs. He doesn’t particularly care. After all, it's not as if his body is him. It is merely a tool he uses in order to rid the world of those who attempt to break the laws of life and death.
The sun is rising now. Kravitz has not moved. Kravitz is not sure of what he is expected to be doing. Taako is off doing business concerning the events of what the mortal residents of the material plane have decided to call The Day of Story and Song. Kravitz thinks that it is quaint that they have decided to name and honor that specific day. Yes truly horrific events came to be on that fateful day but the threat passed and life continues on. It will continue on till no one remembers that the events even happened. Kravitz will exist to see that day when the world has moved on and forgotten the wonderful story that was sung into the minds of all who have ever existed.
Kravitz stops projecting a corporeal form. He feels as if he has been sitting on the bed for ages. The sun has not moved in the sky.
Kravitz hovers in the space his body once occupied. He isn’t sure of what he looks like and he doesn’t care. He isn’t sure of how long he spends existing there. His senses are much more muted when he does not have a body. All sounds fade into the background, his sight becoming blurry, taste, smell, and touch no longer being relevant to him at all.
Kravitz finds drifting to be fundamentally different on the material plane. For one he is completely alone. He is intimately aware of the lack of his Queen’s comforting presence. Kravitz is also aware of the fact that life is continuing on without him. When he is in the astral plane with the Raven Queen, to Kravitz all else ceases to exist. However, here on the material plane no matter how dull his senses are in his bodiless state, Kravitz can sense the soft chirping of the birds outside the window, the cats walking through the room.
Kravitz shivers, or does an approximation of a shiver, as a body passes through where he is existing. The feeling of a corporeal form passing through him Kravitz decides is extremely unpleasant. The body is larger than any of the cats and more humanoid. Vaguely Kravitz comes to the conclusion that Taako has arrived back home. His relief is almost tangible.
Kravitz goes to start reforming his body when he suddenly finds that he can’t remember how. He remembers how to pull together flesh but he cannot for the life of him remember how that flesh is supposed to be composed in order to form what Taako has come to know as Kravitz.
Still Kravitz longs to wrap himself in his boyfriend’s warm embrace so he tries to pull together some sort of tangible form. He doesn’t trust himself to be able to put together a humanoid form so he settles for a formless void. He tries to make his body parts more distinct before giving up after forming a sort of head and neck. He decides to add eyes, though he can’t remember how many he is supposed to have. He settles for three and lets them roam randomly across his “body”.
Feeling quite satisfied with his work, Kravitz looks up to properly greet Taako, only to be met with his boyfriend’s horrified face. Kravitz tries to ask him what’s wrong only to realize that he forgot to form a mouth. Quickly Kravitz forms a gap in his approximation of a face though once he has it formed he realizes that it may be slightly too large compared to Taako’s mouth. Oh well he can always change it later.
Kravitz begins to speak but he finds his voice is strange. It is distinctly his voice but each word feels as if it being copied and pasted in from different sentences rather than being formed for specifically what he wants to say.
“Taako what’s wrong?” Kravitz asks, tilting his head slightly to the side. Taako visibly relaxes once he hears Kravitz’s voice.
“Hey. Uh what’s with the new look?” Taako sits down on the bed fiddling with the knee brace he wears on bad pain days.
Kravitz moved his head to look down at his body and then back up at Taako. He slowly began to form a more humanoid body as he noticed the differences between his own form and Taako’s.
“It can be… difficult to remember,” Kravitz has absolutely no idea how to explain what is happening.
Taako walks around the bed and sits down next to Kravitz, carefully raising his hand and setting it on approximately where Kravitz’s shoulder would be. Only he would except that Taako’s hand passes clean through Kravitz’s body. Kravitz gives a full body shudder.
Kravitz sighs and scoots away from Taako. “I’m… sorry. I don’t - I can’t-” he trails off.
Taako watches him for just a moment before scooting closer, gently nudging Kravitz with his shoulder. His shoulder makes contact with Kravitz but it feels less like touching a body and more like sinking into wet sand.
“Hey it’s okay,” Taako says as he wraps his arms around Kravitz. “I’ll be here until you can.”