Prophesy bears heavily down on the minds of mortal men and women. Immortals are supposed to be likewise immune.

Camphor watched the ring as he sanded the casket, smoothing its edges to be blunted, rounded, perfect. Each casket he made demanded a different approach, something that spoke of its occupant. This one would be simple, pine, and seamless. He had spent weeks carving the casket out of a single tree, having first to find a woodcutter to fell it and then someone to age the log. The rest had been his own doing.

It was almost finished now. He would stain it a warm brown, and he would line it in silk cushions. From there, it would be given to the woman who had requested it made. It was a process that should not have taken more than a few days at most. He didn't need to stop to eat or drink as a mortal any longer. He did not need to sleep. He could work, tirelessly, endlessly, on a casket. He had little patience for anything else.

But the ring insisted on foiling his devices.

For three months it had rested innocuously on his finger, grafted to his very bone, biding its time, waiting for its opportunity to strike. He was sure of it.

And he hated it. He hated that twist of metal, that piece of Fate now a piece of him, staunched in prophesy and doom.

He didn't have time for prophesy. He didn't have time for it, nor did he want to make time for it.

He had a casket to make. He had an obligation to fulfill. He had a bargain to keep.

And he would keep it. Prophesy or no.

He knocked on the door to the manor house, the casket stained and dressed. A maid opened the door, and she blinked down the stairs at him.

"I have your mistress' order."

It was a narrow thing, he knew. The mistress was on her death bed. She'd likely be dead within hours, and then laid out to be pickled by the mortitians, and then packed away in her casket.

It was the natural order of things. People died. Even he, one day, would die, by his own stupidity or arrogance or ignorance. He would fail, as they all did. He would not be surprised when the day came.

But it wasn't going to be today, and it wasn't going to be anytime soon as far as he could help it, prophesy or no. He could ignore the gutteral seething words that echoed into his head late at night, slipping around, reminding him that the will of the ring was not going to be subjugated to his will.

He hated it all the more.

The maid took the casket, and Camphor felt a wave wash over him as he rounded the corner of the block, cart in tow. It was empowering, relieving, and stifling all at once. It was his life, stretching out before him, indefinitely, ageless and impossible until the next casket was ordered of him. In exchange for the woman's death, his life was extended. The natural order of things had fallen into place, and he could and would take advantage of it. He had very few morals on that issue.

But he was done in this town, he knew.

Familiarity bred contempt, and that was exactly what he wanted to avoid. Familiarity or contempt.

He would pack his things that night, and he would start, again, on the road of anonymity. He could only hope that he was to be guided by his own two feet, and not, as seemed more likely, by the Copper Ring.