angelsepilogue

Epilogue “She might be immortal, but something like this could kill anyone!”
“She grew up during the Middle Ages! She survived the fucking Black Plague, she lived through witch-hunts, and she’s been slashed through the guts before. What’s so different about this?”
Shaye cringed as a stab of white-hot pain shot down her side. She kept her eyes closed in hopes that she could drift off to the sweet blackness again. Shaye groaned as another stab of pain shot through her, telling her there was no way she was getting back to sleep.
“She’s awake!” Griffen’s voice cut through the blackness.
“Shaye! Open your eyes!” It was Atry.
Shaye slowly opened her eyes and tried to tell the difference between the two blurry shapes the room with her. “I feel like I should be dead.”
“You may feel like it, but you’re not,” Griffen grinned broadly. “Shaye, the people have accepted you as their queen. They’ve all but crowned you now. Even Atry has decided you make a better ruler than him.”
“Shit, I can’t rule a fucking country,” Shaye moaned. “I couldn’t even find a girl!”
Griffen and Atry exchanged a look. “Shaye, Trisha was found dead two days ago. The dragons took her, they knew you’d follow.”
“The blood, immortal.”
“A hoax,” Atry shrugged. “We know everything there is to know. It shouldn’t concern you now.”
Shaye groaned and squeezed her eyes shut. “Giff, you probably can’t wait to get home. All this shit going on.”
“Actually,” Griffen smiled, “I thought I’d hang around for a while. I kinda like it here, Atry’s talked me into staying. Said you’ll need someone to keep you on your toes, and you said it yourself, it’s nice to have someone from Earth around.”
“Shut up.” Shaye fought against the tears. She wanted nothing more than to run, she’d seen too many people close to her die.
“You’re not shutting us out, Shaye,” Atry said.
“You’ll die!” Shaye yelled, sitting up. She hissed in pain and slowly lay back down with Griffen’s help.
“No we won’t.”
“Old age will get you in the end, if nothing else does it first.”
“No.” Griffen shook his head. “I think we’re safe.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“These. We read farther in the scrolls and they told us where to find them. These are immortal lives, Shaye, the powers of the medallions drain into us until, one day, we won’t need them anymore.”
“Idiots. Do you know what immortal life means? It means being alone, knowing that you will live on even though the people close to you die and the world changes around you. Time melts away, and you go on, never changing, always staying the same. Soon, time will mean nothing, and you will suddenly find yourselves thinking what death might have been like. You see things that you wish you didn’t, that you pray death would finally remember you so you don’t have to remember them anymore. You live with memories of things that happened centuries ago, but still seem like only yesterday in your mind. Soon, you decide it’s not worth to get too close to anyone anymore, they’ll just die in a few years, and you’ll go on, carrying their memory, forever comparing them with others you will meet along the way. Do you know what it’s like to watch a friend die? Then watch their kin die, hundreds of years later?
“You think living without death is an amazing thing, yet you are still a newborn babe in the eyes of time. It’s painful to know that you’ll always go on, nothing can kill you. God knows I’ve tried to take my own life thousands of times, in every way imaginable. Sometimes it takes years to recover, but I always did and I always will. Did you know that I was once beheaded and had my body taken far from my head? I woke up ten years later, with not even a scar to show what I’d done. I was burnt at the stake during the witch-hunts, barely a charred skeleton of my remained by the time the flames dwindled and died. Only a few weeks later that I woke, the burns hurt like hell, but only six months later, I was completely healed again. There are things too gruesome to tell, but I tried them, and I healed. Nothing can kill me, nothing. And if you think you can live like me, God have mercy on your soul!” Shaye finally let the tears slide down her cheek as she turned away from the two faeries. She closed her eyes again and let sleep wash over her, and to let her body heal itself yet again.

Shaye looked out over the lands from the balcony in her chamber. It was nearly three hundred years since she had last seen Griffen and Atry, and she hoped with all her being that they were dead. She had been told they left while she slept, healing herself. Though she had never found the amulets, Shaye believed they had destroyed them. “God only knows what happened,” Shaye sighed as she turned away from the balcony and sat down at her desk.
The world was changing around her, as it always had, and she remained the same, as she always did. Running a hand through her long braids, Shaye bowed her head and started to cry softly.
           “Shaye, don’t cry.” Shaye froze her tears suddenly dry. Slowly raising her head, she did something she rarely did; screamed in complete terror. Griffen and Atry were standing in the room, looking exactly as she had last seen them.
           “You bastards,” Shaye hissed. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? I should kill you now to release you from this curse!”
           “Too late,” Griffen said, blushing a little. “The amulets gave us their power two centuries ago.”
           “Idiots,” Shaye said quietly. “What do you want here?”
           “To make up,” Atry sighed. “Shaye, we fought together, we beat the dragons together. We were once a team! Why can’t it be like that again?”
           Shaye shook her head and laughed bitterly. “A team, is it? Fine! A team we will be! I will warm to the idea of you two being immortal soon, and I will teach you have to survive and to adjust to the changes of the world. Just don’t beg me to kill you when things get ugly, because I won’t. You immortality was brought on by majick, and it can be erased by majick, though I will see you live forever. Don’t begin to hate me or it, and don’t think I’ve gone mad, just remember what I told you years ago; there is a steep price for immortality, and there are none who can pay it when it comes time.” Shaye grinned and stood, putting an arm around each man and hugging him tightly. “We are together again, and will be, until the end of time.”

The End A short story by Meagan Richards. Completed December 25th, 2002, at 11:38PM Part III Part II Part I Index