Author's Note-This is likely going to be my last story, depending on how this one goes, I left the ending as being one that could serve as a ending but not a permanent ending, depending on the feedback I get. As always, please read my other stories if you have not and leave as many reviews as you can! Thank you so much J
The night was balmy, almost sticky. Unsurprising considering it was the dead of summer in Louisiana. Sitting out on a blanket, Sookie decided to recline onto her back, to look up at the stars. A perfectly clear night, she felt herself being as calm as she had been in some time and it was a feeling she had rarely experienced over the past years, since the night she had learned the existence of vampires up to now, being not only partly one, but married to one for the past five years. Yes, her life had gone from the surreal, to the bizarre to the bloody and violent. But things in the past months had been better. Her extended family was closer than she had ever imagined they would be-a family comprised of herself, Eric, Pam, Nora, Willa, Godric and her brother Jason-who had in the recent past been turned into a were panther-all got along and protected one another with a devoted fierceness that one would be foolish to test. And now, here she was, alone in the warm evening, thinking back onto all that had culminated into her being right here, right now. She had even, in the past few days, gotten herself a new pet cat to replace the one she had lost so savagely years ago by the same person who would later kill her Gran in an attempt to kill Sookie herself.
"Hey Fuzzball." Sookie said as the long haired calico cat trotted over to her. She had quickly learned that even being partly vampire, animals were still attuned to her being something….strange and usually fled. It was thanks to Niall that she had learned to cloak that aura about her and channel her fairy part instead. It hadn't been easy. Nothing in her life had ever been though and it was thanks to Niall she had come into her own with her faerie powers. And thanks to the last one she had ever expected to marry to help her embrace her vampire part. To think of how much pain she had dealt Eric and he her-mostly to help keep her safe-she started to tear up as the cat curled up on her stomach. So much loss, pain, torment and tortured they had bother endured. And now, both were in the best place they had ever been in their lives and she imagined, what with his many centuries more than her, it was a relief for Eric to finally have some peace.
Twinkling over her and her cat, Sookie watched the fireflies mingling with the stars that were so much further up in the sky yet no less bright. "Things are good, they are really, really good." she muttered dreamily as she petted her cat. She soon heard a whooshing sound of branches overhead and she was immediately in battle mode, fangs out and on her feet, gently placing Fuzzball on the blanket. "Impressive reflexes as usual, but then again, you did learn from the best."
"Funny, I don't recall learning much from Pam, save for fashion tips." Sookie quipped as she watched Eric lean against the tree trunk, still perched on the thick tree limb far over her.
"How I enjoy your sass….." he said as he finally descended, landing next to her on the blanket silently. As he looked from the tranquil sky to her face, he saw the thoughts swirling in her mind. "What's on your mind?"
"I was just thinking." Sookie said as a firefly landed on her fingertip for but a moment, attracted by her own light she had summoned out of a blissful boredom. "Laying out here among the moon, the stars and the fireflies, nature itself…..I've gotten to think. I mean really think, about everything we have dealt with. About how my decisions hurt those I love and almost caused me to lose forever. I love where I am in my life, living here in the country….I mean, sure, we get away to the big cities now and then-"
"By the way, Pam did get our trip to Vegas bookies for January. It is one of the few places on the planet I have yet to explore…..sorry for interrupting." he added with something of a ashamed grin. As ashamed as one such as he could be, anyway. "I couldn't resist telling you,
Sookie rolled her eyes, a smile playing at her lips. "Sounds fun. But back to what I've been doing for the past hours out here. Watching the stars. They have been around for thousands and thousands of years. But they can die out. Fireflies, they are bright and yet with a pinch of a couple of fingers, their light, their life, can be snuffed out. Then there are those such as us. Harder to kill but we too aren't immune from death either." she stopped talking as she let her light around her hands attract the fireflies around them like moths to a flame. Her powers always fascinated him, how they had evolved with the guidance of Niall. Truthfully, Eric knew he couldn't take all the credit for how well she used her vampire talents. He remembered telling her once he had thought she had the right temperament to be a vampire. And now, here she was, finally having embraced her altered nature. Fiercer, yet still as kind and as loving as she ever was.
"No, we certainly are not, as I was so kindly reminded many a time in my life, most specifically on that mountain top…" he looked from the sky to Sookie, who kept watching the heavens. "I always marveled at the northern lights, you know. Even in the middle of a battle, during a lull in the action, I would watch them, thinking of my family I lost. What could have been. And something so beautiful, something that made me so reminiscent, brought out the fight in me. I had never fought more brutally than after watching the lights and thinking of my slaughtered family. I had never felt such anger, yet peace at the same time, feeling as though they were part of the heavens, the lights. Seeing those lights made me almost regain my faith in the gods we revered for so long. Gods that I stopped believing in not long after I was turned. Why I stopped believing in them, I am not entirely certain, though I believe I saw Godric as something of a god….considering what he did for me that fateful night. Without him, I never would have done the things I have done. The good, the bad. Nor would I have lived long enough to have encountered you."
"And you never would have gotten stuck with running a video store replete with a lovely assortment of porn….Pam never gets tired of telling me the look on your face the night you two were forced to run that place. Pity I wasn't around yet."
"Yes…..well, perhaps you were around yet but you were likely far too young for me at that time." quipped Eric with that grin of his. But that smile faded to w wistful, thoughtful look. "The things I have taken for granted all my life, right up to even now, where I know I still do take things for granted."
Neither said anything for several moments. "No matter what we are, faerie, vamp, were, whatever….I think everyone takes things for granted and the best thing we can do is try to step back and appreciate what we have. Before they are taken from us forever. I think about Gran every day, you know? She never was scared of what I could do, not like my parents who thought me a monster. A freak. And as much as I was hurt finding out the truth of what daddy tried to do to me….I still love him and momma. And I like to think had they lived, we would have come to a understanding. That I could have made them see my talents as being helpful, that I could save lives. Then again, if they could see what I had become, who I married…life is full of those "What if's." she sighed.
A firefly buzzed lazily around Eric's head and he watched it thoroughly before it gravitated towards the light around Sookie's hand, she casting her light as lazily as the firefly. "We are lucky, I guess you could say. Perhaps I have more faith in my gods than I would have wanted to admit"
"I would say you take after one of them too. Loki, perhaps?" she game him a sly smirk, to which he returned with a very Loki like smirk. "I am a perfect angel, not the god of mischief. I don't know where you got the idea that I am-"
"Smug, sarcastic, one to tear people to pieces…..oh and all the times you tried getting into my pants…shall I continue?"
"I do like trips down memory lane. For the most part."
"Things have been good….not all the time, but if things were perfect and peaceful all the time, I guess we would wind up rather bored, huh?" Sookie said sleepily, watching the light of the stars and fireflies through her hybrid eyes, it was unlike anything she had ever seen before, finally being able to sit back, relax and truly explore nature around her. Yes, things had changed in the ten years, especially in the past five when she had become a faerie vamp then went on to marry not only the last person she ever expected to fall for, but a vamp nonetheless.
"As much as I love a good fight, I have a...appreciation for times such as these. And either way, I prefer to be in these situations with you by my side."
"And I feel the same way." Sookie said as she felt the familiar hand brushing through her hair she had pulled out of its ponytail and let it flow around her. Sighing contentedly, Fuzzball returning to snuggle upon her stomach, she petted him serenely, watching the stars and fireflies above, wondering what the next chapter in their lives would bring.
The End