A/N: I feel a summary is in order, because I hardly remember my plot, so I doubt that you do.
In the last chapter, Popuri and Kai came back to town with the organization. Popuri fears the worst, because she knows that her wedding will expose the Harvest Goddess and town to harm. However, Popuri and Kai secretly marry the night preceding their wedding date, allowing the Harvest Goddess to take action during the "ceremony". They believe they have thwarted the organization, but it isn't the end yet.
End
Chapter 7
Nothing ends, and nothing begins. It is just a constant flow, incessant time pricked occasionally by events that humanity believes to be points of hope or demise- beginning or ending can be attached to either. It is the individual who determines which.
I had missed sunrise in Mineral Town, with the squawking of the chickens in their pens and the rosy glow of the sun creeping over the far mountains. I usually walked to the Springs to see it, to breathe it all in; today, routine simply couldn't exist, not for me, not even with my mother making eggs downstairs or my brother humming off-key as he moved about.
I was married. I was married not to the man of my dreams, but to a man so different than I had expected, more darkly complex and stunningly strange, a real man. I was hoping I had become a woman to match him.
My boy from the beach was already awake, perched lightly on the edge of my bed and watching me unabashedly with one hand cupping his dark, tanned cheek. I almost started at the sight of him and gave him a look of surprised horror, but he smirked.
"Oh, no, Poppy. I have rights now, if you recall. I can greet you in the morning, wake you up, spend the whole day with you, if I so please." I flushed. He paused. "Also, if you scream, Rick will probably come to his senses and run upstairs to murder me." How he could speak so lightly, so jokingly, about something that now seemed so close, that word 'murder' that had touched me with one freezing finger, I would never know. My lips pursed themselves into a near pout. I had to stop doing that. He raised an eyebrow and then turned away before quite purposefully rotating back. His eyes glinted.
"...Yes?" I squeaked. I sounded like a child found in a game of hide-and-seek.
He kissed me then, and it reminded me briefly of that sorrowful night, the night of our first kiss, before every thought I had burned away to a warm black. All I knew were the calloused fingers in my hair, the perfect haven my covers provided around me, the sharp and twisting aroma of pineapple, and the way Kai made my heart clench in my chest. Every once in a while, he would pull back in the slightest way to take me in, to watch me cringe in embarrassment at my own happiness.
"You're so young," he muttered on my lips in one of these sudden breaks.
"Sorry," I replied, and he frowned. I knew, because I could feel it. Feeling a frown was so different from watching; so personal. It made your own mouth want to follow.
"I'm saying it," he enunciated this with one hand resting plainly on my neck, "Because I appreciate it." A touch of his lips on my cheek. "Because you make me feel young." A breath. "Understand?" I gave a trembling nod, and he dove in again.
Rick decided this would be a good time to come upstairs. I had little doubt as to what his thoughts would be like, were he to find Kai and I kissing. In fact, he had probably come up intending to stop something of that nature, having let Kai into the house and into our private rooms. He had no idea of what had happened just the night before, less than a mile away, at our church. Kai's lips slowed upon mine and then pulled away. I sighed as he backed off, the air rushing between us, and he groaned.
"Popuri," he stated warningly, his voice oddly upset, and then Rick's feet clattered on the final step, "That isn't fair."
Kai stood with a tug on his bandanna, and the door opened.
"Oh, you're awake." His voice still held that awkward tone, that resigned separation. It stung and rattled in my ears.
"Rick!" I was too happy, my tone too bright. For all Rick knew, I had said goodbye last night and then done nothing but sleep. His eyes widened, but something in his face hinted at a small smile. I felt something warm glow in my chest. He was my brother after all, no stranger to me.
"Is something exciting happening today, Popuri?" Then again, Karen had changed him since I had left. He still enjoyed teasing me, but now he sounded so smooth, so assured. I opened my mouth, but he didn't wait for the answer. "Mom wants you downstairs to start the preparations. As for you, Kai, get out." Kai snorted and Rick rolled his eyes defensively. "I'm helping you out. You weren't around for the other weddings; the women are fierce."
I stood and pushed on one of his arms with a slight smile. "Rick's right. You aren't supposed to see me until later."
We all moved downstairs, and Rick and Kai went for the door.
"Is your sister going to come to this, too?" Rick asked suddenly. Kai stiffened and cocked his head to the side.
"No, I think she's busy at the church today." There was a hesitating silence on both their parts, and then Kai shifted and broke into speech again with a grin. "She's excited; she's got that feminine love of weddings. I'm sure you understand." He jerked his head towards the parlor.
They lapsed into silence again, and then I realized why. Kai and Rick never said more than five words to each other without argument- there was something awkward and tense about them, an uncomfortable acknowledgment of change. I felt my heart swell. They were trying, and now that the dark shadow over us had passed and I could breathe, it seemed all the more beautiful. I pressed a quick kiss on Kai's cheek, and he blinked at me in a distantly startled way before stepping out of our door.
Then it was Rick and me, together in silence, with our mother dutifully cooking away in the background, sitting on her high stool that our father made for her.
"You and Kai," Rick blurted suddenly, pushing his glasses up his nose. I jerked a little in response.
"Yes...?"
"In all of those months. I just... I have to know. Did he ever do anything that you...?" His voice perpetually got lower and lower, and in my obliviousness, I still didn't understand. "That you didn't like," he finished off lamely, with a brief glance towards the kitchen.
I was torn. It was probably normal for couples to fight, and they had told me to be real. "O-of course," I replied. "I mean, it is me, and Kai, and we're not perfect, you know-" Rick was staring at me in open shock.
"I don't think you understand what I'm asking, Popuri, and if you do, this wedding isn't happening, do you understand?"
"What? Rick!" The same brother that had sworn he would accept us was now openly fighting once again- at the one moment when I needed to marry, needed to finish this. I should have known.
We were being too loud. Mama tapped her wooden spoon on the pot. "Are you two getting hungry?"
"Just a minute, Mom."
And we were outside, just like that, still in our pajamas and our arms immediately wrapped about us in the cold breath of the morning.
"I'm asking if Kai respected you." I raised an eyebrow, and he groaned. "You're going to make me say it." He blew hair out of his eyes, and he let out the last word in the puff of breath. "Physically."
I felt the tension leave the air, and I almost laughed. "Oh, goddess, Rick." I buried my face in my hands. "Yes! We hardly even..." He prodded me on. I was actually talking to my brother. About this, of all things. "Kiss."
He let out a sigh. "Thank the goddess. I thought I would have to become my brother in law's mortal enemy once again."
"Heaven knows I wouldn't want you two strutting around in the chicken ring squawking at each other like old times," I teased, albeit hesitantly. It felt awkward, and we both wrapped our arms around ourselves. Not each other.
"Like old times," he echoed thoughtlessly.
I tapped my boot in the dirt. "Thank you for... accepting him." For accepting me, when I came back.
He looked pained, his eyes crinkling behind his glasses. "I want to be honest with you. I may never behave towards him like a true family member should, but... Goddess, Popuri. I can't lose you- Mom can't. Every time I think I might our family might have safety, no, happiness, it falls from our grasp. If that means I have to smile at that undependable flake of a boy and walk you down the aisle to him at the end of it, I will."
He reached for the doorknob.
"I asked him to, Rick," I whispered, the words catching on the hot shame in my throat. "Kai never wanted to hurt me that way, to hurt our family that way, but I begged him. And he loved me, so much that he couldn't let go."
"He's weak," Rick grit out between sharp teeth. "He's weak if he puts himself before you so easily."
I caught his sleeve. "Is it weakness, Rick, to love me that much? Does love make someone weak?"
He looked through the door with his narrow eyes, and I knew exactly what he meant.
"Sometimes it does."
I let his clothing fall from my grip. "But I love him, I really love him, and we've... we've fixed things. Everything will be better now. You have to trust in that." I looked from my brother's perspective, and I saw myself, a young maiden playing with her dolls at the heels of love and fate, and knew that I was wrong. It was not over, it was not better, and Rick couldn't trust me, not yet. That overprotective stance of his was quickly reappearing, his shoulders stiffening and face reddening.
"It will be different after the wedding," I promised weakly. "You'll see. Things will change."
He swung the door open wide and stepped through, giving me one last, curt reply. "They already have."
But my brother held the door open for me, and together we ate scrambled eggs and excitedly went over plans with Mama. We weren't children. We were adults, siblings, capable of overcoming any distance, any pain. We would trust each other again someday, perhaps for the first time, trust each other not as babes do the spoons that feed them but as living, breathing, fallible people.
We'd made mistakes. I had yet to apologize and fix mine completely. That was what would change. I looked forward to it, that chance for my brother to finally accept me.
All of the women came over that afternoon in a cluster. They scratched around our house for a while and hesitantly fawned over me. I knew with every downcast glance that Mama had been saddled with the burden of closing their gossiping mouths. My name had probably been giggled more times in the Square in the past few seasons than it had been called when they tried to find me. The most painful part, though, was that Karen wasn't even there- Rick had to forgive me a little that easily, but Karen did not. She would be my sister, and her temper and my huge mistakes were going to be a hurdle for us to cross.
I don't know how Mama managed it, but she got them to leave for the final few steps, so we could be together alone.
"You're beautiful, my baby girl," she said in her soft voice, my face cradled by her smooth palms. "I'm so happy that you are home." I felt myself lean into her touch. "Kai will cherish you. I've watched you grow together for years- he loves you, more than he realized for a long time. Rick isn't exactly bursting with joy, Popuri, but I want you to know that I am. I know you'll always come back to me."
Mama finished helping me put on my wedding dress, her own wedding dress, and then she needed a few moments to herself. That was when the Harvest Goddess came.
"I'm sorry I did not get to be here for this," she said in her smooth voice, her glowing face dimming. "I know that it is significant, in weddings."
I swallowed, and felt my lips curve into a trembling smile. "You're here now. You're my maid of honor, you know."
She responded with her own curve of the lips, a spark, green hair shifting into chaotic, assimilated beauty.
"And you were mine." I blinked and opened my mouth to question, but she shook her head. "Don't attempt it, Popuri. Even after all you've done, you are human, and there is no way for you to break through a lock on your memory. It was just a dream."
Even looking deep into myself, I knew she was right. I had never suspected, never realized that anything was lost, that such a thing existed to be lost. So I let it go. There were so many things in my life that I could not even imagine to be real.
"Thank you for coming," I said instead, and she shook her head.
"I came to warn you."
I felt my insides turn to ice. "I thought that-"
"They're not fools, Popuri. They know when allegiances are bound to break. They expected this, and they are prepared." She glanced towards our door, and I knew we had only a little while before my mother returned.
I ran it through my mind. "Did they take someone hostage? Is everyone all right? Did- did they bring in more people?"
She paled. "They stole something of mine while I was occupied by the wedding."
Objects had meant little to Jill, and I bet they meant less to her as the Harvest Goddess. "Can they hurt you?"
"No." I felt my shoulders relax inside the soft lace of my gown. My mother's knock sounded on the door.
"They could kill the Harvest Goddess, Popuri."
My hands flew to catch her, to pull her in, as though a tiny chicken girl could protect her. "But she's-you're- immortal!"
She snorted and gave a miserable smile, something little befitting my usual image of a goddess. Kai wasn't a prince. The world outside Mineral Town was not a glowing beacon of all things exciting and beautiful.
"Hardly." With that, she began to turn into smoke, and I noticed only then that she was already partially made of it. "I can only hope they don't know their own power. I've already spoken to Kai. He's on his way here, and your husband is furious." Then she was gone.
The door burst open and in came a smiling Kai, his hand on the small of my mother's back. His purple bandanna clashed terribly with his suit and tie, which merely hung about his neck.
"Oh goddess, it doesn't even come off for the wedding, does it?" I asked, surprised by my own sense of humor. I watched his face as it did an awkward dance- first hooded confusion, a dawning understanding, then pointed rage, and finally, laughter.
"I knew something was wrong," Mama remarked absentmindedly. Kai guided her with ease to our couch before moving to me, sweeping me up, white lace and train and all.
"This is such bad luck," I whispered into one warm ear. I could feel his breath pressed deep into my neck.
"I think we've got enough piled up already, thank you. A little more won't tip the scales." There was a pause, and he stiffened all around me. I could literally feel him abandon all of his joy. "We need to leave."
My arms pushed him back so I could look into his eyes. My mother smiled on in the background. "I told you I wasn't leaving yet," I said carefully. "We're not done."
"But we'll be late," he replied lightly. For the boat he prepared for us, I realized dimly. He meant to follow through with his previous plan, to run away, only the two of us, and face the world with the blood of my family at our backs.
"I stand where I've always stood." He knew that I had pledged my death to Mineral Town before. I would do it again.
He swore softly. It wasn't in English, but it was all I could imagine that he was doing. I looked past him, to my mother in all her serenity and eyes defined by red, and I knew what she had been doing outside when Kai had found her, because it was her dress I was wearing, the one she had married Daddy in.
I would not leave her again.
"Is Rick already there?" Mama nodded. Kai looked between us, and knew me, in all my childish hope and strength. He did not look dejected, and his brown eyes lost their melting fury. He offered Mama his arm.
"Allow me, Mrs. Chite," he said with a charming grin, and then we walked to our church, the three of us, a sight to see crossing the town square. A bride and groom already wed, taking their mother to what they hoped was only a church and not what lay outside of it. A graveyard.
Carter greeted us at the door, only mildly surprised. He held it open for Mama and pleasantly gestured her inside, to where the whole of Mineral Town waited, an army dispersed among them.
"He already thinks the worst of me that a priest can politely believe," Kai said in explanation. He shrugged. "He thinks we're pretty unorthodox." He caught the door with his hand and made to move inside.
"I love you," I said, and I meant it. "I want to grow old with you, and raise little chicken girls and boys and be frightened only of dogs and bugs."
"I love you." His voice nearly broke as he said it, nearly choked him, and in the past this would have disheartened me. Now I just knew that it was because he meant it, too. "I wish all we fought about was jewelry and Rick and how unfairly attractive I am." I made to smack his shoulder lightly, but I ended up just moving my palm over his arm, feeling him through the starchy, rough fabric. I knew the glazed light in his eyes. We were going to die, and he wanted to kiss me, like we were two teenagers that met secretly at a beach house, enveloped in the comfortable warmth of summer. "See you in a minute, Poppy."
The wooden door creaked shut, and there was silence. My brother gave me his arm. "Thank you for being here," I told him, and he brushed his thumb over my hand.
"Stop thanking me," he replied, his voice an anchor.
And when the organ sent joyful shivers through the silence, we opened the door and stepped into the mouth of the church.
Maria was not in the doomed crowd.
She didn't hate her brother. She hated that he had found someone, and that she never would, because she was a selfish bastard of a woman. Her father welcomed it, her father used it, and he judged her harshly for it.
The Harvest Sprite with her was just as pathetic. He had already tired, weak from years of separation from anyone to whip him into shape. No farmers recognized the ways of old anymore, not since the last farmer of Mineral Town had become its goddess. He was integral to Mineral Town, he was part of its spiritual life, and he had been trained to water plants. Maria had been trained to murder.
The wedding was just a show, an attraction to give easier access to all of Mineral Town. When the Goddess appeared, they would strike.
"Do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?" Carter was smiling at us both so peacefully.
"I do."
I felt an odd sense of safety in those words. The ceremony was nearly over, and nothing had happened. Nothing would-
Jill was in my ear at once. Get down. Get down RIGHT NOW. I dragged myself to the floor and took Kai with me. Heat passed over my head, and I ripped off my veil to better see.
Caitlin stood in the middle of the aisle, something thick and black and metallic balanced under one arm. Another man stood with her, a thinner and smaller version of the contraption held tightly in his outstretched hand. Caitlin threw her head back then, a terrible noise that could have been laughter at one point in her life.
"Got you."
Jill swept over me then, straight through me, and the very town shook beneath us as she flew at Caitlin. I felt myself begin to breathe. It would be over, it would-
Kai yanked my arm hard enough to dislocate the shoulder, and I tumbled, wedding dress and all, in his direction. There had been a noise like fireworks that split the church, and it happened again and again. The wood of the front table splintered behind me and bent. The church was filled with the sound of screams, screams I knew belonged to my family, the whole of Mineral Town.
"What was that?" I gasped. Kai pulled his own black metal contraption out of his suit and stared at me incredulously for a moment before turning his focus into the crowd. There was a sharp roar of thunder, and a man that had been approaching us fell back to the floor, blood blooming on his dress clothes.
"What was that, Kai?" My voice was shrill.
"That," he replied, turning and aiming again, "Was a gun." Another man slung across a pew, unmoving. I stared at him in horror, and he rolled his shoulders like the whole situation could just fall off of them. "Oh, don't. They're not dead," he apologized without conviction. "My gun isn't loaded with actual bullets. Goddess, they really kept you locked up in a chicken pen for your entire life."
"Oh, I'm sorry," I managed to fling out of my mouth, unsure if it had been sarcasm or honesty that made me speak.
"Get behind the front table with Carter," he ordered in response. Carter himself was already on the floor, blacked out. And my body listened, even when my head felt dizzy. I would have stayed there, but I couldn't listen to the sounds of my family thrown in the middle of a war, I couldn't just hide. So I stood, and I looked.
Zack had my mother. Even with her clutched to his front by one hulking arm, the man was fending off anyone that came near while simultaneously trying to shove his way through the church doors, which were locked. It wasn't working. Karen and Rick were against one wall, close to me, her body wedged with and protected by his. Though I knew my brother had wanted to come to me, he had Karen's hands gentle and soothing on his face, her mouth softly moving against one ear. Your brother was a werewolf. He had something worse to worry about.
Kai, my Kai, was in the middle of it, his gun a constant spatter of light and noise. The rest of the town was scattered, and over the crescendo I could hear little Stu's sobbing, Gray's furious and inappropriate rage, Barley's hushed consoling. I couldn't hide. I had to do something, but what on earth was I capable of doing?
Maria came through the window then.
"Harvest Goddess," she called, and even though her voice was soft, wrapped in smug calm, I knew she had been heard. "Look what I found."
She had an odd little creature that hung from her hand by its colorful coat. It wiggled unsuccessfully, its lips moving to cry, "Miss!", and Maria shook it till it didn't move anymore.
They stole something of mine while I was occupied by the wedding.
"Stop your assault," the beautiful woman warned. "I said stop." There had been a warmth in the room, a light that hung above the center that spun and gave me hope. It disappeared, and then the Harvest Goddess was in the center of church, in the flesh.
"Don't," she said, in a voice that could have been a plea. "Please. There's already been enough blood. This will be all of it, if you kill him."
Maria smiled.
"That's what I wanted to hear," she said with a sigh, and then there was a gun in her hands. "You can't survive without your sprites. So, Harvest Goddess?"
My friend just shook her head, slowly. "I have people I need to protect. I do not have the time to deal with you, or the right to give you my power. You would abuse it. So the Harvest Goddess will die." Her eyes flashed. "But I die slowly. You can be sure that this town will thrive for another long time."
Then she was gone again, and I realized that while they spoke, I had moved to Maria. She had guards, but their gazes and weapons were trained on the goddess, and a little girl passed through without a second thought.
I had to mean something.
With Maria's gun unwavering in her hand, I ripped the sprite from her grasp and placed him on the ground.
They had accounted for the werewolf that walked his sister down the aisle. The wedding was during the day, on a night when the moon was at its weakest. They accounted for an unrestrained and angry Harvest Goddess- the sprite ensured some weakness. They accounted for the man that had betrayed them, the unawakened Dark Presence, the blind Seer, a failed experiment, the goddess that refused her power, a girl on the verge of creating whole worlds and her vessel-like guardian. They accounted for every magical secret that lay buried beneath time and effort. Kai's family had prepared for it all, prepared for this moment for years. They would wipe Mineral Town off the map somehow, destroy the magic that threatened so much.
Yet they hadn't expected Popuri Chite, human in every aspect, human and young to the core, a girl below a pawn, a black and white square to be moved over- no, a grain of wood in the table to set the very chessboard upon- to get in their way.
I recognized it now as a weapon, and that weapon was pointed at a creature I hardly knew to exist. But the Harvest Goddess needed him, and she was distracted, trying to save the whole of the town, and I was nothing.
So I moved between Maria and the sprite, shielded him with my very body, and waited for her to fire.
Maria did. I thought I knew pain at the place Kai had come from. I had merely watched pain from behind a glass, and now I was pain, and it was me.
She must have shot me somewhere important. The sprite was crying, raindrop tears, but I still blocked him, and he was tiny. Maria moved and shot again.
Then she was gone, just gone.
Jill's voice thundered into my sleepy consciousness. "You spilled a hero's heartblood on my holy ground."
There was light everywhere, and I had to be dead.
But breathing still hurt- everything still hurt or was tinged with numbness, so I couldn't be dead, not yet.
Kai's voice was all I could hear.
"You just moved them? To the lake with the Kappa? Really? Are you insane? They-" I didn't hear the rest, because it shattered into a senseless, deep howl. Then he was with me, my bright husband, his hands and breath. I didn't have much breath, so I reveled in his. "The Doctor," he managed, hoarse. "Get the Doctor!"
"She's shot in the heart," a voice replied, despairing and clinical all at once. "I can't do anything." I think he was moving me, but I was slipping, my body seeming farther away.
The Harvest Goddess was with me then, just pure life. Harvests bring life, and that's all she was.
You were already a hero, Popuri, and that gave me power when you sacrificed yourself. You saved us again.
I could only look down at my own skin.
I can put you back, she told me, But it will hurt so much to be in that body, Popuri. It's damaged, and I can't fix all of it.
It was warm here. It was life enough here. But it wasn't Kai, and we had only begun. We had only married yesterday, and I didn't want to die a child. I still had so much growing to do.
I can live a damaged life, I told her. It's worth it.
She was quiet at that. You wouldn't be the first in your family to believe so.
So she put me back, shoved me, and I was pain. But I also felt Kai's hands, his lips, his hope. I clutched at my pain, waiting, and then I felt Kai's tears, too.
"How in the Goddess' name does she live?" I heard the Doctor breathe.
"Exactly that."
And then it was dark, but it was home.
I awoke on a white bed in a room I had never seen before. My first inclination was to panic. Kai's family had won, and we were back in their compound.
"You're overdoing it, Poppy," a voice warmly inserted. It was Kai, still in a rumpled and torn suit, the purple bandanna still perched flawlessly upon his head. "We won. We're at a hospital in the city. The Doctor is good, but nobody was ready to perform heart surgery at a clinic."
I searched for his hand in the sea of white covers, and his found mine. "Heart surgery?" I questioned weakly.
Fire burst in those brown eyes of his. "You were shot."
I bit my lip. "Oh, trust me, I know."
His fingers trembled on mine and then he was gathering me up in dark arms, delicately as an egg shell.
"They said it was a miracle from god," he murmured, "They said it should have ripped your heart straight through. But it went through a whole portion of your rib first, and scratched the surface of your heart tissue. You hardly have any scarring."
"I think she shot me twice," I remembered, as uncertainly as someone recalls a faint dream.
His hands were gripping my hair, a bun of pink strands that I myself had never made. "Your leg will never work the same."
I was the child of one. I knew better than to use the word cripple.
"Can I walk?"
"In time." I sighed, and noticed only then the monitor that matched my very heartbeat, a slight noise in the background. The city was indeed strange.
"Is everyone alive?" He pulled away and made a humming sound. "Yes. Their death wasn't the goal my organization had. The townspeople don't even remember." The Goddess did that, I guessed. He winced. "...Except for Rick. He went wild, and the Goddess isn't ready to throw more at him right now. He is going to make you a happy widow."
He smiled weakly, but I grinned right back. "He always did swear that you were going to break my heart."
Kai groaned, but then he stood. "Your brother is just outside. He's talking to Lillia on the phone." He stuck out one hand. "So I'm saying goodbye now."
"I would appreciate your help against Rick, you know. But if you want to wait until he leaves, I understand."
He gently waved his outstretched hand. "For good, Popuri." I stared at him, red heatedly locking with brown. "If you want to fall in love with somebody else, feel free to pronounce me dead." I heard my heart monitor speed up.
"I thought we were in agreement, Kai. This isn't about anyone else- you don't care about what your family thinks, and you certainly don't care about what Mineral Town thinks! I thought- I knew- you loved me." I wasn't going to take that hand, wasn't going to say goodbye.
"I thought I loved you too," he told me lowly, and the tears formed nearly instantaneously in my eyes, "But then I let you get shot. Twice, Popuri. And they'll come after me- that wasn't everyone from the organization. So because I thought I loved you, I am going to stay away from Mineral Town, and let you live. You were gifted this. Don't waste it."
"I don't care if you're leaving for honorable purposes," I snapped through my watery eyes, astounded at my own harshness. "I know how that works, Kai, don't you dare tell me that you know how that works better than me."
He was left with nothing, just an open mouth and tears nearly forming in his own eyes, his arms refusing to reach for me. I swung my legs over the edge of my cot and he faltered, trying to support me. He came close enough, closer than he had wanted, and I had him, because I knew that my Kai was weak, and I was selfishly exploiting it. Through all of the wires and the ever sounding alarm of my heart, standing on my one good leg, I kissed my traveler with everything I had. He had meant to steady my center, but now he gripped my hips, merged his breath with mine, let me melt his iron will-a will that broke all boundaries and did what he pleased- with our heat. I kissed him on his neck, kissed him on his shoulder, behaved like a wife instead of a crush, and he couldn't help it.
"We are married," I fiercely reminded him against his lips, even my words another form of a kiss, and he shuddered.
"No, Popuri," he breathed, trying to separate, but I dragged him back and kissed him harder, harder than my body could take. My heartbeat was replaced by something louder, something more troublesome, and I was distracted enough for Kai to maneuver me back into bed. "You are a pain," he assured me, his breathing heavy enough to make me flush, knowing that I had been the cause. "You are an utterly stubborn-"
Rick burst into the room then, flanked by nurses and a doctor. They visibly relaxed at the sight of me.
"She woke up, that's all that caused her fast heart rate," the nurse supplied. I was so happy to see Rick, more than happy, but they didn't understand that I was losing Kai. I couldn't have them here.
Rick came closer to us, as the nurses and doctors left to retrieve obligatory charts.
"Get out," he said suddenly to Kai, abruptly and quietly. "You heard me. You talked to her and the debt for protecting us is repaid. And don't think that I don't know exactly what you were just doing to my sister. So don't ever come back." We were nearly returned to the beginning, a darker echo of it.
"I was just on my way," Kai agreed. "Goodbye, Popuri. And thank you, for everything. You are quite the chicken girl."
He was leaving, but that didn't mean the end.
My father had left me, my family, and for so long I had loved and hated him, because he couldn't have loved me, to have left. I knew it deep within my bitter little child's heart, knew he had invented two orphans, and hated that I loved him still, despite it all. I hated that I still wanted to please him, the man who had left me. I hated that he had etched me permanently into the rocks of Mineral Town as the little girl so desperate and willing and alone. I hated Rick's overprotectiveness because it didn't belong to Rick, it belonged to my father, and now everyone else in the whole of Mineral Town felt they had to offer it, like he had torn his love into shreds and forced them down everybody else's throats with a dose of pity. My father had meant for none of that. He had loved my mother, my brother, and me. My mother had been sick, and he had seen no other option. So he left. I didn't have to forgive him for it. There was no malice to be forgiven, just understanding to be gained. I wasn't my mother. I didn't have to wait.
"I'll follow you," I promised to Kai's back. There was technology in this city, telephones in every corner and ways for people to contact one another. I wouldn't have to leave Mama, I wouldn't have to chase after a miraculous dream. "I'll follow you until I find you. And this time, you will come home with me."
Rick growled sharply, looking laughably angry, his whole face reddening. Kai merely looked stricken, gripping the doorway, and then he just laughed. "I look forward to it."
"Write me," I ordered brazenly. He passed a hand over his head and grinned, and I huffed. "One day, I will see what your hair is like beneath that ridiculous purple bandanna, and I will make you regret every second that I have had to wait."
He tugged on it, a motion I had come to know as nervousness. I blinked. "That's probably not a good idea," he admitted with a half smile.
I paused.
"Oh goddess, I have never seen you without that bandanna. You even wore it to our wedding." Rick snorted, but it couldn't spoil the revelation I was currently having. "Kai. You are surrounded by gods and monsters and magic. It is no accident that your bandanna is permanently attached to your head."
He winked, and Rick sputtered, inputting his own opinion. "Popuri, what on earth are you talking about?"
"My husband has some magical weapon or god or something hidden underneath his headwear and he never bothered to tell me!" I had half a mind to get out of bed again and chase him down right now.
"Your heart rate is going up again," Kai noted quietly.
"Your heart rate's going to go down very quickly very soon if you don't get out," Rick retorted sourly.
Kai nearly followed through. He turned, a traveler at the beginning of a new journey. "You'll just have to catch me to find out, won't you?"
It was a challenge. It was a promise. I gladly took him up on it.
"I will. This isn't the end."
Then he was gone, my traveler, gone till the summer that I found him, and all that was left behind was the sweet taste of pineapple still in my mouth. I had made a difference. I had looked out onto the cold heart of the world, had whispered into it with my small voice, and I had given meaning. Even without him, even without anyone, I was still Popuri, and I would live on and appreciate every breath, every moment of it.
Everyone in Mineral Town had forgotten.
They had forgotten the face of their attackers, had forgotten what happened after the vows at Popuri Chite's wedding, and most importantly, had forgotten what the Harvest Goddess had done for them.
Elli had forgotten perhaps the most important thing of all.
Because even when cradling her brother safe in her arms behind a thick wooden pew, she had seen. Others had stared straight at Popuri Chite's dying body and had cried, but Elli had seen. Like a baby finding its own fingers for the first time, Elli saw, and understood.
Elli also knew that she shouldn't be able to see, not like this. She was torn apart by the knowing, by the seeing, all at once. And even though the Harvest Goddess could look back at her, could see her heart, she saw only Elli's fear, and not her mind. Fear looks the same in anyone, and Elli had something expected to fear in the church that day. She didn't know what she took that day, what future pain was planted.
When Elli walked from that church, when she happily took her brother's sticky little hand and her grandmother's soft one and walked away none the wiser, not knowing that she had seen, something more than knowledge was lost. It wouldn't be found for a long time, and then it would be sharpened by time. It would be sharpened so it could cut. It would be sharpened so it could kill.
A/N: I just really want to thank everybody that supported me in this story. It's been a while since I started this series (like, a ridiculous 5 years), and I literally pulled an all nighter and cranked this out, now that I'm home for the summer. I wanted Popuri to be fulfilled. Thank you for being there to read it, to join in that. I hope you enjoyed the ride. I also know, looking back, that my writing style has changed. By changed, I mean literally shot in the face and regenerated as something else. I hope that change wasn't too much. Reading my own writing is like reading somebody else's stuff. I'm like, whoa, when did that come off of my fingertips? There's no way I wrote that! As is probably evident from that ridiculous cliff hanger I've gotten in the habit of writing, there WILL be another story. The first chapter's already written (haha, before this one was, anyway) and it should be up soon.
asian- Aw, thanks, I'm blushing (no, seriously). I'm so glad that you know my series! Waiting over!
liz- I am super glad that you like my plots. Maybe you can explain them to me sometime, haha. I promise that I will, eventually (not quickly), finish everything that I begin, because I absolutely hate it when good stories are left untold. Every time my favorite authors never post another chapter, it is yucky sadness. So! It is done!
Jagsrule5- You are absolutely making me glow. I am so glad that you've been following me for that long! If you've read the other stories, you should appreciate all of the sprinkled tidbits (GOD I have been planning End for the bloody longest time- if you've read the first in the series you'll know what I mean), but I've tried to make it readable no matter what- let me know if I haven't. I hope this chapter was up to par with the wait!
ekoaleko- You've been my oldest supporter. Your reading, your responses, mean the world to me, and I just wanted to let you know that I appreciate it. Thank you for everything.
Also, I didn't realize it till it was said and done, but I made Kai into Quirrel. I am laughing my face off. My SECOND face.
So, my lovelies, it's the end (all puns intended). I finish my stories, dang blastit. I've enjoyed my time with you!
