So, we have at last reached the final chapter of Zhi Lao'Hu. U.U I have to say, it's a bit like seeing an old friend off to Russia from Idaho or something and knowing you'll never see them again.
Of course, the difference is that this is a fanfiction, so I can always go back to it. :) And don't you worry, there's still just a little bit to go—the EPILOGUE.
Quick, reviews!
MusicOfPoetry12: I think Wowness should be a word… heck, I'll add it to the Word dictionary right now! BESTIES! *glomp*
Well, Magiya has spent so much time convincing her convoluted mind that she hates Artix that it's still a little difficult for her to accept, I guess. ^^ You never really fall for the person of your dreams… you fall for someone else, and then they become the one of your dreams. :)
I'm glad you like the tips.^^ I was worried that a lot of them sounded kind of redundant. o.o
Yes… *sniffle* The final chapter, not counting the epilogue. *pats back and hands tissue box* And there was no need to threaten Warlic, he wanted the two of them back and together just as much as we did! :D
Oh, I'm glad you're spreading it around! :D What section did you show your friend? :3 And thanks so much! *tacklehug*
MissFiyeraba: Haha, I'm glad you're enjoying this so much! ^.^
CommanderHawke667: For these guys, no, there will be no sequel. I wish I could say that there would be, but I know that if I try, I would muck it up. :) The characters write the story, and I can't think of another HUGE plotline for them that would not COMPLETELY focus on romance, and not leave everything in Lore out of it. ^^
On the upside, their relationship will definitely be at least REFERRED to in the next Dragonfable fanfiction! :D
KiasuEurasian: I like to think of Artix as a 'glass half full' kinda guy. :) I think it fits the dialogue assigned to him in the actual quests. :D Besides, people who can find good things that are completely unrelated to the situation are the best kind! ^^
Jellybelly Puffypants: Thanks! :) Just to avoid any confusion, Magiya already knew that Artix had said that. ^^ Those little scenes are just replays of the dead's last moments of life. I actually had to go back and get the dialogue from the part where he was fighting/shouting at Vayle, so that I could recreate that. :) Besides, Magiya never saw any of that. She only ever heard that last line. :)
On another note, it makes me really happy that people pay enough attention to what I write to notice little things like that! :D
Now, picking back up where we stopped with the last chapter!
"I don't know where to start," I finally admitted, gingerly taking a seat beside him on the pine needles. Artix must have decided I wasn't being controlled, because some of the caution in his eyes faded, and his shoulders dropped slightly. His body language was a little more open, I would say.
"Well," he said with a shadow of a smile, "The beginning's always good."
So I told him.
I told him everything.
I told him how I saw him at our first meeting—as someone who only saw a damsel indistress—and how I thought he was just another one of those egotistic heroes. He saved me, and when I should have thanked him, in its place, I decided to mark him as my enemy.
At this point, I paused, and I did thank him for that. Artix just smiled, and motioned for me to continue.
I wove for him a tale of a distrustful young woman, who bit at anything that tried to get close to her. She was cold, hostile, bitter, and angry. She had seen too much of the bad side of Lore to be trustful anymore, and saw everybody else as her enemy. It was only through her stubbornness and determination to not give up that she survived at all. Her outlook on the world was bleak, and she was a 'glass half empty' kind of lady.
But then she met a boy. He was a man, actually. He was a Paladin, and had a heart of gold to match. He looked after others before he did himself, and was one of the best men that the woman had ever met. He flirted and talked to her, tried to impress her, and was just charming in general—not to mention, he was actually kind of cute.
Artix grinned at this, but he remained quiet as we sat there, and let me finish. I appreciated it. If I was interrupted now, I would probably never be able to finish the story.
Everything she thought about him then, everything she noticed about his habits and his speech patterns—in short, everything she noticed about every other person she gave a damn about enough to notice—I told him everything, right down to the details she noticed on his armor.
"And after all that," I said quietly, resting my forehead on my arms over my knees, "She still hurt him. He had done nothing to her, but she still reacted like a cornered dog, and lashed out at the man. She… she didn't know anything about his past, or how he had come to be the way he was, and she didn't care. It didn't matter to her. To her, it didn't make one bit of difference that she had hurt him. She was going to move on, and have nothing more to do with the Paladin," I continued, almost inaudible. "But her very best friend, whose opinion mattered more to her than almost anyone else's, told her that… that she would die alone, and that no one would care, because she never let anyone in."
I had to stop, then, because going much further at the moment would result in the tears in my eyes that I didn't want him to see spilling over. My forehead was pressed against my arms hard enough that my hands were falling asleep, and there would likely be a red spot in the center of my brow. Artix said nothing, but he did rest an armored forearm across my shoulders. …I was glad for the support. This was almost as hard for me to tell as it was to experience again. I took a shaky breath, and went on.
"The woman went to apologize to the Paladin, after finally understanding herself and the fact that she had fucked up. She felt positive—better than she had in weeks. Everything seemed lighter, somehow. But… she never got the chance that she needed to apologize to the man. She was almost there. She was so close… but then a sl—Necromantress took over her mind and body, and she didn't get the chance to fight back."
Artix listened without interrupting as I told him everything I could remember after I had exited the woods in Amityvale. It didn't amount to much. It was just the white… and pain if there was anything that was close to resistance or free thinking. I described it as best I could to him, and I didn't think I was doing very well. I'd had no sight, no hearing, no touch—just my mind and the flat white.
In the end, though, I think he might have begun to understand (at least partially, if not fully), and I was able to move on. I skimmed over what happened after the first real battle with Vayle, in part because I didn't want to touch on painful memories and also because I didn't honestly think that part was especially relevant to our conversation.
Well, a one-sided conversation, really. It was more of a tale that I plaited and twisted for his imagination to devour. But… just talking, and not doing anything else… it was really relaxing for me, a lot like meditation might be for someone with a calmer personality. As it went on, it seemed just a little bit easier, I suppose, despite the topic. We were, in my opinion, past the part that was hardest to talk about.
I skipped over the details of my fight with Vayle—there was really no reason to go into them—and Artix didn't press for them, for which I was grateful. I had a bad habit of clouding painful or undesirable memories from my consciousness, and having to comb my recollections of the final confrontation would not have helped that.
So I moved on to my return to Warlic's field, and momentarily reminisced on how upset he had been with me, allowing myself a short grin. Artix grinned too, a little wider, and I was quite sure that whatever I had done, he must have done something just as bad (if not worse) sometime before the point where I had met Warlic. Just the idea of him getting in even more trouble made my grin a hairsbreadth wider, and then it faded almost completely as I resumed the story. Warlic had created the portal for me, and I 'forgot' to mention how much of an effort it had taken to make myself cross through it.
Just once, I tried to give Artix a mental picture of the kind of scenes I had passed while walking down the path through Death's Realm. Even now, it did not seem like such a large task, having to walk past all of those death scenes, but the one that had affected me the most… This was the one I told him about. I guess there was some slightly twisted part of my mind that wanted him to know that I had done a lot to come get him, and I had suffered when in Death's Realm.
Maybe it was just some part of my unacknowledged master plot to get him on my side so I could convince him to come back. That would just wrap up this whole goddamned enchilada.
"There were these… remnants, I guess," I said in a slightly softer tone as I addressed this topic. "They were in the woods, a lot like you were… but they kept dying, over and over and over… and this one, it was a woman and a boy… and he was just a kid, Artix, he… he didn't need to die…" I broke off.
I shouldn't be getting all emotional about this. I wasn't before, I shouldn't be now. There's nothing I can do for them, right…? Right.
That was right about the point when that master plot became acknowledged. I realized that I was almost accidentally trying to soften him up so he would agree to something more easily—in this case, going back with me.
…Must be a girl thing…
I let it go for the moment. I ducked my head slightly, looking at my staff on the ground through my upper legs. My hands were resting over one another while my forearms were settled comfortably on my knees. I opened my mouth once or twice, internally debating on how to continue.
So, Artix, I'm just going to drag you back with me, like it or not! I thought. Yeah, that will work, I then added sarcastically. Had I said it aloud, I would have muttered it under my breath while scrubbing the heel of my palm across my forehead. What now…?
"So…" I said quietly, lifting my head uncertainly. Artix lifted an eyebrow.
"So?"
I shot an annoyed glance his way. He just grinned shamelessly, tapping his fingers playfully across my opposite shoulder. I had almost forgotten his arm was there… it felt comfortable. Strange, but… nice, in a way. Still, though, after so long doing my absolute best to avoid him, it felt off. I came this far to get him… I think that this might be… okay? I abruptly leaned into him with enough force to bump him, and he laughed. It brought a slightly shy grin to my lips as well, and I snickered once or twice before it faded.
Hm… Okay? I mused. Is it really okay…?
Well, I think so.
"Come on," I said, rising to my feet. I seized his forearm and attempted to pull him with me, but all that ended up happening was me tugging helplessly on his right arm while he remained sitting against the half-demolished stone wall. Artix just watched me with amusement, and his all-too-innocent grin demolished into chuckles as I fell on my butt a few feet in front of him, having lost my grip on the smooth armor that covered his entire… well, his whole body. Still sniggering, Artix got to his feet by himself before reaching down and pulling me up.
"One thing's for sure," he snorted, not even trying not to smile, "You still haven't gotten any stronger."
"Shut up," I grumbled crossly. "I get all the way here, and I'm being nice, and this is what I get?"
"Oh, don't be mad," he said cheerfully, putting my arm in the crook of his elbow as he started to walk us back towards the path. I scowled at him, but it carried no weight. I still felt just a little uneasy. I wasn't used to this… just talking with him, going back and forth completely normally, like a typical… well, 'couple' wasn't the right word. Pair of people? No, that sounded weird.
I give up on that, I thought stubbornly. I've done enough lately to warrant a little bit of freedom to refuse to think about something…
I really expected something to happen when we reached the path that went in a painfully straight line through the woods. But to my extreme relief, nothing happened—nothing necessarily bad, anyway. The rents in his armor slowly began to smooth over, and he began to heal. The scratches mended, and the pewter-colored metal he wore was restored to the pristine condition that I had previously seen it in. I kept my eyes open as we went, though, whether I thought there was something or not. I didn't trust this place, and in my mind, it was with good reason. This was the place where Death hung out and sucked the joy from people's lives, making them completely lackadaisical.
Wait a minute… lackadaisical. Lackadaisical… lackadaisical…
"Artix," I pondered with a frown as we turned around the only corner that had been on the path, "Lackadaisical… what does that mean to you?"
"My definition or the official one?"
"Either."
"Well, the official definition runs along the lines of 'lazy,' or 'demotivated.' Something like that."
His answer made me slightly suspicious of what his definition might have been. "And yours…?" I asked warily, pulling my head back a bit. Artix considered it briefly.
"Well, on first thought, my definition would probably be 'cheerful,' 'happy,' or 'carefree.' That answer your question?"
"Not exactly, but it does prove me right about one or two things." He raised an eyebrow.
"And what would they be?"
Clearly, Artix wasn't expecting me to be anything aside from my guarded, slightly uptight self. That said, it was going to be fun to surprise him. I fought to keep a straight face as I replied:
"Well, that you're a nutcase, of course."
That was about when I started running.
I raced along the path back the way I had come, pushing my legs to go faster. I lost the poker face I had, and a grin split my lips. I heard footsteps behind me, and looking back over my shoulder, I saw Artix was quickly catching up, and with a quick laugh, I turned my head back around to make myself go faster. The gray trees blurred past, and as I ran with him chasing me, my laughter got louder and louder, and I could hear Artix laughing too. A sense of giddiness enveloped me, now that this whole ordeal was almost over. My heartbeat sang, feeling like it might fly right out of my chest. Up ahead, I could see the familiar place where I had entered Death's Realm.
Somehow, it felt wrong to be this happy in a place like this, but I couldn't help it. It had been so long since I had smiled or laughed this much, and… it felt nice. Well, not just nice, but good. It felt right. So I just completely disregarded that little voice that had gotten me into this whole mess that told me to stop laughing, and bludgeoned it with a rock. Artix caught up to me just as I leaped through the shimmer in the air that was this side of the portal, and we tumbled onto the other side.
And that was how Warlic saw us when he released the magic that held the portal there—in complete hysterics, practically piled on top of each other, and unable to stop laughing. We must have been quite a sight… but I didn't mind.
I had fixed what I meant to fix. I patched up the problem I had caused. And that was as it should have been.
Ahh, the ending of a good story is a lot like losing an old friend…
But if you don't want to see the end of these two, don't worry! You won't! We still have the epilogue to go! :D
Also, could I ask a few of you who haven't already to vote on the poll on my profile? :3 I need to know who the main male protagonist should be for the next Dragonfable fanfiction. ^^ I already have an entire plot planned out for ONE of them… but the extent to which I'll actually get into writing that particular one depends on the poll results! ;D
Thanks for reading, and I really hope you all enjoyed. ^^ The final farewell note that authors usually write will be seen at the end of the epilogue… keep your eyes open! :D
Juliet
