PLEASE READ: If you don't know, I changed the ending to the last chapter. It just wasn't working. Full explanation is at the top of the last chapter in an AN. Please, if you haven't already, go to the previous chapter and read from when Michael wakes Tori up to take her to the Big House to the end. Thank you and I hope you enjoy this chapter. ALSO, I would appreciate it if you read the whole AN at the end of this chapter as well.
Losing My Right to be Wrong
I jerked awake and slowly opened my eyes, blinking as they adjusted to the sunlight filtering through the porthole, lighting up the suite. The first thing I saw were a pair of glittering blue eyes. I was lying on my side and so was Luke. We were facing each other, a few inches apart. He had one hand on mine and reached out to caress my face and stroke my cheek with his thumb.
I reached out with my free hand and gently pressed my fingertips between his furrowed eyebrows, smoothing them out.
"Are you all right?" I asked quietly, pulling my hand away. His grip on my other hand tightened and he stopped stroking my cheek.
"It looked like you were having a bad dream," he told me. I stayed silent. Luke started stroking my cheek again, but didn't push. For that, I was thankful. "What are you going to do after you I've— After Kronos—" He broke off, not able to say it out loud. I didn't blame him.
I sighed and Luke pulled his hand away from my face. I turned the hand that he was holding over so I could hold his hand.
"I was thinking about possibly going back to camp," I murmured, drawing lazy circles on the back of Luke's hand, not looking at him. "I'm scared about what they'll think. What they'll do." I paused. "You know, it doesn't have to be like this." I whispered. Luke put his other hand on the hand that was drawing circles. I lifted my eyes to look at him. He had an agonized expression and I instantly regretted saying that. We'd had this conversation a million times before. They had increased more and more after we'd visited his mother and he'd taken on the Curse of Achilles. I always felt bad for saying it, but I always went back to it anyway.
"I wish you would stop saying that," Luke whispered, his grip tightening on my hands.
"I just…don't want you to do this. I don't want to see you as—" I broke off and blinked back tears. Luke shifted closer to me while pulling me into his chest. I rested my head in the crook of his neck and closed my eyes, enjoying the warmth and feel of his body pressed against mine.
His arms held me tightly, one his hands tracing my scars.
"I can't…live…without you, Tori," he finally whispered with difficulty. I pulled back slightly to look up at him and reached up to caress his cheek.
"You'd still have your friends," I argued in a soft voice.
"It wouldn't be enough."
I sighed and smiled sadly. This argument had no winning sides. Yet I kept bringing it up, thinking, hoping, one day he'd finally see my point and just let me go, let me sacrifice myself. I didn't think dying would be that bad, and Luke would be a hero.
Instead of continuing this argument, I stretched up to kiss him. He responded in kind. When we pulled away, both breathing heavily, he smiled at me ruefully.
"Are you trying to distract me, Williams?" he asked in a husky voice. Without answering, I started kissing his neck, slowly working my way up to the small hollow of his ear—I smiled against his skin when he tensed—and the edge of his jaw. The edge of my lips lingered on the edge of his.
"Is it working, Castellan?" I finally asked in a low voice, letting our lips brush. Luke shivered before devouring my lips with his, pulling me even closer to him. I knotted my hand in his hair.
It was starting to get really heated, but the mood was shattered when the door burst open and lights came on. We broke apart, chests heaving, but didn't look to see who it was. We both knew. She did this on a daily basis. I'd gotten so used to it, I wasn't even embarrassed that we'd been caught making out, or that the suite was a mess with lamps knocked off the nightstands, curtains hanging askew, clothing littered everywhere —remnants of what happened last night.
"All right, lovebirds," Kelli said loudly, annoyance ringing in her voice, as Luke and I gazed at each other, waiting for her to get through her spiel. "It's time to get up. You both have very busy schedules ahead of you today. Luke, you have more Labyrinth planning to do. Tori, we're looking to recruit a few more demigods in Scottsdale. I'll give you five minutes. I'll drag you out of this room if I have to in whatever you're wearing by that time."
With that, she exited, slamming the door behind her.
I sighed. Luke rolled his eyes and I smiled. He leaned close for another kiss, slower and sweeter.
We pulled back and looked at each other for a long moment before sitting up and gathering our clothes.
I peeked out the window at the front of the cabin, trying to decide when to make my move. Even though a lot of the campers were out on missions and recruitment was down because the satyrs were busy trying to prepare for the war and fighting their own battles, the camp still thrived with life. The green in the middle of the U of cabins was teeming with campers as they went about their day, went to their activities, doing their jobs like cabin inspections, and most recently, going through reports from the nature spirits and satyrs.
I wanted to speak with Silena, alone, about what had happened with Beckendorf. I wanted her to know and understand that I'd done my best to save her boyfriend.
I wanted to go to the Aphrodite cabin. There wasn't a guarantee that she was going to be in there, but it made sense to me that she would be. If not, I'd probably just go back to the Apollo cabin and wait for another chance to talk to her.
I saw Annabeth and Percy going in and out of cabins, probably for cabin inspections. I mostly wanted to time this when they went inside one of the cabins. I was only avoiding them because I wanted to avoid confrontation. There was clearly a lot of bad blood forming between me and the head counselors—Annabeth particularly, and I didn't want to feed that by running into her. No doubt she'd find something to yell at me for.
Annabeth and Percy didn't spend a very long time inside the cabins, so I'd have to be super quick, so as soon as they went into the Hephaestus cabin I dashed from inside my cabin to the Aphrodite cabin. I slipped inside and quickly closed the door. I did a sweep. It was empty except for Silena, who was sitting on her bunk eating a box of chocolates. I didn't know where the rest of the cabin was, but I was glad they weren't here.
I hesitantly approached Silena's bunk. My heart twisted painfully when I saw all the pictures of her and Beckendorf posted on the wall behind her bed.
"Silena…" My voice came out in a whisper. She looked up, her eyes blank, far away, like she wasn't really seeing me. I wrung my hands nervously. "I just…I wanted to apologize." I broke off and swallowed hard. My throat felt tight. Everything I'd been thinking about saying had just disappeared. I didn't know what I was doing here anymore.
I must've said the wrong thing, though, because suddenly her eyes seemed to snap into focus. Anger burned in their dark depths. She pushed the box of chocolates aside and slid off her bunk. I took a few wary steps away, my hands twitching as I tried not to pull my sword on her. Her hands were fisted, her jaw taught. She was glaring at me and her whole body was tense. My alarm bells were going off: Danger! Danger!
"You promised!" she yelled. "You promised me you'd save him!" Tears filled her eyes, despite her rage.
"I told you I'd do my best," I reminded her in a low, strained voice. It was becoming harder and harder not to unsheathe my sword. It wasn't that I wanted to hurt Silena, but all that time on the ship, around monsters, around my mortal enemies that had tried to kill me multiple times on Kronos's orders, it had changed me. Like I said, there wasn't exactly an off switch.
Silena took a step toward me and I quickly took a step back. "Then maybe you should've done the best of someone better!"
"That's not fair!" I snapped. "I told you that it might not work out the way you wanted it to. I told you I'm just one person! I can't do everything right. Something went wrong when we were trying to get away—" You told him to detonate the bomb too soon. My brain corrected me. "Shut up." I muttered quietly through gritted teeth.
"What?"
"…not you," I amended, looking away and trying to shake it off. I looked back at Silena. "These things happen, Silena—" I tried.
"He promised! He promised to keep Charlie safe! To not harm him!" Silena sobbed.
The words came tumbling out of my mouth before my brain had time to stop them, "Luke promised Beckendorf wouldn't be harmed, Kronos didn't."
Silena looked at me incredulously before doing something unexpected: she slapped me. It was so hard and I was so unprepared, I hit the wooden floor of the cabin. My hands went to my sword, but I managed to stop myself from actually unsheathing it. Instead, with a mighty effort, I pulled them away and slowly started to get to my feet, keeping my gaze down. My cheek stung, but I didn't have the energy to hold it.
"Do you even hear yourself?" Silena asked, her voice thick and watery. I chanced a look. Tears were streaming down her face. Her lower lip trembled. "Annabeth was right. You only care about him. Even after everything he's done. All the atrocities he's committed, and you're still trying to defend him." She shook her head, slowly backing away from me.
"I—" I broke off, not sure what to say to that. The sudden realization washing over me, the impact of what I'd said. I began questioning everything that I'd said and done. Questioning my love for Luke. Not in the "do I love him or not" but rather the "do I love him too much" way.
At the same time…had my words yesterday afternoon meant nothing to her? Did she not see just how much I hated myself? How much I blamed myself for all of this? For everything, even Luke's bad choices?
"After he made a promise," Silena spoke, interrupting my thoughts. She'd taken a step back and was looking at the floor. "A promise to not harm Charlie…" She trailed off, looking away from me. The anger slowly dissipated from her eyes, and they became glassy and far away again. She started to sink to the floor, hugging herself. More tears streamed down her face. She bowed her head. "And now…Charlie, my Charlie…" She continued to quietly sob.
I wanted to comfort her, to apologize, but I had a feeling comforting her would warrant another slap. And apologizing would only make her mad again. I stood stock still, in the spot I was, looking down at her. I didn't know what to do, what to say.
Then she said something so quiet I didn't quite catch it.
"W-what?" I asked, startled and wondering if I'd heard her correctly.
Silena lifted her head, her tears still fell, but she'd gotten control of her sobs. She didn't look at me. Her eyes looked off into the distance.
When she spoke again her voice was so soft I almost didn't catch what she'd said.
Almost.
"I wish it had been you." Her eyes flickered up to me. "It should have been you." She lowered her head again, sinking closer to the floor.
I expected to feel hurt. I expected to feel guilty. I expected to feel like even more of a monster. Instead, I felt anger. I stepped back, swallowing hard, my hands fisting at my side.
How could she say that? After I'd gone on that mission for her. She was just looking for a scapegoat because she couldn't deal with the feeling of guilt for reporting to Kronos about a mission that got her boyfriend killed. And I'd tried to stop it. And maybe I was in the wrong, defending Luke, but I was keeping her secret. I was trying to help her. I had tried to help Beckendorf. I had wanted to, not just for her, but for Beckendorf, too.
And here she was, throwing that back into my face, letting everyone hate me and blame me for everything, and not saying a single word about it. Here she was, wishing that I'd died instead of Beckendorf.
The door to the cabin opened and I looked over to see who it was. Annabeth and Percy stepped inside. They stopped short when they saw me. Then, they saw Silena and got angry.
"What did you do to her?" Annabeth exclaimed, starting toward Silena, as I moved toward the door.
"I didn't do anything," I mumbled, keeping my gaze down as I pushed my way past Percy before he could stop me. He called after me, but I had already started to make my way back to my cabin. Unfortunately, the Apollo kids and Ares kids were fighting over that stupid chariot again and I didn't want to be around that. I needed a quiet place to think. I quickly turned and ran for the forest.
I stopped running when my lungs burned, my muscles cramped and my head started to swim. I put my hands on my knees, breathing hard.
I straightened up when I caught my breath and looked around, trying to determine what I was in the forest.
Someone's hand came down on my shoulder. As usual, I acted on instinct. I spun around while unsheathing my sword, slapping the hand off my shoulder before pressing the same arm to the person's chest and shoving them up against the nearest tree trunk. I lifted my sword as soon as their back connected to the trunk and held the blade to their neck.
Below me, the ground exploded and skeletal hands burst out of the ground around my feet, grabbing at my legs.
I froze, looking at who had snuck up on me. Before me was a young, slim, pale-as-a-ghost boy, with dark, wavy hair that hung in his dark eyes. He wore almost all black—black t-shirt with skulls on it, black pants, black boots, and had a black sword strapped to his side (which he was gripping the hilt of, but hadn't unsheathed it yet). The only non-black thing was his aviator's jacket. I remembered seeing him during that meeting when we were discussing how we were going to stop Kronos's army from using the Labyrinth.
"Nico?" I asked. He blinked, surprised.
"You remember me," he commented. I shrugged and pulled my sword away. I couldn't step away, however, because Nico's skeletal hands were still holding my legs.
"Sorry about that, force of habit." I told him looking down at my sword. When I looked back up, the son of Hades was giving me a strange look. "What?" I demanded, feeling offended.
His eyes flickered down to the hands still holding me where I stood. "You're not…repulsed? Afraid?"
"Would you like me to be?" I asked. "Believe it or not, I've had and seen worse." I told him as I sheathed my sword. The hands collapsed into piles before sinking back into the earth. I took a few steps away from Nico to give him some breathing room and personal space. "So what brings you to camp?"
Nico stared at me for a few seconds before realizing I'd asked a question. "You, actually."
I was on my guard instantly. "Me?" I asked carefully. He probably wasn't a threat, but I could never be too careful. I'd learned that the hard way.
"I wanted to ask you a few questions," he explained, not failing to notice my sudden caution. "Well, one in particular."
I narrowed my eyes. "Why me?"
Nico paused, as if trying to decide what he wanted to reveal to me and what he didn't. "My sources tell me you were at the Styx when…Luke took a dip."
"You have well informed sources," I noted. "Why do you need that information?" It was Nico's turn to put his walls up. His posture became less relaxed.
"I'm afraid I can't disclose that to you," he answered.
I smiled without humor. "Oh, I see, you don't trust me. Is it because your sources have told you about what I've done? Betrayed the camp. Gone to work with Luke." Nico didn't say a word, but I'd become better at reading people. It hadn't just been the monsters on that ship that I'd needed to be wary of. "You're still here, though, which means you haven't asked me what you really want to know."
"They also told me you were prisoner for a long time," Nico finally said, meeting my eyes solemnly. "That Kronos tried to kill you several times, all of which failed. And the one time you did die, upon Luke's request, you were brought back by Kronos. He must really care about you to do something like that. It's not natural; you cheated death."
"You sound like the grim reaper," I said quietly, the energy I'd had a second ago draining from me. As far as I could tell, he knew just about the whole story. I wondered what he thought of me. Then I reminded myself it didn't matter. "Come to take my soul?"
It was Nico's turn to smile. Chills ran down my spine in waves.
"No," he said. "I don't get paid enough for that." His creepy smile morphed into a somewhat amused one. I felt the edges of my lips tug up into a small smile, too. Then it was back to business. "But you were right, I still haven't asked my most important question." I waited. "Do you know if Luke asked his mother for her blessing before he went to the Styx?"
It took me a moment to process his question. I hadn't quite been expecting that. I thought back to that cold winter day, when we'd visited Ms. Castellan. The living room full of mirrors and candles. The kitchen filled with endless piles of containers of PB and J sandwiches, trays of burnt cookies flooding the counter, and empty Kool-Aid pitchers piling up in the sink.
I thought about her frazzled state of being. Her fractured eyes. How they glowed green. Her deep, rasping voice echoed in my ears. The feel of her iron grip on my throat…. I reached up to rub my neck, that feeling of hands around my throat, cutting off my airways, coming back
"Why…would you need to know that?" I asked, focusing back on Nico.
"I told you already, I can't disclose that information," he responded. I looked at the son of Hades carefully. He looked slightly nervous. If I thought about it, it was because by asking the questions he needed to know, he was basically giving me the answer—I mean, the Styx? If Luke needed his mother's permission. They were not only related, but also quite specific. He was probably hoping I wouldn't figure it out.
But I wanted to know, so I contemplated this. If he was asking about Luke's dip in the Styx and if he'd gotten his mother's blessing, it must mean that either he was considering also taking a dip, or he was helping someone else to do it. From what I knew of Nico, his mother was dead, so he personally taking a dip himself was out of the question. If I thought about who might be crazy enough to do it because it was a "so crazy it just might work" kind of deal, one person came to mind. Adding in the fate of the world and the prophecy, I was certain of who Nico was asking this for.
"Percy," I finally said. Nico flinched like he'd just been shocked. Blood started turning his face red.
"What?" he asked, almost sounding panicked.
"You're asking for Percy, aren't you?" I questioned, ignoring his reaction. Nico looked flustered, but relieved.
"Very observant," he remarked. "I'm impressed."
"I try," I said before getting serious again. "Does Percy know you're doing this for him?"
Nico nodded, there was no point in hiding this from me now. "We've discussed this at length. I've been trying to convince him for a while now. I believe it's the only way he's going to stop Kronos." He paused. "So, will you tell me? Did Luke ask for his mother's blessing? If you don't know, it's all right. I thought I might as well try. It'd be easier than going to her place and asking her."
"You know where she lives?" I asked.
"Sources," Nico reminded me.
I considered this. About my visit there with Luke. "Yes," I finally said slowly. "He needed to ask for her blessing. You should go visit her anyway and take Percy with you. I think it would be important for him to get to know Luke a little better. Know thy enemy, and whatnot."
"You believe he's still in there?" he murmured.
I looked away and wrung my hands. "I have to. It keeps me sane, keeps me going." I whispered.
"You really think it'll be a good idea to go anyway?" he queried in a louder voice.
I nodded. "Ultimately, it's up to you, though." Nico pondered this. After a few moments, I decided I'd take my leave. "Well, good luck with your endeavors." I turned and started off, but Nico stopped me.
"Wait, one more thing," he said. I turned back to face him. "I wanted to say I was sorry to hear about Beckendorf."
My breath caught. "How did you—"
"I talked to his ghost," Nico answered quickly. "He wanted me to give you a message. He said he doesn't blame you. In fact, he wanted to thank you for helping him make it back to camp. For giving him a chance to say goodbye to his friends. And Silena. Especially Silena."
Tears welled up in my eyes. I hadn't even realized he'd held on long enough to say goodbye. I'd thought he'd passed away soon after they'd taken him into the infirmary.
I blinked rapidly and sucked in a sharp breath, turning away from Nico. A torrent of emotions swirled through me. A sob built up in my tight throat.
He didn't blame me? Beckendorf didn't blame me? I was almost relieved.
"You know, you're not such a bad person," Nico said suddenly. I sucked in another, shaky breath and wiped away the tears that had escaped before turning to face him. His face was sympathetic, but also, almost sad, knowing. "You've made some wrong choices, but you're here. So I'm assuming you're trying to fix them. Beckendorf understood what you were trying to accomplish. You shouldn't blame yourself so much."
I shook my head, my eyebrows furrowing. "This is the first time we've ever met. You don't know—"
"I can recognize self-loathing when I see it," he interrupted. His face darkened and I realized why he could recognize it.
I let out a harsh laugh. "It's such cruel irony," I said. "I was born a child of the sun, but all my life has ever been in darkness, in the shadows it casts."
Nico's lip curled up in an unamused, bitter smile. He looked over his shoulder at the shadow of the tree he was still standing in font of.
"I know a thing or two about shadows," he said. He turned back to me. "If you ever want any tips, feel free to ask."
I couldn't tell if he was joking or serious. Either way, I said, "I might just take you up on that offer."
"Keep in mind what I said, yeah?" he asked, stepping toward the shadow, but still facing me.
"As long as you keep in mind what I said," I told him.
He gave me that slightly twisted smile of his. "I'll see you 'round."
I gave him a two-fingered salute. He nodded once before stepping back, into the shadow, and, to my amazement, vanishing right before my eyes. It was like he'd fallen backward into a chute, not stepped into a shadow.
I walked toward the shadow Nico had just disappeared into. I stretched my hand out, passing it into the shade. I knew it didn't work like that, Nico could probably do that because he was the son of Hades, but still. Staring at my hand covered in shadow, some part of me wished I could disappear into the darkness like that, too.
That afternoon was the burning of Beckendorf's burial shroud. I was not looking forward to that. Still, I wanted to be there to honor him. It was the least I could do. What Nico had told me eased a bit of the pain, though. It didn't really make me feel any less guilty about what'd happened, but at least he didn't blame me.
I sat silently with the Apollo cabin (who'd put aside the petty feud with the Ares cabin) in the amphitheater, keeping my head and gaze down at the ground. It was only until the ceremony started did I finally lift my head.
Beckendorf's shroud was made from metal links, like chainmail. But not just any metal. Instead of using Celestial bronze like we did for everything else, they'd used a silvery, shining, beautiful metal. It reminded me of how Mithril had been described in the Lord of the Rings books. (I couldn't read, my dyslexia prevented that. But my mom was mortal, she could. If she wasn't singing us to sleep, she was voice-acting the book series.) I didn't know where the Hephaestus cabin got the metal, or what the actual metal was, but that's what it reminded me of.
His shroud glittered beautifully in the sun, which seemed like an insult but an honor at the same time.
It easily burned. Silver metal turned to gold smoke that rose into the clear, blue sky. It seemed so wrong for it to be such a nice day when something so tragic had happened.
The campers drifted off quietly. I stayed sitting where I was, staring into the black bonfire. It was so strange to see flames as deep and dark as a black hole. With everyone else gone the amphitheater seemed to become strangely silent. I heard crying to my left. I looked over to see Silena, hunched over, her head in her hands, her body shaking from her sobs. Clarisse sat next to her with Chris as they both tried to comfort her.
Not wanting to hear her cry anymore—it was only making me more miserable and reminded me of what she'd said—I stood up and started to exit. I had horrible timing because just as I started making my way to the doors, Percy was making his way toward Silena, Clarisse, and Chris. Our paths crossed. The son of Poseidon glared at me as I was coming down the steps, so I stopped a few feet away.
"What are you doing here?" he asked in a low voice.
My hands balled into fists. "Honoring a good man," I responded.
He blinked at my response and shifted uncomfortably. Then his eyes hardened again. "What were you doing on the ship?"
My eyes flickered to where Silena was sitting. Percy followed my gaze before turning and suddenly coming up to me, invading my personal space, and getting a little into my face. I took a step back, gritting my teeth and fisting my hands so they'd stay at my side.
"Did Silena ask you?" he questioned in a whisper.
I internally cursed at myself. "So what if she did?" I snapped in a whisper as well.
Percy stepped even closer. "We had it planned, for weeks. You can't just come barging in on a mission unannounced, just because she asked you to."
My eyes went back to the sobbing child of Aphrodite. I thought about my horrid dream, the aching sadness. I looked at the spot Beckendorf had been laid on stage and now realized what the sadness meant. I finally looked at Percy again.
"She wouldn't stop asking me," I whispered raggedly. "I just…felt bad. I wanted to help." The son of Poseidon was having none of it.
"Why you?"
I sighed heavily and closed my eyes. "Because I know the ship better than anyone else, here." I told him.
"You know for all we know, you just made things worse," he hissed.
My eyes snapped open and I glared at him. "Don't do that," I said, in a sharp but also almost pleading tone.
Percy blinked. "What?"
"Blame me for Beckendorf's death," I clarified.
"I didn't say—"
"You implied it," I interrupted. "Well, news flash, Percy"—I shoved him away from me; not hard enough to send him tumbling down the steps, but enough to make him step back—"no one said you had to save me. You should've just left me to die with the rest of the monsters."
Percy's eyes widened, his mouth dropping open. Immediately regretting letting the anger get the best of me (again), I quickly pushed past Percy and exited the amphitheater.
PLEASE READ (AGAIN; I have it twice because I really would like you to read this, the whole thing.)
So, I'll be heading off to China in a few days now. As you may or may not know, they have what I've heard people refer to as the Great Firewall. Which means that a lot of things I can access here (in the U.S.), and in other countries, I will not be able to access when I'm there. I don't believe is a part of the websites that's allowed. Which ultimately means that I won't be able to update until the middle of the December.
I want to first apologize that I made yet another promise I couldn't keep. I had wanted to finish this story before I left, because I didn't want to keep you hanging for four months, but it became too overwhelming. The prospect of traveling abroad, when I've never done that before, is stressful. Add that to the stress of packing enough to live there for a few months, but light enough that I'll be able to walk around with my luggage and meet airport weight restrictions, etc., etc., just became too much. While writing is my outlet, it was hard for me to brainstorm when my mind was buzzing with everything else.
A promise I can keep is that I will finish this story. I've worked too long and too hard to give up on it now. (Besides, I've already written the ending, I just need everything else in between.) When I get back, I will update as soon as I can. I'll write when I can and so will hopefully finish this story while over there and then post and officially finish when I get back.
I hope that you'll be patient with me. I hope you'll stick with me to the end (of the line), because I have enjoyed the adventure so far. I have far from given up on this story. I just have to put it aside because I won't have any way to post it while abroad. (Also, I'm only allowed to speak English on the weekends, which makes writing in English a little difficult, if you can imagine.)
Anyway, I hope you understand and will wait for me to get back. With school starting up for most of you, I assume, you'll be pretty busy anyway. The months will fly by and before you know it, I'll have another chapter updated for you.
As always, I hope you enjoyed.
The title was taken from Nick Jonas's song, "Who I Am."
Finally, I can't thank you enough for favorting, alerting, and commenting. It all means so, so much to me. So thank you all for being such lovely readers. I hope you'll stick out the hiatus and I hope you'll all join me for the heart-wrenching, tear-jerking finale. [Which isn't the next chapter, I'd just really like for you to wait for me ;) I've got many more things in store for Tori before the end. Needless to say, I'm very excited about it all.]
I hope to hear from you all after my return! I'll be excited to see what you have to say! ^_^ Thanks, again!
Thank you for reading,
TheBrightestNight