Epilogue

Caroline was jumping, gripping and sliding through the treetops. The canopy held so many different animals, she passed a sloth and found herself racing with a few spider monkeys.

She slowed down with one, looking right at her. The tiny eyes of it's baby clinging to it's back peeked up over it's mother's shoulder. She smiled and let go.

Dropping down the 100 feet or so to the ground effortlessly, Caroline smiled at her easy superhero landing, slightly kneeling with one leg.

She was wearing tattered beige cotton men's shorts, tied with a vine, which she'd gotten from the last caravan of tourists she fed upon almost 6 months ago. Her halter top was weaved by the AjurĂș tribes women that lived about 8 miles from where she was currently.

Caroline had picked up a little Tupari, the native tongue of most of the indigenous peoples here, but realized that they lived more for actions than for spoken or written word and felt at peace with them.

Amel's blood thirst came in short waves or not at all. She found over these years he didn't have many preferences for where the blood came from. Sure, she'd feed off of humans occasionally now, but never to the death. Always healing and compelling them, before to soothe them and after to give them hope for their lives. Her emotions were never going to be like they used to be, though she always had a sense of right and wrong.

Mostly she hunted the exotic animals of the regions she'd explore and he'd been lulled into quiet easily. She's been in the Amazon for a few years now, before that she traveled the African plains, the beaches of Thailand. Loving her time amongst nature. She had very little contact with humans or supernaturals at all, by choice.

Her hands ran against the barks of the colossal trees as she walked. She thought back to her time growing up. She smiled as she frequently thought of her mom, Bonnie, and Klaus. Back to her 18th birthday when her journey truly started with Klaus's blood.

She remembered going to college, rooming with Bonnie and rekindling the friendship with Elena, for like the thousandth time. She had chosen to be a music major and although before that point in her life she'd never played an instrument, she found Amel's knowledge had flowed through to her hands easily.

Klaus had been an eager participant in her life, cooking with Liz, sitting around debating with Bonnie and Elijah, who had, in fact, had a fling, but were just friends after parting ways romantically.

Rebekah and Stephen also had more than a few intimate years together, getting over the fact that Damon hadn't come back. Caroline was glad that Stephen had kept his ripper tendencies at bay all these years, especially side by side with the female Original.

Elena and Matt finally got married after all their college graduations. Matt was an up and coming police officer and Liz had high hopes for him to take over her position as sheriff.

Jeremy moved to Denver and kept in cordial but loose contact with Bonnie and his sister, still not totally getting over the hunters past they had forced him into.

Caroline looked to the canopy, smelling and hearing the shift of the life inside it, unseen. She missed playing the violin for her mother and closed her eyes, hearing the strings in the wind of her memories.

Klaus had accompanied her on her first trips to Europe, Africa and Asia. The genuine beauty of it all, the great cities, art and music. It was all he had promised her, all those years ago on her birthday, and more. So much more.

After ten years of being together, constant companions, Caroline decided she wanted to go it alone. She wanted to grow up and be herself, herself and Amel that is. His blood thirst could have put the notion in her head at first, but she came to realize she would never really know herself truly, if she had Klaus, Bonnie, and her mother to lean on all the time.

She knew she'd be eternally 17 in this now hybrid body of hers and it'd be too hard to lose them when they passed, if she hadn't left willingly and in a good light for a while.

Caroline has been on her own for about 8 soul searching years, she paused to smell the bees buzzing around the nearby flowers, her thoughts came to the spider monkey again, carrying it's baby against it's back.

Maybe it was time to return.

Caroline's smile was soft and a nod to nature, she looked to the canopy again. She needed sky to plan her trip and she walked smiling towards her fate.


Thank you so much for reading! Maybe there will be a sequel, because I do have ideas :] Here's to the longest fanfiction I've ever written! Cheers!