Epilogue, better wear a safety belt
Marle yawned as she wandered up the stair towards her room. It was ten am, but in her view she had been up all night despite the fact that she had sneaked out to meet up with Crono and Lucca just an hour ago.
It just went easier that way, her father would hardly notice that she'd been gone when they messed with time like that. With a little wizardly help in the Middle ages the Epoch could be quite precise. And even if not, Marle would have had a good reason to give if asked where she had been. One couldn't pass up on a friend's wedding like that, especially not a friend like Janus'. They'd do the same for Glenn whenever he decided to marry as well, guaranteed. And Ayla too, of course. Though if humans in her time married per say was another thing… whatever… Marle wasn't up for questions like that.
Seeing Schala safe and sound had been a relief, to realize that the man draping his arm around her shoulder was Crono's ancestor had been quite a surprise. And the snake… well, Crono could handle some extra, panicked weight for a minute or two. The fact that the giant creep talked helped a little, but only so much.
Despite the trauma that Molor had caused, the princess felt very happy as she almost skipped up the stairs, a smile playing on her lips at the memories of her past day. Lai could be very pretty when she actually wanted to…
She was nearing the end of the stair, hearing familiar steps closing in above her. But she couldn't really tell who it was.
Reaching the top she turned around the corner as she heard that whoever it could be still was a few steps around and thus held no threat of a crash of bodies.
"Good morning, Nadia," the approaching man said, smiling slightly.
"Morning Gareth," Marle replied.
They passed each other and he began descending the stair. The princess walked about three more steps before she stopped dead. Her eyes bulged.
"'Gareth'?!"
"Yes?"
She spun around to see him looking around the corner of the stair's entrance. Strong fingers gripping the edge of the wall and a thin, sunburned face. Eyes colored like crystallized blood and short cut, bluish hair that did nothing to hide his pointy ears.
"Uh…" Marle said, not fully realizing that she was staring.
A blue eyebrow went up. Then suddenly a smile cracked Gareth's confusion.
"Messing with time again, are we?" he said, coming up the stair and changing the grip of the book he had been carrying in his left hand.
Marle had to lean against the wall, ignoring the priceless tapestry that pictured the land of Guardia. Her head was spinning.
"I should be reprimanding you, Your Highness, and believe you me I'd be ranting for ages had you not traveled with my forefather," Gareth said, shaking his head with a sigh.
His ears were not as pointy as Janus', but the magic in their blood refused to fully let go as such details in his appearance showed. Thirteen generations had not been able to erase all similarities, even though the descendant had a slightly different shape of his head and was a bit shorter than his ancestor.
"You… Janus… and… oh my God…" Marle stuttered, pressing a hand against her forehead.
Memories filled her mind like bubbles rising in hot water, memories of things she knew could not have happened. This man that stood before her had not existed when she left Guardia to attend Janus' wedding.
He had not stubbornly given her magic lessons, she had not called him a half-Mystic in anger – an act that she felt deadly ashamed for now – he had also never after a lot of persuasion agreed to help her get out of the castle to go to the Millennial fair and he had not stalled the trial against her father, nearly loosing his own head in Yakra XIII's schemes. To name a few things that Gareth the thirteenth royal wizard of Guardia had not been through since he simply hadn't existed.
Marle knew all this, but the new memories spoke differently. They weren't even new memories, they had been there all the time, she'd known Gareth since she was a baby. He and his father… oh dear Lord…
"Ah…" she began, forcing herself to stop blinking like an idiot, "you're real?"
Gareth laughed at that, shaking his head.
"Oh dear, this is worse than I thought…" he muttered.
"But I just came back from Janus' wedding, you weren't here before!" the princess blurted before she could stop herself.
"When's my birthday?" Gareth calmly asked without even raising an eyebrow.
"The twenty-fourth of July," Marle automatically replied, then blinked again.
The royal wizard nodded, chuckling slightly.
"Then all is well. If you can remember me even if I didn't exist before, then you haven't fallen into a new time stream – as I warned you about a hundred times, mind you. Our stream has simply been modified."
He said this with a sense of pride. Marle regarded him for a second, still trying to accept that he was a part of reality.
"You really do take the studies of time seriously," she finally said.
"I really have no…"
Gareth fell silent as running steps were heard from the stair, light but just audible. He slowly closed his eyes.
"Oh, no…"
Before she even knew why, Marle had sidled several steps away to avoid impact.
"There you are!" a shrill voice shrieked.
The book in Gareth's hand fell to the floor as he crumbled under the tackle performed by a vision of white, blue and pink. Lush, bright red hair fell like a veil over the arms encircling his shoulders from behind, matching eyes sparkling between the half closed, pink eyelids. A smirk revealed two rows of sharp teeth.
"Did you think you could get away from me, eh?" the assaulter demanded, grinning from pointy ear to pointy ear.
"Never dreamt about it," Gareth muttered, making no attempt to pry off the arms as he knew it to be futile.
It was a woman. And she wore a set of tight, white pants and a similar shirt with short sleeves. Unruly, big blue spots crawled over the cloth and below the dark belt where several mysterious pouches hung. They made a jingling sound as she moved, the strange bells accompanying the sparkle of her golden earrings.
Marle leaned even more heavily on the wall.
"Mantis!"
More steps came up the stair and an even more scantily clad Mystic woman showed up. The soft sandals on her feet contrasted the lack of shoes of her companion, but that was not what widened the princess' eyes further.
She was probably beautiful to the monsters, humans might have different ideas of course.
Her clothing was hardly more than thick white ribbons, one such being the only thing covering her chest. They were also what made up her pants, if one could call it that. The fluffy, thick strands of cloth were held up by a golden belt around her waist and tied to her ankles, sewn well together from her stomach almost all the way down to her knees – at that point they were cut, leaving more air than cloth.
Humans probably thought that the thick pink lips didn't go well her purple skin, and though she had enough darkly purple hair to almost hide it, it was plain that her head had larger proportions than what appeared comfortable.
"Manty, will you stop fooling around?" Dancer tiredly growled, grabbing her friend's shoulder with a fine hand.
At this point, Marle simply pressed a hand against her face and shook her head.
"Aww…" Mantis grumbled but released Gareth who scooped up his book as if nothing had happened.
"Good morning to you too," he said, surprisingly soft, "how did our dear Ozzie XIII take the news about Yakra of the same number?"
Teeth flashed.
"Ah. And what did you do with the big bug?" the wizard said, his lips twitching.
"Oh no, no, no…" Dancer said, reaching out to playfully tug at a human colored, pointy ear, "such things are not meant for virgin ears such as yours and the princess'. Your Highness."
She and Mantis paused their grinning at Gareth to perform an exaggerated bow to Marle, who somehow managed to nod.
As she straightened up, the pink-skinned acrobat smiled brightly at the wizard.
"Mystics do not like traitors, especially not if they try to kill off our allies," she smiled.
Gareth braced himself for the impact, showing excellent skills in fortune telling.
"Nobody tries to frame my little brother and gets away with it!" Mantis stated, affectionately burying her face against the sighing wizard's chest.
Marle was certain that she heard the universe creak. Then her newly acquired memories jumped in to save her from going insane, and she remembered that Mantis kept calling Gareth "little brother" just to mess with him. By blood, they had no relation at all.
Another memory popped up, and she didn't know if she wanted to wince or laugh at the picture of Janus' face when they just had beaten Yakra XIII in the courtroom. Seeing Mantis and Dancer had been a great shock. Not to mention when the acrobat cursed the giant bug with the words "No one threatens my little bro and lives!". The poor wizard had been near a mental breakdown it had seemed.
Yet another thing that couldn't have happened.
And still… there they were. All three of them. Only one thing to do about it.
The princess took in a deep breath and stepped away from the wall, smiling at the two Mystics.
"Have you gotten any breakfast yet?" she asked.
Gareth gratefully smiled at his helper as Mantis happily let him go to smile brightly at the princess.
"Not really, Your Highness," Dancer quickly cut off, politely nodding, "we came here as soon as possible to report to your father and Gareth."
"Then we better make something about that, you deserve nothing less after saving our royal wizard," Marle said.
She willed her smile not to waver in further confusion as the descendants of Flea and Slash gratefully but no less playfully bowed to her.
The End.
Afterword:
Kwehehe, yes, I am inzane! Didn't you realize that earlier?
Now, keep your eyes open for the full trial scene (the one mentioned in Marle's new memories) in "Failed Takes and Scenes never Seen", it's one of those things that I wanted to do but couldn't due to the plot forbidding it. I believe you can see why it didn't work just by looking at the epilogue.
Yes, I know I cut the ending short. But I couldn't make a complete rewrite of Magus' Quest, it would be nothing but just the same stuff but with slightly altered characters. No fun to write, nor to read. So, I decided that the Janus' Saga would end here. Next up is the Author's note. Be afraid.