Disclaimer: Umm. I own Capricorn, and Chosen One Rise owns Rose, but that's just about it.
MoonCannon: Thank you very much for all your reviews... so here's the last chapter!
'Reviewer': That's alright, at least I know that you like it.
Epilogue
The red light from a setting sun gently fell over the quiet landscape, tinting everything with a lovely crimson hue. The area was silent, save for the quiet humming of a tall Half-elf, who was making her way down a well-beaten path.
"My final dream continues on…" she kept up an easy-paced walk, humming the rest of the tune.
"Mom!" an all-too-familiar voice called out from up ahead. The Half-elf looked up, smiling at the sight of her daughter sitting on the back of a Velocidragon, which was nosing around in the grass around the path.
Rose was about eighteen, with short-cut hair the same hue of her father's. In some places, it cow licked out much like his as well, although she had inherited neither of their personalities.
"What is it, Rose?" she asked, leaning against a tree. The former second-in-command may have been quite old now, but she was still in good shape for her age.
"Dad wanted to know where you went off to, that's all." she replied, shifting awkwardly in the saddle, "He gets worried when you go off without leaving a note or something"
Capricorn looked oddly at her daughter. She knew that there was most likely another part to the story, because Rose was normally outspoken and almost… "evil" sometimes. She ignored it for the time being and heaved a sigh.
"I was just heading home anyways. I'll be there within ten minutes, so go tell your father to stop worrying about me." she replied, picking up her walk again, "I had just gone to visit an old friend of mine."
Rose shrugged.
"Always going to visit your 'old friends', aren't you, mom? I mean, this entire week you've been out and about, visiting your friends." Rose threw her hands up in the air to emphasize her point, but a bad action on her part.
Capricorn stared at her daughter for a moment more before walking past her and down a side path.
"I think I'll have to continue this later." she snapped, pausing, "When you get home I think I'm going to talk to your father about comments like that…"
Rose heaved an enormous sigh. Her mother's stories bored her to death sometimes, unless they involved both humans and Half-elves. If there was one thing in the world that she hated beyond belief, it was humans. The thought of living in a world of disgusting beings like them sickened her.
Inferior beings.
The phrase echoed in her head as she, too, headed towards home. In every one of her mother and father's books that she had flipped through, they had been labeled just that. Inferior beings.
Rose shuddered at the thought. How could two respectable Half-elves like the former rulers of the Iselia Human Ranch just drop their crusade against humans?
"Rose, dinner!" Forcystus called up the stairs, hoping that his daughter had not fallen asleep while reading again. He couldn't figure out why she was so interested in his old books, but no one else had read them in over five years, so what harm could it do?
The young Half-elf nearly flew down the stairs at the call of dinner, eager to eat so she could continue her reading. She hoped that her parents weren't aware that she was reading all of the books involving human cruelty to Half-elves, almost "researching" so she would have a vast knowledge on the subject.
Rose sat down at the table and wolfed down a few bites of food before Capricorn touched her shoulder.
"Rose, you're going to choke…" she said, sighing at her daughter's speedy ingestion. She paused and swallowed what was in her mouth before speaking.
"Ummm, I've been meaning to ask this for a while, but-" she paused again, trying to word the question correctly. "Why do Half-elves still live in the same world as humans if all they've done to us is discriminate against us? Shouldn't us Half-elves just take them out and create a world for ourselves?"
Capricorn dropped her fork.
"…Have you been thinking about this the entire time that you've been reading?" Forcystus asked, staring blankly at the table, "Every time you read one of our books?" Rose nodded slowly.
"T-that…" Capricorn stumbled on her words, still staring at her daughter. Could she really have that much hatred towards humans? She had never even been in contact with a human, so how could she have any idea what she was talking about? She slammed her fist on the table, accidentally cutting the side of her hand on a knife.
"Rose, that's not for you to say. While we worked as Desians, your father and I strived to create an Age of Half-elves. Do you want to know something, Rose? It didn't work. It took over three hundred years for us all to realize that by enslaving humans at the Ranch, they became more and more angry with us." she paused to let the words sink in.
"But that doesn't change the fact that they still hate us!" Rose exclaimed, looking from her mother to her father, "Every time I read a story from one of those books, I drips with the moral that humans hate Half-elves, and have for centuries!"
"That was over thirty years ago!" Forcystus nearly yelled, staring down his daughter, "Your generation has no reason to worry about what happened between humans and Half-elves in the past! You haven't had to deal with what we have, Rose! The entire village that I grew up in was nearly slaughtered because one of the residents had killed a human that lived in a nearby town! We started some of it, Rose."
The hotheaded Half-elf jumped up from her seat and took off up the stairs. A slamming sound echoed through the house a moment later, signifying that she had undoubtedly locked herself in her room.
"Let her calm down." Capricorn said soothingly, gently toughing Forcystus' arm. He paused, staring out the window at a small bird of the brightest red.
"It seems that cardinals always flock to you, Capricorn." he said quietly, opening the window to let the bird hop in. Capricorn bent down to scoop the bird up into her hands.
"Hmmm…" Forcystus mused for a moment before leaning over Capricorn's shoulder. "I didn't know that you had a pair of wings tattooed on your lower back," he muttered, listening to the bird croon comfortably in her hands. She jumped slightly.
"Oh, that?" she asked, letting the creature flit out of her hands and out the window, "I was hoping that you wouldn't notice that." she partially explained, "I was a companion of the Four Seraphim, and therefore-"
Capricorn extended her hand and let a familiar ring of intricate, pale green appear on the ground before a flash of light emitted and glassy wings of olive protruded from her back.
"…" Forcystus mouth was slightly agape.
"And how long have you had those?" he asked, fingering the tip of one of her wings. She shrugged.
"Oh, I don't know, something around three thousand years, maybe…?" she replied, twitching slightly. Forcystus heaved a sigh and rolled his eyes. He headed for the stairs, but Capricorn gently grabbed his shoulder.
"Let her be," she started as she turned and opened a cabinet, grabbing a strip of cloth and wrapping it around her mildly bleeding hand, "Just talk to her in the morning."
Passing him on the stairs and quietly opening the door to their room, she looked down the stairs at him, smiling slightly. The glass-like wings on her back had disappeared.
"I'll see you in the morning." she yawned, stepping into the room and closing the door behind her. Forcystus thought for a few more minutes, and soon followed her up the stairs as well.
Rose listened intently for the sounds of her parent's door closing, and then made her move. Grabbing her traveling cloak off her desk chair, as well as her large pack, she quietly stole from her room and down the stairs, skipping the one squeaking step as she went.
Rose paused as she passed through the living room, where her mother's red-tinted rapier was hanging on the wall. Dust had recently begun settling on it, as Capricorn refused to touch the bloodstained blade any more.
She threw her cloak over her shoulders and silently stepped into the small stable in their backyard, which housed three Velocidragons, ideal for traveling. She tacked a note to a post near the door, hauled the bag onto the animal's back, and then swung herself into the saddle.
Rose looked at the house for a moment, then gently kicked the dragon into a trot, quickly making her way down the forested road, heading for the abandoned Iselia Ranch to the north…
Mom and Dad,
After thinking for a while, I decided to finally leave. Please don't come after me, I'm going to try to chase my ideals. Someday maybe I'll come back to you both.
Rose