Epilogue (some month later)
Sunlight flooded through the leaves above. Birds were singing, monkeys screeching, insects chirping. The wind was playing with the enormous crowns of the ancient trees many metres above the soft ground. Decaying leaves and ferns covered the earth and billions of flowers, ranks, leeches and fungi grew under, over and around the magnificent trunks and branches. The whole forest was humming with the voices of hundreds of different animals.
Amidst the rising vegetation a sparkling rivulet tumbled down the hillside between the roots of the trees. At its bank a man was crouching over a stony spot in the shallow water and gazing into the reflecting surface of the river. His long, radiant blonde hair, although it had started to grey out at the temples, shone like gold in the afternoon sun and with his tanned skin he would remind a passing traveller of one of the ancient deities of the forest.
He wore simple white breeches, ends tucked into lean, black dragonhide boots, and a loose blue shirt.
A second man was leaning against a tree trunk not far by, flipping the pages of the latest edition of the Daily Prophet. A slow smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, as he put the paper away into a pocket of his wide, flowing robes. The thin, black linen wrapped around his broad shoulders nicely and ended at knee length. The matching black trousers were equally tucked into high dragonhide boots. The most striking difference between the two men was the inky black, slightly wavy hair of the latter, as well as his much lighter skin.
His thoughtful, dark eyes followed his companion, who had risen from the riverbank and was now slowly walking towards him. In his hand he held a sandy, shimmering stone.
Placing it into his lover's pocket he rose one eyebrow and pulled out the Prophet. Reading the headline on the front-page, he frowned and then snorted in light amusement.
Handing the newspaper back to his lover, he stepped around the tree and waited for the other to follow. Hand in hand, following the overgrown path through the forest, they encountered some of the children from the local village heading for the stream to play, before the forest closed in around them and the path lay in silence once again…
Quotes:
"Those who wander are not always lost." (J.R.R. Tolkien)
"He is my darkness and I am his shadow.", taken from a fiction by Shadows Redrum
"Three essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love and something to hope for." (Joseph Addison, 1672-1719)
"War does not determine who is right, only who is left." (Bertrand Russel)
"Reality is frequently inaccurate." (Douglas Adams)
"Death is more universal than life; everyone dies, but not everyone lives." (A. Sachs)
"A friends is someone who knows all about you and still likes you." (E. Hubbard)
"If you judge someone, you have no time to love them." (Mother Teresa)
"Imagination is more important than knowledge." (Albert Einstein)
There is little more to say,
but if I may:
All things must come to pass,
all dreamsare spent
it's time to wake up,
this is the end.
Thank you for reading this story,
I truly appreciate it. Please review and let me now how you liked/ disliked it.
L'Ciel / Emma Grant
