Epilogue
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"Rella! Get back here!" Alara yelled after the toddler who was running down the hall (if one could call it running). The queen sighed and ran after her daughter. The one-and-a-half year old simply giggled and tried to go faster, but she couldn't outrun her mother, who quickly caught her.
Alara smiled at her child, wondering where she'd gotten so much energy. Certainly not from her father, King Edward, who had very poor constitution. Alara didn't have such energy either. And yet Rella had enough pep to last five life times. It was tough to keep the princess close.
It wasn't safe to have her go running off anyway. Parts of Damcyan Castle were still falling apart and needed to be fixed.
"Haven't you got anything better to do than run off?" Alara asked tiredly, picking Rella up and holding her close. Rella was getting heavy; she would be too heavy to carry eventually.
The brown-haired child answered her mother with a series of unintelligible squeaks and giggles.
"I'll take that as a no," Alara said, and went to go find her husband. She'd always disagreed with his desire to help put the castle back together, for his frail health, but he wouldn't take no for an answer and helped out where he could. Alara had helped too until she found out that she was with child. She'd have continued helping with bigger jobs later, but, after Rella had been born, she'd refused to put the baby down or leave her alone for too long. So, instead, she put furniture back in it's place, made food for the workers, and held down the fort until Edward got home.
She very much liked being a queen. She'd expected something a little different from what she got, but she enjoyed it very much. When she'd married Edward and became the queen, she'd expected to be showered with things that she didn't need. Instead she found herself working hard, which was how she liked things. She didn't like idleness.
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Alara finally found Edward in the throne room, spackling the wall. Even though she didn't like him working hard all the time, she felt happy knowing that he was willing to work at all.
"Da!Da!" Rella cried when she saw her father. Edward looked up from his work, surprised but happy to see his wife and daughter.
"How's it coming along in here?" Alara asked, walking over to the section of wall that Edward was working on.
"It's definitely coming along. It'll be a while still until it's all done, but that's just how it is," He said, scooping up another gob of spackle with the spade and smoothing it along one particularly big crack. The crack extended down nearly half of the long wall, and spread up and down as well, like the leafless branch of a tree in winter.
"This one crack alone could take you a while to do on your own," Alara pointed out, eyeing the long stretch.
Edward sighed and said, "It's going to take us a while to fix the the whole castle, even with everyone around here helping. Let's just be grateful that you and I don't have to do all of the work on our own; and with Rella to keep track of as well."
Rella smiled and giggled at the mention of her name, even if she didn't understand what her parents were saying or what was going on. She glanced around the room boredly, wishing that Alara would put her down so that she could look around the room more carefully. She spotted one tapestry, still hanging on the wall, on the other side of the room. It caught her eye because the red cloth stood out so much on the dark gray stone. Whatever was on it, she couldn't tell because she was too far away from it.
She started babbling, and pointed in the tapestry's direction. Edward and Alara looked over to see what Rella was so excited about.
"Is it that tapestry, baby?" Alara correctly guessed.
"D... D... D..." Rella repeated over and over, still pointing at the tapestry. Her parents weren't to sure of what she was trying to say, but she was trying to form the word 'red'.
"That particular tapestry was made in honor of a famous mage, known best for his proficiency in fire magic," Edward explained.
"A fire-mage in the kingdom of the Fire Crystal: how fitting," Alara added. Rella kept pointing to the tapestry, still trying to say red. Alara figured that Rella wanted to see it, so walked over to the other wall; Edward followed her.
When they reached the tapestry, the figure was far easier to make out. He was a tall, but elderly, and had a long white beard and a light brown staff that came up to his shoulder. He was dressed in a long red mage's robe, decorated with embroidered flames. Surrounding him were various symbols of the kingdom: a book of magic, the bright red Fire Crystal, the once-impressive Castle Damcyan far in the dustance on his right, and Mount Hobbs a little farther away on his left. Beneath was the name, "Elegar, the Great" in gold letters.
Rella reached out her little hand and petted the elaborate tapestry. It was soft like silk (perhaps because it was silk or something close to it), and the gold letters, which were just within her reach, felt rougher than the cloth.
"Ooh..." She breathed.
"I know," Alara said softly. "It's a beautiful tapestry."
"Not nearly as beautiful as you," Edward pointed out, putting his arm around Alara's shoulder.
"I love you," She said.
" I love you, too," Edward answered, giving her a kiss.
"Red," Rella suddenly said while she patted the tapestry. Alara and Edward both looked down at her, surprised; it was her first real word!
Rella realized what she'd just done and repeated, "Red!" And clapped her hands, giggling triumphantly. "Red-red-red-red-red!" She chanted, very pleased with this accomplishment. She turned back to her parents and tried to say something to them, but she found that her vocabulary was limited to one word, which she'd just learned, and that they couldn't understand what she was saying. She was mildly disappointed by this, but it didn't really get her down.
"It must be frustrating," Alara mused, cuddling her child. "Nobody can understand you for so long, and you can't understand anybody else. You must know that you'll learn to understand, and that they'll eventually understand you; but you must also know that it's going to take a long time and a great deal of work."
Edward thought about this idea (a newly acquired habit/hobby). It was a good one. "Well, it's a good thing that you've got a family to help you through the times like that. Whether you're learning to walk or talk, or learning how to run a country or get over a personal loss," He said. Alara looked at him adoringly. She really admired his ability to do that. He smiled back at her and added,
"A certain woman showed me that," he added lovingly.
"Da," Rella cooed, reaching for Edward's hand. He held his hand out to her and she took hold of his ring finger, playing with his gold wedding band. The little gold loop had always fascinated her; it was so shiny. And only one half of it was visible at a time. Imagine!
The child began to yawn and rub her eyes.
"Ap?" She asked between yawns, refering to her nap.
"Yes, dear. I believe that it is your nap time," Alara said, and turned to Edward. "I have to go put this to bed," She said.
"Have fun. I'll be here if you need me," Edward said, leaning over and kissing his daughter on the cheek. Rella leaned against Alara's shoulder as they walked out of the room, and sleepily called,
"Da!" back to Edward before they vanished around a corner.
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I never thought that I could be so content with my life! I'm married to the woman I love, have a beautiful daughter, and the castle's staging a proud come back. I couldn't have designed things to go so well myself. I suppose I'm still sort of a wimp... But it's not that that's going to hold me back in many ways.
All that thinking I did while I was in Troia kinda-sorta stayed with me. I'm always thinking about stuff. It doesn't matter what I'm thinking about; I just think. I guess that could come in handy for ruling a kingdom. But also, I'm happy to have Alara as my queen. I'm not quite sure if I'd be as great a ruler without her. She taught me a really good life-lesson that I couldn't really grasp before: when you lose something, you have to move on and keep living life. I didn't understand that before, even when Rydia explained it (she did many times, and in very simple words, and still I was unable to grasp it? I'm ashamed of myself!). Or, maybe it was that I could understand, but I was refusing to do so because I was so upset. I'll need to think about that...
But at any rate, I'm so glad that I finally did figure that out. I'm so glad that Alara was there to help me do it. And Rella's only more proof of that lesson. I've really moved on with my life. I doubt that I'll be able to completely recover from the adventure. I doubt if anyone could, but at least I can stop worrying so much about what has happened and start worrying about what's going on now.
Speaking of which, it sounds like Rella's just knocked something over.
The End.
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Ahhh... A happy ending. I'd seriously like to know how y'all felt about this ending. The fact of the matter is that I suck at wedding scenes, I've already done one this week and I don't want to have to stress myself over another one in one week, and I wanted to go ahead and introduce a character from another fic that I'm working on (that being Rella). Of course, she's much older (14 to be exact), and she goes about her adventures with Cecil and Rosa's twin daughters and 20 year old Palom and Porom. An unlikely little party, yes. But it promises to be much better than it sounds. Really! For further details, see my fic "Offbeat", which introduces twins Angel and Sefi.
Well, thanks to everyone who's reviewed. Props to a few people for such prudent reviews which really made this fic better than it was; whether it was pointing out silly spelling errors or changing an entire paragraph, you guys made this fic every success that it is! XOXOXOXO!
Now... To work on new fanfics. Of which I have many. Later days, yo!