Chapter 18

Epilogue

A/N: Well, on the eleventh of November, 2011 (11/11/11, like I planned it), I posted the first three episodes of this story and started working towards this final chapter. I could only hope that I managed to finish this before I got bored, and yet it has set me up to write even more.

Planning five more stories and a sweet picture (someday), I give you, ladies and gentlemen, though mostly ladies, the final chapter in the first story of the Of Oceans And Eye's tetralogy, theeeeeeeee epilogue!

Happy reading! ;-)

Artemis meandered through the crowded hallway. Fairies and soldiers bumped elbows, most intent on their assigned tasks, few paying the young man any heed. Artemis had wondered how being split into two halves in the tunnel would affect his psyche, and now found that he had no want for the attention that would have doubtlessly been directed his way had anyone knew what part he had played in the directing of their plight.

Here and there, men would sometimes stop to stare at the diminutive fairies, some in rapture that they were surrounded by creatures that had only ever existed in myth and tale. But most would soon return to work, deciding that they could simply work away the oddities of trans-dimensional movement. And, like them, Artemis focused on the task ahead of him – Holly. It had seemed that she had been avoiding him since he had returned, a full three days after she and the rest had left the tunnel. Artemis knew that she couldn't avoid him forever, and was going to talk to her, whether or not she would consent.

Holly herself turned out to be on the spine of the Leviathan, out in open air. Artemis scrambled out of the ladder alcove, and took a moment to admire her from behind. She was sitting back, casual in posture, seemingly at rest. She still had her wing pack on, giving the impression of angelic qualities. Artemis couldn't look away, really. She was beautiful.

He had been a fool not to realize it before. Holly might have been an elf, she might have worked for an organization whose stated goal it was to keep people like him from finding her, but she had found her way into his arms, and since then, they had fought both against and for one another, slowly inching closer and closer towards the other, and now they could only get closer. Artemis wasn't working off of a set template, but he was certain he could avoid the common pitfalls of other relationships.

And so his path stood clear. And, looking back, it seemed that it was the only path, whatever the voices cried and moaned of Stockholm syndrome. Artemis had one choice. He quietly approached from behind, and started to speak.

They would talk long into the night.

"So…did you build it yourself, or did you buy it?" Hans Bauer gestured at the enormous, humanoid walker that stood before him and the rather vivacious girl he had just met, Juliet. Juliet seemed to be choking on air at the moment, so Hans decided that neither assumption had been correct. The walker stared down at Hans, still as the grave. Hans could see many reasons why any person would want a personal walker, though why one had to be dressed in a suit and look like a man in his late forties was beyond him. He'd just chalked it up to women.

"No, no, silly, this is my brother." Juliet gestured at the walker, which remained mostly impassive. Bauer looked from one to the other, and decided that she was crazy. But he had just seen her flip Max Hoffman over her shoulder, so he was inclined to not bring it up. But then the walker did something that he had deemed impossible. It spoke.

"Juliet, if you must toy with the man, at least have the courtesy to not bring me into it. Please?" The man the Bauer had mistaken for a walker looked at his sister, who smiled and laughed openly this time. Hans was no less annoyed when her brother joined in.

"But brother, if we didn't have our fun, what would we do with ourselves?" Juliet said with a smile. "Besides, I don't trust anyone farther then I can throw them." Juliet then turned to smirk at Hans, who wasn't sure if it was a good thing she could throw Hoffman across the hallway. Wasn't he more trustworthy then him?

"And I wouldn't touch her without her parents' consent, and only after marriage," Bauer added quickly. Juliet's brother – Mister Butler – nodded once, the looked at his sister, whom was more disappointed than relieved. Not for the first time, Hans Bauer dreaded the future where women were free to have their way with men. Women needed a strong guiding hand in their lives, either a father or a husband. That was the best way, in his opinion. But Juliet was defiantly against the ways of the times, and Hans couldn't help but want to meet a woman like that.

"Well, when you put it like that…"

Deryn opened the door to Alek's stateroom. The young prince was laying quietly on his bed, almost immobile, save for the steady rise and fall of his chest. Deryn, acting as cautiously as she could, closed the door and started over to the sleeping boy. She was halfway there when Alek spoke. "Did you come here to apologize?" Alek sat up, propping himself upon his elbows.

Deryn tensed, and replied, "No, because I don't need to apologize to some dafty who couldn't figure out that their mate was a lass." Deryn walked over to the bed and sat on it. Alek twisted and sat next to her. "I came to ask you that how you figured out I was a girl."

Alek rubbed the back of his head unconsciously. "I guess I was coming around to it for a while, but I never expected that you really were a, er, lass. I only guessed after you fell through the tunnel."

Deryn looked at him, bemused. "Then you didn't read my letter. Thank God!" Deryn placed her face in her hands, relieved for a moment. Then she remembered something that she had heard from Jaspert. "You still found it. Why didn't you read it first thing?"

Alek fidgeted for a moment, and then spoke. "It was the only thing I had of yours. I didn't want that to change. I guess…I'm sorry." Alek gulped, waiting for Deryn to process this. The girl-dressed-as-a-boy looked pensive, then chuckled.

"Daft prince, dummkopf. You didn't read something because you missed me. You really do have a heart, don't you?" Deryn smiled at Alek, who smiled hesitantly back. But he didn't quite hide the sorrow and tears that danced behind his eyes and Deryn knew why he was heartbroken.

When Jules had told her that he was her father, that he was Artemis Sharp, she and Jaspert had been overjoyed, beyond happiness to be able to talk to their father once more. But as Alek had secluded himself in his room, something had clicked in Deryn's head. They were so terrifically different, an Austria duke and a Scottish farm-girl dressed like a boy, that he had cherished the only connection that they had had - that they had both lost parents, both met with terrible grief. And now that single link was severed forever.

Deryn reached over and took Alek's face and looked him in the eyes. "Alek, one way or the other, I am not the same person you found on a glacier in the middle of the night. We've both changed as we've flown across the sky. But through all of that, we've had one another. And whatever will happen, we have always had each other. I can be sure of it."

Alek stared back at her, and spoke quietly. "Ich liebe dich, und ich denke ich immer zu haben. Ich wusste nicht, wie zu sagen."

Deryn rolled her eyes. He really had to make it hard for her, didn't he? Now she had to rise to the occasion. "Ich muss. Ich habe gerade bekannt länger. Und versuchen Sie nicht, mich zu betrügen und mit deutschen, bitte. Ich habe die Gabe der Sprachen, von meinem Vater."

And she leaned forward and they kissed. Love at first sight, especially if you thought that you were looking up at an angel after falling from the sky.

Saulb Newkirk leaned on the door, listened through the cup and scowled. Of all the things that had to have happened, he had to have been proven wrong. Dylan Sharp just had to be a girl, didn't she? He took the cup, and handed it to the next guy. He had to go out, and track down ten pounds. A lot of money would be changing hands today; that was for sure.

Jules gripped the controls of the Endeavor. The Leviathan swept away beneath him, its crew preparing for a massive mind wipe. The fairies had everything set, and once they were finished, the Leviathan's missing hours would go down in history as the singularly strangest event in all of world history. An entire crew's memory, all vanished in an instant. But no fairies in habited this world, so it could be done safely.

Artemis Orion Julius Sharp, nee Fowl, looked forward unto the horizon. Topaz Verne Koboi wrapped her arms around her soon to be lover. After a moment, he smiled. Things were really looking up.

In the depths of a soul, something stirred. The being, less then alive, less than the meanest ghost, struggled to awareness. It had fallen through the tunnel, lost and fearful and praying for its One, but to have found a body and have been given a way back was a god-send. The lost soul slowly rose, and readied herself for reality. Anne-Beth was trapped, but now she needed to fight no longer.

She had traversed the worlds, and swam the oceans of reality. She had been adrift in the waters of the universe. But now, she had a vessel to sail in.

A Mari Usque Ad Mare.

Thanks for reading!

BN: Thanks for sticking with us, and good-bye, my loves! Until next we meet, may your life be sweet!~ :D And may writer's block never affect you!~

(I just made that up now…apologies for the sappiness. -.-")

Ooh, and here's a translation for Dalek's lines in German:

Alek: "I love you, and I think I always have. I did not know how to tell."

Deryn: "I have to. I've just known for some time. And do not try to deceive me with German, please. I have the gift of tongues, from my father."

*quietly squees*

-Rave